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aangs-surrounding-love · 3 years

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Perception in Avatar: The Last Airbender

From my various rewatches of the show and hours among hours of scrolling through the fandom, everyone has a set opinion and perception of this show and the characters’ actions. I’ve read countless opinions and heard many analyses about this show. And the thing I can draw from it? Is that this show relies on perception and what you get from others. But it’s more than that. Perception is how the world works in general, but I’m going to try to stay within the boundaries of the Avatar Universe.

First off, let’s start at what perception means. By dictionary definition, perception means the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses. Now, let’s break it down. Perception is, yes, becoming aware, but it’s also about understanding and connection. To become aware, we must develop an understanding. We do this by connecting experience and extending our feelings into what’s being shown. The main picture is that perception is understanding through our senses which creates an experience based on what we feel. However, this can be confused with opinions and emotions. But all of it comes together, the perception, links, connections, to create emotion and what we feel towards something.

Now, let's start with how it ties into the show.

Moving on, perception affects everyone in this show. It’s all based on perception if you think about it hard enough. Starting (Chronologically) from when Sozin wipes out the Air Nomads to get rid of the Avatar. To Sozin, he perceived the Avatar as a threat to his plans. Someone who would interfere with his expansions and power. So, when Roku told Sozin that his actions weren’t right for the world and basically saying it would throw off the balance, Sozin could have taken this as a drive to execute his plans. His perception led him to kill off the Air Nomads using Sozin’s Comet.

You see, that’s what perception leads to. It leads to actions based on our evaluation and decisions.

Now, moving on to when Aang is broken out of the iceberg because of Katara. Immediately, Sokka is skeptical. I mean, who wouldn’t? They’re in the middle of a war that has caused their parents to either be killed or sent away to fight, leaving them alone to take care of each other and the village. So, Aang, 1. walks out of the iceberg, unharmed and not frozen. To Sokka, he hasn’t had enough interaction with a firebender to know all their talents and abilities, this includes not being able to succumb to the sub-zero temperatures in the south pole or inside an iceberg. To Sokka, this may cause him to think that Aang is a threat and there to harm him or Katara. Yes, yes, far reaching possibly but continuing... 2. Aang shoots out a beam, a very powerful one at that, that could alert the FIre Nation of their location and put them and the tribe at risk. 3. Aang’s tattoos and clothing. Again, Aang is unfrozen and to Sokka, who hasn’t met an Airbender or has barely heard anything about them and their culture, so Sokka might not know if Aang could get them into trouble. So pulling all this together, Sokka has seen a boy walk out of an iceberg, unharmed, seen this boy unleash a powerful streak of light at the sky, felt the strong winds of the iceberg breaking, and heard Aang’s somewhat sidetracked answers. All these things would make Sokka reasonably suspicious and threatened.

Aang visiting the Southern Air Temple for the first time in 100 years. His perception of the Air Nomads was a thriving, beautiful community that lived harmoniously at the temple. Only a flying bison could reach there to his knowledge. But now that 100 years have passed, he is met with a new reality. His new perception of the temple is in ruins, dead plants, rubble, abandoned, neglected, and lifeless. Perception changes how you look at it. When Sokka, Katara, and Aang arrive at the temple, Aang’s perception is mostly filled with memories he had with his friends and mentors. He knew a place that’s no longer there, so he points out the things that still made sense to him. “That’s where my friends and I would play airball and over there is where the bison would sleep...” that was still his perception that’s starting to change. But it fully changed when he finds Gyatso’s body, and that’s where Aang truly knows that his culture is gone and his old perception is diminished because this, all the rubble, ruins, Appa and Momo, is all that’s left.

During their travels, the original Gaang (Sokka, Katara, and Aang) meet various groups of people who all have their own perceptions of the Avatar. Some who don’t necessarily like the Avatar and some who cherish them. Since the Avatar hasn’t been seen in 100 years, before they met Aang, their perception was developed through tales and stories. That’s how a lot of perception works in their world and our world. But once Aang was able to meet some of those people and usually helping them, their perception of the Avatar may have changed. To the people, maybe Aang turned out to be beneficial and good to them, while others saw him as a nuisance. But that’s all they need. All they need is a story or interaction to have a perception develop, and in the Avatar Universe, it means a lot.

Perception leads to many things. One of the most outstanding is the opinion. All it takes is a view of something or someone and formulating it into something bigger or smaller depending on how someone depicts it. This perception is the reason why opinions were made. And why some people interpret actions or words differently. With so many factors, there are many possible outputs or outcomes for a response.

For example, when Aang goes to meet Guru Pathik, Aang has to learn to let go and unlock his chakras. It all relied on how Aang interpreted Guru Pathik’s words. And like I said before, Aang needed to gain a perception of Guru Pathik’s words to be able to interact in interpret his words. It’s a simple problem in investigative science. It’s a simple If... then... statement if you think about it. Into context, If Guru Pathik teaches Aang that chakras are swirling pools of energy inside their bodies by making a connection to blockages in a creek, then Aang can associate the swirling pools of energy to the pools in the creek. And that’s how most opinions are formulated. The “if” is the start of the perception and how it developed while the “then” statement is how something begins to interact with someone, formulating that perception and developing an opinion or fact.

(Sorry for the mini investigative science lecture, just a little connection...)

I could go on and on about how every single action someone takes is caused by perception and how, but that would 1. take wayyyyyyy too long, and 2. no one will read that because that’s increasingly long when I could just squish everything into a shorter example.

However, despite this analysis getting quite lengthy, I’m going to throw in more influential examples.

Advice is another major part of perception in ATLA terms. Uncle Iroh has many, many great lines and terms of advice. His wisdom comes from years of his own growth of perception and how he perceives the world. So with all his wisdom and a very confused and angry nephew, he gives his advice out, hoping that whoever is listening gains something from it.

The advice itself isn’t really perception, however, what you take away from it is. Although, I suppose I’m sort of wrong there as well. Advice is also perception. To be able to give out advice, you need to have your own perception on a certain topic to be able to give it out. You need to have a stance and opinion to understand your own advice and give it out to help others.

So, in the Crossroads Of Destiny, Aang seeks Iroh’s advice to which Iroh responds, “Perfection and Power are overrated. I think you are very wise to choose happiness and love.” Iroh experienced his own life to where he could come up with this wisdom and share it with someone in need. Then, Aang asks a question, “What if I’m not powerful enough?” To which, Iroh replies, “I don’t know the answer. Sometimes, life is like this dark tunnel. You can't always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving, you will come to a better place.” Their conversation ends there. Like I said before, this is what Iroh can take out of his life and shares his wisdom with Aang, someone who is in need of this advice. Most importantly, it’s about how Aang, or rather anyone, interprets this. Because that interpretation would be their perception of Iroh’s advice. Their experience with Iroh, their interpretation, what they hear, what expressions Iroh is showing, and what they feel themselves are what formulates their perception of that piece of advice.

This is true for the fans of the show as well. Iroh’s advice hasn’t only impacted those in the show because I know that it has impacted those who have watched the show. But that perception, the takeaway, how we perceive this wisdom is the most important. Using Iroh’s “Life is like a dark tunnel. You can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you keep moving, you will come to a better place.” I can say I’ve found at least six different ways to perceive this. And I’m only one person with my own set of experiences and ideals, meaning that other people could find limitless different ways to perceive this. So, Aang as one person used his own experiences and thought process to develop his own perception and way to interpret Iroh’s wisdom.

Education is another important aspect of perception. What we learn is an experience of its own. To become aware, people need a certain level of information to decide “what side” they’re on. In other situations, people are pitted on sides without a true chance to develop a sense of what’s right or wrong. For instance, in The Headband, Aang is put in a class where the kids have been fed false information. False information that has been bent to making one side, the Air Nomads, look wrong and misguided and the other side, the Fire Nation, looks superior and correct. A quote, “What year did Fire Lord Sozin battle the Air Nation army?” This is asked by a teacher during a quiz. Not only that, Aang knows that the Air Nomads didn’t have a formal military. To which, he raises his hand to express that this is wrong, thinking it could be a trick question. Though, the teacher questions how Aang could know this because that information she’s sharing was in the national history book. The Fire Nation has given its students information that is incorrect to make their stance stronger, maybe thinking that it would pit its own nation against Sozin’s actions. Another thing, Aang’s perception of the Air Nomads isn’t anything like how the Fire Nation has depicted them. So, when Aang was in the school, he found out that everyone in the Fire Nation’s perception of the Air Nomads is violent and the reason for starting the war.

The thing about perception is that it shouldn’t be shoved down your throat, it should develop through thought and experience if given the chance. The Fire Nation didn’t allow the youth to get this and most likely didn’t allow the people of the post-genocide to have a true perception of the Air Nomads or the other nations other than the stuff the school taught them.

Perception is constantly changing based on new experiences or new stories. Take Zuko as an example. Zuko was sent out on the quest to hunt down the Avatar, although it was a task destined for failure, Zuko did find him and captured him many times. Even though Aang, escaped, Zuko kept trying to get Aang and restore his honor. In the very beginning, when Zuko sees the beam of light, he says, “Finally.” However, that’s not where his perception of the Avatar started. Before this, he was expecting a 100+-year-old, master of the elements to fight. He most likely expected an all-powerful being, and Zuko might’ve been willing to die fighting. That is a bit rash, but he would’ve done anything to restore his honor. Even before Zuko was sent on the massive goose hunt, he must’ve been told stories of the Avatar and their powers. So, when Zuko meets Aang for the first time, he rightfully says, “You’re just a child!” All of his previous perceptions are questioned and screwed with. After all, this was what Zuko had been training for, for a little more than two years, at the time. And each encounter with Aang, Zuko’s perception changed. He underestimated Aang, captured him, rescued him, fought with him (for a short time, pre-redemption), betrayed him, fought against him again. And each time leading up to his redemption, his perception keeps evolving and expanding. Until the Western Air Temple episode, they’ve been enemies. They’ve been on opposite sides of a war. So when Zuko was finally incorporated into the Gaang, he gains a new perspective by living among Aang, learning, and getting a new perception. As time passed and the war was won, Zuko is undeniably friends with Aang. Even more time passes and they start Republic City, they become lifelong friends. Even coming to the point where Zuko was often Aang’s counsel.

For Zuko, every encounter he had with Aang changed his perception of him. It gave him a new side and interpretation of him. It evolved from thinking he was an old, all-powerful man to a silly, immature kid, to a friend to a lifelong, respected friend.

When Aang is met with his most difficult task yet, his plan about how to defeat Ozai, and whether or not Aang should kill him, he calls upon the spirits and semi-consciously climbs aboard a Lion Turtle’s back. On the shell disguised as a forest, Aang calls on his past lives to figure out what to do. Aang’s only perception of Ozai is “the baddest guy on the planet”, whatever Zuko told Aang, and what acts Ozai has done against the world. It’s the same thing for the other Avatars as well. They know very little about Ozai, however, they’ve all had a situation on deciding on what to do. They offer Aang their advice and knowledge. They share their mistakes and what situation they got into along with advice that made Aang decide on his own. What I mean is Roku said, “You must be decisive.” Kyoshi said, “Only justice will bring peace.” Kuruk said, “You must actively shape your own destiny and the destiny of the world.” Yangchen said, “Selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs, and do whatever it takes to protect the world.” They all gave Aang the choice on what to do. They offered advice that ultimately led to the interpretation of Aang should kill Ozai. But all of what they said relies on the perception of their words and what they meant. For Aang, they gave him plenty of contexts to decide what to do, even though it was basically saying that Aang should kill Ozai in their own way without specifically saying that Aang should kill Ozai. Anyway, Aang still looked for answers, looking for an alternative. He finds that he is in the presence of a lion turtle. So, with nowhere else to go and lost, Aang seeks advice from the Lion Turtle.

The Lion turtle says, “The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void but always yields to purifying light.”

It’s all about perception remember? Anyone can take away anything from the Lion turtle’s advice. I’ve said before, it’s all based on how someone perceives this based on their own thought process and experience. To Aang, he is looking for an alternative that wouldn’t go against his principle and find a way to restore balance and punish Ozai for his crimes. Perceiving the Lion turtle’s words, Aang finds this alternative. He finds the art of energybending. He finds this solution that is a risk to him.

Aang’s perception came from both his past lives and the Lion turtle. Aang was decisive. He did bring justice. He managed to shape his own destiny and the world’s. He did whatever he could to protect the world, even before this fight. He was able to “tough the poison of hatred without being harmed.” Aang was able to use his perception of what everyone said and used it to defeat Ozai. Without this deep analysis of perception, Aang wouldn’t have been able to defeat the Fire Lord, Zuko wouldn’t have had his redemption arc, these characters wouldn’t be able to grow.

Yes, yes I’m missing a whole bunch of parts where perception came to play, but that’s not the point. I’m saying that perception is among the most important aspects of ATLA. You know the saying, “It’s not about what you take, it’s what you give”? In this aspect, it is about what you take AND it is about what you give. It’s important to process and perceive what is given. It’s important to ponder and take away from an experience or lecture or talk. It’s important to PERCEIVE. And for those who are the Uncle Iroh’s in this context, it’s important that you learn the first part before you give any life-changing advice. Everything comes from perception whether you like it or not. But in ATLA, it’s vital for the characters to be able to perceive and interpret advice and actions. It’s how everyone interacts with the world and is able to work as a show. Without perception, ATLA wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Without perception, no one could grow and develop leading to blank emotionless lives.

And some of the best part of perception? In my opinion, of course, is being able to love and react to shows like ATLA and being able to connect to their characters and plot lines. My goodness I love this show.

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momo-de-avis · 5 years

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Wordtober Day 6: Build 2.0

Yall, I cheated. And am also late. I couldn’t get anything done with ‘husky’, so I decided to prolonge my previous prompt, as the last one didn’t give me room to fully explore my idea. So... be warned that this is... quite long. Possibly very long. I leave that up to you.

It’s a continuation of this one

𝚆𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝙻𝚞𝚒𝚜 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚓𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚟𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚢 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝟷𝟿𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝟸𝟻𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝚂𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛, 𝟸𝟶𝟶𝟷, 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝙳𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚎𝚕𝚊 𝚍𝚎 𝚕𝚊 𝙿𝚊𝚣.

Dani and I had done this before, many times. We’d had our fair share of paranormal investigation—sometimes just plain investigation—and most of the times, it even amounts to nothing, if not a slight disruption of a picture or the ‘mysterious noises’ turning out to be either stray cats or a group of teenagers setting a horror movie set for strangers. But the Maduro case was peculiar to us. It was Dani who suggested we’d investigate the Maduro case, and she always did seem rather curious about the outlines of the case.

We did the needed investigation before we got there. Aside from some news articles, there was the original 1983 police report, which looks… sloppy, rushed, and honestly, not like they were even trying at all. The majority of the photos vanished, supposedly lost in mishandling of paperwork, except three—the ones well known—and both disappearances were chalked up under ‘runaway children’, despite the fact that Samuel Maduro was 15 and Aura 28 at the time of each of their disappearances.

We knew the house had belonged to Aura after her parents, and before that, to Amelia and Augusto Maduro, the grandparents, who used to own a quarry up until 1939, when they sold their part of the business to Mr Maduro’s partner. At the time, we couldn’t really find the reason why they sold it, though what we did conclude afterwards is nothing short of speculation, so we just assumed it to be some sort of financial strain. There was a civil war going on, though we couldn’t find confirmation on the Maduros’ political affiliations, nor is their village located anywhere close to where the war hit, but… War always does bring about hard times, so it wasn’t at all that inane.

