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The first thing that I thought about when I finished this book was that I could vividly smell a revolting mixture of iron, rot, mildew, and sweat

The Silence of the Lambs is not a new book. Penned by prolific author Thomas Harris, it originally came out in 1989. The book has been a prevailing piece of horror/thriller media. Especially with the titular character of Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer and cannibal who was caught in the previous novel in the series.

The book starts with an infamous serial killer not wanting to play along with the FBI for building a database for profilers dealing with unsolved murders. It’s the first time we hear of the two antagonists that haunt the narrative of the story for the rest of the book: Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter.

With bodies dropping rapidly due to a newly named serial killer named Buffalo Bill, who is dumping the bodies of women on roads, skinned and thoroughly mutilated.

FBI profiler Clarice Sterling has to take meetings with Hannibal, a psychopathic cannibal who is suave, happy go luck (relatively), and carefree for a man living under lock and key for committing some of the most heinous crimes that you can imagine.

As they meet more and more, as Buffalo Bill’s body count grows and his reasoning still evades the FBI and local police, Sterling and Hannibal build something of an uneasy understanding of each other and a sense of camaraderie. As well as the growing underlying feeling that the detective who was behind Hannibal’s capture was only able to catch was due to the fact that they mirror each other. An ongoing tactic that Hannibal uses to get under Detective Crawford's skin. Quite effectively.

The book finally ends when Buffalo Bill is apprehended in his home by Sterling, following Buffalo Bill's kidnapping of the daughter of a U.S. Senator. At the same time, Hannibal escapes prison and is now once again on the run, sending a message to Sterling as she finally finds a sense of peace.

“Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?

You owe me a piece of information, you know, and that's what I'd like. An ad in the national edition of the Times and in the International Herald-Tribune on the first of any month will be fine. Better put it in the China Mail as well. I won't be surprised if the answer is yes and no.

The lambs will stop for now. But, Clarice, you judge yourself with all the mercy of the dungeon scales at Threave; you'll have to earn it again and again, the blessed silence. Because it's the plight that drives you, seeing the plight, and the plight will not end, ever. I have no plans to call on you, Clarice, the world being more interesting with you in it. Be sure you extend me the same courtesy.

I have windows. Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be again before the year 2000. (I have no intention of telling you the time and how high it is.) But I expect you can see it too. Some of our stars are the same. Clarice.

- Hannibal Lecter

The book serves as a vessel for psychological study of the human condition of personal and societal expectation and as it dissects the many underlying issues within the main character, Clarice, as she is tasked with finding a serial killer who always seems to get the upper hand.

Clarice is a woman who is under a lot of pressure when she’s assigned to this case. It doesn’t help that there are many instances throughout the chapters where she is thoroughly undermined. One instance is when she is pushed to the side when dealing with a disappearance connected to Buffalo Bill by her superior, Jack Crawford, when communicating with local police.

The setting of the book takes place in the early 90’s, which would imply that a female agent wouldn’t be as scandalous as it would be had this taken place earlier. Similarly, The X-Files, featuring Dana Scully, has her being taken extremely seriously within her capacity as an agent.

But it highlights an insecurity that Sterling has about not being taken seriously as an agent, especially in the capacity of investigating a high profile case that is gaining a lot of media attention. She feels an almost overwhelming need to succeed. It sometimes felt like it wasn’t for the victims, and could be victims, but for Sterling’s sake specifically.

The impostor syndrome isn’t just from her being the only woman that’s been assigned to the case. From her humble beginnings in West Virginia, left without a father when he died on duty as the Town Marshall. Haunted by screaming lambs on her family’s farm. She exists to become something great, and the only thing stopping her is ignorant men, a serial killer, and a cannibal.

Personally, I liked Sterling throughout the journey of the story. She was strong willed and knew what she was talking about. There was never a moment when her fear felt played up for the sake of a floundering protagonist. She knows the stakes that she’s dealing with, and she’s going to do her damndest not to buckle under pressure.

She draws a startling parallel to Dana Scully, whom I mentioned towards the beginning of this report. They both mirror an agent who wants to succeed and is using their array of knowledge with the assistance of a partner who elicits nerves and ire.

Except one was a guy that doesn’t flinch when staring into the void, and the other is the demon lurking in the darkness of said void.

Then there is the other side of this story, and the diving crisis that draws Hannibal and Sterling to work together: Buffalo Bill.

The aptly named serial killer due to his penchant for skinning his female victims. When he was first introduced, the first thing that may catch the reader’s eye as we learn more about him is that he’s first described as a “transsexual,” which, on first impression, was a letdown in terms of story drivers.

The trans unsub is preying on vulnerable and innocent women, killing them in brutal and heinous ways. What a shocker, a story that hasn’t been wrung for everything it’s worth.

In the words of Miranda Priestly: “Groundbreaking.”

Jack the Ripper, Troubled Blood, and so many Criminal Minds episodes, the trope exists solidly in psychological, thriller, and horror spaces. It’s just a trope that I personally do not like, or view in a favorable light.

While I do find that Hannibal mentions that the serial killer is not a transsexual, as he doesn’t have the hallmarks that would suggest that he wants to transition from a healthy perspective a part of the story, as well as the tidbit where we hear from the perspective of doctors that have been advocating for trans people to be able to transition, and how this may set them back. Those fears were taken seriously. There was never a moment where you got the feeling that ayn character was rolling her eyes in an “ oh brother” perspective.

Though this is my opinion as a cis woman.

The book was a good romp, with some of the dialogue feeling as though you were peeking into an absurd world. Though I think that you would get the same feeling when actually talking to someone who works for the FBI.

While the book was started so that I could try and understand the television show Hannibal, it ended with me finding a great book that kept me on my toes, especially as we got to the latter half, where Jame Gumb gets killed by Sterling and Hannibal escapes into the night. It leaves you turning pages, scrambling to catch up with the quick thinking of Hannibal and Sterling.

I will admit that this book is a weird way to start Pride Month.

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The 1.7 update is upon us, and debate and arguments surrounding one of the most controversial characters are getting louder and louder across all platforms. Notably, Twitter and Reddit.

For background, the game Stardew Valley is a farming sim that allows for the titular character of the player to inherit their grandfather’s farm after growing tired of the monotonous nine-to-five of working at Jojamart. The in-game stand-in for the Fortune 500 company Amazon.

Deciding to follow their dreams, the player quits their job and moves to Stardew Valley. They settle into the small community of Pelican Town. Once in the town, they’re allowed to meet other villagers. Opening up storylines depending on who the player character connects with.

This leads to several villagers within the town who are “Bachelors and Bachelorettes,” Characters that can be developed into romantic partners. Each of the romance options has storylines and characteristics that are diverse for players to choose from. Small town jocks, to haughty fashionistas, to traumatized recovering addicts. Each character has time and energy poured into backstories that make the lore of the town richer for it.

With the new update, two new characters are being added to the roster of romanceable characters. The two options are Sandy, a mysterious store owner from Calico Desert, and Clint, the town blacksmith. While there was fanfare and excitement for Sandy, the same could not be said for Clint.

While there are many fans of the video game who are excited about an older romance candidate, with many of the bachelors and bachelorettes being spread across late teens to late twenties, Clint is firmly placed to be in his early to mid-thirties, per community speculation. A welcome change of pace, vocalized by older players.

Clint, as a character, however, has incited a lot of ire from the Stardew Valley community. The NPC is a character that the farmer interacts with a lot, seeing that he is initially the only way that you can upgrade your farming tools. From some of the dialogue from Clint over the counter, he inherited his trade from his father, and his father’s father before that.

He is a socially awkward man who has difficulty connecting with others in the valley. The type of man who can never seem to stop being embarrassed, whether that be in public or in the privacy of his own home.

It’s painfully palpable when interacting with other characters at holiday events in-game that most people don’t really regard Clint in any way. Not really noticing if he’s there or absent. The only people who really talk about him in game are Emily and Gus, who work at the town saloon.

Emily talks about Clint being awkward and shy, but regarding him as a friend, as Clint frequents the Saloon after closing his shop. Gus, the saloon owner, also notes with some amusement that Clint is an awkward guy, but also that he has a very obvious huge crush on Emily. Unable to really hide it.

Once learning about the crush, it’s really hard not to see it any time the farmer interacts with Clint. He’s clearly infatuated, but doesn’t exactly know how to act on it. In actuality, his struggle is extremely relatable.

The fear or rejection and vulnerability, paired with the exhaustive fear of being alone. Clint is lonely and recognizes that outside of Emily, he doesn’t have a lot of relationships outside of his perceived transactional ones - this usually includes the farmer- it’s what makes the crush on Emily so paralyzing to him. If he acts on his feelings and it goes poorly, he would lose the only positive functional relationship that he has within the valley.

While the issues he faces are something that many people who play the game may struggle with, there is still a mounting hostility and ire that surrounds Clint that can be overwhelming when others interact with him. It all comes down to how players real world experiences color the more rigid storylines within the game.

“The Nice Guy” paradigm is a concept of man that haunts the reality of a lot of players. There is a good chance that you have interacted with a person like this. An awkward guy that may or may not harbor some type of romantic attraction to you. And some of the more..Inappropriate moments that Clint has in-game may remind players of moments that they faced in their personal lives.

A moment that really stuck out to players who interact with Clint is his six heart cutscene, where he tries to ask out Emily, and chickens out at the last minute. He’s psyching himself up at her front door, but hides when he sees her, ultimately chickening out.

Many people have decided that this means that he stalks her. Staring at her from the bushes as she goes about her daily life. Coming to her house when there is no need. Which is a lens painted by the fact that not many people actually live in this small of a town. Everyone knows where everyone lives. It’s not all that strange in actuality.

However, many people are seeing this from Emily’s perspective. In the sense that if many saw a grown man jump into bushes as they were exiting their house, they would rightfully be on red alert. The issue is, is that the player has both sides of the story instead of just one.

Another grievance others have is that Clint stops talking to Emily once the farmer achieves eight hearts with her. Something she mentions being a bit hurt by, due to thinking that they were okay friends. Once again, an issue that stems from people dealing with friends dumping them once they see that they don’t have a chance romantically. Even if, realistically, if he had that strong of feelings for her, the friendship would have most likely been toxic and strained anyway.

Then there is, of course, the movie theater cutscenes, when Clint is maybe the worst person to go to the movies with. Sneaking in alcohol, shyly asking whether or not it’s a date (if you date him as a woman). Very stiltedly trying to make a subtle move ( just suggesting that you can put your head on his shoulder, relax), it all just made the interaction unwanted in general. Though it’s not the scene that made everyone take issue with him.

Many people simply don’t like how “self-pitying” he is towards himself and his less than substantial relationships within the valley. He’s lonely, but he doesn’t know how to reach out to others. It just leads him to more self-loathing. It’s a relatable stance on a character, one that many introverted gamers claim to understand, but that understanding doesn’t seem to include Clint. Despite all signs pointing that way.

In essence, the immense disgust that people show towards Clint is very strong; it comes from a list of places, not all of which are feasible or logical.

1. People’s desire to make the stories in the valley more dramatic than they actually are.

Many people live for the many storylines within Stardew Valley. The creator ConcernedApe is doing a fantastic job of making sure that there are several strings that people can follow along with. Keeping the valley real and vibrant. Nonetheless, once you complete the main stories and heart scenes of the characters you are invested in, it allows for the thoughts of the people to wander. It’s what leads people into believing that Abigail is the daughter of the Wizard, a product of the dalliances of Caroline.

It’s what leads people to believe that Demetrius neglects Sebastian and only cares about Maru. It’s what leads others to think that Linus created Joja, before realizing that the company was corrupt, only to give up all his riches to live off the land in the valley. People crave to make storylines that aren’t confirmed. The thought that Clint is a Stalker that you have to save Emily, a romance candidate, further entices the player to keep replaying the story.

2. People want to be heroes.

It goes without saying that has the main character of Stardew Valley, you are the hero within the storyline. You save the valley from being taken over by Joja, or rebuild the infrastructure of the village and the surrounding areas. You fight monsters that surround the town.

In many instances within the story, you are also the hero of the Bachelors and Bachelorettes. Saving Shane from his self destructive ways, saving Penny from her abusive mom, even in the confrontation with Leah and her awful ex boyfriend from the city, you are the hero.

As many play up the interactions of Clint and Emily, the need to play hero rises once again to the surface. By romancing her, the player is keeping her away from her “creepy, incel stalker.”

3. The aesthetics of Clint do not match

Clint is one of the standout characters of Stardew Valley, not only because he is a soon-to-be older romance candidate, he is also one of the bigger romance candidates. He’s a bigger scruffy man, very much playing into the role of the blacksmith.

Chubby cheeks, love handles, a thicker, functionally built man that pounds away on your tools, swords, and geodes. He sticks out amongst the “fitter”, slimmer bodied of the other characters. Shane being the only other non-conforming body type within the valley.

