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back-and-totheleft · 3 years

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"Hollywood rabble rouser"

Late one night in the summer of 2008, I found what turned out to be a stockbroker’s iPhone in the back of a NYC taxi. Turning it on in order to contact the owner, I noticed that amongst the stock watch apps and currency converters was an icon of Gordon Gekko, the corrupt market raider immortalized by Michael Douglas in Wall Street, Oliver Stone’s 1987 tale of insider trading and corporate excess. Intrigued, I hit Gekko’s pixilated face (it felt good) and a website flashed up with an entire transcription of his infamous “Greed is good” speech — one of Hollywood’s most iconic parables to the pursuit of unrestrained greed. Whoever owned the phone found those words as important as checking Facebook or texting his girlfriend. Gekko was his hero, his daily inspiration.

Watching back Wall Street a few weeks later as news of the Lehman Brothers collapse and global recession spread, it struck me that a whole generation of financiers must have grown up, like Charlie Sheen’s character Bud Fox, yearning to be Gekko. He was the business equivalent of a rapper wanting to become Tony Montana, another Stone creation. And some of these brokers, as we’ve all since discovered, were willing to trade money that didn’t exist in pursuit of pin stripe suits, corner offices, penthouses, boats, women, and stacks of cash. Perhaps the perks made the 22-year prison stretch Gekko received at the end of the film seem like a viable risk. Or they deliberately chose to ignore his downfall.

Inspired by financial fiends like Bernie Madoff, Stone decided to spring Gekko out of prison for Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. Set in 2008, he is a reformed character that tries, and fails, to warn business leaders of the impending credit crunch. Many fans are understandably nervous about Douglas reprising his Oscar winning role, especially since his hair gel and brick phone have long been put into storage. Stone, who only agreed to direct the film because he felt that current financial climate lent itself to a sequel, understandably feels that it’s time for bankers to grow up. As the director of Natural Born Killers, JFK and Platoon he’s used to Marmite reactions. But, after giving Dubya an easy ride in W, will Gordon 2.0 be one step too far? Is the world ready for goody Gekko two shoes? Or will traders across Wall Street be deleting their “Greed is good” iPhone bookmarks forever? As they say on the stock market floor, let the bull charge.

Tim Noakes: When you were 18 your father got you to work on a financial exchange in France. Was that your inspiration for Wall Street?

Oliver Stone: No, it was a great summer job actually, because it was very exotic. My father was always into the stock market, into numbers. He loved that world in New York and I grew up on the fringes of it but I wasn’t particularly attuned to it. So it was a chance to see it first hand but I didn’t do very well as a trader. In those days you’d run from the phone booth in the back to the floor. It was cocoa and sugar. It was violent and busy. They used to elbow each other to get into the inner circle, like matadors. It was a real crush. I elbowed my way through it and got up to be assistant buyer, which was very complicated because you had to make the orders for everything right. You couldn’t screw up. A lot of money’s involved. So then I thought I should be one of the cocoa buyers. I was a little too ambitious for my own good.

Your father died before you made Wall Street. What do you think he would have made of it?

I think he would have appreciated that I had done a business movie. We always talked about it. He loved movies and he took me to them. We discussed them afterwards, which was an invaluable experience, and he would say that there weren’t many business movies. And there weren’t. There was not a specific genre. Hollywood was not into the business movie concept. It’s hard. I can understand why. It’s all financial talk, it’s not interesting to most people and it lacks those human emotions. Money is an interesting subject, however, for America. That’s why I addressed it in 1987. I thought, ‘Americans love money’, and what lengths they will go to get it is what that movie is about. Especially coming off Platoon, which is a different kind of movie. I was trying to prove that I could do something domestic with ‘Wall Street’.

The original was very much of its era.

It was the era of “Greed is good” and Reagan. With Wall Street 2, I’m obviously more mature, I’ve done more films, I have more confidence, I hope. I’m trying something a little bit deeper in the relationship field. There’s no Darryl Hannah in the movie. There’s a real English girl this time (Carey Mulligan). She anchors strongly the emotions of the film, because she is damaged. She’s the daughter of Gordon Gekko, if you can imagine what that can be like.

Michael Douglas once said that your style of directing is like taking people into the trenches. What did he mean by that?

He makes it sound like I dress him up in uniform and have a military hierarchy. Every single actor that I’ve worked with, and there’s obviously dozens now, you’d have to talk to every single one of them to get their perception. I would say some would disagree. Maybe Michael, because he hasn’t been in the military, would regard it as a military experience. I didn’t think of it that way. I think of a movie as an organisation that has to work at a very fluid pace involving a large amount of people who have to move quickly over a landscape. Call that what you will. It could be an adventure party or a military organisation. It’s really a satellite business. You form, you group, you rehearse, you shoot, you separate. It’s very nomadic. In that chemistry you bring together so many conflicting types of people who have different kinds of egos. It’s quite a mix. At the end of the day, if you look back at the — what is it? 19, 20 films — that I’ve directed, it’s just a mix of styles. Sometimes it really works with people. It clicks. I think Michael did great work on both films, so I’m very pleased with his result. My style might not have been good for him, but it works for other people. Some people, like Shia LaBeouf and Josh Brolin, were digging it. They loved the way I worked because it was intense and to the point and relatively fast.

Do you see yourself as a hard taskmaster or a disciplinarian?