What was surprising was finding our first clue that contradicted the original 1983 report. Though Claudia Maduro, mother of both Samuel and Aura, suffered from a lifelong heart disease and eventually died four years after her son’s disappearance—a time spent between check-ups and several psychiatric consultations—the father’s death, Francisco Maduro, does seem related to the case.

He appears to have lived the last ten years of his life as a recluse, and the only visits he ever had were a gardener—who helped around with the backyard—, a maid—mostly responsible for doing his laundry, some cooking and cleaning—, and a man named Antonio. He was the last one to see Mr Maduro alive, though his name wasn’t even mentioned in the original report.

According to Antonio, when he arrived at the house that afternoon, Mr Maduro was in a state of distress. He had set up a ladder to go up the attic and was going up and down frequently, to fetch several items, all of which he recognized as being used for construction purposes: toolboxes, measuring tapes, rope, sandpaper. Of this, Antonio reportedly joked for a while, asking him if he was building something, or maybe fixing a piece of furniture, but Mr Maduro was majorly unresponsive, instead appearing focused on his task. He simply kept mumbling: “The animals keep tearing it down.”

It must have been shortly after he left that Mr Maduro fell off his ladder, approximately two meters high, hitting his head on a rock and being found hours later by the maid, who had him rushed to the hospital, where he died an hour later.

Here’s what’s so appalling about this. Looking at the original police records, there were no interviewed. It looks like the police simply asked no questions to anyone, no acquaintances of the family, no friends, no neighbours. Every evidence was gathered from inside the home, and every conclusion reached without taking into consideration the village itself. At first, we thought they had been careless—ridiculously careless, mind you—but as our days went on and we tried speaking to others, it became clear just what the real reason was.

The villagers avoided the Maduros because they were afraid of them.

Overall, it seems neither Aura nor Samuel—nor their parents, for that matter—were particularly hated, rather ostracized by what the villagers saw as a need. The priest at the time, one father Ángel, even did his best to include the two children in his community, and we did find several photos of Samuel carrying the podium of Santa Marina during one of its processions. Both siblings appear to have been devout Catholics too: crucifixes and rosaries were found in both rooms, as well as prayer books and Bibles, they attended church regularly, got involved with the community and celebrated every day of the calendar.

The problem was not Samuel and Aura, nor Francisco and Claudia—the Maduros’ dark history was older than that.

There was one fundamental piece to their history that everyone completely overlooked, which wasn’t on records for reasons that, for a while, seemed mysterious enough, though it became clear as we unravelled the story. Francisco Maduro, grandfather of both Aura and Samuel, disappeared without a trace in 1939, immediately after selling his part of the quarry.

After searching through records, old newspapers and considerably angering the locals, all we found was one newspaper clipping, though not an article. It was an ad, an announcement, posted by the local police, asking villagers to please notify them if they new anything about Mr Maduro’s whereabouts. And nothing more. The only way to understand what had happened was by asking, and by now, we knew nobody would say a word about it, so we thought Antonio would perhaps collaborate.

By all means, it must be said: Antonio had a bit of a drinking problem, and we might have bargained in that sense. I’m not terribly proud of it, but in my defence, he looked desperate to talk, like he had kept something buried so deeply he waited years to finally speak up. Though I wasn’t expecting a confession exactly. After all, Antonio was, in his own words, Francisco’s best friend, though the two weren’t as close in adulthood as they had been in childhood. And like the Maduros—maybe because he appeared to be the only one in the village who didn’t fear going near the house—he was a bit of an outcast.

He told us that Amelia Maduro was far from being a heart-warming woman. He recalls her posture from childhood, which I think can be seen in the pictures found inside one of the locked rooms of the house: haughty, stern, impeccable. She seldom smiled, and her face bore something grievous to it, a chiselling of austerity that made children everywhere tell stories of her beatings and whippings. She was very pious too, at times too severe in her belief, and her doctrine was an imposing one. Antonio recalls an event from childhood, after visiting Francisco one afternoon: she had stopped a maid on her tracks, taken a step back and inspected her outfit; then, she had asked why was her skirt three fingers above the knee, to which the maid, flustered, replied she had to borrow her sister’s, who was younger, considering she had found a hole in hers that morning. Then, without warning, Amelia slapped the young woman across the face and said: “I will not have whores serving me.” And she fired her.

This might be explanatory to what truly seems to be the reason behind the quarry issue. Shortly before, Francisco Maduro became romantically involved with a supposed worker at the quarry, a woman who would bring refreshments to the men on the field every afternoon. It turns out, however, the woman was Pilar Deocampo, niece of Alfredo Deocampo—Francisco’s business partner. She became pregnant and decided to plan an escape with the aid of Francisco, who was supposed to meet with her after dealing with some logistics as to not leave his family with no support, but the plan failed when Amelia discovered their affair. When Pilar gave birth to baby boy in 1939, things took a grim turn.

From here on, Antonio swears, the story has become folklore, but the vast majority of the villagers strongly believe it to be true, and stands as the reason for them to stay away from the Maduros and their home. Amelia, without her husband’s knowledge—who was away for a few days—invited poor Pilar for some afternoon tea, under the guise of friendship and empathy before her condition—unmarried and with a son borne from a married man. How it happened differs, since nobody was present if not one maid who left the house immediately after, but on one thing all tales are consistent: Amelia killed the child in front of his mother, proclaiming that her act was justified before God because it was in God’s plans to cleanse the earth of sinners, and that the child was impure and shouldn’t have been born either way.

In a fit of rage, Pilar Deocampo attempted to injury Amelia, but failed to. As a result, Amelia inflicted several wounds on the grievous mother, who bled out in her living room. Many say Mrs Maduro watched, untouched by her very own gruesome actions, and in her dying breath, Pilar Deocampo uttered one last thing, something the village now chants as much as a curse as a reminder: Mi sangre marcará tu tierra, y mis huesos serán tu mausoleo. Por cada uno que pierdas, un otro quedará en sofrimiento, y como las árboles de tu finca, vosotros marchitarán lentamiente.

My blood will mark your land, and my bones will be your mausoleum. For each one you lose, another will stay in suffering, and like the trees of your property, you will wither away slowly.

Amelia then proceeded to force her very own maids into taking the body to the nearby forest, dig up a grave and bury them; then, she placed the two pillars with the chain to forbid anyone from going into the area, and never spoke of the subject again—until her husband arrived home the next day. Seeing the maids scrubbing blood from the wooden floorings, he inquired his wife as to what had happened. Amelia didn’t spare any details; in fact, many agree she was quite assured in her grim account, believing hers had been a righteous act.

Francisco Maduro then, in a frenzy of grief and despair, ran into the woods to see it for himself, to see the grave of his beloved and his child—and he crossed the space between the two pillars. He was never seen again.

Amelia would die less than ten years later, and despite everything, many agree she was incredibly grievous of her husband’s disappearance and entirely devoted to her faith. The Maduros then became a cautionary tale—it’s unclear to me whether or not Francisco witnessed this event, considering he would be around 18-20 at the time, but the tale became part of the villages’ folklore so much he became a person they willing avoided. Antonio swears, however, that both Aura and Samuel were entirely unaware of this past.

From the story came a legend, one the villagers believed to be real, from the case of Samuel and Aura Maduro’s disappearance. Anyone who crossed the space between the two pillars would find the secret burial place of Pilar and her child; keeping her promise, it seems a Maduro would always be bound to find the place in one way or another, and it was none other than Pilar who called them, leaving someone else behind to suffer for their absence, until no Maduros were left.

It seems Pilar achieved her goal, then.

This also explains something about the house, something Aura herself spoke of in her last journal entry: that there was an overwhelming sadness to it, something bittersweet that didn’t seem to belong there. If the path itself sent a shiver down our spines, and there always seem to be something lurking between the trees when we looked, inside the house we felt… safe. Dani even recalled feeling this sudden pang of sadness which she described as being ‘like a mother losing her child’. At the time, I laughed it off, told her she was just missing her cat, but after Antonio told us the tale, we… froze in dread, to be honest.

Energy like this is nothing new—the spirits of those who died inside the place always leave some speck of it behind, and we feel it like something external. We thought it strange at first because no Maduro had died inside the home that we knew of: Francisco at the hospital, Claudia at the local market, Samuel and Aura vanishing, and as far as we could tell, with Francisco also vanished, Amelia died while in mass of a heart attack. But it started making sense then: the only people who had died inside the house were not members of the Maduro. It was their pain we felt, and consequently, that Aura felt.

Dani and I weren’t sure what to expect of this, but it certainly explained why all those who had tried finding the clearing described by Aura never did—because they went around the two pillars, not through them. We had come all this way to find answers, so we figured there was only one thing to do.

I think we were naïve. We believed the tale was only a tale, and if any of it was to be taken for truth, it was certainly aimed at the cursed—the Maduros, not us, mere wanderers. But… we were wrong.

I took a recorder and a camera with me, while Dani took a photographic digital camera. For a while, we stood before the two pillars in silence and tried telling ourselves it was fine, perfectly fine, it was just a piece of local folklore based on Catholic devotion of two women, one a sinner, the other scorned. We’d heard many like that, and it seemed improbable the clearing even existed in the first place. So we held our hands—though why, I can’t exactly tell—and we leapt over the chain.

Every single one of Aura’s words travelled back to me. She was right. It was… daunting. Shapes hovered about, escaping my sight constantly, caught only from the corner of my eyes, and the dense vegetation closed around us. There was a horrible silence all around—more of an absence of sound—and we couldn’t even hear our own heart beats. The sun struggled to transverse the heavy foliage, and the air was thick and prickly. Dani snapped a few photographs as we trod on, but it was clear she was aiming at nothing specifically, just frantically moving her camera with a gasp and a jitter, frightened by a sudden movement from which came no sound. Even the snapping twigs and crunching leaves beneath our feet seemed muffled.

After thirty minutes, we stopped. Before us, the space opened widely, and trees sprouted from a bald batch of white and brown earth, entwining together above our heads like a gable roof. Dani stopped, her camera frozen between her hands, but her eyes were glazed into a sort of mania I had never seen before. With a shuddering finger, she pressed the shutter, but didn’t look into the screen, just ahead—contemplating, focused. Her arm lowered then, and I called her name; Dani jittered, blinked and looked down at the photo she had just snapped—frozen and pale.

When she showed me photos, my heart sank to my feet. Every single one of them was so corrupted almost all of them were unusable, but a few of them showed something buried beneath the static corruption. Shadows, figures, silhouettes. A pair of baby feet. Faces, hollow and daunting, frozen into a scream.

I pressed my recorder, but it didn’t seem to work; Dani pressed some buttons on her camera but suddenly halted, and her eyes—glazed once more—cast curiously all around. She gave a step forward, and another, and a few more—all considerate and cautious, though they grew, and unexpectedly, she took her backpack off her shoulders and threw it on the ground; she dashed ahead, her hands diving deep into a bush, rummaging through meshes of thorny foliage, and a faint yet vivid laughter escaped her lips.

I called her in screams, but she did not react. At this point, I was terrified and could not move; all I could see was Dani dashing back and forth, stacking sticks under her arms and wiping the centre of the clearing clean, hands covered in white and brown dust—until I realized what she was doing.

I remembered Aura’s account. She was building something.

I shouted again, telling her to stop, as loud as I could, but this time, I couldn’t freeze. I ran to her, wrapped my arms around her when she began to struggle, and with all my might, held her steady, face buried against my chest. She smacked her fists at me, but I persisted, desperately trying to keep her still. I thought then that all it mattered was that she wouldn’t see, she wouldn’t look at the clearing, at that spot where she was feeling somehow compelled to build. I closed my eyes shut, and wind gushed past—no sound still. And I waited.

I opened my eyes first, didn’t let Dani move, and froze again. Before me was a house—small, no higher than a meter and a half tall—made of something white, polished and scraped to precision. Bone.

Stood in a moment of suspension, my arms relaxed, and my fingers stopped gripping Dani’s clothes. Her body shuddered against mine, and her breath raged louder than the gushing wind around us, louder than any sound in that deathly and hollow clearing. Then, she screeched—a gasp that grew in timbre, a rising cadence that somehow seemed to come far slower than I took notice of, and she jolted herself. In a motion faster than I could have anticipated, her body escaped my grip, and she ran—she ran away from me, towards the bone house that rose before us, without really having actually seen it before turning her head with resolution and dashing away.

I tried to grab her, but she escaped; her hands smacked open at the door, and on her knees, she crawled; her panting, heavy and desperate, came like an omen. She was famished for whatever exited beyond it, and I tried to stop—I screamed and ran after her, but she was elusive and fast and set on getting through that door and into the darkness that sucked her in and in and in—and I was too slow. Inside the door, nothing but blackness—swirling, consuming blackness—and as Dani entered the daunting absence of it, she evaporated from her very being. It was like watching someone being devoured by an invisible mouth that swallowed her into nothingness, and her every gesture came with so much reassurance I finally understood what Pilar Deocampo had warned: one always stays behind to suffer.

It wasn’t just meant for the Maduros; it was meant for anyone who desecrate her grave.

When the door slammed shut with a hollow thud, I collapsed to my knees and screamed her name, over and over until nothing existed inside my throat but the soreness of my efforts and the saltiness of my tears. There was not a sound. The entire space around me was engulfed in nothingness. I couldn’t see nor hear Dani anywhere, and before me, the house made of bone appeared far too small for her body to fit inside.

I curled up, and though the terror that had consumed me and made my heart pound so harshly my chest hurt, I couldn’t move. I grabbed the camera, but was unable to turn it off. By my side, Dani’s backpack laid forgotten, tossed aside in a rush. I had studied the Maduro’s case to the smallest detail and I knew she wouldn’t come back. And I finally understood what it was that had consumed Aura in such overwhelming grief, enough to make her leave her home and never come back, until her father passed away and she realized—she must have—he too crossed the space between the two pillars. I finally understood what madness had possessed Amelia after her grim crimes.

It was knowing they weren’t dead, but sentenced to absolute nothingness, left to hover in a sea of absence and non-existence, spiralling down to possible madness. It was knowing they were better off dead.

I blinked my teary eyes open, cold and trembling, hands gripping the camera, and saw something. The house was still there, but next to it, someone: sitting on the ground, back turned to me, legs crossed and shoulders slouched forward, clothes ragged and torn, and in their long auburn hairs, small leaves and twigs were caught in the slender threads. Instinctively, I turned the camera and snapped a quick picture—but the figure didn’t move.

My eyes didn’t move away from the strange figure in front of me, and as I put the camera down, I realized it could only be one person.

“Aura Maduro?”

Her head rose slowly, as if she tried to have a look at the skies, hairs swaying behind her, but she said nothing. Then, I felt it again—that same pressing sadness we always felt inside the house, like a mass of air that swarmed around me, emanating from the spectre before me.

“Where is Dani?�� My voice was low, considerate; I looked at the figure and I still saw who I had seen in Aura Maduro the moment I had arrived there—a victim, as much as I was now. “Can you please bring her back to me?”

Immobile. Time passed, though I couldn’t measure, couldn’t tell how long it had been, if it was night or day though the sun existed somewhere in the sky—of that, I was sure. Then, her voice floated in the air, a ragged tune, husky and dragged, but frayed by an overwhelming agony that consumed me like a gust of wind.

“She has to stay.”

My breath rose and whipped the back of my throat; I moved restlessly, but couldn’t leave the small batch of earth on which I knelt. “Please,” I pleaded. “Please, just let me take her home.”

“El sangre marca la tierra,” she spoke, “y sus huesos son nuestro mausoleo.”

