#(Lucid has the potential to be a force to be reckoned with. He is the Eveningstar after all)

[brokendreamscreation]

Lucid showing off his true seraph side is always fun to write~ I need to have him show that off more often. With how reluctant he is to fight though Lucid has only shown his double hoop halo and dozens of eyes on his wings on two occasions (both in future timelines). Going through his trials to gain self-confidence and face his fears of the power he potentially has would be fun to explore.

[gascon-en-exil]

Why would CF be considered bad? The devs say that it's the route about fighting for what you believe in, even if others get in your way. You may have to take down good people, but in the end her route ends with no more gods', nothing dangerous lurking anymore, etc. It doesn't seem like a bad route other than maybe killing good people.

I take it you mean “morally bad” rather than “badly written,” although the two are not mutually exclusive. I’d say that the CF we have is bad in both senses of the terms, and that a better-written CF would been have even more obviously morally objectionable but would have succeeded on that basis - a proper villain route where you get to enjoy being a genocidal conqueror (possibly with a side of your self-insert getting to sleep with your preferred flavor of villainous archetype between Edelgard, Hubert, and Jeritza).

Now, as for why it is, despite the muddled presentation, a villain route:

There are still dangers lurking in Fòdlan, and they’re called the Agarthans. CF is the only route where Thales survives, and where you make the least progress in dismantling his organization. AM gets him and potentially Myson in addition to Cornelia, while VW and SS leave out Cornelia but take care of Thales and raid Shambhala with VW additionally getting rid of zombie Nemesis and the Elites along with a handful of low-ranking Agarthans. CF kicks the Agarthans back to a postgame war waged entirely in character endings, which is neither satisfying as a player nor likely to remove the threat entirely, based on CF’s parallels with Genealogy of the Holy War (see below).

Fòdlan only has one (mainline) goddess, and she’s still alive at the end of CF. I’m not really sure where people got the impression that Rhea or any of the Nabateans consider themselves gods, but they don’t. Killing Rhea in CF causes Sothis’s Crest stone to disappear for no apparent reason (note that Rhea also dies by default in SS if you don’t raise your support with her, and yet Byleth’s hair does not revert to its original color in that ending), but Sothis herself “lives” because you can still S rank her in CF. This is two logical inconsistencies stacked on one another, the first being the bit about the disappearing Crest stone and the second being that Byleth survived its disappearance even though based on what we know of their birth their heart would not beat without the stone…meaning they should have died in that moment. When it comes to moral arguments however, Fire Emblem does not as a whole posit that the world would be any better or less prone to conflict without its gods. The “gods” of Fates and Echoes are really dragons undergoing mental deterioration in their old age, something Rhea does not show signs of except maybe in SS, and that only because the game realizes it still needs a final boss. In Radiant Dawn meanwhile, the game that evidently inspired Edelgard’s speech in the CF ending cutscene, Ike himself acknowledges the value of gods, and Ashera is not truly killed but is allowed to combine with Yune and become a complete entity again.

“Killing good people” is kind of a big deal. CF has the highest named character body count of any route, and although it lets you spare some of the people on its hit list you have to go out of your way to allow Claude, Seteth, and Flayn to live. You can never spare Dimitri, with the best you can do for him saving him from a humiliating execution at Edelgard’s hands and Dedue from becoming a Demonic Beast at the same time and letting them die together. CF Dimitri also doesn’t undergo the same trauma he experiences during the timeskip of the other routes, leaving him comparatively lucid and composed and thereby making all the route’s attempts to paint him as this violent madman who needs to be put down as little more than propaganda intended to rationalize conquering Faerghus and killing its king. Everything about CF positions it as the route of a conqueror; you invade two sovereign countries, take out their leaders, trample them underfoot (literally represented by the ending tapestry), and absorb them into a continental Empire. The bit about returning Fòdlan to the control of humans - incidentally also the goal of the Agarthans - means in this case dragon genocide, allowing you to participate in an event similar to the Scouring of Elibe’s backstory while also, like the Elibe games, forcing you to consider the ethical ramifications of such an act by giving you multiple examples of dragons who aren’t crazed monsters who need to be killed to ensure humanity’s survival.

The argument from Arvis. I went into it here, but the gist is that Edelgard’s similarities to FE’s original Flame Emperor are too significant to be ignored and notably do not make for a flattering comparison. Arvis also fights for his beliefs, a desire to unify Jugdral and create a better world with himself as emperor. In the process he allies himself with an assortment of unscrupulous backstabbing nobles as well as a shadowy cult that opposes a revered divine being and in the process commits multiple acts of murder up to and including most of the playable cast of the FE4′s first generation. He is no less an antagonist or a villain because he has arguably sympathetic ideals, and it’s only in the second generation when, broken and impotent (on account of the machinations of the aforementioned cult who only grew stronger under his reign - makes you wonder about CF’s postgame war, doesn’t it?) and with a new crop of playable characters coming for his head, he somewhat redeems himself by secretly delivering the divine sword Tyrfing to Seliph - tacitly acknowledging the inevitability of his impending death and that he was wrong in murdering Tyrfing’s previous wielder, Seliph’s father Sigurd, to advance his ambitions. Edelgard frustrates a lot of longtime fans of the series precisely because she never has any moment remotely similar to this, where her beliefs and actions are ever questioned in any meaningful way that forces her to confront what she’s doing. That’s to be expected when Arvis at the same point in his story was riding high off his triumph and couldn’t yet see how it would all unravel, but the constant echo chamber of Edelgard and her yes-men Hubert and Byleth is considerably more grating because it’s always in the player’s face. This brings me to…

CF isn’t about fighting for what you believe in, unless what you believe in is just Edelgard. The developers could make the argument that that’s the driving force behind Edelgard’s actions on any route, but choosing CF is never framed that way for the player via Byleth. It’s a spur-of-the-moment, purely emotional decision that asks you simply whether you should kill Edelgard for invading the Holy Tomb with an army and attempting to steal the Crest stones therein (which are, as a reminder, the remains of Rhea’s slaughtered kin - she’s got a pretty good reason to be as angry as she is). You’re not asked to reckon with the morality of Edelgard’s actions in that moment, and the game does its best to encourage you to forget about everything else she did as the Flame Emperor by simply never bringing up any of it ever again. This is why there are still fans arguing that Edelgard didn’t intend to have Dimitri and Claude assassinated in the Prologue, or that she wasn’t complicit in Flayn’s kidnapping, the experiments on the Remire villagers and students, and Jeralt’s death. The game refuses to let you judge her actions for what they are, even in some dialogue options in non-CF routes where you’re forced to pick one of two options sympathetic to Edelgard. Edelgard herself expresses surprise if you side with her, but there’s no explanation given for Byleth’s choice other than that they believe in her. Fates’s Conquest route has repeated moments where Corrin regrets siding with the family who raised them despite the presence of a more rational alternative (or two), as if they’re only there because they were railroaded into it by the player; Three Houses has the opposite problem, where it’s more prepared to question your decision if you take the less emotionally-driven option and side against Edelgard. To put it bluntly, the only reason from a storytelling/characterization perspective to pick CF is because you like Edelgard - possibly as an object for self-insert romance since the route itself leans hard into that interpretation even if you don’t S rank her.

