Transcendent Reflections: Provoking Cybernetic Contemplations in Ghost in the Shell

 

Ghost in The Shell

I don’t even know where to begin or how to go about this, but I’ll try my best. To start this off, I first saw Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the anime series, way back when I was 12 years old, from the opening to the rest of the show, it honestly blew me away, from the artwork to the soundtrack to the plot development, and characters.
Years later, I finally got myself to watch the original film directed by Mamoru Oshii , and that was just as amazing, if not more so, with all the philosophical aspects woven into it, pondering the meaning of life, what it means to be human, and how technology affects humanity as a whole, and even just for a individual.
Flash forward to 2015, I watched Ghost in the Shell ARISE, and it was a lot better than what I was expecting, it was a prequel to the original story, basically before Motoko Kusanagi joined Section 9.
The OVA, the Laughing Man, from Stand Alone Complex, season one, it was a nice take on the story, focusing soley on the, Laughing Man case, where as, in the first season, it had fillers, in between the main episodes, the main episodes where focusing on the Laughing Man, where the fillers, where basically cases that had nothing to do with the actual plot.
With the second season also known as, Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig, that one expands on the first season, the art style is much more detailed, and along with the first season, with the second season, there is an OVA called, Individual Eleven, that focuses just on the main case, and not the filler episodes.
As we all know, in 2020, Netflix released a new show of Ghost in the Shell called, Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045, if I'm going to be honest, I saw the first season, and it honestly didn't move me, the art style was completely different, it took me way too long to get into the show, I couldn't relate to the characters, or empathize or sympathize with any of them. I don't plan on watching the second season. That's just my opinion, everyone's is different, for people who liked SAC_2045, props to them.
After the first time I saw Ghost in The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, I rewatched the original movie, and rewatched the OVA of the Laughing Man, the orignal film, and TV series, was one of the first things that got me into the sci-fi, cyberpunk genre, it actually got me thinking, deeply about life, possibilities of the future, now it's gotten me thinking about technology in a lot of aspects, and the possibilities of it for the future. I empathize, and sympathized with Motoko Kusanagi in the original film, then in the series they added onto her character more so. In the beginning, I only liked Motoko, but then over the years, I slowly started liking all the characters in Section 9.
I can honestly say that the film, and the series, the whole franchise, is something you need to rewatch multiple times, over the years, in order to understand a lot of aspects of the story. I can honestly say, without a doubt, that Ghost in The Shell was way ahead of it's time, in multiple ways.
Ghost in The Shell ARISE, did a great job as a prequel, showing Motoko, in the beginning stages of her career, even showing her growing into her skin, and growing into the character that we know today as the "Major". The series shows how, Section 9 team was originally formed, and how everyone first started working together. It was a nice twist to the story, and characters of Ghost in The Shell.
One thing I personally love, is whether it's the manga, the original film, or the TV series, they are all different interpretations of the universe which is Ghost in The Shell. There is something in the show for everyone, action, comedy, adventure, sci-fi, cyberpunk, mystery, philosophical ideas, sociology, psychology, humanity vs technology, how technology affects humanity.
To end this article off, as Motoko herself would say, "The net truly is vast and infinite."

Originally posted from: 

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The Sinister Sequel: 'The Bad Seed Returns' - A Review

 

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I just finished watching the Lifetime movie, The Bad Seed Returns, a sequel to the 2018 film, The Bad Seed. The beginning started out fairly well, showing the main character Emma, years later, now in high school, now living with her aunt. It shows her walking a dog, and then shows what happened three weeks prior. In this movie, she's on the dance team, in school acts fairly normal, but one thing I noticed about this film, which they kept the same with the first 2018 film, is how Emma practices what she's going to say to people before she goes to school, which she also did in the first film as well. 

After a while the pacing felt a little slow, with not much happening till towards the end of the film, or close to the end of the film. Since Emma's Uncle was planning on sending her away to boarding school, one day, while her uncle was working on the car, Emma walked by, and tampered with the car, causing the car to collapse right on top on him, leading him to go to the hospital. Finally he comes home, when he was outside, Emma ignores him, while she's talking on the phone, the nurse finally comes back, and takes him back inside, Emma whistles a tune, which her uncle hears, causing him to remember what happened. 

At school, one of her classmates, Kat remembers Emma from their old school when they were kids, she remembers Emma stealing her watch. But over time, Kat reveals to Emma that she suspects that Emma has something to do with all the misfortunes that happen around her. Emma then threatens Kat, letting her know, that if she keeps it up, she too will be next. 

