#• “it is the destiny of stars to collapse” → AESTHETIC • | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rwmhunt · 4 years ago

Text

Leviticus, chapter 27

1. Smoke.

2. Indeed, at the time, to the roles ascribed, as unto a gender,

Be it so aligned, that you wouldn't find to express by yourself

Such ways as others divined, as otherwise, you might have thought to.

For it is that they wouldn’t look the way you would mean to appear,

Nor would they be pursuant of the actions that you wouldst be undoing of;

But, tis normal to be inspired- so

Then experience revelations, and the found skills that're of being alive;

To acknowledge them and allow for their alterance as unto others irrevocably.

See, Erotion can never go back.

Her auxiliary capacious desire is here ignited and thrust.

It is this passion that both excited the lord,

and hath made of her the compulsive conclusion.

For where the lord hath giv'n unto her

Of a low forrid, owl features, a froward, evilfavouredness–

Yet, hath she a mallum, passive and usable; and of how many shekels?

We shall see.

But the freedom that hath brought me to her

Might moreover be wrought agin us.

Here, you really have to drill down on the mental illness,

As I, my own actress.

3. Come madame,

Come all the rest.

Shagahll ahnaaah-

Which translate here as

Escrow, usufruct,

Lo, my

Incarnate ignominy,

In relatively tepid water,

Whimsy, say, jsyk, that

She'd hair like a whip

And pretty good eyes,

And if it be a female,

By such metric

As flux the matrix, yet,

I know not who I am, Erotion,

So know me only by my appetites.

4. Only in death,

At the courts of love,

Doth a woman gain of herself

Judgement as unto crime's advantage.

And still, I mean,

They're shaken still, as unto this day.

For that they have still not recovered

And I know not that ever they will.

I love you as

Can experience

Nothing through you

O wait, but didn't I just?

That gait, that fate, that lately

Fell to someone else's statement-

Leviticus? That you? I know why

You’ve got to focus on this sort of stuff,

But I really think, I think really that that is not

Where the numbers are;

I’m talking to today,

As women

Imagine their bodies

To be their own.

5. To every little girl watching tonight;

Of five years, even unto twenty,

That thy worth shouldst be as a fifth

of thy fathers-

Those men who hath brought you forth,

For as thy be their daughters,

Here to see what I will prove

Unable to do;

In the singular vow-

To shew verily

What you need

Is a system of value judgements,

Set out so, before the lord. In shekels.

And where social shame provideth not enough discipline,

Graft unto it from the rod of cultural capital-

Say, that because the Children are inherently bad,

And aware only of their denial, might they

Be tripped into taking an onus

That isn't rightly theirs, so do good by it,

Or else, bloody-minded,

They hyperchargeth the tendencies that demarkate

My eternal and internal boundaries, or,

Maybe, my babies,

It's time to join the can cult;

To get a new book-

If such be my contribution,

Then such is enough.

6. Non-mathmatical aesthetic identities,

According to the valuation, as clearly uttered-

Though it be of an accident, with a minced oath attachment,

And baked-in with wild conjecture, yet, me thinks, I heard-

Piled high, of thousands, a pressure mountain, ah,

But we have a different scribe here to the last, imho.

So Mose has handed over the keys, though, I don't know

The hand that handled the sword as his, really, either...

For here, calculators are wrought, and to the ready,

But we'll dispatch with them, it is not necessary;

Set that ceaseless bucket down.

7. And the bawling of missives, meant for one, there unto all-

The original context collapsing; grafted deep onto him in death,

Riding out his memory towards a destiny of Her own choosing, who,

By whatever generosity in prior tact the intended might have possessed,

As wouldst prove to be a benison, if brought unto the conflagration, it's lost;

Even, forced out beyond itself, and the function,

Encouraged to carve up the message unto its own ends,

Where the loss of context is pulled out of its context and loved.

8. The imposition of women,

A short for sacrifice of well-being,

As She, ultimately, makes sacrifice of herself for her appetites,

But, de gustibus, in grafting them unto her in death,

So She truly hath lived, there be no defeat-

And riding forth her memory towards a hell of her own choosing,

As to scrutinise the system, adequately substantiates it's requirement-

Thy confirmation, by corroboration with a backward-thinking;

Too poor to be valued, a daylight over static water,

O whimsy,

That a priest should find a way with,

What’s lower than an afterthought?

I don't remember.

9. Is death hell? Sheol? A well

Avernus, tartarus, hades,

A shale shell,

Too deep to see the stars from?-

Doth your bird speake?

Not as a rule, but as

A narratal tool-

10. Exchanges are not to be made,

Lo. but if they, yet so; then holy be-

I heard she'd words with the chatty rat,

That as earn you side-eye from fellow travellers-

Nae, twas just a flurry of feathers,

Like pigeons who momentarily flummox eachother

Into a figment of a fox, by misreading of the other's,

Otherwise meaningless, sudden motion;

So only as you are;

Never shall thy speake.

11. And should a priest do as he be bid,

And look the gift horse lowly, well,

He hath abused his powers,

And abusers are cowards,

Feared of their just desserts,

Should they try to revert

To a precedent

That's slumpt, inert,

And just is.

12. To drop the eyes, so take

the focus off the waiting.

One handed,

Straineth, and,

Before I lose my medical status,

Make a mimesis to

The viability-shield

Of barrier nursing.

13. And there was an evening

When she cursed,

Turned white overnight-

Not even only just her hair.

And it ran on for days,

Days as months

That aged like years;

So, acuity straid,

Don't say impaired-

We just hang on.

14. In unspoken dotage,

She ordered a home report unto

My eternal and internal boundaries,

As global eyes be a-watching you;

In real time, you can't go back.

Lo, not like that you can't-

Details fetishized, or forgot,

And writes that she loves Jhwh,

Using an exclamation point to add an extra emphasis.

- I don't think I need to do anything else.

- I don't think I do either.

Alright then.

I'm saved, as while outside,

The world is raging,

As global eyes swell watching you,

The forgotten who fell from the storm;

Here, you really have to have a drill-down on the mental ills.

15. Yet after all the work, the depth,

I do think now only of numbers;

Where are the convolutions

That a life as this requires?

Lo, but my cut please.

16. Out to the field, the trap, she went,

Lifting the flap

From the batter'd tent,

The old vhs player, the old liniments,

Tinctures, unguents, hartshorn, clinked,

One silver shekel, minted anew,

Glinting from a box of screws,

Fungus sprung from a seam in the pattern,

Tins of yam and of sacred beans,

A scientologist's half-filled-in questionnaire,

Some garden tools, a dressing gown,

The buried bones, exhumed again,

The climbing harness, the bathroom rug,

The old kitchen table, stained with blood-

A water-damaged iliad upon it, still,

As everything was- quite sodden.

17. So, by visitation,

To or from Aunt Miriam

That changes were rung

Within the domestic routine,

Being within walking distance

To the Post Office

And from what comes of the tent of meaning.

18. Lo, for she loved her processes

As a kind of glockenspiel

And when arose opportunity,

Tinked it for the rest of us

- That it ran through us all-

A thimble's klang; O Jubilee.

19. If tears are the understanding of grief,

Then differential can be deferential,

- But do not let Miriam be led

Like a baby that is born dead,

As dead things that never were,

With a body that is only half there,

To be wondered of a second childhood-

So here Mose crows, plied to a strain

Unknown in the voice, alone,

- Please Lord, make her well!

And there was no water for the congregation.

20. And went down

Through Joppa

To watch the waves rolling in,

21. And Erotion ascribed unto each,

Meaning,

22. And farther out

Were many waves

That couldn't be

determined,

As everything that

Has already been said.

23. Yet Erotion still tried,

And was always happy

With her answers,

And so was I.

24. Where tiny grains of hail

Should swell into orbiting moons,

And pull at bodies,

And make wider water move,

That might be discerned

And distanced, and rifled for meaning

As mere memorandum.

25. That you may not break the speed limit

Does not mean you may not run,

Whence, from one chair

In her kitchen,

She may not push

The boundary of human thought

Where she may yet

Press of her own;

26. And rising, she taketh a step,

The like which is more of a push from the back

Than a reaching with the front

Of such manner as Dr Molock wouldst

Consider to be good; nevertheless,

She doth so switcheth on the radio

And is met with applause.

27. Theory of relativity ran thus-

Trained to shoot missed rounds at centre-mass,

Against the retroviral doctrine of lache's mutinous strikes;

A high-stress phase, where stakes hit low-calibre bystander.

But when she read, of the self-help book,

That no sense could thus be made,

Where each of the examples

Suffered a circumstance

Different to him,

She deemed.

28. Notwithstanding no devoted thing

Being here redeemed, evangelicals,

The difference between being washed over,

And taking something up from the wash-

And coming back with it, and thence,

holding it to a burthen, is easy to see,

Only after.

29. Ransom and be gored,

As all masacres, undertaken

To guarantee the peace;

So let the bodies pile high:

Same customs revolved, same characters.

You can take his horn-torn shirt unto thy sister;

That she was tough as old eggs,

In returning from the engine room;

Unctioned only; as still alive;

The perpetual repair.

30. Finally Miriam,

Over the hill,

Rose out

From the face of family impasse,

Repurposed the old

To adapt to the current;

Rode forth

To the corner,

In 'de Gustibus,-

The Solid Scran Van',

She says she means of herself

A safety net, to be

The wheel in the street,

31. And looketh up to see

God's face in the moon

Or whatever it was

That can't be drawn

And I won't be drawn.

32. As round the tent entrance

of a palace of cloud, plastered in doubloons,

And cannot be kept from my imagination,

And what I perseve is right lively to the world-

Das ding und sich and such and but;

For I'll be the judge of that, and to my bias-

Whatsoever cloys under the great varnisher,

Who layers the crack in the camel's back,

That yet, we all must press low under,

In sweetness and/or in revulsion,

Where we too are fallible, still

The lord must only be cute.

Lo, but i hold no decree

And yet am repulsed

By vitric surfactants.

33. A relationship, broken in three places,

Months after a tremendously successful campaign cycle,

Where I, a simple volunteer, am accused

Of such stuff as I do not do, while the A.B.C.

Confirmeth or annuls the meaning,

With one Boeing E-6B Mercury flying off the East Coast;

With another high over Oregon- lo, practically,

Laws are abstract,

And will not bend

To their being wrong,

When unto him a dybbuk,

And; the series is severed,

The characters gone.

Don't look.

Gives you memories.

34. So be.

- For, it's that we're made

Of an edible stuff, mulled the steer.

-Nae, for I ate my piglets and now

I'm glad of it, said the sow;

Lo.

-All's well.

1 note · View note

thosedamnsmoshkids · 5 years ago

Text

Okay, so watching the new Warframe video, I realized I don’t think I ever seen a space/futuristic au? So I decided to take a crack at...something!

Damien - “The Pilot” The pilot and de facto leader of the Skipper Cat. Just after the last war, Damien attended and graduated from the GFAE, or the Galactic Flight Academy of Earth. When he graduated, he traveled to the Inner Systems for work, but ended up finding nothing but a life of thievery. He bought the C5-SC tanker model, which he named the Skipper Cat. He traveled the galaxy in search of work, and later, as he met more and more people who joined is crew, what really happened when the Stargate Federation fell.

Mari - “The Mercenary” Former Stargate Soldier, and current mercenary, Mari is a human who was born in the Star System under the now collapsed Stargate government. After her family was killed, she became a mercenary from what she learned as a soldier. Following the Andromeda job, Mari began running as a permanent fixture of the Skipper Cat. Damien at some point names her his second-in-command

Joven - “The Gunner” A dropout of the GFAE program, who stole a ship and took it to the Onyx Quadrant, only to have it stolen from him by raiders, and be drafted into Stargate after he had nowhere else to turn. He fought in the Silver War that caused Stargate to fall as a tanker fighter. Joven was shot down during a battle and ended up losing his leg, which has now been replaced with a prosthetic, but it meant that he was left on a remote Stargate base that managed to keep safe as the Catastrophe killed nearly everyone. He lived on planet X7-1-3 for seven years before he was discovered by Damien, who was escaping from an Administration plane. Seeing his abilities, Damien convinced Joven to join him on the Skipper Cat. Joven finally agreed, and became Damien’s first crew member.

Lasercorn - “The Warlord” A flame haired alien mob boss on the planet system Gothrax, who controls Walden city. He works with the Skipper Cat crew as an informant. Lasercorn, or Lazaar Korryn, his full title, carries a lot of weight in several situations. He is infatuated by Wes, who he discovered in the popular bloodsport that pitted “gladiators” against one another. Lasercorn hires the Skipper Cat crew to extract Wes for his own, which they do, and though Lasercorn pampers Wes like crazy, he finds that Wes would be best served on the Skipper Cat crew, where he can do what he does best.

Wes - “The Gladiator” Forced to fight in grueling battles, Wes was formerly a Thorvin (genetically similar to humans, but with a longer lifespan) guard at a Stargate testing facility who had the unfortunate fate of being tricked into becoming a test subject. He became a living science experiment, and following the Catastrophe, was left for dead like everyone else. Because of what happened to his body during the tests, Wes managed to survive, and was picked up by Vercillian Raiders, who, after seeing what sorts of feats his body could achieve, sold him to a Gladiator Arena in the planet system Gothrax. The Skipper Cat crew met him when they were hired to extract him from the games, and he was later added to their crew. Wes quickly took on the role of the protector of the others, and will throw himself into battle for any one of them.

Noah - “The Medic” A half-human, half-govan, Noah was raised in the Evdan system on the planet Goviane. Specializing in first aid and biology, Noah joined Damien when the two were both hired to recover a donor for a transplant, Damien and his crew as muscle, and Noah to make certain that the donor was healthy and alright. Damien asked Noah to join when they worked another job together, and the man agreed vehemently, needing to get away from his parents, and their looming wish for him to get married.