Many of the preconceived notions that others form about those body types in the real world are coloring how they view Clint within the game. Many are quick to point out that the things that others deem irredeemable are acts that the farmers themselves commit within other storylines in the valley.

It once again shows what fitting into culture perceived norms of beauty, even just being skinnier, can do to save your image and reputation.

4. The in game limits of NPC dialogue

Many of the issues that players have with NPC’s in game are due to the boundaries of repeated dialogue within the game. Some interactions that others have with NPCs are caused by the limitations of the dialogue of characters.

The notion that Sebastian doesn’t get a lot of love from his step parent are, in turn, because of how Sebastian views their relationship, which he confesses while getting closer to you. It also comes from the limits of Demetrius’ character dialogue, which doesn’t account for how little he talks about both of his children.

Robin does the same thing, not really mentioning Maru, and only having a nickname for Sebastian.

Alex is clearly attracted to Hailey within the game, and continues to ogle her despite the farmer dating or marrying her. Vincent says that he wants to marry Ms. Penny even after he attends her wedding and has the Farmer’s children.

The characters all have a cycle that’s built into them. This includes Clint; it’s something that cannot be avoided because of the fact that Stardew Valley only has one programmer.

This is a cycle that is doomed to repeat, as many people don’t realize that this same interaction happened when Shane was confirmed to be a romance candidate over the Wizard. Shane was a contentious character who rubbed people the wrong way immediately due to his abrasive dialogue surrounding being left alone. His actions, in many ways, were a lot more of an issue than any of the reasons people assign to Clint, but once he was rewritten for romance, he was able to be given a more nuanced light. The same will happen to Clint.

In conclusion, this is just something that happens in every cozy simulation. The arguments will become quieter, and more people will just have to focus on Pierre being a scheming businessman and Mayor Lewis being a corrupt mayor. At the end of the day, there will be an entire generation of Stardew Valley players who only know Clint as a romance option. Nothing can really stop it.

There is a certain age at which people just expect you to stop acting awkward. I’m sure that a lot of people would have written off these moments if Clint had been the age of the youngest romance options ( Abigail, Sebastian, or Sam). Clint being clearly old makes people instinctively, whether they like to admit that or not, believe that Clint should have his sh*t together, only to find it disgusting that he doesn’t.

It’s an internal bias created by the larger society that many progressive players of the game claim to have grown out of, yet can’t seem to help themselves when slipping back into it. Thus, acting as a cycle cozy game, players will repeat until the end of time.

It’s what allows the player to look past Hailey being at first mean, yet also continuing to think she has a chance with the farmer once they're married, but shame Clint for pining at a distance for Emily.

For the most part, it will calm down, and everyone will forget about the amount of actual anger that they harbored towards a man who imitates an actual archetype of a person that walks around in real life. Clint will either make many people realize that, like in many cases, getting to know someone can add dimension to biases that they harbor, or completely rewrite the experiences surrounding Clint's hate as playful and not actually harmful.

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Rap heads found it funny, the gaming community found it interesting, and the lost media community was salivating over another mystery to solve. However, digging deeper leads to a very interesting discovery. In between the fun game play, and interesting dialogue the game hides a very interesting, disturbing, and complex game that led players to discover that the game hid the initiation of a cult.

The first few playthroughs you won’t find anything of notice, however, when digging deeper and interacting with all the NPC’s you’ll find one near an abandoned warehouse that’ll ask you about a secret desire. If you go to “Ascend,” you‘ll be transported to a grayscale version of Kanye Quest that leads you through puzzles and an initiation test that eventually leads to the outside world. It starts with a simple text box: “Congratulations! You have proven yourself to be an open-minded and curious thinker.”

“I must apologize for deceiving you, but we can reveal that the game you were playing until this point was a “front” constructed to protect what you are currently accessing. We must ask that you not reveal this area to the public. If you believe that you may be prone to revealing information, or do not wish to participate. Please close this program immediately by pressing ALT-F4 or by selecting the NO option when it appears. By selecting the YES option, you agree to participate and not reveal information.”

The quest for the cult, as well as the creator of the infamous, has been a long and mostly

empty ordeal. However, the history and stories behind those who believe in ascensionism, as well as the thoughts and creation of the game, leave many still questioning everything to this day.

The story follows two creators on Youtube that cover both lost media and games. As well as a final interview with the actual creator of Kanye Quest, who recently finally revealed herself. Matthew Patrick of Game Theory, Chill Fuel (name redacted), a lost media YouTuber. And finally, Clara Hope, aka Phoenix, is the creator of Kanye Quest 3030.

The story takes place from the perspective of Matthew and Nexpo as they go through the history and mania surrounding the game, and the controversy and intrigue that was stirred up once the cult initiation was found in the game, later in its playthrough. It goes into what it’s like to research something that has had most of its components buried in time. The only way to really see more of the game is to reveal serious consequential information. This should all come to a head as the perspective flips to Clara Hope. The creator of Kanye quest that never realized the reach of her game would get as popular as it did. A good portion of the footage will come from snippets of YouTube videos covering lost media as well as gameplay footage.

The screen is black before it transitions to a dimly lit bedroom. The light source is coming from a computer shoved into the corner of the room. The camera pans to a person hunched over their desk, typing away on their computer. The camera cuts to an over-the-shoulder shot as the person finds a link to the game Kanye Quest. After a brief second, they click it, and the screen cuts to a title screen that says:

“KANYE QUEST.”

Before the title screen slowly fades away.

The person is Nexpo, who has his identity is obscured as he focuses on the screen. He introduced himself as well as the focus on internet mysteries on his channel. He goes into how he found Kanye Quest through some gameplay on YouTube as well as on forums. Screenshots of comments flash on screen before cutting to some gameplay.

A clip of the beginning of the YouTube Video begins to play as we hear Nexpo talk through the intro. This will be accompanied by several shots of non-descript viewers watching the screen in similarly lit spaces that Nexpo currently is in. Nexpo talks about how he didn’t expect the game to get this much coverage, or even the amount of views he got on his video.

Clips of articles featuring “Kanye West stars in unauthorized video games” flash across the screen, piling up. Before cutting to different videos of Kanye Quest. The screen cuts back to Nexpo, saying that the game really got popular when someone noticed that certain NPCs caused certain actions to happen in-game. A clip cuts into the NPC in the warehouse being interacted with before a big title screen flashes on the screen: DO YOU WANT TO ASCEND? Nexpo continues saying that once you say yes, you’re immediately thrust into a different game altogether, if you can even call it that.

Screenplay of the now “ascended ‘’ video game setting shown on screen. Nexpo goes on about how they would ask you to input codes. And how they seem nonsensical, and to this day, there’s not a really good reason that they are what they are. Words flash on screen showing the codes to the game: Jagatai, snowless, armco, sembrich. Some of the words have meaning. Others don’t. The way to get these codes was lost to time, as the QR code that was to lead you to the cipher no longer worked as of 2015. It makes the machinations of the words impossible to determine. It made the mystery more enticing.

Nexpo talked about how the following around this trend was growing, but it only really blew up in popularity when a bigger YouTuber talked about it, and really got the ball rolling. The screen transitions to the beginning of Matthew’s Game Theory on Kanye Quest. It then transitions to Matthew sitting on his set’s couch that he uses for videos.

He introduces himself as the creator of Game Theory, a popular YouTube channel and series where he covered games of all varieties that have “mysteries” or any type of theories. He goes into finding the pastebin for Kanye Quest as well as seeing the many playthroughs and forum posts that had begun cropping up. So he looked into it and started making a video. Matthew talks about the process of going through and finding ciphers for the last question before it asks the personal questions that would lead to the cult “contacting you in real life.” Though no reports have ever surfaced that a cult has contacted them.

Matthew goes on to say that this is what really takes out the reality of the cult, and instead establishes that this is an ARG. Even if Ascensionism has what looks to be real ties to “religions” of the past. Matthew goes on to talk about evidence that Ascensionism was talked about in 2006, years before the game was ever released. Matthew points out that this could be pre-planning, which has been seen in other ARGs. It leads the question of whether this is real or an ARG up in the air. The only real way to know is if you talk to the creator.

The screen goes black. Then fades into an empty room with a single chair. We hear footsteps echo throughout the empty room, and Clara Hope enters the frame and addresses the camera. She introduces herself as Clara Hope, AKA Phoenix. The creator of Kanye Quest.

Clara mentions that the project started as something small. A small joke that she put together with a few friends. She was in high school and was asked to create a game for a school game design class. She mentions that it was a combination of all the things that she had interests in in high school. Music, mystery, true crime (cults) and video games.

She talks about the beta version. The first version of the game had no hidden level. The vanilla game that she gave to her high school. She talks about how it wasn’t supposed to be anything. It was an idea for a game that hadn’t panned out fully. Clips of the screen showing a Kanye Quest update link. Since Kanye Quest was already garnering attention she decided to just slip it in there, and it didn’t matter who noticed a little hidden ARG that only someone really into the game would find.

She talks through ascensionism and how it spawned from a lot of research on new age cults. And how a lot of them talked about “ascensionism” and how she based that completely in her game. What if she combined her interests in Kanye West and new age cults. Pictures of new age cults, and Kanye West appear on screen before going back to Clara. And thus, the hidden level in Kanye Quest was born.

She admits that there wasn’t any meaning behind the ciphers and the messaging of the cult. It really was just a secret level that got too much attention. She does admit that she was amused by the amount of horror videos on YouTube that it created. She talks about how she wasn’t expecting that. Images of a compilation of horror YouTube creators showcasing her game and the hidden “killer cults” that it hid.

She now talks about how she makes music. Clips of Clara at concerts and venues play as she talks about co-owning an indie record label called “Ascensionism Records.” She also talks about ironically releasing an album called “Ascend”. She says it feels a part of her brand now, and she can’t release it.

She admits that she never thought about revitalizing it despite it becoming a cult classic. And that, despite many people trying to find her, she never felt the need to reveal herself until now. Images of forum posts talking about who the creator could be flash on screen before cutting to Clara. She does admit that people theorizing that she was Kanye West himself was funny, however. The shot fades out, and the Ascensionism logo fades in. Then the screen cuts to black.

The screen returns to the empty room with a computer shoved in the back of the room. The man, revealed to be Nexpo, still sat there watching his older video of Kanye Quest. He talks about how the best part of following a mystery is the suspense surrounding the outcome. The tension following this several-year quest has finally snapped, and it was finally laid to rest. The screen fades out, and the title card from the beginning shows:

KANYE QUEST.

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Five Nights at Freddy’s is a survival horror video game that came out in 2014. It immediately caught the eyes of thousands of people of all ages, all ranging due to it’s child friendly aesthetic that hid a dark and twisted horror story.

The main video game follows a night guard, Mike Schmidt, who has to survive five nights at a haunted animatronic pizzeria. The player uses several cameras showing different areas in the pizzeria that hold the different animatronics: Foxy, Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy, all haunted by the souls of children brutally murdered within the pizzeria by an ‘unnamed serial killer’. Along with less forward facing animatronics like Mangle and Golden Freddy.

There are steel doors that keep the Schmidts safe from harm when the main five come to kill the night guard, and Schmidt has to balance checking the cameras and closing the doors to keep himself from getting killed. The difficulty comes in the form of the battery on the cameras and door, due to the old technology within the abandoned pizzeria. Some of the most high stakes moments come from the door power being at one percent, with a minute left before 6 am, the end of Schmidt's shift at Freddy’s.

Sprinkled in the video game were clues that led to an overarching story that hooked viewers and created a community of collaboration, which was thrilling and addictive.

The video game was a hit. Launched in the summer of 2014, the game received positive reviews. Generating good feedback and experience. It received the most views on it, once it hit YouTube.

Let’s Play content is one of the most popular genres of video on the YouTube platform. Gaming was hitting a stride with the algorithm in the early 2000’s as millions of viewers tuned in to see what games popular creators would play next. One of those games was Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, and PewDiePie were some of the most common names thrown around when people bring up who rocketed FNAF into cultural stardom. I personally believe that Game Theory provided a lot of content for younger audiences to engage with the media.

Afterwards, Five Nights at Freddy’s exploded. It was everywhere. YouTube, social media, niche blogs on the internet. It evolved from video games to ARGs to creepypasta to fan-made projects; it didn’t matter. FNAF was all over the internet. It showed no signs of stopping,

One of the most current expansions to the FNAF franchise is the FNAF movies. They were previously promised back in 2015, a year after the first video game’s release. However, it entered almost a decade of development and only came out eight years later in 2023.

The move follows Mike Schmidt, a man who takes on the job of a security guard for Freddy Fazbears’ Pizzeria. Haunted by the death of his brother Garette, he struggles to take care of his sister Abby while dealing with the haunted animatronics. Eventually, it leads to a knock down fight with William Afton, the serial killer who killed the children haunting the suits.