No, I’m not a disciplinarian. I’m disciplined with myself and I think I try to lead by example not by imposition of my will. I try to lead by example. That’s just to say that people know that I’m trying to get this thing done. My approach is that we’re all in this together. The idea is king. We all serve that king. It is not a democracy, it is a constitutional monarchy, so to speak, with strong legislative power in the House of Lords. No, but the idea is king. I repeat that. Not the director. The idea. I serve the idea.

How do you balance the logistics with trying to create a piece of art?

Oh boy, if I didn’t tell you I wasn’t humbled so many times, you would not believe it. It’s a very humbling experience to make a movie, because you’re at the mercy of the elements. Of the winds and the weather as well as conditions that can go wrong — disease, sickness, bad tempers. All sorts of stuff can happen. Given that nature, to pull off a movie is extremely difficult. The editing room is another humiliation. All your mistakes are thrown back in your face. No matter how many good choices you make, and making a movie involves thousands of choices, you’re constantly having to question yourself again. I find it a very difficult position. I don’t think I enjoy it. I think I’m more experienced at it but I don’t think I completely enjoy it. I think sometimes it’s so painful you want to scream bloody murder and run somewhere.

What’s the cut-off point? How do you stop?

How do you stop? A famous director once said that every film is abandoned, never finished.

So you just let it go?

Some people won’t but I do let it go. I’m not looking for perfection. I don’t believe in it. I believe that a film is many things to many people and it changes over time. I think you have to feel good about it and about what you did. It hangs together and it’s going to be a story that can move an audience. It’s so difficult to pull off quickly. It takes time.

The world’s moved on since Wall Street. Were you apprehensive about creating a sequel to such a well-loved film?

Apprehensions? No. I’d have had more apprehensions if I’d had to do it in 1990, I think. Twenty-three years is a long time to call it a sequel. I think of it more as a bookend.

Don’t you think that’s laying you open for even more criticism? Look at what George Lucas did with Star Wars..

We’re not going back into that period. The beauty of this thing is that there’s a new period upon us, which is quite different, technically. It’s a different kind of Wall Street. The landscape has changed. It’s no longer 1987. It’s really a computer game now. The money has accelerated at a square root that is beyond belief from millions to billions. Hedge funds invest 30–40 billion dollars. Even to have one billion dollars is an enormous amount of money. When you hear these guys say, “Oh, it’s just a billion dollar hedge fund” it’s unbelievable arrogance. The heights are dizzying, and the losses are dizzying. It’s just unbelievable what happened. By all accounts it was a near-fatal heart-attack.

Were you planning on revisiting Wall Street is the crisis hadn’t happened?

No, that was the catalyst for it. It wasn’t the only reason. It was a wonderful idea for a script, that Gekko would be a different type of person. That he would start from the outside. He didn’t have power or connections anymore. Time had passed. He was dated.

Is Michael Douglas in danger of becoming a pastiche of what made Gordon Gekko good?

I feared that. That’s why we approached it in a wholly different way. Michael is playing it twenty-two years older, he’s coming out of prison. Michael has changed in that interim. He was a charming rogue, certainly, in the Eighties. You saw a lot of that in his subsequent performances. You saw a lot of Gekko in later films, so I think it was smart to move away from that pastiche, as you call it, because it would have been boring after a while. There are flashes of the old Gekko, which I love, but it’s not like the charming reptile, so to speak. It’s a different man now. I’m not saying that he’s a wholly reformed figure looking for a martyrhood, but what’s interesting about him is what he’s going to do, and how he’s going to play the game to get back. He has suffered extensively in prison, his family has fallen apart, his oldest son has committed suicide. It’s very tough on him.

How did you persuade Michael to get back on board?

Frankly, I didn’t convince anybody. I passed on the script in 2006. It wasn’t important for me to make it. I felt, what was the need to make this movie if it was going to glorify the pigs on Wall Street? They were really making money and it was ugly. There was a spate of books too like The Wolf of Wall Street, which was a big hit and they are going to make a movie out of that. There was kind of a surfeit and there was sickliness to it all. I got turned off by it. I passed, and I moved on with my life, and I did W and World Trade Centre and stuff like that. Then there was this crash and the crash changed the equation I think, I hope.

Do you think the original message of Wall Street failed because young traders ended up idolising Gordon Gekko?

That’s a very good question. Frankly, I wondered at times. The original Wall Street came about because of my experiences on Scarface. I was living in New York and I was hanging out with the dealers and the mob. That whole scene in Miami was a very shocking thing in 1982–3. Wall Street, was like Scarface north. I was suddenly seeing people my age, in their twenties, making millions of dollars, so easily, so quickly. Moving inordinate amounts of money. Also, snorting and drinking. The partying scene had really kicked in big time in the 80s. It was all new to me, so that’s how that was born. Then it went to excess. But I was very clear that Gekko was the antagonist in the movie, but as you say a lot of young people caught on to him. I do think, and perhaps I’m retrograde, that although he was not feted at the time the anchor of the movie is Charlie Sheen.

But no-one wanted to be Bud Fox.

Well that’s the movies. They want to be heroes. They want to make money. I did meet a lot of people in their 40s that said, “When I saw your movie I was studying this-or-that at this-or-that school, I was going to do history or medicine or law but then I saw the movie and I moved to Wall Street for that reason.” The the kicker was that some of them were multi-millionaires, one of them was a billionaire, and they had moved to Wall Street because of the movie. I said, “Oh boy, I wish I had a royalty on that.” These guys are really rich.

I find that quite worrying.