Keith - “The Mechanic” Born on earth, but raised on the moon, Keith grew up around people who knew everything and anything about technology and machinery. Having worked on old Stargate and Solaris ships, along with other ships from other systems, Keith has a lot of knowledge that many people don’t have the privilege or skill to know. After the Great Catastrophe, Keith was left aimless, with much of his friends and family having been killed in battle. He traveled for a while before he began taking up jobs fixing up ships. Keith found soon that he could make better money if he promised that with every job, his lips were sealed. He gained the reputation of being able to both fix up anyone’s ship, and while also being a no-tell-one-stop shop about it. The Skipper Cat would often come in for repairs enough for Damien to get to know Keith. Damien then realized how much of an asset Keith would be, and offered to hire him permanently. After seeing the money Damien promessed, he vehemently agreed.

Courtney - “The Stowaway” A Corvinian thief hoping to make her way off of a planet where nothing happens, Courtney joined the crew when she tried to steal a generator the Skipper Cat was transporting. Having been able to sneak on and nearly steal it without them seeing, Courtney was asked to join the crew before she was reprimanded.

Olivia - “The Princess” The runaway princess of a dying planet, Olivia stole a ship and flew from the Yuerix system to the Gorthrax system to live away from her abusive family and destiny that would have her dead before she was 18. She was picked up by a Guild ship, who she charmed into accepting her into their ranks, making her way up to the level of Lieutenant. The boss, Whittle, considers Olivia something close to her daughter. When Olivia lands in the Gorthrax system looking to disrupt a shipment for the guild, she meets the Skipper Cat crew, who she’s at odds with for nearly a year before she slowly begins working with them. Though she’s still a member of the Guild, she works as a “consultant” for the Skipper Cat.

Shayne - “The Escort” The infamous and well-loved escort of the rich high-standing of Walden city. He is frequently in the company of one Lasercorn, and usually works as his informant, for a price. Back in the day, when Damien was first looking for jobs, Shayne hired him as a bodyguard, and the two of them were somewhat intimate at one point, and though tension between the two from those days is still there, they both deny it. Some of the Skipper Cat’s jobs in the city, Shayne will often take part in, but not always enough for him to consider himself part of the crew. Though, if Lasercorn falls from grace, he has been promised a bunk on the Skipper Cat if he needs.

More logistics/information/terminology below

Solaris System The system in which Earth and the GFAE exist. 3,000 light years from the nearest habitable system.

Stargate Federation The former federation that used to ammase 17 different systems and nearly 500 planets. At one point it was the largest government entity in the known universe. After some internal corruption Stargate was revealed, there was an internal revolt, and the Silver War began, lasting nearly eight years and killing one hundred million people. The Stargate Federation has now been dissolved, but its lasting effects are still felt around the galaxy.

Thorvin Also known as “Thorvie”, this race of people are striking similar to humans, but their genetic makeup allows for them to live longer in much harsher climates. Many Thorvin were taken in by Stargate on false pretenses and then experimented on to test what lengths they could be pushed to. The only thing that can visually tell them apart from humans are their eyes, which change color based on their emotions.

Gorthrax System A system of 13 planets, three of which are habitable, that is home to the planet Rthia, which houses the city of Walden, which is known as a loose town filled with the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. It’s also often referred to as a “Criminal’s Paradise”, for its ability to let someone completely disappear, and let mob bosses like Lasercorn prosper.

Skipper Cat Damien’s ship, a stolen Stargate speedbomber ship, model C5-SC. It’s a larger ship, considered to be a little outdated by most mechanics, but still aesthetically pleasing to most. It houses a fully sized med bay (rare in speedbomber models), sleeping quarters, cargo hold, a small deck for leisure, three gunner holds (one up in the cockpit and two down in the belly on the sides of the ship), a two person cell, and a cockpit with three seats for the pilot and others who need to be strapped in up front.

The Great Catastrophe Nobody knows exactly what the Great Catastrophe was, and most people still don’t know what exactly it is. The only thing that is known is that it was a gigantic blast that killed everything immediately, and that it effectively ended the war, and caused Stargate to fall.

#smosh space au #space criminals au #smosh space criminals au #scau #smosh

38 notes · View notes

kaile-hultner · 5 years ago

Text

Dialogues With A Dreg, Part Four

Spoilers for Destiny and Destiny 2 ahead.

Hello, Guardian.

Let’s drop the allegory for a while. I don’t think it was working to begin with, and I prefer to speak plainly instead of in prose.

I love the game you serve as the protagonist in, at least mechanically. Part of the reason I’ve put nearly a thousand hours in piloting you around and clicking on enemy heads is because I’m chasing that satisfying “pop” when something’s brain explodes after I get them with a linear fusion rifle. I guess it’s better than being addicted to drugs or alcohol or video games with gambling mechan- oh shit god dammit wait, fuck, there’s Eververse here, I forgot.

Anyway, Destiny 2 has my full buy-in when it comes to gameplay, as I think it’s grabbed many folks in its three-year lifespan. I’m not as big a fan of the many modes to choose from in the game, and I think the story – when looked at holistically – is more-or-less a wash. But one aspect I can’t ignore is one I’ve tried to reason out in these Dialogues: Bungie, the game’s developer, wants me to live at least part-time in this world, and there are certain ramifications that come with that.

I first noticed these ramifications during the Faction Rallies in D2Y1, when it asked me to pick a faction and fuck shit up across the solar system. I picked what I thought was the coolest-looking faction, a group of (it turned out) thanatonautic, neoliberal warmongers calling themselves Future War Cult. They basically killed themselves over and over to see the future, and as a result they want Guardians everywhere to become absolute war machines. But as far as I could see, they were a “better” option than the other two factions: Dead Orbit, who just wanted to get the fuck out of the solar system and away from the Traveler, our slumbering charge, and New Monarchy.

New Monarchy is the MAGA hat gang of Destiny 2. They want to keep humanity safe by locking them inside the Last City, forming an eternal Guardian-led kingdom, and ruling with an iron fist. Yeesh.

In my first Faction Rally, I fought hard for FWC. I liked the gear they were giving me, not to mention the guns I could earn from them. They had an aesthetic I liked, and the story of thanatonautics is interesting enough for me to want to know more about how all that worked. But I didn’t like the insistence that we “reclaim” the far-flung reaches of the solar system, as if they belonged to us inherently. I didn’t like the ramping-up, constant drumbeat for war they were throwing out. Even if Lakshmi-2, FWC’s leader, seemed like the eye of a hurricane – calm, yet clearly still dangerous – the hurricane she was the center of was starting to irk me.

I’m sorry to say I didn’t drop FWC in subsequent Rallies, even if I wasn’t as enthusiastic about them as I was initially. If I could pick again, though, I know now I’d pick Dead Orbit. They had it the most right, plus Peter Stormare plays Arach Jalaal, the faction’s leader, which is just cool.

But the winner of pretty much every rally was New Monarchy. I couldn’t see the appeal, even if you stripped the clear trump-ass bullshit away. But a LOT of other Destiny 2 players fought for them, and they were the victors constantly. Bungie took the Faction Rally away in D2Y2, but it basically put me on an inexorable thought track to where we are today.

Simply put, I think the world that Destiny 2 is advocating for is at best a fascist one. At worst, we’re talking about reinstating the divine right of kings. Not only does mortal humanity lose in this bargain, but every other living creature inhabiting our solar system suffers for it as well.

Now, Guardian, I can see that this is an unwelcome statement to hear. I get it. After spending the entire five years of your existence thanklessly putting around the solar system and killing gargantuan, god-level threats to humanity and life itself, watching some nerdy, doughy writer cast aspersions on everything you do probably extends past irritation and into wishing you could shoulder-charge me into Glimmer particles. But I want to be clear: yours isn’t the only video game world – or even the only sci-fi world in general – that does this. As Nic Reuben (the original Destiny 2 fascism warner) put it in his 2017 post on the subject, Bungie writers are “blindly following a set of culturally encoded science-fantasy tropes”:

“‘True leaders are born. It’s genetic. The right to rule is inherited.’ Any time you play as a really, really ridiculously good looking person killing mobs of ugly things for a vaguely defined reason, you’re witnessing this kind of ideology first hand.”

One thing I would like to point out, though, before we continue: Guardian, I know you personally. I’ve fought as you across the stars. I know you don’t inherently want to rule over anything. You are intentionally a blank slate, you never voice your own desires except for that one time when a possessed Awoken prince killed your best ramen bud, and I want to believe that the only thing you want — which is the only thing I want — is to race Sparrows on Mars. But the version of you I play as is not the only version of you that exists. There are over a million of you. And aside from that million iterations of you that exist in this game world, there are others who absolutely want to rule. It’s high time to interrogate this world.

Fantasy Space Fascism: The Game

In his book Against the Fascist Creep, freelance journalist and Portland State Ph.D candidate Alexander Reid Ross defines fascism as “an ideology that draws on old, ancient, and even arcane myths of racial, cultural, ethnic, and national origins to develop a plan for the ‘new man.'” He continues:

“Fascism is also mythopoetic insofar as its ideological system does not only seek to create new myths but also to create a kind of mythical reality (ed. emphasis mine), or an everyday life that stems from myth rather than fact. Fascists hope to produce a new kind of rationale envisioning a common destiny that can replace modern civilization. The person with authority is the one who can interpret these myths into real-world strategy through a sacralized process that defines and delimits the seen and the unseen, the thinkable and the unthinkable.

“That which is most commonly encouraged through fascism is producerism, which augments working-class militancy against the ‘owner class’ by focusing instead on the difference between ‘parasites’ (typically Jews, speculators, technocrats, and immigrants) and the productive workers and elites of the nation. In this way, fascism can be both functionally cross class and ideologically anticlass, desiring a classless society based on a ‘natural hierarchy’ of deserving elites and disciplined workers. By destroying parasites and deploying some variant of racial, national, or ethnocentric socialism, fascists promise to create an ideal state or suprastate – a spiritual entity more than a modern nation-state, closer to the unitary sovereignty of the empire than political systems of messy compromises and divisions of power.”

Ross, A. R. (2017). Against the Fascist Creep. AK Press.

The Destiny franchise begins with you, a freshly-reborn Guardian, shooting and punching your way through a hive of vaguely-arachnid aliens your Ghost companion calls “Fallen.” You find a decrepit jumpship deep in the heart of the Old Russia Cosmodrome, which your Ghost fires up and uses to take you to the “last safe city on Earth,” a walled metropolis underneath the Traveler. You first meet with the Vanguard triumvirate, Titan Commander Zavala, Warlock Ikora, and Hunter Cayde-6, and then, after completing some tasks for them, you are granted an audience with the Speaker (voiced by Bill Nighy):

“THE SPEAKER: There was a time when we were much more powerful. But that was long ago. Until it wakes and finds its voice, I am the one who speaks for The Traveler.

“You must have no end of questions, Guardian. In its dying breath, The Traveler created the Ghosts to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon—Guardians—to protect us and do what the Traveler itself no longer can.

“GUARDIAN: What happened to it?

“THE SPEAKER: I could tell you of the great battle centuries ago, how the Traveler was crippled. I could tell you of the power of The Darkness, its ancient enemy. There are many tales told throughout the City to frighten children. Lately, those tales have stopped. Now… the children are frightened anyway. The Darkness is coming back. We will not survive it this time.

“GHOST: Its armies surround us. The Fallen are just the beginning.

“GUARDIAN: What can I do?

“THE SPEAKER: You must push back the Darkness. Guardians are fighting on Earth and beyond. Join them. Your Ghost will guide you. I only hope he chose wisely.”

Bungie. Destiny. Activision Entertainment, 2015.

This introduction to the world of Destiny is… shockingly reductive. Even playing the campaign when this happens, my first thoughts were, “wait so we’re not even smart or good enough to hear the children’s scary stories about the history of this world? what the fuck?” But over the course of years, we find out more and more about the so-called Golden Age of Humanity, the tools humans built with implied assistance from the Traveler, the various rich families and corporate megaliths that consolidated power over people across the solar system in the years and decades leading to the arrival of the Darkness and the ensuing Collapse.

Not only that, we start to get a pretty clear image of what life was like immediately following the Collapse. Humanity was almost driven to extinction, and the people left alive after this apocalypse soon wished they were dead. The Traveler “defeated” the Darkness but in the process put itself into something similar to an emergency reboot mode. It deployed the Ghosts, who resurrected people who could, as the Speaker put it, “wield its Light as a weapon,” but the first of these “Risen” were nothing short of horrific. They used their Ghosts’ regeneration and resurrection powers to become regional warlords, subjugating what few mortal people remained, draining the desolate wastes of what few resources they had, and basically sealing the deal on the “Dark Age” brought on by the Collapse. It wasn’t until the advent of the Iron Lords that these warlords were defeated and the “age of Guardians” could begin, but even the Iron Lords did some pretty heinous shit – like use a whole town of mortals as bait to lure in a band of warlords on the run.

But when it comes to creating a mythical reality, the Speaker has his formula down pat. Don’t get too bogged down with details, paint the conflict in stark good vs. evil, literal “Light vs. Darkness” broad strokes, and mythologize the actions of Guardians (but most importantly, our Guardian). And oh, what fodder for mythology we are.

By the end of the first campaign, we’re the hero who severed the connection between the Hive, the Vex and the Traveler and tore out the heart of the Black Garden. By the end of The Taken King, we’ve slain a god-king. In the Rise of Iron expansion, we stop the spread of a virulent nanoparticle with murderous intent called SIVA in its tracks, using nothing but our fists. In Destiny 2, we become the Hero of the Red War, the one who put an end to a Vex plot to sterilize all worlds, and who killed a Hive Worm God. We avenge our fallen Hunter Vanguard, we kill a Taken Ahamkara. We are the hub on which the spokes of history are turning.

