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iuinspires · 5 years

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Persona - One Lee Ji Eun, Four Personas

IU is perhaps better known for her identity as a singer-songwriter rather than an actress, but she has mentioned her love for acting on a number of occasions, explaining that it allows her to assume different identities and express emotions in a manner that she may not be able to in reality.

Persona, a four-part anthology on Netflix that marks actress Lee Ji Eun’s first foray into the world of film-making, allows her to do precisely that: take on the challenge of portraying four characters with completely different personas, displaying a wide range of emotions that fans have hitherto not seen from her. Comprising four short films produced by four critically acclaimed Korean directors, each film is greatly different in terms of style and tone, with no apparent connection to each other - but I think they all tackle the theme of love and passion to some extent, manifested in different forms: jealousy and anger (Love Set); deceit and betrayal (Collector); friendship and revenge (Kiss Burn); as well as separation and loss (Walking at Night).

I’ll be completely honest – as these are essentially indie arthouse films with ambiguous plots and cryptic characters, they are an acquired taste which may not appeal to everyone; being no film expert myself, I’m not sure I understood everything that the filmmakers were trying to convey. But I certainly had great fun watching actress Lee Ji Eun take on four very different personas in each story, and also reading the thoughts of my fellow uaenas who have enthusiastically dissected the films. Let me just share my thoughts on each of the films as well.

(WARNING: Spoilers ahead)

Love Set

This was the film which I had been looking forward to most before its release, for the premise seemed so intriguing from the trailers: an angsty and jealous IU locking horns with her prospective stepmother (Bae Doona) in a game of tennis with high stakes, where the loser would “end it all” with the man of their shared affections (IU’s dad and Doona’s lover). I was also excited to see how IU would unleash her character’s unbridled fury that seemed to be the key motif of the story, especially since she had mentioned in interviews how challenging it was for her to portray anger in such a manner that was contrary to her personality.

I must confess that I was slightly disappointed when I first watched the film though, for the story didn’t seem to go beyond what we already knew would happen – IU and Doona engaging in a heated battle on the tennis court. A significant amount of time was devoted to slow motion shots of them whacking the tennis ball, and close-ups of their hot, reddened faces of intense agony that was almost painful to watch. I was also somewhat frustrated by the seeming apathy and emotional detachment of the two male characters (IU’s dad and an unnamed Caucasian friend haplessly dragged in to “seduce” Doona) – both sat silent and almost expressionless with their heads turning back and forth rhythmically like puppets following the movement of the tennis ball – a direct contrast to the fury and fierce energy displayed by the women on the courts. I couldn’t quite fathom why IU’s dad seemed indifferent to his daughter’s angry outbursts or suffering, even calmly saying “Out!” when she missed the ball and fell down – did it signify the fact he cared more for his lover and was rooting for her? Why then did he seem emotionless even though Doona was winning?

I did however enjoy observing the dynamics between the women and their contrasting personalities – Doona, the older and more mature of the two, was clearly at the upper hand throughout, remaining level-headed and taking an almost sadistic pleasure in calmly taunting IU; poor IU, on the other hand, was a loser not just in the tennis game but in her complete failure to rein in her emotions, seeming like a complete wreck with her expletive-laden outbursts. Towards the end, however, Doona handed over the tennis ball to IU with a gentle stroke of the thumb in what seemed like a conciliatory gesture, and told IU that she didn’t intend to marry her father, suggesting that she had never been serious about their bet to begin with – and ending off the movie on an almost anti-climactic note.

One thing which struck me was the sexual innuendoes that was evident throughout the story – the suggestive shrieks and panting with each hit of the tennis ball, the sensuous close-up shots of IU’s lips biting a plum, and of the women’s hot, sweaty bare skin – but I didn’t quite comprehend how it quite fit in with the context of the story. One of my fellow uaenas, however, has offered an intriguing explanation: that IU and Doona were actually in a sexual relationship before, with Doona betraying IU by getting together with her dad – which explained IU’s extreme agitation at the entire situation, and at puzzling moments like Doona’s flirtations with the Caucasian. The sexual innuendoes would then be a deliberate hint of the relationship between the two, with the tennis match signifying a lover’s quarrel, and the caressing of IU’s hand at the end a romantic gesture on Doona’s part. I think that’s a fascinating and plausible interpretation of the story, and could possibly also explain the two men’s indifference and insignificance throughout the show – they are mere spectators on the sidelines, observing the relationship that is key to the story: the secret passion between IU and Doona.

Collector

Prior to watching the film, Collector left the vaguest impression on me for I wasn’t sure what it was about beyond a love story between a man and a woman; as it turns out, this was the most memorable film, and my favourite of the series for its surreal, eerie plot and rich use of metaphors.

Director Im Pil-Sung has explained that in making this film, he was inspired by IU’s song Jam Jam - which is essentially about a non-committal and superficial relationship between a man and woman, with jam serving as a metaphor for the sugar-coating of lies and pretensions binding them together. And indeed, this idea of deceit in a relationship was evident in the film with the character of Eun portrayed by Ji Eun; while she seemed tender and gently seductive at times towards her entranced lover, there was also clear indifference in her attitude, shown from her boredom with his conversation attempts, and her open flirtations with other men. Her lover, however, was not completely innocent himself, for it seemed that he had betrayed his ex-fiancé by breaking off their engagement to be with Eun. This fact was revealed through an abrupt switch of scenes from his conversation with Eun to an empty white room in a surreal, clinical setting that seemed to represent his subconscious mind. In one particularly gruesome scene, the man’s head was sliced off in his subconscious state, suggesting a blow to his ego after finding out that Eun had gone travelling with two male friends. Notably, his head was fixed back to his neck after he had waxed lyrical to Eun about his pompous theory on the superiority of females, probably representing a restoration of his ego from the self-pleasure of his intellectual discourse.

Nothing however, could rival the shock factor from the bizarre twist towards the end of the story, when the man, egged on by Eun, literally dug out his heart of his body and handed it to her. As he sat motionlessly in tears, now a heartless man, Eun carefully placed her prized possession in a jar, and smilingly declared that she would “salt it to prevent it from rotting”. This, I think, was a chilling but clever reference to the following lines in Jam Jam:

“Tell me that you love me

Say the pretty things smeared on your lips

Sticky sticky, I’ll keep it pickled

So it won’t rot, for a long time”

In the final scene, the man opened up a small box which Eun had handed to him as a gift, only to find a miniature version of himself trapped in the empty white room – which I interpreted as symbolising that her parting gift to him was the gift of conscience, a reminder of his heartlessness for betraying his original lover.

The story left me unnerved and shaken with its gory and disturbing elements, but I loved its use of metaphors, and how it brought a whole new meaning to the lyrics of Jam Jam. What I appreciated most, however, was Ji Eun’s portrayal of the callous and mysterious seductress that Eun was; her acting was nuanced and deliberate, with subtle gestures and expressions that brought her character to life. I can never forget the look of rapt eagerness on Eun’s face, for instance, as she watched the man dig out his heart, and how she gently licked her lips at one point, almost like a predator anticipating a bite of its prey. Watching it gave me the chills, and made me forget that the Eun we saw onscreen was the lovable Lee Ji Eun who has inspired all kinds of emotions in me before, except for fear. In short, I think this film was the most effective in allowing her to take her acting skills at a whole new level, and to experiment with a different persona that viewers have never seen from her before.