[ibythetidepromotions]

Discography review: Mylee’s Dying Wish

Today we’re going to talk about “Mylee’s Dying Wish” a band that has grown significantly since their first EP called “Da Fucking Demo”. I dig it.

Now “Da Fucking Demo” came out in 2014, which starts off with a really groovy instrumental, which I always love. To me instrumentals really show the creative and musical talents of the musicians in the band, the track is titled “At the Crown”. The track has the elements of tech-death, melodic riffs, drums to match, and overall just a track where you can sit back and just nod to the beat. From there we jump to “The Blackened Maskim Witch”. The song is nice, heavy, and starts out with some killer deeps, has that nice chuggy flow. I’m a fanboy for highs and he delivers them. And the next song “Daemon Vixen” follows suit. Both songs give you the melodic death metal feeling which is my favorite genre, but what stands out to me in “Daemon Vixen” is the vocals. around the 1:15 mark till about the 1:50 mark it has that nice little talking “narrator” voice type thing going on. I love them creepy vocals. The rest of the song is phenomenal, I love it, the perfect way to end a brilliant trilogy of songs.

This EP really shows the band potential and what they can become.....

But wait, there’s more.(billy mays reference anyone?)

In 2016 they returned with 3 more songs on their EP called “Beauty of Transformation”.

The first song “Possessive Kiss” starts off strong. It keeps the melodic death feeling, this song you can feel quite the difference from lyrical content to the screams, the beauty of evolution at hand, experience shaping the band, it’s beautiful. The next song we have is “My Beautiful Damnation” again the flow and musical talent of the band is incredible. This song got me head banging and air drumming, love the flow of the vocals, overall my recommendation for what song off to listen is this one by far. The vocals remind me of “Inferi” style, the rawness in it. It’s so beautiful.

The 4:23 song was too short for me. Next we finish off with “Angel Dust”. Now “Angel Dusf” has a very awesome riff throughout the song, something that can keep your foot beating to it. Not to fast, not to slow, just nice and right. Again the vocals really draw you in. The short 2:38 second song is a nice way to end it, following “Da fucking Demo”. Killer execution.

Next we have the 3rd release and a experienced “Mylees Dying Wish”. The Album titles “Genesis Fallen Chapter”. This album has 7 songs in total, doubling up from the 3 track releases, but I did notice some of the same songs from their 2nd EP “Beauty of Transformation” just fined tuned.

The first song “Lucid” is a instrumental, kinda a quick intro that leads straight into “Underworld Spring”. God those drums, not overdone, the melodic flow, the vocals, the riffs! Love this song. Just hearing the evolution of this band is incredible, every musician involved is talented hands down. I can’t stress that enough in this review. Being a vocalist myself, I have to admit that the vocalist has something unique about him. Now the next 2 songs “Possessive Kiss” And “My Damnation”

Seemed to have been redone and added more to it in terms of musical performance. I can tell the difference in guitar and vocals. Like I said a more fined tuned tracks. Now “Sculpting Birth” just gives me flash backs of old bands that got me into the music today, the metalcore feel at the beginning but it dosent stay that way too long, truly a beautiful song, hands down my favorite by “Mylees Dying wish”. I can’t stop saying this, this band has so much potential, so much talent, nothing is over done in my opinion, the vocals and the melody make a beautiful creation. “Sculpting Birth” is in a league of its own, it’s that perfect sound of soft and heaviness. “Forgotten Whisper In The Rain” is a small instrumental that leads into the final act, “Her Legacy” which starts out strong. The deeps in this song is strong but short lived, it’s a short song but it’s kinda they’re trademark.

My overall opinion of this band? A must listen to, a band to keep your eyes out for, they have a lot of potential. From “Da Fucking Demo” to “Genesis fallen chapter” is a incredible growth, from hearing the evolution of sound from ep to ep then to a full album. The consistency’s the music is awesome. Keeping the melodic death metal flow is phenomenal. Count me as a fan. “Mylee’s Dying wish” is a force to be reckoned with.

Mylee’s Dying Wish Social Media:

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Discography reviewer: Adam Ramirez

[ratherhavetheblues]

MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI and TONINO GUERRA’S ‘LA NOTTE’ “I lacked the courage to go all the way”

© 2021 James Clark

     Having finally, in the preceding essay, L’Avventura, ventured upon the cues of poet-film writer, Tonino Guerra, one might proceed with gusto upon the second campaign, namely, La Notte (The Night), 1961.

However, before thrilling to a rare lucidity from Guerra, I must describe how wrong my first impressions of this film were. (Not that it matters what I did; but there is a lapse which everyone involved has missed, a crucial mistake.) In those days, Antonioni could do no wrong in my eyes. But an anonymous note which I stumbled upon back in 2013 for a blog , in Wonders in the Dark, concerning La Notte, and promptly forgot, might have wakened me up a bit. The preamble of the “behind the scenes,” involved another fan, shoring up the Antonioni line. “I’ve become fascinated in gradually realizing that almost the full complement of this indie—yes—but also guerrilla art, had been met with censure. It was something of a jolt to learn that the film on tap here, La Notte, hinged upon two great performers (and specialists to boots) concerning problematic incitement, namely, Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau, who hated this assignment and did not take seriously the roles they were to sustain. Mastroianni, in particular, spent quite a bit of time on the set quarrelling with one of the writers, Tonino Guerra. And that rancor, with its behind the scenes clutter, cues our special concern here, regarding the precise nature of Antonioni’s pristine closures within complex and even Byzantine involvement by associates, though contrarian with regard to conventional filmmaking, unlikely to have absorbed the unique physicality of his inspiration.”