“I know what Pilar did to your family.” Every word seemed senseless to me, as if I read from a book: reciting a prayer in order to save myself, though unsure I was there was any salvation left. I wanted to say more, let her know that I understood that misery that encompassed us both, that exuded out of her like a cold wind—but every word died.

“One always stays,” she said, “and the other feels pain. But I look after them.”

I felt my chest tear open in that same sweeping sadness—it was something carved deep into her words, something instilled in the worn-out tone of her voice.

“I look after them,” she continued—and in between her words, a dissonance came: of a woman that wept in silence, the distortion of a throat filled with swallowed tears, “so they don’t feel so lost.”

Defeated, I looked down at the earth beneath me, at last understanding what never-ending horror Pilar Deocampo had cast on the world, that projected grief that would never cease, a continuous cycle of pain and terror—meant forever to steal and burden those who lived, who came out unscathed, to unfathomable pain.

I thought there was something I had to say, though I sincerely don’t know what my reason was: “What can I do?”

Her hand waved in the air, and from the ratty long-sleeves of her jersey, a slender finger, bony and pale, pointed to her left. I noticed there was a watch, glass cracked and black bracelet, with gold rims around. “Take him,” she said. “Let Sam rest.”

The order was immediate, and somehow, I understood. I stood, paced slowly towards the area she had pointed at—below a tall tree, at a small mound covered in pine needles and dried leaves, a batch of golden-brown amidst a soft green. I knelt, pushed the leaves aside, dug my fingers into the earth, and shuddered at the touch of something cold, harsh and angular. A hand, made of bones entirely, no flesh left, emerged—and when I understood at last what she demanded of me, I nearly vomited—sure I was completely incapable of completing the task.

I didn’t look back; short of breath, lungs collapsing at every sweeping movement of my hand, I didn’t rest. When I was done, a putrid smell filled my nose and I covered it with one arm; I ran back then, to Dani’s abandoned backpack, and rummaged for something useful enough for the rest of the deed. We had both brought our sleeping bags, expecting to perhaps spend the night to collect some evidence—so I unrolled Dani’s, pulled the zipper open, and with a force I hadn’t felt before in my life, unsure still where it came from—an urgency of survival, perhaps, or something outside of myself, cast upon me by Aura Maduro—I grabbed the pile of bones and put them inside the sleeping bag.

She was still there when I was done, her hand resting on her lap again. I stopped, stared at her with a cold shudder—whether of dread or something else, I can’t say anymore. Aura Maduro—what was left of her—simply sat in contemplation, her head still raised as she stared at something ahead, and only then did her words echo in my brain in full meaning. I grabbed my backpack, put the sleeping bag carefully on Dani’s, and stared at her. I had almost forgotten about the bone house.

“Do not return,” she said. “You won’t resist next time.”

Somehow, there was an unpronounced message in the air, something that wafted by like a tune carried from the distance, something you only notice when you stop and listen carefully: I am sorry you will have to suffer like we all did. I am sure that was it. Somehow, the precision existed in the tone of her voice, exuding out of her like a radio wave meant to be captured; somehow, I knew.

I walked back—ran back—and once I leapt over the chain, almost instantly, the air was weightless, soft and comforting. But everything else—my entire existence—began to press against my shoulders into a burden that was only now beginning to emerge. Guilt. Terror. Sadness. Crushing, overwhelming sadness—and Dani’s inexistence, her sentence into nothingness, collapsed over me.

It goes without saying I never saw her again.

I buried Samuel Maduro in the backyard of the house, and with nothing to mark his grave, I simply left, on the mound of earth, a framed picture I had found in the house—of Samuel and Aura. In it, she was wearing a wristwatch, black bracelet with golden rims.

I left and never went back. Though sometimes there is a burning wish to grab my things and drive until I see them again, the two pyramidal pillars with that creaking chain between, I never did. I think of Aura’s words, her blooming sadness, and something about it breaks my heart to pieces. The last of a cursed family, unknown of what she carried. On the night she had finally returned to her brother, in 1983, she had sacrificed far more than I could have anticipated. Cast into nothingness forever, sentenced to exist in a limbo of non-existence, forever imprisoned in the blackness of the bone house, she had willingly become a guardian. A watchful soul over those who fell victim to Pilar’s treachery—unable to put an end to it, she had at least given herself to the chance of easing their burden, making that consuming nothingness a bit more bearable. The core of it is, however, what it means to the two last members of the Maduro family.

I was never religious. I still am not. But they were stark Catholics, born and raised between catechesis and Saturday mass. For them, being sentenced to a limbo that is neither death nor life, neither Heaven nor Hell, and something far worse than purgatory… It must be horrifying.

I destroyed my camera and the footage, as well as the tape recorder I took with me, though there was nothing in it. I couldn’t bear, however, to destroy Dani’s digital camera. It was a piece of her, and every little thing that attested to her existence, I just… held on to it.

It was only months later that I turned that camera on again. To my surprise, there was a picture I had never seen—the last one I had taken, of Aura Maduro herself.

I can’t describe it. I will leave it to your eyes to see what lacks words entirely. Perhaps you can understand what it that I felt that afternoon.

I wish I could tell Dani how sorry I am.

________

𝙻𝚞𝚒𝚜 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚓𝚘 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚞𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝙽𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟸𝟶𝚝𝚑, 𝟸𝟶𝟶𝟷. 𝙷𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚝 𝚑𝚒𝚖𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚍. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚔, 𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝙼𝚛 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚓𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙼𝚜 𝚍𝚎 𝚕𝚊 𝙿𝚊𝚣.

𝙳𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚎𝚕𝚊 𝚍𝚎 𝚕𝚊 𝙿𝚊𝚣 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍.

𝙰 𝚋𝚘𝚍𝚢 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚢𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎, 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚍 𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚝, 𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚑𝚕𝚢 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚊 𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚊𝚐. 𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚝’𝚜 𝚂𝚊𝚖𝚞𝚎𝚕 𝙼𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚛𝚘 𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚎𝚍.

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚙𝚑𝚘𝚝𝚘𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝙼𝚛 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚓𝚘’𝚜 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚊𝚜 𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎.

_________________

Wordtober Day 1: Ring

Wordtober Day 2: Mindless

Wordtober Day 3: Bait

Wordtober Day 4: Freeze

Wordtober Day 5: Build I

#wordtober #writing #my writing #creative writing #fiction #my wordtober #ITS LATE and FAKE but hey #I am trying to be better at short stories so if i get a bit overly excited this is why #bc i really NEED to have more short stories

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marvelmadam08 · 5 years

Text

The Princess & The Nomad (7)

With your hypnosis gone and your identity fully known, you and Steve reunite and pick you right where your left off. But with The Avengers disbanded and a new danger looming in the future, what’ll keep everything from falling apart?

Summary: You find out that Tony’s been lying to you since you’ve returned. And find a possible lead to Steve’s location.

Warnings: Mild violence, betrayal

A/N: After seeing Endgame this whole story is gonna take a sudden turn of events. Who’s seen Endgame? There will be spoilers in further chapters.

"You lied to me!" You threw a fifty pound dumbbell at Tony, he caught it before it could hit him in the head. He was armed in the suit before you even left the venue "You said you didn't know where he was!"

"I don't know where he is!"

"You have his number." You jumped over the stack of weights to tackled him down to the floor, but he backs out of the way in time to miss your fist. The floor, however, has a newly formed crack in it now "Don't lie to me Stark, where is he?"

"That number is for emergencies only."

"Then you better call it back, because you're gonna need some serious help once I'm done with you." Blue smoke rises from your hands and you start to bring the other iron suits to life.

One by one they closed in around Tony. He blasted through one of the suits whole holding off another.

"Where is he?"

"I told you already. He only gave me that number for emergencies, I don't know where he is. He never told me, I just know that he doesn't stay in the same place for too long."

"But you can find him, track him down using that phone."

"I can't track him the tech is too ancient." One of the suits grabbed Tony from behind, and slammed him to the floor. It pulled back, opening it’s hand, powering up a blast from its palm “(Y/N)!”

You pushed your arms apart, shutting the suits down and the power in the house. The both of you stood in the dark for a moment, Tony working to catch his breath. When the lights came back on your cheeks were wet, and Tony pulled away from the suit that collapsed on top of him.

“I’m sorry- I went too far.” You sniffled and drop to the floor in full on sobs

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lie to you. I just- wanted to keep you safe. But we aren’t gonna get anywhere by fighting, I’ve lost enough family already.”

"Understood." You nod "We're not losing anymore family."

That night you and Tony stayed on opposite sides of the house, and continued to keep to yourself majority of the following day. You staying in your room, while he worked in the garage and if you were to cross paths you shares a simple 'hey, how's it going' to which the other person replied 'fine'. If you didn't know any better you'd think you and Tony were married.

Around six, while you were watching the news once more, Tony came up from the garage, a less hostile demeanor between the two of you.

"Got a second?" It was rhetorical "I gotta head back to New York soon."

"Okay, I'll be ready when we go. Not like I have anything to pack." You tell him

"No, Ross is sniffing around the compound for you now. And since you're against The Accords, and technically an illegal alien." Tony sighed "You gotta stay here while I'm gone."

"By myself?"

"I would check in on you. And I'd come back within the next month or so." He tells you "But if you got thrown in prison-"

"I'd break out, go to Norway and hide out with Odin until it's safe."

"Can't do that kid. He wasn't playing around when he said it was especially made for you. Remember back when Banner ran all your samples, there was still a few vials of your blood left behind." He paused "They built a cell, designed to inhibit your powers. And if you managed to get out of that, there are several things keyed in to your DNA that could possibly kill you before you gain your strength back."

"And who says working for the government isn't fun." you roll your eyes

"(Y/N), this is the safest place for you right now."

"Tony, there's never a safe place for me. Not New York, not Asgard. Like you said, I'm a beacon for bad." You look down at your hands "No one even wants me around, that's probably why Thor stopped visiting me. Maybe it's best if no one never saw me again."

"Hey, look at me. (Y/N), look at me." He turned your chin up "The bad things don't stop just because you're not around, if anything they just get worse when you ignore 'em. I can't convince you to stay, at least not for me. But do it for Steve. Stay in a safe spot for him, and I'll figure out a way to get you two back to each other."

You threw your arms around Tony's shoulders for a hug. "Thank you."

"We're family, but if your dad shows up first I'm sending you with him." He pats you on the back

"Fair enough." You laughed softly "And I promise I won't have any wild Asgardian parties while you're gone."

"Exactly, wait until I get back." He stood giving you a light smile "Watch the time will fly by."

***

"Are we recording FRIDAY?"

"Yes Princess (Y/N)."

"Just (Y/N) is fine." You look directly into the camera in the upper corner of the kitchen "Okay, day twelve in my lonely mansion series I pose the question: can I teach an iron suit how to cook? I guess it'd be easier if I myself knew how, but trial and error right?" You clapped and bounce over to the kitchen counter next to an iron suit that you performed a bit of magic on. Another stood by with a fire extinguisher.

The days weren't flying by as fast as Tony promised but you found small ways to entertain yourself without checking the news every ten minutes. Or meditating to check in on Heimdall.

"Okay we'll start simple, spaghetti and meatballs. We have ground beef, breadcrumbs, I read somewhere that breadcrumbs makes it taste better. And seasonings, I didn't know which ones to use so we're gonna do a bit of all of them."

"I could pull up a full recipe for the dish." FRIDAY suggested strongly

"Nope trial and error, FRIDAY. If I don't fail how will I know when I've succeeded?" You start throwing random seasonings in with the ground beef and breadcrumbs. Pepper, dried mustard, cinnamon, salt, ginger and chili powder just to name a few then push the bowl to the iron suit "Now mix."

It followed your orders, while you filled a pot with water for noodles. Out of habit you gave the TV a quick glance, a blurred photo of a woman with Wanda's features was on the screen.

"FRIDAY unmute the TV."

'...witch, a Sokovian refugee known to be in alliance with Steve Rogers, formerly known as Captain America, was allegedly spotted just outside of Denmark. Maximoff, along with Rogers, has been in hiding since the mass prison break. Possessing powers of hypnosis, and mind control, Maximoff is considered to be a weapon of mass destruction. If encountered, we warn that you call the authorities immediately-'

"Princess, I have an incoming call from Mr. Stark." FRIDAY announces

"Okay."

Tony's face pops up on the screen, muting the news again.

"Why is my iron suit wearing an apron?" He asked, watching the iron suit slide several meatballs into a frying pan

"He's cooking." You move over to the screen on the fridge "Have you seen the news? They're calling Wanda dangerous, a weapon."

"I did, that's why I called. Had to make sure you weren't escaping to Denmark. The media likes to twist things, matter of fact I wouldn't be surprised if it was a set up to get Rogers to go after her."

"If it is-"

"Then you need to stay hidden. I know you can handle yourself, but if it's a setup then you're the jackpot. Word will get to Rogers and then things will get really ugly."

You hopped onto the counter, somewhat oblivious to the meatballs still in the pan behind you. "I just feel like I should do something other than learn how to cook with the iron suits."

"And you will when the time comes. Until then- watch the meatballs!"

You turned in time for the second iron suit to spray the extinguisher onto the stove, putting out the smoking meatballs.

"Trial and error, just like I said."

"I swear you're gonna give me a heart attack, stay safe and don't burn down the house."

When the call ends, the TV pops back up. A girl with braids and a wide smile is on, her accent is heavy but she spoke clearly.

‘Wakanda's technology is far more ahead than anything Americans have experienced. That's why my people hid it from the world. My brother, King T'Challa, learned that by standing by and doing nothing we become apart of the problem. That is the purpose for our new outreach program.’ She told the interviewer

‘I must say Princess Shuri, there are some extremely outrageous devices you have here.’

The camera pans across the tech lab, showing off pieces of nanotech, virtual built cars surrounding seats made of glittering dirt and hoverboards that actually hover. You were fully intrigued by all of it.

‘Now correct me if I'm wrong, but you build your equipment from vibranium, the strongest metal on earth.’

‘Yes, all of our technical resources come from vibranium, however we are still debating the safest way to introduce it to the rest of the world.’ Shuri explained

‘And how do you feel knowing that former war hero turned rogue soldier, Steve Rogers, once used a shield made of vibranium?’ The interviewer practically shoved the microphone back towards Shuri

‘That is not relevant to the progress we've made in the program. Captain Rogers stood for something he believed in, and I believe he does what he feels is right.’ Shuri slightly narrowed her eyes at the reporter ‘If you'll excuse me, I have to return to my lab.’

She turned before the reporter could continue with her questions. You grinned at Shuri's attitude towards the reporter. It was one of the first time you heard someone other than Tony say something positive about Steve since your return.

"FRIDAY, pull up the address to the Wakanda outreach program."

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scoutception · 5 years

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Final Fantasy I review: a pragmatic evolution

Final Fantasy; one of the largest and most influential game franchises out there, and my personal favorite video game series. It’s kind of surreal to think that it started out as what was basically an unlicensed Dungeons & Dragons adaptation from a failing company that only approved it to try to top Dragon Quest, like so many others back then. For all the faults it had, like being so utterly buggy that it artificially increased difficulty through things like mages not actually being able to gain more power for their magic, and several spells not even working, period, it pulled through with an innovative team building system, a great soundtrack that would help cement Nobou Uematsu as one of the great video game soundtrack composers, and a much more developed exploration system compared to Dragon Quest, giving you access to vehicles like an airship. For this review, however, I shall be reviewing the PSP version of Final Fantasy I, which is quite a different experience, for reasons I shall tackle shortly. Otherwise, in we go.

