#He was literally like posting EVERYWHERE about it when we got the Josephs it was so fucking cute

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

thinking about my baby sister’s friend who went to Cardinal Ritter for high school when they were tiny little 14 year olds….he was so excited when we signed the Josephs. I hope the blues put on a good show for that kiddo.

[spookysplatt]

Actually I'm gonna confine it to one post 👍

David's not 15. Not to me. He is 17 okay.

But if you were curious novel Sarah is 16 and David's 17. Also Mayer hurt his hand (not leg) at a piano factory

Les has a red wooden top idk I just think it's neat.

Esther thinks the Newsies are a rough crowd and will turn Dave into a criminal— is she wrong though

MAYER THINKS DAVEY'LL BE A GOOD INFLUENCE. IS HE WRONG THOUGH

Davey convinced his parents to let him sell papers

Les wants to be just like David, who's his hero. He wasn't supposed to sell papers but he snuck out anyways??? I???

Lol the Delanceys are supposed to maintain order. Good luck you two

DASHING???? HE CALLED JAVK DASHING???????? GAY????? JAVID REAL????

Also Jack's 16

This time WEISEL can't count to 20

DAVEY'S CANONICALLY JEWISH

JACK'S CANONICALLY IRISH

Ohhh you're jealous that Jack's talking so much to Les? Why? Because you're gay??

Les is 8 in this, so I guess they're all younger.

Davey's scared of heights and the Javid on the rooftop when they run from Snyder?? Jack literally goes "Look at me." And grabs his hand and then like gently goes "It's okay, just a few more steps" and... *AKB voice* guh-guh-guh-gayyyy

"Did I ever lie to you?" "Only when you open your mouth, Mr. Sullivan."

Nigel Snyder 👍

"Not that I ever heard a meadowlark"

Mayer called scabs, "The lowest form of life." Mayer slays

David knows right away that Jack's lying about his family

Race "lost every penny he made betting on horses." HE'S NOT EVEN GOOD AT GAMBLING

Mush is "cross-eyed since birth"

HE HAS A PHOTO OF HIS FAMILY AND HIM IN A COWBOY HAT JUDT LIKE IN HARD PROMISES

"Davy"

"My business partner is right— as usual"

Spot is Jack's age

"A red-haired, freckled gnome in a bowler hat a size too small for him"

"As I live and breathe, it's Cowboy Jack."

"Who's this? Your mouthpiece?" Don'tsayitdon'tsayitdon'tsayit— NO BTC PLAYED MOUTHPIECE

You heard Boots the Eastern Hemisphere is everywhere south of Jersey

"Only one little fellow, 'Crutchy,' was involved in painting a large caricature of Joseph Pulitzer on an old bed sheet." Love him so much

NEVER REALIZED HOW TALL CRUTCHY IS HELP

Oop the boys I hate them so much they're great I hope they die I love them they suck

Lol Davey's so impressed that jack roped a stationary object while standing still I'm sorry not to be a ranch kid but...

He didn't think Crutchy would make it :((((((

They drank a toast to Crutchy :(((((((

SARAH SARAH SARAH I SHE'S SOOOOO

They barely know each other why are they kissing it would make so much more sense if it was Jack and David same as the movie

DENTON GOT HIT PROTECTING KID BLINK

SARAH HELL YES PUNCH THE MAN

Morris is younger than Oscar btw

"I'd rather rot in jail than be a dirty scab!" HEAR HEAR

Sarah's reading Jack the article and. Jack's so happy? Or touched is the word I guess. He's clearly never heard that he matters to anyone, or that what he does means anything. But here he is. Strike leader, and friend. And these kids look up to him. Excuse me while I cry.

"Anyone who looked like they had once been a child"

"We need you, Jack." "Maybe that's what scares me."

All in all it was okay, really cool, got rid of so much Javid, but like. Yeah.

Might be liveblogging the Newsies novel so I don't go infodump to my brother sorry yall I'll try and tag it #splat's adventures with the newsies book if you want to block that

[abbabycchio]

OMG i love love love your blog! i am a new follower and i've just been going through all of your posts💙💙 i absolutely love your flower posts though plzzz write the jojo one soon💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

Thank you so much🥺😭💕💕

Flowers based on how they feel about you/ think of you. P3 JOJO’S ADDITION i’m only doing 1-4 (sorry) <I already did Giorno>

Jonathan Joestar: His love for you is so pure, it's like you found your prince charming, and now you're living your happily ever after. He thinks everything about you screams elegance, even when you think otherwise. He'll make sure to remind you of his undying love for you every day, through his actions, and sweet words.

Red Aster: symbolizes patience. a love of variety. It also symbolizes elegance and daintiness.

White Carnation: a white carnation symbolizes innocence and pure love.

He will leave these for you on your night stand when you wake up, changing them whenever they die so you'll always be met with the beautiful colors and scents, he also does that because just like those flowers his love for you will never die.

Hello my love, If you ever wonder how much I love you, wonder no further. You are the sun to my sky, the river of love that runs through my heart, the very air I breathe. I cannot believe it possible to love one as deeply and completely as I do you. You prove to me that true love does indeed exist just by being here with me. Have a lovely day my dear.

- Jonathan Joestar.

Joseph Joestar: He is so happy to be with you, he flauts you to everyone, everywhere, and at any time. He's so excited about what you guys will do together, what your futures together would be like, starting a family, growing old. He fell, and fell hard. That's apparent.

Red Anthurium: symbolizes hospitality. It is also used to indicate happiness and abundance.

Bird of Paradise: symbolizes joyfulness, magnificence. It can also be used to indicate exciting and wonderful anticipation.

After he gives you the flowers he complains about how it was so hard to find them in any of the shops, and how expensive it was to even get his hands on them but, "Being the absolute best boyfriend in the world, it wasn't too much trouble just to see that cute flustered face of yours."

Dear Sugar-Tits Y/N. Your boobs are the best! Anyways I love you! Wanna get dinner later? I miss you :( I'm so bad at writing letters haha.

-Big papa Jojo.

Jotaro Kujo: You've helped him so much with getting over the past. Seeing himself in a better light, and stopped him from blaming himself.

Pink Gladiolus: symbolizes strength of character, faithfulness and honor.

White Heather: symbolizes protection and indicates that wishes will come true.

He doesn't say much when you open your door. You see him dressed in a form fitted suit, letter and bouquet in hand. "This is for you." Is all he'll say as he pushes the flowers towards you.

Dear Y/N, When I’m not with you, I am thinking of you in one way, shape or form. Just looking at you, I know that you and I can be together forever without any problems. You know, it’s funny, because when you’re next to me, it feels as if time stops – only you can make me feel like time stops. When it feels like the end of the road for me, when I remember what happened on that night, only you can light up my path. Only you can be the one to chase away all of my fears. For all of this, I am grateful and hope that you will remain by my side until the end of time.

-Jotaro.

Josuke Higashikata: Since he was a kid he's sworn to save himself for his soulmate, that being his first kiss, intimacy, dates. And he didn't care that he was relatively young when he met you. He believes that love has no limits. He just feels so lucky for meeting you, you are his first and only love, and will make sure that your lives together is filled with love and fun.

Purple Lilac: symbolizes first love.

Lavender Hyacinth: symbolizes playfulness and a sporty attitude and in its extreme rashness. Hyacinths also denote constancy.

He'll bring one flower everyday when he goes by your house to pick you up until it makes one giant bouquet. He always brings a cheesy love letter though, and will literally cry if he sees you kept them.

Looking at you I still can't believe that we ended up together. Not because we started dating so young, but because I still don't know how I got so lucky to be with someone as amazing as you.

- Josuke.

[icollectyoursins]

Congrats on 10 followers mon ami! May i request headcanons for soft dom or rough dom Jonathan/Joseph (you can choose <3)? Merci in advance!

Let's do both! Soft!dom Jonathan and rough!dom Joseph! I’ve been dying for a chance to write some Jonathan love, he’s one of my favorite JoJos (my first being Josuke). Seeing as there’s two, I’ll try to keep them “short” (probably still long, to be honest just short for me).

I’m sorry for this pun, but I thought of it while talking to a friend and I had to share. We love soft Domathan. I’m so sorry.

Have a character, but no idea? Prompt list here!

Looking for more? Master post here!

WARNINGS (Jonathan): oral, brief mention of eating ass, overstimulation, tied down, spanking, light biting, using Hamon in inappropriate ways.

Word Count: 705

WARNINGS (Joesph): Hamon used in inappropriate painful ways, spanking, degradation, hair pulling, creampies, light pet play, overstimulation/fucked out.

Word Count: 634

Jonathan:

Jonathan is all about making you feel good, so he does his best to get equal pleasure for both of you, but there is a part of him that just loves seeing you on your knees for him, obediently waiting for him to tell you what to do. 

He’s careful with shoving his dick straight down your throat, he is very big and knows he can hurt you, so don’t ever expect him to make you take all of him, not very many people can. But seeing your lips wrap around his tip, tears streaming down your face as you try to get even half of him in. It awakens something feral in him. And cumming on your face? He’s ready for round two almost instantly.

Overstimulation is his favorite way to punish you. Tease him a little too long that day, bat your eyelashes just so and you will be pinned against a wall, bed, table, legs wide open and his tongue deep inside you. If you have a vagina, it’s not leaving there until you’re unconscious, if you have other parts, he’s got his tongue in your ass, handing jerking you off until you can’t cum any more. 

His hands are strong enough to hold you down, but if he’s feeling a little cruel that day, he’ll tie you down and just ghost his tongue over your body. Either there’s too much to feel, or not enough. There’s no in between. Though, if you ask him nicely, he’ll give in to what ever you want.

He takes extra care to make sure you know to stay still by leaving small bites where ever he can when you move. But, his lips on you make you squirm, then he bites you and that makes you jolt, so he bites you again. Small things like that where he knows you can’t help moving, so he’ll just have to punish you again and again until you finally get it, which you don’t, you’re left in this kind of state of him leaving marks all over you and no kind of relief from the now painful pleasure in your core.

Favorite positions are ones where you’re pressed against him so he can feel every inch of your body. 

There’s a part of Jonathan that wants to like you riding him, but he just can’t control himself. He always either pulls you to him and smashes into you, or flips your positions. Either way, he’s going to make you scream. He’ll try to be patient, but that patience will eventually run thin, when it does, you’re toast. It’s the stomach bulge. Seeing the tip of him poke your insides just a little bit drives him mad. 

Now. Spanking. There’s just something about putting you over his knee and making you count that he shamefully loves. But, he can never resist sticking his finger in you to make you loose count, just so he can start over.

He loves when you swallow his cum. It’s so hot to him, so nasty and erotic. Oh, is it nice. If he cums anywhere else, he’ll lick it up, especially its in you. You’re already so sensitive, then his tongue is on you. You can’t hold back cumming again, even just a little bit. 

He’s never rough, there’s no week long bruises, just red marks for a few days, but he is firm. There’s a small part of him that doesn’t actually want to hurt you, though he does know how to use the right amount of force to shock you. 

He’s vocal, but in a praising way. Telling you you’re doing a good job, just be a little more patient and he’ll give you what you want. He’ll whisper that you look so good with his cock filling you like this or remark on how wet/hard you’ve gotten with just his hand on your ass. That kind of thing.

When Jonathan uses his Hamon on you, it’s to make you feel more pleasure, not pain. Like a small warmth that’s amplified by his hand or his lips on you.

He’ll always take care of you afterwards, though. Nice sweet baths, massages, cuddle puddles. Anything to bring you back down and relax with him.

Joseph:

This man is the cockiest asshole you will probably ever meet. Contrary to Jonathan, he likes seeing you in just the tiniest bit of pain. The kind of pain that makes you want him more (usually inflicted by Hamon or a Hamon infused thing)

He’s not as well endowed as Jonathan (though, who is?), so he loves shoving his cock down your throat until you choke. He’ll keep you there until you black out, not on purpose, he just loves the look on your face so much, it’s easy to get lost in it. 

Loves to smack your ass. I can see doggy being his favorite position, so watching it jiggle when he smacks it, or when he thrusts into it particularly hard. When he smacks, he smack hard. You’re going to need him to carry you somewhere, if you need anything, which he is more than happy to do. It’s an ego boost to him. Oh, you need him to carry you everywhere? Was he too rough on you? You just enjoyed it so much, why would he have stopped?

He adores anal. He just loves watching you leak everywhere and he doesn’t even need to touch you there. And it’s so tight, like your body just needs his length in your ass. 

Vocal, but degrading. Calls you a slut, whore, literally anything. He’s loud about it too. Does not shut up when he’s pounding into you. His thrusts are deep and rough, leaving you breathless.

Pulls your hair when he’s taking you from behind, forcing you to look up at him. You mouth falls open and your eyes roll when starts picking up the pace. 

Ties you up when you’re prone and just uses you until you’re thoroughly fucked out, even then, might shoved his cock down your throat, just to see if you’re still conscious enough to give him a blow job. 100% will tie you in a swing, using your momentum to make you fuck yourself on his length. 

Joseph’s primal instinct takes over if you wear something of his like his crop top, or his belt around your neck, holding the end of it, making it a makeshift collar and leash. He’ll pull on it, biting anywhere he can, then just wrecks you and leaves you there. 

Big fan of cumming in you. Watching his seed leak out of you with that fucked out expression on your face. He knows he’s done a good job when that’s the end result. He’ll cum anywhere on you, to be honest. The face? Hot, loves it, then he can smear it into your mouth which he also loves. Chest? Real nice. Not as erotic as in you or on your face but mmm. Ass, back, just as good. In your mouth? Easy clean up, super and if you’re a cumslut, it just works.

In to pet play, but only the “sexiest” parts of it like crawling towards him, collars (which he will absolutely pull on), licking the cum off of him if one of you made a mess. Oh, and the butt plugs. A cute little bunny tail or cat tail with ears to match. *Chefs kiss.*

Unlike Jonathan, who overstimulates you to the point of wanting more, Joesph overstimulates you to the point of not being able to think straight or even move, leaving you the rely on him for everything. Biggest boost to his ego, like I’ve said.

He’ll give you a bath if you really ask for it, but normally he just tosses a cloth for the two of you to use, then sleeps next to you (or on top of you). Ask and he’s down, but not really into aftercare like Jonathan is. Mostly because he doesn’t know if you need it, so tell him. Communication is key!

[bastardtetsu]

haikyuu + musical theatre boys

hq characters & what they’d be like as musical theatre boys - what they’re good at, what kind of shows they book, how they are to work with, roles they’d play, etc. | starring: sugawara, oikawa, bokuto, kuroo, tendou (+ tsukishima, kenma, akaashi)

for weeks my head has been full of hq!MT boys, inspired by over a decade of being a theatre kid, and @karasimpno has only enabled my debauchery. these are just a few of my faves, but i have more theatre boys where this came from so if this doesn’t flop maybe i will post more hehe

PART 2 

tw swearing, musical theatre references, oikawa slander

SUGAWARA [tenor] this bitch is SO talented it should be illegal and he books like crazy. nothing like a pretty soft boi with the voice of an angel in musical theatre <3 not really a dancer but moves very well, also can act the house down like you think he’s this basic MT boy but then it turns out this mf has range and is not afraid to use it. will go from playing the sweetest, most charming leading man to a complex, terrifying villain, and the whiplash will make you fall in love with him. a dream to work with, obviously. very strong with classical text as well. his ability is frankly terrifying and far too powerful. the type of boy you cold read with once at a callback and never see again, but playing opposite him for those 2 minutes is enough to make you think about him for the rest of your life

lucas in the addams family, anthony in sweeney todd, the princeton/rod or nicky/trekkie/bad idea bear track in avenue Q, the emcee in cabaret PLS

OIKAWA [tenor] let’s be real oikawa already has an MT personality and it’s the worst kind. he thinks he’s rachel berry but really he’s kurt. he still books though bc he’s pretty and sings like an angel~ he can move really well and his jazz/MT style dancing is very strong, can also tap a little but it’s like barely enough to get by. his acting is kinda mediocre but his stage presence is out of this world and he’s hot so it doesn’t rlly matter, he stays booking leading men & disney princes left and right. truly is very talented at what he does, he’s just so annoying about it and constantly fronting all these skills he does not have, like he keeps trying to put leading lady songs in his book in their original key which is just.... not what those pipes are built for girl. bringing a whole new meaning to the nickname “flattykawa”

fiyero in wicked, pippin in pippin, conrad in bye bye birdie, aaron samuels in mean girls, joseph in joseph & the amazing technicolor dreamcoat, just all the basic mt boy shit

BOKUTO [baritone, tenor, everything in between, HIS RANGE] an absolute star. all-around amazing dancer (those muscles aren’t just for show babyyy) but especially tap and partnering (imagine him just lifting u.. god) powerhouse vocals across the board, his diaphragm is insane. he’s the type of MT who is always yelling even when they aren’t on stage, not even aware of it he’s just loud asf. always spitting everywhere too. no one is safe. acting is probably his weakest point just bc he doesn’t have a lot of versatility style-wise, but in no way is he bad at it i meannnnn have u seen how expressive and energetic that man is?? he does literally any golden age musical comedy leading man soooo well and is a blast to work with, such posi vibes & the character choices his himbo brain comes up with are so silly they’re genius

don lockwood in singin in the rain, gabey in on the town, bobby in crazy for you, jimmy in nice work if you can get it, robert in drowsy chaperone, will in oklahoma!

KUROO [baritenor] one of those fuckers who started doing theatre by accident, and immediately started booking out the wazoo with no training because he’s naturally talented and hot. i hate him so much. has that “idgaf i don’t have to try” aura about him, but his work ethic is actually?? really good??? once he starts learning more he really does put the work in. has that feeling of ease in his stage presence & good instincts that make up for his lack of training, plus his vocals have no right sounding that good on their own wtf. fucker thinks he’s frank sinatra, and honestly, it’s criminal how good he is at golden age material when most of what he books is contemporary bc of his dumb hair he’s not exactly a dancer but like…. bitch can move. plus he’s got body so that helps him a lot. mostly books leads anyway because that’s just how it goes when ur a hotboy with charm and talent. also he can fieRCE classical text??!?? (hint: it’s bc he’s a nerd) just stop being talented already jesus

melchior in spring awakening, sky masterson in guys & dolls, demetrius in midsummer, BENEDICK IN MUCH ADO PLS I NEED IT FOR MY HEALTH

TENDOU [countertenor] kicks ass at everything like he’s so talented and so versatile. vocals are insane, he has mad range and can do any number of character voices/impressions/dialects/what have you. his falsetto is unmatched (nice try flattykawa). we been knew his instincts are killer - character acting, comedy, improv, clown, mime, devised/alt theatre, contemporary MT, golden age MT, classical text you name it he can slay it all. his resume is so chaotic. he can body a super intense scene too, i feel like he trained in meisner & got traumatized from it and for a while he had an issue with getting too into character & doing crazy shit bc it was “method,” but eventually learned better<3 excellent mover, used to be a trina ballerina so his technique always shocks people even though he’s been out of practice for a long time (the dance world can be toxic and he was over it, so he yeeted all the way out of there a while ago). all around a wild human being with the ability to transform into numerous other wild human beings, creatures, abstract concepts, etc.

beetlejuice in beetlejuice, almost any track in cats but especially mungojerrie, mary sunshine in chicago, the porter in macbeth, CALIBAN IN THE TEMPEST PLEASEPLEASRPKEASE

----------------------

+BONUS: NOT MTs

characters who have zero MT energy but still fit elsewhere in the theatre world:

TSUKKI is a sound tech who is mean to performers esp during sound check, has a particular vitriol against MTs (except yamaguchi)

KENMA is an ASM who rarely gives a fuck, also does lighting & projection design. doesn’t hate MTs like tsukki, but their energy is usually a lot for him so he tends to avoid

AKAASHI is a playwright & dramaturg, but he used to act and can recite shakespeare on a dime, sonnets, soliloquys, whatever ur heart desires <3 may also play an instrument and sometimes writes lil songs but he doesn’t flex them bc he’s shy bby

[youremyonlyhope]

Starship Rewatch

10 years ago today (well, yesterday since I’m posting it a day later), 15 year old Hope curled up on her couch to watch a new StarKid show called Starship right as it dropped. This was the first time I got to watch a show when it was posted since I didn’t become a StarKid fan until a months earlier. I was so excited.

And now, I’m rewatching Starship for the first time in full in at least 5 years I think. I listened to the soundtrack twice earlier today, singing along at my desk at work (thank god no one else was here tonight to judge me). I still know so many of the lyrics. And so many little jokes and stuff were flooding back. Starship was my favorite StarKid show for a long time, so I’m so excited to watch this again to see if it’s still my fave.

This post ended up being really long, so you’ve been warned. But it also includes pictures of the crocheted Roach and Bugette plushies that I made as a teen.

OH. THE OLD LOGO. AHHH. I already have so many feels. The future is now! I can’t handle this. The nostalgia! The Galactic League of Extraterrestrial Exploration. My facebook account to this day says I am a Starship Ranger at the G.L.E.E. because I’ve never bothered to change it. Also, shoutout to anyone from the StarKidPotter FB and EFST days if you’re reading this. AHHH IT’S CHRIS AND ERIC. Ok I might have to pause 20 thousand times during this Starship Ranger ad to acknowledge all the StarKid cameos. Tyler! “We come to conquer... in peace!” Tyler I love you. Brian and Richard! I forgot they painted Richard BLUE. Britney and Ariel! Nicholas Joseph Stauss-Matathia! I see that StarKid’s website has shortened his name to just Nicholas Strauss but remember the days when we’d purposefully say his full name? Anyway, I literally just screamed “NICK” when I saw him because he was always one of my faves. The Old Snatch was and still is iconic. Devin and Lily! The Wizard God himself, AJ Holmes. God... remember those AJ Holmes appreciation days where we’d make Chuck Norris-like memes about AJ? So much is rushing back from the depths of my mind oh my god... It’s been so long yet it feels like yesterday... “Someone really *static* F- *static* -ucked up big time” Love it.