One more time: “… unlikely to have absorbed the unique physicality? ” The unique physicality was entirely the initiative of that trouble-maker!

Let’s see if I can make amends. Guerra, the necessary “nuisance,” would have constructed for the Antonioni appellation, a seeming hot intellectual subject, namely, “alienation,” wherein to place a far more comprehensive and far more profound demand. Right from the opening credits, with a steep, steady drop of an empty glass elevator, there is an oblique indication that human authority has stepped back a move. We’re in Milano, with its heady schemes, but that steady fall steals the show. Very soon a moving car with a man and a woman on board, nearly becomes crushed by a wreckless heavy- construction worker. The escapees use an elevator to reach a friend in a hospital. As they approach their destination, we notice that each of them conveys a remarkably vivid shadow. We imagine that the anxiety here (terminal cancer) has been given a graphic form. That form, with its mundane, shadow aspect, can stand as a promise that another  force has to be reckoned with, despite being lost to the “realists.” During this event, we notice varying intensity (including that of the victim and the victim’s  mother); and, sometimes, also no shadow at all. This forum of potential mystery and potential power consists by way of an agency unseen per se. But when one has an inkling to be fully alive, that constituent will see what one’s made of. The elevator was an entrée. The rest of the saga is out of this world.

  Therefore, when the host of the occasion, Tommas, asks, “What’s new?” he’s really hoping for a moment of courage, not another diversion. Not that it’s another humdrum moment, but Tommas, providing his own expected response, “Your book comes out today!” has other matters on his mind. Intensity, but missing the boat. Giovanni, the novelist in the room, tells him, “Let’s not talk about that.”/ “Why not?” Tommas asks. Giovanni shrugs off that news with, “One has to do these things…” (launching a supposed important book). If we take the writer to be not simply being polite in his good fortune, we’ve encountered a gigantic lack of gusto. (No serious lift, here, from the strongest of helpers.) Right here, we are face-to face with eliciting the elements from our own courage and from what love collaborates. Tommas, also a writer, exhorts, “And your books, the only thing that really matters.” Grossly lost perspective. But on the other hand, there is his most recent essay in an obscure journal. And though all but a dead man, Tommas feels  the wonderfulness of the moment. He makes a distinct shadow of his upper body. He has made a statement of understanding. He’ll, unfortunately, declare, “I see things more clearly now… So many things become clear when you’re all alone.” (He had just blurted out that he strongly felt at home with them. Could he be both?!) “I feel like I’m watching from the sidelines, when I should have been more involved.” (Easier said than done.) “I lacked the courage to go all the way.”

  “All the way…” Giovanni praises Tommas’ powers. “You, a quitter? Then I should give up writing!” (Before the film ends, he does just that.) The flood of dynamics moving into solidity. The dying man slips into self-pity. “I wasn’t smart enough, anyway.” Smart is not the matter. Tommas had well disclosed the dilemma: courage. Our saga, with its black graphics freefall, was only one of many vigorous gifts of disinterestedness. While those two dig into careers, and perhaps slip a bit (or slip a lot), the full gift may be just around the corner. It also may be  elsewhere. The latter does not mean that reflections can’t rally. All the actions to come pertain to perseverance. So while the brave patient, the brave mother and the very questionable couple move apace, those shadows of promise need to be understood. Giovanni has only one moment of wit that makes perfect sense. He tells Tommas, “You give success the slip.” (Guerra, the true genius, gave “success” [fame and fortune] the slip, while embracing the depths of art.) But that room of irony, a bit of magic in full body, flourishes. Tommas’ mother, we learn from the patient, had had a regular seven hour train ride; and was now struggling without sleep. More little moments to ponder.

   Instead of Antonioni’s easy and fashionable alienation (being a picture, in fact of Giovanni and Lidia [his wife]), Guerra, the adult, opens his eyes to a portal of maturity, vastly more exciting and penetrating. Lidia bails out early from  Giovanni’s opening. She embarks upon a long afternoon in the city, beginning with jay-walking across a very hectic and dangerous street, which she manages with remarkable panache, pivoting like a matador. An Olympian  there. But hardly, in other matters. (We’re reminded of the non-athletes in the film, L’Avventura [1960], capering over deadly rockfaces.) If she can do that, she can be brave in other matters. It’s all in the culture. A culture destroying itself.

Lidia’s afternoon voyage has a destination. Soon she has entered a slum, with a crying toddler. She does not linger long. She sees fit to tell the child, “What’s the matter?” Then she looks for a moment to a blackened burned wall. A jet roars over. She takes a taxi to an industrial area. She tells the driver to wait. Then a series of events, pertaining to physical  power, occurs. Along with that, there is the recognition that she has had much to do with the area, though their car, as we’ll see, is a very expensive one, and their apparel is affluent. But we shouldn’t conclude that she was born there. She was, in fact, as much a patrician as he. (Bergman on the job.) But she has unfinished business to ponder here. In the hospital, Tommas remarks, “I regret spoiling many of your evenings with my presence in your lovely apartment.”/ Giovanni  responds, crazily,  with, “It’s your home too. You know that…” (A cliché, to measure how far they are apart.)

   Though classically patrician at heart, there had, it seems, a spate of rebellion based  in this precinct. The rebellion, with a safety net, would have been short lived. But here, Lidia, when the odds seem frighteningly wrong, there was a fantasy to cling to, a sensibility of earthiness. She wanders in the familiar range, and soon she’s upon  a familiar event, a brawl involving young boys , with one of the fighters smashing the other to a pulp.  Too real, she finds, and with her sense of authority she ends that savagery. On she continues, to a large field where young boys (once again) look for a silver lining. There we see a group of boys shooting off rockets. More implacable dynamics, their elevation involving—along with the violent noise and speed—keening for something unheard of (while what is heard of, continues to make them sick, an uncanny sickness).  She phones up the reluctant novelist to come out there with her, to hopefully, once again cross that dangerous road. “They go up really high. It’s beautiful!” Giovanni proves to be in no mood for neither something new nor nostalgia. His patrician sense of advantage does not budge; but that has left him with nothing. On reaching the place of the former experiment, all he has to say is, “These tracks used to be in service when we used to come here.” The cantina where Lidia was on the phone, pipes out from a radio, “Our program continues with more easy  listening.”

