#a storks thoughts

[flightofthestorks]

death in scavengers reign

the way scavengers reign handles death and the weight and meaning of it is one of the most captivating things about this show.

i already wrote in my two reviews that the choice of keeping kamen alive is truly one of the most important choices that were made in the show.

i am sick of characters getting killed all the time, when there is a choice. the choice to kill kamen would have justified killing someone because of their moral actions. and that is a very complex and difficult topic. honestly, i wouldnt have been mad if one of the crew killed him. but to have levi and/or hollow kill him, that would have been out of nowhere and especially for levi out of character.

but that is also not the main point i want to make.

to decide to go the extra way showing this person get better, doing the work they have to do is admirable. and thats what we all have to learn a bit. we have to believe in rehabilitation. and for that to happen we have to see it.

ursula from the beginning on believes in kamen, in some way. but by the last episode she truly does. she takes care of him, gives him things to work, to focus on in the greenhouse. she treats him like person. she is able to look past this mistake that kamen made, that also affected her life. and of course, ursula and kamen didnt seem to really know each other before the crash so i believe that helps. sam wouldnt have been able to do the same work for kamen as ursula does but that makes sense and thats okay, kamen also probably would have had a much harder time accepting this kind of help from sam than he did from ursula.

the significance of death - the ghost flower

a recurring motive we see throughout the entire show is the ghost flower. we see it grow everywhere where something has died.

the ghost flower shows us the beauty, the life, and the necessity of death.

nature notices when something dies, you are never left alone when your are in surrounded by nature.

the disconnect from nature especially in western societies is something that is not an unknown topic, its been talked about by a lot of people, especially indigenous people. and we also see this fear of death primarily in western societies, that is connected. so is the respect for life (and therefore death) in general.

when i think about this i think of how many people in real life but also just in movies and tv shows or books heard about how they fear to die alone, and i think this is an important connection to scavengers reign and also specifically the ghostflower (nature).

and when you die, new things come to be. when there is no death, no life can occur, everything will stagnate. life is nothing but movement, it cant be still.

the ghost flower would cease to exist if death would. and whatever relies on the ghost flower would cease to exist afterwards. this to me is more of a symbolic meaning than a biological fact, adaptation is clue after all. but it means that we need to see death as a necessity in nature, be grateful for every death, because you wouldnt exist if not for others deaths.

(the ghost flower too seems to have evolved after levi had arrived, ill gather my thoughts on that as well.)

transformation and movement - the blue creature

in episode three - the wall - ursula witnesses one of the most fascinating scenes in the entire show. when ursula gets separated from sam in the wall she sees a light, something that fascinates her.

we know ursula for being very interested in vestas nature, for taking her time to observe, to be fascinated and to just... enjoy the beauty of it all. so its no surprise that she wasnt scared when she saw something odd in the wall. she was encapsulated by it.

we dont exactly know what the little blue creature in the wall is, it doesnt matter that much anyway. we watch it go through a cycle of life, we see it being born, performing some kind of evolutionary ritual and at the end die.

i try to keep out of reading too many theories while i am still gathering my thoughts of my interpretation of scenes. however i have seen one which stated that the little blue creature represents sam. i dont reject that theory, however i think that really its also a big part of this conversation about death.

to me its quite simple, the blue creature shows us the cycle of life, the movement behind it and again the significance. its shows us that there will always be life, that there will always be movement and transformation.

and i think it might also be quite important that ursula was able to see this. sam is straight forward, has no time for distraction and little admiration for nature (at least on vesta). and maybe vesta closes these opportunities for people who dont respect it, but maybe vesta also leaves this opportunity open to anyone willing to see. to be open about learning, observing is survival. theres no transformation if you are not willing to learn, when theres no transformation theres no movement, when theres no movement theres no life.

[flightofthestorks]

scavengers reign second review

now comes my second letterboxd review.

i rewatched scavengers reign over the last couple of days, and i have a few thoughts to add to my first review.

azi i think is a very easy to love character and shes was also quite easy to understand to me. which is something, that sometimes means the character is shallow, however i dont think thats the case. there are these characters in this show, that we need to think a lot more about to understand them, or to make sense of them. i already talked about kamen, i think barry, sam, and in some sense levi are examples of this. what makes azi such a compelling character however is that we see her as a linear throughout the story, she keeps her cool head and is very focused. however the most interesting arc of hers is to see her unlearning and relearning her relationship with levi and therefore everything. while she was so stuck in the way she thought about levi as a machine, the opposite of human in that sense, and not at all as a person she was able to listen to levi after some time and change. and this friendship saved her, not just in the end but what we saw throughout this show is that you cant survive alone. i also want to point out that azi was not wrong about levi when they only just landed, the planet literally changed levi in who they were. hard to say for me if thats intentional to give this planet exceptional meaning but i think it tries to show us that azi grew up/learned these things about the levis, learned that they were nothing but tools and she had to relearn that it wasnt true.