Kiss Burn

Kiss Burn features Ji Eun as Hanna, a spirited school girl who visits the rural home of her good friend Hye Bok to seek her company, only to find her locked in by her authoritative father. Hye Bok’s hair has been shorn off by her father in a drunken fit, possibly as punishment for returning home with kiss marks after making out with a boy at a beach. Annoyed by his unjust behaviour, Hanna vows to exact revenge, and the two girls embark on a series of hilarious attempts at pulling off pranks to punish him.

Compared to the other films, the story is relatively light-hearted, with many comedic moments. However, it takes a slightly dark turn towards the end: while the girls’ deliberate and carefully thought-out pranks fail to achieve their desired outcome, a careless gesture – a flick of a cigarette butt into the chicken coop – eventually sparks off a fire, ironically turning out to be the biggest punishment for Hye Bok’s father, who works as a forest fire lookout.

Interestingly, the director chose to use chickens as a recurring motif to carry the dark humour of the story: in one of the early scenes, Hanna chomps on large chunks of roast chicken, and towards the end, the girls cheerily comment on smelling the aroma of fried chicken, blissfully unaware of the growing blaze presumably spread by a chicken which had gone astray after its tail caught fire in the coop.

In terms of acting, I think the role of Hanna was less of a ground-breaking one for Ji Eun, because it isn’t the first time we’ve seen her portray lively characters like that before. That doesn’t mean, however, that she didn’t do a good job in delivering her role – Hanna was a character with an endearing mix of rebelliousness and naiveté who found her way to my heart. For all her deviousness in conjuring pranks to seek revenge, Hanna still possessed an innocence about her, as evidenced from her curious probing of Hye Bok’s making out session, her amusing attempt at kissing herself to produce a hickey (after insisting wide-eyed to her friend that she knew how it was created), and her eagerness at visiting the beach (which Hye Bok claimed was a good place to “relieve stress” through making out). It was also a pleasure to watch Ji Eun’s chemistry with actress Shin Dal-gi, who played Hye Bok. Ji Eun had mentioned in interviews that director Jeon Go Won had employed unique techniques prior to the start of filming for the actresses to bond with each other, and that camaraderie was indeed evident onscreen, making the friendship between Hanna and Hye Bok a believable and funnily heartwarming one.

Walking at Night

Walking at Night appears to be a favourite amongst many uaenas, and I can see why: it is a hauntingly sad but beautiful and poetic piece, which would appeal to the sensibilities of those who gravitate towards IU’s sentimental ballads. I love it myself, and would rank it as my second favourite, after Collector.

Shot entirely in black and white, it tells the story of a man who meets his dead girlfriend in his dream, and together they revisit old haunts, reminisce their time together, and muse about love, life and death. Director Kim Jong Kwan had mentioned that he was inspired by the air of loneliness Ji Eun exudes despite her lively public persona, and indeed, the film delves into the theme of loneliness; mid-way through the show, it is revealed that the girl had killed herself because of her desperate sense of loneliness. Anxious, the man asks if he had caused her to be lonely, and she reassures him that he hadn’t:

“No. You were always there for me. There are people who know me and people who don’t. You were one of those who knew me, and there were others besides you. Those people were the ones who made me feel lonely. There were so many people who knew me other than you, but the way they treated me made me feel lonely. You were always there for me, but I just suffered in vain until I died.”

These poignant lines made my heart ache and struck a chord with me; it is so true that not being alone does not equate to not being lonely, for there have been moments in my life when I am surrounded by people, yet feel overwhelmed by an odd sense of loneliness.

Ji Eun’s words in the final scene are just as beautifully sad, a reminder of the ephemeral nature of our existence, and how we are all but transient visitors on this earth:

“Dreams and death lead to nowhere. They will end up nowhere…and eventually be forgotten. We are here, but no one will remember us. Everything is gone, and only the night remains.”

I’m not sure if I imagined it, but as the camera pans out in one of the final scenes to show the couple embracing, there appears to be a silhouette of a man standing in the distance. I recall shuddering involuntarily when I first noticed it, and even now, I feel an odd mix of fear and intrigue as I ponder who that man could be. Is it the protagonist himself, looking on at himself with his lover, as how we are wont to view ourselves from a third party perspective in dreams? Is he desperately trying to cling on to his memories before they fade? Or is it perhaps an onlooker bearing witness to their existence, proving that Ji Eun’s words may not entirely true – for while death leads us to disappear from this earth, we will still leave traces of ourselves behind, in the memories of those we’ve crossed paths with? I guess the beauty of such films is that there’s no right or wrong answer.

Compared to the other films, Walking at Night has the simplest narrative, with no notable climax; but I think its beauty lies in its simplicity, which allows us to focus on the poetic nature of its dialogue, and ruminate on what it means. In the same vein, Ji Eun’s acting is understated and restrained; there is no need for dramatic expressions, for so much of her emotions is conveyed in subtle ways, like a simple gesture, an inflexion in voice, or the expression in her large, soulful eyes.

Conclusion

Ji Eun’s acting career has been a rocky one, and there will always be people who love to hate her acting. Yet slowly but surely, she has been establishing her credentials as an actress over the years; My Ahjusshi was a breakthrough role which gained her recognition for her acting skills, and with Persona, she has proven once again her remarkable versatility as an actress, and added another notable work under her belt. Persona is probably not a show which will have mainstream appeal, but I believe it is the kind of acting project which will fulfil Ji Eun’s desire for more creative freedom, and I hope she’ll continue to take on such projects that will allow her to find joy in doing what she loves.

#persona #IU #lee ji eun #love set #collector #kiss burn #walking at night #netflix

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kneesheee · 5 years

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Little Devil

WARNINGS: canon-typical violence| vague mentions of child abuse| torture| threats of death

|four|

Jamila sat alongside the cliff as she watched the bases go up in flames. She had a taco in one hand and her favorite Zastava M76 sniper gun in her lap. Couldn’t let stranglers get away, right. She had three different men hogtied and unconscious in her truck. She had the absent thought if she should give chase to the women that escaped.

But if she caught them now, she might never know the what secret goodies they could be hiding. It doesn’t even really matter. The trackers she injected in their bloodstreams would be enough.

Jamila finished eating her taco before standing up. It would take her three days to get back to America through the underground ways, and she needed a head start.

Jamila had the absent thought to go shopping through the markets when she makes it to her first checkpoint.

Her gaze hardened as she neared her vehicle. Absolute scum. Preying on the weak and innocent. And each of them had a personal hand in compromising her dearest aunt.

She will show them what happens when one goes against the House of Al Ghul. When she’s done, they’ll be begging for death. For mercy. And instead, she will give them to her cousin. Death Demon may be considered a monster, but no one has ended up on Red Ronin’s bad side and lived to tell the story.

Jamila may be cruel and ruthless, but Jason was untouchable. Unstoppable. She recalled being on a mission with him and their target had spent each and every day begging for reprieve until they caved.