In terms of video game power fantasies, I really truly can’t imagine a better-feeling one. It’s basically pure uncut dopamine being transmitted directly to the pleasure centers of the brain, one Herculean feat at a time. And if we were the only Guardian, if we were not part of a larger world, if everything around us was in a vacuum, I don’t know if I would be writing this article. But Bungie has been very clear about wanting to make a world where our actions do materially affect our surroundings. As such, we are essentially a walking propaganda tool for the Consensus, a pseudo-democratic government over the Last City, consisting of faction leaders, the Vanguard and the (now-presumed-dead, hasn’t been replaced) Speaker.

The Consensus wants badly to declare the advent of the New Golden Age, a time in which Humanity can finally emerge from under the shadow of the Traveler to pick up where it left off prior to the Collapse. The problem we supposedly face is the never-ending onslaught of Enemies. Four alien species showed up on our doorstep after the Collapse, all seeking to finish us off (according to the Speaker): the Fallen, the Cabal, the Hive/Taken, and the Vex.

Of the four-ish races of enemy, only one can said to be truly, deeply “evil” in the sense the Speaker intends: the Hive and Taken, led by Taken King Oryx and his sisters Sivu Arath and Savathun, the only force in the galaxy more fascist than the Guardians. The Vex are a race of machines whose only focus is on making more of themselves, a threat similar to SIVA. The other two alien forces, the Fallen and the Cabal, are certainly antagonistic toward Guardians but our initial reasons for fighting them are, frankly, butt-ass stupid. Basically, we fight them because they’re there. They have the audacity to land on planets that “belong to us” and scavenge resources from them. Until the Red Legion showed up on Earth, we basically only ever fought Cabal on Mars, and there’s really no reason as to why.

The Fallen, or Eliksni, on the other hand, end up coming off more as the tragic victims of our flippantly rampant genocidaire practices than actual “enemies.” They’re probably the weakest alien species we come up against. Their backstory involves them living in peace under the Traveler before their entire society was caught up in a Collapse-like “Whirlwind” and destroyed. Rather than give them Guardians, like it did with us, the Traveler instead just up and peaced out, leaving the Eliksni for dead against the maelstrom of the Darkness. The surviving “Fallen” got in their skiffs and desperately chased the Traveler across the heavens, stratifying the remnants of their society into “houses” and developing religious devotion to machines like Servitors in the process.

They tried to take the Traveler back at the Battle of the Five Fronts and Twilight Gap, and lost. Their armies were shattered, and we’ve been nonchalantly killing them en masse ever since. They are the “parasites” our Guardian must exterminate, along with the Hive, Cabal, and Vex. When we make friends with, or even simply allies with, a Fallen (like Variks the Loyal, Mithrax the Forsaken, or the Spider), it is made clear almost immediately that this 100 percent doesn’t change the relationship we have with the Fallen as a group. Variks is absolutely subservient to Mara Sov and the Awoken. Mithrax wants to create an Eliksni House that bows down to Guardians and Humanity for being “better stewards” of the Traveler than the Eliksni was. The Spider makes it clear that he only wants to grow his crime syndicate, but that we can help him out if we want. Never once does the Vanguard or the Consensus reach out to these allies and try to broker peace. And in-game, we simply don’t have an option but to fire on and kill Eliksni in droves. Kill or be “killed,” right?

When it comes to Humanity itself, while we never get a chance to actually leave the Tower and walk through the streets of the Last City, there are at least hints as to the deep class stratification at work here. You can’t get much more on-the-nose than an ivory tower of immortal beings overlooking an enclosed human race. Guardians atop humanity, the Speaker above the Vanguard over the Consensus over the people, and you, the very fulcrum on which history pivots, functionally over everything else. But in the mythical reality of this game, it’s really the Traveler über Alles, and humanity underneath the Traveler has become a wonderful, diverse melting pot without class, without fear. An ideal state where the walls keep Darkness at bay and humanity can discover the joys of tonkotsu ramen yet again.

A Light Story Vs. Lore Steeped in Darkness

Destiny has a reputation, unfairly earned, for being an okay game with a bad story, or at best a nonexistent one. The story isn’t really all that bad, it’s just poorly implemented up front, and I think my willingness to engage with the game’s world to the extent that I have is a testament to how powerful and evocative some of the beats in Destiny’s writing truly are. If we dissect the game we can separate the writing of the “story” from the writing of the “lore,” and in watching the plot develop over the past few years, we can see a gradual unification of these two areas start to occur.

This is helped greatly by third-party resources like Ishtar Collective, and by mechanical decisions Bungie made in D2Y2. Adding the lore back into the game with Forsaken was a good idea; choosing to fully integrate the lore into the world starting with Season of the Forge was a great one.

A side-effect of this lore-plot unification is a dismantling-in-real-time of some of the game’s most beloved and widely-spread legends, like the legend of Shin Malphur and Dredgen Yor. Even our personal legend is challenged in this way, and it’s a really neat way that Bungie writers new and old are critically engaging with their work. But it also really throws into stark relief some of the issues I’ve laid out in this article so far.

Take, for example, the lore book “Stolen Intelligence.”

Presented to us as intercepted secret Vanguard transmissions, “Stolen Intelligence” shows us exactly what the Vanguard really thinks of our actions, and what their goals really are. It was part of Season of the Drifter, which overall had a “trust no one” vibe to it, but some of the entries here are BLEAK, y’all.

Here’s an excerpt from the first entry, titled “Outliers.”

“Fallen armed forces continue to fall back from active fronts across Terra. Factions of House Dusk remain active in the European Dead Zone. Throughout the rest of the globe, refugee attack incidents have dropped by more than 70 percent since the conclusion of the Red War – largely attributable to depressed Fallen and human populations rather than any significant change in interspecies relations.

[…]

“The recent trending emergence of so-called “crime syndicates” (cf. report #004-FALLEN-SIV) is emblematic of the continuing destructuralization of Fallen society. Likely an artifact of multi-generational colonization of human strongholds, this agent believes that because these syndicates have no relation to indigenous Fallen culture, young Fallen are appropriating and imitating human mythology in absence of a strong cultural heritage of their own.

[…]

“VIP #3987, another former confederate of the Awoken, is a lesser-known personality known as Mithrax. Scattered field reports suggest that like #1121, #3987 styles himself a Kell of the so-called “House Light,” an otherwise unknown House apparently founded by #3987 himself. We have secondhand accounts that Mithrax has engaged in allied operations with Guardians in the field, though we have not as yet been able to corroborate these accounts with any degree of veracity. This agent is inclined to treat these reports with a healthy degree of skepticism until otherwise confirmed, as they may be propaganda from Fallen sympathizers in the Old Russian and Red War Guardian cohorts. We have requested intelligence records from the Awoken which may further clarify the matter.

“In addition, whatever the findings of said intelligence records may be, it should be stressed that one or two sympathetic outliers cannot be relied upon to erase the wrongs of past centuries, nor should their good-faith efforts to correct the sins of their forbears be taken as sufficient symbolic reparation.

[…]

“We have come too far to pull our punches now.”

Bungie. Destiny 2: Forsaken – Season of the Drifter. Lore Book: Stolen Intelligence. Outliers. Activision Entertainment, 2019.

Here’s another piece of “Stolen Intelligence,” about our relationship with Cabal Emperor Calus:

“Related to the above, #3801’s aggressive propaganda campaign appears to have been successful. Despite #3801’s recent inactivity, sentiment polls captured in the Tower at regular intervals over the last several months indicate that he has successfully swayed a significant percentage of the Red War cohort to believe that he may be a potential ally. Given our history with the Cabal as well as the events of the Red War itself, this is shocking and perhaps attributable to a case of mass traumatic bonding.

“It is my strong recommendation that the Vanguard pursue a reeducation curriculum before #3801 invites any Guardians of the City to defect to his service, a possibility which we have documented in multiple previous reports.”

Bungie. Destiny 2: Forsaken – Season of the Drifter. Lore Book: Stolen Intelligence. Passivity. Activision Entertainment, 2019.

Other entries detail the efforts of the Vanguard from keeping ostensible “conspiracy theories” from being published in the Cryptarchy’s journals; show the apparent oddity of mortal-Guardian “integrated neighborhoods;” and discuss the ongoing surveillance of the Drifter, a rogue Lightbearer who has survived since the early Dark Ages and who uses Darkness-aligned technology to run a PVEVP game called “Gambit”.

There are many other stories like these, scattered throughout the lore. Stories of Cryptarchy students being banished for making fun of New Monarchy’s leaders, of Guardians messing with Hive technology being burned alive and killed fully by the Praxic Order for their crimes of experimentation. Stories like these wouldn’t happen – couldn’t happen! – to our Guardian, because they’re too important, but are seemingly everyday occurrences to less consequential members of this society. In the real world, we’d call that an increasingly oppressive police state. In Destiny 2, it’s just flavor text.

There was a degree of narrative complexity added to Season of the Drifter that hadn’t been in the game prior. The entire season was essentially boiled down to “which side are you on, the Drifter’s or the Vanguard’s,” and in our path to make a choice, we heard from various bit players in our world. The Drifter told us his story in greater detail than perhaps we needed (and how much of it is true is debatable), but his story is also the story of a less morally-pure Guardian class. Everyone from the warlords to the Iron Lords did heinous shit to humanity while the Drifter watched, and it hardened him. The Praxic Warlock Aunor goes all in on her adherence to the City’s propaganda and ideology, trying to show us how untrustworthy the Drifter is. She ends up revealing more of her order’s goals than perhaps was wise.

This narrative complexity is nice, but it still betrays the game in a fundamental way. We now have the documents. We know what Guardians are actually about, and how they’re not exactly shining beacons of unwavering good like the Speaker would have had us believe. Regardless of declining Fallen activity, of a shift in Fallen culture, of actual living Fallen who want to ally with Guardians, the Vanguard is still adamantly pursuing “extirpation,” which is a fancy way of saying genocide (I’m not kidding, it literally means “root out and destroy completely”). We know the Vanguard and the Praxic Order have a hard-on for exile, reeducation and information suppression.

On top of everything, the narrative complexity was not met with any kind of mechanical complexity. Even with proof that the Vanguard wants to kill every Eliksni in the system, conscientious objectors don’t get to opt out. The narrative path that forks between the Drifter and Aunor converges again by the end of the quest. The “conspiracy theorist” that has been trying to publish paper after paper detailing exactly how the Nine worked with Dominus Ghaul to sneak his fleet into City airspace undetected was proven right by lore WE FIND IN THE GAME, but that doesn’t change our combat relationship with the Cabal remnants anywhere in the system, and homeboy still gets his papers rejected.

Ikora and Zavala, our remaining Vanguard members, insist repeatedly that Guardians are not a warfighting force, that the Vanguard and the Consensus is not an authoritarian organization. But everything we do says otherwise.

“A peace born from violence is no peace at all.”

Guardians do not get to choose their paths in the world of Destiny 2. The paths laid out before them lead to a life of warfare, of pain, of endless murder. Ostensibly, they are agents of good, trying to beat back the forces of evil, but if you look too close you see that really they’re just a bunch of indiscriminate killers with a mandate from the Orb God. Desperate to get out from under the heels of warlords, the Guardians created a fascist society, and adding insult to injury they pretend it’s a democratic, free one. Killing the Fallen is genocide, but you can literally never stop killing them because the game won’t let you. The only right way to play at that point is to turn off your console and go outside.

Destiny 2 isn’t the only video game to fall into this trap. As Nic Reuben said in the follow-up piece to his first story on how Destiny 2 is fascist, “I’m not saying Destiny is propaganda, just reliant on some of the same narrative tricks that make propaganda so powerful. At the same time, I don’t think that it’s too much of a stretch to say that games like Call of Duty make certain assumptions about what is justifiable, righteous slaughter and what is terrorism. Replace modern military hardware with future tech, replace terrorists with alien races that have traits synonymous with cartoon portrayals of traditionally marginalized social groups, and you’re effectively playing through the worst aspects of Call of Duty with a new coat of a paint.”

There is one glimmer of hope in the game. One sliver of lore that gives us pause and helps make the game bearable in its current state. It comes in the form of Lady Efrideet, former Iron Banner handler, youngest member of the Iron Lords, and a Guardian in self-exile from the City, the Vanguard, and its fascist dogma.

Lady Efrideet is one of the most fearsome Hunters in the Destiny universe. She is known as one of the best marksmen, if not the best one. She is impossibly strong, having once thrown Lord Saladin bodily off a mountain into a Fallen Spider Walker, destroying it. And she is also one of the only named pacifist Guardians who isn’t a member of the Cryptarchy. Her story is the story of the fall of the Iron Lords, as well as the beginning of the SIVA crisis, many years before our Guardian’s rise is documented.

But it isn’t SIVA or the Iron Lords that we’re interested in. Instead, we know that after SIVA was sealed away, Efrideet snuck away from Earth. She saw the deaths of everyone she knew and her will to fight was shattered. If this was the result of fighting for the Traveler, she didn’t want any part in it. So she took to the stars. In doing so, she ended up in the far reaches of the solar system, beyond even where we currently roam. It turns out, a small enclave of other Lightbearers, hesitant or unwilling to use their powers to kill, had also fled to this part of the system and had established a colony. It’s there that Efrideet resides, and it’s there I’d like to go.

Unfortunately, our Guardian is too “important” to the vast tidal forces at work in the Destiny universe for us to be able to leave for the outer reaches whenever we want. Because we are the hub on which the wheel of history turns, and there is no escaping that now, if ever we could. We are death, the flattening of a complex and intricate universe into one of simple shapes, the sword logic in a human/Awoken/Exo body. We are needed for the plans of the Nine/Mara Sov/Hive Queen Savathun to come to fruition. When or if the Darkness ever does come back, we will be the force that faces it and, win or lose, shape our future afterward.