The creator of FNAF, Scott Cawthon, came forward and was honest with his audience. The movie is going to take a different approach to FNAF’s story than the video games. It was good that he said something, too, because the debate around the film when it did come out rattled the FNAF space.

Many people stepped forward to question whether or not anything in the game could be taken to be canonical. Other people were annoyed that, after all the years of development hell that the movie went through, it didn’t match up to their expectations. On the other side, there was a louder and brighter voice screaming from the back of the theater.

People loved the movie.

The movie was a bit cringeworthy, and didn’t follow the first video game beat for beat, but it was still fun, and funny, and chock full of references that had viewers jumping out of their seats, such as cameos of YouTubers, or niche jokes from years ago in the fandom, even fanmade songs made it into the soundtrack of the theatrical release. It had many people thinking fondly of the times that they had within the fandom through the years.

Two years later, the tenth anniversary of Five Nights and Freddy’s commenced with so much love of community engagement, and outpour from the creator. They released Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into the Pit. Featuring a boy named Oswald who finds a time travelling ball pit that allows him to witness the first murders that happened at Freddy’s before they closed down.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 came out in late 2025, a highly anticipated sequel to the first movie. People lined up opening night to see the movie, and I did as well. We sat down, watched the commercials, and then the movie played.

It was…Okay.

The movie was fine. It followed Vanessa and Mike as they battled the Toy animatronics from Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, as well as Vanessa’s brother, Michael, who wants to follow in their father’s footsteps. It wasn't the most high concept, yet even then, it seemed to struggle to deliver. Abby felt juvenile in a way that wasn’t compelling. Vanessa not disclosing information about her family, and the second Freddy’s location, made no sense thematically. The marionette, being the main antagonist and “killing” Vanessa in the end, felt wonky.

The fandom let themselves be heard; they didn’t like the movie, and the cheesy charm of the first film did not translate to the second one. The rose colored glasses had completely disappeared. There are still fans who defend the movie, the cheesiness, the story, and how it was shaping up.

It really makes you wonder, can a close relationship with a franchise save a movie?

Many franchises exist because fans keep propelling them forward. Countryhumans, SCP Foundation, and maybe even Friday Night Funkin are good examples of a franchise that fans will never allow to die. Five Nights at Freddy’s is like that to a lesser extent, closer to how Harry Potter and percy jackson churns out different pieces of media and reign in their audiences when it seems like the fanaticism is fading.

A fandom is only as good as the fans within it. It doesn’t matter how much passion a creator puts into a project if fans don’t respond in kind. It’s one of the many reasons that creators love fan art and fanfiction. Because it shows that thousands are engaging positively with their art.

Sometimes it does reach a certain point where the continuation of a fandom is steered solely by the fans. While FNAF hasn’t reached that level of fan self reliance, there is a level of shoving past glaring issues with products that the franchise has put out due to the overall rose tinted glasses.

Security Breach was glitchy, the first movie was just okay, and the latest movie was so rushed and cobbled together that it left fans feeling betrayed. There’s only so much that a franchise can count on die hard fans to keep a ship afloat. FNAF isn’t the only franchise to do it; Call of Duty, Star Wars, and Marvel are popular sticking points of fandoms that solely rely on people just going out of habit, and support for a whole, not focusing on the degradation of the media. It’s a large issue that several successful franchises come across due to comfort.

Because that's what it comes down to at the end of the day: comfort.

Comfort in success, comfort in steadfast support. Once a creator feels that even when presented less than stellar work, because so many people love them so much, it’s hard to break that cycle.

There are some fandoms that fight against this. Sonic and even most recently Shrek had moments where, as popular franchises, they weren’t allowed to passively churn out content to appeal to the masses along with older fans. They were held accountable, and things changed. Things got better.

That’s really the only way that the FNAF movies can get better. Less focus on seeing the movies right now, and more focus on delivering a product that long term fans, the ones that are buying the most merch and tickets, and newer fans can enjoy.

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Alana is a sophomore who dropped out of college after not getting the experience that she wanted at an on-campus university. She opened up about a standout moment she had while in her freshman year in college. “There was at Liberty, some type of show or something going on on the lawn. And everyone had gone, I think I went with Reese and whoever else.

“But I sat with our dorm girls, our RA, RS, and all of them, and I felt like they were so put together and so holy and so immersed in what the show was. And I was just, even though surrounded by everyone and being contributing to a conversation, I felt like I was lonely because I was out of place. I was pretending to be like them when I knew I wasn’t.”

Individualism is important to people. It’s regarded as a cultural value that is widely seen in the U.S. and the further Western world. It’s the thought process of ‘just because it’s a societal norm, doesn’t mean I have to follow it if I don’t like it.”

Hyper individualism is defined as “the extreme focus on personal autonomy, self-reliance, and independence, often at the expense of community social responsibility, and collective well-being.” Hyper individualism boomed across the U.S. in the 1960s, according to the Cornell paper titled “ How American Individualism is Evolving.” Beforehand, when you referred to hyper individualism, it referred to politics, but suddenly it was being used to refer to one’s own personal life.

Now, 60 years later, that concept has spread into the minds and actions of young people. Less about a cultural revolution, and more about hustling, and “becoming the main character.” Young adults are influenced to believe that they have to have a brand that tells everyone how to treat them. The constant need to care more about your own actions and how they affect you, instead of how they could affect others.

The prevalence of social media plays a huge part in this ongoing problem. According to the University of Maine, there are 4.8 billion social media users worldwide, a staggering 59%. The prevalence of recording everything that you do for the eyes of potentially millions causes people to care more about their presentation.

It also causes stress on the individual. “ I went through intense hours of editing, finding the right song, the right caption, the right lighting, I had to post on theme, and honestly, it’s how I gained 1000 followers and over 300 likes per post now,” Alana said. “ High school, I needed to be ‘her’, now I don’t care as long as I’m still perceived as cute and relatable.”

Social media also reinforces more “selfish” behaviors. Algorithms personalize feeds so that they’re tailored to the individual. It makes it easier to reinforce thoughts and ideals under the notion of self care.

For young adults, to reinforce the need to have everything personalized. As life gets placed more and more on social media, young adults begin to believe that life has to be personalized the same way. Something that you don’t agree with? You can get rid of it the same way that you use the “don’t see this channel anymore.”

Marriage rates, birthing rates, and the sizes of households; they’re all getting smaller. Time spent alone is on the rise, and social networks are dwindling to smaller sizes. On TikTok, there are thousands of posts featuring young influencers speaking out about their struggles with loneliness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the definition of loneliness is: “feeling like you do not have meaningful or close relationships or a sense of belonging.” A growing definition that many are relating to at an alarming rate. In 2024, with that same definition in mind, 30% of Americans aged between 18 and 24 reported that they are experiencing loneliness every day or several times a week.

It seems that more and more each day, young adults are struck with the notion that they are pretty isolated from the world around them. But what’s the cause of this? There are more people in the world than ever before. Not only that, but the advent of technology and social media gives human beings the ability to connect with others in a way that was impossible for older generations.

Despite all of this, why are young adults so lonely? Well, just the way that social media and the internet as a whole treat connections causes issues. “The terminology connected, things like we’re friends or we’re liking each other’s digital posts or whatever that is, and not only social media, but predominantly in social media spaces. Young people feel that this is an adequate connection for them, but then it’s not; it doesn’t satisfy some of the things.” Said Louis Michael Alvey, a counselor at Liberty University Student Counselling Services.

The growing epidemic of loneliness is a hot topic amongst young adults. Especially those who are college age and are transitioning to adulthood with a lack of community. Many students find themselves unable to connect with their peers, or if they do, they feel unsatisfied with the established connection between them.

Many psychologists are led to the conclusion that the cause of this loneliness epidemic is due to hyper-individualism and the rise of social media.

“ It’s not more of a communal or familial focus. It’s about the individual focusing on their needs across all different life domains. Most notable would be overall health, well-being, career focus, things like that.” Said Alvey.

Self-branding, curating, and how social media is able to promote individuals who monetize these concepts. It teaches those from a young age that things like independence and unrestrained artistic individualism are something to be desired, and something to be prioritized at all costs. “ I would imagine, I think, again, from what I understand of the hustle culture and now kind of what I’m trying to conceptualize of this main character energy, this individualism, hyper individualism, would a logical progression for that would be either one of these areas. Again, performance, I’m going to take on myself, and then I become, maybe we have terms for like I’m the influencer of my own life.” Alvey expressed.

This isn’t just about young adults, however. Despite what many want the world to believe, a young adult’s values and forms of expression aren’t inherently taught from the internet and social media. As mentioned earlier, hyper individualism was a concept way before this generation’s young people even existed.

“I don’t think it’s unique,” said Alvey. “ I think it is prominent in the younger generations, but looking back to previous generations will be like the baby boomers and like the greatest generation, the gold generation. I think that there were elements of it there.”

Previous generations introduced “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” Leaving to build a life on your own at 18 years old. Generation X, also known as the parents of. Gen Z promotes self-reliance and independence.

Generation teaches ideals to younger generations. Like searching for independence away from family at a young age. In my experience, my father mentioned that I move out at 17 years old on my 13th birthday party. But in younger generations, these things are taken to the extreme.

“ I believe it was just increasing and more pervasive flowing out into other areas of the larger cultural context because even think back to like boomers and before then, there were elements of it and not even arguably I think objectively unhealthy elements of that in American existence for quite some time.” Alvey supplied on this topic.

Even though many young adults are facing loneliness caused by Western culture, many young adults are trying to reverse the damage of this type of mentality. Alvey sees this in the young adults that he speaks to.

“We are recognizing that there’s kind of this push back against what the cultural momentum had been birthed out of, kind of birthed out of our lived experiences, of this is not satisfying,” Alvey explained. “I’m an eternal optimist while also being cynical. But I believe that the younger generations, in an attempt to heal, are being drawn back toward community. Not that everyone’s necessarily jumping off social media and things like that. But there are movements within the younger generations to be intentional.”

“ I only post things I find important now, and I lost 200 followers and only get just under 200 likes,” Alana revealed. “It’s a little sad but a lot less stress than what I was doing a year ago and way much better than two years ago.”

While there are still young adults who will place more emphasis on self-actualization instead of building community and suffer because of it, there are even more who are slowly building community and villages. More adults are focused on finding who they are together with others than just focusing on that facet by themselves.

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“There you go, on the mend already.”

I touch my broken nose, feeling the rough fibers of the bandage that was slapped across the strip of my nose. My lower lip was busted, and my eye was slightly swollen, but the main thing they were worried about was my nose. Throbbing and gushing a steady amount of blood down my lips and chin.

I look at it in the smudged mirror right next to me. I looked like a mess. Hair messy, matted, and slick with sweat and maybe a bit of blood. Freshly bloomed bruises covered my bare chest and arms. My nose looked crooked, but was on the mend. I think.

My thoughts were interrupted as someone entered the medic room. Glancing over, I see a stout man wearing the most expensive suit that I have ever seen. A cold navy blue, nicely ironed, and maybe starched. He swaggered over to where I sat slumped and tired next to the fussing medic. He looked me up and down before cracking a big smile, revealing an impressive pair of pearly whites.

“Look at mister heavy hitter here!” A booming laugh erupted from his chest cavity. He laughed for a good while before calming himself down and wiping a tear from his rosy cheeks. “ I knew that letting you in here was a good idea! You’re a golden goose in the making!” I give a small smile.

“Thank you, sir,” he nodded approvingly before turning his attention over to the medic who was writing something down hastily. Clearing his throat loudly caused the medic to startle and look up. Mr. Navy suit raised an eyebrow before gesturing in my general direction.

“What’s his condition? Can he fight tomorrow?” The medic hesitated briefly before speaking.

“I think that it would be best for him to take at least a few days off to just make sure that he’s recovering and then probably schedule a follow up visit-” Mr. Navy suit interrupted that.

“Is there any way that he can be put on the circuit tomorrow? We need to make sure that no one forgets him. You know how business is with the younger kids. The attention span just isn’t there.” He said it lightly, but his eyes were sparkling in warning. The medic seemed to have caught it because he was quick to change his tune.

“You know, if you give him some of this and let him soak in a hot bath, he could perform tomorrow.” A bottle of pills is shaken in front of my face, as I slowly reach up to take it from my seated position. “ Just make sure that you drink a lot of water, no alcohol should be mixed while on these pills, and eat really heavy meals. Even if you don’t want to.”

The happy look was back on Mr. Navy suit’s face. He leaned back and pretended to wipe his brow. “ That’s good! For a second, I was worried that we’d have to let him go. We need someone who can bounce back on a moment’s notice. Take cards for fighters who are unable to work anymore. Perform at events for private clients. You made the most money out of any of the rookies that I’ve hired this year. I’d hate to lose such a great money maker.”