I gave birth to some rich people. But some of them did good. Some of them created something. That was the whole point of the original. Not to shit on Wall Street but to basically say, ‘Look, this is an engine of capitalism’. This can work. My father always felt that Wall Street was a good thing. It creates companies, it finances new companies, creates research and development, and it does. It still does, by the way, it’s not forgotten but it’s been buried in the greater picture of making bigger profits and more greed, but it’s still there. Wall Street is a good thing. It was a good thing and it can be a good thing.

Throughout your career critics have said you shouldn’t glamourise the people you put on the big screen. Do you like to provoke that reaction?

No, I like to make bigger-than-life characters but ‘World Trade Centre’ is about two very ordinary men who were real heroes. On Bush I guess you could say I supped with the devil and brought out all the reasons I thought why people voted for the guy. There is this fundamental thing which Americans like in him, and I was trying to root that out and how he became President.

You were criticised for making Bush too likeable.

You can fault that, but he was re-elected. I didn’t like him. I was very clear — I empathised. Empathy means I walked in his shoes, or tried to. As opposed to sympathised. I don’t agree with anything he said. Anything. I think he was a disaster. It was a nightmare eight years.

Do you think you were too soft?

No. I wish I’d done it a year earlier and it would have been more timely. He was out of favour when it came out, because of the economy, but frankly the movie was about the national security state which concerned me more.

Why are you drawn to these anti-heroes?

They don’t do me any good. Nixon, too.

I see a lot of similarities between Tony Montana and Gordon Gekko. In Scarface, Tony says “You need people like me to point the finger at and say, ‘That’s the bad guy’”. Do you think film critics see you in that light?

I think you’re right. I think film critics have me as a punch ball. It’s an easy target, I guess. I’ve been misidentified with the characters, but I think over time you see that there’s a whole assortment of different characters. But I agree, I think that’s true and I think that’s hurt me. It’s hurt my career as well as some of the political statements I’ve made and positions I’ve taken in documentaries I’ve made. They’ve hurt me too and they’ve given me a profile that’s not necessarily me, it’s just a profile. Absolutely.

There’s been huge furor recently that you’re reported to be attempting to humanise Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong.

I think it’s out of context. I did use the word ‘scapegoat’ and I think that was an unfortunate word, but frankly it’s a very interesting history that we’re putting together. We’re using the facts that we have, that are known but have been forgotten. There’s no question that Hitler had a big hand up the ladder. He didn’t come out of nowhere. He is a Frankenstein, he is a monster and I have no sympathy for him, but he was created by a Dr Frankenstein. That Dr Frankenstein is a very interesting mixture and you have to study cause and effect to understand history, otherwise you don’t learn anything from it. It’s my fault because I’m interested in the world, and I’m willing to go out there. I’m not trying to provoke, I’m trying to look for the truth. I’m trying to shine a light. For Christ’s sake, I feel like we’ve become so politically correct that you can’t do shit anymore. You’re not supposed to turn around.

Do you feel like you sometimes exploit sensitive subjects too much? More than some people can take?

Well, that’s why I like the English. They’re much more out there and they’re willing to explore subjects that the Americans are not. Having been to war, having seen the devastation America visited onto Vietnam, I cannot just be another typical American and live in isolation. My taxes are going as we speak to blowing up people in Afghanistan. I don’t feel good about that.

Back to Wall Street. Gekko says “Every dream has its price”, what’s the biggest price you’ve paid to get to where you are?

I’d have to talk to my psychotherapist, who I haven’t seen in ages. I suppose the price is that you do have long absences from home and normal quotidian values, at times. Your children grow up and you have to readapt to the fact that you haven’t been the attentive father. That’s a big issue, but I have been as attentive as I can be in taking care of them. Still, there’s gaps there. Divorces have happened. Those things.

I see Wall Street as epitomising the ruthlessness of the Eighties. During that era did you find yourself being a slave to the success that you had earned?

Yeah, I suppose everybody can become a mental slave to the need to produce. Remember, I was on a roll in the sense that I had to get financing for very complicated movies. I felt like I had a mission. To get JFK made in that era was very tough, still. You need heat. To make that movie after The Doors you need to keep rolling. In a sense I worked very fast, and hard, but I knew that I could get things done. Nixon was sort of the end of the line. I was making movies all those years. Platoon was impossible to get made. So was Salvador. Every single fucking one. ‘The Doors’. They were always problems. There were always tremendous issues. You asked what the price is? The price was to keep going fast, before they change their mind. The idea was ‘Wrap it up, get another one done’. These are tough subject matters. With ‘Nixon’ I’d done eleven or ten, I was exhausted. Frankly, I needed to take a break.

What kept you moving on? Obviously the pressures that you’re talking about manifested in different ways. You had your drug problems earlier on, but how did it manifest when the financing started to crumble down? Did you resort to those kind of vices?

I think there’s other factors. There was a lot of living. A lot of pain. Children. Divorces. This and that. But I think I have been very successful. I got movies made that wouldn’t have been done in the normal radar. They were not on the scope.

In Wall Street 2 Shia LeBeouf says, “No matter how much money you make, you’ll never be rich”. With all your success, do you empathise with that sentiment?

Of course I do. I don’t think money is the solution to happiness. Life is complicated, but certainly money can have the opposite effect. It can make you unsatisfied with life, and make life harder for you. There are two effects of it. One is that it leaves you unsatisfied, you always want more, as we see from these billionaires. Two, it leaves you falsely content and over-satisfied.

And you’re not either?