Sometimes it’s nice having a video game place your character on a linear track. Games like Half-Life or Titanfall present to us simple choices in otherwise-complex story environments: progress, or die. Our characters are not immortal, but they have help from the technologies around us, are tenacious, are resourceful, are quick to adapt to changing situations. In Destiny, we simply exist. We can’t truly die. Even when it comes to the rules of the game, our immense “paracausality” causes us to shrug Darkness Zones off as mere inconveniences where other Guardians have died their final deaths. Because we are necessary. The Vanguard and Consensus need us to justify their horrific fascist policies. The great forces at work in the background need us to work as a pawn. Even Bungie itself needs us, powerful, trapped beings with a sense of right and wrong but no agency to actually act on those ethics, to continue its game.

I haven’t preordered Shadowkeep yet. For once I’m glad we’re not focusing on the Fallen or the Cabal. Going to the Moon means we’ll pretty much just be dealing with Hive, to say nothing of the unreal Nightmares we’re supposed to face. But I’m still undecided as to whether I even want to order Shadowkeep in the first place. If Lady Efrideet can go to the edge of known space and live peacefully with other pacifist Guardians, maybe I can put my controller down and step away, once and for all. It would be nice to have the extra space on my Xbox One’s hard drive. Other games exist to be played, and having the time and energy to do so would help me here, with No Escape.

But even then. I’m not expressing agency as a Guardian, but rather as the person who controls you, Guardian. While I go off to play other games, you sit and wait in stasis. Even if I don’t play, there are a million iterations of you willing to commit genocide daily for cheap rewards (shoutouts to the sixtieth Edge Transit drop in my inventory this month alone). Sure, it’s just a game. But this is what having a dynamic world means in practice. There are consequences to your actions. There always have been.

There is no reason why Humanity couldn’t share the Traveler’s gifts with, at the very least, the Eliksni. There is no reason why we couldn’t just ignore the Cabal in a state of mutually assured destruction, given how small a faction the Red Legion was relative to the Cabal army’s full size. Of the two remaining enemies, the Vex are less evil than they are simply a thing that wants the universe to be like it, and that’s threatening to diverse life throughout the universe, not just Humanity. The Hive/Taken are the true enemies in the game, but even they are directed, pawn-like, by their Worm Gods.

There is, likewise, no reason why the Risen had to organize in the fascist context they did. They could have created a society in which everyone could come and go freely, where ideas and actions could be given and received absent interference, where a true “golden age” could have sprung up naturally simply by living together harmoniously and using the Light the Traveler gave them to create, rather than destroy.

But that’s not how this story shakes out.

#destiny #destiny 2 #video games #antifascism

15 notes · View notes

oc-avalanche · 2 years ago

Note

10 and 18 for the Skyrim asks :0

So I don’t know if you wanted me to go with a specific skyrim OC so I’m going to go with my main 3 characters: Rennare, Silence, and Adiiele.

I do have secondary characters so if y’all are curious I can add them too but for now, i’ll just stick to the ones I’ve shared the most.

Has your dragonborn ever been cursed? If so, what is the nature of it?

Rennare:

This one is a bit tricky as Ren does consider his gift of magic and his overwhelming power to be a curse. But why? Well it’s based on an old agreement his ancestors made with Jyggalag.

This falls in the timeline where before Jyggalag was killed as well as made him more lusting for power. As well as Ren’s ancestors who were struggling to survive as they were being persecuted for many things. Of course this yearning to survive slowly became twisted to a yearning for power.

The agreement was that Jyggalag’s soul would be embedded into one of the family members and they would gain an inhuman connection to magic and the world around them created by magic; to the point that some people considered them to be gods. But the drawback is what Ren considers the curse. In agreeing to have the soul of a daedric lord a part of their soul, they also agreed unintentionally to allowing said prince to take control of their bodies especially in great times of stress where the vessel is overwhelmed.

This happens a lot to Ren; especially with his backstory that involves slavery, abuse, and neglect as well as so much more. He wears his emotions on his sleeves and sometimes finds himself overwhelmed and due to another influence, casting magic that isn’t part of the restoration class or based in the druidic magic, it’s extremely painful for him to cast magic which then makes it easier for Jyggalag to take control.

So, short answer is yes. Ren is cursed - by his definition - and by a small sliver of Jyggalag’s soul due to an old deal his ancestors made and he had no control of.

Silence:

So Silence has never been cursed, I mean I guess some people might think her life was cursed but in her eyes it wasn’t. Silence’s life is filled with death and torture and she gives back what was given to her - especially towards the forsworn. She despises them and always will.

She’s an assassin and while she would definitely have a witchy/gothic aesthetic in a modern AU and also have as many cute stuffed animals in her bedroom (and she will stab anyone who judges), she really doesn’t really think much of curses.

Adiiele:

There was one time in her story where she did obtain the ring of Hircine -whom she in a sense worships - and by having the ring there is a chance for the holder to turn into a werewolf and go absolutely crazy.

This even more so when it comes to Adii due to the fact she is half werewolf on her father’s side. So if she were to ever get infected (which is planned in her story) the two different “wolves” trying to infect Adii would drive her body to basically shut down. Because in my story, being infected by the blood of two different wolves would cause the two “spirits” to fight within the infected.

Did your Dragonborn want to be Dragonborn? Are they a reluctant, begrudging hero, a jaded and bitter hero, or a stars-in-their-eyes “This is my destiny!” hero? Are they a hero at all?

So my only dragonborn that’s my main three is Ren and Ren is honestly at first willing to do it. He will stretch himself thin to help the people around him no matter if they are a friend or a stranger. One time he pulled an all nighter or two to heal a group of people who were badly injured and basically almost collapsed due to exhaustion.

He’s the hero that tries too hard and is hard on himself. If he can’t do something he feels like a failure and because he gets angry at himself, deep down he becomes angry at everyone else who calls him a hero because he doesn’t feel good enough to be the hero they deserve. This is prevalent when learning Dragonrend as he is unable to use it for a long time. No matter how many times he does the shout he can’t do it and that’s because he’s trying to do it without the emotion and understanding that he had with the other shouts. Because the emotion is extreme hatred and anger towards the dragons, created by humans to make the dragons’ bend to their will, to fall on their wings and be enslaved to the ground.

Ren was born a slave to the thalmor then taken away from his mother when it was discovered that he was the first born of the Rieavan family (his father’s family) and thus inherited the soul of Jyggalag. It’s something he never wants to make anyone feel and Dragonrend basically opposes that. As well as the idea of holding an feeling of intense anger and holding a grudge. For Ren, that’s hard. He does feel anger but not to those extents nor does he hold them for long periods of time because he always wants to work it out or find a solution.

In his story, he struggles with this shout and he continues to grow frustrated with himself because he can’t do it and thus he believes he’s about to fail the entire world. It gets to the point that he begins to grow a loathing towards the title hero and towards the dragonborn which then extends to himself. From this anger he eventually does learn to use the shout but when he does he feels a relief on his chest. He feels hope again. And then he realizes that he doesn’t need to continue the negativity that is related to Dragonrend. Instead he starts to encompass the idea of protecting everyone in the world and seeing them smile at him, some calling him hero or friend, it gives him something stronger than the anger he once felt. It gives him hope.

- I hope you enjoyed and don't be afraid to ask more questions or even specific ones <3

0 notes

tinymixtapes · 6 years ago

Text

Feature: Insomniac Focus

Drew McDowall’s work extends well before Coil’s 1998 album Time Machines, but his major releases from that work to now is more than enough to explore. Coil fans, I know you’re set. It’s partly you who I had in mind when I welched on my assignment for his latest solo album, The Third Helix. You likely have alerts on this guy, and no amount of critical descriptors (“harrowing,” “cavernous,” “dreamscape,” “hallucinatory,” “bleak,” “trance-inducing,” etc.) are going to make any difference to you. And, as for neophytes, McDowall is not only an easy sell, but one who you likely have to get to ass backwards. And in these diffuse, cherry pick-enabling internet times, that’s something. We tend to keep our paths of discovery close to the vest against the snotty record store clerk in our heads. I say “we,” because I’m a newbie myself at 38. I did meet a classmate in my junior year of college who tried to help me with my post-NIN fan, small town ignorance, but it was to little effect. I don’t wanna admit I got into Blackest Ever Black and PAN artists before McDowall, but it’s true. There is no tomorrow, so allow me to show my ass in this regard. It took time — and a closer friend with a staggering record collection — to show me the way. I won’t blame blowing my assignment on anything but me, but I will offer the assertion that Drew McDowall’s music is alive in ways that language is not. Although McDowall, John Balance, and Peter Christopherson collaborated on Time Machines, you could hardly call it a conversation. It feels more like an unstable, massive hum, with the creative instinct of human interference put in restraints. It’s the sound of artists getting out of their own way, carving out a path for something that doesn’t sing so much as surge like blood or water or electricity (it resists analogy, so I’m inclined to reach for more elementary terms). If the intention was to induce the loss of a sense of time, it dissolved critical faculties in the process as well. It is sound happening to you. Whatever a train does to you when you hear it, before you even begin to get to the typical leitmotifs. Whatever a tuning orchestra makes you feel, before you remind yourself not to feel anything about it. There is suspense, sure, but there’s also the flat pulse of pure sensation. Time Machines hunkers down and dispels reaction in favor of presence. Of true immersion. Of rote and unquestioning self-sacrifice to a sensorily consuming source. The tracks being named after psychotropic drugs and the perhaps unavoidable (there’s always “repeat all”) reality of their finiteness are the only things stopping this machine. It has you without a hello. Time Machines hunkers down and dispels reaction in favor of presence. Of true immersion. It’s curious that this towering, uncompromisingly minimal work is collaborative, while his eventual solo material doesn’t shy from a comparatively genre-friendly, kitchen-sink aesthetic. But more on that in a bit. First, a decade-plus later, some more from the creative alliance dept. Having familiarized myself with Psychic Ills, McDowall’s collaboration with Tres Warren as Compound Eye was on my 2013 radar. Their music intrigued in ways that the sturdy psych rawk of Psychic Ills never did. I liked it enough to save it, but never got too deep. So McDowall’s presence didn’t properly register until researching him this year, even after the aforementioned friend gave me his free download code for 2017’s Unnatural Channel. Having familiarized myself with McDowall, it’s easy to see that the man never quite got triggering-then-getting-out-the-way-of-strong-currents out of his system in the intervening years. It contains that blissful, sci-fi pastoral modular babbling that is really nothing to turn off, but the album is balanced with the (watch me writhe, beset by stultifying magnetic poetry adjectives) vast, impassive coursings of McDowall’s high water mark material. The album title, Journey From Anywhere, reinforces the notion of not ruining vital elements of sonic procession with basic human shit. Both are men, with presumable communication skills, but never does conversation seem like an apt analogy. Their collaboration is a numb sort of cooperative sentience, toiling as a vessel for steady, sluicing flow. Destiny being God and human’s favorite crap joke alike, the void really deserves more credit. Compound Eye’s shimmering, delicate, 69-minute reverie comes across like a humble attempt to give the nothing its due. It simmers in rote bodily function reality, even as it attempts to merge with the least dense, most windless air it can manage to breathe. Another collaborative work, The Ghost of Georges Bataille (released on Bank earlier this year), is less of a curious animal, but enticing nonetheless. Hiro Kone (a.k.a. Nicky Mao) specializes in elegant digital snowdrift downtempo. She, like McDowall, is a friend to contemplative melancholy as a default mode. But similarly to McDowall, she’s careful to augment her traditional rainstreaked Aphex brooding with character-rich textures that teeter on the brink of encroachment. Here, McDowall pushes this bordering that much closer. Each haunted progression is enshrouded with warm yet disorienting clamor. Similarly to the post-Boards re-tooling of Dalhous, Bataille takes away the head-nod in favor of a swirled sort of distance. This blithe obfuscation renders that tradition of pastoral, half-remembered dream progressions that much more affecting. McDowall excels as a bit player as well. In 2015, he featured on Ben Greenberg’s (Sacred Bones engineer, Men) debut with Michael Berdan (York Factory Complaint) as Uniform. As much as the album is a scorcher par excellence and far superior (and I’m edging on apples/oranges territory here), what “Death Star” is to The Future of War, “Lost Causes” is to Perfect World. McDowall’s hermetic throb steals the show on an album of showstoppers. Then, ably displaying his adaptability to ambient techno, McDowall lent his modular chops to another album highlight on Hiro Kone’s 2017 album, Love is the Capital. “Rukhsana” is a shorter track, but it still bears the unmistakable fingerprints of McDowalls absorptive approach. With these drop ins, McDowall redeems the notion of the guest spot from mere name-dropping and seamlessly applies his methodology rather than his personal stamp. Now, back to 2015 and Drew McDowall’s first official solo release under his own name, Collapse. As I mentioned, McDowall wound up being decidedly less reductive once left to his own devices. Similarly to Prurient’s later output, there is a concerted effort to tacitly merge monophonic direness with monolithic earthen beast-sloughing reverbations, whelmed to the edge of over. Dark monophony has retained a lasting power, even if the grubby fingers of branding-obsessed metal aestheticians have rendered its keenings almost cute. These are the ones who cry “false metal,” which in and of itself is false. It’s no different than complaining about how football has changed or how a comic book adaptation oughta be. True artisans of inner and outer darkness are not beholden to purist genre fetishism. They survive, thrive, and die by their virtue in this exploration. By their unwaveringly limitless drive, we are able to imbibe the vast shimmering terror innate to existence. While Collapse may not be the most chilling thing out there, its black satin bug eyes affix you to where you are and evaporate your culture-soaked lunges for contextual asidery. Collapse by Drew McDowall True artisans of inner and outer darkness are not beholden to purist genre fetishism. They survive, thrive, and die by their virtue in this exploration. Things only seemed to get better with 2017’s Unnatural Channel, though it’s of a piece enough that “seem” might be the operative word. There are two tracks featuring words/vocals from Roxy Farman (of superb NYC duo Wetware, also a guest on the Hiro Kone album), but the key adjustment is a Vanity Records-like focus on the embracing of silent rests. Of course, the fidelity is higher, but the unrelenting hesitation of that legendary label’s best material (namely, Tolerance’s 1981 LP, Divin) is a curious early precedent. Even with the presence of a singer, Farman’s recitation of “this is what it’s like, sleep deprived” is just as innately infused as the “I convulsed” sample on the last record. And her whooping and schizo mutterances on closer “Recognition” are essential but unshowy bits of punctuation. All spaciousness aside, the tetanus textured throb of “Unnatural Channel (Part 2)” is a sort of head-nodder, but even this winds up being more of a cautious slink through a confusing party (boring? bad scene? twisted? brilliant?) than a departure. Although the bowstring bouncing on The Third Helix opener echoes Unnatural Channel’s “Tell Me The Name,” “Rhizome” initially feels like a proper departure. Not unlike the airy skittering of Actress’s R.I.P, this tune initially seemed like a wrong turn. It’s lovely, especially when the “Sinking of the Titanic” strings come in, but it feels almost lateral rather than expansive. The touchstones come too easy. It’s a fascinating track, the way it swells and glitches out abruptly, but it’s also strangely on-the-nose for this artist. Things get better and back to the same (“Proximity” sounds cut from the same cloth) from there, but one couldn’t be blamed for mistaking Third Helix for a Helm, Fis, or post-Virgins Tim Hecker album. Of course, he is a sort of godfather to said touchstones, but similarly to the atemporal realm of Time Machines, this sort of sine wave slippage reads more familiar than it actually is. And, for what it’s worth, why shouldn’t masters be genuinely influenced by their descendants (beyond tokenistic exaggerations)? Chances are, they are beholden to a lot of the same technology anyway. Taken another way, McDowall’s newest is a sort of long-distance collaboration with those who’ve been inspired by him and his rarefied peer group. Conscious or not, its blending with the aesthetics of younger, like-minded artists could be seen as a rejection of the notion of hierarchy in musical succession, one way or the other. The Third Helix is an endearingly solid listen, and it deserves a place among the heralded releases of 2018. Similarly to the previous two (all on Dais), the album’s tracks don’t stray too far past the five-minute mark. Despite this, they stretch out in the ears like ancient aural cobwebs, making one feel as lived-in as the planet itself. I’ve tried not to use the word “innovation” here. Too often, the notion of innovation is whittled down to novelty, and reinventing the wheel is not what makes McDowall’s third-act material so worthwhile. More so, it’s the sense of earnest drive. The deep affinity for life’s rich tangent. That it’s darkly fixated is no more material than that the blues are despondent. Actually, the best of that long deracinated-to-pilloried genre has much of the same turning-oneself-inside-out quality. Even if Drew McDowall never tops himself or others in this quietly industrious field of wide-eyed abstraction, he is set to remain a stirring essential to every cerebral wandering ear, regardless of prerequisites or lack thereof. http://j.mp/2RBEqkz