She had been impressed. The man had been able to hold out from the various wounds her cousin left. From having one to three fingers and four toes and no longer having his left kidney or the rudimentary tonsil removal surgery… and the missing eyeballs.

And Jason walked away as the man bled out.

Mm. Yes, Ronin will give them the most suitable punishment.

Jason hadn’t been surprised when he heard about how half a hidden village in the outskirts of Bavaria went up in flames during the night. Nor was he surprised when the others looked positively sick at the kill count.

Seems like Jamila was having fun.

He received a message through their unused channels that morning. She had some gifts for him. Considering that they rarely used those lines, the message made it to him a few days after her sending it. She should be arriving in Gotham soon.

She would probably arrive during the cover of the lunch hour to keep from attracting unwanted attention. He wondered which safe house she would go to, or would she go to the warehouse where he secretly conducts Red Ronin business.

Either way, he needed to find a sitter for Talia. Maybe he could convince the brat to stay at home for the night. He seems to be enjoying the stories that Talia tells him about his grandmother’s family.

Jamila had sat the offenders in the cells lined up at the bottom of Ronin’s warehouse. She watched them quietly. She had nothing else to do as she had already unpacked her bags and stored her weapons.

She smiled when one of them had woken. The fear that crept in his eyes was wonderful. Good. They will pay dearly for their crimes. Fear was one of her greatest weapons. You don’t grow up in a family like hers without knowing how to use it for your own good.

And if they fear her, she cannot wait to see how petrified they will be when Ronin gets here.

Speaking of her cousin, she looked down at her phone. Scowling as she read the message, it will be awhile before he could make it. She wished none of this had ever happened. She wished that everything could go back to normal.

Jamila stood and gazed across the room. Her facial features were unreadable as she thought about everything that had happened. It was her fault and her aunt paid the price.

Her hands clenched into fist before she spun and punched the wall beside her. She will make her mother pay and she will beg for forgiveness from her aunt. And anyone else that dared cross the Al Ghuls will see how she earned the name Death Demon.

“Perhaps there was some confusion on your part regarding our last communication, allow me to provide some clarity,” was all Damian heard before the door closed to one of the spare studies. A part of him wanted to be mad that another brother of his took his place as the leader of his parent’s company. But considering that he hadn’t even known that his mother had her own company, he’s willing to overlook it.

Speaking of his mother, he could see her now hiding in the rafters in the hallway. She was staring at him before she smiled lightly and jumped down. He lurched forward to catch her, but she had landed soundly on her feet.

Her eyes filled with laughter and she tilted her head to the side. This version of his mother made him uncomfortable. She was much more open, and she was warm.

He could see why Jason had always seemed lighter after talking to her. Is this how she is with him when no one else could see?

“Spar,” the sound of his native tongue drew his attention. Damian found that he missed it. His father always had this pinched expression whenever he spoke it and Grayson only knew a few words and phrases. Though Damian can acknowledge that Grayson had been taken the effort to learn more. Drake learned it, but Damian overheard him in passing that he won’t speak it unless Damian himself asks. The only other person is Todd. He sits with Damian and he wields words in an artform that Damian can paint across his canvas.

He turns his head to the small form of his mother standing before him and slowly nods. She beams at him and he slowly steps forward. She’s jumping into his arms before he’s even fully aware.

Was he like this when he was younger? So carefree and unburdened by his destiny. Did he have the opportunity to be a child before he was wielded into a tool?

Small fingers rubbed his brows and his mother’s face clouded his vision. She looked worried. Had the older version of herself ever look at him that way?

“Okay?” she asks and Damian nods again. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. He continues their path towards the Batcave. It is rare for her to even be down here. Todd had been adamant on keeping her away from here. He could see why with all the drop points hidden away. Not to mention, that it was dangerous.

Cain was down here though, and Damian knew she would be looking and seeing things where he could not. He helped her through the motions of protection before leading her through some simple stretches. Once that was done, they began.

He could easily see why his mother was considered the superior child of Ra Al Ghul and one of his Father most formidable foes. She adapted on the fly and incorporated moves into her own style like she was drinking water. She was a fast learner and soon the two of them had drew a crowd.

His mother flew and danced around the mats as if she was born to perform. As if it were in her blood to be warrior.

And that’s where Damian’s mistake came.

He always knew his mother was a difficult opponent to beat. Only idiots would see her as anything else. But to see her now in this shrunken form, eh could see that even as an adult, she holds back.

Nobutora. He had down research into the name and found the great lineage he descended from. A family of warriors through and through. It sang in his mother’s blood in a way that it didn’t in his.

And while he was contemplating the family that he did not know, he was hit with a ferocious kick to his solar plexus that knocked him out the ring. The demon inside of him howled with pleasure at such a fierce opponent, but he wasn’t like that anymore, so he pushed it away into the corners of his mind.

He looked up when he heard yelling and noticed the almost fearful look on his mother’s face as Father and Grayson berated her.

He wasn’t surprise at all when the warning shot fired into the air. Todd descended the stairs dressing as in a different kind of armor. He had rolled the sleeves back on his dress shirt and his tie was loosened. He looked like an enemy no one would want to meet in a boardroom. He casually tucked the gun back into his trousers. His eyes glowed not green, but red. It was a flame that not even his alien friend’s hair could match.

They were no longer dealing with Todd.

“Step away from the kid or my next bullet is going through your throat.” He didn’t yell. He didn’t grow. The words were spoken in a matter of fact tone. Father and Grayson turned their anger onto him and yet their words held no effect.

They were no longer dealing with Hood.

“Are you okay, Demon Baby,” the words were addressed to him in the same slow drawl. Damian could do nothing but nod his head.

“Jason,” Grayson snapped and a presence that Damian hadn’t felt for years filled the room with one look.

“Shut up,” was the reply without even a glance. A glance at Cain and he could see that she recognized this force also. He watched her abort the movement of moving forward and turning his head he could see why she almost moved.

His mother was being lifted and cradled. Words were exchanged too soft for him to hear before she was being let back down to the floor. He watched as she made her way to him. “Sorry,” she told him softly.

“I forgive you,” he replied. “We were sparring.”

She smiled lightly at him and held a hand out. “Jason said you are an artist. May I see them?”

Damian startled a little at her use of full sentences before taking her hand. He knew this was just Todd’s way of getting her away. He picked her up and placed her on his hip. His body flinched harshly at the move, but Damian ignored the pain and continued his way out.

“I thought I made it clear on how she was to be treated,” and Damian could hear the underlying threat. His mother had her head turned towards Todd’s direction as the two of them near the stairs.

“He reminds me of the Ronin that Father consults with.”

Damian spared a glance back and he could see the calm and relax stature that Todd held while Father and Grayson hurled their insults and complaints at him. He shook his head as they made their way into the manor.

The Red Ronin indeed.

Jason was shaking with anger as he made his way into the warehouse. He had left Talia at his apartment with Cass and Damian. He dressed in a uniform that he only pulled out on special occasions.

Walking pass the interrogations rooms and offices, he headed downstairs where he knew his cousin to be. Having Talia’s and his own funds at his disposal turned this simple warehouse into the ultimate headquarters. The floors above ground functioned as a living area. Anyone to come here would think it was another home.