I don’t feel that way, no. I feel like I’m one trade away from disaster.

The new film is called Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. What gets you off to sleep?

What gets me off to sleep? Sonata. Medication. I’m just joking. The best solution for sleep is having lived a full day and tried hard to live life fully. That makes you feel the reward of sleep.

-Tim Noakes, "The Hollywood rabble rouser sets his sights on a new generation of Wall Street wolves," Medium, Mar 3 2010 [x]

#medium #tim noakes #w.#wall street #wall street: money never sleeps #oliver stone

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obeyme-and-you · 4 years

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King Solomon the Wise Part 1

(Take 2)

What wisdom will you bestow upon us today?

Since he decided to drop a bomb on me after I practically finished the first draft :)

Gabriel is Italics

Kimimela is Bold

Verses are Normal

King Solomon is a big figure biblically, having his life primarily discussed in three books, has two Psalms with his name, wrote three canonical books, has two books of poetry bearing his name, is attributed to “The Wisdom of Solomon”, has a legend written about him in the “Apocalypse of Adam”, “wrote” the “Testament of Solomon”, “The Greater Keys of Solomon”, and “The lesser Keys of Solomon.” I am being punished for my hubris. So, because of this Solomon will be a multipart affair :)))). I am unsure of how much of any of these will actually be of use and how far I’m willing to dig my grimmy little fingers into this but that will be a problem for future Gabriel. The webpages I’ve used to gather some information:

http://www.lastgasps.com/Solomon_-_The_Testament_Key_and_Legematon_of_Solomon_(unabridged).pdf

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Solomon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon

(Do NOT at me for using wiki, this isn’t for some English class so I don’t particularly care)

The last two were just for gathering some information of where he appears in the biblical canon and it turned out it was much worse than I realized since he also has other books about him or written by him. Everything I quote will be directly from the pdf file which is a transcription of The Testament of Solomon, The Greater Keys of Solomon, and The Lesser Keys of Solomon. This particular essay will only mention The Testament of Solomon, which is the first 35 pages of the pdf. There is a good chance that this may later be revisited and edited based on what Obey Me decides to throw at me, since, ya know, already doing this a second time cause Obey Me Solomon is a coward while cannon Solomon is,,,wild.

*Note: even though I am using the Testament of Solomon because it is important in understanding and explaining Solomon in Obey Me, it is not considered a biblical canon. In fact, even though it’s said to be written by him, it’s debated on when it was actually written. Even in real life Solomon is shady.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testament_of_Solomon

Well, let's get to it then.

MAJOR OBEY ME SPOILERS UNTIL CHAPTER 36

King Solomon the Wise Part 1

What wisdom will you bestow upon us today?

The Testament of Solomon is about King Solomon forcing demons to follow his orders in the construction of the First Temple. He was given a ring by God, delivered to him by the Archangel Michael, that would allow him control over any demon. The majority of the text describes the demons brought before him, and who they are weak to (usually the name of an angel that when used forces them to leave). While some of the demons mentioned are important to mention, they will not be discussed in this essay. Instead, we will look into prophecies stated by demons, and some events that transpired with King Solomon.

Page 2, paragraph 5

(In reference to a child being attacked by a demon nightly)

"Now when I Solomon heard this, I entered the Temple of God, and prayed with all my soul, night and day, that the demon might be delivered into my hands, and that I might gain authority over him. And it came about through my prayer that grace was given to me from the Lord Sabaoth by Michael his archangel. [He brought me] a little ring, having a seal consisting of an engraved stone, and said to me: "Take, O Solomon, king, son of David, the gift which the Lord God has sent thee, the highest Sabaoth. With it thou shalt lock up all demons of the earth, male and female; and with their help thou shalt build up Jerusalem. [But] thou [must] wear this seal of God. And this engraving of the seal of the ring sent thee is a Pentalpha."

In Obey Me chapter 2 part 2 Lucifer says to MC “Seeing as you’re both human, it’s fine if you associate with him, but know that he can’t be trusted.

He may be a mere human, but he has a ring imbued with wisdom, and he wields powerful magic. He’s the type of man who will try to subjugate even a powerful, greater demon if he gets the chance.”

So we do know that Solomon of Obey Me has the same ring that King Solomon was delivered to him by Archangel Michael.

Obey me chapter 29-5 Solomon says “It’s the ring of wisdom. Made from brass and iron. I got it from Michael long ago. It was at a point in my life when I was a bit lost and unsure what to do. That was when I met Michael, and he gave it to me. When I put this ring on, it granted me the power to control demons.”

While MC has yet to meet Michael, he is a named character in game. We also know that Solomon has been to the Celestial Realm before (chapter 23-5, Solomon to Mc, “Well, looks like we made it here in one piece, huh? This is actually my second time in the Celestial Realm.”), and while it doesn’t state that King Solomon has been to heaven, it is important to note because this shows that Obey Me’s Solomon has a close relationship to the Celestial Realm the same way King Solomon had to God. King Solomon was able to control demons (keep in mind, by force, not through pacts), with a ring, while OB Solomon “has a ring imbued with wisdom, and he wields powerful magic.” King Solomon’s ring has the power to lock up demons and use them with force, and Lucifer states that “He’s the type of man who will try to subjugate even a powerful, greater demon if he gets the chance.” (Which he in fact has but alas, that’s a different essay).

Note: Chapter 29-5 Solomon says he originally had to force demons to obey him

“Anyway, I’m not sure if it’s because I had to use force to get them to obey, or because I expended more magical energy than necessary…

…

“I mean, nowadays I can do that sort of thing with no problem at all. But not then.”