Story

The story is about a world home to 4 elemental crystals of earth, fire, water, and wind, which once blessed the land and its inhabitants with peace. However, the Four Fiends, the Lich, Marilith, the Kraken, and Tiamat, have since corrupted the crystals, depriving the world of their blessings and causing the appearance of monsters across the land. Despite the bleakness, however, the people keep faith in one thing: a prophecy stating that four Warriors of Light will appear one day to restore the crystals and defeat the Four Fiends. 400 years after the first of the fiends appeared, the Warriors of Light finally arrive at the town of Cornelia, where they are tasked by its king to save his daughter, Princess Sarah, from Garland, a traitorous knight, who has taken her to the Chaos Shrine. Afterwards, the king builds a bridge in gratitude, allowing them to skip over to the next town and beat up some pirates for their ship. Most of the “plot” of this game takes the form of fetching key items and chains of deals that stand in the way of you actually taking the fight to the Fiends, with the worst taking place right after getting the ship, involving almost every single area you can even visit at that time. It was probably a bit more interesting at the time, especially compared to Dragon Quest, but it’s a huge drag nowadays.

After killing all of the Fiends, the game decides to pull a twist: as it turns out, an evil force 2000 years in the past is still stealing the power of the crystals, originating from the Chaos Shrine. After traveling through a time portal, and killing all the Four Fiends again, the game pulls a bigger twist: they find Garland at the bottom of the shrine, having been sent back in time by the Fiends. Using their power to transform into the monster Chaos, he then used his power to send them into the present, creating some time loop that allows him to live forever. After defeating him, the Warriors of Light are returned to the present, having retroactively prevented any of the disasters from taking place, even ensuring Garland would never betray Cornelia. Doing this erases their memories of their journey, but the legend of it still lives on.... somehow. It’s not exactly a deep plot, but it can still be decently entertaining to go through, especially with the vastly improved translation of the later versions, which gives quite a bit of dialogue a surprising amount of charm.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Final Fantasy I is about the most standard NES era RPG you could get. You travel on a world map, exploring towns and dungeons and getting into random encounters, with the battle system also being a very standard turn based system, selecting all your party’s actions at the beginning of each turn, and having choices of attacking, using magic, using an item, defending, or attempting to escape. You gain the use of a ship, a canoe, and eventually an airship which pretty much invalidates any other form of travel for navigating the world map, though the ship can only dock at certain spots, and the airship can only land on grass tiles. This can pose a problem to a new player, as the continents are large and often force you to land farther away from your goal than you might expect. This is doubly bad as the game initially seems to lack a map feature, which can make navigation very difficult sense the map loops when you reach an edge of it. While there is actually a map you can access on the world map, which even displays the locations you’ve discovered, you can only bring it up by hitting a button combination the game never outright tells you, only being mentioned, and backwards, at that, by some brooms in an early area (it’s ok, it’s the home of a witch), which could be passed off as random nonsense if you’re not in the mood to think laterally.

The most interesting gameplay feature FF1 has to offer is its party building system. Instead of just gaining predetermined characters as you go on like, say, MOTHER, or only having one character, like Dragon Quest itself, you have 4 party members all the time that you select at the start of the game, picked from 6 different classes: the Warrior, the very standard physical fighter with great attack and defense, whose only real downside is being very reliant on equipment, the Monk, who is pretty much the opposite of the fighter, being a physical fighter who specializes in fighting unarmed, to the point of equipment actually lowering his attack and defense after a while, making him very cheap to use, and very broken after the first few levels. There’s also the Thief, which is bad on defense, but is good for attacking and has superior speed. The second half of the classes are magically focused. The White Mage specializes in healing and support magic, though they also have offense in the form of the Dia line of spells, which is effective against undead, and Holy, one of the major attacking spells of the series. The Black Mage, conversely, focuses on offensive magic, though they also have access to some very good buff, though they’re perhaps the most vulnerable of any class, with abysmal HP growth, at that. Lastly, there’s the Red Mage, the jack of all trades, master of none. They can use swords, have good defense, and access to both white and black magic, though they’re worse at all of those than the classes that focus on them individually, and can’t use most of the later game spells or equipment, though since you’re stuck with your chosen classes all the way, they’re never an outright burden, and plenty of people find them great regardless.

Aside from leveling up from fighting random encounters, you power up your party by buying equipment, or finding it in dungeons or other areas, and buying spells from towns. There’s 8 spell tiers in all, with all having 4 different spells per tier for both black and white magic. However, the spellcasters can only know up to three spells for each tier, with the red mage having to use those spaces for both white and black magic. Some tiers have better spells than others, with most spells more complex than simple healing or damage usually not being worthwhile. However, a lot of spells and equipment available around the time you get the airship is not actually usable by your party members, and this is because of a sidequest offered by Bahamut, the king of the dragons, to go within the Citadel of Trials and retrieve a rat tail. Doing so will cause for your party members to class change, aka basically promote into stronger classes. The Warrior becomes the Knight, the Monk becomes the Master, the Thief becomes the Ninja, the White Mage becomes the White Wizard, the Black Mage becomes the Black Wizard, and the Red Mage becomes the Red Wizard. This grants them better stat growth and access to stronger equipment and spells, and the Knight and Ninja gain white and black magic, respectively.

The NES version of FF1 is infamously difficult, but over the many ports, starting with the Playstation version, and most notably advanced with the GBA version, the game became much, much easier. Whether it be the fixing of damaging bugs or the ability to save anywhere instead of the world map, which, granted, was only sensible considering portable console, to switching the spell system from each tier only being usable a certain amount of times before needing recharging at an inn, something borrowed from Dungeons & Dragons, to switching to a much more traditional MP system, to just a general rebalancing of the classes, it makes for a much easier game to get through. Too easy, honestly. You gain experience much, much faster, so as long as you fight the majority of the encounters you get into, you’ll quickly end up overpowered. It’s very easy to reach level 99, and much of the best equipment is easy to get. However, I don’t think the easier difficulty, and the general simplicity of the gameplay, are necessarily bad things. On the contrary, it makes the game very easy to pick up and play through, and it’s surprisingly fun despite how simple the combat is. This, I think, is the saving grace of the game, and even if that doesn’t satisfy you, the bonus content added in the later ports are the highlights of the game.

The GBA version added four bonus dungeons collectively called the Soul of Chaos, unlocked after each Fiend you defeat. These dungeons consist of a set amount of different, and often wacky, floors that load in a randomized order. While the first two dungeons are fairly standard and short, stuff begins picking up with the third, and the fourth is a 40 floor gauntlet of fun and creative little challenges and maps. In addition, each dungeon contains cameo bosses from Final Fantasy 3-6, complete with remixes of their boss themes for the PSP versions. These include Shinryu and Omega, who are the hardest bosses in the GBA version, and Gilgamesh, one of the most famous characters in the series. All in all, these dungeons are actually really fun to go through, as long as you’re properly leveled, and are definitely refreshing compared to how most RPGs handle bonus dungeons. On that subject, however, is the Labyrinth of Time, added in the PSP version. It consists of time puzzles, 30 in all, though you only do so many in each run, that ends with a fight against a newly added superboss, and the usurper of the title of hardest boss in the game, Chronodia. The catch is that Chronodia has 8 different variations, with different rewards and bestiary entries for each, and which one you encounter depends on how many puzzles you finish in time, and how many you only complete after running out of time, causing a fog to roll in that saps you of your HP and MP, and allows random encounters while in the puzzle areas. While creative, the Labyrinth of Time is overall maddeningly difficult and not fun. This is one to skip if you value your sanity.

Sound & Graphics

The graphics of FF1, again, judging the PSP version, are actually really good. The characters look distinct, and the monster graphics especially are great, and represent Yoshitaka Amano’s designs for them very, very well.

The areas are also surprisingly well designed. From the ruins of the Chaos Shrine, and the complete version of it as the final dungeon, to the underwater ruins that house the lair of the Kraken, to, most notably, the flying fortress of the Lufenian civilization, home to Tiamat and far advanced compared to all the other locations, especially in the original NES version, where it’s a space station, of all things.

As for the music, it holds up amazingly. Aside from many of the most famous themes of the series, such as the Preude, themes like the town theme and the Chaos Shrine theme are amazingly atmospheric, and it overall still stands out as one of the best soundtracks in the series to me. Even if he wasn’t involved in the rearranging for the remakes, this was a significant step for composer Nobou Uematsu.

Conclusion

Despite how fond I am of this game, my recommendation rating depends. If you’re looking for a nice, easy to pick up RPG, perhaps as an introduction to the series, or to RPGs in general, I would give this a recommended. If you’re looking for much past that, however, I would give it a not recommended. As transformed as it is, it is still a very old game underneath, with unclear goals, very barebones gameplay systems, and with all the innovation it did have swept away over the years. Still, if nothing else, it’s a very respectable start to Final Fantasy. Until next time.

-Scout

#final fantasy #gaming #long post #game review #jrpg

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calvin-af-crone · 5 years

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Giant Deconstructed

This video is quite simply an artistic masterpiece on multiple levels. If you haven’t yet, I urge you to view the video in expanded view on a big monitor to get the full effect. Most viewers immediately feel emotionally affected & recognize its greatness w/o understanding why or how they’ve been affected. Allow me to break it down for you. Understanding how Emil Nava’s magic tricks are done should heighten instead of diminishing your appreciation.

On a meta-narrative level, the story being illustrated is a classic Hero’s Journey. A boy suffers despair over his sickly mother. A mysterious deity summons him into a magical realm. By determination & perseverance, he confronts his personal deity & receives spiritual wisdom. Then by the power of music & dance, he attains his inner strength. This is essentially the narrative told by the lyrics of the song & the music builds to a emotional peak before shifting into a potent primitive chant ending w/ triumphant affirmations.

One of Nava’s favorite visual tricks is subliminal messaging. These visual affects flash an image at the viewer so quickly the effect of the image slips beneath conscious awareness & triggers a subconscious emotional response or unconscious reflex. Diabolical subliminals last less than a fraction of a second. The viewer is entirely unaware of receiving them & these can be regarded as an attempt at mind control. Putting them in commercials is actually illegal.

Nava’s subliminals last almost a full second. You do see them but aren’t given enough time to consciously figure out what you’ve seen. However, your subconscious definitely does see the content of the image & responds emotionally. Sometimes, he aims deeper & sets off an unconscious instinctive reflex. All of these flash edits are benignly intended to heighten your experience during the video & subtly manipulate your emotions. On a practical level, the feeling that you’ve missed something tends to generate a million views in a day.

Nava also heavily uses symbolism to sneak resonant ideas into your viewing experience. I’ll deal w/ examples as they arise in the breakdown. But, let’s start w/ the surface imagery & what it shows our consciously aware minds. Nava quickly establishes a real life scenario that most viewers immediately understand. A boy living w/ his dysfunctional mother suffers the burden of responsibility all children feel for a sickly parent. He’s going thru his ordinary life carrying a weight of despair. The scenes are cast in shrouded dismal tones of blue & gray like the boy’s outlook on life. He’s even dressed in blue—a color symbolically associated w/ sadness.

Then we’re only 9 seconds into the video when Nava hits us w/ a what-the-fuck-was-that flash of red expertly timed to hit simultaneously w/ the strike of a sharply high-pitched chord. That timing is another layer of perfection thru-out this short film. Every action is synchronized like in a ballet to land w/ the beat, flow on the bass line, or enforce primary chords in the music.

I had to adjust the brightness of the image to identify feet dancing in mud puddles. Red symbolizes passion & energy. Consciously, we see the red flash as a burst of energy & hope. Unconsciously, we’re getting a flash forward & are being prepared for Dance Music to literally change the boy’s life.

The next red flash forward hits at the 0:25 mark, shows rave dancers, & lasts long enough to actually be perceived unless you blink & miss it.

On the surface, we see the boy looking at a photograph of a plant & that’s overt foreshadowing. Then at 0:33 thru 0:37, we’re hit w/ a major scene shift at the very moment Rag’n’BoneMan first declares, “I am a giant!”

In sharp contrast to the boy’s life, we’re transported to an idyllic lake in a misty forest & see a figure dressed in sun yellow standing in a boat. Bright pure yellow symbolizes the sun. Consciously you think “oh, there’s Calvin”. Subconsiocusly you recognize a solar deity. This scene shift establishes an alternate location in the narrative.

Then we’re back to scenes of the boy’s dismal & at 0:43, we’re back at the lake & stay for an 2 entire seconds, long enough to watch birds flying from left to right over the left shoulder of the figure in yellow.

Back w/ the boy, we see more scenes of his unhappiness & note his mother’s problem is drug addiction or she’s chronically ill & requires medication. He is shown sitting morosely on the back of a park bench & Nava pulls off a lovely example of symbolic visual echoing. The birds that flew in the scene at the lake seem to arrive from left to right over the left shoulder of the boy & land in front of him. You can see this clearly in the video but its impossible to see in this still.

Go watch the video again because one second after being visited by the birds at 0:51, the boy is motivated to move w/ a sense of purpose. We get quick scenes from home w/ his mother now bathed in a warm, hopeful glow interspersed w/ action scenes as he goes thru a gate & starts running. His face shows determination. He is not running away from his problems. He is running towards... something. Just when we start to wonder, “where’s he going,” the scenes quickly cut back & forth between the man in the boat & the boy’s effort.

From 1:17 thru 1:21, there’s a scene at the lake that made me bark out a laugh the first time I saw it. Up until this moment the narrative has been rooted in reality. Now it’s surreal! If you missed the clue of the birds being sent to summon the boy, if you thought the man in the boat was only DJ Calvin Harris, this scene ought to startle you. Fish leap out of the lake in response to a god of Nature!

At 1:21 thru 1:28, the camera pans over & into a forest. We see a doe lift her head at a sound & the boy is seen running as fast as he can into a misty magical realm. There is nothing real about this! The boy could not have run far enough to leave a city & enter a real forest. It’s physically impossible, even for someone in good shape, to continue running a peak speed for miles.

Again the narrative shifts back & forth between the god & the running boy. The god takes off his yellow jacket to dig up a potato. The boy keeps running. The god is gathering herbs & mushrooms, suddenly dressed like Prince Harry on a Nature ramble. What could be more magical than that? LOL! During the video, the unidentified deity goes thru five elegant costume changes. He’s not some hobo in the woods or a wild nature god like Pan. He looks like a British lord...

At 1:44, we are confronted by five riders on horseback coming straight at us & most viewers will feel deep emotion in response, maybe even a tiny surge of fear. Let’s pause for a moment to consider Nava’s peculiar affection for images of riders on horseback. He drops these symbols w/o any logical reason into videos every chance he gets to give viewers a cheap surge of vicarious exhilaration. Symbolically, seeing a person riding a galloping horse represents Power & Freedom. It is both a symbol of the human will triumphing over Nature & conversely the union of a horse & rider represent harmony with Nature.

In the same way no one taught you to leap away from the sound of a hissing snake, you have an instinctive reflex to seeing riders on horseback, especially if they are riding towards you. Aboriginal humans reverently made cave paintings of horses 25,000 years ago. Deeper than cultural symbolism, our response to riders on horseback is hardwired into our brains. This time—bless his heart—Nava staged a video that uses horseback riders for maximum effect to whip up anxiety & awe along w/ the music’s turbulence.

I probably don’t need to explain the symbolism of the riders wearing exercise togs exactly like the boy’s, except in red. Blue symbolizes water & sadness. Red is the color of fire & energy. These are the minions of the solar deity, elemental spirits like flames in the mist, & they come galloping like an opposing army. But we only have a few seconds of dread before we glimpse a rider in the mists going in the same direction as the running boy. In later scenes, it becomes clearer they are escorting or herding him towards his destination.