And it was. It was where he and the others lived whenever there no missions (or weren’t vacationing on the Outlaw’s Island). It’s where he’s bringing Talia as soon as his makes the upper levels more kid friendly.

The second floors are for training as it’s the only place where Kori and Artemis and Biz can really let loose. Metals from Tamaran and some planet named Vegeta made up these floors and everything underneath. The floor directly under that one was dedicated to Roy’s workshop. Under Roy’s floor, there was a medical and whatever else they threw in there.

And finally, the ground and been caved in and hollowed out until it resembled what it was now. This where he handles a mixture of Red Hood and Red Ronin’s business.

He cast a glance around his surroundings before he made it down to the cells. Three of them were occupied and when he stepped into the room, all eyes snapped towards him. His cousin didn’t even spare him a second look from where she was picking at her nails with a knife.

“Cousin mine, nice of you to drop by,” she stated as she stood lightly. She made her way over to hm and dropped into the traditional bow. “To what do I owe the pleasure of the Born-Again Prince?”

Gasps and a whimper floated from the cells and Jamila’s shook with laughter. “I heard that you brought me presents.”

Jamila rose slowly and green was dancing on the edges of her pupils. “These are the men that have turned their backs on the sanctuary Mistress Talia provided. They have betrayed the Al Ghul clan and committed treason against our family name with the help of the Forgotten One.”

Her hand had flung out in their direction before she abruptly turned towards the weapons’ wall. She grabbed a syringe and an ice dagger before facing him again.

“I humbly request to initiate the punishment for their actions, my liege.”

Inwardly, Jason was crying laughing at her theatrics before he himself headed over the wall. He picked up a weapon that would have him flinching or falling into panic attack years ago. Now it only brings him discomfort. Now it was weapon no one else would expect from him.

“I think that this is something we should do together. After all, it was our family they crossed. And it has been awhile since we’ve truly worked together.”

The answering smile on his cousin’s face brought tears to the eyes of the man in the left cage. The two of them made their way over.

“The man in the middle is the one we shall spare. He was the leader of the operation after all,” Jamila muttered in Farsi.

Jason hummed in reply as he headed left, and she headed right.

“The Joker once ask me which hurts more. A or B? Forehand or Backhand?”

Their eyes bled red and green and the only sound left to be heard was the sound of screams.

#Jason Todd #jason todd the red hood #talia al ghul is jason's mother figure #little devil #damian wayne #dick grayson #cassandra cain #bruce wayne #Talia al Ghul #Tim Drake #Stephanie Brown #duke thomas #Alfred Pennyworth #lady shiva #Red Hood And The Outlaws

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mia-salazar · 6 years

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Zombie Apocalypse AU

This modern day zombie au has kind of been in the works for a while now. I figured that I have enough written out that I can start sharing this with people. Here are the basics. My main focus is to have all of this take place outside of the United States for once. Mostly in European countries but if anyone wants to expand and have a story based in the US, please feel free and do so.

Cause of the Plague

Strange portals appeared all over the world one day mysteriously. Scientists and officials alike were baffled. There's nothing to explain it! Many civilians came to marvel at the sights. Reports came from all over the world that many countries and different major cities had the same phenomena. A lot of people contemplated going inside but were stopped due to the unknown nature of the portals.

Awe turned to terror when not even a day later, horribly disfigured creatures bearing a human resemblance emerged and started devouring scientists and onlookers alike. The dead (or those not completely devoured) sat right back up and joined in. That day was dubbed as Day 0, the end of civilization and the dawn of the undead hordes. From that day on, the portals became known as “The Devil’s Triangle” by survivors.

Unbeknownst to the humans, the mastermind behind the Plague is an entity not from this world. An invisible, inter-dimensional, malevolent being that does what it does simply because it wants to. This is all merely a game to it. Humans are the pawns that are set up to be knocked over for amusement. Thriving on misery, it sends it’s puppets to cause chaos in select worlds that the entity deems fit enough for it’s entertainment. All it has to do is sit back within the Portal and watch as our world collapses.

Zombies

Not all of them are your regular George Romero zombies. These guys have different classifications given to them by survivors and raiders alike. Every single one of them has an insatiable Hunger.

Husks: Slow-moving like in earlier zombie films. Can be recently turned or old. A lot of these zombies will sport the wounds from when they were turned all over their bodies. Some of which are still festering but the Husks don’t feel pain. If they lost a limb, they would still attempt to crawl after you. These zombies typically do not have much to them but travel in packs. If you’re not careful, you can easily find yourself in the middle of a horde.

Specters: The ones that started it all. These undead are the silent sentries of the Triangles and will defend it until properly put down. These creatures have never been human. All are merely puppets that have been created by the entity residing in the dimension beyond the portals. Their appearance may be humanoid but a closer look will prove that wrong. Their bodies are paper white with sickly black veins protruding from the skin. A notable feature is that the holes where their eyes should have been have been completely crusted over by a pus and a black tar-like substance. Their mouths sport deadly, jagged sharp teeth meant to rip and shred. They have elongated claws on both their fingers as well as their toes.

Hunters: Way more of a threat. They have enhanced strength, speed, and endurance. More people have fallen victim to these zombies after the massacre on Day 0. They’re still as mindless as the husks.

Berserkers: These undead are the same as the Hunters but have been given the gift of semi-sentience. Meaning they’re able to hunt for prey more efficiently, able to problem solve. Worst of all, they have abilities reaching into the supernatural category; all varying in abilities. Luckily these are few and far between but if you come across one, run and pray. Even if you were to land a blow on them, it would only enrage them (hence their name) and hunt you down until you are dead in their grasp.

Special zombies: There’s really no name for them yet. Most who have come across them have no idea what they encountered. Not only were these undead sentient but their consciences were the same as the day they were turned. Their strength was the same as the Hunters and were given the supernatural gifts like the Berserkers. Many survivors believe these to be stories that are too good to be true. Especially since all of which involve said zombies rescuing humans from other undead. There was no way an undead would be able to be coherent enough to even form a sentence much less fight against the Hunger. Was there...?

Humans

A lot has changed since Day 0 saw the collapse of civilization. Many families were separated in the ensuing chaos of the evacuations to the countryside. Men and women alike lost their lives all over the world trying to combat the forces coming from the portals. Eventually military officials from various countries realized that they weren’t going to get any help from upstairs. Thus, they began to band together to ensure the continued survival of innocent civilians. (Heavily fortified settlements were erected in various locations all over Europe. There are major hubs in which plans against the Triangle are being discussed. Interestingly enough, as large as they are, they are notoriously hard to find due to secrecy.) People from all over are welcome so long as they pitch in to work and are willing to follow the rules put in place. Non-military run settlements have been established as well and will trade with their neighbors.

Unfortunately, they began to experience threats not just from the undead but from the people they were supposed to be protecting as well. Select individuals decided they would rather roam the country side and make their own way. Which would have been fine had they not formed their own gangs to terrorize other survivors. These gangs are known as Raiders. Each gang has a unique set up in how they are run, complete with their own gang names and symbols. It’s almost laughable, however these gangs are not to be trifled with. Some are cannibalistic which is reason enough to be on the look out. Others have taken to enslaving anyone they can capture for either manual labor or as gladiators in makeshift arenas of horror. One such Raider clan resides in what remains of Barcelona, Spain. “The Lawless”, as they are called.