On pages 18-19 King Solomon is told a prophecy by a demon he gets under his control.

Pages 18-19 paragraph 65

“I used the seal of God, and the spirit prophesied to me, saying: "This is what thou, King Solomon, doest to us. But after a time thy kingdom shall be broken, and again in season this Temple shall be riven asunder; and all Jerusalem shall be undone by the King of the Persians and Medes and Chaldaeans. And the vessels of this Temple, which thou makest, shall be put to servile uses of the gods; and along with them all the jars, in which thou dost shut us up, shall be broken by the hands of men. And then we shall go forth in great power hither and thither, and be disseminated all over the world.

And we shall lead astray the inhabited world for a long season, until the Son of God is stretched upon the cross. For never before doth arise a king like unto him, one frustrating us all, whose mother shall not have contact with man. Who else can receive such authority over spirits, except he, whom the first devil will seek to tempt, but will not prevail over? The number of his name is 6442 , which is Emmanuel. Wherefore, O King Solomon, thy time is evil, and thy years short and evil, and to thy servant shall thy kingdom be given.””

From the information that can be gathered from this and Obey Me, we do know that both King Solomon and OB Solomon have built a temple. In Obey Me chapter 29-5 Solomon mentions a “large house” he built. “The first time I put multiple demons under my control, I was trying to build a house. Let’s just say it was a bit larger than your average house.”

In the Testament of Solomon, King Solomon is actively getting demons under his control while the Temple is still being built. In the beginning of Obey Me Solomon already has all 72 demons under his control (This is Stated in a Devilgram Guided by Desire) and says that he had once built something long ago (big house my ass). Because of these two factors we can assume that this has already happened, at least in part.

Theory time (I guess look away for potential spoilers for later into the story?)

I believe we’ve already seen the temple built by OB Solomon, in fact we have been there multiple times. Where could we have possibly visited that would’ve been King Solomon’s temple?

Lord Diavolo’s castle

So we do know that Solomon from Obey Me built something but why would it be Diavolo’s castle? What could possibly suggest that? (this also wouldn't be the first time a human structure ended up in the Devildom considering the story about the House of Lamentation)

“And the vessels of this Temple, which thou makest, shall be put to servile uses of the gods”

I cannot say with certainty who the vessels are for sure in this sentence but my two guesses could both work in this situation.

It’s talking about King Solomon specifically or

The demons under his control

(I’m pretty sure it’s the second one when discussed in The Testament of Solomon)

Technically, in the case of Obey Me at least, it could be both of these. We know that OB Solomon was already picked for the exchange program when it was first suggested. This could have been because he is referenced as the “the most powerful sorcerer in the history of mankind.” by Satan in chapter 2-A, but it could also be because he’s already working under Diavolo. We know that he has been working with Diavolo because in chapter 28-8 Diavolo has to leave your discussion early because of urgent business and instead of taking Lucifer he asks Solomon to go with him.

(Diavolo) “There’s no need for you to come along, Lucifer. Solomon. Would you come with me?”

(Solomon) “Wait, you want me to come along instead of Lucifer…? I don’t mind, but…”

(Diavolo) “Wonderful, let’s go. Take care, Lucifer. And you too, MC.”

Chapter 28-C Lucifer and Diavolo have a conversation about Diavolo taking Solomon and not him

(Lucifer) “Where did you and Solomon go yesterday, and what did you do there?”

(Diavolo) “...It still isn’t the right time for me to share that with you.”

If it’s the demons under his control this could still play into the fact that he has to listen to Diavolo, since he controls the demons with his ring, Diavolo Controls the demons via Solomon. We do know of two demons that have been named in Obey Me being under Solomon’s control that are both technically under the control of Diavolo too. In chapter 2-A Asmodeus says “Take Solomon and me, for example. We’re in a pact together already, right? ...Oh yeah, and he’s got one with Barbatos, too.” Asmodeus is one of the seven student council members that work under Diavolo, and Barbatos is his servant that directly works for him and follows his orders. (Boy I can't believe I missed this to be honest in the SECOND chapter)

“Shall be put to servile uses of the gods”

While Diavolo isn’t technically a god, he is a very powerful demon, and is the prince of the Devildom. Even though we don’t know many details about his father, it is possible he’s either strong enough to be considered a god, or is a self proclaimed god. Remember kiddos! Lucifer may be the avatar of pride, but every demon is a prideful bastard!

“Wherefore, O King Solomon, thy time is evil, and thy years short and evil, and to thy servant shall thy kingdom be given.”

This sentence plays into the last part and the fact that I’ve been suspicious of OB Solomon since the second we were introduced to him. You can’t tell me he’s not evil. I will bite you. What evidence do we have to suggest that OB Solomon is evil though? Couldn’t he just have an evil smile and actually be a good guy? Good question! No.

When you’re first introduced to OB Solomon after he picks up MC’s DDD after they dropped it (i have a whole other theory about how he did something to it when MC wasn’t looking but that is just based off gut instinct and my trope sensor going off and i have no proof so i sit here in a silent scream). When he leaves Lucifer mentions how he can’t be trusted.

2-2 “Seeing as you’re both human, it’s fine if you associate with him, but know that he can’t be trusted.

He may be a mere human, but he has a ring imbued with wisdom, and he wields powerful magic. He’s the type of man who will try to subjugate even a powerful, greater demon if he gets the chance.”