My stomach churned at what he was implying. “ I’m good to fight, I will be ready for tomorrow, I can assure you.” Mr.Navy suit nodded his assent before pulling back the coat and reaching into the inner pockets and pulling out a thick envelope of cash. He tossed it lazily towards me as I fumbled to catch it. I clutch it close to my chest. I dip my head gratefully.

“Thank you, sir,” I let my eyes stay trained on his shiny brown leather shoes. Mr. Navy suit grunts before swiftly turning and walking out the door. After it slams shut, I take a deep breath and slowly raise my head, and stare at the place where the man in charge of my future had given me the most succinct threat of my life.

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder that caused me to look back at the medic who was looking at me over again. Though now I suspect that it was for a different reason. “ What I said is true, you could potentially perform the same way that you did yesterday, but you do need rest.” The medic’s brow furrowed as they swept over the bandaged cut on my forehead. “ At the very least, you’re lucky you don’t have a concussion.”

I nod slowly, decidedly too tired to keep up the conversation. The medic must have noticed, because they were quick to usher me out of the medic’s office and send me on my way.

I staggered out into the cool air of the night. There were some stragglers from those who hadn’t left to watch the fight. But other than that, it was quiet as I made my way from the ring to my small apartment, only a good twenty minutes away from my new place of business.

Walking over to my couch, I collapsed in a heap, letting my head tip back. The cracks on my ceiling had spread slowly over my time here. And while I supposed that I was eventually going to get them fixed, I felt that it added too much to the decor of my ratty apartment. A small studio that had a twin bed crammed into the corner next to a shitty TV was small enough to fit.

The bed was calling my name, as I eyed the soft downy fabric of freshly washed sheets. I slowly got up, limped over to my bathroom, and started a hot shower.

Stepping in, I closed my eyes as a steady stream of water cascaded over me. I slowly turned in a circle, letting the scalding temperature hit my bruised back. I let out a shuddering breath as I tried to let my muscles relax just like the medic recommended.

By the end of the shower, the small puddles of water left in the bottom of the shower were a soft pink color mixed with a murky grey. I let myself drip for a second longer before stepping out of the shower to towel off. Patting my face dry, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, causing me to pause.

I looked awful, to be succinct. Any adrenaline that I had was completely gone once I stepped through the door of my apartment. I had gotten clipped on my forehead, and my mouth was completely swollen. There was a huge bruise blooming on my cheekbone, and of course, the main headline on the abstract painting was my face; my broken nose that had bandaged up.

I grimace before looking away and heading to the kitchen to scrounge something up for dinner.

Two cans of tuna, a huge serving of rice, and frozen broccoli later, I’m shoveling down as much as I can before my attention is drawn to an incoming call on my phone. Accepting the call, I press speaker so I can continue eating.

“ Hello?” I hear the sound of club music and cheering in the background before the voice of Mr. Navy suit begins bellowing to be heard over the sound of the noise.

“If it isn’t Mister Heavy Hitter! How are you? Have you taken the stuff the medic gave you yet?” I eye the bottle of pills warily before scooping up a bit more rice.

“Not yet, sir. I was planning on eating to avoid the side effects that he mentioned.” Mr. Navy suit laughed before collecting himself. I could hear the sounds of others giggling in the background.

”Oh, I’m sure that those instructions weren’t that important. Really, just take a few and make sure that you’re juiced for tomorrow night!” There was another pause, and I heard something that sounded like a long snort, and more giggles and whispers. Mr. Navy suit coughs loudly for a few moments before continuing.

“Anyway, I was calling to tell you you’re on the circuit again tomorrow night. In a more prime time spot, too, 11 pm! Keep this up, and you’ll be getting more premium hours and money as well.” He warbled on.

I bob my head before realizing that he couldn’t see that. “Thank you, sir, I will do my best not to disappoint you.” Mr.Navy suit chuckled, a thread of darkness weaved into it.

“You had better not, I’m investing in you, boy. And I’ll make sure that I. Get a return on my investment.” With that, he hung up, leaving me sitting in silence with a hollow feeling in my chest. My plate is now empty. I reached over and eyed the bottle of unnamed pills before fishing out one and swallowing it dry. Cleaning up my plate, I throw myself onto the bed, close my eyes, and let my thoughts fade. Though one prevailing thought stayed in my mind as everything else went blank.

I had to do well tomorrow.

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The next night went as well as expected. I could hear the sounds of the crowd cheering as I stood above my now crumpled opponent, who was slowly bleeding out from where I had cracked his head against the concrete from throwing him off of me. My chest was heaving as twinges of sharp pain danced across my pecs as I looked up, squinting against the bright white lights blinding me. Minutes blurred together as the medic that took care of me last time gently led me off the stage and towards the back.

I was sitting in a chair, and they went to work immediately. A water straw was shoved in my mouth, and a pen light shone on my pupils once again, searching for a concussion. The medic was mumbling under their breath as they wrote something down before slapping on some gloves and pulling out a sterile needle and thread, and slowly pressed antiseptic to the bleeding area.

I hissed, jerking back only for the medic’s hand to firmly keep me in place. This close, I could feel their breath puffing against my collarbone as they swiftly moved to stitch up the wound nestled between my pecs. I swallowed before taking a shaker breath and looking away as they gave me eight stitches in total before pressing gauze against it.

“There,” they said, leaning back and looking at their handiwork. “ All patched up.”

I look down at the patched up wound. You wouldn’t have guessed that minutes before, here had been a bleeding mess dribbling down to the floor there. I looked up at the medic who was stripping off the gloves to throw away. “ That was really cool. Thanks.” They look over at me, raising an eyebrow.

“ You’re one of three fighters that had ever thanked me after patching them up. And the second one is so sincere.” I frown at that, shifting to face the medic as they wash their hands.

“How could I not be grateful? I think you’re the reason that my nose still works, and I’m not bleeding all over my apartment.” The medic laughed at that before turning back to me and leaning over to inspect my face again.

“Speaking of which, how is my handiwork looking? I saw a bit of your fight from the sidelines. Looks like you chose to be a bit more on the offensive this time, right? Not a single blow to the face.” They prodded at some of the bandaging, and I had to do everything in my power not scrunch my nose on reflex.

”It was fine all last night and through the fight. Whatever those pills you gave me really worked.” The medic hesitated before pulling back once again and stepping over to where they kept their supplies.

“I hope that’s all you’ll need from me. They can be rather addicting.” I tilt my head in confusion as to where the conversation was headed. The pills were rather nice in that aspect, but I couldn’t see myself using them outside of their needed use. Plus, they sucked to swallow. I repeated that back to the medic, who laughed so hard that their cheeks had turned red from the strain.

“ You know, out of everything that someone has said to assure me that they weren’t getting addicted to drugs, that’s the most simplistic way that anyone has ever put it. Thank you for that.” I gave a small smile back.

The feeling was interrupted by multiple voices growing louder before Mr. Navy Suit burst through the door with two gorgeous women pressed against him. His eyes tangled with mine, and a smile broke out on his face. “ There you are, excellent performance out there. Though you were a bit slower on the uptake. Much too defensive.” His eyes caught one of the women that were with him, causing him to leer at her. “ Made for a bit of a boring fight, wouldn’t you two agree?” Both of them nodded eagerly.

I watched warily as Mr. Navy suit faced the medic, who was looking fed up with how crowded their room had become. “How is he looking, doc?” The medic sighed before crabbing his clipboard.

“Like I said last time, some rest would be best for him- but,” The medic added, seeing that Mr. Navy suit was about to interrupt once again. “ I know that wouldn’t be best for business. So one pill, three meals, and hydration, a massage for some of the overworked muscles, and at least ten hours of rest between now and his next fight. Does that sound good to you?” Mr. Navy suit narrowed his eyes at the medic’s tone, but decidedly focused on the news that I could fight another day.

“I suppose that’s amenable. Mr Heavy Hitter, you heard the medic. Head out and get some rest. Be ready for tomorrow night.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. Same size as last night. He walked it over to me this time and pressed it against my chest. I barely keep the strangled gasp as it presses over the freshly stitched wound. He looks at me with an undercurrent of disgust and greed that was different from the feral excitement that had emitted from his body last night.

“Remember what I said. You are an investment. I don’t need someone who burns out after two or three fights. Am I clear?” I Adams apple bobs as I swallow my nerves and nod slowly.

“Yes, sir, I understand.” He nods one last time before ushering his ladies out. And once again, it’s me and the medic. I don’t turn to look at them, but I softly ask: “Is it always like this?”

The medic takes a second to reply, “Some days are better than most. But he likes a fighter that’s a sure fire bet. If he senses weakness, he nips it in the bud as fast as he can.”

There’s a pause. “It’s a rough life that you chose.” I close my eyes, letting the pain go through its courses across my body.

“I know, but it felt like the only solution. My only way forward.” The medic sighs, before appearing in my line of sight with some more bandages and a small smile on their face.

“Don’t worry, though. I’ll always be here to keep you on the mend. Okay?” And even with this whole situation feeling shitty, I felt a smile forming on my face in response.

“Okay.”

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Gen Z is ruled by the notion of aesthetics.

It’s everywhere when you look at social media, and even if you talk to young adults in real life. Dark academia, light academia, goblin core, new. money, old money, that girl, clean girl, cinnamon girl, cottage core, Y2k, the list of aesthetics dominating Gen Z culture has become so powerful that it has infiltrated every aspect of Gen Z’s lifestyle.

That has also expanded to include the world of politics.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Gen Z has been referred to as a visual generation. The study: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF GEN Z’S LEARNING CHARACTERISTICS AND PREFERENCES points to Gen Z leaning more towards visual learning when it comes to understanding things around them. To quote the study: “They enjoy interactive and visual presentations, are accustomed to using digital gadgets, and seek out rapid feedback during the learning process. (Paulo and Ramirez 2025).”

This comes from Gen Z being the first iteration of “the digital native,” which essentially describes a person who is very familiar with digital technology, computers, etc., because they have grown up with them. Gen Z was an experiment to see how people with unlimited access to technology and information.

With the experiment fully underway, the first thing that comes to many people’s minds is the effects of social media, and how that warped young adults’ perceptions of how the real world works, and how Gen Z is supposed to navigate through it.

platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and Twitch are usually amongst the most interacted with apps on the majority of young adults’ devices. According to the Pew Research Center study titled: Teens, Social Media, and AI Chatbots.

It’s hard to find a young adult who hasn’t interacted with at least three of these platforms. It’s hard to exist in this generation without being online in some form.

These apps are all visually focused, with most relying on short form content to keep the attention of their audiences. With the format being cemented to working the most effectively, most short form content relies on easily replicable content, with attention grabbing themes and titles, and digestible visuals.

The ways to achieve these looks are usually broken down into concepts and easy to follow steps. They tell you how to look, how to act, what to wear. The aesthetic gets down to what activities an aesthetic should follow. Where they hand out, what music they listen to. Even what they eat and where they go to shop. It’s a step by step list for people who haven’t found a solid identity to piece by piece cobble together who they want to be as a person.

Most facets of appealing to Gen Z, who are old enough to have some type of spending power and say in politics, but not quite established in identity, rely on using aesthetics and concepts to get them on board. Marketers are quickly picking up on this and relying on those aesthetics to get Gen Z to buy their products. Makeup and lifestyle brands such as Lululemon, Alo, and Goop are notorious for this.

But consumer good marketers aren’t the only ones picking up on this when it comes to appealing to Gen Z, those who engage and rally young voters are starting to catch up to what was only really discussed by social media marketers.

It can be somewhat subtle, but each side of the American political spectrum has a very pronounced aesthetic that can be viewed from each side.

The liberal lean towards a more urban, downtown girl, gritty artist, aesthetic. It’s marked by messy shoes, apartment living, and working to create art and follow your passions. It’s built on the beauty of life hard won. It’s sunsets in a city, studying fruit from a fruit stand on a busy street corner. It’s a life that’s fast paced, going from one thing to the next. It’s something new and experimental.

And political parties lean into that. Kitschy editing adhering to a left leaning girls Pinterest. The internet campaign of Mamdani during his mayoral run. Or the use of more left leaning artists songs. All these coalesce into a campaign trying to appeal to a demographic that wears their values clear across their chests.

The conservative aesthetic is almost the complete opposite.

If the liberal aesthetic relied on you always being on the go, then the conservative aesthetic relied on the slow pace of mundane life. It was a house with a yard, it’s old money, a family experiencing slow days. It’s picturesque coastal summers and filtered light through stained glass windows on Sunday morning. It’s long stretches of fields and white linen clothing. Time filtering blissfully, like molasses.

It is very clear to see that as generations get louder about wearing their identities as outfits and costumes, parties have shifted to align to that. The new age of the conservative party showcases that extremely well.