1 note · View note

gerryconway · 7 years ago

Photo

Star Wars, The Generations

Time to talk about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

(I’m going to assume that by now, Sunday of opening weekend, you’ve seen the movie, because, if you haven’t, a: what’s wrong with you? and b: why are you reading my blog?)

In a terrific piece for Vulture.com, @abrahamjoseph discusses “Last Jedi” as the first truly populist Star Wars movie. [http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/rey-parents-star-wars-last-jedi-populism.html] I fully agree with Abraham’s reading, but I’d add a further observation: it’s the first story in the Skywalker saga to honestly address tensions between generations– in particular, tensions between the Baby Boom generation and the generations that have come to adulthood since its rise, Generation X, and the Millennials.

George Lucas was the avatar of the Boom generation, and his obsessions, fantasies, political beliefs, life choices, myopias, and sense of destined self-importance are all hallmarks of the generation he embodied and spoke to.

Rian Johnson is a true representative of Generation X, a talented and gifted man whose singular voice has been muffled by the presence of aging giants taking up creative space around him. If Johnson had arrived on the scene in 1972 with a film as smart and accomplished as his debut “Brick,” I could easily imagine him having been embraced as were Lucas or Spielberg or Friedkin, and given the same opportunities they received for far less accomplished debuts. (“THX-1138,” for all its technical achievements, suffers from an intellectual coldness of execution; no one ever has made a case for “Sugarland Express” as other than pleasantly forgettable; and the less said about “The Night They Raided Minsky’s,” the better.) But Johnson, and his fellow Generation-X directors, men and women, came of age as young filmmakers in the early 2000s– an age dominated by Baby Boom filmmakers like Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron, et al. Johnson’s opportunities (and theirs) were diminished. To contrast, in the ten years starting with “Sugarland,” Spielberg made eight films; Johnson made three. Not everyone is a Spielberg, of course, but it’s a fact the Baby Boom generation sucked up most available funding for filmmaking between the mid-1970s and the late 2000s. Talented filmmakers like Rian Johnson (and fellow Generation-X director Patty Jenkins) paid their bills and honed their skills directing television, where they contributed (with other shut-out Generation-X creatives) to an explosion of remarkable narrative experimentation unequalled on the big screen itself.

Ironically, the director of the first new Star Wars film, J.J. Abrams, seems to have more in common with the aesthetic, emotional, and political concerns of the Boomer generation than his fellow Gen-Xers, possibly because, at age 51, his childhood in the late Sixties and early Seventies was surrounded by the Boomers’ cultural triumph. Rian Johnson and Patty Jenkins grew up as the Boomers’ idealized liberal world collapsed into Reaganesque cultural exhaustion.

It’s this ‘80s collapse of the Boomer’s liberal dream into conservative exhaustion that informs Rian Johnson’s aesthetic and narrative approach to “The Last Jedi.”

Episode VIII, unlike Episode VII, recognizes the Boomer fantasy of cultural and political renewal through rebellion and the power of elitist “destiny” actually ended in disappointment, failure, and despair. The Baby Boomer Rebels who fought an Evil Empire that invaded the jungles of Endor and burned Ewok villages (an easy Boomer metaphor for U.S. miltary action in Vietnam) ultimately collapsed into a corrupt generation of disillusioned idealists. Those despairing former idealists then empowered the rise of a new militarism, unopposed by an out-of-touch political establishment so distant from average citizens its destruction is a barely noticeable flicker in the sky.

Rian Johnson deconstructs the myths of the Baby Boom generation that adopted Star Wars as its foundational fiction. The rebellion against the Empire produced not a healthy new Republic but a remote and disconnected government with no productive impact on the lives of its poorest, weakest citizens (Rey and Finn). The heroes of the Rebellion either retreated when confronted by failure to fulfill their “destiny” (Luke), turned back to their previous lack of convictions (Han), or soldiered on in an attempt to reclaim old ideals in the face of diminishing odds (Leia). Thirty years after the death of Emperor Palpatine nothing really has changed in that Galaxy long ago and far away. It’s a bleak recognition the 1960s Boomer Revolution was an utter political failure (but not a cultural failure, since we live in a culture that pretends to realize Boomer ideals).

To be fair, Abrams nods toward these notions in “Force Awakens” but undercuts their impact by hewing closely to the undergirding mythic structure of the original Boomer-fantasy “Star Wars.” The idea that destiny and mysticism will produce ultimate victory is a Boomer trope thoroughly embraced by “Force Awakens” and totally dismantled by “Last Jedi.” At every turn, in this latest film, Rian brings to bear the judgmental eye of a somewhat cynical Generation-Xer– surprisingly, and pointedly, not just upon the self-serving fantasies of Baby Boomers, but on the inexperienced surety of the generation following his own, the Millennials.

Just as Luke, Han, and Leia are revealed as heroes with feet made substantially of clay (Leia comes off best of the three, but again, notably, is out of action when crucial decisions must be made), the four featured Millennials in the story are also subjected to Rian’s cool Gen-X appraisal. Kylo, Rey, Finn, and Rose embody familiar traits of today’s Millennial generation.

With Rey, we are presented with the idealistic Millennial archtype– a passionate young woman who embraces the professed beliefs of an earlier idealistic generation, even when she doesn’t quite understand them. (The Force is a “power that helps you move things.”) She’s hopeful, convinced the old ways can restore justice, even though those old ways failed before. She hasn’t come into her own yet. She still seeks strength and validation from others. She wants to be rescued, but slowly, over the course of the story, realizes she must do the rescuing. Her idealism is as yet untempered by experience, but the disappointments she experiences both with Luke and Kylo finally make her stronger than ever.

With Finn, we find a Millennial beaten into submission by a system that appears impossible to resist. His first instinct is always to escape any way he can– but opposing that instinct, and empowering his initial rejection of the First Order’s ruthless militarism, is a strong sense of empathy. Instinct tells him to run; empathy makes him run toward those in need. The first time he sees Rey, in “Force Awakens,” he thinks she’s in danger and impulsively runs toward her. His first word on waking in “Last Jedi” is “Rey!” Even when he’s about to flee the doomed Resistance fleet, he’s combined his instinct to run with an instinct to protect. Like Rey, at the beginning of “Last Jedi” he isn’t who he will become by the end. He’s conflicted, uncertain, immature, and inexperienced. He learns a lot hanging out with Rose.

Rose, Finn’s new friend, is the most emotionally developed and self-aware Millennial in this group, possibly because she’s had the benefit of a close relationship with an admired older sister. Rose knows who she is and what she believes. She has enough experience in life to understand the structural injustice that underpins the Galactic order, and is dealing with the kind of personal tragedy that gives one perspective. Of all the Millennials in “Last Jedi” she changes the least during the story because she’s already who she will always be: a capable, brave, empowered woman who knows her place in this world– a worker and doer, not a dreamer.

And Kylo. Kylo Ren is the most obviously political figure in “Last Jedi,” the embodiment of alt-right Millennial nihilism. Feeling abandoned by his late-life, self-involved Boomer parents, attacked with suspicion by the substitute parent who became terrified by his potential, embraced and manipulated by a cynical monster, another substitute father– Kylo Ren is Millennial rage incarnate. He embraces anonymity behind a mask while striking out in unbridled anger against all who oppose him (sub-redit, anyone?) and yet, pathetically, yearns for the approval of a woman he scorns. If Rey is the light side of idealism, the promise of hope, Kylo is the dark side of idealism thwarted, the nihilism of despair. Rage is the expression of Kylo’s hopelessness, not its source.

This is a fundamental difference between Lucas’s vision of the dark side of the Force and Johnson’s. To Lucas, the eternal Boomer idealist, the dark side was always incomprehensible– the explanation he provides for Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the dark side in the prequels never feels right. (Tellingly, in the original trilogy, Vader’s origin is never explained.) Because Lucas himself wasn’t thwarted in pursuit of a dream, never faced exclusion from the idealistic fantasies of the Boomer generation, never despaired from lack of hope– he couldn’t articulate what gives the dark side of the Force its bleak alure. “Fear” and “anger” are meaninglessly abstract without personal context. Rey and Finn are often angry and fearful, but is there ever a real question they’ll despair? Even in their darkest moments they cling to hope. Why does Anakin succumb to the dark side? Lucas doesn’t really know, and the manner in which he structures Anakin’s story provides easy answers but not convincing ones.

Rian Johnson, however, the Gen-X filmmaker initially thwarted pursuing a career must understand the seductive lure of despair. He can empathize with Ben Solo, and make his embrace of the dark side comprehensible, in a way Lucas could not with Anakin Skywalker. (Or J.J. Abrams, who portrayed Kylo’s dark side persona as a combination of twisted ancestor-worship and petty father resentment.) Johnson’s approach to Kylo Ren is tempered with sadness and maturity. It’s the sighing judgment of a Gen-X middle manager watching a potentially valuable younger employee destroy himself. Such a waste, but so understandable.

This aspect of the complicated Generation-X perspective brings me to the two Gen-X characters in “Last Jedi,” who, fittingly for Gen-X, may seem less important compared to the colorful and dominant Boomer and Millennial stars, but prove to be the heart and soul of the moral argument at the core of this great movie: Poe Dameron and Vice-Admiral Holdo.

On the surface, Poe Dameron is very much a Han Solo knockoff– the cocky, smart-talking pilot who achieves the impossible with style. In Episode VII, by Boomer-influenced J.J. Abrams, that’s all he was, and apparently, until Oscar Isaac made a case for continuing the character, he wasn’t even intended as more than a one-off. With Rian Johnson at the helm, however, Poe becomes a crucial figure whose character arc encapsulates the lessons Johnson seeks to impart with this film: victory isn’t achieved by miracles, it isn’t only a product of self-sacrificing heroism, it’s hard won, complicated by tough choices, and sometimes what needs to be sacrificed isn’t a life– but the notion of heroism itself. Poe begins the movie believing victory is possible only if you’ll dare to pay the price; by the end, he understands “victory” isn’t victory if the price is life itself. That’s an incredible statement for an American blockbuster to make (a theme underscored by Rose preventing Finn from making the ultimate sacrifice himself). In 2017, after 16 years of America fighting an unending war with no “victory” in sight, it’s as political a statement as the original Star Wars metaphor of Empire trampling the jungles of Vietnam/Endor.

But there’s another side to the Generation-X cynism about war’s futility: , the fact that, despite cynicism, and awareness the battle might not be worth the price, Gen-X is still willing to do what needs to be done. Knowing hope may be unjustified, the Gen-Xer still hopes. This conflict between cynicism and hope is at the heart of the Generation-X dilemma, and at the heart of “Last Jedi.” That conflict, with its ultimate decision in favor of hope, is given form and power in the noble sacrifice of Vice Admiral Holdo.