2 minutes and 22 seconds in. I’ve written so much. I had to pause before Joey started singing to take a moment. I love this show so much. I love these goofballs so much. And they’re all so young. Most of them are younger than I am now. This is insane.

Ok I have to promise myself not to pause as much now. *Spoiler, I failed*

“I’ll fight off this gamma radiation if it’s the last thing I ever do!... We’re going down! This is the last thing I’ll ever do!” Oh my god. Look at baby Joey. He hasn’t even graduated from college yet. And that Bug puppet! Someone remind me to dig up the pictures of my crocheted plushies of Starship puppets since I made Roach and Bugette and gave them to the StarKids at SPACE and Apocalyptour. (I also did Rumbleroar, but the bugs were my own pattern I made so I was more proud) The camera is focused in on Bug instead of Joey’s face. I love it. So much. Brannnttttttt. My god. Am I gonna freak out over every single entrance? Roach pretending to die, he’s the best friend ever. “The needs of the many bugs outweigh the needs of the few bugs.” “Or the one bug, I know.” Oh man, when that line comes back... “Dirt eater” “Exoskeleton polisher” “I wanna build honeycombs” “The bug that ruins your picnic” “A fly on the wall!” That line came back to me earlier today and I died. Remembering that line was like 50% of the reason I listened to the soundtrack today.

Nick Lang! Julia! LAUREN LOPEZ. THERE SHE IS. Lovebugs, I can’t. *Sentimental music* “You could come over to my nest and I could... tear off your head and let my larva devour your body?” How did I forget that line? The way Lauren has to kick Bugette’s larva sack to walk. But the way that it also works so well with the character. I can’t. The Mosquito Brothers!! I forgot they show up so early. “This is our sister, Sweetheart” “...YO.” I CANNOT HANDLE JIM POVOLO. The “zzzz”s like buzzing as backing vocals instead of the usual “ahs” and “oohs.” The things you don’t appreciate until years later. Darren, you genius. That is such a good detail. For a second I couldn’t remember who the Overqueen is played by. 99% sure it’s Jim (It is). Also. Overqueen like ovary... and it looks like a giant vagina. That had to be pointed out to me later. “FLATTERY WILL GET YOU... everywhere.” Why did I forget that line too? “I’m a starship ranger” “Quiet you, you’re drunk” “No I’m drunk!” I remembered that line probably like... 2 minutes earlier when I noticed Joe huddling in the background and realized that line was coming up. The way Joey lets go of the puppet so both he and the puppet walk away with their arms limp... so cute.

Before even pressing play on part 3, I can hear February saying “Let the record show I am super ahead of schedule.” and I’m dying. I forgot about Brian as the escape pod. Denise Donovan! That Star Trek prop. I’m dumb so I can’t remember if it’s a communicator or what. But I know my Uhura Barbie had a mini one that I lost within a month probably. “OxyGen” “Schience” I can’t. “Mission Log... I think I just heard a spooky noise.” How am I forgetting all of these amazing lines? “Pika-pi!” AHHH I JUST SCREAMED. “My stars, I seemed to have landed in a field of these aMiNals!” I can’t. “Can I tell you guys something?” *port de bras and falls gently to the ground* “Hello!” “TOTORO!” I’m dead. The balloon mechanism on the mosquitos! I forgot about that! “HOLY SHIT IT’S A BUUUUGGGGG” Ok something I noticed but didn’t mention earlier. The bug puppet that Joe uses when he says “I had my heart set on nourishment” is the same one red and pink one that Julia used when talking about wanting to be nourishment. When Julia actually gets eaten, she’s using a different bug puppet, the green and pink one, but the same character voice. So, I can’t tell if they intentionally had her play 2 bugs so Joe could be one of them later, or if it was a mistake. I might also just be overthinking things. “ME THINKS IT WENT THAT-A-WAY” I cannot handle Jim Povolo. That scream Joe does as he slimes her. Woah I originally wrote “There seems to be no signs of intelligent lifeforms anywhere” earlier and then deleted it since I don’t know why I found it remarkable. And then looking at the comments of this part I see someone mentioned a Toy Story reference. So that’s why that line stuck out to me. Aww StarKid. There are so many Disney references in this show.

THERE SHE IS. THERE’S MY GIRL TAZ. The pew pew effects how could I forget that!  “Hey Taz. You’re pretty tough for a chick.” “I was just going to say the same thing about you.” “Woahhhhhhhh” JoMo oh my god. “My spectrometer readings are off the wazooooooo” That line kills me. Why am I JUST NOW noticing, 10 years later, that Tootsie enters this scene with his gun facing the wrong way. Oh my god. “I saw the empirical proof that science killed god. It’s comforting to know he was once alive though. I like to think that when he died, he went to heaven.” Oh Tootsie Noodles. “...What the hell kind of name is that?” “He’s got bear hands??” Why do I forget all of these lines??!? That record scratch and freeze frame to go “BOOOOOO” oh my god I forgot that. “Like the other day, he was in the cafeteria, just cah-rying in front of everybody.” BOOOOOOO. Here we go, Taz’s amazing Up monologue. “And when Up, cuts an onion, the ONION is the one who cry.” HELP. Also 99% sure I used that joke for AJ appreciation at least one year. “Now take a walk off my knife” What a line. So awesome. I remember having a profile pic on FB that was the text of that monologue and the image of Lauren screaming “WALK IT OFF” I’m still convinced that first “WOO” from the audience that we hear when Up enters is Darren. “I do not peepee sitting down” “Huh??” JoMo’s face as if he’s trying his hardest not to laugh and I can’t tell if that’s him breaking character or if Krayonder is actually trying not to laugh. “I peepee like big boy, deadgoddamnit. So stop making fun of me because it hurts my feelings” I’m dying. Also, deadgoddamnit is amazing. “if you don’t go out there and die for something, then I will kill you for nothing.” I remembered the mirror scene, just seconds before it started and already started laughing. “You’re not a failure, overall.” “Allow me to introduce you to the final member of your team. MegaGirl!” I forgot how DRAMATIC that was. I also forgot that’s how MegaGirl comes into the story.

I need to stop pausing every 5 seconds oh my god I’ll never finish this tonight if I don’t.

“All hail AstroBoy” That was the funniest line. “MegaGirl, can you kill humans?” “No. But I’d like to.” I can’t handle it. “A horse ate my cousin! Me and horses got a feud.” #1 MegaGirl doing the “I’m watching you” hand sign. I can’t. “Hey. Miráme. *Slaps* NOW ESCHUCHAME” amazing. “Or that time. You taught me calculus... CALCULUS WAS TOUGH.” I never went past pre-calc. Nope. Ah. Get Back Up. One of my fave songs. “And now we dance.” Dylan’s “OW” as they lean back. “Ok Idiotas. Say something nice. Or I will kill you.” It’s all so iconic.

“So you still think being an egg planter is lame?” “...Yes.”  The larva oh my god. I forgot we see one before the end. That’s Jaime playing the larva I think. Life is definitely one of my all-time favorite StarKid songs to this day. I wish it was longer. I love it so much. And I love that its instrumental is scattered as a motif throughout the show. “It’s a short, small thing we lead. With so much potential, pointless or essential, which one can I be?” Wow. Near Pippin levels of giving me an existential crisis. Also wow Joey improved his singing so much between AVPS and Starship. “My name’s Bug” “*Gasp!* Like a bug??” “Uh... no.” “Good. I’m February, like the month, but a person.” I should start saying that honestly. “I’m Hope, like the concept, but a person.” “You boldly go where every man -hey- woman -bark woof- or data dog has ever gone before! Sorry K9DX” Adorable. Joey’s subtle little double nod he makes the Bug puppet do when he’s shocked she thinks he’s a Starship Ranger. Amazing. Ah he said goddamn not deadgoddamn! February should have known right then he wasn’t human! “Take my claw” that too. "The only thing that needs to rest are your jokes, because they are so tired.” “Woahhhhhh” No but like... why don’t I use that line in everyday life... “Now I am slightly less weak.” “Ok. I’m going to shoot this metal bitch!” I’m dying. How did I forget the Taz/MegaGirl rivalry?? “That thing is a R-O-B-O-T man” “Can’t fool me with numbers, Krayonder.” I’m dead. “The stack of hay was my cousin!” #2 The way Meredith says “barometric pressure” is great. And Tootsie saying “Well you must take real good care of it, because I never would have guessed.” He’s such a sweetheart. “Nobody shoot dammit, nobody shoot.” “KILL KILL KILL” I never really liked Hideous Creatures but it’s so cute to see MegaGirl do the choreo robotically. I love that the Gap hasn’t changed. “Cool it skank, you do not know me.” Another line that I forgot until a split second before it was said. I’m so glad whoever edited this added some pews going in the wrong way for Tootsie’s gun. I know I definitely noticed Tootsie’s gun was backwards during this part, but I don’t know if I noticed it was backwards in that very first scene too. I forgot about MegaGirl tossing out Specs. That “MEGAGIRL!!!” scream from Joe though.

“Never in my 6 long days of life.” Underappreciated joke. Also, I think this is the 4th unique upright bug puppet. We got red/pink, green/blue, green/pink, and now red/blue. Also, Nick Lang is a great puppeteer. “Yes, I helped her escape. But I swear, never in a million years, did I think I’d be caught and yelled at for it!”  Oh I forgot Bugette is the witness. Jaime’s angry face behind Joey is killing me. “He didn’t know the humans were evil.” “Oh, they’re not.” “Shut up!” Humoons and hoomans. “And no more singing or dancing” *gasps of horror* “The Overqueen has overspoken.” “Well, that’s not gonna help your chances with Bugette” Oh Roach. “PERHAPS.” Jim destroys me.

God the 4-person Pincer puppet. Amazing. Dylan’s arms being strong enough to be above his head for 10 minutes straight. Amazing. Also, Nick Lang is so emotive as a claw. It took me a sec but yeah JoMo is the tail. “There were? Where are they?” Joey’s face. “Tell me all about her” The claws under the chin I can’t. Hey StarKid, I see you throwing in an ad mid-video before Kick It Up a Notch. You’re lucky I love and support you guys. “Put ‘em together and what have you got?” bibbity boppity boo. More Disney references! This scene is full of them. Man, remember when we were all blown away by Dylan’s voice in this song the first time? Like we could tell he could sing in AVPM/S, but his songs were just so jokey and only his long “Welcooooooooooome” showed us his talent. But then Kick It Up a Notch happened. And we FINALLY appreciated Dylan’s beautiful voice. “I pushed it to the limit.” and “To coin a phrase, be a man.” more Disney. I might be overthinking this and will have to rewatch Life to confirm, but I think the camera zooming out as Pincer reprises Life is just like the camerawork when Bug sang it originally. If so, then wow even when filming their shows StarKid really thinks it all through. (Update: It totally is referencing the original zooms for Life and that’s amazing. Except it’s zooming out instead of in. I LOVE the attention to detail even in filming the show. I’m gonna guess that’s Liam’s doing.) All I can see when I hear Bug’s chorus of this song is Jaime and her SPACE tour dancing, which they incorporated in Apocalyptour as actual choreography. Because they’re goofballs. The kick line. Love it. God. Even though it’s not my favorite song from Starship (just because I love Life and Beauty more), Kick It Up A Notch is one of the best StarKid has ever done. I really has everything. Dylan’s gorgeous voice. Not one but two reprises of earlier songs to throw Bug’s own words back at him. Jim’s bass line. Awesome puppets. Disney references. It’s so amazing. I love how all the comments are either about Dylan’s voice or Dylan’s ability to hold his arms up for a 10+ minute scene or both.

"Gameover man, gameover!” “I feel like cutting open your belly, and filling it with jelly” *Gasps* Oh my god, I put on the captions for a second, and  the caption said *Sad spayed puppy noises* “I am in charge of this mission now.” How did I forget about the mustache until 2 seconds before it happened? “She’s got the mustache now. *Kisses head* I love you” Oh my god Tootsie. I FORGOT ABOUT THE SECOND STACHE. There’s an ad right when we see Bug’s human form and I can’t even care because look at him! Ahhh. And the blue headband! Ahhhhh. Joey you’re so adorableeeee. “Bug? Well that’s a fine name.” His concerned face then the relief. Adorable. “Thank you sir. I am a tough bitch.” “Getting nothing but bug muff?!?” I love the slight delay the audience has before laughing as they realize what was just said. “Bug. You hard, ese. You flame.” I die. “Up there. In Space!” *dramatic pointing* No I totally didn’t just do the dramatic pointing with them... no that’s not in my muscle memory from 10 years ago... why would you think that. I’ll rave about Status Quo after it’s done. “But, what if I miss you?” Awwwwwwwww. And that “Just look up.” screenshot was used for “This.” memes in the fandom for years.

Oh Joey. Status Quo is such a good song too. And he really did improve as a singer to sing it. Earlier this week I remembered that this week is also the 10th anniversary of that time Darren was hopping from city to city every single day to promote the Warblers album. And at one point in that week he did a livestream that I remember rushing home to watch. In that livestream, I am 99% sure he sang Status Quo as a little sneak preview for Starship being released later that week. (Just checked, yep he sang it in a livestream on April 20 2011) God I love this song. Then the version the boys all sang for SPACE Tour was beyond beautiful too. Ahhh I love this musical.

Ok. It’s almost midnight. I started this 3 hours ago. I’m probably not finishing the show until 2am at the rate that I’m pausing and stopping to comment. But OH WELL.

“Dr. Spaceclaw” wow. “Leaving them behind was of little consequence, but a pleasure.” Oh Megagirl. “You did a very good job today too, son.” “*Gasp* Thanks dad.” That Star Wars fake-out though. Speaking of Star Wars, I really need to rewatch Ani now that I’m actively a Star Wars fan unlike last time when I still wasn’t invested in the movies I just watched them. How did I forget about Jaime playing Junior’s new mom?? ...Does Junior get an alien incubating in his chest... is that foreshadowing... I can’t remember. (This was like... half a foreshadow) This scene is funnier now that Breredith is married. The way Junior says “Phew” I’m dead. I remembered how they restrain MegaGirl once again 2 seconds before it happened oh my god. “We deserve bubbles on our skin.” An iconic line. “Well thank the long dead god you made it, Bug!”  The crunching of the handshake, I can’t. Oh someone in the comments pointed out that Bug and February are doing the Tarzan hand thing while Up’s asking Taz to see a movie. Adorable.

Get yourself a man like Tootsie who won’t stand for you talking down about yourself. “Maybe this was all part of God’s plan. He made before he died.” I love the dead god jokes. I remember years ago some kid on facebook was like “The dead god jokes are offensive” and I was like “It’s a sci-fi musical about a bug in a human body but sure worry about god being dead.” but probably in an even more immature answer. I’m just mesmerized by Tootsie and MegaGirl’s verses. God. The first Dylan and Meredith duet. Amazing. And MegaGirl’s confused face is great. “Don’t press that button, or we’ll all be sucked into space.” So... Can anyone tell me what foreshadowing is? Oh shoot... ok wait no I’ll comment on that when we get there. God that is such a cute love song. I wrote barely anything just because I love that song so much. Would love to know where Tootsie’s taking her though.

Oh my god this scene! I forgot about this. How could I forget this. “Well the world always looks a little bit brighter, from on top of a lap.” I had remembered Bug sitting on Up’s lap, but not Specs. This is the part I forgot. Adorable. Ahhhh so cute. The Specs/Krayonder relationship was apparently cut from the filmed version, but was present if you saw it live. These moments are adorable. And I love how this is the second person JoMo’s had to carry in this show since he also carried Denise earlier. “Why if it isn’t Bug, my oldest friend.” and “Don’t say that, my dear.” are adorable. Oh wait. Up sat on Bug’s lap. Not the other way around. Ok. I didn’t remember this scene as well as I thought I did. I’m dying. I didn’t want to write anything during this, but oh my god “That son of a bitch Optimus Prime” I forgot that. I love the audience’s reaction to “The entire right side of my body, it’s a robot” because they all gasp, and then laugh at themselves for gasping. I knew there was something he couldn’t do without crying. I didn’t remember it being “Sir I Wanna Buy These Shoes” Christmas Song. It’s ok Up, I haven’t listened to that song in full in years. I can’t handle it. But Christmas songs in general make me cry too. Oh Up said goddamn instead of deadgoddamn too. Hmm... Aww the mother spider story. “I think the old you was just killing out of hate.” “Oh I was.” I’m dying. Awwww the nose kiss. I definitely remembered that. “Deadgodspeed soldier!” The way Joey misses catching the keys and also Darren’s “Woo!” in the audience again. So great. That 12 minute scene is just adorable and the Up story is so dramatic and hilarious.

Hmm finishing before 2am might be ambitious... “Hahaha. Then I’ll shoot him!” “Taking care of my business down on the planet is that cool with you?” Brian’s delivery of that line has always intrigued me. “How much I care about my MegaGirl unit’s survival is also a percent equivalent to zero” Rude. “You are nothing like my boyfriend, Tootsie Noodles.” “Yes, well - wait WHAAA” This scene is so different now that they’re married. “Ha. Ha. It was cute.” “You’re... a toaster.” *Slaps* Ok 1) I used to use that insult all the time and only half ironically. I was a strange teenager. 2) She just hurt a human... isn’t that against programming, or can she just not kill humans? Evil angry Brolden is something we need more of. I love Brian as a villain. More please. “You stupid goddamn robot” So I guess they say goddamn and deadgoddamnit. I’m overthinking the evolution of language in this universe. Also Brian’s screams while being choked are amazing. I’ve never forgotten those, if anything they’re better now.

AHHHH I REFRESHED AND DELETED ALL OF MY STUFF FOR BEAUTY. Kill me. I’m so mad. Let me try to recreate it but I hate myself. I was saving this draft after every part but OF COURSE I don’t save after my favorite song and then refresh.

Oh poor Meredith. Her white wig doesn’t let her blend in as much when she’s in the hoodies playing a bug. “Oh hey Bugette, we’re just trying to get Bug laid!” That bug had to know about Bugette’s crush though? That’s just cruel. “The ending is killer” ruuuuuuddddddddddeee. I know I had at least one more point, but that’s lost to the ether. Beauty is probably my fave, if not tied with Life. When I was listening to it earlier, I was overcome with emotion because it’s just such a joyful song. These days I cry over happy stuff almost as much as I cry over the sad. And these lines just hit so hard... I love it. I love this song so much and this scene so much. “Bug. She excreted her filth for you. WE DID IT!!!!!!!!” Brant Cox is so good. It really is a shame he’s not in anything else besides AVPSY and the 10th Anniversary with everyone else. “I do accept you for who you really are. A genius.” Well February, you’ll be glad to know that you thought of that, so you’re the genius. Wow. Junior’s 25, Brian was 25, and now I’m 25. This really was perfect timing for the 10th anniversary. Also I do not feel 25. “Suck off!” amazing.

I’M SAVING THIS TIME.

Ok next part. Luckily I was only 1 minute into the next part when I refreshed. Still so mad at myself... “Someone really firetrucked up big time” (Dead)God I love that line. I also used firetruck unironically. Once again, I was a strange teenager and I didn’t like cursing and I still don’t. “This is so weird, I’m so used to the scrambly version.” (It was while writing this line the first time that I refreshed and lost Beauty....) Ok as I watch AJ, it’s hitting me that he almost definitely came to the set during rehearsals and filmed his part since it’s not a green screen like the rest of them. “The hunters have become the hunted, and it’s wabbit season.” “That was a good video, until the end when it got sad.” Thanks Bug. “I think, I just had a think” See February’s smart. “I’m in a weird situation” Love that line. “Bug is a BUG!? I DON’T BELIEVE IT” Oh Junior. Dylan’s insulted face at “I am not... a dumbass.”  So I can’t tell if Brian forgets he’s trapped when he moves his arms into a more relaxed position to lean on the column and then puts them back, or if it’s purposefully staged that way. Brian’s acting while he pretends to be shy and embarrassed about his evil plan is amazing and adorable. Brian has a good evil laugh, why don’t we get him as a villain more often? Also I was gonna make some sort of joke about Nick as Pincer’s left claw vs. Robert as Snarl’s left paw, but I’ll leave it be.

I FORGOT ABOUT THAT WEIGHT TAZ WAS LIFTING JUST FLOATING UP TO THE SKY WHEN SHE LETS GO. I just laughed out loud. “Damn that G.L.E.E. They’re always making twisted abominations of everything!!” I cannot handle it. And the wink. Poor Darren but also not poor Darren at all. I was just now WRACKING my mind for who could possibly be playing Pincer’s tail if JoMo was being devoured by mosquitos. It’s Brant. Literally the entire cast is currently onstage. Ok Krayonder’s been getting his blood drained for 3 minutes, why is he alive? OH I FORGOT KRAYONDER GETS UP AND SHOOTS THE BUGS. Ok and he gets chopped by Pincer’s claws too so HOW does he survive? StarKid answer!!! I forgot how dramatic this musical gets when you got both the bugs and MegaGirl coming after the humans. Aww the Vulcan salute from Specs. “I changed my name. To Tootsie... MegaGirl.” I love the reactions of the people in the audience who immediately realize what that means. I hear at least one “oh my god” that sounds like sobbing. Awwwww Tootsie’s “that’s real” speech and “I’d love you if you was the horse that ate my cousin.” (#3) just... get yourself a man like Tootsie MegaGirl. He is perfection. God the downloading love scene is so cute. I can’t handle it.