Armando and crew

They are all part of a last ditch effort to make an assault on the source of the supernatural plague (The Triangle). Every branch was needed in the war effort. Before hand, any military operation within the months after the Triangle revealed itself to malevolent was quickly and systematically overrun. The undead mostly ignored the civilians in these operations unless they got in the way. Almost as if it was just easier to get the militaries out of the way....

Armando and Co. left behind loved ones (Mía, Tori, and Megan among them) in the hopes that they would return after this mess was properly taken care of. None of them survived. At least not technically. They’re undead but have retained their human memories and are able to speak normally. Now gifted with supernatural abilities (enhanced speed, strength, etc), they escape the zombie stronghold with information regarding who may be behind this plague. Their hope is to regroup with what’s left of the military as well as reunite with their families. They’re sticking to the hope that they will be able to find them still alive and unturned.

They spent over a year in that hellhole. Less than they had in canon but they were tormented by a soft-childlike voice that would take on the voices of their loved ones; evilly taunting and tormenting them. This voice is of the entity of the Triangle itself. When they finally are able to free themselves, all voices ceased along with the connection to the Triangle. Almost like a curse had been lifted.

Their appearances are pretty much as ragged as their DMTNT forms. More blood and gore, however. Some have lost fingers, others don’t have an eye. One poor sucker (background character) doesn’t even have an arm. None the less, they were gifted with actual sentience as well as various abilities. I will elaborate on that later. There is a catch.

They have to feed the Hunger every once in a while, less they lose themselves and follow the rest of the undead into being mindless pawns. For the most part (when its not a raider) they deeply regret eating people but its for the best. They have a mission to fulfill and loved ones to protect. Luckily for the our undead boys, the raiders are plenty and they won't have to worry about eating an innocent survivor often. They figure they're still being protectors of the people by getting rid of these scumbags.

That’s it for now, I’m still coming up with the specifics. lol

#zombie au #mia salazar #armando salazar #gore mention #body horror

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tipsycad147 · 4 years

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Baba Yaga

By shirleytwofeathers

In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a supernatural being (or one of a trio of sisters of the same name) who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking woman. Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs (or sometimes a single chicken leg).

Baba Yaga may help or hinder those that encounter or seek her out. She offers comprehension, not comfort. She sometimes plays a maternal role, and also has associations with forest wildlife. She is a many-faceted figure, capable of inspiring those who seek to see her as a Cloud, Moon, Death, Winter, Snake, Bird, Pelican or Earth Goddess.

Baba Yaga is an enigmatic spirit who rules the conjunction of magic and harsh reality, of limits and possibilities. This Death Spirit provides fertility when she chooses, but she also consumes those who disappoint her. She is iron-toothed, boney-legged, and wears a necklace of human skulls. Her home is surrounded by a fence crafted from human bones and, when inside of her dwelling, she may be found stretched out over the stove, reaching from one corner of the hut to another.

Like her compatriot spirits, Kali and La Santisima Muerte, Baba Yaga encompasses all the mysteries of life and death; contemplate her in order to begin to comprehend these mysteries. I don’t suggest contacting her (the Baba has little patience; don’t waste her time without good reason), a kind of magical contemplation is recommended instead.

Connecting With Baba Yaga

The Baba Yaga’s Feast Day is usually celebrated on the first full moon in November, but a connection can be made at any time during the year.

Build an altar featuring birch wood and leaves, animal imagery, a mortar, pestle and broom, and especially, food and drink.

Baba Yaga is always voraciously hungry. Offer her real food or cut out photo images for the altar. She is especially fond of Russian extravagances like coulibiac.

Offer her a samovar with blocks of fine Russian caravan tea and perhaps a water pipe.

Sit with the altar, gaze at it from different angles, play with the objects and see what comes to mind.

Be patient, and expect that it will take time to achieve a connection and a response.

More About Baba Yaga

The ‘old woman’ of autumn was called Baba by the Slavic inhabitants of eastern Europe, Boba by the Lithuanians. This seasonal divinity lived in the last sheaf of grain harvested in a year, and the woman who bound it would bear a child that year. Baba passed into Russian folk legend as the awesome Baba Yaga, a witchlike woman who rowed through the air in a mortar, using a pestle for Her oar, sweeping the traces of Her flight from the air with a broom.

A prototype of the fairytale witch, Baba Yaga lived deep in the forest and scared passersby to death just by appearing to them. She then devoured Her victims, which is why Her picket fence was topped with skulls. Behind this fierce legend looms the figure of the ancient birth-and-death Goddess, one whose autumn death in the cornfield led to a new birth in spring.

Baba Yaga is a Slavic version of Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Death, the Dancer on Gravestones. Although, more often than not, we consider Baba Yaga as a symbol of death, She is a representation of the Crone in the Triple Goddess symbolism. She is the Death that leads to Rebirth. It is curious that some Slavic fairy tales show Baba Yaga living in Her hut with Her two other sisters, also Baba Yagas. In this sense, Baba Yaga becomes full Triple Goddess, representing Virgin, Mother, and the Crone.

Baba Yaga is also sometimes described as a guardian of the Water of Life and Death. When one is killed by sword or by fire, when sprinkled with the Water of Death, all wounds heal, and after that, when the corpse is sprinkled with the Water of Life, it is reborn. The symbolism of oven in the Baba Yaga fairy tales is very powerful since from primordial times the oven has been a representation of womb and of baked bread. The womb, of course, is a symbol of life and birth, and the baked bread is a very powerful the image of earth, a place where one’s body is buried to be reborn again.

It is interesting that Baba Yaga invites Her guests to clean up and eat before eating them, as though preparing them for their final journey, for entering the death, which will result in a new clean rebirth. Baba Yaga also gives Her prey a choice when She asks them to sit on Her spatula to be placed inside the oven: if one is strong or witty, he or she escapes the fires of the oven, for weak or dim-witted ones, the road to death becomes clear.”

Baba Yaga lives in the middle of a very deep forest, in a place which is often difficult to find unless a magic clue (a ball of yarn or thread) or a magic feather shows the way. The old hag lives in a wooden hut on two chicken legs (sometimes three or four legs are described).

Usually the hut is turned with its back towards a traveller, and only magical words can make it turn around on its chicken legs to face the newcomer. Very often, the hut revolves with loud noises and painful screams that make a visitor cringe. This serves to frighten the reader, showing the hut’s old age, and to show that Baba Yaga does not care about her hut’s well being.

Baba Yaga fairy tales can be found at Widdershins.

It is also fascinating that some fairy tales describe the hut as being a unique evil entity: firstly, it has the ability to move on its chicken legs. Secondly, it understands human language and is able to decide whether and when to let a visitor enter its premises. Finally, the hut is often depicted as being able ‘to see’ with its eyes (its windows) and ‘to speak’ with its mouth (its doorway). I also cannot help feeling that the hut is able ‘to think’, and one can observe these thoughts as wild powerful clouds of steam emerging from the hut’s chimney. What powerful imagery!