levis relationship to azi is admirable to me. we see levi discovering who they are throughout the show, some of the most beautiful scenes in this series. we see how they adapt, how they observe, how they are. in this very difficult time of life, levi is constantly being interrupted by azi. azis tone is usually not compassionate, shes still in the very early stages of changing her mind about levi. this seems hurtful and very difficult to handle to me, but levi is very patient when it comes to azi. levis relationship to humans is also very interesting to me. while they were created for the sole purpose of helping humans levi let that go completely in the last episodes. levi starts doing stuff for the planet, for all the different plants and creatures. after levis rebirth ursula finds them and asks them about the demeter and if levi knows anything about it, if anyone survived etc. levi not answering here is crucial, levi realized that they dont owe any human anything if they dont have a relationship with them. levi is a generous person, they give anything to what they are passionate about. however levi realized that they dont know ursula and the demeter in itself is none of their concern really.

last thing i have to say about levi and azi right now is the end scene, where levi rescues azi from kamens creature because its obvious that levi cares for and loves azi. after azi is saved levi fights against the creature and when they both push against each other azi hold levis back. that scene meant the world to me. i cant quite explain it, but this way of azi backing up levi, when it was always the other way around just shows me that azi sees levi as a loved friend.

i want to make clear, humans are the invaders of planet vesta. they dont (yet) have a place in the very balanced ecosystem of the planet. i saw a few reviews stating that everything is ought to kill the crew, stating that vesta has something evil, hostile in its essence. that is not true. we see how well balanced the eco system is, in so so many ways. death is a normal part in an ecosystem and vital for new life. in the last episode in the sequence just before levi seperates kamen and his creature its clearly showing us the changes, adaption of a planet and its ecosystem. however it also shows us that essentially every creature is the same.

kamens creature is also something that we have to see as something neutral. we see how this species has a symbiotic relationship with the small little three legged creatures. there is no harm involved just two creatures living off of each other, supporting each other. only with kamens arrival the creature became what we all know and judge it for. kamen disrupted the functioning ecosystem, no matter if he wanted to or not. the creature clearly is never supposed to be that big, to eat what kamen hunted for it. the creature is influenced so heavily by kamen, it leaves its habitat where we clearly see that this species usually lives together. the creature, as much as our human-centered minds would like to see it, is not evil. it was disrupted, and harmed.

i need to say it again, i am so glad this show doesnt really kill anyone off. its shows to me, that we need to believe in people and in recovery and rehabilotation. i am too tired to explain further but i am just so glad.

[flightofthestorks]

i dont know how often exactly someone will have to say this but: wearing masks is not about you.

masks mostly protect other from your viruses. yes they also kind of help you and protect you from some aerosoles, but since your eyes are usually unprotected and your hands can spread everything to your mouth as well its not really about your protection.

you never really know if you have some virus infection. and it might only be a measely cold for you. but it can harm others, forever. and you will never know.

so for everyones sake: wear a fucking mask if you are able to. whenever you can. better to wear it 5 mins a day than none.

thanks.

[flightofthestorks]

deadnames and sharing them with others

honestly the way we talk about deadnames is so weird to me. i am mainly talking from the perspective of someone who works as a social worker in a queer youth center. so i work with teens to young adults, a lot of them trans. and where theres trans people, a lot of the times theres also a big topic of names and deadnames.

which name you choose is up to you, with whom you share which name is up to you, with whom you share your deadname if you have one is also your choice. at least all of these should be your choices, i know that in reality it isnt always quite like that.

but when it comes to other peoples deadnames i dont think its your choice if you want to know it or not. if someone wants to tell you their deadname, thats their choice. and this might seem natural, and i think it is, but i have witnessed so many occasions where someone says "dont tell/show me your deadname, i dont wanna know" and then i think about it and... where does this come from? because this is not endangering information inherently.

a lot of this comes from internalised transphobia and fearing you might deadname someone if you know their deadname, i think. and if knowing someones deadname is enough for you to do that you have a lot of work to do.

and of course you should never tell anyone else anyones deadname, unless they explicitly told you thats okay.

i had this thought for a bit, i dont know when but i might expand on this.