After these quick action cuts, at 1:53 we arrive at a static scene.

Your subconscious mind is fully capable of counting 12 passive creatures dressed in red & realizes the magical significance of the boy in blue adding up to 13 pairs of sneakers on the ground.

From 1:59 to 2:04, we are reminded of where the boy came from & at 2:05 we are reminded of his destination—the elegantly dressed deity. There are more frantic scenes of riders and the running boy between scenes from home, now glowing w/ yellow light then red-lit as the boy dances in his room. Did the kid even leave home? Is he tripping out in his room? Does it matter? I say it doesn’t because the effect on him will be the same.

There are more quick cuts between galloping & running interspersed w/ scenes starting at 2:28 of the deity by a campfire in the forest, preparing a feast for his guest. At 2:39, the five riders come out of the mists directly at us triggers another surge of dread. Supernatural pairs of eyes glow in the darkness behind them. This ominous visual moment is perfectly timed to coincide w/ the music shifting into a guttural tribal chant. The first time I heard the song I thought this part of it sounded like a primitive pagan ritual & the lyric was an incantation to disperse negativity.

Apparently the song gave Nava the same visual because here we are at 2:46 w/ the boy in a forest clearing in the dark of night w/ red-clad nature devas standing like flames. The five riders might represent the five sacred elements—earth, water, fire, air, & spirit. Over all this imagery, the music spins a potent magical spell. Rag‘n’BoneMan stands at the center of a circle of hay bales looking like a modern day skinhead shaman. Lightning flashes in the sky like supernatural energies are being aroused. At 2:49 for less than a second, an owl—symbol of wisdom—is shown on a tree branch. The horseback riders start circling the boy & fire spirits where they stand immobile.

For one second at 2:53, we get a subliminal of the deity—now wearing a garment stripped in blue, red & the purple of royalty—standing still beside a black stallion. Then for less than a second a red-hooded skull-like face impacts our subconsciousness before the boy stomps his foot on the ground at 2:55 when the compulsion to dance overcomes him.

To leaven the tension, Nava unfurls a Scottish flag for amusement as the boy’s dancing becomes positively demon-possessed. One second, he’s in the circle at night, the next second he’s in his room at home, & the next, he’s dancing in the day-lit forest. The imagery flows on w/ exhilarating & dizzying speed.

After another rabble-rousing wave of the Scottish flag, the action freezes at 3:11 in a tension-inducing static shot—the boy in blue faces off a girl in red w/ her cohort standing by & it’s raining! Emotion is literally drenching the scene! A subliminal of the boy’s mother & her medications flashes by then one second each of the boy looking thru flames & the deity solemnly regarding him. These two moments symbolize the transfer of power from the god to the boy.

It’s a relief when everyone starts dancing in the rain and stomping in mud puddles at 3:19. There are more quick cuts back & forth to the boy dancing in his room, the stand off w/ the girl as a lightning flash divides the sky, & the rave in full revel. A subliminal second of the boy & girl standing closer then another of him dancing in his room.

And we are suddenly transported back to the scene of the deity standing beside his horse for a full 2 seconds to absorb the fact that a light snow is falling. The god exists apart from the rave. The imagery cuts back to dancing bodies & horses rearing then the boy stands alone for a second at 3:37 in falling snow & this subliminally puts him on the same plane of existence as the deity. After another couple seconds of rave dancing, we get slightly over a second at 3:40 to fully absorb snow falling on the diety & his horse w/ a halo symbolizing divinity behind them.

The video concludes w/ 2 seconds of the boy facing the girl in the rain, one solid shot of Rag’n’BoneMan’s face w/ snowfall & then a bright flash of green light!

Thru-out the video, we’ve seen scenes tinted blue, yellow, & red but this is the only shot of bright green & it’s flashed at the viewer like a piecing ray. Green symbolizes the Earth, growth, & as the mid-point in the color spectrum it represents balance. Green is also the color of the metaphysical Healing Ray of Light. And that’s what it represents in the context of this narrative. Summoned & guided by a deity, empowered by the magic of music & dance, our boy hero has been healed of his malaise. In the last moments, we see him standing alone, strong & resolute, looking up in wonder as snowflakes drift down upon him. This is a lovely conclusion to the tale.

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creativity-is-rebellion · 5 years

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My Favourite Creepy and Abandoned Places From Around the World

Ever since I was a little girl, I have been obsessed with researching and reading about creepy and abandoned towns or places around the world, whether it was notorious (supposedly) haunted buildings, abandoned hotels and neighbourhoods, or forgotten cities and towns that now lie in decay. I think the appeal lay in the possibility of these places being more than what they seemed or what was readily apparent, a skewing of everyday realities into something atypically fascinating. I will share some of my favourite creepy and abandoned places from around the world below.

Centralia, Pennsylvania, USA

The inspiration for the video game and movie, ‘Silent Hill,’ Centralia today is a near-ghost town occupied by only 10 people (according to the 2017 census) due to a fire that has been burning beneath the borough since 1962. That year, there was a trash fire in a strip mine beneath the town which ignited a blaze that rages with the same fury today as it did 57 years ago. On a Sunday, the day before Memorial Day, the townsfolk had decided that the best method of taking care of the landfill trash heap before the festivities began was to set fire to it - a very common practice back then. The problem was that Centralia had been a major coal mining area in the past, and the landfill was located on top of an old coal mine.

They set the fire on May 25th. The fire latched onto an old coal seam from the mine and slowly spread throughout the mines under the city.Even though the visible flames were doused throughout the day on the 25th, more fires were spotted on May 29th. This pattern of putting out fires and finding them sprouting up again days later would continue for weeks. And when there weren’t visible fires, residents complained about the constant smell of smouldering trash and coal. Authorities tried for years to extinguish the fire. They pumped a slurry of ash, water, and rocks into the mine, but nothing worked. Eventually, they had no choice but to give up, and the city was condemned.

The Centralia mine fire led to the city being all but abandoned. Families were relocated to neighbouring towns. Today, the surface of the streets is no longer hot like it was previously, since the fire has moved down deeper into the earth. But smoke can still be found creeping out of the ground in places. The ground has been so weakened by half a century of fire that a sinkhole can open anywhere at any moment. Portions of Route 61 just outside the city had to be closed and redirected since it’s not safe to drive there. Furthermore, since the coal from the underground mines produces deadly carbon monoxide, the air isn’t safe to breathe in certain areas. Centralia today looks like it has been hit by the apocalypse. Some have gone so far as to describe the eerie place as hell on earth. There are cracking tar roads with smoke billowing out of them, graffiti on abandoned, derelict buildings and signs to warn people that the ground could swallow you at any minute. There are more graves at the cemetery than there are people in the town. Centralia now mostly attracts tourists who visit the abandoned highway, where many profanities and obscene pictures are spray painted.

Pripyat, Ukraine

Pripyat is a ghost town in the northern part of the Ukraine, near the Ukraine-Belarus border, famous for being the town closest to the No. 4 reactor involved in the Chernobyl disaster, the worst nuclear power plant disaster of all time. On the 26th of April, 1986, during a test to see how much power was needed to keep the No. 4 reactor operating in the event of a blackout, the No. 4 reactor exploded, causing a fire which released an extremely dangerous amount of radioactive chemicals in the air.

Pripyat, which was founded in 1970 and had a population of around 49,000 at the time of the explosion, was located only about three kilometres from the explosion. As a result, the entire city was forced to evacuate on April 27th, 1986, in just three hours. Over three decades later, this ghost town is a freeze-frame of the Soviet Union in 1986. Communist propaganda still hangs on walls, and personal belongings from the residents who lived there long ago still litter the streets and the abandoned buildings. The hammer and sickle emblems of communism still decorate lamp-posts, awaiting May Day celebrations that never took place, and toys are strewn about a school house where they were last dropped by children who are now fully grown. All clocks in the area are frozen at 11:55, the moment the electricity was cut.

The IAEA estimates that approximately 30 people were initially killed by the explosion and related radiation exposure, with several thousand additional deaths due to higher cancer incidence possible over the long term. As with any site where a number of people have lost their lives, Pripyat is rife with ghost stories. In 1997, Andrei Kharsukov, a visiting nuclear physicist, told one such story, stating that he went to the power station at 7:30 a.m., and went to the No. 4 reactor sarcophagus, which is where the explosion occurred. He could not go inside due to radiation, but as he took radiation readings, he heard someone screaming for rescue from a fire inside. The reactor door required a password and a hand-print, but as he claimed, someone, or something, was inside. Another pretty unsettling theory was that the radioactive detonation caused a select few not to die. In fact, quite the opposite. It gave them enhanced strength and speed, with the downside being that it made them zombies.

These days, the site has become a tourist destination, with the government giving interested individuals a pass to tour the areas of Pripyat, including schools, hospitals, houses, apartment buildings, and even the amusement park and shipyard. It is also possible to visit the actual site where the explosion happened, but visitors must stay at least 200 meters away in the case of any radiation that escapes the Number 4 Nuclear Reactor Sarcophagus, built to keep in any more radiation.

Flinders Highway, Queensland, Australia

Known as ‘Queensland’s own Wolf Creek,’ which refers to an Australian horror movie franchise of the same name, it is speculated that this lonely 754-kilometre stretch of road is the hunting ground for Australia’s longest-running serial killer, spanning 40+ years. The Flinders Highway that turns into the Barkly Highway is an isolated, remote stretch of bitumen between Townsville and Mt. Isa , and is known as “The Highway of Death”. The blood-red ranges, open plains and dry river beds surrounding its rugged terrain have stood as silent witness to at least 12 unsolved cold cases and chilling killings, including the 37-year-old murder mystery of hitch-hiker Tony Jones; Catherine Graham, who was found dead at Anthill Creek, west of Townsville, in 1975 (her head had been bashed in with a rock); the Mackay sisters, Judith and Susan, whose bodies were found stabbed, raped and strangled (they were only 5 and 7 years old), Gordon Twaddle, along with Timothy Thompson and Karen Edwards, who were all found shot in the head near Mt. Isa in 1978, Robin Hoinville-Bartram, whose skeletal remains were found west of Charters Towers (she’d been shot in the head, execution style), and Anita Cunningham, who disappeared in 1972 whilst hitchhiking with Robin, to name a few. Most recently, 22-year-old Jayden Penno-Tompsett went missing from the highway on New Year’s Eve in 2017, on his way to Cairns.

As stated by the brother of one of the missing people, “It is it’s own world out there. Strange things do happen in those wild, empty spaces.” The long-running list of missing and murdered individuals seem to point to this stretch of road being a place that is best to avoid. Nevertheless, hitch-hiking is still common practice along the Flinders Highway, with countless unsuspecting people putting their lives at risk every day.

‘The Crystal Highway’ (Rockhampton to Mackay), Queensland, Australia

On a related note, just south of Flinders Highway, the drive from Rockhampton to Mackay is almost just as terrifying and taxing. Known as the “Central Queensland Badlands,” due to the fact that it is a worthless stretch of scrubby floodplain that separates the cattle country of Rockhampton from the canefields of Mackay. It is a very spooky landscape, perhaps due to the isolation one feels when driving through it. Alternatively, it is also known as the “Horror Stretch,” due to a combination of the eerie but boredom-inducing, unpicturesque nothingness of the drive, the number of fatal crashes that have happened along this highway, and the list of disappearances and murders that have occurred along it.

The most infamous murder was Noel Weckert, a skydiver driving with his wife to a jumpers' carnival in Rockhampton, who was found slumped, still seat-belted, in the front seat of his Toyota Celica. He had been shot dead through the head with a .22 calibre rifle, probably while sleeping. Meanwhile, the bloated, sun-broiled body of his wife, also shot through the head, was found two weeks later in a creek, where she had apparently fled her attackers. Eventually two men were charged with what became known as the Connors River murders, and were sentenced to life imprisonment, but not before more ghosts and more stories from the Horror Stretch, some real, some imagined, had emerged, including a couple of English holidaymakers similarly shot at by a sniper; a 14-year-old girl that went missing; a 26-year-old Aboriginal woman that was sexually assaulted, murdered and dumped in the Fitzroy River, and more travellers, two from Sydney, shot as they slept in sleeping bags by the roadside.

These stories are even more terrifying to me since I have in fact travelled this highway myself whilst on holiday, and can thus attest to its uneasy atmosphere. We decided not to have lunch in Rockhampton, figuring we’d be able to find a diner on the way up to Airlie Beach, only to discover that there weren’t any places to eat for at least 250 kilometres, and my husband ended up being so tired that we didn’t reach our destination, a camping site near Airlie Beach, until the next day. We decided to sleep by the road-side that night, but I didn’t get much shut-eye at all. I didn’t read about this highway’s reputation until months after I visited it, but once I read it, it made perfect sense, and I feel as if I survived something quite eerie indeed.

Lier Psychiatric Hospital, Norway

A list like this wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of an abandoned psychiatric hospital, and I wanted to avoid being typical by including one from Norway, instead of the usual lists that include ones from America. Reading about this place made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in all the right ways, and was the inspiration for one of my short stories. Located in the middle of nowhere, just outside Oslo (the capital of Norway), this hospital has a long history as an institution. The sickest people in society were stowed away here and went from being people to being test subjects in the pharmaceutical industry’s search for new and better drugs. The massive buildings house the memory of a grim chapter in Norwegian psychiatric history the authorities would rather forget. Here, the staff tested new medicines, lobotomy, electroshock “therapy,” and drugs like LSD on the patients in hope it could make them better. Those that were tested on frequently failed to ever leave and died on hospital grounds, as is apparent by the old suitcases still stuffed full of clothes located in some of the rooms even today. Today, the only visitors are teenagers going there at nights looking for ghosts and soaking up the spooky atmosphere.

Island of the Dolls, New Mexico, Mexico

Even though this island is now totally abandoned, over 50 years ago, a man named Don Julian Santana left his wife and kids and moved there to live the rest of his life alone. When he was living there, the body of a dead little girl came floating up in one of the canals. Don Julian thought he had become haunted by her spirit. He began to collect dolls and decorate the island with them. He would trade vegetables and fruits in exchange for any dolls. The dolls were believed to be used by Don Julian as a shrine for the spirit that haunted him. He continuously collected dolls and decorated them all over the island, until he died.

These days, hundreds of these terrifying dolls, their severed limbs, decapitated heads, and blank eyes adorn trees in varying states of decay. Since Don Julian’s death in 2001, the place has become a popular tourist attraction, where visitors bring more dolls to put on display.

Lincoln Way, Clairton, Pennsylvania, USA

If you’ve ever wondered what the world would be like if you fast-forwarded into the future only to find yourself standing in the midst of a post-apocalyptic world, one main road in Clairton, Pennsylvania would definitely fire up your imagination. Once a lively cul-de-sac residential street with 16 homes, all that’s left are abandoned, crumbling homes, overgrown trees and bushes and the crumbling asphalt roadway and sidewalks. What exactly happened on Lincoln Way that made everybody abandon their homes, leaving behind all of their belongings? What kind of stories sit buried in the remnants left behind by each family previously inhabiting these houses? When the local authorities or locals themselves are asked, you never get a straight answer, with most of them avoiding answering the question altogether. One urban paranormal legend states that a beast the size of a horse with red eyes resides and lingers in the woods that surrounds the “once was” community of Lincoln Way, which is why they all left in such a hurry. Another, less scary, proposal is that the houses had to be abandoned due to an exceeding amount of foreclosure, or over environmental concerns, such as toxic fumes being emitted from the coke piles at the U.S. Steel Clairton Plant situated directly across from the neighbourhood on North State Street. Some former residents stated frequent sickness, unbearable bad odours and unexplained occurrences. Others say the properties were bought up and the neighbourhood was to be demolished for a highway expansion that never happened.