When Emma tries to win the competition to be dance caption, she loses to one of her teammates, who later on, she steals her anti-seizure medication, and sends her a messages which flashes, causing her to go into a full blown seizure attack. Later on, it shows that she passed away from the seizure. 

At one point, Emma's teammate that won the competition, Emma tried to steal her dog and kill it, which later, Emma's aunt finds out Emma did, her aunt confronts Emma, when Emma lies, and says she just took the dog for a walk, and then the dog ran away. Which I honestly don't know how the aunt believed Emma so easily, but I guess it's for the plot, because to me, it didn't make that much sense .

Later on, towards the end of the movie, the aunt decides to visits a family friend, asking him about her brother, Emma's father, who Emma killed in the last movie. Which after finally putting the pieces together, Emma's aunt realizes that her brother was right about Emma, after she then rushes home, trying to call Emma, which Emma ignores her calls, while she talks to her classmate Kat, giving her hot chocolate, which she puts a combined mixture of a bunch of pills that she crushed, and then mixed into the hot chocolate. By the time Kat founds out that Emma poisoned her, it's too late for her to do anything about it, causing her to pass out on the floor. Emma's wakes up, hearing the baby crying, her crawls up to the second floor, to the baby's room, he looks into the crib, only to find out, that the crying was a recording from the phone that's laying in the crib. He turns around, seeing Emma, realizing that she's set the whole house on fire. 

By this point, the aunt finally reaches the house, seeing what Emma has done, the aunt then tells Emma that her brother was right about her, then she rushes into the house, trying to save her husband, shortly after they both collapse on the floor, from inhaling all of the smoke. Emma bumped into her potential boyfriend outside, she tells the cops what happened, that her classmate tried to set the house on fire. The movie ends, with Emma going to a new family, with her baby nephew.

I personally liked the movie, but if I had to choose, I liked the first movie a lot more, I don't know why, but that's just me. Maybe I'm different, but for me, usually the first movie is usually a lot better than the sequels. Hopefully you enjoyed reading my review of the movie, maybe you will enjoy it more than I did. 

My thoughts on the Lifetime 2018 movie, The Bad Seed

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  I watched the Lifetime 2018 movie, "The Bad Seed", and to my surprise it was actually a lot better than I thought it would be, I already new it was based on the play, and the original 1956 movie of the same name. I know that the original was a classic, but I figured I'd give this version a shot, and it was better then I thought. The actress Mckenna Grace, who played the main villain Emma, did a fantastic job. Watching her from the very first scene, she had me hooked, the movie was paced very well, with enough death scene's to get the point across, but not so much, that it was overdone. What I found very fancinating, was Mckenna Grace's ability to switch emotions so fast, and still make it look very convincing to the other characters in the movie. 

Another thing I really liked about the movie, was the baby sitter, how she caught on very fast about Emma, and that she wasn't as innocent as she first seemed. Which in my opinion was a nice change, isn't of having the clueless baby sitter that has no clue of what's going on, she new almost from the very beginning. The father took a little while to figure out what was going on, and to piece everything together, but eventually he finally did, when he finally asked his daughter Emma how the first victim died, and after he saw her reaction to him questioning her, that's when he slowly started to become suspicious of his daughter. 

Of course, since the baby sitter new what was up, it was only a matter of time before Emma would find a way to get rid of her, the baby sitter's death scene, I honestly didn't expect, it was surprising in my opinion, for a while, I thought the baby sitter was going to live, I assumed that she would report Emma to the cops. But of course she had to be killed off. 

One death scene that happened a little too fast, was her teacher, like I understand that Emma put a wasp nest in the teacher's car, causing her to have a car crash, but to me, it felt like it happened out of nowhere. Or how she only killed one teacher from her school, and not anyone else who worked there, that might have suspected that something was wrong with her. 

The movie, finally come to a close, with the father, taking his daughter Emma to the family lake house, where he does more research about Emma and her behavior's, which Emma see's him doing, causing her to try to kill her dad, by turning all the gas on inside the lake house. He woke up, realizing what happened, turning off all the gas inside the house, he then goes to Emma, and ask's why she tried to kill him, telling her that he's all she has, and then she coldly replies, " no, if something happened to you, I'd live with aunt Angela", leaving him speechless. He then takes her back inside, trying to put crushed up Xanax pills into her hot chocolate, but she switched there drink's when he wasn't looking. Emma tried to finally kill her dad, by shooting him in the head while he was sleeping, but she missed, causing him to wake up, he then knocks the gun out of her hands, while he goes for the gun, Emma grabs the phone, calling 911, making it sound like her dad is trying to kill her. 