   Back at home in their killer digs, Lidia, not easily to be squelched, tells  him, “I don’t feel like staying in.” Her first choice was a party at a villa. But on realizing the host would want to take up again the question of Giovanni’s being hopefully compromised in his writing, she thinks of something much better. (She signs off from that cloud with, “Every millionaire wants his own intellectual. You must be his choice.”) Feeble shadows. She looks at him and glares. The subject of ditching the hardness. “What’s wrong?” he asks. In response she mocks, “Would you fasten me?” Dead gestures, and the shadow being lost. “I’d rather we went out by ourselves,” the minor matador decides. As things go by, she likes the show; but she should have liked it much better. A statuesque, black dancer and her retinue, does something even more amazing   with her sensibility, her body, and her heart than the climbers and the jay-walker. Giovanni  tells her, “Look at her. She’s not bad at all.” Not bad!? Then he looks away to check a woman server. The performer holds an empty wine glass in  her hand. She slowly, very gracefully,  performs a forward  roll, ending by placing the glass being filled on her forehead. A dimension of incredible grace. Then many awe-inspiring twists and turns follow. There is a close-up of Lidia. She touches Giovanni’s cufflink. “You remember?” she urges, when sexy was more than that.  His response is, “You’re really trying to distract me.” She smiles but it’s light-years away. This night has the beginning of a watershed. Her subsequent move, “I can have thoughts of my own,” promises what she can’t deliver. She feebly backs off, “I don’t have any at this moment, but I’m expecting one. I can feel it coming.” The sax easing the dancer’s magic. Though having recently frowned upon the world of patricians, Lidia now thinks her best hope could be an infiltration of irony. Silence as virtue. There is no kick-start  of a jaunty elevator, here.

   It’s an all-night party, but no one gets out alive. This last hurrah in Lidia’s reflections needs close attention amidst scheming and waste. Confronted with the usual crowd, which she had failed to comprehend and master (an almost hopeless task), she was quite unique in largely evading the patrician bonhomie. Her evasive stalk in the darkness of the grounds (far more pedestrian than her ways of taming hot-blooded racers) leaves her ordinary. And yet, what  your patrician can’t appreciate, is seeing someone in the grip of a  toil which can’t be bought off. On the other hand, Giovanni has a busy ream of business, easily about the normal.  However, one of his businesses brushes, concerning the young, Valentine, the boss’ daughter,  and her questioning (also questionable) elicits alertness. Before that, she is found, ironically, in Lidia’s solitary meandering within the mansion—seen from a distance—reading  the avant-garde novel, The Sleepwalker, by Hermann Broch (and its resemblance to the work of Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky). And then, aptly, Giovanni, brought into the connection as a playmate for the girl’s version of roulette, with jewels for the counter.

One other player we haven’t mentioned here, is a man who has attempted a few times, during the evening, to speak with Lidia. He is definitely not a stranger. He perseveres, and  manages to escort her to the dance floor. To her surprise, he cannot dance. (Not a close liaison.) Passion interrupted. Passion never happening. A heavy rain occurs, and they run to his car. While plunging into the downpour, another world announces itself. The windshield has become nearly opaque, a rushing quaisi-black oil with curious flashes from the streetlights. Both of them laugh, feeling definitely a highlight of the festivities of the party. He parks; a slight moment of sense. There her visage on the window had become like a monster. Deep shadow with no  room to grow. To them it’s only unusually dark, like a tunnel of love. Lidia comes across with, “Where are you taking me?” Ambiguity running amok. The gutter along the top of the sportscar  becomes a little river. The real show, however, is  as if it never happened. At a deserted stop light, they caress. She snubs his invitation. “I can’t. “I’m sorry…”

   An all-night band at the gala. Another sax player, but how to match what we’ve already seen and heard? As it happens, there is mastery to spare. Where is the door to touch that polyglot integrity?

During Giovanni’s hopes to improve on Lidia by way of Valentine (the sort of ruthlessness which Antonioni would find to be trenchant), she plays a tape for him. “Promise not to make fun of me,” she insists./ “I promise,” he vows./ “From the living room today you could hear dialogue from a TV: ‘If I were you, Jim, I wouldn’t do that.’ After that, the howling of a dog, slow and sure, rising in a perfect arc and tailing off in an great sadness. Then I thought I heard an airplane, but there was silence, made up of sounds. If you press your ear to a tree and listen, after a while you’ll hear a sound. Perhaps it comes from us, but I prefer to think it’s the tree. Within that silence were strange noises that disturbed the soundscape around me. I closed the window, but the noises persisted. I’d thought I’d gone crazy. I don’t want to hear useless sounds. I want to manage… So many words, I’d rather not hear, but you can’t escape them. You must resign  yourself to them.” She erases the tape. Unfinished business. (Try not to use the word, “soundscape.” Try not to make a fetish from a vegetable. Try to grow up.)

It’s dawn, and Lidia, on quitting the damaged monarchy, suggests to Giovanni  lingering on the plutocrat’s golf course abutting that heaven. She admits that years of generosity from Tommas’ insights could never elicit serious thought from her. “I wasn’t interested in the least,” she tells him. “His persistence nearly drove me mad. I began to hate him for it. And never once did he talk about himself; he talked about me.” (This preamble is not about disparate personalities. It’s about patricians: those having been expected for many generations to hold riches and powers, even if valuing ludicrous, slack and superficial understanding, even if lacking vision, even if gutless, even as cherishing violence to see themselves as alphas—the way of life, right?) It is Lidia’s pleasure (not struggle) to picture that carelessness pertaining to the young Lidia, as, “I never realized what was happening. How foolish we are in our youth. It seems like nothing will ever end. But you talked to me only about yourself. That was new for me.” (Had you ever heard your relatives speaking?)  “I was so pleased! Nothing in the world felt sweeter. Maybe because I loved you.” Then again, could it be that that connection is about a billion dollars; and the  generous one had lived in one room? (That, however, she had kept in touch with the thinker for a long time, cannot be entirely ignored.) “I loved you, not him. That’s why his adoration wore on me… Whereas you were flattered by it. Isn’t that true?”/ “Yes, but not much.”/  “He was so vulnerable.” In her reminiscence, she walks to a table, feeling sad. “The reason I feel like dying is I don’t love you anymore. That’s why I feel so miserable. I wish I were already old, so I’d were already dedicated my life to you. I wish I didn’t exist anymore because I can’t love you anymore. There it is. That’s the thought that came to me at that nightclub, you were so bored.”/ Giovanni says, “But if you say all this, if you wish you were already dead, it means you still love me.” (That being an encore of sorts, of the father,  whistling in the dark, in L’Avventura.) / Lidia argues, “No, it’s just pity.”