[flightofthestorks]

sometimes i dont realize how much i value time alone until i really take a day off socializing and just doing my own stuff. i love staying out till the morning because its so quiet. i dont do anything special in that time. but i am just more myself.

a lot of this has to do with masking and my current (bad) living situation. but i think part of it is also geniunly the night and the early morning that just makes me happy.

today i had a good night, i watched videos, ate some food, smoked a tiny bit of weed and played minecraft. about an hour ago i decided i wanted to see the sunrise, so now i am sitting on a bench next to the river, with a warm cup of elderflower-mint-lemon tea. i didnt find a thermo cup so i just took a mug which was annoying to carry tbh and i think anyone that saw me in my bright yellow rain coat and my pink sweatpants with yellow ducks carrying a mug at 5:30 am mustve thought. something.

grateful for @blodssvik and the elderflowers he sent me a year back already.

now ill watch the sunrise (if i can even see the sun cuz its rainy and cloudy.)

[flightofthestorks]

i get an odd feeling whenever i see or hear people talk about "covid times" and the first lockdown.

with "covid times" its quite obvious, covid is not over, was never over and has only gotten worse since 2019. saying "during covid" is inaccurate, but i do understand what they mean.

and when talking about lockdowns i get an icky feeling when i think about how people describe it as a nice time. and with that too, i do understand what theyre trying to say. the lockdowns were something that were born out of something horrible, and i think people dont really realize that. or like rather people forget how bad covid is because they werent affected by it.

for me i think it was similar for long, i didnt know much about covid than the regular person in 2020 and i used (and probably sometimes still say) these type of things.

but idk i think we need to go past that, to realize that saying stuff like that is... harmful ultimately because it makes covid like this small inconvenience thats over now and was resolved. the reality couldn't be further from the truth.

with the 2020+ lockdowns we had to do so many things online which was something that was from person to person extremely accommodating. and thats good and you can have positive feelings towards the times you enjoyed yourself, no matter in what time period the lay.

however the sentences i hear often are way too generalized. and i feel like they often are just very insensitive, towards everyone who lost a loved one to covid, everyone who got covid and maybe has long standing health consequences from it, but also everyone who suffered from the isolation, the unhoused people who were left behind and also everyone else who was left behin.

all i want is for people to think about what besides your personal joy and development happened. listen to everyone whos suffered during due to covid and still does.

and most of all: wear a mask.

[flightofthestorks]

levi and hollow

as ive been browsing through screenshots of scavengers reign i have noticed the similarity between two scenes, example pictures here:

(sorry for the low quality pictures, i am unable to take good screenshots)

i admire this show for its way of handling death. in so many movies and shows we see how so so many characters are killed off, a lot of the times for moral reasons and not caring to put in the effort to keep working with and on that character. i will probably write something about this specifically - right now i want to focus simply on two scenes.

levis death - the fall

in the middle of season one, episode 6, levi dies. thats what we think at least as we follow azis narrative. after azi and levi just made it out of the ravine where hollow first sabotaged them, they try to run away from hollow. as levi runs after azi they realize that they have lost control of their body. hollow appears behind them and we realize that hollow has taken telepathic control over levis movement.

levi is slowly being ripped apart, we see how azi is slow to react and fails to take action against this attack. hollow finally rips levi apart, we see how hollow throws all of their remains down the ravine into the small riverbed.

theres much to say about azi and levi here too, but that will also come later.

earlier in that episode azi and levi are talking about fiona and we are reminded that fiona created "the levis". this is important to keep in mind because we know that kamen feels extremely guilty about fionas death and how he treated her. and we also know that we must treat hollow and kamen as one to a certain extent, especially during these episodes where hollow carries him inside. so when we think of levi in this scene we must also think of fiona being a part of them, both symbolically and technically.

kamens guilt, frustration, and anger are carried in everything hollow does. hollows actions are not fueled by evil, they are fueled by kamens emotions, his confusion. and i think when we see how hollow rips levi apart here, trying to destroy them, we see kamen trying to further bury his feelings. this attack is not meant to harm fiona, but it shows kamens confusion and desperation. he cant take it anymore, he cant take being reminded of fionas death anymore.