Leaning into the fisherman core, blue collar, tough aesthetic that has gotten louder and bolder as MAGA became the centerpiece of the conservative political party.

Both versions of the political aesthetic exist because there are millions of people who feed into the in line perceptions of each of these giant political parties. For every downtown Brooklynite influencer that told you to go to the polls and vote in favor of liberal polices, there was a blonde cottage core lifestyle proclaiming the benefits of voting conservative.

Each party has a resurgence of popularity, usually due to favorable marketing within each generation. Gen X was reportedly very conservative, with Millennials leaning radically liberal and democratic. The pendulum has swung back at Mach speed, with more and more Gen Z being more open about leaning conservative.

The aesthetics that generations pick on are usually from the faults and issues Gen Z sees surrounding the dominating political party during their adolescence. Millennials were drawn to the vibrancy of liberalism due to their upbringing in a more conservative time, as well as witnessing the 2008 financial crash that showcased many issues with conservative policy in the resulting years.

In comparison, Gen Z saw the many failings of liberal and centrist policies with the handling of the pandemic and the resulting job market issues and inflation. If the financial issues caused Millennials to become more progressive, the current financial issues have caused Gen Z to be more conservative. Social issues have followed as a result of the shift in fiscal conservatism.

At the same time, Gen Z became more conservative, becoming specifically noticeable in 2020, which was around the time that old money core became predominant across social media. Touting a luxurious, elitist style that showcased an elegant maturity that a lot of Gen Z was attracted to.

At the same time, a completely different aesthetic that was popular during this period was Kidcore, reclaiming bright, colorful clothing that many Gen Z lost touch with, with a lean towards more neutral colors, as minimalism and clean aesthetics became more and more popular. It was something of a counter culture to the dullness of the world, especially when many young adults were trapped in their homes.

To follow this up in the surmounting years, clean girl aesthetics rose in popularity, aiding the rise to republican voter points with “clean healthy living,” which caused skyrocketing approval in JFK Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movements.

Another “core” that really showcased the shift in perspectives of Gen Z would be Western Core. Stylizing more “western,” southern aesthetics with cowboys and cowgirls, bootcut jeans, ranches, cowboy hats, and buckles. You could be in New York, but pass by several people who looked like they had just been transported from the stockyards in Texas.

Ultimately, Gen Z is a voter base that has now become a significant demographic that both parties are scrambling to keep hold of yuppies who are gaining buying power (somewhat) influence, and the new age internet. And more and more people who need to keep an eye on their policies are relying on aesthetics that are showcased through the dominance of apps like TikTok and Instagram.

Influencing isn’t something new. Socialites and prominent figures who dictate culture have been around for centuries. In the new age, it’s just easier to influence than it’s ever been. It’s easy to see how influencing, becoming a growing economy, has changed how malleable brains can be swayed with pretty clothes and the promise of a lifestyle that may or may not be entirely accurate.

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This is a review. I’m not made, I am slightly disappointed.

Wuthering heights has finally hit theaters. I only figured it out due to the fact that I saw a review that called the movie: ‘A shallow puddle shimmering in the sun,’ which I thought was ruthless, and incensed me further to see the movie.

Sure enough, the night came quickly and I rapidly got dressed in something I thought would fit the theme. (Several pattern, several layered skirts, long trenches, insane fluffy hair). I was ready to watch this with a fresh take. Book read, not YouTube commentary videos or early scathing reviews based on preconceived notions.

Walked in ten minutes early, sat in a good position opening night. Diet Coke and a full stomach, its Friday night and I am ready to go.

walked out two and a half hours later, and stared at the empty parking lot (saw a 10pm showing), and said out loud:

“She just should have called it anything else.”

Wuthering heights is completely different than its book, as well as other adaptions. Full of historical inaccuracies, bright patterns and colors, on a backdrop of somber cloudy environments. Margot Robbie playing Catherine stood out colorfully as she tromped haughtily through the many disgusting dull colors of her home Wuthering Heights.

Heathcliff played by Jacob Elordi does look quiet poor and beastly throughout the film, before making his “transformation” in the second half of the film. Throughout the film, he looked less and less like a yearner, and more like a little boy whose favorite toy was taken away. Which I hope was intentional, but it’s hard to tell with Emerald Fennell.

The story told is of two children who grew up under an abusive father/caretaker, who gets worse the older he becomes. Eventually, Catherine gets the opportunity to be something she’s always wanted to be, which is comfortable, spoiled and taken care of when she means Edgar Linton, a man who moves next door, whose wealth was made via the textile industry.

He also moves in with Isabella, a plucky young woman who loves ribbons, dolls, books, and her beloved dog. She’s immediately taken by Heathcliff, a tall big man with a tragic backstory. And later becomes a vessel of Heathcliff’s abuse.

The story unfolds as a forbidden romance, at fist being forbidden due to the class differences between Heathcliff and Catherine, before eventually becoming forbidden due to Catherine getting married to Edgar, and being whisked away to the Linton Estate.

Heathcliff, scorned by the loss of Catherine when he overhears her conversation with Nelly, her lady in waiting played by Hong Chau, to become what Catherine has always craved, a man provides.

Once Heathcliff returns, most of the interesting things happen. With the “scandalous” affair that takes place under Edgar’s nose within his own estate.

The story of course, ends in a tragedy, with Catherine dying of sepsis and blood loss. With Heathcliff riding across the hills trying to get to her in time, pushing aside Edgar only to fall i to despair, Catherine, already dead.

The story, by itself is fine.

I truly believe that Emerald Fennell was an online troll when she was younger, because she probably would have been received better if she didn’t call this Wuthering Heights. I also believe that she could have kept the names and the setting the exact same, titled the movie something else, called it a “historical dark romance,” and she would have been applauded the same way she was for “Salt burn,” detractors less loud than the many people cheering for movie.

The rage bait marketing detracts from her artistic talent. Which she definitely has, the story could have been taken as compelling if she hadn’t slated the boon she claims this movie to have been based on.

While many will claim that her critics are scathing because of her peculiar, and sexual artistic expression. Basing it off of her own personal experience with the hook when she was younger, or because she’s a woman showcasing feminine desire, wicked and all together toxic at times. I would like to offer: that doesn’t have anything to do with it.

There has to become a point where you look at a director for their talent. Emerald Fennell stands alone as a polarizing director, and while there are many things to can point to regarding film critics and their ability to judge films for women, this is not one of those instances.

Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein has gotten brought up times in this cyclical conversation when it comes to adaptations. Its not a fair comparison, because the main takeaway from the book and the movie is the same, Wuthering Heights cannot say the same.

The minute you claim to adapt a film, you will be judged based off of the original source material. That’s why so many romance movies of the past decades (clueless, let it shine, 10 things I hate about you, she’s the man, etc.) do not market their movies adaptations. Parentheses do not save you.

What I do not like is many people degrading the meaning of this book. Too many people are willing to shrug off that this book is extremely important as a look into race, and abuse, and will as generational curses. I get wanting a freaky romance movies to watch for Valentine, but when you erase everything regarding the hard lessons a book teaches for the sake of yearning, you’re going to get people annoyed.

It doesn’t matter at the end of the day. Box office reports a string opening long weekend, and the trend will continue. I do think going forward, she should take from her predecessors, just call it something else.

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Reddit was created on June 23rd, 2005, by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, with Aaron Swartz following shortly after. It was a platform that was created in a college dorm room with the sole intention of being a “front page of the internet” or a discussion platform where people could congregate and discuss things in a forum-like manner.

From the early 2000’s to the modern age. Reddit has grown from a college ambition project to a multimillion-dollar business. With it being added to several social media websites and apps that have grown from the Dot Com boom, and subsequent years that followed, it’s a testament to how they were able to have a product that stood the test of time, and their ability to adapt to the changing landscape of content.

While the love of Reddit is understated, with people being able to directly point out the many flaws that the social media website has, its biased moderation being one of the biggest sore points. The other point is the overarching influence that Reddit has had on wider internet culture as a whole. Specifically regarding nuanced discourse and virtuous morality.

Everyone likes being right, and no one likes being wrong. That’s something that most people can agree on easily enough. The second thing that everyone can hopefully agree on is that it’s always a bit of a rush to know something that someone doesn’t. Reddit has this baked into its core algorithm.

SubReddits like r/AmIOverreacting, r/AmITheAsshole, r/Advice, and r/confessions are some of the most visited subReddits on the platform. With notably r/AmITheAsshole usually being front and center on the recommended subreddits when you first log onto the site. The premise is clear: it presents different situations that the internet can comment on and give advice on. On the surface, it allows for people in sometimes isolating situations to be able to reach out and be offered different perspectives from people with different experiences. It sounds enticing until the actual reality of anonymous profiles with no verification gets their hands on a situation. It gets messy.

With moderation being voluntary, it already raises issues with implicit biases of how subreddits are moderated by volunteers, and not giving corrective consequences when faced with selfish or self-serving moderation.

Questions and situations can span from asking whether a situation a person is in is an abusive relationship, or should a person sue another person for a horrible encounter, to people venting about toxic working environments, asking about what they should do next. And the comments all align in relatively similar ways. Being that each poster, known as OP, should take the nuclear option.

While possible to find threads that focus on the nuances apparent in many of the situations that OP’s post, there are several mainstream instances of people choosing the nuclear morally ‘correct’ option and shaming the posters for the human emotions these experiences illicit.

There has to be a good guy, there has to be a bad guy. While the world is grey, more and more people are choosing to see the world in black and white. Always making sure to coincidentally place themselves as an arbiter to decide how to label others from a viewpoint that can’t see other angles to approach a problem.

A good example of this would be a rather infamous r/AmITheAsshole post titled: Am I the asshole for serving my daughter ‘wet ass pizza?” Featuring a mother that had noticed her daughter’s friends being a bit shy and bored. She then decided to play Cardi B’s WAP to try and bring up the energy and replace the ‘P” for “pizza.” Her daughter was embarrassed, but her friends found it funny. The hangout ended with the daughter sulking with her roommate after her friends left. She felt bad and wanted to ask whether or not she was “the asshole.”

It’s a common pastime to embarrass your children, intentionally or not. And while using the song “WAP” might have been a bit much, at the end of the day, it was just an embarrassing moment between mother and daughter. One would think that Reddit would see it that way and tell her to cool it on the raunchy music and give her daughter some time to relax.

She was labeled for this incident as an asshole.

“You sound like a cringey mom. You’re trying too hard to be cool, but to your daughter and her friends, it’s an old person trying to be hip, and totally failing. They weren’t laughing at your joke; they were snickering at you. You embarrassed your daughter, and you should apologize. Even if your intentions were good, you didn’t have the effect you hoped for, and YTA.” One user said.

“The cringe is STRONG with this one. At 40 and childless, I still wanted to curl into a ball and die while reading this. If a friend’s parent had done this whenI was that age, I would never have gone back to their house.” Was the reply.

YTA.

Something that I noticed was that you said that your daughter and friends “didn’t seem like they were even having fun”. Why is it up to you to determine who’s having fun? Maybe it’s not your idea of fun (which, based on this story, seems to be…unique to say the least), but maybe that’s their version of fun.

Honestly, it seems like you care more about being perceived as a “fun mom” than actually being a mom to your daughter. You know what an actually fun mom would do? Think about her daughter’s feelings instead of just embarrassing her in an effort to try to get a laugh at her daughter’s expense. Clearly, your daughter realizes that. You should, too.

“And I’ve got a mouth, and I’m no prude, but I don’t know how cool it is for parents to help their kids sexualize themselves. At 16, they’re exploring it for themselves. You don’t need to help, at least not in this way.” Said another user to follow up.

For what was actually done, the outrage was skewed. It didn’t match the crime. A mother shaking her butt to a popular and sexual song doesn’t help children discover their sexuality, and friends aren’t likely to bully her mercilessly about something like this. The outrage and decisive judgement comes from the need for nuanced arguments to have a clean ending. The reasoning is simple.

It’s about cultural norms, censorship of outside opinions, and power.

Independence, especially in Western countries, is something that is taught young. You need to know how to rely on yourself before anyone else. Sometimes this includes your peers, experts, and even your parents. No one’s opinion of your morals should outweigh your own.

The cultural norm in the West, where Reddit is extremely popular, is palpable when you first log into the site. Most of the comments boil down to the same sentiment that you, as a person comes first, your feelings, your opinions, the way you conduct your life. It’s not a bad sentiment, but the rigidness of individual liberties and how that affects bigger communities as a whole cannot be understated.

While the decline of social interaction has been growing, especially since the advent of technology. Since the pandemic, the need to adhere to community obligations has diminished drastically. According to the American Perspectives Survey published in May, 2021, the loss of friendships reached 43 percent.