   Giovanni stalks away. She follows. He sits down at the lip of a bunker. (A shot, way beyond his skills.) Soon both of them are at the lip. Soon both of them admit they lacked adult resolve. Lidia has brought in her purse a sheet of paper she might have carried for many days. This was the day: “When I awoke this morning you were still asleep. As I slowly emerged from my slumber, I heard your gentle breathing, and through the wisps of hair over your face I saw your closed eyes and I was certain of my emotion. I wanted to cry out, to wake you up, because you slept so deeply, you almost seemed lifeless. [Ironies abounding.]   In the half-life, the skin of your arms and throat, so vivid, so warm that I long to press my lips against it, but the thought of disturbing your sleep, of having you awake in my arms held me back…” There is more, unfortunately. But we don’t need the full doggerel. One more time!: “At that moment I understood how much I loved you. Lidia, and the eternity of the emotion was such… etcetera.”

About mid-disaster, the supposed novelist became stern. By the end, he was ready to condemn the enterprise in the strongest language. “Who wrote that?” he sneered./ “You did…” And yet, Guerra has much more in store. Lidia kisses his hand. There is a weak caress; and the embarrassed writer (having, during the night, quit the work he never came close to what Thomas did), somewhat pounced upon Lidia, in a form, much more than dominance than affection. While being manhandled in the sands, she calls out, “No… I don’t love you anymore! And you don’t love me either!” This elicits from him, “Be quiet.” / “Say it!” she demands. / “No, I won’t say it!”

  The camera draws back in stages. Then it pans away from them altogether. What it doesn’t show is that there is a modest withdrawal from the heavily tainted story and the heavily tainted discoveries which Lidia, the patrician softy, had done her, not all so bad, best. Here she becomes a potpourri. She becomes a figure of pathos, while also maintaining a figure of bathos. Keep trying. You’re not alone.

[infinitywartorn]

International Incident Part 3

Part 2

Somewhere in the Himalayas, a snowstorm befalls a single man. Zane Yama has been making his way through the mountains in pursuit of a single item. The Ruby of Cyttorak thought to be lost long ago, now resurfaced. The Zane feels drawn to it. This nagging thought consumed him. Unable to do anything until he could satiate this feeling, he dropped everything to come here. He finds himself here trudging through the snow, almost in a trance. But for a moment he regains lucidity, he just wants to be done with this journey. He has traveled across the globe, miserable and alone. And like an answered prayer, a red light pierces the ground before him. He falls and finds himself inside what seems to be an old temple. The red light shines in his face like a sun. As his eyes adjust, he sees the ruby. At long last.

Zane: It’s real. I’m not crazy. It’s really here!

After brushing himself off, he runs up to the altar. But he finds himself stuck on some kind of webbing.

Pavitra: Took you long enough. Thought you were never going to show up. Billy, this is the last time I get a ride from you.

Scarlet Spider. Web Warrior. Actual name Pavitra Prabhakar, but don’t tell anyone that!

Billy: Hey, I sensed an imminent magical threat. That’s my whole shtick.

Billy Altman. Sorcerer Supreme. But you can call him Warlock.

Zane looks above him and a man crawls down the web. His uniform is mainly red and black. A black spider symbol emblazoned on his chest at an angle. His large expressive eyes narrow as he approaches. Another man with a flowing red cloak floats down holding a staff with a large green eye atop.

Pavitra: Hey bud, you are a long way from home. Let’s get you-

Zane: I NEED THE RUBY!

The man struggles in the webbing. It is almost the texture of sticky glass noodles. As he struggles it is almost the web expands and he becomes more encapsulated by it.

Pavitra: I wouldn’t do that if I were you. That’s expanding web, gets worse the more you move.

Billy: Zane you need to calm down, you are being drawn by an evil entity. You do not want this.

Zane: YES. I. DO!!!

Some red energy begins to emanate from the ruby and zaps Zane. He busts through the webs and manages to grab the ruby. Blinding red light fills the room, Warlock and Scarlet Spider avert their eyes. As soon as the light subsides, Zane has become twice the size he was before, covered head to toe in red armor.

Pavitra: This is not good.

Billy: Calling in the cavalry now. Backup please!

Pavitra: Zane! Can you hear me?

Zane: There is no Zane, only JUGGERNAUT!

The hulking man picks up the altar and tosses it toward Scarlet Spider and Warlock. Spider senses kick in and Scarlet Spider dodges out of the way. Warlock doesn’t move but the altar smashes against a force field.

Billy: I don’t want to hurt you Zane. You need to fight the influence.

Zane: I. AM. JUGGERNAUT!!!

The new Juggernaut is immediately attuned to his abilities. He dashes forward but both men are able to dodge out of the way. Despite his size, Juggernaut is surprisingly fast. Zane demolishes the temple around them in order to make the battlefield more favorable. He runs through column after column. Pavitra and Billy are dumbfounded as to what he is trying to do. Before Scarlet Spider and Warlock realize his plan, columns begin flying at them. Warlock is caught off guard as he dives out of the way. The temple continues to crumble. Billy is about to be crushed by a falling support beam, but a glowing fist smashes through it. A woman in the traditional mask of the Iron Fist, her cuirass bearing the mark of Shou Lou the Undying, is before him.

Pei the Thunderer. The Immortal Iron Fist. Has better things to do.

Pei: So you stop by, the valley of K’un-Lun just down the block, and you don’t bother telling me you are here? Disappointing Billy. Good thing I brought friends.

Torunn: HAVE AT THEE!

Torunn. Daughter of King Thor of Asgard. Actual Thunderer.

Hisako: What she said!

Hisako Ichiki. Armor. Leader of X-Men Red. Seasoned Juggernaut fighter.