Vice Admiral Holdo is the older, wiser, unimpressed but still hopeful Generation-X leader who understands the risks of action and so refuses to act recklessly. She didn’t start the war– the Boomers did. She inherited it. She wants to minimize damage and salvage what she can. She knows, when the bill comes due, she’s the one who must pay it– and she does, without hesitation, because that’s what the men and women of her generation always do. She cleans up the mess Leia and the Resistance leaders left behind. She guides the retreat. She does what must be done. Practical and blunt, she has no time for Poe’s heroic bullshit. Because she knows the Resistance may never achieve what the Rebellion tried to accomplish, she understands despair, but she’s too busy dealing with the problems before her to indulge it– or to hope. She does what’s necessary. It’s what Generation-Xers always do. Even if it means flying a cruiser at light speed into a First Order fleet.

Great movies reflect an era through the eyes of artists who embody that era. George Lucas embodied the era of Baby Boom “destiny” and self-conceit (“I’m the most important individual in the Galaxy because of my mystical understanding of reality”). Rian Johnson embodies our era of diminished heroism, cynicism and near despair– tempered by the hope, if we can but learn from our heroes’ mistakes, that somehow, some way, some day, we may yet restore balance to the Force.

#the last jedi

567 notes · View notes

i-am-very-very-tired · 3 years ago

Text

Somewhere between Britney and Billie Eilish, liberated by social media and their direct relationship with fans, millennial and Gen Z women claimed the right to be complicated pop auteursRead all of the essays in the decade retrospective

📷 Laura Snapes Mon 25 Nov 2019 13.12 GMT 174

While Billie Eilish has reinvented pop with her hushed SoundCloud rap menace, creepy ASMR intimacy and chipper show tune melodies, there’s also something reassuringly comforting about her: as a teenage pop star, she has fulfilled her proper duty by confusing the hell out of adults. It’s largely down to her aesthetic: a funhouse Fred Durst; a one-woman model for the combined wares of Camden Market. Critics have tried to make sense of it, but when editorials praised Eilish’s “total lack of sexualisation”, she denounced them for “slut-shaming” her peers. “I don’t like that there’s this weird new world of supporting me by shaming people that may not want to dress like me.”To Gen Z’s Eilish, not yet 18, it is a weird new world. She and her millennial peers have grown up in a decade in which pop’s good girl/bad girl binary has collapsed into the moral void that once upheld it, resulting in a generation of young female stars savvy to how the expectation to be “respectable” and conform to adult ideas of how a role model for young fans should act – by an industry not known for its moral backbone – is a con. “It’s a lot harder to treat women the way they were treated in the 90s now, because you can get called out so easily on social media,” Fiona Apple – who knows about the simultaneous sexualisation and dismissal of young female musicians – said recently. “If somebody does something shitty nowadays, a 17-year-old singer can get on their social media and say, ‘Look what this fucker did! It’s fucked up.’”📷 Lunatics conquering the asylum ... the Spice Girls. Photograph: Tim Roney/Getty ImagesFemale musicians have been subject to conflicting moral standards for longer than Eilish has been alive. Madonna, Janet Jackson and TLC knew them well – but the concept of the pop “role model”, expected to set an example to kids, solidified when the Spice Girls became the first female act to be marketed at children. In the 70s and 80s, idols such as David Cassidy primed girls for a monogamous future. By comparison, the Spice Girls were lunatics conquering the asylum. But, given their fans’ youth – and the sponsors that used the band to reach them – they also had a duty of responsibility. Their real lives – the all-nighters and eating disorders – were hidden so effectively that Eilish, born in 2001, thought the band was made up, actors playing the roles of the group in Spiceworld: The Movie.In the late 90s, kid-pop became an industry unto itself: Smash Hits and Top of the Pops magazine pitched younger; CD:UK and America’s TRL aimed at Saturday-morning and after-school audiences; Simons Fuller and Cowell built empires. The scrappy Spice Girls preceded the cyborgian Britney, who was a far sleeker enterprise – until she wasn’t. She was pitched as a virgin: cruel branding that invited media prurience and set a time bomb counting down towards her inevitable downfall. Britney’s 2007 breakdown revealed the cost of living as a virtuous cypher and being expected to repress her womanhood to sell to American prudes. Her shaved head and aborted stints in rehab prompted industry handwringing, and so an illusion of the music business offering greater freedom and care for pop’s girls emerged in her wake. Advertisement Major labels abandoned the traditional two-albums-in bad-girl turn (a la Christina Aguilera’s Stripped). Social media-born artists such as Lily Allen and Kate Nash were swept into the system and framed as the gobby antithesis to their manicured pop peers – until their resistance to exactly the same kind of manipulation saw them cast aside. And if Kesha, Lady Gaga or Amy Winehouse burned out, their visible excesses would distract from any behind-the-scenes exploitation, inviting spectators to imagine that they brought it on themselves.📷 Reclaiming the hard-partying values of rock’s men ... Kesha. Photograph: PictureGroup / Rex FeaturesAt the dawn of the 2010s, social media surpassed its teen origins to become an adult concern, and an earnest fourth wave of activists brought feminism back to the mainstream. Like a rescued hatchling, it was in a

pathetic state to begin with – dominated by white voices that tediously wondered whether anything a woman did was automatically feminist. Is brushing your teeth with Jack Daniel’s feminist? Are meat dresses feminist? Is drunkenly stumbling through Camden feminist? Are butt implants feminist?Pop culture became the natural test site for these ideas – especially music, where a new wave of artists challenged this nascent, often misguided idealism. Kesha reclaimed the hard-partying values of rock’s men to embody a generation’s despair at seeing their futures obliterated by the recession. Lady Gaga questioned gender itself, as one writer in this paper put it, “re-queering a mainstream that had fallen back into heteronormative mundanity”. In a career-making verse on Kanye West’s Monster, Nicki Minaj annihilated her male peers and gloried in her sexualisation. MIA, infuriated by America’s hypocritical propriety, flipped off the Super Bowl and proved her point by incurring a $16.5m fine.📷 Infuriated by hypocritical propriety ... MIA gives America the middle finger during her Super Bowl performance in 2012. Photograph: Christopher Polk/Getty Images Advertisement As a former Disney star, Miley Cyrus stepped the furthest out of bounds. In 2008, aged 15, she had posed in a sheet for Vanity Fair. “MILEY’S SHAME,” screamed the New York Post. She apologised to her fans, “who I care so deeply about”. But in 2013, she torched her child-star image by writhing in her knickers on a wrecking ball, twerking against Robin Thicke, being flagrant about her drug use, appropriating African American culture while perpetuating racist stereotypes.Cyrus’s 2013 transformation bore the hallmarks of a breakdown – especially witnessed two years after the death of Amy Winehouse, who was then perceived as a victim of her own self-destruction. But Cyrus was largely intentional about her work (if, then, ignorant of her racism). She had waited until she was no longer employed by Disney to express herself. Earlier in her career, she said, she struggled to watch her peers. “I was so jealous of what everyone else got to do, because I didn’t get to truly be myself yet.” Despite apparently smoking massive amounts of weed herself, she didn’t want to tell kids to copy her. But she knew the power she offered her peers such as Ariana Grande, who that year left Nickelodeon to release her debut album. “I’m like, ‘Walk out with me right now and get this picture, and this will be the best thing that happens to you, because just you associating with me makes you a little less sweet.’”Pop did get a little less sweet. Sia and Tove Lo sang brazenly about using drugs to mask pain. Icona Pop’s I Love It reigned (“I crashed my car into a bridge / I watched and let it burn”) thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack of Lena Dunham’s Girls. With its aimless characters and their ugly behaviour, the show mirrored pop’s retreat from aspirational sheen, and the culture’s growing obsession with “messy” women and “strong female characters”: flawed attempts to create new archetypes that rejected the expectation of girls behaving nicely.📷 An explicit rejection of role-model status ... Beyoncé performs at the Super Bowl in 2013. Photograph: Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesA new cohort of young female and non-binary critics shifted the discussion around music: in 2015, when the documentary Amy was released, they questioned how Winehouse was perceived in death compared to Kurt Cobain. They also pushed aside the virgin/whore rivalries of old. In an earlier era, Beyoncé and Lana Del Rey might have been fashioned into nemeses, one sexualised and powerful, the other gothic and demure. Instead, their respective mid-decade self-mythologising showed that female musicians could be pop’s auteurs, not just the men in the wings. Advertisement Beyoncé’s self-titled 2013 album was an explicit rejection of her role-model status. She was 15 when Destiny’s Child released their debut album. “But now I’m in my 30s and those children that grew up listening to me have grown up,” she said in a behind-the-scenes video.

The responsibility she felt to them “stifled” her. “I felt like ... I could not express everything … I feel like I’ve earned the right to be me and express any and every side of myself.”It was the first of her albums to reveal the breadth of her inner life – the coexisting kinks, triumphs and insecurities, showing the complexity of black womanhood. The critic Soraya Nadia McDonald wrote: “Mixed in with songs about insecurity, grief, protest and the love she has for her child, Beyoncé manages to present her sexuality as a normal part of her life that deserves celebration.” “It doesn’t make you a bad mother. It doesn’t make black people look bad, and it doesn’t make you a bad feminist, either.” When Beyoncé emblazoned “FEMINIST” on stage at the 2014 MTV VMAs, she helped reclaim the word from middle-class white discourse.Like Beyoncé, Del Rey countered the idea that female pop stars were major-label puppets. She had struggled to make it as an indie artist but found a home at Polydor – a detail that caused detractors to question her authenticity. Her shaky debut SNL performance revealed the flaw in their thinking: if she was manufactured, wouldn’t she have been better drilled? Her project was potent, but startlingly unrefined. More intriguingly, she opposed fast-calcifying ideas about how feminist art should look: Del Rey’s lyrics revelled in submission and violence, in thrall to bad guys and glamour. It wasn’t feminist to want these things; but nor was it feminist to insist on the suppression of desire in the name of shiny empowerment.📷 Exposing industry machinations ... Azealia Banks at the Reading festival in 2013. Photograph: Simone Joyner/Getty Images Advertisement Del Rey’s lusts and designs were her own – pure female gaze – a hallmark of the defiant female pop stars to come. Rihanna said she was “completely not” a role model, a point driven home by the viscerally violent video for Bitch Better Have My Money. Lauren Mayberry of Scottish trio Chvrches refused to be singled out from her male bandmates and wrote searingly about the misogyny she faced online. Janelle Monáe and Solange rubbished the idea that R&B was the only lane open to young black women.They started revealing their business conflicts. In 2013, 21-year-old Sky Ferreira finally released her debut, six years after signing a $1m record deal. She was transparent about her paradoxical treatment: “They worked me to death, but when I wanted to input anything, it was like, ‘You’re a child, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’” When Capitol pulled funding for the album, she financed its completion: it was widely named an album of the year. Facing similar frustrations, rapper Angel Haze leaked her 2013 album, Dirty Gold, and Azealia Banks wasted no opportunity to expose industry machinations.The rise of Tumblr and SoundCloud put young artists in control of their own artistic identities, forging authentic fan relationships that labels couldn’t afford to mess with. Lorde was signed age 12, but her manager knew he had to follow her lead because she knew her audience better than he did. Halsey was already Tumblr-famous for her covers, hair colours and candour about her bisexuality and bipolar diagnosis when she posted her first original song in 2014. It received so much attention that the 19-year-old – who described herself as an “inconvenient woman” for everything she represented – signed to major label Astralwerks the following evening.A new type of fan arrived with them. The illusion of intimacy led to greater emotional investment – and with it, an expectation of accountability. Social media was being used to arbitrate social justice issues, giving long overdue platforms to marginalised voices, and establishing far more complex moral standards for pop stars than the executives who shilled Britney’s virginity could ever have imagined. In 2013, Your Fav Is Problematic began to highlight stars’ missteps: among Halsey’s 11 infractions were “sexualising Japanese culture” and allegedly falsifying her story about being “homeless”.Musicians, particularly of an