The Up saving Taz scene is so dramatic. Then Brian and Jim just calmly walk offstage. It kills me. Also why did Jaime just continue to lie there? “I just needed to learn how to kill with my heart.” Not exactly what Bug meant, but it works. God Taz climbing onto Up’s back is still the most hilarious thing ever. Whoever thought of her climbing that way was a genius. So funny. I always wanted to try it. Holding the gun up to her head like a blowdryer always gave me anxiety. Making the door out of a scrim that can be backlit was genius. Oof and bringing back “The needs of the many bugs outweigh the needs of the few bugs. Or the one bug.” just hurts. Poor Bug. My heart. This is probably the line that sticks with me to this day and I do think about sometimes.

Ok it’s now 2am and I still have 2 more parts.

I sorta love that Joey didn’t have the time to change into his blacks so he’s still in the Starship Ranger suit while playing the Bug puppet. “Save the Overqueen. I love her.” Awww. “Roach, I’m gonna get the job done if it’s the second last thing I do.” Love it. That Kick It Up A Notch Reprise though. Brian, you should play villains more often. Also remember all of us being like “LUPIN CAN SING?!?!?!??!!” “Lucky for me, God is dead. When you see him in hell, tell him Junior sent you.” Deadgod I love that line. This whole deadgod thing was just leading up to that amazing line. Oh no Bugette! Bug saying “maestro” oh my god. “DFSDSJFDSJKFDS... I’m dead.” I forgot that part! Oh my god the way Brian flicks the glasses back down on his face. Ok so I saw Lauren wiggle her way behind the mucus sac, but I didn’t see Nick come onstage. I rewinded, and I guess the zoom in shots on Brian and Joey were timed so we can’t see Nick join Lauren to be the first larva to come out. Oh well. And I love the crowd cheering as Junior dies. “And bingo was his name-o” That callback though. I forgot that the Overqueen eats Bugette’s body while crying. “Or Bugette! Oh...” Also god Roach is adorable.

Last part. 2:21am. Here we go. Krayonder got his blood sucked out by giant mosquitos and was cut up by a giant scorpion, but all he needs is a bandage around his head. Awwww the soft “I Wanna Be” playing the background as Bug begs the team to accept his bug form. Bug being so mad “It’s that bastard Pincer isn’t it?” and then being so happy that Joey does the little nose scrunch thing. So cute. JOEY’S FACE WHEN DENISE KISSES THE BUG PUPPET. Cannot believe I forgot that until 2 seconds before it happened too. “I now pronounce you man vs. machine. Fight!” WOAH. Why in the WORLD did “eep op ork ahah” come back to me. I was able to say it WITH Joey. That was straight from the DEPTHS of my teenage brain oh my god. I forgot about that oh my GOD. THAT’S INSANE. I FORGOT SO MUCH STUFF BUT I REMEMBERED HOW TO SAY “I LOVE YOU” IN BUG.

And the Beauty reprise.

God I love this musical. It’s still my fave StarKid show I think. And I’m horrified to see that it has only 500K views for the last part, so only 500K people have watched it all the way through after 10 years. That’s disgraceful. It’s amazing. Watch Starship.

It is 2:32am. I started at 8:50pm. Got sidetracked when I had to rewatch the Beauty part of Act 2 again to make sure I got my notes back in the post. Took a few bathroom breaks. But this is mostly because I paused every like 10 seconds to make a comment, so it took 5 and a half hours to watch a 3 hour musical. This why I take forever to watch things while liveblogging. I take too long to writing notes.

I’ll probably just post this in the morning. Gotta proofread for mistakes before posting.

Ok it’s the next afternoon. This post is literally 5,000+ words and takes 20 minutes to read according to a online word counter. I’m sorry to whoever read this entire thing. Your reward is the pictures of the Starship plushies I crocheted when I was 15 and 16.

(Ignore the bad lighting and my horribly chipped paint. That’s the only picture I have of the Bugette one since I gave it to Lauren Lopez a day later. I started making another for myself shortly after but never finished. Maybe I should finally finish the second one... hmm...)

[rookisaknight]

MBTI and the Seeds

Religious bullshit, meet personality bullshit. I took to 16personalities for a direction on this and was actually pretty convinced by the majority of the results (which is whack because 16personalities almost always gets at least one letter off), but I have an unfathomably large amount of information about this test stored in my grey matter so I’ll be hopping off a bit to fill in my own blanks. Also notable is the severe trauma each of the Seeds have been through

This is going under a cut because it's a long post and honestly might be more worthwhile as a reference for myself and how I write the Seeds, but I can’t be the only personality nerd in this fanbase.

Jacob Seed: ISTJ. The Logistician

I wasn’t sold on this one initially given that Jacob seems far more comfortable with out of control situations than most Js generally are, but I find the overall profile fits him better than ISTP. My explanation is that his time in the juvie, the military, and the foster system has forced a maturation of this particular function due to constantly feeling out of control, which makes him more open to adaptation than he would have been otherwise. 

Strengths:

Honest and Direct: Notably Jacob is arguably the least manipulative Seed. He “tricks” you in a sense with the conditioning but that is more a strategic concealment than any deception. Unlike the other three, Jacob does not pretend that his actions come from any sense of love or divine calling. He is always straightforward with the deputy, even if that doesn’t restrain his cruelty.

Strong-willed and Dutiful: Basically see all of the Book of Joseph, as well as his “you think I care if I die” comments. I lump very responsible under this. 

Calm and Practical: I don’t think I have to explain this part. Jacob never reacts from an explicitly emotional place. The “did you think you were free” is the closest to losing his temper I think we see from him. He has expectations, and failure to meet them will be punished. He doesn’t see a need to get emotional about it, preferring to detach himself

Create and Enforce Order: Well, culling the herd is an unconventional tactic, but...

Weaknesses: 

Stubborn: As Joseph said, Jacob has been getting into it since he was a kid. Even with the brother, he’s willing to die for, he explicitly argues with him. And even in the face of his own death, he refuses to rescind his own philosophy, or even demonstrate any regret for the path he’s chosen.

Insensitive and Judgemental: Jacob’s a shithead no I will not elaborate

Always By the Book: an illegal paramilitary cult, yes, but one that holds to Jacob’s exacting standards. 

Often Unreasonably Blames Themselves: Loath as I am to woobify Jacob at all, there’s a pathos to him. As Joseph says, he thinks of himself as a “weapon without a purpose. A soldier without a legacy”. As a child, he protected his siblings and as an adult, he views himself as little more than a meatshield. There’s a sense that he objectifies himself, reduces himself down to simply the function of violence and protection, and those high standards mean that he views death as simply another failure.

can bastard be a personality type

Joseph Seed: ISFP- The Observer

The test originally gave me INFP, but I find that unconvincing for two reasons. One, INFP’s are predominantly defined by an open-minded approach to life and to ideas, which doesn’t fit well with a guy so convinced he got religion right that he was willing to kidnap and murder people. Two, while Joseph is definitely contemplative and deals with the symbolic, his “visions” are not flights of fancy but are in some sense practical. He doesn’t really appear to engage in thought experiments, merely interpret sensory (or in this case extrasensory) information that he is presented with.

Strengths:

Charming: The man runs a successful church for a reason, and it can’t just be good cheekbones and dogwhistling

Sensitive to Others: Joseph has a keen insight into other people’s emotional state, which is what makes him so effective at manipulating them. He tends to meet people where they’re at with a certain deftness that would be impressive if he didn’t use it the way he did

Passionate: about the LORD. No, but I’ll give this to the man, he’s certainly got a vision, and sticks to it with intensity.

Curious: I think anyone working in the business of people has to have an inherently curious mind, and while Joseph may believe he has all the answers, his fascination with the Deputy to me indicates that he has an inherent draw to things that disrupt his world. I also think about how he would get in trouble as a child for seeking out forbidden material, such as Spiderman comics. those Satanic webs...

Weaknesses:

Fiercely Independent: He’s developed a supportive community now but Joseph has always marched to the beat of his own awful, awful drum, which has gotten him kicked out of at least one job and lost him at least one set of foster parents. He doesn’t seem to need people as much as he acquires them 

Unpredictable: Sometimes with blood, sometimes with forgiveness, it's hard to say how Joseph will respond to disruption on any given day. Where the spirit leads, I suppose. 

Easily Stressed: This one I’ll actually argue that his turbulent history and the demands of his job have at least taught him to cover this up, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t cracks in the armor. “yOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME!!!!!”

Overly Competitive: He’s a sore loser with a tendency to punish people for failing him (see: Faith and the statue)

Fluctuating Self-Esteem: He’s dealing with a joint worldview where he is at once God’s chosen and a “no one from nowhere with nothing”. How much of that is genuine we may never know, but I don’t think the fluctuation is outside the realm of possibility

John Seed: ESFJ-The Consul

I was a little on the fence about N vs S but ultimately found that John’s a bit more concrete than conceptual.

Strengths:

Strong Practical Skills: I mean, the man orchestrated a hostile takeover of an entire county, he knows how to get things done when he wants

Strong Sense of Duty, Very Loyal: This part is likely underdeveloped given how tempestuous forming relationships was for most of his life, but given how bound he feels to Joseph its clearly in him.

Good at Connecting With Others: He’s a shitstain, but according to Joseph he had business connections everywhere and was basically a walking secret storage bin. John can probably be very charming if you don’t know how he spends his weekends in the bunker. 

Sensitive and Warm: again, underdeveloped given his background, but there’s clearly a lot of emotions broiling just below the surface given how volatile he can be and how easily Joseph can access them. Joseph also describes him as a very sensitive kid, for what that’s worth

Weaknesses

Worried About Their Social Status: The boy is a climber

Inflexible:  He holds pretty firmly to his headcanons on Hope County (for fuck’s sake John Nick’s sin isn’t Greed, its Sloth) and has a very definite view on how things should be. Not to mention he seems very particular, just based on the state of his home and his clothes. He has rituals and habits, and will not deviate.

Vulnerable to Criticism: If you say anything about his future receding hairline he will cry. He just will. Not to mention I’m citing that look he gives you when you’re apparently costing him paradise by not converting

Often Too Needy: He will either get attention or he will die trying. 

Too Selfless: Honestly, selfless isn’t the right word here, but I’ll copy the way 16 personalities describes it because I think it fits really well for John. “ Consuls sometimes try to establish their value with doting attention, something that can quickly overwhelm those who don’t need it, making it ultimately unwelcome. Furthermore, Consuls often neglect their own needs in the process.” John is a deeply selfish person but he does act like someone who tries to get affection by giving everything of himself, often to the point that he makes the other person uncomfortable.

I literally love this dramatic edit it's so good

Faith Seed/Rachel Jessop: ENFP-The Campaigner

I have nothing to add, it just fits. At the most, I think Faith is a little more pragmatic than she lets on (given that whole “if violence is the only language you choose to speak”) but to me, that can easily be an extension of the ENFP’s ability to connect emotionally. It means they know how to cut people off 

Strength

Curious: I mean you don’t end up in a cult willingly without a little curiosity. Faith also seems mildly intrigued by the Deputy’s resistance, and while this eventually culminates in frustration with our intractability, I believe there’s a genuine investment in the journey to conversion

Observant: Faith is cued into her public perception, both from the resistance and the cult, and consciously constructs it. She also shares Joseph’s ability to tune into emotions and exploit them.

Energetic and Enthusiastic: How much of her ray of sunshine persona is constructed for the benefit of converting people will probably never be answered, but I don’t believe it can be constructed whole cloth. I think Rachel always was a person with a lot of heart and enthusiasm for her passions, even if it's not as constant as Faith Seed wants you to believe

Excellent Communicators: There’s a reason she’s regarded as the Siren. She can talk people into things even they don’t want to do. Certainly left me shook

Know How To Relax: *insert weed joke here*

Very Popular and Friendly: Again, her Siren persona may not be 100% genuine, but you can’t fake that level of charisma

Weaknesses:

Poor Practical Skills: Listen, Rachel is smart as hell (definitely smart enough to develop a drug and orchestrate mass production thereof), but her planning skills? Not great. Up until Burke gets taken out of the Bliss her plan seemed to be “talk with the Deputy over and over until they change their mind”. She kicks it up a notch after she finally gets annoyed with us but it seems a bit more “making it up as she goes”, and she falls back on strategies that have worked for her before but aren’t really effective for the Deputy. In fairness, I don’t think any of the Seeds are strong in the planning department

Overthink Things, Get Stressed Easily: Unlike with John and Jacob, Faith doesn’t really let us in to see her darker side. She prefers to speak of her flaws in the past tense. Yet clearly anxiety has been an issue in her life, given how deeply her isolation sat with her and her sense of worthlessness. Using drugs as an escape from stress also makes sense for her character, at least from my perspective

Highly Emotional: Faith communicates in emotional terms, manipulates people through emotions, and unlike someone like Jacob Faith loses her temper. She shouts at us, demonstrates her frustration very openly, even screams at us that we couldn’t possibly understand her.

Independent to a Fault: Her personal history gives her some interesting codependent issues with Joseph but based on what we hear of her from Tracey Rachel resented anyone trying to control her, even if they had her best interests at heart, and was perfectly willing to burn bridges over people questioning her choices. 

If people are interested I can develop these out more. I may eventually do these for the police force members too but frankly, we’re given less to deal with for them, in particular with Joey and Staci, so who knows.

[theliterateape]

Fear of a Sanders Candidacy

By Peter Kremidas

Look, it breaks my heart to say this, but I don’t think Bernie is the one. Not this time.

Believe me, I’m a Sanders supporter to such an extent that I’m a stereotype. I’ve liked him from the time I saw him so vocally support Occupy Wall Street in what now is back in the day. I voted for him in 2016. I am totally that guy who argued with Hillary supporters online about him (Yes, I voted for her in the general, and proudly. A topic for another day). I think that Bernie was the preferable candidate, hell, I think he even could have won in 2016 on the same anti-establishment sentiment wave Trump clumsily surfed into office on. He’s consistent. He’s honest. He scares the bad guys. I believe his model for political revolution is our only chance to turn things around. He has been consistently been proven correct time and time again for years. His last debate performance was fantastic and I would love to see him debate Trump. I really could go on and on about all the things I like about Bernie Sanders. In fact, the reasons I don’t think he’s our guy have absolutely nothing to do with anything wrong with him, nor to do with anything he has done wrong.

I just think that, in 2020, it’s too big a risk. And here’s why…

What’s different now than in 2016, huh? HUH!?

Trump is running with the incumbency, the full backing of the RNC, a billion dollar war chest, and, unless Mitch McConnell decides otherwise, a currently non-functioning Federal Election Committee, which means that there will be cheating. Whoever the candidate is needs to overwhelm all this, and I think the extra baggage Bernie carries, some that did not exist in 2016, just exacerbates this. What baggage, huh? HUH!?

A lot of democrats hate him, the media hates him, and republicans believe that he is literally Joseph Stalin.

HUH!?

Bernie Sanders, despite being a great candidate with the right answers, despite the debt that I believe America owes to him for making policies like Medicare for all into the mainstream, has an uphill battle that other candidates simply don’t have. And it’s not his fault. And it’s not fair.

Democrats

Democrats are not Bernie Sander’s friend. And I don’t just mean the establishment. We all know there is some suspicion or resentment for Sanders from the democratic donor class. He is not the guy rubbing shoulders five thousand-dollars-a-plate dinners making friends with the right people and playing the game. That’s one of the things that’s so great about Bernie. But I am also talking about many, many democratic voters.

There are a lot of Hillary supporters from 2016 who just are not over it, and aren’t going to get over it. They hate Bernie Sanders and you aren’t going to convince them otherwise. Not all Hillary supporters, but a sizable portion. I have met many a democrat who believe Sanders is an ego maniac. Many believe he is sexist and actually blame him for Trump’s victory. All nonsense from the resentful who apparently forgot what a perfectly normal primary looks like, to be sure, but you aren’t going to convince them otherwise.

It’s probably the least significant confluence of things working against Bernie Sanders, but it matters. It steepens the slope to his victory, even if slightly. I believe the amount of resentment that exists from democrats is enough to cost him favors and votes (believe me, the number of Never Bernie democrats, both from resentment and the belief that he is too far left, is not insignificant) in what is sure to be an extremely close election.

To be honest, I’m much more worried about…

The media

The media hate Bernie Sanders. And of course they do, we’re talking about a guy who’s an existential threat to the system that props up the owners of mass media conglomerates. A quick Google search will show you the amount of false narratives and hit pieces pedaled by all major national newspapers (most notably The Washington Post) and all three major news channels.

Before you say “The media hates Trump,” hold on. They certainly report true stories about Trump that prove to us on a weekly basis that he is, against all odds, an even bigger asshole than we thought last week. But Donald Trump has been a business boon for mass media. People either love him or hate him, and both have a hard time looking away. They gave Trump a huge amount of free press in 2016, and there is no reason to believe that they will change in 2020. After all, they have not stopped since.

I’m not saying that the reporting on Trump has not been newsworthy. It is. My point is only that the business of media has a financial incentive to keep Trump around, and Bernie Sanders presents a potential loss of profits both due to policy and because he is not a lightning rod for controversy (and sweet, sweet ratings) the way having an insane narcissistic man baby as president is.

Based on what incentivizes media, and how they already treat him, I think the media contributes to a steeper climb to the White House than other candidates face.

It’s not fair. It’s not Bernie’s fault. But it’s real. We can’t trust the news to give Bernie a fair shake.

Our best case scenario we can hope for is that they talk about Trump and Sanders as if they are equally extreme, and that is also a sucky lie.

Republicans

This is why the ‘S’ word matters. The fact that Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist (despite that he has the policies of an FDR–style social democrat) is going to scare the shit out of old people and the republican base. No they will not make a distinction between socialist and democratic socialist. They are going to believe that the time has come, the jig is up, and communism has come to our shores. They are going to believe that this is a battle to save America from the gulags and paltry rations of bread.

I highly doubt that right wing media will anything to disabuse their base of these notions.

Yes, they are going to call the democratic candidate a socialist no matter what. But it’s one thing when republicans are saying it, it’s quite another when their opposing candidate is saying it too.

No it doesn’t matter what the actual type of socialist he is, we are talking about people who credibly believed, and probably still do, that Barack Obama was not born in The United States.

For all the typical non-voters you will get out the door excited by Sanders (mainly the youth vote), you are going to get the same amount, if not more, right leaning non-voters who are going to believe what they are told and fight to prevent the communist takeover of The United States.

The right wing base is already terrified, terrify them more and you get a huge turnout. And there are millions of these people, and they live in swing states.

The suburbs, and elsewhere

He’s a hard sell to many swing voters, especially the suburbs, where they can’t wait to vote against Trump but Sanders is too extreme for them. The media will back up this narrative. This means either stay home and vote for neither, or a vote for Trump.

It does not matter that his policies are reasonable and that he is not nearly as far left as the right in this country is far right. People do not tend to vote based on issues, they mostly vote based on feelings. Many many people are just going to feel that Sanders is a trade from one extreme to another, and absent an economic meltdown it’s going to be hard to move them to the change vote.

Yes, I realize he polls ahead of Trump in many places right now. That’s over a year out and absent any of the things I’ve discussed here being present in the context of a high stakes national election dominating everything you see, everywhere, all the time.

Conclusion

Look, I’m not happy about this. And hopefully I’m wrong. I know that Sanders also has crossover appeal, and there is an argument to be made that his portrayal in the media could feasibly work for him by way of cementing his status as anti-establishment. But I think there’s just too much at stake here, and he’s just got more extra stuff to deal with that other candidates simply don’t. And it’s not his fault.

It’s not Bernie. It’s the flawed world. I predicted Trump’s victory based on, among other things, my commitment to never underestimate how dumb the American voter can be as an aggregate. The fact that Trump’s approvals remain around 40% tells me that it isn’t time to abandon this assumption about the electorate any time soon.

I love you, Mr. Sanders. But I don’t trust all these other folks over here.

So it’s gotta be someone else this time.

Sorry.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 5, Number 5

PUP

Home fi, gnawa-pop fusion, mariachi cowpunk, classically minded jazz, shout-y punk-pop and finger picked acoustic blues—as appropriate for spring, Dust lets a thousand flowers bloom.This edition of short, mostly positive reviews, draws contributions from Isaac Olson, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly and Justin Cober-Lake. We hope you find something to blast from open windows on the first warm, sunny opportunity.  

Ahmed Ag Kaedy — Akaline Kidal (Sahel Sounds)

Akaline Kidal by Ahmed Ag Kaedy

This acoustic, solo release by Malian guitarist in exile Ahmed Ag Kaedy is a beaut. Like a lot of so-called desert blues, this is only chill out music until you read the lyrics, for example, “The Tuareg people must know/you can consider France an enemy/no better than Algeria who stands in our path.” Even if militant nationalism, no matter who’s calling for it, isn’t your thing, Ahmed Ag Kaedy’s weathered, throaty voice and plangent, monophonic guitar flights which are as evocative, bitter, and seemingly ephemeral as campfire smoke, make Akaline Kidal well worth hearing. And like campfire smoke, they’ll stick with you well into the next day.  