Torunn is clad in golden armor and a red cape. She chucks her claymore at Juggernaut but it bounces off. Torunn is amazed, not used to material being able to hold up against an Uru sword. Meanwhile, Hisako forms her own glowing red armor and charges toward Juggernaut. Her yellow and black X-Men uniform still showing through the translucent energy form.

Hisako: You know, I fought a guy with this exact same gimmick when I was a teenager. What makes you think-

Juggernaut bashes Armor back with a piece of debris. Torunn managing to catch her before she goes flying out of the temple.

Torunn: He doesn’t seem like much of a talker.

Hisako: To think I might actually miss Marko.

Nearby, Pavitra has found a quiet corner. On his visual display, he is skimming through multiple files and several videos of heroes fighting the Juggernaut are playing simultaneously. Warlock flies up next to him.

Billy: Hey Spidey, are you going to help anytime soon here?

Pavitra: I am accessing Horizon Industries files on the Juggernaut. There has to be an optimum strategy for defeating him.

Billy: You work on that. Hey Pei, watch my back. I am going Astral.

Pei: Gotcha.

Juggernaut has his hands full between Armor and Torunn. Spidey manages to program his suit to look for weaknesses in the armor. During the fight, his suit extends mechanical spider arms out and fires little spider-sized drones onto Armor and Torunn. Thought the drones, he begins relaying instructions to the ladies fighting him.

Pavitra: Pei, I need your help!

Pei: But Billy-

Pavitra: I got him. For now, I need you to give him your best Shoryuken when you see an opening. Believe me, you’ll know.

Armor goes dashes at Juggernaut, which he responds with his own charge. But before he makes impact Spidey fires a couple of web blinders on him. Armor slides underneath and kicks him straight into the air. Torunn awaiting her target, takes a massive lightning powered swing at his legs sending him spinning clockwise toward Pei. In brilliant coordination, she leaps into the air with a pink glowing fist and smashes off Zane’s helmet.

Juggernaut: Arrrgghhh!

Astral Billy: Time to sleep.

In Astral form, Warlock is able to go into Zane’s head and shut him down.

Torunn: What a glorious victory!

Hisako: Okay goldilocks take it down a notch.

Pei: Now what?

Pavitra: Unfortunately, now that Zane has bonded with the Ruby there is little we can do for him.

Billy: The Scarlet Spider is right, I thought we could stop him before he got hold of the ruby. But Cyttorak is a powerful entity. It is very much unstoppable like the Juggernaut. If it wanted this man to get the ruby, then he was going to get it. Dammit!

Pavitra: At least we tried Billy. Sorry it didn’t work out.

Torunn: So what of our foe?

Billy: I put his mind in the astral plane. Should slow him down. Meanwhile, I will place his body in a pocket dimension until we decide what to do with him.

Warlock snaps his fingers and Zane’s unconscious body falls into a dark void.

Hisako: Speaking of, we are probably going to be late.

Torunn: I got this.

She brandishes her blade and slices through the air creating a spatial rift. She has everyone go through then herself. The group finds that everyone else has already clustered on one end of the large boardroom table.

Torunn: Now we can begin!

Author’s Note

Unfortunately, Zane Yama will start off as an adversary. I know he is a hero in the MC2 universe and he may get to that point, but Cyttorak is an inherently evil entity. So for now, Cyttorak will be his guiding light. Also, who better to take on 5 heavy hitters than Juggernaut? But even someone as powerful as the Juggernaut will not do too well against 5 seasoned heroes.

Speaking of which, first up is Pavitra. He is changed quite a bit from his comic counterpart. I think he can be fleshed out better and doesn’t have to be a glorified Parker clone. I will definitely be highlighting him as the story goes on. My main note is that he has a highly advanced spider-suit. So mechanical spider arms, liquid metal adaptive armor, spider drones, the works.

For Billy, I gave him Teddy’s last name, mainly because I want his parentage to be a surprise. His powers are a lot more reliable now that he is older and paired with some magical tutelage he is a force to be reckoned with.

The only note on Hisako is that the X-Men’s Red Team is like Scott’s extinction team. The heaviest hitters of the X-Men only brought to the field in extreme emergencies.

Torunn is the another Next Avengers character I will be using for this story. Nothing much to change, she’s great as is.

Finally, we have Pei! A character that I hope Marvel let’s grow up and be the Iron Fist proper. She is just such a great character with loads of potential.

[vitalmindandbody]

If not my surname or my husband’s, could we call our child after a New Zealand volcano?

Franki Cookney and her husband didnt much like one another surnames, so now theyre having a baby theyve are determined to pick a brand-new one

When my husband, Rob, and I wedded last year, the question of what to do about our surnames scarcely participated our discussions. We are both writers, so our identifies are on every piece of work we do. That we would impede our own seemed a demonstrated. There was just one niggling mistrust. What would happen if we had children?

I had always had considered that we would just protrude both our reputations on birth certificates credential, but I knew this didnt quite resolve the problem. Whose call would go first? And which appoint would end up being used?

We could use a double-barrel identify, but didnt seem our surnames, Cookney and Davies, lent themselves to hyphenation. Whichever prescribe you have selected, the result is clunky and we were reluctant to saddle a child with it.

We could have just chosen whichever refer sounded best with our newborn given name. But in that scenario, one mother purposes up not sharing a surname with their child and neither of us missed that. Plus, Id listened too many narratives of mothers being agreed upon at airfield insurance because the epithets on their passports didnt competitor that of their children.

The conventional alternative of taking my husbands surname was never on the table. Fairly apart from the feminist principle of not was intended to relinquish my identity for his, I wasnt keen on the reputation. Rob supported this and was by no means offended. The misfortune was, he wasnt a fan of my name either. Its just a bit cumbersome, he said. Its virtually Cockney but not quite. Youre incessantly having to spell it out. We looked at our moms maiden mentions and our grandparents names but always ceased up back in the same plaza, feeling that it wasnt equal, that picking one side of their own families over another wasnt fair.

We hit on the idea of taking a brand-new name about a year ago when before our wed we went to write our wills. As we chatted to one of the attorneys, it transpired that he and his wife had done exactly this. Theres a fair bit of admin, but its good, it makes, he said , nod decisively. Unexpectedly, it didnt seem so preposterous. This wasnt some foolish rebellion or bohemian pretentiousness, this was something lawyers did!