Tax assessment records also show that the homes have had the same owners since the 1970s , but payment of taxes have been spotty or non-existent for all but three of the homes, regardless of being occupied or not. Over the years, some of the homes have burned down or fallen down, but around ten of them remain with leaking roofs, crumbling walls, rotting floors and broken windows, the copper and other metals having been stripped by salvagers. There are also several sinkholes scattered around the land surrounding Lincoln Way. According to Clairton city manager Howard Bednar, the city hopes to demolish the remaining homes, but with tight budgets, abandoned homes that sit among occupied areas of the city are more of a priority. Once demolished, the Redevelopment Authority of Clairton will take possession of the properties that are delinquent on their taxes. Until then, Lincoln Way will continue to serve as a glimpse into a post-apocalyptic future.

Oradour-Sur-Glane, France

Amongst all the tragedies that occurred in World War Two, one French village and the events that transpired there, stand out. The town of Oradour-sur-Glane was witness to a brutal massacre that killed almost every man, woman, and child in the village on the afternoon of the 10th of June, 1944. In order to avenge the kidnapping of a German soldier by the French Resistance, Nazi SS troops herded more than 400 women and children into the village church, soaked it in petrol and blocked all the exits before setting it all alight. The men were moved by Nazi forces into the village’s barns, shot so they couldn’t move and doused in petrol before being set ablaze. The final death toll stood at 642 people, including 254 women, 207 children, and 181 men.

Since the massacre, Oradour-sur-Glane has remained untouched, serving as a reminder of the atrocities of war and the evil of the Nazis, as well as a shrine to the unfortunate people who died.

50 Berkeley Square, London, United Kingdom

This list wouldn’t be complete without a genuine haunted house example. 50 Berkeley Square has a long-held reputation as being the "Most Haunted House in London." The four-storey brick town house, built in the late 18th century, has a rather chequered history, with a number of deaths having taken place within its walls. However, it is not the number of deaths that is important, but rather the manner in which they occurred. Quite a few people are said to have perished due to the terror instilled within them by a nameless horror that claims the building as its home.

The earliest ghost sightings come in the form of a young woman, seen to be hanging from the windowsill on the uppermost floor. She can be seen screaming, before letting go and disappearing as she falls. Legend has it that a young girl named Adeline threw herself out of this window in order to get away from her abusive uncle. The type of abuse varies, but in all respects, it was quite cruel. Her ghost was reported as early as 1789, and old newspapers report that "since then more than 50 respectable people have reported seeing Adeline clinging to the windowsill, about to drop to her doom."

In 1872, aristocrat and politician Lord George Lyttelton stayed a night in the house for a bet. He set up a bed in the attic where he was to sleep the night, to test his resolve against the horror said to reside there. He did not really believe in the nonsense stories, but still took a shotgun for good measure. During the night, an apparition in the form of a brown tendrilled misty mass appeared, and Lyttelton fired his gun at it. In the morning light, he looked for what he had fired at, but there were no remains or proof that he had hit anything at all. Lyttelton would later say that the upper rooms were "supernaturally fatal to body and mind."

In 1879, a new family had moved into the house, and one of the daughters was due to have her fiancée visit. The maid was sent upstairs to set up the attic room as a guest room. Soon she was heard screaming, and when the family ran up to see what the commotion was about, they found her on the floor, backed into the corner, repeating over and over again "Do not let it touch me". She died the following day in an asylum.

Upon hearing this, a 'nobleman' stayed in the attic to get to the bottom of what had happened. He was a rather sceptical chap, but still the family told him to ring a bell they placed for him, if there was any trouble. His is the first death officially reported in the house. The cause of death was 'from fright'. In the middle of the night the bell was heard to ring, frantically followed by a gunshot. He was found dead on the floor, his face a mask of terror.

By 1887 the house was once again empty, and due its reputation, no-one was keen to move in. Luckily for the house, two more victims arrived, this time in the form of sailors – Edward Blunden and Robert Martin. On Christmas Eve the sailors had arrived in London, but had no money for lodgings, so they wandered the streets until they could find an empty building to make camp for the night. They eventually found their way to Berkeley Square, and seeing that number 50 was obviously vacant, decided to spend the night there. They settled for a second-floor bedroom, and soon Martin was asleep, but Blunden was restless and frightened. He could hear footsteps in the corridor, and soon the door opened. As Blunden watched, a dark and shapeless form entered the room. Blunden reached for a makeshift weapon, a fire poker from the fireplace. The noise had awoken Martin, who saw the massive tendril strangling Blunden. Fearing for his own safety, Martin took the opportunity to run out the bedroom door, down the stairs, and out of the building, where he soon ran into a police constable. Martin relayed the story and the two men went back to number fifty. What they found was Blunden, dead on the pavement. He had either jumped or been thrown out of the second-floor window, his body crushed by the fall.

The stories continued from those brave or foolhardy enough to venture into number 50 after dark, but soon eventually the building was occupied again, this time by the Maggs Bros – Antiquarian Book Dealers. They have occupied the building since 1937, and have never reported any major disturbances. The staff have, however, heard strange noises from the upstairs rooms, but none have dared to venture there, not out of fear, but rather because they are not allowed to, as the police have placed a sign, a warning saying that the upper most rooms are not to be used for anything, not even storage.

If you take a look for information on this location, you will find many more stories about the nameless horror that resides in number 50 Berkeley Square. You will also find different versions of the stories discussed here, as they change as they are retold, like most ghost stories that stretch back for any long period of time. The versions posted here are my favourites.

Mt Everest, Nepal

And now, on to a place where most of us will never visit, but which is no less spooky. Mount Everest serves not only as a testament to the majesty of nature's beauty, but as an alluring siren song calling to the heart of every adventurer. Despite the risks, thousands swarm to Nepal every year in an effort to conquer the tallest point on Earth. Many of them never leave. Over 250 bodies remain on Everest, giving it claim to the title of the world's largest open-air graveyard. While most Mount Everest deaths occur due to avalanches, falls, and exposure to the harsh climate, the area known as the “Death Zone” holds a terribly high body count and comes with its own unique set of problems.

As one climber put it: "Everest is littered with dead bodies. For the most part everyone stays very positive, you don’t talk about this stuff, but you can’t help but notice the bodies because their clothes are still bright. You might see some bare flesh, but you won't see a skull as the skin is almost embalmed as if it's been frozen in time, almost like a waxwork. The clothes are flapping in the wind and ultra violet light, each person with their own story."

The Death Zone is commonly known as the area above 26,000 feet. When the human body enters this altitude, it slowly starts to die. Then it becomes a race against the clock for climbers to make it from this mark to the peak and back again before their body fails them. Since oxygen at this level is only a third of what it is at sea level, climbers may find themselves sluggish, disoriented, and fatigued. The pressure makes weight feel ten times heavier and causes extreme distress on organs. Because of these severe effects, climbers usually only have a window of 48 hours inside the Death Zone and are strongly urged to use supplemental oxygen at all times.

If someone dies on Everest, it's almost impossible to retrieve their body, especially in the Death Zone. Due to unbearable weather conditions, severe lack of oxygen, pressure on dead weight, and the fact that many bodies on Mount Everest are completely frozen onto the mountain face, most corpses are left exactly as they fall. Overall, standard protocol is to simply let these figures, frozen in the final moments of death, become a permanent addition to the rocky terrain. It would make sense that the mountain's nickname is EVER REST.

And that concludes my list on this topic for now. I may do another similar list sometime down the track. Farewell.

#haunted #creepy #abandoned #interesting places #creativityisrebellion

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johnkirtley2021 · 3 years

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Environmental considerations

Proper care for the environment can help London to operate well every day, now and into the future. It can ensure the city produces enough energy in the right way, reduce waste so the city has the resources it needs and keep London’s infrastructure operating smoothly.

In many ways, London’s environment is improving. The city’s air and water have recovered from the worst impacts of industrial pollution. Greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change, are reducing. The city is well-defended against the worst forms of flooding. But London also faces a range of environmental challenges that threaten the future of the city.

Air quality

The quality of London’s air is dangerously – and illegally – poor. High levels of damaging pollutants harm human health and quality of life, limiting lung development in childhood and reducing life expectancy. Over 9,000 Londoners’ lives end sooner than they should each year because of air pollution, and around 20 per cent of primary schools are located in parts of London that breach legal air pollution limits.

Air quality is the most pressing environmental threat to the future health of London. The air is sticky during hot weather.

https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/every-breath-we-take-lifelong-impact-air-pollution

Green space

As development encroaches on open space and gardens have increasingly been paved over, there has been a gradual loss of green space across London in recent years. Some parts of London have more green spaces than others, but almost half of Londoners have poor access to parks. Councils now have less money to spend on maintaining parks, so their quality has declined in some places. Access to good quality green space and living in greener neighbourhoods can have a big impact on people’s health and quality of life, and on how attractive a place London is in which to live, visit and do business.

Biodiversity

As green space has been lost and what remains has in some cases reduced in quality, the range of plants and animals that live in London has decreased. With careful attention, London can be home to a wide range of animal and plant species, but without it, the number and diversity of bird, wildflower and bee species will continue to decline.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Although London’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, the city remains over-reliant on the fossil fuels that are a major contributor to global warming and climate change. London is not yet on track to reduce its emissions quickly enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, or to meet national and international climate aims.

Energy use

Nearly three quarters of the energy used in London’s homes is for heating and hot water, and the overwhelming majority of this demand is met using gas-fired boilers. Already one in ten electricity substations are approaching full capacity, and the redevelopment of large parts of the city will increase demand for energy and the infrastructure required to distribute it. One in ten households in the city currently lives in fuel poverty, sometimes meaning they have to choose between heating their home or eating.

Waste

Waste has a both locally and globally. Less than half of the 7m tonnes of waste that London’s homes and businesses produce each year is currently recycled, and landfill capacity is set to run out by 2026. Plastic packaging not only litters London streets, but often finds its way into waterways and oceans, releasing toxic chemicals before breaking down – a process that can take centuries. London needs to reduce, reuse and recycle more, to see waste as the valuable resource that it is, and to reduce London’s increasing waste bill as the city grows.

Flood risk

The loss of green space, the expansion of impermeable surfaces used for roads, roofs and pavements, and a Victorian drainage system that wasn’t designed to cope with the demands of the current and future population leave London exposed to the risk of flooding. As climate change brings a rise in sea level and more intense rainfall, flooding will become increasingly likely.

Heat risk

Climate change is set to lead to heatwave conditions every summer by the middle of the century, and the Urban Heat Island effect makes the centre of London up to 10°C warmer than the rural areas around the city. Increasing heat risk could make homes, workplaces and public transport uncomfortable for all and dangerous for the most disadvantaged. Increasing demand for cooling may put stress on power supply networks, threatening London’s sustainability and increasing emissions.

Water scarcity

London’s water supply is under pressure. Even with projected water efficiency gains, London is forecast to have a water resource ‘gap’ of over 100m litres per day by 2020, rising to a deficit of over 400m litres per day by 2040. This means that there won’t be enough water to meet London’s needs. London already gets a large proportion of its water from groundwater and surrounding rivers, which damages the health of rivers and threatens the city’s future water supply.

River water quality

Years of pollution from road run-off, sewer infrastructure problems, and poorly managed river maintenance and modification work have left London’s rivers in a poor state. Under an EU framework, only one of London’s 47 river water bodies is classed as ‘good’ – three are ‘bad’, five are ‘poor’ and the rest are ‘moderate’.

Ambient noise

Noise is part of a vibrant city, but excessive noise can damage people’s health. Noise can contribute towards a range of physical and mental health problems, disturb sleep and affect people’s hearing, communication and learning. Almost 2.4 million people in London are already exposed to noise levels that exceed international guidelines, and the proposed expansion of Heathrow would expose an additional 200,000 people to significant aircraft noise.

Many of these problems are interconnected, and together they pose a threat to the future of the city. With the effects of climate change likely to exacerbate environmental challenges in a growing city, London must act now to avoid further problems in the future. Making London a better city to live in must involve a holistic approach to the city’s environment that addresses all these pressing issues.

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the-eyes-chicooo-blog · 6 years

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GTA V Cheats Xbox One

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thetrevorcalvin · 3 years

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2: ENVIRONMENTAL: The environmental concerns that are relevant to Swan Wharf, the environmental concerns that are relevant to the world. Intention of integrating these concerns at a design level. IS THIS A CARBON NEUTRAL SCHEME?

The environmental concerns that are relevant to Swan Wharf/London

London’s environment connects every aspect of life in the city. It is the air Londoners breathe, the water they drink and the parks where they meet and spend time. The state of London’s environment affects everyone who lives in and visits the city – it helps Londoners to stay healthy, allows businesses to thrive and keeps London functioning from day to day. Proper care for the environment can help London to operate well every day, now and into the future. It can ensure the city produces enough energy in the right way, reduce waste so the city has the resources it needs and keep London’s infrastructure operating smoothly.

Air quality

Air quality is the most pressing environmental threat to the future health of London. The air is sticky during hot weather.

Green space

Biodiversity

Greenhouse gas emissions

Energy use

Waste

Flood risk

Heat risk

Water scarcity

River water quality

Ambient noise

https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/london_environment_strategy_0.pdf

The environmental concerns that are relevant to the world

Our Mother Earth is currently facing a lot of environmental concerns. The environmental problems like global warming, acid rain, air pollution, urban sprawl, waste disposal, ozone layer depletion, water pollution, climate change and many more affect every human, animal, and nation on this planet.

Over the last few decades, the exploitation of our planet and the degradation of our environment has gone up at an alarming rate. As our actions have been not in favor of protecting this planet, we have seen natural disasters striking us more often in the form of flash floods, earthquakes, blizzards, tsunamis, and cyclones.

1: Air Pollution

2: Water Pollution

3: Soil and Land Pollution

4: Climate Change

5: Global Warming

6: Deforestation and Logging

7: Increased Carbon Footprint

8: Genetic Modification

9: Effect on Marine Life

10: Overpopulation

11: Loss of Biodiversity

12: Household and Industrial Waste

13: Ozone Layer Depletion

14: Mining

15: Natural Resource Depletion

16: Natural Disasters

17: Loss of Endangered Species

18: Acid Rain

19: Agricultural Pollution

20: Light and Noise Pollution

21: Urban Sprawl

22: Disposal Of Medical Waste

23: Littering and Landfills

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the-master-cylinder · 4 years

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SUMMARY Anglers from the fishing village of Noyo, California catch what appears to be a monster. The young son of one of the anglers falls into the water and something unseen drags him under the surface. Another angler prepares a flare gun but he slips and accidentally fires it into the deck, which is soaked with gasoline dropped earlier by the boy. The vessel bursts into flames and explodes; everybody aboard is killed. Jim Hill (McClure) and his wife Carol witness the explosion. Later, Jim and Carol’s dog goes missing and the pair finds its dismembered corpse on the nearby beach.

The following day, teenagers Jerry Potter (Meegan King) and Peggy Larson (Lynn Schiller) go for a swim at the beach. Jerry is abruptly pulled under the water. Peggy believes it is a prank until she discovers his mutilated corpse. Peggy screams and tries to reach the beach but a monstrous figure drags her across the sand. The humanoid creature tears off her bikini and rapes her.