Isaac Olson

  Astralingua — Safe Passage (Midnight Lamp)

Safe Passage by Astralingua

Quietly, precisely odd, this elaborately instrumented, baroquely arranged folk experiment shrouds whispery threads of poetry in eerie landscapes of stringed instruments, pennywhistles and gently massed harmony. The music, mostly the work of composer Joseph Andrew Thompson but aided by singer Anne Rose Thompson, runs much in line with goth folk outfits like Gravenhurst and Boduf Songs, in the way that dread seeps up from the floorboards and beauty has a spectral, semi-transparent air; you could make a case for an Elliott Smith singing in front of Clogs comparison in a couple of the songs. Yet the music faces forward, not back into misty folklorics. “Space Blues” takes a turn towards proggy Pink Floyd-ish visions of interstellar travel on “Space Blues” and while “Poison Tree” heads off into to tremulous orchestral confessionalism, a la Sufjan Stevens. It is all very pretty and a little disturbing.

Jennifer Kelly

 Kaja Draksler / Petter Eldh / Christian Lillinger—Punkt.Vrt.Plastik (Intakt)

Punkt.Vrt.Plastik by Kaja Draksler, Petter Eldh, Christian Lillinger

This pan-Euopean combo rethinks one of the most cobweb-festooned configurations in jazz. To overcome the piano trio’s over-familiarity, they combine idiosyncratic personal techniques with a disciplined collective approach. Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and German drummer Christian Lillinger have forged their concord in a couple other groups; the former is assertively melodic and big-toned, the latter quick and ubiquitous. With so much happening in the engine room, they need a partner who values balance, and they have found one in Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler. Her playing is fleet and articulate, and her ideas feel complete in themselves, but they also leave ample space between the root notes for her partners to exercise their formidable muscles without banging into any harmonic walls.

Bill Meyer

 Maxine Funke — Home Fi (Feeding Tube)

home fi by maxine funke

Keep your lo fi, hi fi, and wifi; Home Fi is where it’s at. Really, how come no one characterized their music thusly before? Maxine Funke’s songs flesh out the conceit with lyrical details that relate not just home life, but a state of at-homeness on the grounds around the house. “February” doles out images of late summer foliage (Funke lives in New Zealand) and foraged taste treats; “Waving the Tea Rose” finds spiritual riches in the neighbors’ trash. Funke’s accompanies her slightly sleepy croon with spare finger-picking, captured up close enough that you can hear a chair creak while a strategically dissonant organ or fiddle pipes up in the background. This record, which was originally sold as a tape on an Australian tour, lasts just 22 minutes, but it feels as complete as an afternoon nap.

Bill Meyer

  Houssam Gania — Mosawi Swiri (Hive Mind Records)

Mosawi Swiri by Houssam Gania

Houssam Gania, son of guimbri master Maalem Mahmoud Gania, opens Mosawi Swiri, his debut, with an act of cheerful patricidal aggression. Rather than launching into the traditional Gnawa music — solid and sparse as a mudbrick house, deep and dark as a well and groovy as ripples in a dune — that his father mastered, Gania’s traditional guimbri and qraqabs are joined on the first track, “Moulay Lhacham,” by a guitar/drums/keys band that sounds not unlike Brent Mydland-era Dead. It’s sunshiny, a little corny and perfectly delightful. Ok, ok, so Gania Sr. was no purist himself, having collaborated with, among others, Pharoah Sanders and Peter Brotzmann, but Gania Jr’s opening gambit is pure pop delight. Luckily for armchair ethnographers everywhere, the rest of Mosawi Swiri sticks to traditional Gnawa music, which in Gania’s capable hands, really is as hypnotic and potentially curative as both locals and marshmallow-eared world music fans claim. That first track is a hoot though, and while I’m not sure Gania could sustain a whole album of gnawa-pop fusion, I’d love to see him try.

Isaac Olson

 A.F. Jones — Bourdon du Kinzie (Unfathomless)

Bourdon du Kinzie by A.F. Jones

Sound ecologist, submarine acoustician, mastering engineer, musician; if it manifests within the ears, A.F. Jones is tuned into it. This CD echoes an order that David Thomas, a man who has never been shy about telling other people what to do, once barked. “Insist on more than the truth.” This album began with a field recording expedition to a disused bunker in Port Washington, WA. The space is simultaneously absorbent and reverberant, luring external sounds into its cavernous interior and transforming them with its long decay times. You could probably get some cool sounds by simply stamping your foot or dropping the change in your pockets and hearing what the space does to it. But sound collection is just the first step for Jones. He’s used audio analysis software to isolate and enhance the space’s dominant tones, and then further seasoned the reduction with dancing sine tones. The result is a sort of sonic centrifuge in which essences are extracted so that some sounds become more ephemeral and others more vivid. Give it a spin.  

Bill Meyer  

 Patio—Essentials (Fire Talk)

Essentials by Patio

All clanks and spikes and spatter, this Brooklyn-based trio constructs a jag-edged punk with lots of space. It jangles like a bag of rusty nails. The vocals—sung sometimes by bassist Loren DiBlasi and other times by Lindsey-Paige McCloy, the guitarist (but not by Alice Suh, the drummer) —are a soothing counterpoint, unless you listen to the words, which are sharp despite the cool, distanced delivery. The band mixes late-1980s post-punk jitter with intriguing intervals of chanted poetry and pop self-revelation. “Open,” the longest cut, threads an antic, literate narrative atop a bassline so crackling with electricity that you could get a shock. “Boy Scout,” the single, bounds ahead then collapses in a heap, surges and stops in sudden uncertainty. The music exactly mirrors the confusing, conflicting emotions sketched in lyrics like, “Never have the chance to choose, naturally I always lose, I went shopping the other day, this week I can afford to feel better.” Patio makes inward-facing music that jerks and spasms in an approximation of hedonism, but maintains its quiet, difficult core.

Jennifer Kelly

  PUP — Morbid Stuff (Little Dipper/Rise/BMG)

Morbid Stuff by PUP

It’s been a minute since shout-along punk rattled cages like this second outing from Toronto’s PUP. Here in 11 teeth-rattling blasts, the band radiates bratty intelligence and dashed hopes, amid slamming guitars and kit battering drums. The tension between nerdy, needy erudition and beer bro riffs is palpable. When singer Stefan Babcock confesses, “Just like the kids/I've been navigating my way through the mind-numbing reality of a godless existence/Which, at this point in my hollow and vapid life, has erased what little ambition I've got left,” at the beginning of the single “Kids” you kind of expect the guy to get beat up by his own song. Obvious references include the Hold Steady, Green Day, Japandroids, that is, pretty much any punk that smart kids can memorize and dumb kids can punch the air to without really understanding. The trick is to stomp with triumphant, hobnail-studded aggression all over the relentlessly depressing lyrical content. Pretty soon, we are all singing along that, “Just because you’re sad, doesn’t make you special.”

Jennifer Kelly

 Joshua Redman Quartet — Come What May (Nonesuch)

Saxophonist Joshua Redman has been one of the defining voices of mainstream jazz for a quarter century, his clear tone and lyrical sensibilities a steady source of pleasure in various configurations. For Come What May, Redman reassembles his quartet from the early 2000s (pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Gregory Hutchinson) for seven original compositions. The group stays locked in across a variety of sounds, with Goldberg particularly getting some time to shine. Bookending the album with meditative numbers “Circle of Life” and “Vast” makes for a nice closed structure to the disc, letting the livelier numbers pulse and swing. On “DGAF” the musicians' comfort with each other allows Hutchinson to guide a jerky momentum, one that works best when he reclaims it near the end of the song.

The ensemble doesn't push any obvious boundaries here, despite a few demanding interactions. Redman and his group are locked into standard sounds, with the challenge simply being how well they can do it. Not surprisingly, they're quite good at it, and the fact that Redman's conversations sound so easy shouldn't distract from the high level of play here. The quartet sticks to its tradition with clear sound, strong melodies and smart interplay, playing to its strengths for another expressive release.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Vandoliers—Forever (Bloodshot)

Forever by Vandoliers

Vandoliers, out of Dallas, make punk rock with country fiddles, hoarse-voiced stomp-alongs with Mexicali flourishes of trumpet. “Sixteen Years,” which commemorates how long these urban cowboys have been on the job, sports bruise-y r ‘n r defiance, with its chugging beat, its cigarette-and-whiskey-vocals, but leavens the mix with brash folkloric bursts of brass. A rougher “Troublemaker” amps up the one-two shuffle and slides the cow-punk meter over towards the punk side, while contemplative “Cigarettes in the Rain,” smoulders and smokes much like its subject matter, but with a noticeable twang. Forever reminds you that the Rolling Stones were, on occasion, a country band, and the Replacements once made songs like “Waitress in the Sky.” The line is permeable, the fence has a nice place to sit on, and the Vandoliers are neither punk nor country but both.

Jennifer Kelly

 Eli Winter — Time to Come (Blue Hole Recordings)

The Time To Come by Eli Winter

With The Time to Come, college student Eli Winter makes his entry into the solo guitar scene. Winter cites Jack Rose as a prominent influence, but he doesn't have the thickness or the pulse of Rose's sound. His sensibility, especially when playing acoustic, lies closer to Glenn Jones in his creation of atmosphere, brightness and storytelling. “Sunrise Over the Flood” starts with a simple, pretty pattern before turning dark, an evocative moment of lightness used to reveal something heavy. On the poppier side, “Oranges and Holly” builds around a riff close to the intro from “Here Comes the Sun,” but it never quite distinguishes itself. The title track unfurls over 15 minutes, Winter's structured thought allowing for linear but engaging progression. Winter's debut makes the case that we should be paying attention to him; he certainly has things to say and has the right vehicle for his expression. At the same time, it feels like a debut. Winter's restraint keeps everything in its right place, but it would be nice to see him challenge himself technically. Taking a few more risks would help him find his own niche the field, a spot he's likely to earn with a little more seasoning, given his smart songcraft and thoughtful aesthetics.  

Justin Cober-Lake

 Michael Zerang—THE SHUDDERING CHERUB (Pink Palace Records)

THE SHUDDERING CHERUB - for solo piano with vibrating elements by Michael Zerang

If you’re wondering how Chicago’s improvised music company made the march from the AACM’s rejection of commercial and racial marginalization in the 1960s to the current polymorphous scene, train your antennae on Michael Zerang. He’s one of the people who did the hard work of not just playing but organizing during the long dry 1980s. His polyvalence extends to his musicality; he’s played unamplified and electro-acoustic improvisation, ecstatic drone, indie rock, free jazz and pan-global percussion. It might seem a bit perverse that his first solo recording is on piano, but listen and your befuddlement will pass. Zerang spends precious little time on the keys. Instead he plunges into the instrument’s interior, liberally preparing its strings and then plucking, scraping and vibrating with sure hands and some trusty vibrators. The music morphs like a chameleon’s coloration, shifting from coarse texture to crystalline drizzle.

Bill Meyer

[earthmatesmagazine]

My Youth Memories

By Folu Agoi

Ages 15-24

Pre-Youth (Pre-15)

I was born at Ipe-Akoko, a town in Ondo State, Nigeria’s South West geopolitical zone, on Tuesday, June 8, 1965, 5 years after Nigeria’s Independence (on October 1, 1960). It was during the country’s First Republic (1963 – 1966), when Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was the country’s ceremonial president.

My parents, Joseph Taiwo Agoi and Marian Ibukun Agoi, were Christians from the Yoruba ethnic group. Nigeria was in a post-Independence socio-political turmoil around the time of my birth, a situation that resulted in a 30-month fratricidal war, the Biafran War, which broke out in July, 1967. I was two years old then. The war (July 6, 1967 – January 15, 1970), was between Nigeria and the Biafra Republic, a secessionist state that pronounced its independence from Nigeria in 1967. Wartime in the country was like wartime everywhere else. The memories are better forgotten. Thank God some of us survived the civil war.

Schooling for me was fun in post-war Western Nigeria. I attended about six (6) primary schools in various parts of Western Nigeria for my 6-year elementary education – from age 5 to age 10, between 1970 and 1975, because of my father’s frequent transfer. He was a teacher, one of the first graduates in my hometown. I was raised literally in the midst of books. My father was a bibliophile, besides being an educator and stern disciplinarian. Books constituted a considerable percentage of his earthly possessions; several rooms in our house were filled with books, all kinds of books arranged on shelves, some in boxes. He used to tell us stories, to our secret amusement, about how, as a little boy in elementary school, he used to wash his books with soap and water whenever any of the books got soiled. I’m the eldest child of our parents, the first of six (6) children. We, my siblings and I, naturally fell in love with books. My literary production – indeed, my activities as a creative writer and literary activist – could be credited to those formative years.

I’m a bibliophile like my father, and like many of my old schoolmates. I was in high school, around 14 years of age, when I read virtually all works of James Hadley Chase. I also read the works of Mario Puzo, Ian Fleming, Jeffrey Archer, Sidney Sheldon, Agatha Christie, Irving Wallace, Marie Corelli, Lewis Carroll and other great writers. I read The Famous Five series, M and B (Mills and Boon) novels and so many exciting books, besides international magazines, such as Right On, Ebony Magazine, and, of course, local publications.

The seed of my literary production began to germinate in my third year in high school, in 1979, when I was a 14-year-old boy filled with sweet dreams of a bright future in a utopian society. However, looking back, I wish I could go back to those sweet days of my childhood.

Youth (15-24) years (1980 – 1989)

I had my 5-year secondary education in 3 schools: Independence Grammar School, Ondo (1976 – 1977); St Charles’Grammar School, Osogbo (1977 – 1978); and Lagos African Church Grammar School, Ifako-Agege, Lagos (1978 – 1982). I was hyperactive in my youth, which, for instance, earned me some popularity, and ranked me among rascals, in school. It might have been triggered by my father’s attempt to impose a career on me. My artistic talent manifested when I was around 14 years old, in high school, but my father wanted me to concentrate on science subjects (particularly physics, chemistry and biology), so I could pursue a career in a prestigious profession. Like most Nigerian parents at the time, he wanted me to become a medical doctor or an engineer, or even a lawyer – anything but a virtual artist. So, he always scolded me anytime he found me “wasting” my time drawing things instead of reading my books. That experience had a psychological effect on me throughout my adolescent period, until my late twenties when I reconnected with art and started writing poetry, though my poetic talent started manifesting in the last 3 years of my high school life – from 1979 to 1982, when I was between 14 and 17 years.

After high school, I proceeded to Lagos State College of Education (later renamed Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education) for my Nigeria Certificate in education (NCE). My father was a senior lecturer at the institution at the time. I studied English and Christian Religious Studies from 1983 to 1986.

Post-youth (Post-24)

A year after I completed my NCE programme, I was employed by the Lagos State Teaching Commission to teach English in public secondary schools. Three years later, I enrolled at Ondo State University (now Ekiti State University) Ado-Ekiti, where I studied English from 1990 to 1994 and obtained a Bachelor’s degree in education (Bachelor of Education, B.Ed). I obtained an M.Ed (Master of Education) in Educational Management from the same institution in 1997.

I got married at 28, on June 5, 1993, took up an appointment as a teacher of English at Corona Secondary School, an international school headquartered in Lagos, where I worked for 3 years. That was where I wrote my first serious poem, “The Master Potter” in 1998. The editor of the school magazine had asked me to contribute an article to an edition of the magazine, giving me two weeks to turn in my article. On the eve of the deadline, I was unable to write an article on any topic, so I asked if I could send a poem, and he said, “Yes, anything from you will be fine.” I thus forced myself to write the poem later that night. The poem dramatises the plight of teachers in Nigeria; it depicts the situation of an old poverty-stricken teacher who, despite his wretched state, keeps boasting of the great men and women he has produced, looking forward to when he will reap the fruit of his earthly labour in heaven. Every one of my colleagues that saw the poem fell in love with it, some asking for copies of the poem. The poem really spoke to them. That was how I started writing poetry, writing poem after poem almost every day, hoping to, one day, be in a position to reform my society, using art. Then, in February, 2001, two of my poems, ‘He Died’ and ‘I Seek a Woman’ won the BBC Poetry Competition (Network Africa). Several awards were to follow; including Prof Wole Soyinka Award for Literature (2007), Mother Drum Golden Award for Excellence (2012), The Tutuola Palm for Poetry award (2019), and SWANA 2020 Poetry Competition (2020; SWANA: Southwest Association of Nigerian Authors).

My first book, Towards Effective Use of English – A Grammar of Modern English, was published in 1999, followed by Candid Lyrics – An Anthology of Lyrical Poetry (2000), More Candid Lyrics – Another Anthology of Lyrical Poetry (2001), An Offering of Olive – An Anthology of Peace Literature (2004), Service to Fatherland (poetry, 2013), I Know the Smell of My Lover's Skin - A Spring of Lyrics Powered by Love (poetry, 2017), and Dear Child, Look Closely – A Life Manual (poetry; school edition, 2022), and a couple of other books which I co-edited.

I attended University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, from where I obtained another Master’s degree – an M.A. (Master of Arts) in English Language – in 2000. I moved to another private school in Lagos, Greensprings Schools, in 2001, where I taught for one year, after which I was offered a lecturing job at a public (Lagos State-owned) college of education, which later transmuted into a university.

My mother died – around 56 – on March 28, 2004, and about 10 months later, on January 25, 2005, my father – 72 – followed. Several times a father, I enrolled at Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, Ogun State, in 2020, for an M.Phil. (Master of Philosophy) degree course in English (Stylistics). Between 1999 and now, I’ve authored about 10 books, mostly poetry collections, and won several awards.

Looking back

Nigeria has, since Independence, had a chequered socio-political history. The country gained its Independence from Britain in 1960 and became a republic in 1963. It was ruled by military dictators from 1966 to 1999, with a brief return to civilian democracy from 1979 to 1983 – the Second Republic. The resultant political upheavals had adverse effects on the socio-economic life of the country, as reflected in the situation of the citizens. Many of our country’s political leaders – such as commissioners, ministers, governors and even heads of state – who referred to us some forty (40) years ago as “future leaders” are still – even now in their late 70s and 80s – clinging to power. For instance, General Muhammadu Buhari was Nigeria’s head of state between 1983 and 1985, having shot his way to power through a coup détat. I was 18 years old in 1983. Today, thirty-nine (39) years later, the same man is the country’s president, coming back to power seven years ago (in 2015) – after his retirement from the army – as a born-again democrat (serving as the country’s 7th and 15th head of state), following the example of General Olusegun Obasanjo who was the country’s 5th and 12th head of state.

In my youth, I had been filled with dreams and visions of myself as a future leader who would make a difference in the life of my society, offering services needed to alleviate people’s pain. However, looking back, I wish our society could move back to the days of my youth, those days when living standards were high and the cost of living very low, when we lived in peace with our neighbours, enjoying tranquility in every part of our dear country; when, for instance, we used to travel by road and rail across the country without any fear of being killed or kidnapped; when we used to enjoy uninterrupted power supply, a function of solid social and economic infrastructure established – or revamped after Independence – by some of our First-Republic leaders, particularly Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Premier of Western Nigeria, for which many of us now look back with a deep sense of nostalgia.

Suggestions for and about youngsters

I’d advise the youth to read extensively and travel wide and far, as much as they can, to acquire more knowledge and enrich their minds. They should emancipate their minds from primordial stereotypes and sentiments, and work hard along the path of peace, appreciating the beauty of nature dramatised by the rainbow whose charm is a function of diversity. They should deploy their creative energy towards the reformation of the universe. They should avoid the temptation of harbouring a monochromatic approach to life, seeing every instance of otherness as an evil tendency, which is a common cause of conflict. Rather, they should espouse the spirit of Ubuntu, which, translated literally, means, “I am, because we are!”

Adversity has a way of moving people to a realm of higher consciousness. I’d advise those in war and crisis zones to hang on to faith and hope; to, as much as possible, participate actively in cerebral and creative activities, striving to function as a leading light in the search for conflict resolution and peace. I’d advise them to eschew bitterness – for their own peace of mind, and preach forgiveness and reconciliation.

Bio

Folu Agoi, President of the Nigerian Centre of PEN International (aka PEN Nigeria), erstwhile Chairman of Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, Lagos Branch (March 13, 2004 – October 13, 2007), winner of BBC Poetry Competition (2001) and SWANA 2020 Poetry Competition (Nov 7, 2020; SWANA: Southwest Association of Nigerian Authors), recipient of several awards – including Prof Wole Soyinka Award for Literature (2007), Mother Drum Golden Award for Excellence (2012), The Tutuola Palm for Poetry award (by The Delta Book Club; July 23, 2019), is a creative (and academic) writer, poet, scholar, literary activist, book editor and publisher. A lecturer in the Department of English, Lagos State University of Education (LASUED), Lagos, Nigeria, he has attended conferences and performed his poetry in several towns and cities in Africa, Europe, America and Asia.

Email: foluagoi.1@gmail.com

[dragonsight9]

Half Gone: Chapter 2

Notes: Sorry for the late post, I had a bit of a creative block in the middle of this chapter

Story Masterpost

Word Count: 2,640

Summary: Joseph and Virgil meet up with the others outside the city walls

Triggers: Sympathetic Deceit(tell me if there are others and I will add them)

           Virgil did his best to focus on the wind fluttering the ends of his leathery wings. He didn’t want to think, for fear of hurting the human on his back or even running into Patton, who was doing spirals and dances in the sky. It was still unbelievable how much energy that tiny dragon had, even for a sun dragon. Virgil watched him, seeing the fur on his back sway in the wind and lose all of its’ knots, freeing his very sharp thin spines, which instantly raised on his back, stretching, and then disappearing into the fur. His tree branch-like horns growing small bright green leaves as spring approached. His blue scales almost made him invisible in the sky, even among the dark storm clouds that loomed over Virgils territory. What would happen to him and the others if my thoughts on Raymond are right? What if he’s the bad guy in this story? Are my brothers in danger? He could hurt them, chain them down and break them. He’s going to be king soon and no one can or will try to stop him except my brothers and I. They could end up.. No. No. No. Calm down or-

A soft tapping echoed across his scales from his back, snapping him from his thoughts.The tapping continued at a steady pace and he focused on it, realizing that in his daze of thoughts he had stopped flying and started gliding on trembling wings. He started to notice that Patton wasn’t in the sky anymore and Virgil had been growling lowly, softly vibrating his whole body and in turn the human on his back. Virgil flapped his wings to gain more altitude. He swore this kid was magic when it came to him, even in all 109 years of being on this island with Patton and the others, no one could figure out a way to calm his mind immediately. This kid found out how to do it in less than 18.