We mooted it with pals, who were largely unfazed. What refer will you go for? was the thing they were most strange about. Good topic. Could we blend the letters of our identifies and develop something new, we amazed. Rosters were reached: Dents, Cave, Devine, Kinsey, Dacovnicks Cookies? Nothing of them fairly hit the mark.

As our wedding depicted nearer, we employed the appoint activity on a back burner. But when I became pregnant 3 months later, we were forced to look at developments in the situation afresh and decided to change tacking. How about a home? I recommended. Somewhere weve saw that we cherished. A backpacking stint before we got married had left us with batch to choose from but most sounded reasonably odd when attributed to a couple of ordinary Brits. Rob and Franki Tongariro owned a certain verve, but naming yourself after a New Zealand volcano would be ridiculous. And Zhangjiajie might make remembers of dazzling Chinese mountains, but imagine having to incantation it every time you booked a whisker appointment or called your internet provider. For a while Salento and Chaltn were on the schedule, after places available in Colombia and Argentina. But we werent convinced we are to be able pull off the patently Latino-sounding former and supposed the latter would result in a lifetime of chastising people who pronounced it Charlton.

Then Rob said, What about Stone Town? The beautiful old-fashioned town of Zanzibar City is where he had asked me to marry him. It instantly appeared right. Stone was straightforward but significant. It chimed good with both our first name and after a few weeks of trying it on with other reputations would work well with almost anything we chose for our baby. It was perfect: a solid name( with a potential for puns that was not failed on us) that felt like a constructive solution to our problem. We would keep our original surnames for undertaking and accept this new last name for our personal lives.

By law, all you need to do to change your reputation is, well, change it. Simply accepting and using your brand-new epithet is enough. Modernizing your accountings and accounts, nonetheless, requires a document of proof such as a union credential or, in our case, a deed poll. There is no official space of acquiring a deed ballot. You can write one yourself expending free templates from the internet, but shortfall of lucidity about the relevant procedures develops in some institutions demanding an original credential despite the fact that no such happen dwells. You can either fight it out or you can do what we did and pay 15 -2 0 for a company such as the Deed Poll Office to draw up the word on your behalf and periodical and stomp it on watermarked newspaper. Passed the roll of bodies and organisations you have to notify and the health risks statements over what constitutes an original certificate, this seemed a reasonable compromise.

Perhaps it was naive, but we didnt expect to meet with resistance. Uncertainty, perhaps. Intrigue, for certain. When it is necessary to getting married, we had trenched almost every institution proceeding, prohibiting the matrimony itself, and no one had wondered us. Surely this too would be seen as a modern updated information on an outdated habit. But where reference is announced our decided not to our families, the reaction was mixed.

Franki and Rob. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi for the Guardian

While they understood our quagmire, the common refrain was that the child would lose the connection to its family history. Try as I might, I cant know what this is. To me, family history moves far deeper than ones refer. Its in accordance with the rules “were living”, our values, the gumption and shared event passed down through generations. It is part of the storytelling our parents did and its in the legends we, more, will tell and the beliefs we will share.

Our roots are not in our calls, they are in our natures. My grandmother, whose surname was Jones, is important to me not because of her reputation but because of her love. My great-grandmother, a midwife I never even encountered, let alone shared a name with, forms a part of my feel of identity. Why? Because of the road my own mother talks about her, because of the pictures she has painted in my head of that life, that family, that time.

Interestingly, the mention itself has also testified a sticking point, with a few people commenting that its bearing. Youre doing this really unusual thing but youve picked a really ordinary mention, said one colleague, as though by doing something different we are obliged to go the whole hog and announce ourselves Rob and Franki Thundercats.

In fact, the accessibility of the figure was something we reckoned would be used sell the idea. It is about to change “were in” naive there, too. My baby, a former primary school teacher, insisted that someone called Stone would be taunted. Another relative describing him as a dead weight of a name.

In my experience, children will come up with nicknames no matter what. I wasted often of my school years known as Franki Cookie while my first name was regularly elongated to Frankenstein, Frankincense or Frankfurter.

Never tell people your call options in advance, advised one pal( too late ). Its as if telling people in advance is inviting a exchange or consultation!

While my familys notions apparently matter to me, I suspect she might be right. Eventually, this is our decision, based on our requires, and I hope they will come to see it as a practical and positive step , not an irresponsible one.

Its almost impossible to get everyone on board, lawyer another friend, who changed her surname by deed poll in 2004. The project upset my granny but my dad, her son, understood. When I marriage my husband, he took my reputation. Im still not sure two brothers was 100% behind us, but when we had our first son, he was the first to be born into our empire. Im so excited that we are the first in our tree!

This is exactly how I seem. I love the idea that our child will be born into this new, specifically opted and carefully thought-out family name. And if one day he or she decides to change it either to something new or to one of our old-time family name we will fully support that.

Even when you change names, lineage going to be able be traced and, if nothing else, I like to think we will be looked back on as all those people who tried something new; who instead of preparing do with an unsatisfactory place, remembered creatively about how to solve it. Thats a family bequest Im glad with.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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[hereticaloracles]

Pluto Retrograde- The Empty

“The universe is transformation; life is opinion.” – Marcus Aurelius

Effective Dates: April 20th- September 29th 2017

 Helios– What’s the point to it all? Seriously, when you get right down to it, why are we here? Why bother? More importantly, does any of it matter? None of us ask to be born, it just happens to us- We don’t get a say in our genetics, attractions, families, status, or challenges. Life is random; if you’re lucky you have some sex, and then you die. Sure, your mileage may vary, but that’s about it. Our only true reason for existence is to take oxygen and convert it into carbon dioxide through respiration, and we get no choice in that. We get precious few choices in this life, and it seems as though they are just petty appeasement in the face of all that we get no say in. Heretics, welcome to your Pluto transit: We’ve been waiting for you.

Death looms behind us all, like a shadow of some far-off colossus, dwarfing us with it’s presence. In the face of an unstoppable force, what can we do, we flickering candles in the void? These are the kinds of questions Pluto asks us when he comes to darken our doorsteps, and man is he about to. You always know when you’re under a Pluto transit- it always feels like the very earth itself has opened up to swallow you whole. This time however, it feels like… more.