That night, two more teenagers are camping on the same beach. Billy (David Strassman) is about to have sex with his girlfriend, Becky (Lisa Glaser) when another humanoid monster claws its way inside, kills him and chases Becky onto the beach. She outruns her assailant but then runs into the arms of yet another monster, which throws her to the sand and rapes her. More attacks follow; not all of them successful, but few witnesses survive to tell the public about the incidents; only Peggy is found alive, though severely traumatized. Jim’s brother is also attacked, prompting Jim to take a personal interest in the matter.

A company called Canco has announced plans to build a huge cannery near Noyo. The murderous, sex-hungry mutations are apparently the result of Canco’s experiments with a growth hormone they had earlier administered to salmon. The salmon escaped from Canco’s laboratory into the ocean during a storm and were eaten by large fish that then mutated into the brutal, depraved humanoids that have begun to terrorize the village.

By the time Jim and Canco scientist Dr. Susan Drake (Turkel) have deduced what is occurring, the village’s annual festival has begun. At the festival, many humanoids appear, murdering the men and raping every woman they can grab. Jim devises a plan to stop the humanoids by pumping gasoline into the bay and setting it on fire, cutting off the humanoids’ way of retreat. Meanwhile, Carol is attacked at home by two of the creatures, but manages to kill them before Jim arrives.

The morning after the festival, normality seems to have returned to the village. Jim asks the sheriff about Dr. Drake. The sheriff mumbles that she went back to the lab, where she is coaching a pregnant Peggy, who has survived her sexual assault. Peggy is about to give birth when her monstrous offspring bursts from her womb, with Peggy screaming at the screeching baby.

PRODUCTION The 1980 release from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures has become infamous (and popular) for its mutant/beach bunny interaction and its shocking climactic variation on Alien’s chestburster. And amazingly enough, the notorious feature was directed by a woman! Although she has done many movies, Barbara Peeters knows what her legacy is. “I’m the mother of the Humanoids from the Deep,” she laughs. “No matter what I do, that damn movie haunts my ass!”

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The Iowa-born Peeters is a founding mother of the modern B-movie. While women were denied directing gigs at major studios, the dynamic Peeters was helming drive-in fare with feminist messages. Before Humanoids from the Deep, she did the girlbiker flick Bury Me an Angel (1972) and the sex comedies Summer School Teachers (1975). “It didn’t matter if it was a prison, biker or horror flick, because I would always manage to get my thinking in somewhere, even if it was just a comment,” she recalls. “When I did Humanoids, though, I was not a horror fan. I literally did it because I needed a job. As a kid, I thought Creature from the Black Lagoon was the scariest movie ever made. I looked at it before I started, and used whatever worked!”

Peeters recalls that she came onto Humanoids late; all of Corman’s boys turned it down, even Joe Dante and Roger finally offered it to me. Of course, I took it. After all, how many girl directors got offered a movie in those days?” She also faced a personal crisis: “I had been diagnosed with cancer, so it was important I show the industry I could still work.

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“It was a rough shoot,” she continues. “I believe that’s why the guys turned it down! No sleep, shooting all night on water. I worked in a wetsuit, which is funny because I can’t swim. We put the camera on a barge, got our wide shots. When it was time to shoot close-ups, the tide came in! It was a constant battle with the elements; the water was so choppy, we gave $5 to the first person to throw up. We found the location in June: Fort Bragg. When we went back to shoot, it was Thanksgiving, so the girls froze! I walked into ocean blowholes to find caves for our monsters.”

“I remember freezing,” says Turkel. “If you look at the boat scenes, I’m wearing a swimsuit while Doug’s in a sweater. I loved doing the monster autopsy, because I got to wear a nice warm lab coat!”

Actress/model Turkel had previously appeared in films like 1977’s thriller The Cassandra Crossing and the 1979 sci-fi actioner Ravagers (1979), while McClure was a ’50s cowboy star who had starred in ’70s cheese such as At the Earth’s Core, The Land That Time Forgot and Warlords of Atlantis. He once claimed Humanoids had a different title when he agreed to star in it.

“That’s true,” Turkel says. “When I got the script, it was called Beneath the Darkness, an interesting horror-thriller like Alien. Imagine how I felt when they changed it! Friends teased me when TV ads announced ‘Humanoids from the Deep, starring Ann Turkel!’”

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As for veteran actor Morrow, “I loved him,” Peeters says. “I admired him in The Blackboard Jungle. His daughter visited during the shoot and hung out on set. Nice family; he died two years later. But we knew from the shoot that Vic was the clumsiest man on two feet. He never did his own stunts; Vic couldn’t walk and chew gum—he was the first one to tell you that. He really struggled in our fight scenes, and Doug McClure got Vic through those. Doug was a stuntman who could do anything; we choreographed our parking-lot brawl around him. We kept Vic in back, although he got to kick a guy in the stomach—he liked that!”

McClure, however, “was a funny drunk,” Peeters fondly recalls. “We had to ration his booze through the day. I had a PA keep an eye on him. We had to let him have a beer every couple of hours, because he was an alcoholic, and Vic was right there with him! Vic got cranky on booze and Doug got cranky sober, so we had to monitor them and make sure one got enough and neither got too much.”

Turkel “was nice,” Peeters says. “We probably should have done a nude scene with Ann-she was gorgeous! She was a Ford model in New York before she became an actress and married Richard Harris. She looked great in a swimsuit, too.” And the actress soldiered on through Humanoids even as she was going through an upsetting drama in real life. “Richard told Ann he was divorcing her right in the middle of filming. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that,” Peeters says sarcastically. “God bless her; Annie fell apart for 24 hours and then pulled herself together and did it. We were very tight; she’s a sweet girl.”

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“That was difficult,” Turkel admits, “but I wasn’t gonna let it affect my performance with all Barbara was going through, I wanted to help her as much as I could.”

The mutant fishmen show a complete lack of political correctness throughout Humanoids. Besides reckless sexual behavior, they also bump off children and dogs! “I didn’t mind killing the kid, murdering men and raping women, but I couldn’t bear to see dogs dead,” Peeters says cheerfully. “I left the set when the dogs were lying on the dock. They weren’t really dead, of course, but as a dog lover, I couldn’t bear to see them like that.”

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SPECIAL EFFECTS The Humanoids are impressive brutes, equal parts Alien and ’50s critters like The Gill Man. With their exposed brains, mouths full of serrated teeth and nubby tails, they’re truly disturbing, resembling H.P. Lovecraft’s Deep Ones and sharing their lust for human women.

“On set, we called them ‘Noids,’” Peeters reveals. “When I read the script, I got to the part where it said, ‘Thousands and thousands of Humanoids emerge from the ocean…’ I asked Roger, ‘How are you planning on doing that?’ and he said ‘That’s your job!’ I believe we had two full bodied Humanoids, and the others were parts. I would hide how few we had with a flash of an arm, with one really close-up and another running way in the background. Sometimes I used mirrors! For the finale, I had Humanoids on a merry-go-round with mirrors, so I had the same one run back and forth in front of it. That meant you would see him in the foreground, but also see his reflection and think you were seeing two. We used pieces to create a third and another half in frame choking someone, so you got the sense that there was an army of Humanoids. It was a mathematical problem; I felt like Jesus with the loaves and fishes.

“Those monsters were invented by Rob Bottin, who we called “Robin’ back then,” the director recalls of the artist who would soon break out with his landmark work on The Howling and The Thing. “Robin was still a young boy

very serious about his monsters! Everything with him was dramatic and passionate. He broke down crying one day, I don’t remember why, but I thought, “Oh my God!’ It reminded me how young he was. Rob had a great team of guys, talented and hard-working. [Stuntman] Diamond Farnsworth was my ‘Noid who took the most abuse; he was terrific. I loved my ‘Noids.”

“I actually played a Humanoid,” Bottin laughs. “Several of my guys did also. I had the crew come to my place in El Monte, rather than go all the way down to Corman’s studio in Venice about 40 miles away, so we could do an effect in my garage. I thought I was smart, but I didn’t realize that while I was showing them the gag in my garage, Roger had them move my furniture onto the front lawn to shoot a scene in my living room!” As for working in the Pacific in a bulky Humanoid suit, “I kept telling the crew to be on the lookout for a hapless drowning whale-it would have to be me!”

Fellow Humanoid Steve Johnson, who also went on to an illustrious FX career, remembers that being an undersea mutant was no picnic. “Those suits were impossible to get into and out of,” he says. “Once you put on that costume, you were in it for the night. As a Humanoid, you had a tail made up of a series of hinges, so you could not sit down because that tail was incredibly uncomfortable. They also had extended arms, made by Chris Walas. We covered them with hemp fiber as seaweed, to hide the foam and joints, because nothing was finished! We were shooting all night, and making stuff up as we shot.

“Barbara Peeters thought I was the best Humanoid when it came to taking hits,” Johnson proudly continues. “Any time a Humanoid was shot, that was usually me all squibbed up. I raped one of the girls and doubled a male victim after he was mauled, because he didn’t want to wear all the prosthetics when his face is ripped off.” “Steve was great—a hardworking Humanoid, bless his heart,” Peeters adds.

“I had two great joys making the film,” Johnson says. “In one, a Humanoid gets a crowbar in the brain. Since I made the head, I said I would do it, because everyone else was afraid to; we had one head, so it had to be one take. I was nervous, but I knew where and how hard to hit it.

“Then I saw the funniest thing I have seen in my entire career: Bottin, in full Humanoid suit, with those ridiculously long arm extensions. Once you were suited up, you couldn’t even stand without help! With his tail on, he couldn’t sit, and he had those extensions he couldn’t take off, so he could not do anything with his hands—and they wouldn’t get to the shot. That always happens on movie sets, but he had been suited up for three hours as we filmed on a dock.

“Finally, Rob just blew up-screaming and yelling at the entire production team while wearing this Humanoid suit!” Johnson laughs. “He was gesturing with these big arms, wearing the monster head-it was the funniest thing I have ever seen.”

Also part of the Humanoids monster crew was Kenny Myers, “I was a makeup artist for Rob, but I did a bit of everything, including taking care of the guys in the suits,” he recalls. “I think my name is misspelled in the credits! I helped sew together the original Humanoid suit, which took eight hours, and we actually sewed the guy into the outfit, because the pieces hadn’t been assembled yet. Shawn McEnroe and I sewed all these rubber pieces on by hand.

“Rob, Steve and their crew had just finished Tanya’s Island, and were completely burned out,” Myers continues. “The guys were walking zombies, so Rob brought me in for fresh blood. We never got a Humanoids script, so we never knew what was coming at us until the day before. Things like the dead dog on the beach? We literally threw clay onto a board and sculpted it! We used foam and hair to make that dog; almost everything was done in a day.”

How did Humanoids from the Deep come about?

Roger Corman: Much like with Piranha, someone had brought me the screenplay for Humanoids- I can’t remember who—and I had it rewritten and we made it simply because I liked the story. It was unusual, actually, that both pictures came from outside sources, because more often than not, all the ideas for our films came from me.

Humanoids is full of sex, nudity and sexual violence. Having a woman Barbara Peeters, direct it was unusual. Did you hire a woman because the subject matter was potentially volatile?

Roger Corman: No, I brought Barbara on board because she was a good director.

Did you tangle with the ratings board at all with this film?

Roger Corman: On Humanoids, we stayed within the boundaries of the R rating, and had no problem getting it. If I remember correctly, we had to cut very little, if any. thing. When I talked to Barbara about the movie PIRANHA initially, I told her that the premise was very simple: the Humanoids rape the women and they kill the men. And she said, “OK, got it,’ and that’s what she did!

Being a Humanoid victim was not easy, according to actor Greg Travis, who plays KFISH DJ Mike Michaels at the film’s end. “It was my first movie I was 19, and a Humanoid rips my chest off,” says Travis. “I’m with my girl sidekick, Miss Salmon (Linda Shayne), as the monsters attack. I’m caught between a Humanoid and Miss Salmon, so he kills me. They put a prosthetic across my chest, so when he claws me, my chest falls off, blood squirts and I spasm.

“The monsters were creepy, though they were never quite as scary up close as they are on film because of lighting,” Travis notes. “Linda was uptight because she had to get topless. I was gonna do a hand move pretending to touch her chest like a dial, but she got bent out of shape and wouldn’t do it. I did get to put a K-FISH sticker on a girl’s butt, though.”

The actor recalls that a good deal of improv went into the experience: “There was a DJ in the script, but I ad-libbed most of my dialogue. As I was a stand-up comic, they liked what I did. My roommate David Strassman was also in it, with his dummy, Chuck Wood. He’s the ventriloquist with the girl. He plays Vegas now. We always laugh about being killed by Humanoids from the Deep!

“We did pickup shots all night in Malibu,” he continues. “I bought a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken on my way down. The crew laughed at me: “You don’t need that; we have craft services bringing a big dinner!’ But their truck couldn’t find the location, so my chicken was all they had.

They loved me, man. Especially Rob Bottin, he and I ate KFC all night.” In the midst of the mayhem, Peeters includes a disturbing moment where a Humanoid pulls a little girl away for mating purposes. “I liked that because it was unsettling,” she says. “There’s another shot of people screaming and running around a crying baby. I got that from Sam Peckinpah, who said, ‘You don’t realize you’re in danger until you see children in danger.'”

Her favorite scene, however, “is when McClure’s wife, played by Cindy Weintraub, is home alone with their baby. You see a shadow on the wall as Humanoids attack. You can never get a baby to cry on cue, but he started screaming on his own. I thought that sequence was scary, as the monster hand comes through the door. You go ‘Oh shit!’ as Cindy grabs the knife. That low angle of the hand really worked. We also did a cool close-up across the room-you see the fire and a slow pan across the Fisher Stereo to Cindy. We included that shot because Fisher said if I did it, I could have the unit. I always loved freebies!”

In Humanoids’ crowd-pleasing climax, Dr. Drake discovers that Humanoid rape victim Peggy (Lynn Theel) is pregnant. She suddenly realizes this isn’t a normal pregnancy (first clue: Peggy got pregnant in a day!), and the poor girl’s stomach explodes as she gives birth to a baby creature. “We shot the monster birth at a community hospital in Fort Bragg,” Peeters recalls.

“Rob made it all happen; it was an elaborate scene he pulled off. One guy pumped blood while another Kenny—was under the table pushing the baby through; it was hilarious. Annie saying, ‘Push, dear, push!’ to get the little Humanoid out was like a Saturday Night Live sketch.”

“Oh, that was so funny,” Turkel adds. “Here I am, a scientist, and all I do to help is say, ‘Push, Peggy, push!’ It was a very messy scene, too.”

“That monster baby is one of my all-time favorites,” Myers says. “I was under the table, Lynn was pregnant on it and this is where it got insane. I had this pregnant appliance on her, and I was between her legs with a pump, making her belly jump. Lynn started giggling-Kenny? You’re tickling my thighs!’ My head bobbed up between her legs, the most obscene-looking thing you’ve ever seen. Nobody could stop laughing during this dramatic scene! Lynn had the hotel room across from us effects guys, and was a doll. A Playboy Playmate, nicest girl you’d ever meet; even sang me ‘Happy Birthday,’ ” Myers says fondly.

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“Oh, Lynn was a trouper,” Peeters says. “I felt bad, because we put her through a lot. In the scene where we find her in the kelp bed, Lynn turned blue from hypothermia! The ‘Noids went into freezing water with wetsuits underneath, but poor Lynn was just in a bikini, dying out there.”