In moments Virgil was flying straight again and the tapping continued. He started purring when the tapping turned into fingers scratching the skin between his scales in which he could never reach. A small chuckle from his back made him smile. “You seem a little tense there Virge, y’should try to relax.”

Virgil chuckled and turned his head to look at Joseph. “Says the one nervous about being in the capital city for the first time, shouldn’t these roles be reversed?” He grinned at Josephs dumbstruck expression, he must have forgotten that Virgil could see how anxious and nervous people get.

“I actually had questions about the castle so you can either totally read minds and you’ve been lying to me, or you’re really really good at guessing things.” He started to pick at Virgil's spines with his free hand, still petting him with the other

“I’m just a really good guesser. Go ahead and ask me anything, I’ll answer with what I know, and then you can ask the others any other questions you got that I can’t answer right away.” He looked at Joseph for a moment longer before turning away, showing him that he was patient and could wait.

After a moment or two Joseph finally spoke up, “So, are there any things that I should know for sure? Like, secret exits or anything? People I should stay away from?”

Virgil had to think for a moment, trying to remember the names of people that never actually seemed to like him and his brothers. “I would say to just stay away from anyone with ill will, mostly the nobles, they’re fairly greedy. Oh, and don’t forget about the mages and merchants, they respect us but would do anything to get ahold of us for experiments or parts they need for spells or curses.”

Joseph sounded horrified, “Like what?!”

“Well, we all have different magical properties, seeing as we can control different elements. Our blood is one thing they could use, bones too, as well as teeth, horns and spines, hearts, even our eyes. From what I’ve read in books in the castles library and Logan's personal library, dragons are extremely powerful and one of the most magical creatures known. I hadn’t really believed any of it until I found out at the castle that none of the mages or wizards there could control any element to the extent that my brothers and I could.”

“Woah, that’s fascinating. A little concerning and weird but definitely really cool to think about.” Joseph paused. “What about manners? Where will we be in the castle? Will there be a lot of people there?”

Virgil started to lower his altitude as he flew out from the clouded area of his territory. The castle centered in the middle of the island was fairly large to Virgil but to Joseph it was like looking at a giant, it was massive, and he loved it. It was just like all the castles he had read about in the books from Logans library, huge towers and walls made of stone that reached for the sky, windows large enough to fit dragons, and a massive, even bigger city surrounded it. From the sky, he could see how busy the streets were, people were getting ready, setting up store tents for the other villagers arriving from the different towns and villages on the island. It was filled with noise.

Virgil flew low over the city, raising voices and shouts of excitement, hoping they would cover up the occasional yelling of hatred and anger so they wouldn't reach Joseph. He was a well-composed young man but he’s a lot like Roman and Patton who used to literally fight those who spoke badly about their brothers. Patton, the smallest dragon of the brothers, had even fought Virgil, the largest, because he caught him talking bad about himself. It was a hilarious ordeal that Virgil lost horribly in. Roman used to tease Virgil about it for years before he had an.. ‘unfortunate accident’ with a mud puddle and his bright white clothing.

“Don’t worry, the most people you’ll have to interact with are some knights, nobles and maybe some mages at the after celebration. You can interact with the villagers here in the city as well if you would like.” He circled back around one more time to make sure it was safe. “To answer your question about manners, don’t worry about it, you know everything you need to know. Just respect the people you talk to and don’t interrupt. Do your best to be approachable if you want to talk to people but make sure that you look like you can defend yourself.”

“But, I can defend myself.”

“Than you have nothing to worry about.” He thought for a moment. “Other than that, you should be good for now, and if you truly feel uncomfortable by yourself you can stay with one of us. However, if you truly don’t want to talk to someone, stay away from Patton and Roman, they will absolutely drag you everywhere to talk to everyone. Unless you like talking to people, in which case you’re fine. Logan prefers to talk to the council members and high ranking members of the court, Deceit and I just like to stand at the edge and observe everything and Thomas usually stands with the guards near where the king will be sitting, and if one of us comes with you, you can talk to him if you would like.”

“Yea, I might just stay with one of you guys, I’m still new to this whole area of the island. Thank you for your help Virgil.” Virgil felt Joseph hug him from his spot on his back and smiled before flying out to the clearing outside the castle walls where he could see Patton's whole body wrapped in a hug around a bright white and red dragon, pinning it’s wings to its sides as he giggles happily at something.

As he landed next to them Joseph immediately jumped down from his back and ran, not wanting to get squished by the play wrestling. It was then that two other dragons that were watching had come into view. One was a dark sea blue water dragon with three rows of massive webbed spines splayed out along its back from its nose to its tail which was currently resting beside it. Though it’s eyes were pure black you could definitely tell that it was bored but slightly amused by the two dragons wrestling on the ground. It’s dark blue, nearly black wings were folded awkwardly at its sides because of the lengthy black King Cobra lazily draped across its back on the webbing between its spines with the cobras head resting on its shoulder.

The yellow dragon sitting next to it was nearly twice it’s size, only slightly smaller than Virgil. Its back was lined with wicked spikes that bent forwards towards its head and then suddenly made a sharp turn back turn towards its tail. The left side of its face was void of any yellow scales and instead there was a long tear in its mouth that was pulled back past its jawline before stopping and trailing a scar that went down the side of its neck. On it’s left wing the scar continued along the top, going all the way to the end where the membrane was slightly torn. Its left eye was open wide, the pupil thin enough to slice through diamonds and making this dragon look completely mad. The scales around the scar and the left side of the face were a sickly nasty green color from the poison it held, some of them broken or cracked showing scarred skin. The entire dragon itself was contorted in a way that was unsettling for those that looked upon it and a position that would be uncomfortable for other dragons. It had twisted its neck around twice and its wings were slightly open and pulled down to completely cover its sides and back. The tail was the only thing that was even slightly comfortable looking as it sat to the side of the dragons right wing. 

Around the dragon's neck sat a very very large python that had loosely wrapped itself around it and was staring at the wrestling dragons with complete amusement in it and the dragons eyes. Virgil always found the pythons scales interesting, most of them were brown, tan and black, but every now and then he would catch a glimpse of pale pink or pale blue scales on its underbelly.

The water dragon greeted him first. “Salutations Virgil, I am pleased to see you again. How was your rest?”

“It was alright until Patton showed up, I had actually managed to sleep during my break.” He smirked when he heard a quiet gasp from the white dragon on the ground next to him.

“Virgil?! Sleeping?! I don’t believe it!” He tries to look at the blue dragon wrapped around him. “Patton!” He shook his body for a moment, forgetting he was trapped by said dragon, “Patton!!” Pattons form shifted so he was looking up at the white dragon. “Yes?”

“Tell me! Was this Nightmare before Christmas actually sleeping for once?” the dragon took Patton's smaller head between its claws and looked him in the eye.

Patton was caught off guard by this motion before processing the question and he started to giggle, carefully unwrapping his form from around the dragon. “Yea! He was! It was so cute! He was curled up like a sleeping kitten! Oh my gosh Roman, you should have been there! It was adorable!” He grabbed Romans wrists with his own paws as he started to coo and purr at the memory, closing his eyes at the same time Roman gave Virgil a look, a look that told him he would never hear the end of this.

Nonetheless, he was almost completely sure that should he have been in his human form at this moment, he would be an embarrassed mess.. Or maybe he would be a vengeful one. Patton was the best at embarrassing him, especially in front of the others. He didn’t mean any harm by it though, Virgil knew that, so he didn’t hold it against the tiny dragon when the others teased him about the things Patton gushed about.

Instead he sighed as Roman stretched his glittering golden and red wings and draped one over Virgil's back, careful of the sharp spikes that rested there. “Who knew that doom and gloom could be cute, must have been in a fairly deep sleep if it took Patton 20 minutes to wake you up.” Virgil could practically feel the grin he knew Roman was wearing and growls in annoyance before shoving him to the side. Roman promptly lifted his wing as to not get it torn to shreds by Virgil's spikes and as he gasps as Virgil's smirk returns to his face. Roman sits back on his hind legs and lifts his wings so they are splayed out behind him in a grandiose golden display as he lifts one of his paws to his chest. “Betrayed by my own brother! I can’t believe it! Virgil how could you!?”

Virgil started laughing when he heard Patton trying and failing to stifle his laughter. “Great, now I’m being laughed at!” He looks over at Patton and immediately Patton is laughing as hard as he can. “Oh my lords! Patton you too?! Goodness gracious is anyone nice in this family?! Logan?” He looks hopefully at the blue dragon, who only shakes his head and places a clawed paw on his snout. Roman huffs in frustration, “Oh come on!”

It was then that the large yellow dragon spoke up, “Don’t worry Roman, I’m not laughing at you.”

“Oh thank the lords someone isn-!”

“Externally.”

“Son of a-!”

“Hey! Come on this isn’t fair!” A cry from the ground next to the yellow dragon. “You’re like, three times my height and you weigh so much more!” They all looked over with wide eyes to see Joseph being pinned down by the python that had previously been wrapped around the yellow dragons neck. It was curled up completely over his torso with its head resting on his chest. “Deceit! Help!”

Virgil and Deceit both started laughing at the sight. Joseph started to wave his arms around weakly as the snake slithered up so it was looking down at Joseph. Then it did the unthinkable, the most eye opening, most terrible thing in the whole world. It stuck its tongue out and tapped Joseph's nose with its own. Patton squealed, Roman pretended to faint, Deceit and Virgil were trying to gather their breath from laughing so hard, and Logan just got up and walked away. As he did so the cobra on his back slid off, letting him fold his spines down flat against his back as it hissed at him and slid off in the direction of Deceit and Joseph.

“Come on everyone, we’re early but we still have a lot to do, we also have to familiarize Joseph with our human forms as of yet before we head inside the walls.”

While Deceit caught his breath the cobra climbed up onto his back and curled around some of the spines to not fall off. Once his lungs were full of air, Deceit turned to the python, “Come on Emile, we have introductions to get through and Logan is getting a bit impatient.” Emile looked from Joseph to Deceit before deciding to slither off of the human and climb onto Deceits back, wrapping around the cobra to help its balance. Deceit then got up and walked over to Virgil, sitting down and dragging his long tail through the grass near him. Joseph then sat up to dust himself off and pick any pieces of grass from his outfit.

Logan spoke up once Joseph seemed more collected and prepared. “So, who’s going to introduce themselves f-”

Current Taglist(Let me know if you wanna be added):

@virmillion @residentanchor @iitsasecret24 @neonb-fly

[tired--nb]

"Haircut"

Finally gonna post this oof it's called haircut bc you dont own me and I cant title things for shit

Anyways its 2,839 words so buckle up for a kinda long one thats undercut.

Lynn sighed messing with her hair. Now that she's growing it out it looks awkward. It's annoying, she's never cared how others see her but damn, it looks bad. When she finally laid her head down in defeat she heard a knock.

“Hey hun, it's dad I have something for you.” her dad said opening the door.

She laying picked up her head and leaned back in her chair, “Lit, thanks, dad. What is it?”

He fidgeted a little and pulled out a small, light gray and blue box. “Well, since your hair will take a long time to grow back I bought you a gift card to the hair salon down the street. So you can get a haircut or extensions. Whatever you wanna do.”

“Thanks, dad. I'll walk down there tomorrow after work.” she took the small box and placed it on her desk, then gave her dad a hug.

“It's no problem, I wish I could have gotten a gift card to a fancier place but money's tight right now, especially after that villain destroyed the shop,” he said hugging her back and sighing.

“I said it's it's fine dad.” she insisted, as they sat there in comfortable silence.

Soon though her dad pulled away, “Anyways I have to go get your brother. Be home in a few.”

“Ok, see you when you get back,” she replied stretching. Once she was done she moved to her bed and sighed. She had a lot to do today, but honestly, she was barely motivated to get up. Hell, she got up and went right back to bed. She laid there for god knows how long until she heard her dad and brother come in.

Joseph immediately barged into her room and belly flopped on her, “Lynn!! I'm home!!” he said excitedly. “Get up! Get up! Get up! We have to water our veggies!!” he was now standing in her, chest.

She looked at him and smiled, quickly grabbing him and flipping him onto the bed. “First off, calm down. You little rascal. Secondly, ok let's go.” she said still smiling.

Joseph sprung up and cheered, “Yay! Oh! Oh! Oh! Can I get a piggyback ride there?!” he jumped up and down on the bed, his red hair flying everywhere “Please, please, please, pleeease?!”

“If you stop yelling,” she replied, he shook his head up and down furiously. She laughed a little and moved to the edge of the bed.

Joey quickly latched on to her and yelled: “Go!!”

“What did I literally just say?” Lynn asked kinda turning her head towards him.

“Not to yell…” he mumbled, looking down.

“Exactly. Now, off we go!” she said happily as she carried her brother through the small house and to the smaller backyard.

Joseph practically jumped off Lynn's back and ran to get the watering can, “I’m gonna get the water!” he said running back inside.

Lynn gave a small nod in acknowledgment and crouched down to look at the plants. As she looked at the plants she didn’t notice any extremely chewed up leaves. She sighed, “Hey dad good news, whatever was chewing up our plants last week stopped.”

“Awesome! They didn’t eat of any other the actual vegetables right?” he asked from the kitchen of the house.

“Nope, just wanted leaves, I guess,” she said as Joseph came out the watering can floating around him.

“I did it, sis! Look! I can orbit the water container now!” he exclaimed running up to her.

She pats him on the back and smiled. “Nice! I’m so proud of you. Now could you hand it to me?”

“Sure! Catch!” he said as he flung the watering can out of his orbit and straight a Lynn.

The watering can slammed into her and knocked her over. By now the water was all over her. “Joseph you know that is not what I meant. You need to be more careful. You can't control how hard you fling things yet. You could have broken the watering can, or even hurt me.” she scolded him, as she stood up.

He looked down at the ground and kicked at the dirt. “I know… I'm sorry…”

Lynn sighed and stood up, grabbing the watering can. “It's fine now just be careful.” She slowly walked up to Joseph and poured the rest of the water on him when she was close enough. “And now we’re even.” she pats his back.

“Hey!! Don’t do that! These are my school clothes!” he said puffing out his cheeks.

“And? It's the weekend they'll be dry by Monday. Anyways I'm gonna get more water.” she said walking inside. She went into the kitchen and placed the watering can in the sink. “Man when Joey flings stuff outta orbit it hurts.” she placed a hand on the spot where it hit her.

Her dad looked up from what he was doing and looked at her, “You ok? I can heal it for you if you want me too?” he said with a little bit of concern in his voice.

She shook her head, “I'm fine, I can heal too you know?” she replied, turning on the sink.

He let out a nervous laugh, “Of course, but I still worry. I am your dad.”

“I know, I know.” she said, then started humming a song called ‘Home’. The pain in her stomach slowly started to fade.

“Oh for dinner I'm making beef bowls,” he said as he cut some vegetables.

Lynn stopped humming and replied, “Lit.” she turned the sink off and picked up the watering can. “Welp I'm off.”

“You say that like you're going to be gone for awhile.”

“I mean I probably will be.” she joked and walked back outside, back to humming. “I'm back Joey, you didn’t break anything did you?”

Joseph looked up at Lynn and smiled, he had a bunch of dandelions orbiting him. “No!” he stuck his tongue out at her.

“Good.” She stuck her tongue out back at him. Them she moved and started watering the garden. Starting with their two tomato plants and ending at their two pepper plants. Their garden wasn't big, at all. But it was enough for them and they were grateful for that.

As Joseph put more dandelions in his orbit and Lynn admired the garden, their dad called for them to come into the living room.

“Joey I know you haven't done your homework so start on that.” Joseph sluggishly got up and grabbed his bag, moving to the small table they had.

“Now Lynn,” their dad turned to Lynn. “have you done your homework or the school work from today? I know you came home early so you have extra work.”

Lynn let out a groan and sighed, “I'll do it now, I guess.” she walked to her room and sat down at her desk. She heard a muffled ‘thank you‘ from her dad and replied. “It's whatever dad.”

She pulled out her work and stared at it. She has no motivation to do it, honestly. She let out a small puff of air and pulled out an old mp3 player of hers, putting on her headphones and grabbed her pencil. Luckily they didn’t start anything new today so it should be easy. Slowly but surely she worked through all of her homework, but before she could finish she was called for dinner.

She quickly walked out and joined the other two at the table, “Thank you for the food dad.” she said before digging in.

“Yeah, thanks for the food dad!” Joseph said with his mouth full.

“No need to thank me. And don’t talk with your mouth full Joey, it's gross.” their dad replied before taking a bite.

The three of them ate in peace until they were all done. “I can do the dishes dad,” Lynn said already picking up everyone's plates and stuff. “Oh and I'm gonna be up a little late tonight I have to finish my homework.”

He dad nodded, “I'm gonna put Joseph to bed, don’t stay up too late.” he got up and shooed Joseph off to their room.

Lynn absentmindedly did the dishes as she thought about tomorrow. She was gonna be quite busy, first thing in the morning she has to make breakfast, then once her dad goes to work she has to take Joseph to the neighbors so they can babysit him, then she has to go to work, and finally she has to stop by the hair place on her way home. She sighed, tomorrow is gonna be rough.

Once done with the dishes she went back to her room and finished the last few questions on her homework and went to lay down. She laid there for a little before she realized she forgot to take her medication. She got up and quickly shuffled to the bathroom, took her medication, and laid back down, eventually falling asleep.

She woke up to her alarm clock beeping, oh boy 7 am. She got up and made her way to the kitchen and opened the fridge, wondering what to make. Eventually, she decided on ochazuke, a simple enough meal for breakfast. She made it fairly quickly, placed the three bowls on the table, and went to wake up the other two.

Quietly she made her way to her brother and dad's room, she opened the door and went up to her dad first. She shook her dad’s shoulders lightly, “Daaaad, dad, dad. Get up. Time to eat breakfast and get ready for worrrrk.” he stirred a little and opened his eyes.

“Morning.” he half mumbled, Lynn took her hands off of his shoulders.

“Morning.” she smiled, then walked up to Joseph. She her hands on his shoulders at shook him awake. “Rise and shine, Joey,” Joseph grumbled and rolled over. “Aww… Don’t be like that Joey.” she half laid on his side, “Get up bum.” he pushed her off and pulled his blanket over his head. She laughed a little and hummed ‘Stronger Than You’, which is one of her favorites. She pulled the blanket off of him and picked him up bridal style, “Let's go.”

She walked to the table and placed him down by it, “Time to eat.”

Joseph sighed and sat down at the table, starting to eat. Their dad looked a Lynn and smiled, “Thank you.”

“No problem. I'll be right back.” she walked to the bathroom to take her morning medication. Once done she went back to the table and started eating.

Her dad finished first and kiss both Joseph and Lynn on the head. “I'm off to work, be good. Love you two.”

“Love you, dad,” Joseph said, with his mouth full… again.

Lynn lightly smacked him on the arm, then replied. “Love you too, have a nice day.” he did a small wave and left. “Ok, Joey dad’s gonna be gone till at out 6 PM and I'm gonna be home late today. So, there's a possibility that dad may get you from Nana’s, ok?”

He nods, “Ok.”

“I just remembered you're five and I'm probably speaking another language to you…” she sighed. “Anyways, you done?”

“Yeah,” he replies as he pushes his bowl to her.

Lynn nods and takes their bowl to the sink. She quickly washes them and takes Joseph to his room. She picked out clothes for him and helped him put them on. “Stay here while I go get dressed real quick.” She goes to her room and puts on her work clothes and her face mask. Then walks back to Joseph's room.

“Time to go?” he asked, holding the same small bag of toys he takes to his babysitter’s every time he goes.

“Yup, let's go.” she picked him up along with her keys to the house and left, locking the door behind her.

“Off to Nana’s!!” Joseph said happily as the crossed the street.

Lynn walked up to the house and knocked on the door, “Yup, too Nana’s.” eventually an old lady came to the door a bright smile on her face.

“Ah, Jojo! No-- Lynn! Come in, come in!” she moved and gestured for them to come and sit.

Lynn set down Joseph and walked inside, sitting down on the old lady's couch. “I know I say this every time I bring him here, but thank you so much for watching him. I don't know what we'd do without you.”

She sat down next to Lynn, “It's no big. He not too much to handle anyway.”

Lynn nodded, “Well I would stay and chat but I'm later than usual. So bye. Thank you once again.” Lynn waved as she left.

Once out the door, she started to hum ‘Bastille’. Immediately feeling lighter on her feet she jogged her way to work.

Eventually, she got there and opened the front door to the small grocery store. “Ah, Noah there you are! I thought I told you to be here a 9:30? It's 9:45!”

Lynn flinches at her deadname and sighs, “Sorry sir I was taking my brother to his babysitters.” Lynn looked at her hands, debating if she should say something, eventually deciding to. “Also, sir… My name is Lynn. Like I've told you every other day this week.” she fidgets with the bottom of her shirt.