Baba Yaga’s hut is often surrounded by fence made of human bones and topped with human skulls with eyes. Instead of wooden poles onto which the gates are hung, human legs are used; instead of bolts, human hands are put in; instead of the keyhole, a mouth with sharp teeth is mounted. Very often Baba Yaga has her hut is protected by hungry dogs or is being watched over by evil geese-swans or is being guarded by a black cat. The gates of Baba Yaga’s villa are also often found to be guardians of Yaga’s hut as they either lock out or lock in the Witch’s prey.

Baba Yaga – The Black Goddess – An Essay

For those of you who enjoy a more scholarly approach to the goddess, here is an essay by an anonymous author about Baba Yaga, the Black Goddess, and what her mythology represents.

Baba Yaga and her Magical Colts

I have been thinking and thinking about the image and story of Baba Yaga now for months and wondering how girls and women can resolve the seemingly paradoxical story of a bony heartless witch with the image of innocence of a rejected and abandoned girl. The following essay outlines how we use myth and story to perpetuate unconscious mindsets and it also unveils the gifts that these stories unfold in our inner psyche.

The story of Baba Yaga is prime among many images of the Black Goddess. The Black Goddess is at the heart of all creative processes and cannot be so easily viewed. Men and women rarely approach her, except in fear. Women are learning of her through the strength and boldness of elder women who are not afraid to unveil her many faces.

Sofia as wisdom lies waiting to be discovered within the Black Goddess who is her mirror image. Knowing that, until we make that important recognition, we are going to have to face the hidden and rejected images of ourselves again and again.

As women, we are confronted throughout our lives with unavoidable body messages regarding the uniqueness of our form and the inevitable changes that characterise ageing and the passage of time. Although ageing presents difficult challenges for both men and women, women confront some specific difficulties because of their gender. In traditional narratives, the end of biological fertility has relegated women to the status of “old women” who are stereotypically viewed as poor, powerless, and pitiful in our sexist and youth oriented culture. Baba Yaga, often referred to as the Black Goddess, and Vasalisa, often representing Sophia, are intrinsic to the psyche of girls and women because they shows us that the illusion of form can hide wonderful qualities within.

Baba Yaga, ugly, haglike, flying in her mortar, seemingly isolated and abandoned, yet broom at hand, ready to sweep the clouds across the skies and reveal her hidden cosmic nature

One of the cruelest of stereotypes that older women face is the “menopausal woman.” These are accentuated by the very fact that younger women are often rejecting or distancing to older women in society, unwilling to identify with women older than themselves. These experiences are painful confirmations that the ageing woman no longer meets the social criteria of a physically and securely attractive woman. The common result for most women is the activation of shame — as if becoming/looking older means that something is deeply and truly wrong with oneself.

Conscious femininity is a cyclic process and involves an awakened awareness of the triple form of the Goddess – Mother, Virgin and Crone – and how she exists simultaneously and continuously in all of our psyches, each taking center stage in awareness at different moments. These archetypal patterns are considered intrapsychic modes of consciousness in the individual, and the primordial image of a powerful and integrated woman, crowned with wisdom gleaned through real experience, is again reemerging through both the individual and collective psyches of humanity.

First, however, women must learn to embrace, respect and honour their changing bodies, abilities, capacities and WISDOM. We can learn a lot from Baba Yaga!

An archetype is a universal symbol, an inherited mental image to which humankind responds, and which is often acted upon as an unconscious reaction to human experience. These stories are no different and the story of Baba Yaga exemplify this phenomena.

The female experience is symbolised by and archetypally corresponds with the ancient Triple Goddess as the creator and destroyer of all life — “the ancient and venerable female divinity embodying the whole of female experience as Virgin, Mother, Crone.” The archetypal figure representing the end of a woman’s childbearing years, or the “third age” for women, is the third aspect of the Triple Goddess, the Crone.

At the climacteric or menopause, women are often forced to stand precipitously between the culmination of past experiences, to realise that youth is left behind, and prepare a new space within whereby a fresh image will coalesce as she envisions her future. This is real labour. The traditional constructs that are available to women are largely influenced by patriarchal standards of youth and beauty and we need fresh constructs that honour the diversity of life in all of its forms.

When a culture’s language has no word to connote “wise elder woman,” what happens to the women who carry the “Grandmother” consciousness for the collective? Prejudicial (prejudged) attacks throughout history against older women symbolised patriarchy’s feminisation of fear: the ultimate fear of annihilation, to be nonexistent (no existence). Centuries-long indoctrination limits our imagination so that we see this ancient aspect of the feminine only in her negative forms. We see her as the one who brings death to our old way of being, to our lives as we have known them, and to our embodied selves.

Our fear of the unconscious makes the Crone or Baba into an image of evil. The prevalence of paranoid masochism finds its expression through feminine perversion. Kristeva writes from “Stabat Matar” that: “Feminine perversion is coiled up in the desire for law as desire for reproduction and continuity, it promotes feminine masochism to the rank of structure stabiliser.” Structure stabiliser! Natural death is to be feared, hidden away, certainly not recognised as part of the natural rhythm of cycles of birth, death and rebirth?

Only when death becomes projected does it become a monster to be feared. There is an unconscious belief that a woman who has outlived her husband has somehow used up his life force. Walker claims that the secret hidden in the depths of men’s minds is that images of women are often identified with death. Women have also bought into this mindset largely because of lost connection with their own spirituality and the natural cycles of nature!

Vasalisa Approaching the Hut of Baba Yaga

To be sent to Baba Yaga was tantamount to being sent to one’s death, but Vasalisa was actually helped by Baba Yaga. By facing her own worst fear — death itself, Vasalisa became liberated from her previous situation and immaturity.

The myths of our society tell us much about the attitudes and world view of the myth-owners, and these attitudes are the products of women’s roles within the wider society. Myth arises out of the collective level of humankind’s experience, which is presented through images and symbols that resonate within our psyche. It is something we inherit from our ancestors and it is expressed through our genetic, racial memory. Kaufert reminds us however, that “myth is a system of values presented as if it were a system of facts.”

The symbol of the Crone is unique to a feminine worldview where the face of the Virgin and the fecund Mother, the Virgin Mother Mary, was absorbed in Western tradition into Judeo-Christian imagery. Likewise, we see the image of Vasalisa embodied as this innocence. The Crone has retained much of her pre-patriarchial character where she has haunted the fringes of Western culture, largely ignored, unacknowledged and rejected; one that often strikes fear into the hearts of men and some women because she has tremendous power and cannot be confined.

“Wise women,” in the past, were literally seen as having the power of life and death. They symbolised maturity, authority, attuned to nature and instinct. They were women whom men could not bind by making pregnant. They personified, as Hall writes:

“That aspect of life that men would most like to control but against which they are powerless: death. The Crone was healer, seer, medicine woman and, when death arrived with inexorable certainty, she was the mid-wife for the transition to another life.”

Baba Yaga’s Hut standing on its magical Chicken-Leg, yet revolving like the solar symbol it is, always rising and setting in a new place, bringing birth — and death — daily.