older guard, were unprepared. Lily Allen’s comeback single Hard Out Here, released in late 2013, satirised the impossible aesthetic standards expected of female musicians – a bold message undermined by the racist stereotypes she invoked to make her point: “Don’t need to shake my arse for you ’cause I’ve got a brain,” she sang, while black and Asian leotard-clad dancers twerked around her in the video. The backlash was swift. There was the sense of a balance tipping.📷 Refused to let terrorists suppress girls’ joy ... Ariana Grande at One Love Manchester, 4 June 2017. Photograph: Kevin Mazur/One Love Manchester/Getty Images Advertisement Over the decade, female pop stars steadily self-determined beyond the old limited archetypes. But the most dramatic identity shifts were still a product of adversity, women battling for control.In 2015, Ariana Grande provoked mild outcry when she got caught licking a doughnut she hadn’t paid for and declaring: “I hate America.” Two years later, a suicide bomber attacked her concert at Manchester Arena, leaving 22 dead. She went home to Florida in the aftermath, then returned to stage benefit concert One Love Manchester. A victim’s mother asked Grande to perform her raunchiest hits after the Daily Mail implied that the bomber had targeted the concert because of her sexualised aesthetic. So she did. By prioritising her mental health and refusing to let terrorists suppress girls’ joy and sexuality, she set a powerful example for fans that ran counter to the moralising of commentators such as Piers Morgan.Grande appeared to emerge from this tragedy – and the death of ex-boyfriend Mac Miller – with a renewed sense of what was important, and what really was not. Her next album, Sweetener, defiantly reclaimed happiness from trauma; she swiftly released another, Thank U, Next, abandoning traditional pop release patterns to work with a rapper’s spontaneity. “I just want to fucking talk to my fans and sing and write music and drop it the way these boys do,” she said.Kesha had helped instigate this decade of greater freedom for female musicians – or so it seemed until October 2014, when she sued producer Dr Luke, making allegations including sexual assault. (In spring 2016, a judge dismissed the case; Luke denies all allegations and is suing Kesha for defamation.) She claimed she was told she had to be “fun”, an image that Luke’s label intended to capitalise on, revealing how revelry could be just as confining as its prim counterpart. In 2017, she released Rainbow, her first album in five years. Addressing her trauma, it got the best reviews of her career – a response that also seemed to reveal something about the most digestible way for a female artist to exist. But her forthcoming album, High Road, pointedly returns to the recklessness of her first two records. “I don’t feel as if I’m beholden to be a tragedy just because I’ve gone through something that was tragic,” she said.Taylor Swift’s refusal to endorse a candidate in the 2016 election, and the fallout from a spat with Kanye West, saw her shred her image of nice-girl relatability with her 2017 heel-turn, Reputation. But she rebelled more meaningfully when she leveraged her profile to expose the music industry, alerting the public to otherwise opaque matters of ownership and compensation. She joined independent labels in the fight to make Apple Music pay artists for the free trial period it offered consumers. Earlier this year, she despaired at her former label, Big Machine, being bought – and the master recordings to her first six albums with it – by nemesis Scooter Braun, an option she claimed she was denied. Now signed to Universal, and the owner of her masters going forward, she hoped young musicians might learn from her “about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation”, she wrote. “You deserve to own the art you make.” Advertisement Swift’s formative politesse came from country music, an industry that emphasises deference to power and traditional gender roles. In 2015, consultant Keith Hill – using a bizarre metaphor about

salad – admitted that radio sidelined female musicians: they were then subject to endless questions about tomatogate, as if they had the power to fix it. But that blatant industry disregard freed female country artists to shuck off obligation and make whatever music they wanted. In recent years, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde, Brandy Clark, Kacey Musgraves, Ashley Monroe, Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile and Margo Price have all creatively outstripped their male peers.📷 ‘Just me existing is revolutionary’ ... Lizzo. Photograph: Owen Sweeney/Invision/APTheir situation resonates beyond country: greater personal freedoms for female musicians haven’t equated to greater commercial success. Just because a wave of female pop acts have refused old industry ideals, that doesn’t mean control is consigned to the past. There will be young women enduring coercive music industry situations right now – whether manipulation or more serious abuse. Some may never meet those impossible standards, and fail to launch. Others may quietly endure years of repression before potentially finding their voice. There are high-profile female pop acts working today who control their work yet are still subject to grinding suggestions that they change to meet market demands, and noisy women from this decade who have been sidelined. The tropes of the self-actualised female pop star are so established that labels know how to reverse engineer “real” pop girls beholden to a script.But the emergence of a more holistic female star will make it harder for labels to shill substitutes. Their emotional openness has destroyed the stigma around mental health that was used to diminish female musicians as “mad” divas. Charli XCX said she would never have betrayed her vulnerabilities when she was starting out in her teens. “If I’m emotionally vulnerable,” she thought, “people won’t take me seriously … Now I just don’t care.” Robyn spent eight years following up her most successful record because she needed time to grieve and unpick the impact of her own teen stardom. Britney – who in 1999 told Rolling Stone, “I have no feelings at all” – this year cancelled her Las Vegas residency to prioritise her mental health. 📷 More to the floor: the decade the dancefloor was decolonised Read more Advertisement They’ve relentlessly countered the male gaze. Chris refused to simplify queerness for the mainstream; Kim Petras stood for “trans joy”; Rihanna challenged the idea of skinny as aspirational by creating inclusive fashion lines and candidly discussing her own shape. “Just me existing is revolutionary”, Lizzo has said, while Cardi B refused to let anyone use her past as a stripper undermine her legitimacy as a powerful political voice.Where unthinking messiness was valorised at the start of the decade, now imperfection only gets a pass as long as nobody else is getting hurt. This summer, Miley, now 26, apologised for the racial insensitivity of her Wrecking Ball era. Soon after, she posted striking tweets in response to rumours of her cheating on her husband. She admitted to having been hedonistic and unprofessional in her youth. But she swore she hadn’t cheated in her marriage. “I’ve grown up in front of you, but the bottom line is, I HAVE GROWN UP,” she wrote. (To a degree – not long after, she found herself called out again when she implied that queerness is a choice.)In their fallibility and resistance to commodification, the women who have defined this decade in pop look a lot more like role models than the corporate innocents sold to girls in the early millennium. They’re still learning, working with what they’ve got rather than submitting to what they’re told. “I don’t know what it feels like not to be a teenager,” Billie Eilish said recently. “But kids know more than adults.” … as you’re joining us today from South Africa, we have a small favour to ask. Tens of millions have placed their trust in the Guardian’s high-impact journalism since we started publishing 200 years ago, turning to us in moments of crisis, uncertainty, solidarity and hope. More than 1.5

million readers, from 180 countries, have recently taken the step to support us financially – keeping us open to all, and fiercely independent.With no shareholders or billionaire owner, we can set our own agenda and provide trustworthy journalism that’s free from commercial and political influence, offering a counterweight to the spread of misinformation. When it’s never mattered more, we can investigate and challenge without fear or favour.Unlike many others, Guardian journalism is available for everyone to read, regardless of what they can afford to pay. We do this because we believe in information equality. Greater numbers of people can keep track of global events, understand their impact on people and communities, and become inspired to take meaningful action.We aim to offer readers a comprehensive, international perspective on critical events shaping our world – from the Black Lives Matter movement, to the new American administration, Brexit, and the world's slow emergence from a global pandemic. We are committed to upholding our reputation for urgent, powerful reporting on the climate emergency, and made the decision to reject advertising from fossil fuel companies, divest from the oil and gas industries, and set a course to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.

0 notes

allthefights · 7 years ago

Photo

star wars aesthetic » ahsoka tano (part two) → While she no longer identified as a Jedi, Ahsoka Tano went into hiding following Order 66. She constructed new lightsabers, both with blades of white due to her non-affiliation, and remained on the periphery until the rebellion against the Empire. Then, Tano became Fulcrum: an intel agent with her identity a secret to all but those with the highest of clearances. Tano's destiny would change, however, when she was called in to help the Ghost crew escape from Mustafar space. Here she met two Jedi – Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger – and shortly following the encounter, Tano was present during a deadly aerial clash with a mysterious Sith Lord. Ahsoka, reaching out through the Force, connected with the dark side wielder – a connection that made her lose consciousness. Tano accompanied the Ghost crew on several missions, including battles with the Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother Inquisitors, whom she handled with relative ease. But fate would lead Tano to a greater confrontation: one with the Sith Lord she encountered in Mustafar space. It was Darth Vader, now revealed to be her former Master. They battled atop the Sith Temple on Malachor, with Tano delivering a strike square across his mask. The scarred face beneath looked like Anakin, but the man she knew was gone. They struck swords once more as the Temple collapsed around them. – “I am no Jedi.”

#Ahsoka Tano #Star Wars Rebels #swedit #swredit

159 notes · View notes

patricksilvrrozartistry · 7 years ago

Text

Current Music Obsessions: October 17 - 31, 2017

It's that time again. Time to share my current music obssessions for the second half of the month. So let's see them honorable mentions.

Sinistro - Nothing Sacred (Paradise Lost cover) Kadavar - Tribulation Serenity - Lionheart Body Count - This is Why We Ride Collapsion - Dethroned The Great Discord - Cadence Type O Negative - Wolf Moon Persona - Invidia The Dark Element - Here's to You Metalite - Nightmare Sleeping Romance - Where the Light is Bleeding Lorde - Perfect Places Hanging Garden - Our Dark Design feat. Nika Kalliojarvi Tarja - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel Goldenhall - King Under the Mountain AfterTime - Masquerade (Through the Facade) Sunterra - Shadow in the Dark Beyond God - Stronger Lamb - What Makes Us Human Suodeth - Siecle Des Lumieres Brighter Than a Thousand Suns - What's Inside Cher - Walls Conspiria - Prophecy of Doom Witchcraft - В объятиях темноты Qveen Herby - Wifey Inviolate - Broken Cycle Silentium - Frostnight Abonos - U Krosnjama Abonosa Voices of Destiny - The Great Hunt Crystal Gates - Shadowborn

And now for the real ones.

1) Pale Waves - Television Romance

This was a random YT discovery and am so into it. It's such an cute song and their front woman is so adorable. There's something about it that sounds so nostalgic to me and I think that's why I love it so much. Like it sounds like something out of the 2000's. I'm definitely am gonna check out more from them.

2) IAMFIRE - Beamer

I came across this song through spaceuntravel's YT channel and was shocked to hear sludge/stoner metal on their channel. Most of the stuff they post is alternative metal, nu metal and hard rock bands, so hearing this was a pleasant surprise. I really dig this track and the overall vibe of it.

3) Butcher Babies - Headspin

This is such a fun song. I'm so hyped for Lilith and can't wait to give it a listen. So far it sounds like a bit more of a progressive direction, but still keeping true to their thrash roots. Even though this song is a bit softer, it's still a great jam. Also the video is wonderful and threw me off that it apparently stars two porn stars, but then again, Heidi and Carla worked with Play Boy in the past, so they probably got some connections.

4) Sharon Needles - Battle Axe

Sharon is back with a new single and this is a fun one. It's not my favorite, but it's catchy enough for it to become an obsession of mine. I don't think any of her music will ever compare to the works of PG-13, but it's still great to hear good tunes from her. And I LOVE Phi Phi's cameo in the video.

5) Ebony Ark - If Only

I finally decided to check out more from them and I instantly got obsessed with this song. It's such a great symphonic prog-power track. It's so catchy and the bridge is absolutely beautiful. Beatriz has such a beautiful and strong voice. It's a bummer they're no longer together, but hopefully Beatriz will pop back up sometime soon.

6) The Longing - How Do You Know

I discovered this band through Facebook a while back and have been digging a lot of their music so far. It's strange to me that I've found a symphonic-ish gothic metal band from the States that I actually enjoy (a lot of symphonic metal bands from the States don't really appeal to me). The singer's "acting" in the bridge is very odd, but the song itself is what's amazing.

7) Vvon Dogma I - Communion

Chaoth's new project has finally released its debut single and it's wonderful. It's far from being an obsurdly chaotic masterpiece that was Unexpect, but it's still amazing nonetheless. It's a bit avant-garde, but more structured. The blending of dubstep and an atmospheric voice with the djenty instrumentals gives the music such a cool and interesting vibe. By the way, Chaoth's voice is wonderful and his bass solos are still beautiful as always (as they should, since it has nine strings).

8) Akoma - Change of Propensity

I got around to listening to Revangels and this is definitely my favorite off the album. So powerful, dramatic and beautiful. I just wish someone would post the lyrics somewhere, because I REALLY want to do a vocal cover of it. The chorus is just so intense and full of so much raw power that it's absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.

9) Vuur - Freedom ~ Rio

Of all the singles they've dropped, this one is the prettiest. Anekke really gets into her higher register with this track. It's such a beautiful and uplifting song. I can really see this one being not only a fan favorite, but also a great song to hear live.

10) Climatic Terra - Misery feat. Ines Vera-Ortiz (ex-Lumine Criptica)

I came across this song when checking to see what all projects Ines has been featured on over the years. This is such a great and beautiful power metal track. I really hope she joins a band again soon and releases a full length album with them. She has such a gorgeous voice and I'd love to hear some new material from her.

11) Empyrean Throne - Chaosborne

The title track of Empyrean Throne's debut album is absolutely epic. After listening to Chaosborne, it's easy to say that these guys are heavily influenced by Dimmu Borgir and I love it. This song is such a ballbuster and their front man shows off the more beautiful side of his cleans on this track. I highly recommend you guys to check this band out.

12) From the Arc - I Swear

Another band I discovered through spaceuntravel, From the Arc are an alternative metal band. This track is such a great jam. Honeybee has such a lovely voice. It always makes me extremely happy to see black women in the metal scene. It reminds people that metal is for everyone and isn't just white people music. Definitely am gonna check out more from them.

13) Magion - Body's Betrayal

I watched an old interview that their front woman did and she mentioned that this was one of her favorites off their then new album to perform, so naturally I had to check it out. it's such a gorgeous and dramatic track. It's sad that they are no longer together, but at least Myrthe is still active in the metal scene with Scenario II.

14) St. Vincent - Los Ageless

I came across this song when I saw a gifset on tumblr made of clips from this song's video. The video is aesthetic goals af and the song itself is so much fun. It's rather catchy and wonderful to jam to. The video is so cool and pretty. Definitely am gonna check out more from them.

15) La-Ventura - Song for an Idiot

I rekindled my love for this track thanks to my Facebook memories. This band is so underrated and wonderful. Their front woman has such a great voice that's different to hear in the gothic metal scene. This song has such a great hook and the chorus is so powerful even though it's so simple.

16) Elliot Root - 10,000

I discovered this band when I went to Criminal Records (a record store in Atlanta) and saw their debut album, Conjure, for $2. The cover art got me intrigued, so I added this song to watch later so I could check them out when I got home. I instantly fell in love with it. I'm not the biggest fan of indie music, but this is gorgeous. So gorgeous that I went back less than a week later to pick up the album. Their front man has such a lovely voice and the instrumentals complement it very well. I highly recommend you guys to check this album out, it's amazing.

That's it for October! Now go enjoy these tunes!

2 notes · View notes

bachmanhq-blog · 7 years ago

Note

what is alyssa's bestseller about?