Her boss scoffs at her, “Whatever get your ass to work. I've tacked at a full hour to your shift because you were late. Then had the audacity to correct me.” he glares at her, “You got that Noah?”

She flinches again, nodding. “Of course sir. I'm sorry I'll get to work now.” She quickly shuffled to the back room looking at the charts of what needed to be restocked. She spent the next 3 hours in what she’d call hell. Constantly being deadnamed, having to deal with her boss, and literally just stocking for 3 hours straight.

Eventually, her shift ended and she was able to go home. She walked home slowly enjoying the spring air. Thinking of what's yet to come. She has her UA exam coming up after school ends in a month or so. Then she has Joseph's birthday around that time too. Damn. Once she got home she grabbed the gift card from her room and left again off to the salon.

As she walked up to the small shop she wondered what she wanted. Well, she had no idea what she wanted. She’s just gonna go with whatever the barber wants to do.

She walked in and sat down. She had never been here and it's a little surprising to see only one barber. Right now she has that weird Justin Bieber hair, for lack of a better way to describe it. And she hated it. While it was the longest she’s ever had her hair it just looked weird to her.

As she sat there and thought the barber finished with the other customer and ask Lynn to come sit in the chair. Lynn obliged and say down.

“So! What are we doin today? What's the sitch?” the barber asked, he was a young with shoulder length bleach blond hair that was up in a bun.

“Ah, I don’t really know… I guess I'll get that one haircut most boys get. You know the one where the sides and back are shaved and it's it's long on the top?” she replied.

“Sounds good. How long would you like the top?” he asked already snipping her hair.

She thought for a moment before deciding, “Just an inch shorter than it is now would be nice.”

“Okey-dokey,” he said then focused on cutting. After a little, he was done and showed it to Lynn.

Lynn studied it for a little then replied, “I really like it thank you. It looks a lot better.” better she thought for a moment then asked.

He nodded and went to a cabinet on the far wall of the building. “Wait are you ok with extensions?” he asked as he pulled out two darker purple extensions. He brought them over to Lynn.

“I mean I don't see why not?” she replied.

He sat there and thought about it a moment before clipping them above her ears, where the tops were covered by her hair. “There I feel like it looks better now.”

She looked at the mirror and smiled, “Yeah I'm glad you did that, I feel like it frames my face well.” she stood up and dusted off.

He smiled and walked over the register, “So how will you be paying?”

“Oh, I have a gift card.” she pulls out the gift card her dad gave her and hands it to him.

“Awesome!” he rang it up.

“Also you can keep the extra cash on it I don’t need it,” Lynn said as she went to leave. “Thank you once again.”

As she walked home she felt better about herself surprisingly. It was a nice change of pace.

[tkmedia]

Back from the Brink: Chris Byrd’s Fight for Life

Back from the Brink: Chris Byrd’s Fight for Life

ATLANTIC CITY, UNITED STATES: Chris Byrd (R) celebrates his IBF Heavyweight Championship win over Evander Holyfield with boxing promoter Don King (L) 14 December, 2002 in Atlantic City, NJ. Byrd won the 12-round bout by unanimous decision. AFP PHOTO/HENNY RAY ABRAMS (Photo credit should read HENNY RAY ABRAMS/AFP via Getty Images) 21 Jul by Joseph Santoliquito This story appeared in the August 2021 issue of The Ring. WHETHER CHRIS BYRD’S RETURN TO BOXING HAPPENS OR NOT, THE FACT THAT IT’S EVEN POSSIBLE IS PROOF THAT HE ALREADY WON THE FIGHT OF HIS LIFE The park hummed only with the doleful cry of a desperate man swaying gently on a swing. That’s where Laurie Byrd found her baby brother, Chris, the two-time heavyweight titlist, a few blocks from his house one April night in 2017. Chris’ face was a ghoulish mask, his bloodshot eyes bigger than coffee saucers in the twilight. Laurie stood at the park’s edge for a moment wondering what monster had possessed her brother, once a lovable, hyper kid with a beaming smile who would follow her to basketball practice. Chris was wondering, too. His mind was twisted and he didn’t know what to do next. Drown himself in the Pacific Ocean? Hang himself from a balcony for the neighborhood to see? Stuff his mouth with pills and never wake up? “The pain started and that changed everything.” – Tracy Byrd During a 16-year, 47-fight pro career, the undersized Chris Byrd faced some of the most formidable heavyweights of his era, including David Tua, Evander Holyfield, Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko and Ike Ibeabuchi, gorging himself and trashing his body to barely get over 210 pounds. But for close to a decade after his final fight, Byrd was faced with a battle more daunting than any presented by those big punchers. His clash came against the horrors of anxiety, depression and despair – constant agony that shoved him to the brink of suicide. If not for Laurie interceding that spring night in 2017 and a handful of others who came to Byrd’s rescue, this would be a far more somber story. Byrd, a middleweight silver medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, defied logic as a heavyweight in the pro ranks, where he would routinely battle opponents who were larger than he was – often by a wide margin. Now Byrd, who will turn 51 on August 15, is thinking about returning to the ring for the first time in 12 years. He says it’s to make up for what he missed during his prime, a real chance to show what he can do at his more natural weight of 160. He says he’s a changed man from the walking Halloween costume he wore for many years, enduring the relentless throbbing in his feet, back, hips, shoulders and knees. He almost lost his family over it. He almost lost who he is. He almost lost his life. To outsiders, Chris and his wife, Tracy, lived an idyllic life. They were the perfect boxing couple, as close to a modern version of the Beaver Cleaver TV family as there can be in boxing. Their three children – Jordan, Justin and Sydney – quite literally grew up before the boxing community’s eyes. They seemed well-adjusted; they were a joy to be around. Hardly anyone uttered a sordid word or had a negative attitude when it came to Chris Byrd. It’s why Byrd’s post-boxing career, at least the first incarnation of it, seems so difficult to fathom. “Everybody in boxing loved Chris Byrd. And you would meet Chris and Tracy, and who could not love them?” said Steve Cunningham, the two-time IBF cruiserweight titlist. “They named our daughter, Kennedy. We’re that close to the Byrds. Chris is the easiest guy to get along with, a nonhostile guy, except when you’re in the ring with him. “Chris always had it together. My wife and I always looked at Chris and Tracy as our big brother and sister. I love Chris Byrd. When people ask me who my favorite all-time boxer is, I don’t say Muhammad Ali; I don’t say Sugar Ray Leonard. I say Chris Byrd, because I was in four or five training camps with him. I knew the odds were against him on the business side and the size side. I understand what he was up against – and he still went on to become a two-time heavyweight champion.”

Byrd gave away almost 30 pounds in his TKO loss to Wladimir Klitschko in April 2006. (Photo by Torsten Silz//DDP/AFP via Getty Images) Chris Byrd’s pain first started in 2009 in his left pinky toe. It was just a light tingling sensation. At first, Byrd (41-5-1, 22 knockouts) ignored it, but as it continued to worsen and started to spread, his personable disposition grew dark. Byrd’s last fight was a victory, a four-round knockout over the terribly overmatched Matthias Sandow in Germany on March 21, 2009. After that, the gifted southpaw became a trainer, following the same path as his parents, Joe and Rose Byrd, who trained their eight children in their fabled “dungeon” in the basement of the Byrd home in Flint, Michigan, the incubator of Chris’ awkward, slick style. By 2010, the pain had spread. Chris couldn’t sleep for more than two or three hours at a time. Doctors tried to find answers. Chris was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, a sometimes excruciating condition caused by nerve damage. Chris was prescribed numerous anti-inflammatory medications. But the pills had awful side effects, which came to a head in June 2010 when Chris went to see a basketball game in which his sister Laurie was coaching in Los Angeles. Chris went to the game with Tracy, his son Justin and his nephew. After the game, as the family was walking to their car in the parking lot, Tracy mentioned Justin had said something disrespectful to her. The boys were teenagers at the time. “When we got in the car, I lost it on my son and nephew,” Chris recalled. “I remember screaming at them and wanting to fight them. I was going crazy. I went into a rage. I got out of the car and challenged my son and my nephew to fight. Someone saw this and called the cops. Tracy was trying to tell me to stop. My son and nephew wouldn’t get out of the car, they were so scared. I was circling the car yelling and going crazy. “I was able to calm myself down when I realized I was acting nuts. I got back in the car. Everything calmed down, but everyone was looking at me like I was crazy. We started driving out of the parking lot and immediately cop cars were driving towards me and behind me, blocking me in.” There were six police cruisers. Chris stopped the car. The police jumped out, guns drawn, and told the family to get out of the car and hit the ground. Chris and his family complied. After being handcuffed and interrogated, the police allowed Chris’ family to go without any charges. This, however, convinced Tracy that something was wrong with Chris. His doctor immediately took him off the medication. “I used to sit in my garage all day and not talk to anyone. I remember telling Tracy that I wanted to end it all. For me, life was over.” – Chris Byrd “I started having issues in my hips and both shoulders, and the neuropathy spread all the way up my leg,” Chris recalled. “I could not take the pain any longer. I was no longer sleeping at night. I was starting to feel a little better with the drugs, but then I started to have outbursts. I would lose my temper. “I finally told Tracy about all of the thoughts I was having. I would have dreams of killing myself, Tracy, my entire family in their sleep. One night, I had a dream of hanging myself from my balcony, naked, so the whole neighborhood could see me. I was so aware these thoughts were not normal. I was so scared of these thoughts. They were so real and so vivid, but I was too scared to tell anyone, because I thought everyone would think I was crazy.” By August 2010, his family did. “Chris became someone different, someone I didn’t know,” recalled Tracy, crying. “I still love him. That will never change. He’s always going to be the love of my life. His pain started small and gradually got worse, and worse, and worse. I spent years taking Chris to doctors, begging anyone for help. It reached a point where it became too much for him. It was hell. Chris sucked it up. We were still a family. We did things together. Everyone knew Chris was in pain, and during that time it pained me seeing Chris that way. We had a great marriage that everyone saw. My kids had the best dad, and I had the best husband. “The pain started and that changed everything.” Chris spent the summer of 2010 in his bedroom. He was severely depressed and did not see the point of living anymore. Justin was so worried about him that he spent the summer with his father, watching TV. The only time Justin left his side was when Tracy came to bed, or to get his father food.

As a result of his ordeal, Byrd (with wife Tracy and son Justin) would see family bonds stretched to the breaking point. (Photo by Jens-Ulrich Koch/DDP/AFP via Getty Images) The rage and thoughts of suicide subsided for a time, though the pain continued to worsen. It reached another crescendo in 2017. Tracy hid anything that Chris could grab to possibly harm himself, like knives and medication. One weekday morning in April 2017, Chris got up from another bad night. “That morning I woke up from the pain and I couldn’t take it anymore; all I wanted to do was take some pills and go to sleep for good,” he remembered. “I used to sit in my garage all day and not talk to anyone. I remember telling Tracy that I wanted to end it all. For me, life was over. No one was able to help me. I couldn’t take medication because of my mental state. This was the eighth or ninth time I went through this. My family was used to it. “But this outburst was worse than the others. I was in pain everywhere. When you’re in real pain, you don’t think right. It’s when it got super serious. I would say that it was the closest I ever came to doing something. I wanted to walk into the ocean, and when I thought I would float back to the shore, I didn’t want my family to see me that way. I remember sitting on the ledge in my backyard, and I wanted to leave the house.

He may have been small, but Byrd could always hang with the heavyweights. (Photo by Johnny Louis/FilmMagic) “My family tried to grab me and I threw them off me. I would go crazy. It would be like blacking out. I had been going to doctors every day, and I had enough. When I finally broke, I broke. It led to that.” Chris walked through the front gate with tears streaming down his face. Drunk on emotion, his ungainly stroll led him to a local park a few blocks away. Laurie followed from a distance. When Chris sat on the swing, Laurie approached him to see if he was OK. Chris sneered at her, warning her away. Chris kept repeating, “I want to kill myself; I want to cut off my foot; I don’t want to live anymore.” “The pain was so unbearable, and I kept telling him that I couldn’t understand what he was going through; it was like Chris was possessed,” recalled Laurie. “I looked at Chris and it was like I didn’t know this person. “I was scared of him because I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I was there to protect him, too. To see him go through that broke my heart. I talked to him and I told him, ‘Momma wouldn’t want to see you like this.’ That calmed him down. (Rose passed away in June 2015.) “It was like an angel came down and landed on his shoulder. He calmed down. He said, ‘You’re right. She wouldn’t.’” The pair started laughing and everything went silent. They eased back up, brother and sister, and walked to the house. It seemed like a lifetime to get there, with Chris repeatedly saying, “I’m good, I’m good.” “That’s the closest I came to actually doing something extreme. Then a million thoughts go through your head that you can’t do it,” Chris said. “It hit me that those committed to suicide are committed to doing it. I thought about how many people I would hurt. I was never committed to doing it. I didn’t want to cause my family any pain. That’s what saved me. I second-guessed myself the whole time.” Four months later, a chance meeting changed everything. *** What Chris Byrd experienced is very much like what many retired NFL veterans go through, living with omnipresent pain. He was dealing with 11 years of no sleep while in constant agony. He was growing psychotic. Today, Byrd says he is in a good, lucid state of mind. That journey to recovery began in August 2017 while among a group of people discussing the medicinal benefits of cannabidiol (CBD), one of the many chemical compounds found in marijuana. But unlike THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive component, CBD has no intoxicating effect. This is where Chris met Tammie Thomas, a cannabis consultant. She didn’t know anything about Byrd but felt instant compassion when Chris shuffled up as the last speaker of the meeting. His feet didn’t spread more than 12 inches apart as he walked to the front of the group. Within seconds, Chris was sobbing. “I couldn’t believe that they had Chris speaking,” Thomas remembered. “He was announced as a former two-time heavyweight champion. This guy? A former two-time heavyweight champion? My heart hurt for him.

“Afterward, I knew Chris was going to be bombarded with people, so I passed along my number to him. Chris told me he suffered from neuropathy, which destroys your nerves. It’s very hard to combat and hard to treat. I told Chris I knew I could help him, and Chris was shocked, because for 11 years he had gone to every doctor he could to deal with the pain.” Byrd waited a week to call Thomas and asked her for a home consultation. His entire family, who had grown frustrated with Chris’ behavior, would be on hand to listen to Thomas talk about the therapeutic benefits of cannabis. Thomas noticed something about the Byrd family as she spoke to them. In her opinion, they were done with him. “Chris couldn’t finish a sentence without his family answering for him,” she said. “I asked Chris what he was going through, and his family just cut him off. They treated him like a washed-up fighter that they put in the corner. I remember being with Chris alone in his kitchen as he was making his smoothie, and he looked at me and said he wanted to start boxing again. “He had this look that no matter what anyone thought, he was going to fight. I remember leaving the house that day thinking he had no support and no one believed in him. I thought about it again that night and if he had one person to believe in him, he was going to be able to do it. Chris was ready to check out. Chris did put his family through some hell, too, but there were people who did give up on Chris.” From Tracy’s perspective, she was protecting Chris from himself. “I didn’t and don’t want to see Chris fight again, and I would do anything to this day to protect him,” Tracy said. “I still care about Chris. I would consider myself blessed to love again the way I loved Chris. No one ever checked out on Chris. It was torture for me and torture for the kids. I finished Chris’ sentences – but I did that the whole time Chris and I were together. I fought for him for 12 years, and I checked out when he started getting involved with these new people in his life and Chris wanted to fight again. “Fighters go through life thinking it’s only us who go through pain. It can create mental illness.” – Lamon Brewster “Chris’ family still supports and loves him. No one wants to see Chris get hurt. I stayed, and I stayed, and I stayed. This wasn’t Chris Byrd, the underdog guy boxing loved. I checked out when it reached a point of no return. He was set in his mind that he was going to fight again. He’s completely different. But it will kill me to ever see Chris get hurt. I would die for him.” Thomas told the Byrds that if you took the whole cannabis plant from the ground and used it raw, it’s proven to have strong medicinal purposes – though only in high doses. “If people think they can smoke a joint and it’s going to cure all of their ailments, it’s the farthest thing from the truth. It’s a pain pill; it’s temporary; it’s a band-aid,” Thomas said. “When the high wears off, you’re back in pain again. The first two, three months with Chris, he was on 1,500 to 3,000 milligrams a day, drinking it and doing suppositories. “Those were our two primary methods of delivery. When you do it through the rectum, you don’t get high, because it bypasses the liver. When you inhale, ingest or smoke cannabis with THC, it processes through the liver, which converts it into a psychoactive compound. By doing suppositories, that’s avoided.” Three years after they met, Byrd has been relatively pain-free.

If not for the smile, many boxing fans probably wouldn’t recognize the slimmed-down Byrd of today. (Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images) “Once Chris’ body was healed, he is probably doing about 100 milligrams a day as maintenance to control inflammation, not because he needs anything healed,” Thomas said. Another cathartic moment occurred in 2018, while on a speaking engagement in Yuma, Arizona, with Chris’ cousin, former WBO heavyweight titlist Lamon Brewster. Now 47 and mentoring at-risk children in Indianapolis, Indiana, Brewster was with Byrd during a massage therapy session. The masseuse struck a nerve in Byrd’s left ankle and he exploded in agony. Brewster could feel the emotion from across the room. “And it was good, because we’re fighters and we make a living hiding our pain,” Brewster said. “We’re programmed to do that. Fighters go through life thinking it’s only us who go through pain. It can create mental illness. Chris sat up and slammed his first down on the mat. He said, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t deal with this for the rest of my life.’ “The one thing about being a champion is we’re normally by ourselves a lot. When you’re alone like that and you’re in pain, there is no one you can express that to and explain what you’re feeling. I never saw Chris like that before. It caught me totally off guard; I didn’t try to calm him down. What he was going through I would put no one on earth through. “I kept encouraging him to talk more. I wanted him to get it all out. If the river is overflowing, you don’t try to stop it. I kept telling him, ‘Let it out! Let it out, cousin!’ Read the full article

[maneaterwithtail]

I was answered TWICE in this Q&A

Helps also put in perspective their production, aims, and the influences

Helps as really unpacking along with @pirateshenani and @cartoonemotion the influence and differences and aims with the adaptation