Pluto is hard for almost all of us, because Pluto- the planet of Death, Sex, and Transformation- Is a part of us that is completely outside of our control. Pluto is a point of pure emotion, and facing such a raw, uncontrolled part of ourselves terrifies a lot of people. It always feels like a huge, gaping chasm opening up in front of you, roiling and boiling, and filled with eldritch horrors lurking just beneath the surface. Pluto is all that we fear, the horrors that we carry within us. He is the monster we can always become, the part of ourselves that we are always running from and looking over our shoulder for.

Pluto can also be the best friend you ever had. I always talk about how you can’t fight Pluto, and you can’t- Not without any success anyway. Pluto is an unstoppable force, and he will get what he wants for you with your help or with your struggle, either way. However, if you work with him instead of fighting him at every turn, then you get a seat at the table- a say in your own transformation. Of course, the fear can keep you from seeing this, what with that big gaping chasm that wants to swallow you whole and all… but what if I told you that there was nothing to fear?

Yes, the big gaping chasm is terrifying, but not when you realize it’s actually a pit of pure potential. This is otherwise known as the primordial force of Chaos– Anything can happen when you use it, but you have to have the cojones to actually step up and ask for it. If you are willing to dive into the pits of Hell, then and only then will you find the power to get what you want. This is not like the other times you have gone into the underworld, Heretics- This is a deep dive, right to the lowest point. It is terrifying to even consider as you stand on the edge of the cliff, but Pluto whispers one more question in your ear- “How far are you willing to go for me?”

I know it feels far easier to just abandon hope and cut out your heart so that you don’t have to be in pain anymore. Shutting down seems so much more preferable than what you feel. You don’t want to fight anymore, and you don’t want to hurt. Walking into the darkness that you think you deserve just feels like the right thing to do- better to be a wretch among demons than angels, no?

 Artemis- (Cards: The Moon [XVIII], The Fountain [∞], Strength [XI])-  I’m going to be talking big themes here, because the outer planets care very little for our personal lives – especially Pluto way out there straddling oblivion.  What we call “Pluto” doesn’t give a fuck about your paradigm.  He doesn’t give a damn about your opinions or your beliefs or any other way you decorate reality.  We all cling to mass consensus, hoping that the greater society will pull us away from this primal energy; this creeping understanding of our own mortality and the immense, crushing power of the universe.  We know we cannot control it, but we sure as hell attempt to.  And if that fails, we desperately try and hide it from view.  We allow ourselves to be lulled into thinking that if we follow society’s prescribed formula that we will be safe from this looming, savage monster.   We become numb to the terror that is fed to us each day – hoping that we can become desensitized to death, violence, suffering, and inevitable transformation.  They bombard the televisions with blood and misery 24/7, and our watered down modern religions echo their sentiments with veiled ideas of peace and light all the while cradling heavy themes of this undercurrent of undiscriminating violence.

The Moon. These images of terror are an undercurrent in our reality. They call it “the underworld” because it always sits just under the conscious mind, threatening to emerge like zombie hands – grasping at your attempts to escape and swallowing you into a pit of despair time and time again. Ominous much? Well, Pluto is ominous as fuck. He is the elephant in the room. He is that dread that creeps over your shoulder no matter how pleasant a situation may be. He reminds you that you are mortal, that you will rot on the very earth on which you stand, and that this very moment, like all moments, is absolutely temporary. We try and capture experiences on camera, on paper with ink, or any myriad of ways, and hope that somehow we can last forever. We think passing on our memory to others by doing “good” and “epic” or even “notorious” deeds may accomplish this, but even Hitler/Alexander the Great/Gandhi/Aristotle will one day fade to nothing. The primordial chaos creates, but so too must it destroy to learn from it’s own personal karma (Kali Ma).

The Fountain. The universe, like the sun (as above so below), beats like a heart. Expand, contract, birth, re-birth, and then an explosion – the death, the return to void. Eventually, the universe will return to itself, possibly to start the cycle of creation all over again. Each moment we are dying and being renewed by the infinite well of the universe – the thing that we call “primordial chaos.” Chaos feels terrifying because it is completely, and utterly, uncontrollable. Our attempts to control it, to encapsulate it and dissect it, are met with fierce resistance. What we don’t realize is that these very attempts to control chaos are reflections for the chaos on itself. We, creation, are a lucid mirror for the primordial chaos. In Astrology, Pluto in your chart shows you how you will reckon with this force – how you will reflect the universe onto itself and how you will come to realize what the true reality is. Pluto is judgement – apocalypse in the true sense of the word, an “unveiling.” This is why the We are the veil itself, Heretics, and to see what we truly are, we must suspend our ego. The only way to do this is through death, after a life of intense reflection. Pluto is our preparation for the underworld, and only through passing it’s karmic lessons for us this lifetime will we be able to vanish into the chaos in peace. Chaos must reckon with itself, and we are it’s vehicle for doing so.     

Strength. Crowley calls the Strength card “Lust” and it has been referred to as “The Power” in a lot of tarot decks. It is commonly depicted as a delicate woman overpowering a massive lion. This is a metaphor for learning to live with our own beast nature in a “civilized” society. Venus retrograde in Aries couples with this Pluto Retrograde, Heretics, meaning we have our weapon of choice – our wild nature come to make itself known again. We waste too much energy trying to suppress our animal instincts when we can be using them to our advantage. Your animal side is what tells you when you have opportunity, when you have danger, when you can smell the love and lust or even hate off another’s skin. Our beast nature is Pluto, and we must exercise it, not exorcise it, for exorcising it would destroy us in the process. This transit seems to be all about getting in touch with the dirt of the world and learning to flow with it, like a wild river, and drawing from it’s power instead of blocking it out.  The primordial chaos is an integral part of us that we can never separate from, no matter how hard we try to tie bows around it’s neck and dictate manners to it. Without this ravishing wildness, the universe couldn’t create and thus couldn’t actually see itself for what it truly is.

Harness this energy, Heretics, and remember that an infinite power resides inside of you that no one can exorcise, no matter how much they blind you with hypnotism and propaganda. Do not forget your power. Do not forget your origins. Do not forget the millions of years of instinct that got us all to this point. This is our preparation for taking back our world, and we must not fear – we must not falter – do not attempt to smother your passion just because it is something society deems invaluable – for if we cannot harness our inner chaos, we cannot move mountains and crush the faulty systems in place in society like Pluto in Capricorn demands.          

Pluto Retrograde- The Empty was originally published on Heretical Oracles