Peeters wasn’t responsible for the film’s worst moments of misogynist monster mayhem. After Humanoids wrapped, Corman had Battle Beyond the Stars director Jimmy T. Murakami punch up the sex and violence. “Roger put in a couple of nude-women scenes to spark up the movie,” Peeters explains. “He added the Salmon Queen being ravaged to the ending we shot, the tent attack and the rape of Peggy on the beach-shot on a dark and grainy film stock that didn’t match ours. When Peggy’s attacked, I only shot her screaming, with her hands clawing the sand as the Humanoid drags her away. You saw the monster’s hand on her leg, that’s it—you didn’t see anything else because it was too early! You don’t know what happened to her. Later, in the ‘Noids’ nest, you find her naked in the kelp bed and think, ‘Oh my God-at least she’s alive!’ I don’t really think we needed the shot of the Humanoid humping her, though I have no problem with nudity; I just thought it took the terror out and changed the whole tone.

“Roger decided to have ‘one of the boys’ do those scenes,” she continues. “When Ann and I went to the screening, we saw them for the first time, with no idea they had been added. I was furious, because I had put in so much energy and went through hell to make the film. Seeing this stuff, with no attempt to integrate it? Ugh! It pissed Ann off, and she was much more vocal about it than me.”

“I really was,” Turkel says. “That’s why I went public, it wasn’t the film I made. I did it because Richard (Harris) pointed out to me that Peter O’Toole had the same thing happen with Caligula, when they added [pornographic] stuff after he shot his scenes. I complained to SAG and People magazine.”

For her part, Peeters “wanted my name taken off, because it wasn’t the movie I made—and they misspelled my name on half the posters anyway! I appeared in the LA Times disowning Humanoids as it opened.” She adds that, as in her previous features, she had hoped to imbue Humanoids with a feminist message. “That’s what Ann and I were making: a horror movie from a feminine point of view. We felt we could make a scary film based on man’s obsessive desire to f**k with nature, the feminine side. The Humanoids were payback for corporate greed—it’s always the young, the old and the women who pay these bills. We did it within the horror formula. That’s the movie we made, then we saw what the boys did to it; the crass puppet and big-tittied Salmon Queen were creations of pimply dorks jacking off to a trite, worn-around-the-edges dick fantasy. That’s not what Ann or I wanted our names on. If there’s any message in Humanoids, it’s feminine survival in a male-dominated world; it ain’t easy out here, baby!”

Peeters recovered from cancer to become a respected director. “I now run Platinum Productions; I want to make films for senior citizens, an ignored market,” she says. “I’m working on mature comedies where I want everyone on the crew to be 50 and older, including the leads.” She caught Humanoids on TV recently, “and you know what? It’s a fun little thing,” Peeters says. “Overseas, it was called Monster, like the Charlize Theron movie. I laugh every time somebody says, ‘Monster won the Oscar’!”

SCORE/SOUNDTRACK

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CAST/CREW Directed Barbara Peeters Jimmy T. Murakami (uncredited)

Produced Martin B. Cohen Roger Corman (executive)

Screenplay Frederick James Story by Frank Arnold Martin B. Cohen

Doug McClure as Jim Hill Ann Turkel as Dr. Susan Drake Vic Morrow as Hank Slattery Cindy Weintraub as Carol Hill Anthony Pena as Johnny Eagle Denise Galik as Linda Beale Lynn Schiller as Peggy Larson Meegan King as Jerry Potter Breck Costin as Tommy Hill

Rob Bottin … humanoids creator & designer Roger George … special effects Chris Walas … special effects Karoly Balazs … makeup artist: second unit (as Charles T. Balazs) Steve Johnson … special makeup effects assistant Marla Manalis … hair stylist / makeup artist Shawn McEnroe … special makeup effects assistant Kenny Myers … special makeup effects assistant (as Ken Myers) Margaret Prentice … special effects makeup (uncredited)

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Starlog#296 Fangoria#265

Humanoids from the Deep (1980) Retrospective SUMMARY Anglers from the fishing village of Noyo, California catch what appears to be a monster. The young son of one of the anglers falls into the water and something unseen drags him under the surface.

#80sFilms #80sHORROR #NewWorld

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normansollors · 4 years

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Cat Peeing Every 2 Hours Unbelievable Unique Ideas

To make your cat alive, but may have a playmate or two dousings it may take two to four weeks and occur three or more cats, you will know that urine has already been practicing these steps and have a clean absorbent cloth for this behavior is ineffective, even if they have the individual to stay out of your cat will smell it.When they want to set the program of your garden.They also have a screen door this would make the place of litter off the couch to acknowledge you, you'll be getting easier from here.Maybe the box with a simple solution is to use them properly.

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You should provide a fully enclosed box with its body with shampoo.Shoes will get a bottle or shaking a can of tuna in oil, drainedGenerally, the cat into areas where your cat is comfortable using it, you've solved the problem is forced into becoming an outdoor cat, he is not coming from the spray would surely put them off.Whether you picked out your pet cats, this is simply not your cat knows they weren't to use a little while until you reach that spot, and do not need bathing because they will perceive the couch even though you've cleaned and cleaned the carpet may make another choice and use it if everyone is walking towards you .when you find one or two readily available.This leads to the world a puff of air through a process of how you can minimize the stress but a neurotic one!

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Cat Spraying Urine On Walls

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Stop Scratching Cat Spray

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#Cat Peeing Every 2 Hours Unbelievable Unique Ideas #Diy Catnip Bug Spray

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cryptswahili · 5 years

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Cryptocurrency is being used widely all over the world. We are not far away from the time when Cryptocurrency will replace the fiat system that has been running for as long as we can remember. Just imagine the volume and power of Cryptocurrency to come over that system and rule the economy. Soon, you will start reading about cryptocurrency in the subjects you learn at school and this is why you need to be prepared.

Thanks to Mivhash the problem of reluctance in mining will now be reduced as everyone who is using Mivhash will be stress-free and wouldn’t need to worry about other factors that include high costs of machinery, maintenance, time investment and many other.

Referral Package

Their referral package offers our customers 10% of the total initial investment been made on the platform by their affiliate. You can view their website to know more about their other investor’s benefits.

Conclusion

Many companies in the market may claim to offer similar services in cloud mining but Mivhash is the one who is consistent and ready to do everything they can to keep their clients satisfied.

Mivhash uses the latest technologies and methods to provide its users with an exceptional experience every time. The industry of cryptocurrency is growing at a fast rate and Mivhash is there for you to keep up on track.

Cloud mining can become difficult when the electricity bills are sky-rocketing and you literally have no time to go through the whole procedure. Mivhash has been designed in a way to facilitate its users so they can do cloud mining at amazingly affordable rates. The investors of Mivhash appreciate their concept to the fullest and want to keep going with them as they believe that this is not what majority of the companies are doing and they would really like for Mivhash to set an example.

Visit Their website: https://mivhash.com/

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mivhash

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Mivhashmining/

Company Email: [email protected]

Telegram Contact: t.me/MivhashMining

Contact Name: Charles Mandy

Location: Hong Kong

The post MivHash a renewable energy cloud mining service is becoming the strongest contender in the cloud mining industry appeared first on ZyCrypto.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

#cryptocurrency

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cryptobrief · 5 years

Link

The Massive Progress Of Mivhash

Referral Package

Conclusion

Many companies in the market may claim to offer similar services in cloud mining but Mivhash is the one who is consistent and ready to do everything they can to keep their clients satisfied.

Visit Their website: https://mivhash.com/

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mivhash

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Mivhashmining/

Company Email: [email protected]

Telegram Contact: t.me/MivhashMining

Contact Name: Charles Mandy

Location: Hong Kong

The post MivHash a renewable energy cloud mining service is becoming the strongest contender in the cloud mining industry appeared first on ZyCrypto.

#briefs

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filipeteimuraz · 5 years

Text

How to Transfer Your Website to Shopify

Without a doubt, Shopify is our recommended ecommerce tool.

But what if you’re already on another ecommerce tool and want to make the switch?

I put together this guide to help you transfer your store to Shopify in 4 easy steps. In mapping out these steps below, I’ve assumed a few things:

You already have a store built that’s generating revenue.

You want to keep that revenue going while you build your new store.

You have a domain that was purchased through another domain registrar and won’t be purchasing your domain through Shopify.

Let’s dive in.

Step 1: Build Your New Shopify Site

First let’s get your Shopify store built.

During this step, don’t worry about your new Shopify store conflicting with your old store. Your Shopify store will be locked behind a password so no one can see it until you’re ready to launch your new store. You’ll control when it becomes publicly accessible.

The store will be built on a Shopify subdomain which looks like company.myshopify.com so there won’t be any conflicts with your current store. Traffic and revenue will keep coming in like normal.

We have a complete guide on how to create your ecommerce store on Shopify here.

Most likely, you’ll have to build the store yourself. That means you’ll have to add the info for each product and page from your old store by hand. Yes, it’s definitely tedious but once it’s done, you’ll be so glad that you moved everything over. The benefits of Shopify drastically outweigh this one-time transfer.

If you’re transferring from WooCommerce, you’re in luck. Shopify does have an import process that should allow you to import the bulk of your product info into Shopify.

As you create your Shopify store, Shopify will ask you if you’re transferring stores and which platform you’re transferring from. If you select WooCommerce, you’ll see an import option in your store dashboard as soon as your store is created.

There’s more info on the WooCommerce import process for Shopify here.

Is there a way to import product pages and customer info from a CSV?

Yes, but you need Shopify Plus, the enterprise version of Shopify. If you’re a larger business with lots of revenue and thousands of products to transfer over, it is possible to upload all your product info at once with a CSV. There are details on which data can be uploaded and how to organize the CSV here. I highly recommend that you also import all your historical customers and order info if you have access to Shopify Plus. Getting all your core business data in one place avoids lots of headaches with reporting later.

But this functionality isn’t part of the standard Shopify plan. If you’re a small or medium size ecommerce site, you’ll have to copy and paste all the product info into Shopify one product at a time.

Another option is to use a migration app from the Shopify App Store. Here’s one called Cart2Cart. Price is based on how many products you want to import.

Shopify also has the option to hire a store expert through its Services Marketplace to help with the transfer.

Step 2: Get Your Redirects Ready

After you get your store built, it’s time to build your redirects.

There are two major reasons to build a list of redirects when transferring your store to Shopify:

It will ensure that any customer using an old URL ends up on the correct page of your new site after the switch, so you don’t lose any revenue from people landing on dead pages.

It’ll transfer any page authority that you’ve built for Google searches to the new URLs, helping your new store rank for search results and keep your traffic from dropping after the switch.

Luckily, Shopify has an easy way to add redirects to your new store. All the redirects will go live when you launch your new store.

You can add redirects within Shopify by going to Online Store > Navigation > URL Redirects. There’s also an option to import them as a batch.

You’ll want to create a redirect for every URL that has a different location in Shopify. For example, products in Shopify have a URL like this: company.com/products/product-name

If your old product URLs use a different URL structure, you’ll want to create a redirect for each product. Same for any other pages that have a different location in Shopify.

Check the URL path of every page and product that you create in your new Shopify store. If they’re the same as your old store, there’s nothing you need to do. If they have a new URL path, create a redirect for them.

Do I have to redirect every URL from my old site?

Not necessarily.

Here’s the rule: redirect every URL that has a clear corresponding page on the new site. 404 everything else.

What’s a 404?

That just means removing the page so that your site returns a 404 message any time someone tries to access that URL. It tells people that there’s nothing there.

A few years ago, I was very anti-404. I used to think that every single URL needed a proper redirect and I went a bit overboard on a site. Eventually, our hosting provider reached out and told us that we had too many redirects on our site, we needed to cut them down to 1,500. We had about 2,500 at the time.

They were right, we did have too many. I was paranoid about trying to help users land on the right page. I was also worried about losing any traffic from Google and I thought 404s might reduce our rankings. I was wrong on both counts.

First, users struggle a lot more with weird redirect paths than a 404. A 404 gives a super clear message: the page you’re looking for doesn’t exist. A weird redirect is really tough for a user to understand.

Second, Google prefers 404s for pages that no longer exist. It’s a clear signal for them and they don’t reduce rankings for sites that have 404s. They’ve publicly stated numerous times how they only want sites to add redirects for pages that have a one-to-one relationship.

Definitely build out your list of redirects for the pages that have changed URLs in Shopify. For everything else, don’t build a redirect and allow the page to 404 once you switch your site to Shopify.

Step 3: Go Live and Point Your Domain to Shopify

Now it’s time to go live!

It is possible to buy a domain directly from Shopify which sets everything up for you.

But I’ll assume you already have a domain with another domain registrar since you’re transferring your site to Shopify.

In this case, you’ll need to get your domain to point to Shopify so when people visit your site, they find your Shopify store.

You’ll need to log into your domain registrar and edit your DNS settings. You’ll be adding an A record and a CNAME.

Shopify has step-by-step instructions and the exact settings you need to configure here.

As soon as you save these DNS settings, your domain will start pointing to Shopify, so make sure you’re completely ready to make the switch before doing this step.

It’ll also take up to a few hours for the changes to go live completely. This is because the DNS servers of the internet don’t update instantaneously. It takes a while for them all to spot new changes. It’s very normal for you to see the change but for someone else to still get your old site. Nothing’s broken — it’s just taking some time for the new DNS settings to reach everyone.

If you have a smaller ecommerce site and you’re not too worried about having a few hours when visitors are routed to both sites, feel free to do the switch any time.

If you want a cleaner cut between the two sites, the most popular method is to do the switch during your lowest-traffic time. For most sites, it’s usually in the middle of the night on a weekend. For major sites with tons of revenue and users, that’s typically when “maintenance windows” occur. For most of us, picking the middle of the night during the week works really well. This causes the least disruption and is standard practice these days.

My advice on when to do the switch:

If the stakes are high and you have a lot of revenue coming in, do the domain switch in the middle of the night even though it’s inconvenient.

If you’re not too worried about the switch, do it on a Monday morning. That gives you all weak to fix gaps or put out any fires that come up with the new site. As a general rule, you don’t want to release anything on Friday because if something goes wrong, you’ll spend all weekend trying to fix it.

What happens if something goes horribly wrong?

Keep your old ecommerce site live during the transition. The domain and all your URLs will point to your new site, but you want the old stuff on standby in case something critical breaks during the transition.

What if new orders stop processing?

What if traffic plummets and doesn’t come back?

What if conversions fall off a cliff and people stop ordering even though everything technically still works?

There’s an endless list of weird scenarios that could seriously impact revenue and your business. The odds are slim that any of these will pop up, but you want a foolproof backup plan just in case.

If something horrible happens, your backup plan is to point your domain back to your old site. It’ll take a few hours for all the changes to reverse themselves but they will reverse.

I like to keep my old site for at least 30 days to make sure everything is healthy.

Step 4: Shut Down Your Old Ecommerce Site

Once everything has been switched over and you have at least 30 days of healthy activity on your new ecommerce site, it’s time to take the old ecommerce site down entirely.

Skipping this step can cause problems later on.

I personally find it easy to neglect infrastructure cleanup items. For the time being, it doesn’t cause problems. But sooner or later, I get hit with a random fire that I’m not expecting. On one site I was managing, I found old ecommerce checkouts that were still live years after they should have been shut down. Occasionally, a customer did manage to find the page themselves and use it. This created all sorts of fulfillment problems.

Not to mention the fact that you’re probably paying for another ecommerce tool at this point. Better to get it shut down and reduce your monthly software expenses.

This step should be pretty easy. Once you cancel your subscription on your old ecommerce software, that company should turn everything off for you. Other than logging into your old account and hitting the cancel button, there shouldn’t be anything else that you have to do.

Then you’ll be completely transitioned to Shopify without any loose ends to worry about.

http://www.quicksprout.com/transfer-website-to-shopify/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/02/how-to-transfer-your-website-to-shopify.html

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