The police get there, right as the dad is about to kill Emma, the dad tries telling the police, that Emma is very dangerous, but the police don't believe him, and shoot him in the chest. Emma's aunt shows up, and the movie closes, showing that the aunt take Emma into her care, and that Emma got away with everything that she did. 

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed watching the movie, for a Lifetime movie, it was honestly one of the best movies, I have seen of there's in a very long time. I would recommend this movie, for anyone that loves horror or suspense, especially if you love the original 1956 movie of The Bad Seed, then you will surely enjoy this movie. 

My thoughts on the movie, Unplanned.

 

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A few nights ago, I watched the movie called, Unplanned, I don't know what I was expecting when I started to watch it, when it started out, it gave the impression that it was simply about a woman who decided to work at Planned Parenthood. But throughout the movie, even before she got the job, it honestly didn't make sense, of why she wanted to work at that company, when before, when she went there for help, for a chemical induced abortion, she had such a traumatic experience, that out of all places, Planned Parenthood would be the last place she would want to work at. 

Anyways, the movie continues, and she gets hired at the company, with her starting out as a volunteer, escorting women into the facility, then she get's prompted to start working in the clinic. When she first get's hired, she's given the impression that the company is all about free choice, and women's rights, but throughout the movie, it's reviled that the company is pushing women to have abortions because that's how they make most of their money. I honestly don't know if it's true, I'm just saying what the movie shown. 

What completely turned me off from the movie, was the abortion scene, to me it was completely unnecessary, it was not needed at all in my opinion, to me they just put it in the movie for shock value, that's it. After the woman is called in to help with an abortion procedure, and it shows how traumatized she is, she quits working there shortly afterwards. That's fine and all, but then it shows her literally protesting on the other side of the gate, against the company, now working with the anti abortion company 40 days for life. Like I understand that she's grateful that the company 40's days for life helped her and listened to her problems, but what I don't understand is why she couldn't just get a different job and move on with her life. 

In my opinion, the movie, went from being about a company that was supposed to represent women having free choice, to basically coercing them into getting abortions. I understand that the movie was probably heavily Christian based, since it had some Christian elements dropped here and there throughout the movie. But for me, when it got the point where the main character was protesting against abortions, when before, at the beginning of the movie, she wanted to have choice over her own body, that's where I completely lost interest in the movie. I didn't finish watching it, I watched over an hour of it, and finally I had to turn it off. 

Hopefully anything I said, didn't offend anyone, I was just stating my opinion about the movie. Thank you for taking the time, to read this. 

The movie, The Roommate. One of my Favorite thriller movies.

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 Rewatched the movie, The Roommate, it came out in 2011. It's honestly one of my favorite thriller's that I've seen over five times at least. The first time I saw it, was a few months after I graduated high school, so it kinda fitted the timing, since for the past year in high school, the teachers were trying to prep us for going to college. At the time, I thought I was going to go to  college right after high school, so I thought it was humorous, and fun to watch another horror, thriller movie. I was glad that I was watching a movie, with characters that were around my age, or perhaps a little bit older than me. The first time I watched it, I thought the pacing was good, not going overboard with all the characters back stories, basically getting straight to the point of the film, within the first ten minutes or so, showing the main character Sara Mathews moving into her new dorm, getting settle into the new college life, it shows her moving in, but her roommate Rebeca hasn't shown up yet. 

Finally after a few days, Rebecca shows up, at first everything seems to be fine, Sara and Rebecca are getting along, till Sara introduces Rebecca to her other college friends. Her two friends try making jokes about Rebecca's name, but Rebecca coldly shut it down, stating that she likes her name the way it is. Slowly over time, Rebecca becomes more and more obsessed with Sara, driving away anyway that could potentially come between the two of them. First by scaring her friend Tracy in the shower, threatening her, telling Tracy to stay away from Sara, and that if she tells anyone, she will kill her. After that, Tracy moves to another dorm, staying away from Sara, then soon after, Rebecca invites Sara to her house for Thanksgiving, Rebecca shows Tracy around her old town, where she grew up, they go to a coffee shop, and bump into Rebecca's old high school friend Maria, which Sara finds out that Rebecca drew pictures of her, before they leave the coffee shop, Maria tells Rebecca "We were never friends". 