“But Gabriel! Lucifer’s a demon! Of course he wouldn’t trust someone with power like that!” Neither do I. While that is true, it’s important to note because Lucifer at this point doesn’t particularly care about MC, but still makes a note to point out his distrust of Solomon. Lucifer has been alive for a very long time and has not at any point been shown to be an idiot, not to mention he’s also the avatar of pride, someone with that much pride isn’t going to admit distrust about someone, to someone they barely know unless it’s a big deal. These two factors show he has the intelligence to know that someone isn’t trustworthy, and the fact that he would admit it even though he is the embodiment of pride, raises red flags.

2-A “Now, now, I’m not like you demons. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t accuse me of behaving like one. I am but a simple human, an innocent lamb.”

(Satan) “I’m surprised you can say that with a straight face, considering you’re the most powerful sorcerer in the history of mankind.”

After Solomon says he’s completely innocent and a simple human, Satan calls him out on it. This could be argued that Satan was specifically talking about him being a simple human (which is a fair argument i’ll admit) but i personally don’t believe that’s the case for two reasons. The first one is that Satan is very intelligent and would know about Solomon’s power and ability and no competent demon will completely trust a human like that. The second reason is the wording Solomon uses.

“Now, now, I’m not like you demons. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t accuse me of behaving like one. I am but a simple human, an innocent lamb.”

This wording alone raises red flags because, let’s be honest here, no one who’s innocent calls themselves “an innocent lamb” that’s reserved for people hiding something that makes them in fact, not an innocent lamb. Not to mention the “Now, now, I’m not like you demons.” reads like someone who goes “I’m not like other girls” and it’s like yeah you are, there’s nothing wrong with it but now you’ve made an ass outta yourself so like, congrats I guess.

7-7 (Mammon) “And it’s not like Solomon and Satan and me realized we’ve got shared interests and common goals because Solomon wants some magical items that belong to the Demon King…”

Solomon wants something from the Demon King’s castle, that much is obvious, but what is he looking for and how does this make him evil?

6-4 (Beelzebub) “The grimoire Luke is holding has the power to control a demon-to make him do anything, even if it’s in violation of a pact. Everything that we are rides on that book. We can never allow it to be stolen under any circumstances.”

Look, you don’t drop a bomb like this unless it’s going to happen later on.

“But Gabriel!” you say, “You said that his ring was all controlling of whatever, what could he possibly need that book for?”

(I’ll being coming back to the second half of the sentence “Wherefore, O King Solomon, thy time is evil, and thy years short and evil, and to thy servant shall thy kingdom be given.” but i have to discuss something else first)

Page 34-35 paragraphs 129-130

“And when I answered that I would on no account worship strange gods, they told the maiden not to sleep with me until I complied and sacrificed to the gods. I then was moved, but crafty Eros brought and laid by her for me five grasshoppers, saying: "Take these grasshoppers, and crush them together in the name of the god Moloch; and then will I sleep with you." And this I actually did. And at once the Spirit of God departed from me, and I became weak as well as foolish in my words. And after that I was obliged by her to build a temple of idols to Baal, and to Rapha, and to Moloch, and to the other idols. I then, wretch that I am, followed her advice, and the glory of God quite departed from me; and my spirit was darkened, and I became the sport of idols and demons. Wherefore I wrote out this Testament, that ye who get possession of it may pity, and attend to the last things, and not to the first. So that ye may find grace for ever and ever. Amen.”

You like how he blames her even though he was just horny even though he claimed to have 700 wives and 300 concubines? All men are idiots in the bible, I swear. (He had one job)

King Solomon let his new wife convince him to worship her gods and build temples in their honor which angered the Jewish/Christian God, and caused him to abandon King Solomon. When God left him, King Solomon didn’t just lose his God, he became weak, foolish, his spirit was darkened, and then had to deal with all the demons left with him. What could he have lost to make him weak and also now stuck with these demons that were under his control before? His ring would have had to stop being powerful enough to properly hold them. Now, biblically, it probably meant permanent, as in, he has zero control or now they have control over him. In the context of Obey Me, it would be a different take on this, because we obviously know he actively has pacts with 72 demons. I theorize that instead of having full control like he would have with the ring, he lost that and instead had to have control via pacts. So in Obey Me, the ring still works to an extent, but now it actually takes him magic and wisdom to control them instead of being able to do it at will because of God.

Edit: We do know that he did struggle with muscle pain when he first used to control the demons, and he’s unsure if it was because he had to force them to obey or over used his magic. Which could also suggest that he did actually force them into pacts before he was left.

“my spirit was darkened”

His soul would have darkened after this transpired. That “innocent lamb” comment was probably very much a joke to him, because he is very much aware of who he is. This also explains why Lucifer is suspicious of him; his soul isn’t exactly pure.

“I became the sport of idols and demons.”

Having 72 demons under your control, and then suddenly having God not in your corner anymore can definitely put a small damper on things. He went from having no demon able to talk him into anything, to having 72 right in his pocket wanting a piece of his mind and being able to.

Okay, so now that this has been mentioned, lets go back to the sentence “Wherefore, O King Solomon, thy time is evil, and thy years short and evil, and to thy servant shall thy kingdom be given.”

Who were King Solomon’s servants?