Over time, and in recent history the Crone became associated with the dark side of the feminine; the withered old hag, the witch. Ironically, the word “Hag” used to mean “holy one” from the Greek hadia, as in hagiolatry, “worship of saints.” And during the middle ages hag was said to mean the same as fairy.

In deconstructing these familiar images of the older ageing woman, we must first identify their symbolic roots and challenge them in order to allow for potent, vital images that energise women’s potential creative spiritual evolution. In this quest it is crucial to find valued female images that present creative and spiritual power, that offer a paradigm of ongoing formation and integration. If we do not do so, we risk encountering images of women that reinforce stereotypical models and moreover, can only alienate us from our own truest selves.

The Crone is a figure who incorporates both dark and light, life and death, creation and destruction, form and dissolution. The doll [Vasalisa’s doll, given to her by her dying mother] becomes the symbol of the Sibyl, a figure of inspiration and intuition. She acts as a guide through the great passages of life, leading a woman into her own inner knowing.

Vasalisa and her doll with the White Horseman of Dawn(who reports daily to Baba Yaga, just like the Red Horseman of Noon, and the Black Horseman of Evening)

We see this in the story of Vasalisa and Baba Yaga, the innocence of the maiden coming of age through a series of tasks. Baba Yaga forces Vasalisa to look within through intuition (the doll) and she awakens to the illuminating light that is carried in her heart. Within the simple limits of a folk story, the interactions of Sophia (Vasalisa) and the Black Goddess (Baba Yaga) are demonstrated. Baba Yaga or the Crone also embodies the inner archetype of Sophia, feminine wisdom.

Hall writes: “Sophia is a Wise Woman, one who epitomises feminine thought. This thought is of a particular kind. It is ‘gestalt’ or whole perception; it synthesises and looks at the overall pattern; it is logical but empathetic, and combines acute observation with intuition. It is relational (taking account of the past in order to project forward into the future), and it arises out of care and concern for man and womankind. It uses both the left and right brain modes of thought. It is creative and concerned with vision and solutions — attributes which are an integral part of the Wise Woman.”

Sophia plays, hides, adepts, disguises, and brings justice. Interestingly, we see these very same qualities attributed to the wise woman as being Vasalisa’s, only not fully formed. Thus affirming the feminist perspective of the Goddess in all of her aspects and that all ways to wisdom are valid paths. Girls and women are encouraged to rely on their own subjective experience or on the communal experience of other women This is a very important point!

From a feminist perspective, the entry into the third phase of women’s life is seen as a time of spiritual questing, renewal and self-development. It is a time where women are encouraged to explore themselves through interaction with other females who are providers of friendship, support, love, even sexual satisfaction, rather than a woman’s family.

Baba Yaga helping young Ivanushka

Likewise, the young girl growing into maidenhood needs the guidance and wisdom that elder women can provide. She must receive the gifts that the wise ones can give her. Baba Yaga may appear as a witch, yet she is instrumental in folk traditions. She aids heroes to find weapons, simplifying tasks and quests when she is treated with courtesy. Her transposed reflection is none other than Vasilisa the fair – the young righteous maiden who defeats her opposite aspect by truth and integrity.

The older woman is the keeper of the wisdom and tradition in her family, clan, tribe, and community. She is the keeper of relations, whether they be interpersonal or with all of nature. Every issue is an issue of relationship. It is assumed that she has a deep understanding of the two great mysteries, birth and death.

Another quality is the ability to be mediator between the world of spirit and earth. She is emancipated from traditional female roles of mothering and is free to make a commitment to the greater community. As a result of this freedom, there is an abundance of creativity unleashed in this phase of life; often expressed through art, poetry, song, dance, and crafts, and through her sexuality as she celebrates her joy (Joussance).

This elder time must again become a stage of life revered and honoured by others and used powerfully in service by women themselves. The elder “Wise-woman” can represent precisely the kind of power women so desperately need today, and do not have: the power to force the hand of the ruling elite to do what is right, for the benefit of future generations and of the earth itself.

A powerful Baba Yaga, flying in her mortar, protecting her forests, and banishing all obstacles with her pestle and broom.

Like Baba Yaga, the Crone must help us by her example and “admonish us to revere all peoples and all circles of life upon this earth . . . not only important for the dignity and self-esteem of each woman, but vital for the countenance of life on our sweet Mother Earth.” Since men define power as the capacity to destroy, the Destroying Mother Crone must be the most powerful female image for them, therefore, the only one likely to force them (us) in any new direction.

A woman who denies her life process at any time in her development, clinging desperately to outmoded images, myths and rituals of her past, obscures her connection with Self, the Divine, and therefore, with her spiritual heritage, the natural universe. The same holds true for our daughters, maidens who are coming of age. There is a kind of internal balance and sense of holiness available to us when we accept ourselves as part of a world that honours cycles, changes, decay and rebirth. It is time for women to reflect and give form to the authentic self in its evolving, formative process.

The woman who is willing to make that change must become pregnant with herself, at last. She must bear herself, her third self, her old age with labour. There are not many who will help her with that birth. To Crone is to birth oneself as “Wise-woman,” and see the world through new eyes.

We have not had the safety valve of feminine metaphor in our spiritual understanding; consequently, the Feminine, both Divine and human, have appeared monstrously contorted, threatening and uncontrollable.

The Black Goddess lies at the basis of Spiritual knowing, which is why her image continuously appears within many traditions as the Veiled Goddess, the Black Virgin, the Outcast Daughter, the Wailing Widow, the Dark Woman of Knowledge.

The way of Sophia is the way of personal experience. It takes us into the realm of “magical reality,” those areas of our lives where extraordinary vocational and creative skills are called upon to manifest. Those treasures of Baba Yaga and Vasalisa lie deep within each of us, waiting to be discovered.

aba Yaga and Vasalisa, Crone and Puella [Maiden]: Two Aspects of One Archetype

Sources:

Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells

Wikipedia

Journeying to the Goddess

https://shirleytwofeathers.com/The_Blog/powers-that-be/baba-yaga/

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oselatra · 5 years

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The unbearable whiteness of being

What's lost when we consider the history of racial violence from a white perspective.

On Dec. 26, 1920, a mob in my hometown of Jonesboro broke into the jail to seize Wade Thomas, a black man and petty thief suspected of having murdered a local police officer the day before. Although Police Chief Gus Craig and Mayor Gordon Frierson had barricaded the jail with the intent of defending Thomas, they did not lift one finger to defend the man when the mob finally broke through. As Frierson later told his nephew, "When the mob opened the door, the first half-a-dozen men standing there were leading citizens — businessmen, leaders of their churches and the community."

We like to think of mobs as rowdy amalgamations of poor and uncouth whites, but they were more often prominent individuals in their communities, which helps to explain the complicity of certain agents of authority in these murders. After all, coroners' reports almost universally found that victims of lynching met their fate "at the hand of persons unknown," even when these "persons" marched down Main Street in broad daylight.