MAN IS POWER

THE NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER

A bewildered crescent dwindled over the surface of the moon, pools of the forgotten stars further lost within the depth of the galaxy. In the darkness, a shadow looms over lanky positions sloped over the terrain of the unpaved roads. Anthropocentric hands print the dust of a destiny which calls for man to be the extreme leader of every facet of life. The world continues day by day to record the rich history of humankind: When have one ever paid a cent to read the daily paper for a story on a raccoon being glory? It’s always man manifesting the eminent executions shaping each passing epoch.

Hazel hues doze onto the mahogany table centered in the enclosed room. Beige walls, a painting of a man lingering on thoughts, flowers all calling to the plastic aesthetic, and there’s a crimson fabric draping over the half-opened window. The room is one many fear. A sense of familiarity, a sense of organization, a sense of common sense; they were all notional qualifications in the theory of Silas Neumann. The room was daunting to any client who stepped over the boundary of admitting there is a wrongful digit in their series of codes. Pressing control+alt+delete was not rebooting the system, and blue screens flickered before his eye. Soon, he became tired of the loading, and he was in desperate need of an update to the software.

A woman sits adjacent with a tinge of anomalous overlapping her coal orbs. A seven second observation was all it took for Silas to fill the pages of her story. A young, naive immigrant with feet that could paddle the ocean blue for hours where the center of the world became her home. Ocean currents tilted her petite physique into a bending figure to play with, but a smile still sailed across with the breeze. Storm currents. Lightning strikes never made her flicker, and the bursting, roaring funnels of clouds never pushed her under the pressure—squeezing her lungs into collapse. She kept swimming, unaware of the mystic brutality underneath. She was naive unlike Silas who has shaken hands with Poseidon.

“What’s on your mind, Silas?” It was a question that traumatized the mind, for truth ventured over into a quick minute advertisement. No subliminal message went unseen. Truth: Nothing was on his mind. Curse the child for ever being preoccupied with the silly doodles of the perfect life. Curse the child for ever being polite to authoritative parents who only tugged on his polo collar. Curse the child for never listening when they told him that life is a set of expectations to oblige. Curse the child for tiring out his core, the fuel out of maximum; curse the child for falling off the tracks that he no longer had a thought to process. What would be the point?

Averting his focus upward, a chill shuffled to take a seat beside the twenty year old. Brushing fingertips, the pale male stiffened as his coffee stained lips drenched into a flat line. His foot tapped. His mind was now racing on what to say. Any other would ask the question, and he would riddle a faulty statement, but, with the therapist, he told the truth. If he could admit to himself that he needed guidance, he might as well accept the guidance. That was logical.

“The barista delivered me a French Vanilla Latte when I ordered a Triple, Venti, Half Sweet, Non-Fat, Caramel Macchiato.”

Little did the therapist note on her notebook that the response was more than just a filler to avoid the question provided. He did answer the question: Even the barista ignores my power.

#answered.#// this is something i wrote for another group not long ago #// and i liked it so much #// and thought it was befitting for alyssa as well #// something she would definitely write #insp.

3 notes · View notes

diguerra-moved · 5 years ago

Text

tag drop: ashara dayne

#* muse: ashara dayne / FALLEN STAR.#* in character: ashara dayne / HER HEART WAS BROKEN.#* character study: ashara dayne / A GRAVEYARD OF STARS.#* isms: ashara dayne / IT IS THE DESTINY OF STARS TO COLLAPSE.#* aesthetic: ashara dayne / STARDUST IN HER VEINS.#* physique: ashara dayne / WITH HAUNTING VIOLET EYES.#* verse 001: ashara dayne / SHE SHINES; ALL STARLIGHT AND WONDER.#* verse 002: ashara dayne / SHE ENDURES; SEA AND STARDUST COMBINED.#* verse 003: ashara dayne / SHE COLLAPSES; FOR ALL STARS ARE BOUND TO FALL.#* verse 004: ashara dayne / SHE FADES; BEARER OF SCARS THE OTHERS CANNOT SEE.#* dynamics: ashara dayne & arthur dayne / HER BROTHER WAS THE SWORD OF THE MORNING AND HE WAS INVINCIBLE.#* dynamics: ashara dayne & eddard stark / SPRING HAD COME OR SO THEY THOUGHT.#* dynamics: ashara dayne & elia martell / WE DESERVED A SOFT EPILOGUE.

0 notes

nebris · 6 years ago

Text

Stefan Zweig, Wes Anderson, and a Longing for the Past

What’s Hungarian about the Grand Budapest Hotel, the most glamorous vacation spot in Wes Anderson’s fictional Republic of Zubrowka? At first, I suspected that the resort was a wink at another cinematic Budapest, one from classic-age Hollywood: the insulated haven of nostalgic charm perched on the edge of war that’s depicted in Ernst Lubitsch’s “The Shop Around the Corner.” Lubitsch made the film in November and December, 1939, just as war broke out in Europe, but its subject wasn’t war, it was manners. The film presented an exquisite microcosm of aesthetic refinement and tactful reserve shadowed by monstrous forces.

But another hint about Anderson’s hotel comes from a book that Anderson has cited as the spark for the film, Stefan Zweig’s memoir “The World of Yesterday,” an autobiography that he wrote in exile in the early forties, soon before his suicide. During the First World War, the Viennese writer Zweig (1881-1942)—a vehement anti-nationalist and pacifist opponent of the war—occupied a post with the War Archives, and he accepted a mission to collect proclamations issued near the front. On the way back, he travelled by hospital train. In his book, after describing horrific visions of the wounded and the dying, he wrote:

The hospital train in which I was returning arrived in Budapest in the early morning hours. I drove at once to a hotel to get some sleep; my only seat in the train had been my bag. Tired as I was, I slept until about eleven and then quickly got up to get my breakfast. I had gone only a few paces when I had to rub my eyes to make sure that I was not dreaming…. Budapest was as beautiful and carefree as ever before. Women in white dresses walked arm in arm with officers who suddenly appeared to me to be officers of quite a different army than that I had seen only yesterday and the day before yesterday…. I saw how they bought bunches of violets and gallantly tendered them to their ladies, saw spotless automobiles with smoothly shaved and spotlessly dressed gentlemen ride through the streets. And all this but eight or nine hours away from the front by express train. But by what right could one judge these people? Was it not the most natural thing that, living, they sought to enjoy their lives?—that because of the very feeling that everything was being threatened, that they had gathered together all that was to be gathered, the few fine clothes, the last good hours!

Then Zweig got hold of a newspaper from Vienna which was filled with martial hectoring and patriotic bombast:

Here it jumped out at me, naked, towering and unashamed, the lie of the war! No, it was not the promenaders, the careless, the carefree, who were to blame, but those alone who drove the war on with their words. But we too were guilty if we did not do our part against them.

Zweig’s part against the militarists involved writing the anti-war drama “Jeremiah,” which was produced in 1917. He also travelled to Switzerland, where he worked, publicly and privately, with French pacifist authors, such as Romain Rolland and Pierre Jean Jouve. But his vision of the graceful world that the war would destroy was inspired by his stay at a grand Budapest hotel.

Zweig was one of the most acclaimed writers of his time. (Leo Carey recently offered an overview of Zweig’s career in a Critic at Large piece in the magazine.) “The World of Yesterday,” written when he was in flight from the Nazi regime, evokes in sharp and nostalgic detail the artistic and political scene in fin-de-siècle Vienna, the collapse of civic society that followed the First World War, the rise of Hitler, and Zweig’s experience of exile. One of the protagonists of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is an exile, too: Zero Moustafa (played, as a young man, by Tony Revolori and, later in life, by F. Murray Abraham), a lobby boy whose destiny proves inextricable from that of the hotel itself. When young Zero’s flimsy travel documents are challenged by Nazi surrogates on a train, his friend and mentor, the concierge Gustave H., acts courageously in Zero’s defense. Zweig, too, addressed of the practical difficulties and psychological trauma resulting from the loss of his passport (which, before the First World War, wasn’t even a commonplace document), which, he wrote, turned him into one of “the outlaws, of the men without a country.”

There’s a terrific book forthcoming on the subject: George Prochnik’s “The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World,” which I’ve had the pleasure of reading in galleys. (Prochnik is married to the staff writer Rebecca Mead, and they co-authored a Shouts & Murmurs in the magazine.) Prochnik focusses on Zweig’s later years, discussing in detail his wanderings in the nineteen-thirties and forties—to Great Britain, the United States, and his last stop, Brazil. Zweig lived in New York for a while, and Prochnik movingly documents the toll that the author’s peculiar prominence among the Jewish émigré community took on him, especially at a time when millions of Jews who remained in Europe were dying.

It’s strange that, during his time in the United States, Zweig didn’t make his way toward the one place where, perhaps to his discomfort, he’d have been a natural: namely, Hollywood. His fiction has been an inspiration for dozens of movies, and, in “The World of Yesterday,” Zweig details the odd (and unintended) political fallout from Robert Siodmak’s 1933 adaptation of his book “The Burning Secret.” His novel “Fear” was filmed in 1928, again in 1936, and, in a great adaptation by Roberto Rosselini, starring Ingrid Bergman, in 1954. One of the most romantic and superbly styled Hollywood movies, Max Ophüls’s “Letter from an Unknown Woman,” from 1948, is based on a book by Zweig.

The Hollywood connection comes up in a surprising way in what is perhaps the most hostile critique that Zweig (or maybe anyone) ever received, from Hannah Arendt, who reviewed “The World of Yesterday” in 1943 (the essay has been collected in “The Jewish Writings”). She blames Zweig for his conduct after Hitler’s rise to power—“He continued to boast of his unpolitical point of view”—and charges that his greatest pursuit and most painful loss was merely of his “fame.” She argues that the false security felt by Jews in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire resulted from their lack of “concern for the political realities of their times.”

Above all, Arendt looked derisively at the Viennese artistic world that Zweig recalled longingly. This, too, she considered corrupted by the cult of fame—in particular, as it attached to the stage:

In no other European city did the theater ever acquire the same significance that it had in Vienna during the period of political dissolution…. Since the world had undeniably acquired a theatrical air, the theater could appear as the world of reality…. The Viennese went to the theater exclusively for the actors; playwrights wrote for this or that performer; critics discussed only the actor or his parts; directors accepted or rejected plays purely on the basis of effective roles for their matinee idols. The star system, as the cinema later perfected it, was completely forecast in Vienna. What was in the making there was not a classical renaissance but Hollywood.

Feh, Hollywood! Arendt writes the word as if it were patently unclean, a modern corruption, whereas, in fact, Hollywood is exactly what she says it’s not: the keystone of a new classicism. In any case, the charge that Vienna was a forerunner of Hollywood may be the nicest thing that anyone ever said about the city. Max Reinhardt, who was Viennese, was no sycophant to the star system. Though he made Berlin his base, he had an outpost in Vienna, where Otto Preminger was one of his key disciples. Max Ophüls, though German, was a leading theatre director in Vienna in the nineteen-twenties, before turning to movies. Erich von Stroheim lived in Vienna until the age of twenty-four, and he infused his movies with the showy and cruel mannerism of its military and court life—precisely the aspects of Viennese society that were by and large, as Zweig writes, off-limits to Jews.

The star system of Hollywood, which Arendt found so tawdry, reflects two major trends in modern art—the first, the comic genius of such performers as Max Linder, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton, who used the cinema to triumph over the hidebound conventions of the music hall by becoming directors (that’s the story behind the story of Chaplin’s late feature “Limelight”). The second is the invention of the closeup, which, in the hands of D. W. Griffith, got past the actor’s performance to reveal the being, and seemingly the soul.

It’s easy to understand why Hollywood must have appeared, at the time of Arendt’s writing, oppressive. First, the industry’s self-censorship on such matters as sex, race, and politics, made its ostensibly comprehensive view of American life seem narrow and false. Second, the unavoidability of movie ballyhoo would have made the movies themselves seem like mere publicity for Hollywood. Third, Hollywood was indisputably populist in tone, not merely commercial in its origins but expressly pitched away from the world of high art. Fourth, history offers works that have survived the triage of time, whereas the present day thrusts the viewer into a sea of mediocrity.

It’s the sifting that makes for the greatest obstacle: the aesthetic criteria to distinguish the greatness of some Hollywood movies had yet to be formulated. Such filmmakers as Howard Hawks, John Ford, Busby Berkeley, Allan Dwan, Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, and, of course, Ernst Lubitsch were working there at the time, but critics were by and large still stuck in theatrical and novelistic standards and had trouble recognizing the art that passed as commerce. Arendt, in her repudiation of Hollywood, reflected the prejudices of the world of yesterday.

In addition to being the source of a new classicism, studio-era Hollywood was perhaps the greatest machine for sudden and drastic stylistic innovation ever offered to humanity. With its stars and its fashions, its lighting and its framing and its editing, Hollywood offered a psychic choreography, an aestheticization of the inner life that gave movies a profound unconscious resonance akin to that of music, and that sense that style is profound is a key part of Wes Anderson’s aesthetic, and it’s an aspect of moviemaking that links him to such predecessors as Lubitsch and Ophüls. (In a new interview in Cahiers du Cinéma, he says, “For me, music remains the best metaphor for my films.”)

P.S. In anticipation of the release of Prochnik’s book, it’s worth reading a wide-ranging discussion between Prochnik and Anderson about Zweig that appeared in the Telegraph last week. (Anderson cites Zweig’s reference to the peculiar institution of the passport, and Prochnik takes note of its role in the film.) It turns out that the piece “is an edited extract from a longer version of the conversation that appears in ‘The Society of the Crossed Keys,’ a new selection of Zweig’s writings” that, of course, derives its title from a crucial scene in the film. (As far as I know, it’s coming out only in the U.K.)

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/stefan-zweig-wes-anderson-and-a-longing-for-the-past

#Stefan Zweig

0 notes