Thanks to all the Toonzone Forum Members for submitting questions to the Fangbone! Fan Q&A! Your questions were awesome and so were the creators’ answers! We hope you enjoy reading through the answers as much as we did. Participating in the Answers portion of the Fangbone! Q&A were the creator and book series writer, Michael Rex and the tv showrunners Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott. (Editor’s Note: Questions asked were edited for brevity and clarity.) Will Fangbone! be renewed for Season 2? (superkeegan9100 and SparkleMan) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott: By Grom’s bottomless dimples, it shall be so! (we hope) Michael Rex: Fingers crossed! --- Will Fangbone! air on any additional countries, networks and in other languages? (Ryan, RandomMe, NeoplanDan, I.R. Shokew) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott: Absolutely. Fangbone! will appear across the world in a multitude of tongues in a multitude of places – that are too numerous for us to list (or remember). Perhaps one of our many traveling salespeople who criss-cross the world with a suitcase full of Fangbone! might chime in here… In all seriousness, Fangbone! Distributor DHX Media, has currently sold the series into Disney XD US, South East Asia, Taiwan, and Latin America. Hope to announce additional countries in the near future. Stay posted. Will the books be translated into other languages? In what other languages/regions can we expect to see the books published? (RandomMe) Michael Rex:Right now, there are no plans for translating the books. I’m hoping as the show starts playing in different countries, the publisher, Putnam, will solicit the books to foreign markets. --- If you could be one of the characters on the show, who would you be? (D-nice is the man) Simon Racioppa: Drool’s giant badger monster. He’s clearly just misunderstood and trying his best every day for an unappreciative master… Richard Elliott: I would definitely be a Shadowstepper – skulking in the shadows and outwitting barbarians sounds like a good time to me. Michael Rex:I’ve always thought of myself as Bill. At the end of 3rd grade, my school closed down, and I was sent to a new school. Literally all of my closest friends went to another school. So, when 4th grade started, I was very lonely and desperate for a best friend. Eventually, a boy named Mark moved into my hometown in New Jersey, and we became great friends. He was fun, and a bit wild, and had long black hair. We’re still friends today. Will Fangbone! have Christmas and Halloween episodes? (Ryan) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott: Skullbanians don’t celebrate Christmas or Halloween. But they do have many other holidays – like Troll-smasher’s Eve and The Feast of Stoneback’s Feast. Endless possibilities for fun and adventure as you look at, compare and try to understand how Skullbanian’s celebrate versus how we do things here on Earth. What would Fangbone! think of Halloween? What would a Holiday Tree look like in Skullbania? Stay tuned. --- Does Fangbone! have parents? (Eggy) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott: He has the mightiest of parents! But they are away in far off lands on an epic quest. However, those of you with the eyes of a blood-eagle may catch a glimpse of them in an upcoming episode. If you do not have the eyes of a blood-eagle, they nest on sharp mountain peaks. But be careful – they peck! Michael Rex:Yes. They’re on a great quest somewhere in Skullbania. Also, how did Venomous Drool become Fangbone! and Bill's worst enemy? (Eggy) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott: If someone was keeping your detached big toe from you and wouldn’t give it back, you probably wouldn’t be pals with them either… Michael Rex:They’ve got his toe, and he needs it back. And, they keep beating him, and they’re only kids. It drives him nuts. --- How do you take an episode from concept to it airing? (martikhoras) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott: Let us explain… No, there is too much. Let us sum up. First, five or six NERDS gather in a small room and try to imagine what insanity could happen to Fangbone! this week. They argue and fight and cry and hiss at each other until the showrunners (that’s us!) are satisfied they’ve worked their butts off to come up with the best of all possible stories in the universe and beyond. They’re sent away to dank dark holes to write their scripts, which are then torn apart by the rest of the nerds and reassembled until they’re so full of adventure and comedy that they leak all over the floor. Then trumpets are sounded and ACTORS assembled in a recording studio – where they ACT with such passion it drives everyone to tears (of joy). At the same time, ARTISTS design all the new locations, characters, and props that the writers say they desperately need (liars!) to make their script work. Then trumpets are sounded again and the finished script, designs, and recorded actors are handed over to a story-bored artist… Sorry, story BOARD artist – who listens to the writers explain how amazing their script is, then drinks enormous amounts of coffee and draws PANELS from the script one by one, matching the recorded actors and making that ‘amazing’ ‘script’ and ‘amazing’ ‘acting’ even better. Those panels go to the DIRECTOR, who along with an EDITOR, assemble it into an animated and voiced storyboard that we call a LEICA on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and an ANIMATIC on Tuesdays, Fridays, and the weekend. When the animatic/leica makes everyone giddy with excitement, it moves onto ANIMATION, where thousands (twenty-five) animators fight each other to animate the most exiting scenes – matching the animatic as closely as possible. The episode gets a few more passes to make it even better (fix all the mistakes) and then moves on to the real stars of the show – sound effects and music – who make everything approximately one million and a half times better. Then it’s a final pass for last minute mistakes and TA-DA! One finished Fangbone! episode ready for people to share for free on the Internet (please don’t share it for free on the Internet). What are your favorite parts of the show’s creative process? (Harley) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott: Seeing a goofy idea that started in the writers’ room as a “what if…” become a real finished episode. Also, the creative process of deciding what to order for lunch. Then the creative process of regretting what we ordered for lunch. --- As a fan of the tv show, how familiar will jumping into the book series feel? (jfoley85) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott: As familiar as traveling to an alternate reality where everything’s kinda the same but your parents are snakes. So mostly familiar with some specific differences. Michael Rex:They’re actually pretty close. One of the things that I am most happy with about the show is that it IS the books. While the stories in the books are a bit more involved than an 11-minute episode, the entirety of season 1 goes much deeper than the books. On the down side, the books don’t have a cool song at the beginning. Every adaptation is a challenge from visuals, to performers depictions, and direction and framing. I'm noticing some changes from the two GNs (1st and 3rd) I've read to the episodes I've seen (pretty much up to Back of Stone). What would you say has been added, changed, or dropped and what is the purpose of these changes? (martikhoras) Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott:While the books are wonderful gateways into imagination, there’s only three of them. The television series is a hungry monster that requires more. Always more... MORE characters. MORE stories. MORE episodes. MORE human sacrifices to GROM! Michael Rex:Everything that has been added was done to open up the show, and allow for more varied stories. Skullbania doesn’t get much time in the books, but the creative team felt that it needed to be a big part of the show. Twinklestick was created as a way for Fangbone! to stay a bit more connected to his home world. Drool was greatly expanded on as well. He only lurks in the background in the books. Even though his actions are constantly felt, he doesn’t really get to do much. --- What did you read and watch as a kid? What were the inspirations for Fangbone! and Skullbania?(martikhoras) Michael Rex:Growing up the early 70’s, “Planet of the Apes” was everywhere. 5 movies, a TV show, and an action figure line made it easy to get wrapped up in. “Star Wars” came out in 1977 and it affected me deeply. Like many others in my generation, it felt like my 9 year-old imagination had been transported directly to the screen. I started reading about movie making, and I tried to understand the mythology Lucas was using in his films. (As a 10 year old, Joseph Campbell was a tough slog, but I tried.) Fangbone! is directly inspired by the 1982 film, “Conan The Barbarian,” which I saw in 8th grade. It was funny, gritty, violent, and exciting and I just loved it. Conan had always been around when I was younger, I’d see his comics and cheap paperbacks in drugstores, but I didn’t know much about him until the film came out. When I was older, I eventually got around to reading the Conan books by Robert E. Howard. As I was gearing up to write the first Fangbone! book, I devoured a huge pile of Marvel’s “Savage Sword of Conan.” Oddly, now that I think about it, Skullbania’s vast deserts and rocky vistas are probably inspired by “Planet of the Apes.” It’s hard to escape those early influences.

[knotsandknives]

prompt fill for anonymous who said: Soooo…how did Robert get that scar?!?!??!

“Just leave it, Joe.”

Joseph frowns, still tracing a gentle finger over the prominent scar cutting an impressive line between Robert’s pectoral muscles. They’re lounging in the half-light that is Robert’s bedroom at dusk. Robert’s smoking his fourth post-coital cigarette, despite Joseph’s disapproval (“It’s my room, sweetcheeks. You’re free to leave.”), and neither of them have made any attempt at getting redressed. Joseph needs to get home, knows his kids are going to be asking after him, that Mary will be getting anxious to head out for the night, but he can’t quite bring himself to leave, not now that he’s finally worked up the courage to ask about Robert’s mark.

“Is it something completely embarrassing?” he tries again, voice light. “Like, I have a scar on my knee from giving Chris a horsey ride around the backyard and crawling right over top of -”

“Stop,” Robert interrupts, and his tone is such that Joseph doesn’t need to be told twice. “It’s not cute or funny or anecdotey. I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Fucking drop it.” He sits up from his reclined position, dislodging Joseph where he’d been propped up against his chest.

Joseph lets himself be pushed to the side, lets Robert roll his way out of bed, watches him stalk to the en suite and shut the door firmly between them. Light filters out from under the door, too bright in the once-comfortable gloom. Joseph hears the water running, what sounds like Robert washing his face. He shifts onto his back with a sigh, cursing himself for pushing it. If there’s one thing he knows about Robert after all these years, it’s that he doesn’t like to be pushed.

But Joseph also knows that, after all these years, he’s earned a little bit of pushiness, damn it. He’s been there enough, shown up enough, proven himself enough to deserve Robert’s trust. Joseph doesn’t understand why he’s still so closed off, after everything. After what they are to each other. Joseph trusts Robert with his life. Literally because one word to the wrong person could see Joseph’s carefully constructed sham of a marriage crumbling at his feet. But he trusts Robert to keep his secrets. The fact that Robert doesn’t feel the same is a source of endless frustration and anxiety. If Robert doesn’t see this as a relationship, one where trust and communication are key, then what are they even doing? What is Joseph even doing here?

The bathroom door creaks open before Joseph can get up and gather his things in a fit of crippling doubt. Robert stands in the frame, still naked as the day he was born, backlit, but Joseph can see the regretful furrow of his brow.

“Still here, huh?” he says, lowly, but there’s no harshness to his voice now. Joseph recognizes the chagrin that always colors his words after one of his outbursts. He smiles softly, shrugging, and it’s enough of an invitation for Robert to slide back in the bed, farther away than before but still present. He’d left the light on in the bathroom, and it spills across the room through the ajar door.

Joseph watches Robert’s eyes, a washed out brown in the artificial light. Robert is brushing ash from the sheets, shaken loose by his abrupt departure. At least he’d remembered to stub the cigarette out on his way. What he’s really doing is avoiding Joseph’s gaze, but Joseph has four kids. He’s familiar with the tactic. And he’s always been too patient for his own good.

Eventually, Robert blows out a breath, reaching across the space between them to take Joseph’s elbow, pulling him close. Joseph considers resisting, on principle, but he never wants to miss a chance to be near Robert. They settle much like they were before, Joseph’s head tucked against Robert’s neck, Robert’s arm behind his shoulders. Joseph keeps his hands to himself, for now, punishing Rob a little. He didn’t miss how this position gives Robert an excuse not to meet his eyes. He doesn’t speak, either. There’s no need to make this too easy on Robert.

“Sorry,” Robert finally mutters, low enough that Joseph could ignore it. Robert probably wants him to. But after all this time, he knows better than to expect Joseph to keep quiet about anything.

“I’m sorry, too,” Joseph says immediately, shifting so the words aren’t mumbled into Robert’s collarbone. “I know I’m a little pushy sometimes, but I can never get you to talk to me otherwise, Rob. And you know I only ask because I care about you, and I want to know things about you because I want to know you better, and I just wa-”

Robert closes a hand over his mouth, not ungently. Joseph rolls his lips together, swallowing the rest of his rambling. He gazes up at the side of Robert’s face, waiting.

“I don’t see how collecting useless facts about people’s past qualifies as knowing them,” Robert starts, pressing harder when Joseph tries to protest against his hand. “I think it’s enough that we know each other as we are now, without all the minutiae. But,” he says, louder, not giving in to Joseph’s huffs of displeasure, “I know knowing these things is important you. I don’t always like your asking about them, and I don’t always want to tell you, and I won’t always tell you, but I know you like to know. And it’s…nice. That you care enough to ask.”

The last words sound like they took everything in Robert to say, like he’d forced them past years of deep-set, ingrained reticence. Joseph rewards his effort with a kiss to his open palm, still resting against Joseph’s lips. Robert’s fingers twitch, but he doesn’t remove his hand.

“You wanted to know how I got the scar?” he checks, nodding back when Joseph bobs his head, movements kept small with the hand over his mouth. “Bike accident,” he says, then amends it when Joseph’s eyes go wide. “Not like motorcycle.” Robert sighs, closing his eyes. Joseph has given up wondering when he’s going to drop his hand. It seems to bring him some measure of comfort, knowing he can tell the story at his own pace without Joseph being able to interject. Joseph wonders how much he actually talks, that Robert feels the need to silence him. It might be time for a little self-reflection on the matter.

Robert is silent for a spell, breath syncing up with the soft exhalations Joseph breathes against the back of his hand. He smells like nicotine and the generic, dollar store hand soap he always keeps in the bathroom. It’s soothing.

“I took Val for a bike ride at the shitty, slummy park near our shitty, slummy house. She must have been like seven or eight.” Robert pauses, swallowing hard. Joseph can hear his heartbeat beneath his ear, nervous and uneven. He kisses Robert’s palm again, spreading his own against the expanse of Robert’s flat stomach. “I was wasted,” Robert grits out, years of guilt and regret lacing the words. “I was always wasted, back then.” He gives a short, humorless laugh, not robust enough to shift Joseph. “I guess it’s not too much different from now, except I couldn’t hold my liquor as well then. Definitely not well enough to watch a kid, steer a bike, and smoke. I was mostly focused on the cigarette,” he continues, bitterly. “Like, of all things. That was most important to me. Anyway, there was a big hill that lead down to the parking lot. Val liked to ride down there so we could have coasting contests, see who could go the longest without pedaling. We’d fuckin’ book it down that hill, then coast around the parking lot until one of us fell over.”

Robert’s voice sounds thick, rich with memory as much as emotion, and Joseph considers breaking away from the hand over his mouth to tell him it’s okay, he doesn’t have to go on. But now that he’s started, Robert seems determined to finish. He takes a couple shuddery breaths before he continues.

“I don’t even remember getting to the top of that hill, that’s how gone I was. I just remember being pissed at how windy it was that day. I couldn’t get my cigarette lit, and Val was needling me, trying to get me to hurry up. I,” Robert sounds angry now, at himself. At the world. “I yelled at her. Told her to stop being such a needy little shit. She started to cry, and I was frustrated, and was just like ‘fine! let’s go!’ and took off without her.” He shakes his head, and Joseph can see the tension in his jaw. “I was drunk, and mad, and only had one hand on the bike. It was a gravel path. I ate shit. Like, spectacularly. Fucked everything up. Concussion. Broken wrist. This,” he gestures to the scar, disgustedly. “Val had to ride home for help. Seven years old, had to ride home by herself to tell her mom that her drunken asshole of a dad was lying at the bottom of a hill, passed out and bleeding everywhere. She had to see that, you know? She had to see that and react to it and -” He stops again, jerking away from Joseph to sit at the edge of the bed, breathing hard and shaking just slightly.

Joseph sits up more slowly, missing the weight of his hand already. He follows Robert to the edge, kneeling up behind him. He slips his arms around his chest carefully, unsure of his welcome, but Robert leans back into his touch. Joseph lets out a breath, hooking his chin over Robert’s shoulder, hands clasped together over the identic scar.

“That was kinda the last straw as far as me and Marilyn were concerned,” Robert tells him, quietly. Joseph can’t help the questioning noise he looses, because he knows the two of them had stayed married until Marilyn’s death. “Had myself a situation a lot like yours,” Robert clarifies, hands coming up to close around Joseph’s arms, keeping him close. His thumbs slowly stroke the jut at the outside of Joseph’s wrists. “We stayed together but it wasn’t…we weren’t together. Not that I blame her.” Another humorless laugh. “I didn’t even deserve that. She should have left. Taken Val and never seen me again.”

“Rob,” Joseph starts, but Robert squeezes his wrists, tight. Joseph is tired of being silenced, but letting Robert get it all out is more important that Joseph getting a word in edgewise.

“So that’s the story of the scar. Glamorous as you were hoping?” Robert asks, but it isn’t really a question.

Joseph turns his head, resting his cheek on Robert’s shoulder, thinking. “I would have stuck with you, too,” Joseph tells him, quietly. Robert scoffs, and Joseph talks over him. “Listen, I can’t pretend to know why Marilyn did it. Why she stayed. But if she ever felt even close to the way I feel about you, and if she saw the person I see, under the booze and the self-destruction and the cynicism, then she had a reason for -”

Robert interrupts him again, but not with words. He takes a sobbing, shuddering breath, face turned away from Joseph. He drops the hands on Joseph’s arms to cover his face, scrubbing at his eyes roughly. Joseph sits up slightly, mortified but also strangely gratified at finally drawing some kind of emotional reaction out of Robert. He drops a kiss at the back of Robert’s neck, running both hands up through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead. Joseph kisses him again and again, the side of his neck, the shell of his ear, the crown of his head. Robert’s breath catches a few more times before finally evening out. He sighs explosively, leaning back into Joseph’s embrace again.

“I think I love you, you know that?”

Joseph closes his eyes, nose pressed to Robert’s smoke-scented hair. They breathe in unison for a while, sitting naked on the edge of Robert’s giant bed, yellow light warming their features.

“I know.”

[recentanimenews]

Anime in America Podcast: Full Episode 6 Transcript

  We may not be able to go to the movies right now, but at least we can live vicariously through anime history in the latest episode of Crunchyroll's Anime in America podcast. Read on for the full episode 6 transcript! 

  The Anime in America series is available on crunchyroll.com, animeinamerica.com, and wherever you listen to podcasts. 

  EPISODE 6: AT THE MOVIES: EVENTUALLY

Guest: Jerry Beck

  Disclaimer: The following program contains language not suitable for all ages. Discretion advised.

  [Lofi music]

  There is one name you HAVE to talk about when it comes to anime. A foundational influence on the entire medium and an enervating force in the animation market. A man without whom we may not even have the anime we know and love today.

  It’s not Tezuka, but good guess.

  When it comes to the world of animation, and honestly most media, all roads lead back to Walt Disney. The man who all the animators in Japan’s growing post-war industry were trying to emulate. Most prominent among them, the legendary manga author and Japanese national treasure Osamu Tezuka who truly lived up to Walt’s legacy both by popularizing the medium of animation and establishing many regrettable business practices still felt in the modern industry. 

  Disney’s beloved animated features were the envy of every studio on both sides of the Pacific and the pursuit of that special magic Walt brought to the silver screen was what kicked off the race to bring Japanese animation to America. So, I guess…we can start there.

  [Lofi music]

  In the ‘50s Toei Animation was basically the only major animation studio in Japan and had the stated intent of becoming “The Disney of the East.” Toei’s first 3 films, Hakujaden, Shonen Sautobi Sasuke, and Saiyuki were all released near the end of that decade and all stuck very closely to the Disney formula, retelling traditional folktales with colorful animation, plenty of cute animals, and, in the case of Saiyuki, musical interludes.

  Back home in the U.S., Disney was deep in a run of blockbuster releases with titles like Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and, umm [cough] Song of the South. Just about every major studio was trying to figure out how to steal some of that thunder. Metro-Goldwyn Mayer was one such studio who considered Disney their rivals at the box office. If you wanna know how that turned out for MGM, uh, Disney acquired their parent company Fox in March 2019.

  It was never much of a rivalry to begin with. MGM put out a behind the scenes docu series called The MGM Parade aping Disney’s “The Magical World of Disney” series in 1955 and decided to close their animation department in 1957, the heads of which, a Mr. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, would depart along with most of the staff to form the very successful Hanna-Barbera Productions. 

  So, what do you do when you want to compete with a company like Disney in animated features but don’t want to go to the trouble of producing any animated features? MGM became the first company to license and release a Japanese anime in the United States, premiering Toei’s Shonen Sarutobi Sasuke, retitled Magic Boy, in theaters in July 8th, 1961, winning a close race against Global Pictures and American International by only two months ahead their releases of Toei’s two other films, Hakujaden, retitled Panda and the Magic Serpent, and Saiyuki, retitled Alakhazam the Great.

  They didn’t do too great, which probably explains why between those three movies released in 1961 and Hayao Miyazaki’s debut in American cinemas in 1986, only 3 other anime made it to theaters in the U.S. 

  Not even Tezuka’s magic could break open the box office for anime in the ‘70s. His production company, Mushi Production, had two films, A Thousand and One Nights and Cleopatra: Queen of Sex that were both released early in the decade and flopped. In the case of the latter, Xanadu Productions’s attempt to sell the erotic historical drama as a porno probably didn’t help.

  The rest of the following two decades saw plenty of anime films being released in the West but only for direct to video releases with major Japanese studios leaning hard into this new market. Many U.S. distributors were now exploiting Japanese studios to animate their own cartoons, so many of the same era took on a sort of Western bend. Toei Animation in particular released a number of films during that period that seem pretty focused on replicating that Disney formula even more closely, using Western history and folktales as source material. Some of my favorite examples are The World of Hans Christian Andersen (originally Anderson Monogatari), Les Miserables (originally Jean Valjean Monogatari), 30,000 Miles Under the Sea (yes, miles), Animal Treasure Island, and even Puss n’ Boots (who became Toei’s logo) during the ‘70s.

  [Music from “Toei Logo History” plays]

  In 1986, Hayao Miyazaki finally appeared in the American scene. If you haven’t heard of him… how the fuck not? How is that possible? I don’t, I don’t understand. Often referred to as the Walt Disney of Japan, Miyazaki is the primary creative force of what would become the internationally renowned Studio Ghibli which we’ll get into a bit later. Their first film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was created before the studio even had a name, wowing American audiences with its beautiful art and epic story involving environmentalist themes... kind of. Well not really, actually. Manson International and Showmen Inc. got their hands on the movie and cut it up so bad you couldn’t really call it a Miyazaki work anymore. I mean, they didn’t, they changed everything. They changed the title to Warriors of the Wind, [Clip from 1985 commercial for Warriors of the Wind] renaming Nausicaa to “Princess Zandra” and doing their best to make it an action movie while cutting out any of the environmental themes at the core of the narrative by cutting out a whole 22 minutes of the film. Then they drew up a He-Man ass poster with a whole squad of dudes and a pegasus that were not even in the movie.

  [Lofi music]

  Enter Streamline Pictures.

  Co-founded by Jerry Beck and Carl Macek. Each already working to spread the good word of anime, the two were disappointed in early dubs and brought a new philosophy to the localization game with Streamline. 

  Do. Not. Mess. With. It. Don’t do that. For your own good. 

  Beck: We were quite proud of them, because we had a theory on how to do this, which was to use the original music and effects tracks, not cut anything, uh and to do the dubs as accurately and as correctly as we possibly could, with the best actors we could get. Our model was the Warriors of the Wind, meaning we were going to be everything that movie wasn’t. We were going to be the opposite of Warriors of the Wind. 

  That was the man, Jerry Beck himself. The formula was simple, arguably a lot less work than completely changing a movie to shoe-horn it into some western film archetype, the two-man company began visiting Japanese studios… or rather their Los Angeles offices since every major Japanese studio had one of those in the 1980’s, and asking for dubbing and distribution rights.

  Both passionate anime fans, the two had a ton of knowledge of emerging anime titles and an interest in bringing many of them over which larger studios would have passed up for dumb reasons like “profitability.”

  Beck: We literally made a checklist that we got all the films. We wanted Fist of the Northstar, we wanted Wicked City, we wanted Vampire Hunter D, we wanted Castle of Cagliostro, we wanted- you know, we wanted Lensmen, but I’m not sure why, I actually know why at the time, but that’s such an odd film. So, but we ended up getting them all.

  After handling the theatrical screenings of the Mangum Dub of Castle in the Sky, Macek secured a deal with Japanese publisher Tokuma Shoten to dub future titles, including My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service. After that they went on a tear, where they were basically the only company in the game theatrically releasing anime from 1985 to 1995, averaging almost 2 movies a year in a period where non-Streamline anime films could be counted on one hand with room to spare. 

  I cannot emphasize enough how much Streamline did for anime in America. They even helped the medium properly break into American television in the early ‘90s alongside Central Park Media by contributing to Syfy’s anime block which aired Dominion Tank Police, Robot Carnival, Project A-Ko, Vampire Hunter D, and another film brought to the U.S. by Streamline which could be considered their greatest achievement.

  Akira. Or AH-ki-ra [first syllable stress], if you’re a purist.