After a few days they go back to school, Rebecca tries to push Sara's friend away, Irene, she goes to the club, and seduces Irene, going back to Irene's house, and Rebecca trapping her there. At one point in the movie, Sara tried having a kitten, but because they weren't allowed to have pets, Sara was going to move in with Irene and take the kitten with her, soon after Rebecca realizes that Sara's reason for moving out was because of the kitten, Rebecca takes the kitten, and kills it by putting it in the dryer. 

Sara find out that Rebecca is on medication for schizophrenia, after that, Sara moves out of the dorm, but because she can't find Irene, she moves in with her boyfriend Stephen. Sara's ex boyfriend Jason comes to town to visit Sara, leaving a note in the dorm room, which Rebecca find, she then dress's up as Sara, goes to the hotel where Jason is staying, with Jason thinking that Rebecca is Sara, with the lights off, and Rebecca using Sara's perfume, she quickly kills him. 

By the end of the film, Sara finally goes to Irene's place to find out what happened to her, when she discovers that Rebecca was behind it all, killing Sara's ex boyfriend, killing the kitten, tying Irene up in the bed so no one would know where she is, and also getting rid of Sara's professor who harassed Sara. Rebecca telling Sara that she was trying to help her this whole time, and that she only wanted to be Sara's only friend. Sara makes Rebecca think that she forgives her, and finally stabbing Rebecca in the back, killing her. She takes her necklace off Rebecca, and the movie ends with Sara moving back into her old dorm, asking her boyfriend Stephen to help her push the other bed out of the room, stating she doesn't want to have another roommate for a long time. 

It may not be the best thriller horror movie of all time, but for me, it is, at least I like it anyways. Would I recommend it? Yes. If your in the mood for a quick popcorn movie night, something to just watch and enjoy, because the plot isn't that dense, characters are simple to understand, and the runtime of the movie is not even two hour's, it's about an hour and thirty minutes which is fairly short when you compare that to a movie that's over three hours long. It might sound lame, but I've probably have seen this film over six times by now, I don't watch it that often, but when I do, it feels kinda nostalgic for me, since it did come out around the time that I graduated high school. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but for me it is a fun movie to watch. 

UPDATE: Aftermath of hysterectomy

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UPDATE: Aftermath of hysterectomy

It's been over a year, close to two years since I've had my hysterectomy, and slowly over time things have improved, which I didn't think was going to happen. It took a lot of trial and error, with eating different foods, vitamins, and hormones, to see what worked and what didn't. Finally I'm slowly getting back to my old self, starting to study more, getting back into working out, and now, blogging from time to time, more then I did months ago. 

The last week or so, I started getting hot flashes, since then I've been taking zinc, and now changing my diet, and working out hoping that it helps with the symptoms, so they don't get worse. My mood has been very stable, more stable now, then it has been since I was in high school, and that's saying something. I guess, I went through late puberty emotionally, because throughout my 20 it honestly felt like an emotional roller coaster, basically a living hell. Now finally in my 30's, I feel way more emotionally calm, and collected. My flashbacks, are very rare now, they don't happen as often as they did before, so I'm very thankful for that. 

Even though a part of me doesn't want to, I know by eating healthier it will help me out greatly in the long run, then by just eating whatever I want, that way my hormones stay more balanced and not so out of wack. That way, I can actually function as a normal person, weather it's working, studying, working out, or anything else I need or want to do. 

The last few months, with the oils I've been using on my hair, and washing my hair daily, my hair has slowly started growing more and more, and getting thicker as well, which is very nice, now it feels much more soft, and not so dry and flaky. Even my skin feels smoother, then in has in years, from me eating healthier. I honestly didn't know that by eating healthier, it could actually benefit you so much in the long run, I honestly thought it was all just talk when I was little, I didn't think it was so important, now looking back, I wish I would have eaten healthier, and not eaten so much junk food, I honestly think it would have helped me a lot growing up. But I guess it's normal, for the average kid to prefer junk food to healthy food. I'm glad I don't drink any alcohol at all, one less thing for me to worry about. 

From what I've experienced, even just changing your diet, to eating healthier foods, will help you dramatically, along with working out once in a while, and possibility of being put on hormones, will help your hormones stay stable a lot easier, and manage a lot of the symptoms of menopause, or in my case, surgical menopause. Hopefully, some of the things, I have talked about, will help someone else out there, who is going through menopause, or surgical menopause from a hysterectomy, partial or total hysterectomy. 

Take care.💕