:) Well, there was about 72 of em

(Note, in the Testament of Solomon it doesn’t name all 72, later ones are mentioned in the other books but everyone says King Solomon and his 72 demons, I’m not about to confuse myself and everyone else because he had less than that in his Testament)

So, now King Solomon is under the influence of a bunch of demons, and was told that this temple he had built was going to be given to his servants, which were demons, and to top it off his ring isn’t quite working right, now what? Remember what I said about Diavolo’s Castle being the First Temple? That’s what.

Considering everything OB Solomon has eluded to with him being THE King Solomon (he straight up called himself King Solomon the Wise, it doesn’t get more obvious than that) and all the information that has thus far been presented in general, it’s safe to say he’s not a reference to King Solomon, but is King Solomon (In Chapter 36, brand new when this was edited, he says he is very old. I took satisfaction at calling him an old man.). Then taking into consideration the information that has been used specifically from The Testament of Solomon, it makes sense that this information could’ve been used within the game. The First Temple is very important to the story of King Solomon, and Diavolo’s castle has been an important story element within the game too. Then we have the relationship between OB Solomon and Diavolo that seems like a weird professional dynamic. To me, there seems to be information pointing towards his castle being The First Temple.

“to thy servant shall thy kingdom be given”, King Solomon’s servants were technically demons, so his kingdom would be given to the demons. And all the demons, at this point in time, are under Diavolo’s rule, so therefore, OB Solomon’s kingdom is now his. He lost his temple to Diavolo’s father, but because he’s sleeping, Diavolo is in charge.

“Okay so why did you include the whole grimoire bs?”

I’m glad you asked!

Because I needed that in the back of your mind when I discuss a future essay! :)

(I wanted to put it in this essay but it’s gotten way to long so it’ll be talked about later)

Hopefully I tied up loose ends cause otherwise I might just make zero sense hahahaha.

Summary: This essay definitely went a completely different way than I imagined anyone expected, including myself. Solomon sucks, he’s evil, I called it the first time i met the guy, he got bad vibes all over. God I just feel like there’s so much I want to say about this man but like, all of it is just conjecture and there’s a good chance I make zero sense but at this point it's too late ya know? God, I hate this man so much.

#obey me #obey me!#obey me shall we date #obey me theory #obey me swd #obey me solomon #obey me spoilers #swd solomon #obey me fandom #solomon #solomon swd

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9worldstales · 3 years

Link

INTERESTING POINTS TO PONDER FROM INTERVIEWS 13

Interviews might not remain forever available or not be easy to find so I’ve decided to link them and transcribe the points I find of some interest so as to preserve them should the interview had to end up removed.

It’s not complete transcriptions, just the bits I think can be relevant but I wholeheartedly recommend reading the whole thing.

And of course I also comment all this because God forbid I’ll keep silent… :P

Title: Kenneth Branagh on 'Thor': 'Commercial Gods Will Have to Decide Whether It's a Success'

Author: Stephen Galloway

Published: Apr 13, 2011

BEST BITS FROM THE INTERVIEW

ABOUT THE SCRIPT

The movie had gone through multiple incarnations since the character first appeared in the Marvel comic Journey Into Mystery #83 in 1962. At one point, it was developed at Artisan Entertainment (later bought by Lionsgate), among 10 comic properties the mini-major had obtained, before reverting to Marvel.

"There've been scripts that we don't even know about anymore," says Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, an 11-year veteran of the company who also produced Thor.

Under Feige, Thor went through further drafts. One, written by Mark Protosevich and admired by almost everyone, had its earthly portions set entirely in the Viking era, but Marvel decided this was the wrong way to go. "In that version, Thor is banished from a very foreign world to another very foreign world, which didn't work," Feige notes.

In October 2009, he (Branagh) returned to Los Angeles full time, and now everything proceeded at warp speed. He kept working on a script that combined the efforts of Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz, J.Michael Sraczynski and Don Payne, with Protosevich brought back for a final polish.

ABOUT THE THEME AND PLOT

"He pitched an opening that started on a gigantic cosmic scale, which is what this movie is -- it's the first that takes place among the stars and on the cosmic side of the Marvel universe," Feige says. "But that very quickly funneled down to a father and his two sons and encompassed what we wanted: a movie set against this incredibly regal canvas and alternative world yet never lost sight of this family drama."

Branagh clarifies: "What I was interested in was the family saga. I think everybody was having trouble arriving at the right way to tell the story, and I was fairly clear about wanting to have a significant proportion of it on contemporary Earth."

ABOUT BRANAGH’S APPROACH TO “THOR”

"He'd seen all the films we had made at that point," Feige says. "But now we sent him every issue of Thor ever written and story lines that could serve as inspiration."

Rather than being intimidated, Branagh says he was "excited."

ABOUT THE POSTPONING OF “THOR”

Following the success of Iron Man, Marvel decided to postpone Thor's release, creating a gap of six months before Branagh would be able to shoot the film.

"Initially, Iron Man 2 and Thor were to be released in summer 2010 and Captain America and The Avengers in summer 2011," Feige notes. "But when the first Iron Man was so big, we had the luxury of knowing that the sequel could sustain us in 2010."

That's when Thor was bumped to 2011 and The Avengers to 2012, which Feige says "was beneficial because this is the most complicated film we have ever made, from the costumes to the set."

Beneficial for Marvel but not necessarily for Branagh, who was reluctant to be away from home so long. "I seriously considered leaving," he admits.

ABOUT THE CASTING OF CHRIS HEMSWORTH

In early 2009, accompanied by his casting directors and Marvel executives, Branagh had taken the unusual step of visiting the major agencies to talk about what he was looking for, then watched as hundreds of tapes flooded in. "We started in January and went into April 2009," he says of the casting phase.