  Beck: Marvel Comics was printing an adaptation of Akira and we knew about the film [Requiem from Akira plays]. And at that point, that was like, of course like ‘88 or so, you know there were already bootleg VHS copies for sale at comic book conventions and stuff. But we looked at it and went “oh my God, this is like state of the art, you know? This is really a big deal for film.” And I don’t even think we had seen it on the big screen or anything, we just knew we wanted it, if it was gettable. And the good news was that the Akira Committee was kinda desperately wanted it to be shown in America, and they had gone to Paramount, Universal, Fox, everywhere, trying to get somebody to pick up Akira, and nobody would because it was too violent. The idea of that kind of thing being shown in America was, you know, unthinkable. So we were like “we’ll do it!” 

  Akira was a cultural and technological achievement in animation. It set a new record number of colors used in an animated feature at 327, 50 of which were unique colors created specifically for the movie. You could fill a mega size box of Crayons with colors that only exist thanks to Akira, which is insane. The film consisted of 160,000 frames, clocking in at almost 3 times the average for an animated feature of that same length. It was also the most expensive anime film ever produced at the time with a budget of 1.1 billion Japanese Yen. As Jerry said, it was also intensely violent, considered graphic in Japan and especially in America which still considered animation almost wholly a realm of children’s entertainment. The Akira Committee was desperate to get it in American theaters. And obviously, there were difficulties. 

  After being collectively shot down by Hollywood, the Akira Committee was approached by the small and unproven Streamline with a unique offer: if the Akira Committee could put up the cost to dub and distribute, Streamline would give them 100% of the profits up to a cap before beginning to collect their own percentage.

  And it was not easy. Jerry had to negotiate for months with an agent from the committee who basically watched their operation at work to make sure they knew what they were doing. Then Streamline was given an opportunity to prove themselves by hosting a screening of the film in the Spreckles theater at ComicCon. Only once they pulled that off did the committee ink the deal, but with one demand. They were adamant about getting a quality dub and wanted someone who had, at the very least, been nominated for an Academy Award to manage it. At the very least. Carl Macek had one of his associates search around and eventually they landed on Sheldon Renan, who had previously received recognition from the Motion Pictures Association of America for a documentary short just to fit the bill. 

  [Akira versus Kaneda, english dub clip]

  And it was a hit. Screenings pulled in profits on par with or even exceeding critically acclaimed live action foreign films. Streamline established their reputation in the industry on the success of Akira, and the next step was home video, which turned into another battle for Streamline as one of the principles of the committee, Kodansha, was intent on selling out the rights to a large distributor based on Akira’s success in theaters. Still they were turned down and once again, despite not even being a home video distributor, Streamline made an offer.

  Beck: We said to them, you know, we’re gonna get you the reviews, you’re going to get reviews in every town. We got Siskel and Ebert, they reviewed it; we got it on Entertainment Tonight, we got it everywhere. And so we were doing all this stuff, the idea though, the goal, was to get all this coverage and then they would go, they would instead of going to movie studios they would go to the home video people and try to convince them to put it out on home video. No home video distributor wanted it. Nobody. Because there was nowhere, we found out later, there was no place in a video store, then, for them to put it. They couldn’t put it in the kids’ cartoon section, the idea of putting it in science fiction, I don’t know why that didn’t work, that should’ve worked, but they probably had Heavy Metal there, but they for some reason that was not a thing that- they didn’t, there was nowhere to put what we call “anime” in a video store at that time. They did say to us “you gotta have a bunch of them. Five, six, seven, and we’ll create a shelf, we’ll put a shelf in our stores.” This is what Blockbuster said, this is what Suncoast said. So we ended up, we ended up, what we did was we got the vid- they couldn’t sell the video rights, so WE got the video rights, even though we weren’t a video company! And so we ended up putting out Akira on VHS. We couldn’t sell it in video stores. So we ended up- and there was no Ebay or Amazon, that didn’t exist, so we actually went to comic book stores and obviously it was the perfect thing to do, because Akira was a comic book, it was manga, and Marvel was printing it. And we ended up selling them to comic book stores and we- it worked. It was exclusive to comic book stores, it was the only place you could get it. Oh my God, we sold… thousands. 

  Streamline hung up its hat with the release of Space Adventure Cobra in 1995 but many of their partners who handled the theatrical distribution like Tara Releasing and Fathom Events continued without them. Just as TV anime was headed toward its own watershed moment, the field for anime movies broadened in the second half of the ‘90s. Manga Entertainment brought over Ghost in the Shell with Palm Pictures in 1996. VIZ Media broke into films by capitalizing on Ranma ½’s growing popularity with the release of Ranma ½ the Movie: Big Trouble in Nekonron China alongside CBS theatrical in 1998. 

  And then the big one came. 4Kids partnered with Kids WB and dropped Pokemon: The First Movie in 1999. And to call it a smash hit for anime movies would be an understatement. [Pokemon: The First Movie, trailer 1 plays] I saw it. Because my dad bought the VHS from one of those dudes that sold bootlegs in the Kroger parking lot. The one he hand recorded himself. You remember those? We had ‘em. 

  The movie hit $10.1 million in the box office on its opening day, which was a Wednesday, by the way. Over its opening weekend it would climb to $31 million and eventually cap out at $85 million at the box office which has remained the record anime movie in the United States for 20 years. For a moment in time it even claimed the best opening weekend for an animated feature full stop until Toy Story 2 dropped two weeks later. [Pokemon Bumper - 2000] Plastic-faced newscasters began referring to its opening weekend as “Pokeflu,” since so many kids mysteriously called in sick from school the same day.

  “Pokemania Comes to America - 1999, ABC News”: Pokemon is now in full mania! And others may follow suit, when a new Pokemon movie hit theaters this fall, spurring even more… Pokemania.

  "’Pokémania’: 1999 MSNBC Pokémon News Report”: School officials are finding that Pokemon cards are responsible for fist fights and the constant trading is not only distracting kids from classwork, but turning the playground into a black market. 

  And ya know what? Given recent events, Pokeflu sounds very racist. But that’s what they called it. 

  Anime was still a few years off from its Oscar grab and even today hasn’t fully reached acceptance as a respected form of media, but the Pokemon movie proved there was lots and lots of money to be made from anime if you played your cards right. Although it’s difficult to tell if that's what 4Kids and Warner Bros did. Each subsequent Pokemon movie pulled in roughly half what the previous managed. Pokemon: The Movie 2000 scored a total box office of $43 million and Pokemon 3: The Movie grabbed $17 million before the whole thing fell off a cliff. Pokemon 4Ever pulled in only $1.7 million and Pokemon Heroes didn’t even crack $1 million. Mind you, this still gives Pokemon the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 19th highest box offices of anime films in the U.S., so, you know, what do I know?

  Pokemon’s explosive success at the box office inspired other attempts to grab some of that Disney demographic. Fox was the first to jump after the 1999 success of the first Pokemon movie with Digimon: The Movie which I’m definitely gonna talk about in a little bit. 4Kids itself also tried to recapture that Pokemon magic as the franchise was showing diminishing returns with Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light.

  Unfortunately the Pokemon movies were also a return to form for crazed American producers with scissors. 4Kids onigiri erasure in Pokemon TV series is notorious on its own, but its former president Norman Grossfeld also feared the Pokemon: The Movie movie would do poorly as written. Casting Mewtwo as a sympathetic antagonist confused and angered the profit-minded execs who produced content for children despite probably never having children of their own. They cut out the prologue describing Mewtwo’s past as the victim of genetic experiments and made edits to portray him as a generic villain and Mew as… like some kinda savior, messiah-type thing?

  [Lofi music]

  Fox, in its desperation to compete with the success of Warner Brothers’s Pokemon looked to Digimon, spawning the creation of the cinematic chimera Digimon: The Movie. You see, there wasn’t actually a movie called Digimon: The Movie in Japan, but several short Digimon films titled Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure:... um… Children’s War Game?, and Digimon Adventure 02: Digimon Hurricane Landing!!.

  The first two had been directed by the acclaimed Mamoru Hosoda and the last by Shigeyasu Yamauchi. I really want to emphasize these were three different movies utilizing different art styles and creative processes with the last one even focusing on an almost entirely different cast of characters. So, like Harmony Gold before them, they took a knife to all three features, leaving more than 40 minutes on the cutting room floor to create a bizarrely paced, three-arc, Digimon feature before slapping on a mostly ska soundtrack and Angela Anaconda short in the beginning [Angela Anaconda part of the Digimon Movie]. The movie premiered in 2000 and was panned by critics but walked away with a $9.6 million box office, making it the 9th most successful anime film in the States, so I’m sure the producers cried all the way to the bank while the rest uh… learned that evil pays.

  Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light came later in 2004 and might be an even more bizarre feature than Digimon, since 4Kids produced the movie rather than just chopping it up after the fact. In fact, it might be the first anime film to be screened in the United States before Japan, releasing in August while Japan didn’t get the theatrical release until November. Somehow the Japanese version was still a full 14 minutes longer than the U.S. release. It’s not really clear whether Studio Gallop made the film whole cloth and 4Kids cut it down, as was their usual practice, or if they added some extra content after the fact that 4Kids didn’t want for the American audience. I guess we’ll never know.

  Since it was produced for the U.S., we did get the bonus of having all the cards appear like the actual game complete with english text, even if it sometimes appeared upside-down. Pyramid of Light also had ska music unfortunately. Umm… the 2000s was a, it was a big time for ska. Once again the movie was panned, finding a place in Rotten Tomatoes’s 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, but became the 4th most successful anime film in the U.S. ever, with a $19.8 million box office.

  But that is enough about box office for now. Now we can talk about home video releases.

  [Lofi music]

  If you’ve ever tried to catch an anime film in theaters, you’ve probably noticed that even today they usually have extremely limited showings. At Streamline’s peak, they weren’t the only company localizing anime films, they were just the only ones making a push to put them in theaters. Other publishers were going for the straight to video route, but there was one serious hang-up. Blockbuster just didn’t give a shit. 

  Streamline’s own Akira release had limited theatrical showings, meaning they were leaning heavily into home video and the movie really beat the odds, finding success in the two markets mom and pop video stores and comic shops. Bootleg fansubs of Akira had been in circulation for months before the film’s official release, so Streamline sweetened the deal by including actual original animation cels with the VHS which seems less an intelligent marketing gimmick and more of a giveaway of cultural artifacts in retrospect. Those people are probably very wealthy, now. It was probably also unnecessary. Akira’s home video success was a moment in anime history in many ways, but it was also an exception. 

  The direct to video market would never find the same success in comic shops that Akira had. You could find anime in privately owned video stories but even then they were being crowded out by mainstream outlets like Blockbuster who were much less interested in putting anime on their shelves, especially of the famously violent variety like Akira. For anime to get its foot in the door, it would need a new face that was not only child friendly but also insanely popular. I know I just talked about Pokemon’s breakout success, but its home video wouldn’t hit the shelves until 2000. Instead, the man who would help open Blockbusters’s blue and gold doors for other anime in the late ‘90s was one of its creators who most famously hates home video. Hayao Miyazaki.

  Miyazaki was already making the rounds in the U.S. via World Pictures and Streamline dubs of a few of his films which was probably fine by him, as he seems to resent the idea of people  watching his movies in any setting other than a theater, but Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki had his sights set on dominating the animation industry and Disney just happened to be in the market for international films. Former Head of Disney Home Video International Division and current CEO of Herbalife Nutrition Michael O Johnson inked a deal with Ghibli in 1996 granting global distribution rights to their entire library of films. 

  This was thanks in large part to the effort of Disney’s Steve Alpert who went so far as to film a mini-documentary in Disney studios to basically show Eisner and his fellow suits that every single person they employed to draw moving pictures was already a diehard fan of Miyazaki’s work. Alpert himself would jump ship to Ghibli to work alongside Suzuki battling his former employer at every turn to make sure they kept their promise about not cutting Ghibli films.

  Probably expecting Ghibli’s next film to be another Totoro or Kiki, Disney was shocked to see limbs flying off people's bodies in Princess Mononoke and pushed the distribution under their Miramax label to distance themselves from its morally objectionable content, which I can only assume came from a place of deep ignorance of both their own company’s history and the work of their HR department. Also the notion that um… just producing the same thing under a different wing of your company makes you any less morally objectionable… is also morally objectionable. 

  Unfortunately the Harvey Weinstein-lead Miramax was dead set on changing everything about Mononoke that it possibly could. And with Ghibli holding onto an iron-clad contract giving them final say, this transformed into all-out warfare with Miramax trying to weasel in every change they could and Alpert flying over the Pacific to nip that shit in the bud, only ending after Weinstein himself was twice humiliated in public. And to that I say: Good. First in a now iconic story wherein Suzuki presents him with a unsharpened prop sword at a meeting full of Disney and Miramax suits while shouting “Mononoke-hime NO CUT,” and then when Miyazaki and crew left in the middle of their own post-premiere party to carefully consider the suggestion Weinstein had been shouting at Alpert to chop 40 minutes off the movies runtime or they’d “never work in this town again.” And then several years later, the entire entertainment industry said “no, YOU’LL never work in this town again!” 

  Although Streamline had been following our modern era’s best practice of not messing with the source material for about a decade, Ghibli’s “no cuts” policy was one of the first pushes in that direction to come from Japan and doubtless helped to normalize the practice… eventually. As I said before, 4Kids and Fox raked in millions spinning out heavily edited films but Buena Vista bending the knee to Ghibli’s demands, the lasting cultural impact of Ghibli movies, and an increasingly saturated market of TV anime untouched by an editor’s razor eventually pushed the industry in the right direction. After all, no edited anime movies ever have been nominated for Oscars, but more on that later.

  Despite being a global hit, Princess Mononoke didn’t really take off in the way Disney had hoped, only pulling in $2.3 million in its first eight weeks. But it recovered in… that’s right, home video releases! Boom. Got ‘em. They also started churning out actual VHS releases for other Ghibli titles like Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro and then, when Streamline’s rights expired, Disney produced their own lavish dubs for DVD re-releases featuring a star-studded cast with voices like Dakota Fanning, Kirsten Dunst, Patrick Stewart, and uh, Shia LeBeouf. What?! Blockbuster was finally persuaded to start moving in anime content when Disney’s Buena Vista came knocking and the doors were officially open for more anime content.

  Ghibli was way ahead of its time in many ways and rights management was no exception. Or at least Miyazaki’s insistence on the purity of a theater-only movie-viewing experience had some unintended benefits. A mere two years before 4Kids would pull off the heist of the century screwing Shogakukan and Nintendo out of millions in profits in their deal of the explosively popular Pokemon franchise, Ghibli would deny Disney digital rights to their works in their contract. Disney was fine with that, the prevailing belief among executives being that those rights were basically useless. Ha-ha! Imagine that.

  Disney wasn’t interested in digital and if Disney, the most powerful media rights holder in the world, wasn’t going to push into that new sphere of distribution, then it was doomed to failure. Which, looking at the titanic size of Netflix who recently acquired streaming rights to the Ghibli Films worldwide minus Japan and the U.S. and is now staring down the barrel of Disney’s own competing streaming service Disney+ and Warner’s HBO Max, is kinda funny in retrospect.

  [Lofi music]

  Buena Vista might’ve helped Ghibli in another way though. Let's talk about when anime won an Oscar. No one’s quite sure how it happened, really. Not that Spirited Away didn’t deserve it. It definitely did. It’s a good movie. It’s just, uh, this was the first and only of Miyazaki’s works to have even been nominated. Ever. In fact, no anime films before Spirited Away in 2003 received a nomination for best animated film in the Academy Awards, and only The Tale of Princess Kaguya has been nominated since. Maybe the stars aligned, maybe it’s because Spirited Away’s stiffest competition in the 75th Academy Awards was Lilo & Stitch and Ice Age [Spirited Away Wins Animated Feature: 2003 Oscars], maybe it's because Spirited Away carried extra credibility by being released in the U.S. under the auspices of Disney. Whatever the cause, anime, via Ghibli, had grabbed a piece of critical acclaim in the American entertainment industry that seemed otherwise determined to ignore it.

  Not that Hollywood hadn’t noticed anime long ago. Two of America’s most celebrated directors, Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky, have both committed what can charitably be described as borrowing from a certain Japanese director by the name of Satoshi Kon to build their respective, uh repertoires. Aranofsky heavily borrowed story, themes, and imagery from Kon’s Perfect Blue in his film Black Swan and even recreated the bath scene from Perfect Blue in his Requiem for a Dream. Guess which two of those three movies were nominated for Oscars? Nolan’s Inception collected four Oscars in 2010 which contained several scenes that anime fans got a sneak preview of 3 years before in the limited screening of Kon’s 2007 Paprika. And also in that one uh, Donald Duck comic strip. 

  Uh, look, I’m not trying to roast anybody or anything like that. Maybe Aronofsky. But you just can’t talk about Spirited Away grabbing an Oscar without giving mention to not just anime films, but foreign films in general which Hollywood seems to find value in but only when filtered through one of its own creators. So what does this get us? It gets us Scarlett Johansenn playing a woman named Motoko Kusanagi and an Oldboy remake that completely misses the point. 

  Trust me when I say the only good adaptations by Hollywood are Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow and the Wachowski sisters’s Speed Racer. You heard it here. If you want a new Ghost in the Shell movie just open your wallet, call Mamoru Oshii, and ask him to make another one. Stop with this weird shit. 

  Although many films were in uncertain licensing situations until GKIDs started recollecting them, the works of visionary directors like Mamoru Hosoda, Satoshi Kon, and Isao Takahata have managed to find their way to American theaters over the years without edits and a minimal delay that recently has been reduced down to less than a year. Not quite simulcasting, but given none of them have had a real breakout hit, it’s long strides to think that fans have had consistent opportunities to watch their movies in theaters over the years and purchase them in home video.

  [Lofi music.]

  Since Miyazaki’s most recent retirement, Ghibli underwent a sort of identity crisis on what to make of their studio or even if they would continue making films at all. During this period many of their creators left to join other studios, some of them even forming their own Studio Ponoc itself dedicated to continuing Ghibli’s traditions of movie making. Ghibli itself was just kinda there until very recently, when the aforementioned GKIDs secured the rights to Ghibli within the U.S. and entered into a deal to stream the entire Ghibli library on HBO Max. Ghibli also recently announced that it's nearing the release of TWO new films, Miyazaki’s own How Do You Live? and the studio’s first entirely CG feature film Earwig and the Witch, by Miyazaki’s son, Goro. 

  And I know what you’re thinking. I thought the same thing until I saw the images and I will just say I’m definitely gonna go see it.

  And y’know what? That’s great for Disney, but Ghibli’s downtime created an existential dread within the anime industry and fandom, because there wasn’t any other big name director to replace Miyazaki in the collective consciousness of America as “THE anime director,” or as Mother’s Basement on YouTube would say “the new Miyazaki,” until only recently...

  Makoto Shinkai has been directing anime movies, arguably the SAME anime movie, since 1998 and has been a well known quantity in the fandom since his 2002 film Voices of a Distant Star. But something changed in 2016. His movies are almost always about young people in love separated by time, space, circumstance, or supernatural circumstance, but each iteration has refined his technique until one finally reached critical mass. Your Name became the most successful Japanese film of any kind in multiple countries, including China, and Japan’s second most successful anime film domestically behind Spirited Away. Didn’t even crack the top 10 in the U.S., though.

  And no Oscar.

  That said, Your Name was a resounding success in the United States, now surpassed by Shinkai’s newest film Weathering with You last year. Each pulling in $5 million in the box office is no small feat for anime films. Appearing more frequently in mainstream outlets may be slowly growing Shinkai into a household name which, matched with his own formula for successful films, could be the beginning of another single director legacy that will pull the industry up with it.

  Now although we’ve seen less explosive releases since the children-focused anime movies around the turn of the millenia, it’s hard to describe our past decade of the 2010s as anything but a stateside renaissance for anime film. While the collective box office brought in by anime in the U.S. during the 2000s completely dwarfs that of the ‘90s, there weren’t all that many more films making it over. The real difference in the marketing and theater availability after Pokemon provided a proof of concept. Although there’s been roughly 50% more anime films coming out per year in Japan in the 2010s than the 2000s, the yearly average with theatrical releases in the states more than doubled between the decades.

  And while TV anime are slowly being consolidated into a few select streaming services, more distribution companies have entered the industry to put anime films in theaters. Nowadays GKIDs, Fathom Events, and Eleven Arts have an almost monthly churn of screenings that actually top the daily box offices… on their Wednesday showings. Wednesday. Still, given the movies are airing in limited theaters and showings, the numbers are very good. Just last year Dragon Ball Super: Broly had the 3rd most successful box office for an anime film in the U.S. at $30 million.

  Sounds like we’re in a pretty good place. Well, it’s all- I mean, it’s all relative. We have doubled the number of movies we license every year since last decade, but American theater-goers still only get the opportunity to watch maybe half of the anime films that come out every year in Japan. Meanwhile, there are an average of over 200 TV anime produced every year and, with rare exceptions, every single one is licensed and distributed in the United States across a number of streaming services. Next up, we’re going to talk about anime on TV and how it's grown into one of the largest, fastest, and most sophisticated localization industries in the world.

  Bye!

  [Lofi music]

  Thank you for listening to Anime in America, presented by Crunchyroll. If you enjoyed this, please go to Crunchyroll.com/animeinamerica to start your 14-day free trial or just log on for some free, ad-supported anime. 

  Special thanks to Jerry Beck. You can find more of Jerry’s work over on cartoonresearch.com along with the history of Streamline Pictures written by Fred Patten, one of the co-founders. 

  This episode is hosted by me, Yedoye Travis, and you can find me on Instagram at ProfessorDoye or Twitter @YedoyeOT. This episode is researched and written by Peter Fobian, edited by Chris Lightbody, and produced by me, Braith Miller, Peter Fobian and Jesse Gouldsbury. 

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com