The number of close friends that make a community via this type of behavior has declined as well. According to the American Perspectives Survey, less than one third say they have one to three close friends, while 33 percent said they had ten or more close friends. In 1990, 75 percent of Americans put down that they had “best friends,” in 2021, the number has lowered by 16 percent (59).

It’s simpler than that. The internet has made everything harsher. Social media and your search history habits influence your thoughts and your morality. As well as I ate sociology.

Algorithms are something that everyone is aware of. Social media platforms use them to maximize engagement for the sake of third party advertisers. Curating content that allows you to keep scrolling and perusing. The issue is that humans tend to log off when they see something that doesn’t fit into their beliefs. Due to this, ‘bubbles’ are formed that keep your opinions isolated within a positive loop that also reinforces the othering of others.

Reddit is one of the best examples of this, regarding their content moderation system being run by volunteer mods. Moderation due to its policy causes toxicity to evolve quickly, which many Reddit users are quick to point out, even as they continue to interact with it.

Owners of Subreddits can moderate and appoint moderators. Due to this, even if evidence of moderation being used biasly, there is no adequate way to remove them without the moderator stepping down of their own volition. Many do not.

While there are explicit rules that moderators have to follow, they are extremely broad. On top of this, rules don’t condone harsh treatment of others within the sub, which may be a dissenting voice within reason. Usually wrapped in the rules regarding political discussion outside of politics subreddits.

It’s a twisting of rules to make sure that opinions that don’t align get quieter. It’s an issue on all sides of the spectrum. It causes issues within comments that spread outside of Reddit and onto other large social media platforms. It’s quite normal to see Reddit posts being shared on TikTok, Instagram reels, or YouTube shorts. That’s how this type of cyclic conversation spreads to others. That’s how the need for the worst scenario to be the first thing that

pops up.

While it can be a good idea to know that there are a variety of solutions and things that can go wrong when asking for advice, the worst, violent, and toxic solutions are nary the only solution. Toxicity is everywhere on the internet, but when trying to create a non toxic culture, the need to be right, moral, righteous, ‘politically correct’ in every aspect of community causes further deterioration of online third spaces.

While Reddit has long since been a ship on fire that keeps those who interact with it warm, it doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the benefits that come from the site. There’s a reason that AI draws so much of its advice from Reddit in the first place

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Protestors at an anti-War on Drugs march. | Dublin City University (circa. The Acronym 2023)

On June 18th, 1971, the then US president, Richard Nixon, stood in front of America and proclaimed that drugs were “Public enemy number one” (Nixon, 1971). This introduced harsher punishments for drug users, as well as a class system and many new policies; one of the new policies was the Comprehensive Drug Prevention and Control Act of 1970, which required the pharmaceutical industry to maintain physical security and strict record keeping for certain types of drugs. However, the war on drugs did not truly feel like a war until the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan became president.

It was a phrase that many people could get behind: “Public enemy number one.” Drugs kill people; drugs hurt people; they ruin people’s lives. And thus, on the cusp of a new decade, the war on drugs began.

However, we can take a look at the language used that started the “Criminalizing the look on drugs.” Nixon, using the phrase “Public Enemy Number One”, made it so that immediately afterwards, it was a “us v. them” mentality. Feeding on the American nationalism and righteous culture that has always been prevalent, it immediately establishes a holier-than-thou attitude towards the criminalization and especially the punishment of drug dealers and users. It’s especially visible in the long sentences that are passed down for measly possessions of Marijuana.

It has been over half a century since the war on drugs first began, and Nixon up the presence of drug control agencies and implemented mandatory sentencing for drug offenses as a means to send a message to the American public. Since the war on drugs is still ongoing, clearly, the message is not working. However, the stigma and hatred of drug users and dealers, even for low-level recreational drugs, have been stagnant and high. It is thanks to the wording and sensationalization of drug crime coverage over the years. Which leads the public to believe that Crime and drugs are intrinsically linked.

However, they are not.

It’s a tool that the American government and policymakers are using to spread heavy bias, along with journalists themselves. The sensationalism and hysteria that send these biased messages to the public have been solidified with little effort to change it. All due to a moral panic that emerged amongst the American people, many were quick to condone those who do drugs.

For reference, moral panic means that “when a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.’’As stated by the Oxford Reference. It is something that has long since driven policy into action and law, as the demands of the public cannot be ignored. You can see it in instances of Roe v. Wade, where moral and religious panic overturned it. You can see it again in the parental advisory stickers after a moral panic shrouded parental figures about rock and metal music. However, when moral panic is listened to, fundamental and individual rights have a tendency to be ignored.

In many cases, governments will give in to moral panic instead of coming up with humane and logical solutions, such as in the case of Solem v. Helm, where it was argued to the Supreme Court that cruel and unusual punishment applied to imprisonment following a sentencing of forty years for nine ounces of marijuana. It was, of course, overruled, and the sentencing was still held up.

Ironically, four decades later, it is perfectly legal to own that amount of weed, as it has been deemed non-dangerous.

An instance of Journalists playing up the sensationalizing of drug crime can be seen in the case of “: The one million dollar heroin bust in Tennessee’’; Journalists were quick to spread the news of “perhaps the biggest bust in Tennessee history.” without double checking themselves how much that heroin was actually worth. Which is why it looked bad later on when it was revealed through a similar drug bust that it wasn’t a “one million dollar bust,” but closer to two hundred and fifty thousand dollar bust. Or hundreds of thousands of dollars. But definitely not one million. Police are able to lie about the worth of their busts due to the elusiveness of the prices of cocaine due to the anonymity and privacy of the black market allow for the exaggerated reporting of the worth of drug busts.

Because they are able to do this, and journalists never fact-check these numbers, it leads civilians to believe that more crime is actually happening. And it leads to an increase in moral panic. With righteousness being a big part of American ideals, moral panic regarding drugs and those who sell and use them was going to circulate in the American consciousness, no matter what anyone would like to think. The phrasing from anyone willing to talk about it publicly with an air of authority made sure to relate rising drug crime to violence and overall crime.

However, as moral panic spreads throughout the general populace, it is the journalists’ job to quell the misinformation and share a clear and unbiased outlook on the issues that have become prevalent in America.

However, when journalists allow information given to them to come from (usually) one source leads to issues and misinformation. There has forever been a relationship between the media and news outlets, and the policymakers and politicians, as they are supposed to be a substantial source of information on policy and issues in our country.

This is why it is easy to forget that they also have an agenda to push to get their politics into the minds of the American people.

“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth,” was a quote said by Garry Kasparov, and journalists are the perfect way to do that.

It can be seen in instances when, during the 1970s when the focus of the drug war was crack cocaine. In this instance, a good example of politics would be when Mario Cuomo described the crack issue in America as “epidemic proportions.” When he uses language like “epidemic,” he brings illusions to illnesses that need to be eradicated. There is a cure for addiction. And that cure would be increased police enforcement. In reality, it leads to an illusion that this proposed “cure” would be an end-all to the crack epidemic, when in practice, it just made those looking for a new fix turn to the next drug that was hitting the streets, which happens with the turn to a heroin epidemic.

Looking at sampled newspapers during the crack epidemic, it showed that in 1980, as well as in 2010, users and dealers of crack cocaine were portrayed across several news samples of The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and other major news outlets, as violent compared to those who use non-prescription opiates. It also showed that when the words “crack cocaine” are used in printed news outlets, terms such as “criminal” and “crime” are used seventy-five percent more in all articles in a condensed study by Southern Illinois University on Media Framing. In that same study, it showed that the words “violent” and “violence” were used in fifty-four percent of all articles from the 1980s and the 2010s in the study. Further on, thirty-one percent of articles state that the use of crack cocaine caused violence in comparison to heroin and opiates.

When talking about in relation to the increase in crime that is always mentioned, the death rate amongst black males — the targeted demographic of crack cocaine users — increased to double what it was before. However, evidence suggests that the overall death rate did not increase as much as most people believe, showing that the media's fanaticism of the death rate in relation to crack cocaine is overestimated and over-reported. According to the readers’ Institute, many new readers don’t favor crime reporting as much as editors think. However, editors favor crime reporting since news editors can rely on a police reporter instead of a new reporter. Police would even give them a press release and information from their databases. Half the reason why you see so many stories of crime littering your papers is that it’s more effective for editors to use sources that are perceived as sound instead of sending out their own. It shines a light on the fact that some things are only so widespread due to cost and manpower effectiveness.

There are also the effects of the priming of the American media. In the survey from See generally Maxwell McCombs & Amy Reynolds, News Influence on Our Pictures of the World, it confirms the worldwide support that the media sets the public agenda and opinion. When television news repeatedly drew attention to certain issues, the surmounting civilian populace would then parrot it back. With the framing of those in journalism being these people who do endless research and surveying, it allows the notion that the average person couldn’t know or do research on the topic themselves.

When people usually talk about something happening in the world, they never mention doing research themselves; they talk about a story they saw circulating online or on their television. The allowance of any type of media to shape a person’s view on the world can be harmful when it comes to allowing those views to shape how a person then treats a situation and demands policy. When it comes to drug crime and the ongoing war on drugs, journalists have always been fear mongers when it comes to relaying information to the public. That is not to say that there is not a darker side when it comes to drugs. The effects that drugs have on people, and those who give access to drugs at a price, are people the average person does not want to mess with.

However, the dehumanization that those who use drugs were portrayed in gave no favor for putting in place ways to help those who are afflicted with addiction. When talking about trusted sources, it is very easy to see how the police would be a no-brainer. They, too, like journalists, have an admission of transparency to the public when it comes to information. Police departments and journalists have worked together for decades to make sure the public knows what is out there, what to look for, and most importantly, promote a sense of security among citizens. Or, they are supposed to. However, evidence that police exaggerate their victories to show the public a strong facade is substantial. However, the question needs to be broached: What do the things the police say actually mean?

While it’s true that the cost of drugs isn’t readily available to the public without active search, it doesn’t give the police the right to make up prices to both rile up the public and make themselves feel victorious. And it certainly shines a negative light on the journalists who solely believe in what the police say about prices without searching further and correcting them when necessary. And from stories like “LA sheriff’s bust a one billion dollar marijuana ring.” Which sourced their financial value based on weed retail, instead of wholesale. Something you would expect the police to know, especially since they are charging the dealers on the monetary value. It shows a disconnect when it comes to further investigating and dealing with fine details.

The headline also rings with hilarity due to the fact that weed is legal in California. However, a singular trust in police information leads to a narrative being formed by the police in question. And when police control the narrative, it allows them to control public opinion and knowledge, which in itself can be dangerous.

The media should always take into account how much their words affect those who read and listen to them. Even something that may seem inconsequential in the moment can spiral out and forever affect a country’s outlook on a demographic or an ongoing issue. With the way that the war on drugs is proceeding right now, no one knows when it will ever subside and end. Journalists can do their jobs and make sure accurate and unbiased information is shared with the general populace. Such is their job and duty to the civilians they serve.

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The first thing to say is that I truly want to know what Emerald Fennell meant when she said the “quotations are doing a lot of heavy lifting.” I believe that it will solve so many questions I have surrounding the movie.

With the advent of streaming and the preference of movie watching at home, if you wanna see a movie on the big screen, you have to make it a big event to draw people in. It’s a bygone era of people just strolling into a theater to see what’s happening. More and more, marketers and directors have to rely on over the top tropes and concepts to get a return on investment and gain a profit.

A fantastic example of this would be Emerald Fennell, who has perfected that art form to a T.

Wuthering Heights has been in the media since trailers of it dropped last year. Depicting a cinematic, dreamy, and not wholly accurate depiction of the biblically accurate dark romantic classic novel Wuthering Heights. A Brontë novel that has long been a favorite within literary circles.

Upon watching the trailer myself, the first thing I thought was: “This looks to be an interesting premise.” The second thing I thought when I saw the name Wuthering Heights in the final frame was: “That was a horrible depiction of Wuthering Heights, I should go read the book again.”

Going online as more material surrounding the movie began to drop was like watching a group of people yelling from atop a tower well up into the mountains. There were several sides to the ongoing debate surrounding the movie.

There were the Emily Brontë fans, who didn’t like how the story was being represented.

There were people who had read the book but wanted to give the movie a chance to stand on its own.

There were people who hadn’t read the book, had no desire to read the book, but were enticed by the intriguing marketing surrounding the film.

Finally, there were grandstanding cinephiles who hated the film because they hate the directing style of Emerald Fennell.

Truly, it’s an intense battle on many fronts.

Wuthering Heights by Andrea Arnold (circa. 2012)

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“Wuthering Heights” by Emerald Fennel (circa. 2026)

Right away, my thoughts on the movie are that it’s a movie that exists. I haven’t seen it, I haven’t really gone into reviews, since that would taint one’s view of a film. I have seen that marketing, and while some of it makes me think that it’s going to be interesting, there is a lot that makes me think that Fennell is doing it just to be outrageous.