kamens freedom - the reuinion

in the season one finale, when azi is pinned to the ground by hollow, we see levi rescuing azi at seemingly the last second. levi then continues to fight hollow as they try to hold against hollows force. azi holds levis back, supporting them with all their strength. we see hollow trying to feed its black "goo" to levi. but levi fights back, and in the end we see hollow "melting" away. at first i thought hollow (including kamen) would vanish, die. however we see the big shell of hollow melting, leaving kamen behind. and in his arms there is hollow, just the smaller version from episode one.

there are these scenes of kamen "falling down" from the demeter wreck in space onto planet vesta right where hollow and levi are fighting at the moment. i havent yet made my mind up completely about these scenes so i will have to leave them out for now.

its a bit hard for me to connect these scenes, ive been thinking a few weeks about this now. however i think there is a connection, and by that i mean more than just the similarity of the scenes and the switched roles of the characters.

i do think what this is trying to show is the shows respect for life and adaption that comes from that. levi has faced the same faith before, they were ripped apart, seemingly dead only shortly after they started living as they know it, after becoming their own person. and even worse, hollow is the one who did that to levi.

levi does not however answer with wrath and the wish for revenge. they are here for azi, their friend and companion. and when fighting against hollow becomes necessary they choose to give both hollow and kamen a new chance. levi, same as kamen, also does not "belong" on vesta. i think maybe levi realized that it is not fair to expect everyone to adapt as well and in the same way they did, especially since they had help from the planet itself.

and of course there is just the respecting life aspect of it all, to trust in the good. and levi understands this better than any human from the demeter, because the gift of life is so new to them. i said before that hollow is not evil. and levi knows that, so they give them a chance to live a balanced life.

i am not coming to a perfect conclusion to this and i will try to come back and add my thoughts. but i still want to share this and i want people to try to believe in each other like levi does, to believe in rehabilitation like ursula does. this is something that is very hard for many to imagine and it is for a reason, but we need to otherwise we will be stuck forever.

and i want to remind everyone of the sequence where levi separates hollow and kamen. it shows us, we are all the same, every creature is the same, there is no better people.

Nicolas Snyder - Ripped Apart

Listen to Ripped Apart on TIDAL

[flightofthestorks]

scavengers reign first review

this is the review i posted on letterboxd after watching scavengers reign for the first time. thought id share it here as well

to adapt. and to forgive.

this show was one of the best ive ever seen, usually i am not one for the sci-fi astronaut shows however this one is different. the focus of this show on world building (which is fantastic), nature, relationships, and emotions makes it so.. comforting, although that is an understatement. comfort in this sense can not be seen as always nice, its also the comfort of isolation, of feeling uncomfortable and horror. its weird to explain for me, but what im trying to say is that this show makes you feel like it all makes sense.

levi has been an obvious core to the story and how they have shown us as an audience and the characters inside the show what the solution is all along, adaption. to live and see what is happening around you with good intent and curiosity.

i found kamens character very intriguing as well though, he was used mostly as projection of anger and frustration of the other characters, if you ask me. while kamen and fiona seem to very well have had relationship problems, i dont think its because kamen is a bad person or anything, he just seems very unsure. he was however always sure he (once) loved fiona and i am sure that he was sincere. i havent yet made my mind up completely about him as a person but i really dont think he is evil. he made a mistake, he sure did, but he is not solely responsible for the demeters crash and many deaths. ursula, from a very early point on pointed out that sam did not treat kamen right, there was no conversation, only authority and force. and i do think its important to note how sam and a lot of the rest of the crew blamed kamen for everything while not acknowledging that there is always a risk to driving around in literal space ships. i just want to say that i am so incredibly glad that kamen didnt die, that he seemingly reintegrates into the crew and that everyone forgives him and let him grow.

kamens creature (thats how i will call it) is something im unsure of, i dont know what to think of it. but when i speak of comfort and the comfort in being miserable i connect it a lot to kamen and the creature. kamen, when he was at his lowest, when he didnt know what to do anymore, was embraced by the creature, as if he was crawling back into the womb. the creature always seemed a bit otherworldly to me (yes ik literally on another planet but it still seemed... not right), and it might just be a way of showing kamens grief, anger, sadness, and loneliness. but im not entirely sure on anything that has to do with it.

i want to say a lot about every character right now, but i havent yet found the right words. but i do want to say, this show is worth watching. the visuals, the soundtrack (the opening soundtrack was pure comfort from the beginning on, after a few episodes it made me wanna cry but still made me feel warm and cozy), and the loveable characters. i will rewatch it, as many times as it takes.