One of the ironies of study into racial violence is that historians typically know more about any one victim than they do any individual member of the mob — even the names of most of those "leading citizens" eludes historians to this day. This is no accident. American history has classically been viewed through the eyes of people who were white, male, educated and middle class or better. But what if Americans took what historian Richard W. Bulliet has called "the view from the edge" and look back at whiteness through the eyes of others? How does our perspective change?

Telling the history of racial violence from a white perspective places lynching exclusively within the domain of black history, given that such forms of violence had a huge impact upon black culture and consciousness, so much so that even those who never witnessed such an event themselves felt terrorized, knowing that the same could happen to them at any time. From the white center, these acts of violence are regarded as aberrations, not representative of the American "mainstream," not part of our own collective heritage, despite the fact that demographics for some lynching events included hundreds or thousands of white men and women, as members of the mob, per black victim. This fact has been obscured by the use of passive voice when talking about racial atrocities. Black people "were lynched," black people "were driven" from this town, black people "were warned away" from taking these jobs. But white people committed these crimes, and we need to understand why. White Americans need to incorporate this history into our broader culture and come to terms with it, lest the general framework that made such atrocities acceptable remain hidden, unacknowledged, and allowed to emerge again.

Let's go further back still. Let's go back to the time of slavery and see in what surprising places whiteness shows up. In July 1855, the slave Abby Guy of Ashley County sued her legal owner, William Daniel, claiming that her mother had never been a slave but rather was a white woman who was kidnapped by slave traders, who no doubt knew how much masters preferred lighter-skinned victims, especially light-skinned women. And Abby Guy herself, by all accounts, appeared as white as anyone else. The local jury ruled her white, and the Arkansas Supreme Court refused to overturn the verdict on appeal, partly due to a "reluctance to sanction the enslaving of persons" who appeared to be white. However, three years later, in the case of Gary v. Stevenson, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled differently. In that case, the enslaved Thomas Gary had sued his owner, Remson Stevenson of Van Buren County, arguing that he was not a "Negro" according to Arkansas law. So-called racial experts analyzed Gary and agreed that he was probably white in the legal sense: two experts testified that he lacked African ancestry entirely, while a third said that Gary might have a trace amount of African blood but not enough to meet the legal threshold for being defined "Negro" in Arkansas at the time. But the court held that because Gary's mother, who also possessed fair skin and straight hair, had never objected to her status as a slave, Gary was the child of a slave and thus a slave himself.

To make sense of this, we have to go back to the early days of the American colonies. Despite what you were taught in elementary school about indentured servitude in the Americas being an easy way for poor Brits to secure passage to the colonies, needing only to put in a few years' employment for a benign British lord before being freed from the contract, indentured servitude early on featured some characteristics later common to chattel slavery. Abuse was rampant, and servants could have their contracts extended at the slightest pretense. However, enough did manage to gain their freedom that the colonial lords decided to ramp up the importation of African slaves, especially after servants across the color line teamed up against their masters in Bacon's Rebellion of 1676. In response to that rebellion, authorities in the colonies began to pass laws that connected "race" to status, so that any child of an African slave inherited the position of slave, an innovation that, in the words of historian David Roediger, "became the basis for a new regime that sought to set poor people apart from each other much more clearly on the basis of 'race.' "

Eventually, race became codified with the "one-drop rule," so that any African ancestry marked one as a slave, no matter how white you appeared. So plantation lords often enslaved white people. "But wait," you say, "they did, after all, have some African blood in them, so you can't call them white-white, now can you?" First off, what does it say about the ideology of white supremacy if something like 1/64 drop of "black blood" gets to overrule everything else? It amuses me no end that a chief tenet of white supremacy is that whiteness remains so fundamentally fragile that even the slightest mixture threatens it.

Second, once you have a one-drop rule in place and slaves as white as anyone else, what is to prevent an enterprising capitalist from preying upon poor whites? Abby Guy's was not the only court case alleging the kidnapping and selling of poor whites, and newspapers of the time were filled with stories expressing horror at the very idea of "white slavery" being visited upon "innocent" people. At the same time, slaveholders occasionally expressed sadness that they could not simply enslave many of the poorer whites in their communities and put them to profitable labor. In your typical grade school history class, you probably heard some variation of the statement, "They were enslaved because they were black." But, in fact, the reverse is true — they were labeled as black because they had been enslaved. As historian Barbara Fields has written: "Probably a majority of American historians think of slavery in the United States as primarily a system of race relations — as though the chief business of slavery were the production of white supremacy rather than the production of cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco."

As the Gary v. Stevenson case reveals, designations of blackness were a convenience for ensuring captive labor. Had they been able, these plantation owners would have eagerly enslaved all of those they saw as beneath them. And yet these still managed to get poor whites to devote their time and energy to forming slave patrols and keeping black people in line. According to historian Kelly Houston Jones, the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1854 "affirmed the right of any white person to subdue a slave in rebellion. Thus, whites policed and patrolled slave communities even if they did not act as formally organized 'patrollers.' " Whites, especially poorer whites, acting against their own self-interest is not a new story — in fact, whiteness as a valuable social construct was manufactured precisely to ensure that people at the lower end of the scale don't recognize what they share with each other. As a poor white person, you couldn't kick up, because the rich kick back, but you could kick down, and that offered a little compensation for your plight.

And this brings us back to lynching. Many people assume that the lynching of blacks was exclusively a post–Civil War phenomenon, for there was too much value wrapped up in a black slave. But at least 13 slaves (and almost certainly more) were lynched in antebellum Arkansas. To give one example, the sons of James Boone led the Fayetteville mob that lynched the two slaves accused of murdering their father in 1856. And remember, there were also those slave patrols, and they occasionally killed escaped slaves who allegedly resisted capture. As Kelly Houston Jones asks, "When does a posse gathered for the purpose of policing slaves become a lynch mob? It may not be that these men gathered for the premeditated purpose of killing the slaves they pursued, but it is true that they were acting as a group in a police effort and were ready and willing to use lethal force."

So what do we see when we decenter the white experience? We see a moneyed elite whose system of slavery may have had a nominal, official reference to skin color or place of origin in its definition of human property, but who were willing and eager to enslave whoever was available so long as their cotton got picked. We see other poor relations of these elites ready and willing to employ violence in the preservation of the same system that denied them labor and dignity, for who can compete with cheapness of slave labor? With all of that, can we really be surprised that "leading citizens — businessmen, leaders of their churches and the community" participated in the reign of butchery that engulfed the United States, especially the South, for nearly a century following the Civil War? Violence, after all, was the very foundation of their "civilization," as they liked to think of it.

Seen through the eyes of others, whiteness ceases to be an innocuous social category but, instead, is riven with contradictions that continue to facilitate vast inequality, in this supposed nation of equals, down to the present day. This is Black History Month, and those who think of themselves as white (to use Ta-Nehisi Coates's phraseology) can feel excluded from such celebrations by dint of pigmentation and indignation. But instead of seeing Black History Month as the domain of someone else's heritage, try letting that history inform you about the truth of your own past. Looking at your own history from the edge, through someone else's eyes, you can finally see just where you stand within this vast tapestry of Arkansas and American history. The truth will likely surprise you. And maybe, just maybe, it will set you free. ♦

The unbearable whiteness of being

#The unbearable whiteness of being

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