I’ve seen Promising Young Woman, I’ve seen Barbie, and I have seen Saltburn, all movies that relied on similar “controversy” and came out with a sizeable profit for many people who frothed about it online. It’s clear to see that Fennell has found a niche of high concept derivative storytelling, usually from a feminist, socially commentative lens.

I don’t really care about the discourse, barring attacking Fennell as a person, because no one can really know her on a personal level through her artwork. Discourse is something that happens naturally; to act shocked that people are willing to argue over “something that doesn’t exist,” i.e., the happenstance of a fictional work that took place almost 180 years ago. It’s the least surprising thing about humanity.

The same thing can be said about the outrage over the costume design and casting surrounding Christopher Nolan’s: The Odyssey. If a story is compelling and has the influence to last from Roman times to the present day, no one should be surprised that it’s considered important enough to debate endlessly on Twitter, and instagram, and on Substack.

Really, though, as the day when Wuthering Heights finally hits the silver screen is getting closer and closer, I see more and more people fed up with the issues people take with the film. More so, the phrase, “It’s just a movie, it’s just a book,” keeps getting tossed around. In my opinion, that’s not what should be taken from the discourse online.

I think someone can be upset when things change in a story. comments surrounding not wanting to give a chance to a story that takes a central pillar to a plotline in the story, like Heathcliff’s racial and physical appearance, which directly relates to how he’s othered by the ensemble cast. Or how the main couple the story follows are young. As in, only one of them has barely escaped adolescence, young. That also colors the scenes between them and the sadomasochism that plays out across their entire relationship.

When looking at how the movie is treated and how it’s portrayed, I can understand why some feel as if Emerald Fennell isn’t taking the source material seriously enough. It comes from taking something away from such an intense piece of literary art. Which is a choice, but there also needs to be an understanding that art is something that has to change to evolve. And to slag off a piece of media before it can stand on its own isn’t respecting the arts for what it is.

When it comes to shrugging off the issues and caution, some spectators are showcasing just surrounding the marketing of the movie, whether it be Margot Robbie’s comments surrounding her co-star Jacob Elordi, or how Emerald Fennell speaks about the book as a whole, it doesn’t make you more open minded to contemporary art projects.

Finally, die hard supporting a project just because it makes others uncomfortable and mad doesn’t make you or the piece of media more interesting. I do find the fraction of those in support of Wuthering Heights because classical literature readers are upset about the change to be strange. Deriving pleasure from someone’s issues surrounding a movie doesn’t make the movie better or worse than it actually is.

Movies of the modern world thrive on the interest they can stir up before the movie even hits theaters. Emerald Fennell isn’t the first director to lean into the “risque” and “taboo” when making content, and she won’t be the last. At the very least, you can say that she’s had fun making the movie.

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Flux is interesting because there were several moments where I had to go back and just say, “What?”

It’s not necessarily a bad thing; it was more akin to grabbing at a piece of string and having to recheck your work. The book felt like you were rushing towards an answer at the same breakneck speed at the same pace as the protagonist, Bo. Or, Brandon…Or Blue, actually.

It’s what made solving the mystery so interesting.

The “main” storyline follows Brandon, a 28 year old Korean American who starts the book losing his job three days before Christmas. Following an elevator accident, Brandon is offered a job at Flux, an energy multibillion-dollar startup that is hiding strange experiments in the basement of the building.

One of the most interesting things to note when it comes to the book is that it follows three separate stories of people dealing with grief, around Christmas; you have to pick up each story via context clues. One second, you’re following Brandon, a precocious and immediately unlikeable late twenties marketing executive who just lost his job. Then just as suddenly, you’re following Bo, an eight year old boy who just lost his mother, leaving only his floundering father, and his indulged younger brother Kaz. Finally, you’re reading about a man named Blue left with no brother, no father, and a broken family, all due to his own influence.

The protagonist isn’t an ideal; he isn’t someone you want to be, but someone you definitely have met in the past. Impersonal, insecure, angry at the world, uncomfortable in his racial diaspora and sexuality. He’s someone who wasn’t meant to be a hero, but ultimately becomes one. And even while doing it, he tends to be a bit of an ass.

None of the characters make you want to root for them. Not Bo, Brandon, Blue, or the myriad of side characters the color the pages. Everyone acts like someone who's a footnote in a larger story. A story that keeps getting erased and rewritten at each flux.

The format of the book also aides to the general unease of the story so much more immersive. Before you know what’s happening, you’re seeing it before understanding what it means-

CLICK

As we watch Bo’s struggle dealing with the death of his mother, his tense relationship with his father and brother as they try to move on, the story is ushered forward with a-

CLICK.

As Brandon gets used to his new company, and feels more and more unsettled as time feels…Unreal, as others like his coworker Lev make passing comments about the day. How many times has he worn the same shirt, but it’s the first time he’s worn it this week. How sick he’s beginning to look. As he begins to spiral at the implications, you’re rushed forward with a-

CLICK.

Then we meet Blue, a man with a family that he’s distant from, especially his daughter, named Jem. Desperate to save her, to fix all of this. Who wants this all to end, all while being a witness in a magnanimous trial against a defunct startup.

CLICK.

The story is compelling because you want to see if a rat escapes the race that it was placed in, unwittingly. Even as you watch him stumble through the same pitfalls over and over again. It features many twists and turns, and most importantly, delves into Brandon/Bo/Blue’s inner turmoils and trauma through the lens of how they interact with others, especially their family.

I would recommend this book because I view it as a great exercise in how closely you can follow an elusive narrative. While the characters make you wonder what the catalyst of the story ever saw in them (other than the very obvious sexual tension between the two as they engage in more than marketing), they still make you want to see if they can fix this. If Brandon, Bo, and Blue can mend the pieces of a shattered family though time travel and determination.

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The media landscape is forever on a motorized wheel that has given no indication that it’ll ever shut down. The 24/7 news cycle isn’t new, but with the advent of the internet, it’s faster and louder than ever.

Recently, however, there has been a story that hasn’t gotten the attention that it needs regarding the current state of the government. As of February 1st, the government partially and quietly shut down due to Resolution 222-209 coming to an end as of January 30th. While many news sources commented on the fact, it wasn’t front page news, despite the fact that several agencies are now without funding and won’t be working at full capacity.

At the time during the last shutdown, several democrats sided with the Republican majority to pass HR 5371. The passing of the budget for 2026 was supposed to pass smoothly, until the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota by federal agents swept the news.

Key democrats strongly oppose the budget package that has been allotted to the Department of Homeland Security. They are demanding changes to immigration enforcement, including a code of conduct and required identification.

Because of the amount of backlash both sides received due to the last government shutdown, President Trump struck up an agreement to fund DHS for two weeks while Republicans and Democrats try to work out a deal.

It is strange, however, that due to the intense fears surrounding the last government shutdown, this one is less broadcast than the last one. Why is that?

Algorithm Fatigue

In 2025, the United States saw the longest government shutdown in history, lasting 43 days. And each day, the news was at the forefront of the shutdown coverage. It was everywhere, on television and all social media platforms. In 2026, government shutdowns are ‘less sensational.’ There’s no shock value, there's no high emotional tie to the shutdown like the last one.

It doesn’t make sense to write about something that doesn’t grab attention.

The effect to the American people is minimal

The departments that are immediately impacted are the Pentagon, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Homeland Security, which also affects the Federal Emergency Management Agency, otherwise known as FEMA. While workers of these departments are facing uncertainty regarding salary, the vast majority of Americans don’t feel the influence of the departments in day to day life.

Not to mention the shutdown isn’t projected to last long, in comparison to last year, with the “longest shutdown in history.” The agencies that are in limbo aren’t the ones American Citizens will feel immediately unlike the last shutdown.

News Exhaustion and Abstinence

According to a study done by the Pew Research Center, approximately 24% of U.S. adults watch the news on a daily basis. The 24/7 news cycle has fatigued many people’s tolerance of the news and media in general. Many younger Americans don’t consume news due to the overall influx of information on the internet and social media.

Pop culture and Other Stories Dominate the Zeitgeist

Many eyes are still focused on the stories surrounding Alex Pretti and Renee Good, as there are still ongoing protests in the area due to ICE misconduct. While that story is still at the forefront of media consumers’ minds, Super Bowl LX is coming up, with many eyes on the halftime show featuring Bad Bunny and Green Day. Many people are talking about the Oscar nominations, which just concluded. There are more things that pull attention than the quiet dealings of the government shutdown.

There’s No Publicized Tug-o-War.

The public wasn’t only watching the Hill to see when the shutdown would end; they were also watching to see who would come out on top of the negotiations between the Democrats and the Republicans. The back and forth statements from both sides of the political spectrum, while a bad show of an untied front of our nation, were entertaining to watch.

The talks are happening behind closed doors and seem to be moving along as planned, with no hint of a delay. There’s less to bite into despite how the ongoing actions of ICE, spurred on by the current administration, have played into the talks.

Do NOT be Fooled

The relative ignorance of the public can be seen as many people focusing on their own lives and not the dealings of the upper elite politicians that are bickering on the Hill; it is still a normalization of dysfunction in our country. Americans shouldn’t see the government coming to a standstill once again due to massive differences as “par for the course.” Subtle normalizations such as these further sow seeds of discourse in the trust of politicians as well as the rules and regulations that have made our country so powerful.

Keep your eyes on the news, and follow along. Make sure that you know what is happening within your communities as well as your country. Especially so close to tax season.

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Dinner was never a tense affair in my household, but it was always a bit quieter when my mother made chicken and dumpling soup.

Dark nights behind a curtain, bodies restless from hours of running. All to be met with a comfortable silence when presented with a hearty soup.

The soup was warm, the same as her hands, and her silence, her presence in our lives.

So on dark days, where silence is loud, and I crave a taste of home, I still make that same soup. And eat it in silence, on autumn days and winter nights.

A roll of Pillsbury croissant roll dough was torn into small sections and thrown into the well seasoned chicken stock filled with a myriad of aromatics to make you briefly wonder where she had gotten the original recipe from.

But we were never ones to really question where the recipes came from. So they stayed secret until we begged for them in college, desperate for a taste of home. She just made it, and in that moment, solidified that it was the beginning of autumn, and that dinner was going to be quiet.

Words were exchanged softly. My mother’s eyes were heavy with responsibilities that always swelled and ebbed like a tumultuous tide. The script was there as her mind tried to focus on the faces and words in front of us.

“How was your day?” She asks after the first few sips.

“It was good,” I would respond. My sister bobbed her head as she focused on getting more meat on her spoon. “ A bit boring, I guess,” I’d admit softly, mimicking the atmosphere, the sleepiness of the air around us.

My mother would nod, eyes trailing over my face, cataloging each pore and new pimples on my cheeks as I slurp up the broth of the soup loudly. The sound is bouncing off the walls of our home. The light of the sunset glowed gently as a backdrop to our conversations.

It was a routine, the basis of the beginning of the chill in the Texas air. It was never stifling or worrying; it just was.

Perfect, soft, and quiet.

Dishes were passed and tucked into the dishwasher. Final words were traded as bodies split off, all ranging in levels of exhaustion and a need for sleep.

The beginning of autumn always started with a warm stomach filled to the brim with chicken and dumplings. Childhood bedrooms are filled to the brim with memories and academic achievements. The taste of pepper and broth was a muted memory as eyelids became too heavy to hold up any longer.

Drifting to sleep.

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When the Barbie movie came out in July of 2023, everyone had different takes on it. Somehow, it completely devolved what the message of Barbie was about. Some that it captured the essence of Barbie in a way that was never explored. Some who thought that white feminism completely missed the other types of feminism further ensured POC that Hollywood feminism had once again captured white feminism only. Which are all ways of looking at the movie. ( Some more valid than others) However, I think that one thing that’s missing from that scope is the message of adulthood and the shedding of childhood joys and dreams when faced with the complex mess that is real world adulthood.

The Barbie movie follows stereotypical Barbie as she faces the fears of growing old, not knowing her place in comparison to all her peers, her rocky relationship with Ken — we’ll get to him later- and her relationship with Gloria. A mother who is also unsure of her place working as the secretary for the president of Mattel. The distributor of Barbies. As well as parsing the relationship with her teenage ( and I think badly characterized) daughter.

Throughout the whole movie, you see Barbie get more and more disillusioned with the idealized version of the real world, the more she interacts with others who have a firmer “grasp” on what the real world is in comparison to her. You can see it in the way she talks and how she interacts with others. While she was in Barbie land, she had a more childish demeanor about her. Her words were written to remind the audience of when they used to play with the dolls themselves. This starts to break down when she begins talking to the first person she meets, who knows what the real world is like due to disillusionment;“ Weird Barbie..’

Weird Barbie was an interesting character in the movie, if only due to how they used her as a story vessel. As it’s described in the movie: “ She used to be the prettiest Barbie until someone in the real world played too hard with her.” Making her weird and ugly to the other Barbies, who shun her as a result. Which is a realistic ( but playful) way to show disillusionment and seclusion as a result. When Barbie visits her, Weird Barbie is the first one to give her the illusion of choice. Which is presented in an allegory from the Matrix. But instead of immediately picking the truth, Barbie chooses to live in ignorance. Which we all know was never a choice. Thus, she has to interact with the real world for the first time in her life. Which brings us to what the Barbies know of the real world.

In the movie, the Barbies were told that feminism did exactly what it was supposed to and fixed inequality from the past. And now women have the ability to be powerful, and decidedly are. When, in actuality, the premise of feminism has been diluted with the introduction and strengthening of fear and rage politics. And the reintroduction of “traditional femininity” in the face of gender politics and harsh working environments due to modern technology. The Barbies are told that while not as great as Barbie land, the real world was great for women, and that Barbie had a hand in it. When in actuality, a good portion of women blame Barbie for their unrealistic standards of beauty, and not much else.

While some thought that the Barbies’ loose understanding of the real world made them annoying and pretentious, parading their great world over ours, I think that Barbie’s understanding of the real world was supposed to mimic a child’s understanding of the real world.

A child understands the real world in an idealized way that gets taken from you piece by piece the further you’re catapulted into adulthood. When you’re a kid, everything to you feels great until you’re faced with actual hardship. In that sense, is ws why POC and minorities feel that the Barbie movie doesn’t encapsulate their experience. Barbie was made for children to act out the different avenues for careers that they could potentially pursue as they grow older. Which was presented in a stylish and curated way to appeal to a large margin of children. As such, the way they present adulthood is very streamlined and simplified.

Which leads to the premise of the movie, which is “stereotypical Barbie” having to face the reality that the world is in no way prepared for. Which is paralleled by Gloria, who has been living in the real world, and becomes more and more hopeless due to her place in reality.

When Stereotypical Barbie enters the real world, she’s met with people who desire her for predatory reasons — the boardwalk scene- a lot of people who look down on her way of living and personality — Sasha and her friends- as well as the board of directors, which is a lot more male dominated than she could have ever hoped or wanted. The real world isn’t anything like she was told, and she’s miserable for it. So when she finally realizes that she’s being influenced by Gloria and not Sasha, she thinks that, like in Barbie Land, it’s a simple fix of taking Gloria and Sasha back to Barbie Land and everything will be solved.

However, since running away to a fictional land is never the solution, this doesn’t work.

I think that Ken’s introduction to Patriarchy definitely highlights how men feel about how Feminism has shaped the world nowadays in the sense of: ‘the world caters to them, but despite that, they’re still losing.’ And that’s definitely an interesting rabbit hole to go down; it can also be taken as how the innocence of a child’s worldview will always be tainted whenever they interact with reality.

Barbie interacts with the issues of patriarchy, and it taints her escape and oasis- Barbie Land. It’s filled with Brewski beers, horrible decor, and men who don’t care about her wants and desires. Which leads to a breakdown in the form of Barbie refusing to rise to the occasion, and wallowing in her own self pity.

Throughout the movie, Barbie goes from not caring about her place in the world to being very conscious of it. Everything goes from perfect, pink, and preferable to disappointing, annoying, and deplorable. Suddenly, she’s not pretty enough, not smart enough, nothing she does has impact, and nothing matters. It’s very reminiscent of what fledgling adults experience when faced with their own inadequacy and limits to their potential. I think that’s why it’s important that Barbie is shown that sometimes, it’s better to just be okay with the mediocrity of your life. Not everything has to be exciting and glittery every night. Not every night is girls’ night. Sometimes, it’s a good day to just be…Okay.

In my opinion, adulthood is full of customs and ways of life that we place our values and lives in because we want some form of normalcy and assurance that this is the way that life is supposed to go. Whether it be going to college, paying taxes, or following the ways of the patriarchy. In actuality, navigating the world is about being uncomfortable and finding your space, and that’s exactly what Barbie did. Once she realized she didn’t fit in with the other Barbies in Barbie Land due to her new experiences and desires, she found a new space in the real world with Gloria and her family. Despite how uncomfortable those changes may be.

The Barbie Movie can be about a lot of things. It could be about nothing at all and just be a movie that panders to young adults who remember Barbie and the imaginative worlds they left behind. To others, it’s about family and women, and to a select few, it’s about destroying the world as we know it. To me, it’s an ode to childhood fantasies and the uncertainty we face as we step out of Barbie Land and into the real world.

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They have waited for him forever and a day.

They stood where the edges of the blue sky fold to form the soothing Stygian of space. Adrift in a numbness that far outlived anything that grew, lived, and died on earth. That isn’t meant to be overzealous, just a simple fact of the universe. For as long as he was gone, they waited for him to return.

Others that passed by on their downtrodden paths often cast glances—whispered a twinge too loudly for them to ignore as they stood frozen like a statue. But to take their attention away from their task would only cause them to lose focus. They were sworn never to lose focus.

One of those travelers seemed to have enough one day. Saddling up right next to them. They gave them a curious glance before casting their gaze across the vast openness of the skyline. They sat like that for quite some time before the traveler started fidgeting. The Travelor looked over, waiting for them to say something, anything at all. But they had nothing to say, wholly focused on their task.

And eventually, the traveler drifted away. They always did eventually.

And sometimes it was lonely. A thick, heavy pressure that weighed on their chest as they stood watch. Moments ticking into years, that would stretch into Eons. That didn’t matter to them, however. All that mattered was that they couldn’t leave their position. A compulsion brought about by a memory fogged by time.

Their body twitched, begging for some type of stimulation. The minute movements danced across their skin like electricity across their synapses. A burst of adrenaline that demanded that they move, scream, cry, and wail. To claw at their skin until there was nothing left, but the raw, rotted corpse of a person who used to love with all their body and soul.

But even before their fingers could attempt to move further, the compulsion to sit still overwhelmed them until they were pulled to a stop.

And thus they were still. And they waited.

As another decade spanned across the landscape that they observed, a nagging thought began to make itself known in their head. As stars and more travelers waltz by in an iridescent whirlwind. It was a thought that they had never wanted to occur to them again in all the millennia and eons they had sat in this spot and waited for him to return.

…Who exactly were they waiting for? It was a maddening drill that dug through their cranium the more they parsed through what remained of their sane mind. Who was this person that they had dedicated to the beginning and end of time? Had it been so long that they could no longer remember his face? His name? What was his personality like? What did he look like when he cried or laughed? Parsing through their thoughts, it all came up blank. A scratched record of what once was a beautiful symphony. A sickening emotion built in the back of their throat the longer that they stood watching. Like they’d always done.

And wasn’t this enough? What person did they promise to wait a lifetime for? A person who couldn’t be bothered to find their way back to them. Why were they the ones who needed to sit and wait? Little muscles atrophy and decay while whoever he was rested in a place unreachable to them? It was a betrayal, and was a cut to the chest, a stab in the back.

It was simply unfair.

That was all that it was at the end of the day. An unfair promise that they had made frivolously when they were younger. A dedication thrown out to someone who could have deserved it. They could never know; it was so long ago. Who's to say they weren’t coerced into standing still for eons on end by a sick man who wanted nothing to do with them, then died?

The arches of pain could be felt in their fingers as, for the first time in lifetimes they curled their fingers into something that loosely resembled fists. They should move, move their legs, and weave through the planets and stars. Start an era of vengeance and anger. Heartbreak and melancholy colored their glasses instead of the decadent rose color that they were so used to.

That was exactly what they were going to do. Sensations of coruscation trailed up their legs as their muscles tensed for the first time in over a thousand years. Ready to usher them into an age of war. But then another thought occurs to them.

What’s another thousand years? Their bodies relaxed as they allowed themselves to drift once more. Their eyes flutter gently as they remain steadfast in their vigilance. What’s another millennium waiting for the man that they’ve waited all their life for? Sat where he told them to wait. What could come from stepping out of their routine of millennia and lifetimes? As if destruction and violence were going to give them the solace that simply waiting could not.

And though they know that this will end in another lifetime of waiting. They couldn’t find it within themselves to be bitter, or morose at the cycle that they found themself in. They simply loosened their muscles. Allowed the numbness to take hold as their unwavering gaze stayed fixed on the landscape in the form of them.

And once again, they stood where the edges of the blue sky fold to form the soothing Stygian of space. Once again adrift in a numbness that far outlived anything that grew, lived, and died on earth. That isn’t meant to be overzealous, just a simple fact of the universe.

All but willing to wait forever and a day for him.

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They’ve always been a star that shone the brightest. A gem twinkling in the night sky.

And now Betelgeuse, one of the biggest and brightest, is a star running out of time. Supposedly, anyway.

There was a moment when you became aware of yourself, when you realized that you’re slower than you used to be. That the process of a mind once fast was presently stilted and slow. A breakthrough used to come in 1 second, half a second really. Now it takes five, ten, fifteen. Suddenly, you're just there. Staring into space, at other stars that are much brighter and hotter.

It could be painful.

Betelgeuse couldn’t remember the last time they had looked like that. When was the last time they shone so brightly for that long? Betelgeuse didn’t remember. It felt like a distant memory. Only recalled through faded twinkling lights and the faint smell of dust and space. The touch of ice beyond description. The heat of the fire that burned so fiercely around them filled Betelgeuse with melancholy.

They’re still talked about with awe. A red supergiant star. A creation that is studied and viewed like a crown jewel of the Milky Way. It was something Betelgeuse carried with pride.

How could they not?

People loved to fawn over their color, their size, and how bright they are. One of the largest stars in the universe. Not the solar system, not the galaxy. The Universe. That was significant; that meant something.

Now, though, that’s not what they’re saying. They’re speaking softer, less in the face of the supergiant star. Has its light dimmed? It’s getting a bit old, no? It’s around that time. It’s going to explode, maybe it’s already exploded. The Supergiant is so many light years away. 650 light years away, we can’t know for certain.

That one had made Betelgeuse laugh loud and bright. The hydrogen, helium, and neon whipping around themselves is a whirlwind. Their light had not dimmed, they thought arrogantly.

Astronomers and scientists get a bit of dust on their cameras and lenses, and all of a sudden, Beletegeuse is dying? Close to the edge? No, Betelgeuse chuckled, that simply didn’t compute. Betelgeuse had shrugged it off, akin to Atlas. They were simpering and whispering amongst themselves. They did not know anything about Betelgeuse. They didn’t know Betelgeuse’s makeup, their body, their self, inside and out.

That was what they thought. Though they could admit that time was..Slippery for them. When was the last time that they confirmed that they…Existed? That they weren’t just the last pieces of a person and star that had long since shone for the final time? It made them uncomfortable, the thought they truly didn’t know.

It would take the Earth eight minutes and twenty seconds to feel the effects of the sun dying before the planet fell into utter collapse. Betelgeuse looked at that and wondered. Would anyone around them feel the weight of their destruction when they finally went out in a bang? The sun had so many people counting on it, but what of Betelgeuse? What of their subjects and those who relied on them? It seemed in comparison that there were few and far between.

It seemed unfair that the sun was still able to do as they wished. Betelgeuse was so much larger than the sun.

Betelgeuse felt the familiar twinges of bitterness stir in their heart before trying to quell those feelings. It wouldn’t do well to swell on them, would it? They were sentient in the way that matters, and that’s what counted, no?

Still the anxiety around the concept of Betelgeuse’s inevitable fiery death. Will it come suddenly? Will they feel it? Does death feel like a pinch, or perhaps a stab in the heart? Betelgeuse felt something churn within them. What if it felt like nothing? Like a hollow drop in the pit of their stomach. What if their death felt like closing their eyes, a life well lived, filled with those who adored them and viewed them with skepticism?

They looked at the stars that surrounded them. Orion looked strange and vast, spread out, lazing about in space. Bellatrix is swimming beside them, Rigel not far away.

They still had time. Betelgeuse assured themselves decidedly. This was not the time to be worrying about the calculations and lives of people that were so much more fleeting than themselves. If they died in this century or in the next millennium, then they lived a good life.

The start of a supernova has to begin with the death of a supergiant after all.

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My name is Imani, and I have been writing since I barely had sentience, if you could believe. From scraps of paper, filled with letters and numbers and nonsense, to notebooks crammed with bleeding ink, scribbles, doodles, and rants. I have made it to a somewhat awkward adulthood, and my love of writing has persevered.

I started this substack with one thing on my mind.

I need to get better at writing.

Writing is a joy that I have had forever, and I don’t see that changing soon, but I want to experiment and broaden the skills that I already have.

I can’t wait for you all to come along on this journey with me :)

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