After months of searching, Branagh had narrowed his list to four, with each candidate invited to do a screen test. They included Australian Liam Hemsworth -- but not his brother Chris, who would eventually get the role.

Today, Chris laughs about it, recognizing that he wasn't in top form when he first met Branagh and noting that his younger brother gave him tips based on everything he'd gleaned through the auditions. "We're competitive, but in the best way," he says.

When Branagh felt uncertain about the final four and wanted to revisit some earlier contenders, Hemsworth was helped by a supportive phone call from his Cabin in the Woods producer Joss Whedon and by a video the actor made with his mother. "I was on the 17th floor of a hotel in Vancouver with my mom reading the lines to me," he recalls, "and something great must have happened. It got me back in the room."

This time, Branagh knew he'd found his man.

"We did two or three interview sessions before we tested him," he says. "We pretty much knew as we were shooting the test that he was the guy. It seemed, across these meetings, he had grown into it. He understood it better. And crucially, he was at ease."

MY TWO CENTS

It’s not quite your traditional interview with questions and asnwers but it’s still interesting.

I love to hear about the previous scripts and which was the author’s intent in creating the movie, which themes they wanted to develop. Again, I’ll kill to get to read the previous “Thor” scripts as they seem so interesting. I really wonder how things would have developed if Thor had been banished into Viking era.

On an interesting note the birth of “Thor” was clearly a long and elaborated one.

#thor #thor odinson #kevin feige #kenneth branagh #mark protosevich #ashley miller #don payne #j michael straczynski #chris hemsworth #zack stentz #interview #mcu thor #9 worlds interview study

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dotthings · 5 years

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Recently I’ve been doing a rewatch of SPN S9 and 10 and I’m into S10 and just re-watched “Girls, Girls, Girls,” which was Rowena’s introduction and suddenly I am attacked with Rowena feelings and Rowena as Sam’s magical mentor feelings. I’m sure some of this has been discussed, but I wanted to revisit where Rowena explains the types of witches with the women she’s trying to recruit back in S10 and talk further about her long arc search for an apprentice.

ROWENA: According to the grand coven, there are three recognized kinds of witch in the world. Most common are the borrowers -- those who harness the power of a demon in order to practice the art. Owing to recent experience, I doubt you'd have the stomach for that. Secondly, and rarest of all, are the naturals -- those who are... Born with the gift. ELLE: You're one of those. ROWENA: Well you are correct. CAITLIN: And what's the third? ROWENA: The students -- those with no natural ability who, with enough practice and training and a grand coven-approved mentor to show them the path, can eke out a modicum of witchly power. ELLE: Will... You be our mentor? ROWENA: Well...I'm about as far from grand-coven-approved as it's possible to be. They threw me out many years ago. Disapproved of my methods. Said my magic was too extreme. I was forbidden from using magic, from taking students, from forming a coven. I've been on the run from those utter fannies ever since. CAITLIN: So, you can't teach us? ROWENA: Screw the grand coven and their silly rules. You two stick with me, and you can have anything, do anything you want whenever you want.

(Transcript courtesy of Superwiki)

There is so much going on in that scene. Including Rowena as a rule breaker and rebel, like the Winchesters and Castiel, refusing to go along with “corporate” higher authorities. Rip up the pages. I’m thinking Rowena appointing Sam as her magical heir might be another spanner in Chuck’s plans. In S15 in “Golden Time” Sam says “Rowena got it. I mean, she didn't know all the details, but she knew the game was rigged. So this... Magic. This is how she kept control.” Rowena rebelled against the coven system, and then used her magic to stop Chuck’s apocalypse, breaking his plans, although it’s also worth pointing out, Sam having to kill Rowena is the kind of sad twist Chuck would want, even if we know that as of 15.03 his mojo wasn’t working so he wasn’t manipulating events. It’s to his advantage Sam and Dean lose people they love and are miserable and without hope.

But Rowena adheres to magic as the highest force in the universe, higher than any deity. I think this comes out to Rowena beats Chuck. It’s also part of why I think that even if Rowena’s earthly arc is over, there might be one more beat to her story, possibly as Queen of Hell. One more missing link in her story, so we may see her again. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but someone as powerful as Rowena falls into Hell, and it’s Supernatural...I’m going to expect to see her at least once more, and see her fulfill another long-game and become the ruler of Hell.

Rowena has multiple long-play arcs over her 6 seasons of SPN. Sam becoming her magical heir is the fulfillment of one of Rowena’s arcs with the seeds for the quest for an apprentice planted in her very first episode. She tries to recruit the women in “Girls, Girls, Girls,” rescuing them from being exploited by demons. It doesn’t go well. We’ll see her attempts to build her own “mega coven” later.

This is what she wants: to have a legacy. To be a leader. To pass on her knowledge. Rowena’s belief in magic is fierce and deep, she is not only a natural born witch, but a very talented one. While I think yeah Rowena wants power, it’s something more than personal ambition driving her, it’s about the magic itself and keeping her magical system alive.

She finally finds that in Sam, who has no natural witch ability, but who can learn it. It’s an exciting turn not just for Sam’s arc, it’s the fulfillment of Rowena’s long-game goal. She found her padawan. Rowena’s wisdom will endure.

#Rowena MacLeod #Sam Winchester #spn #supernatural #supernatural spoilers #meta

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lizzexx · 4 years

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I knew I'd have to come out of the woodwork sooner or later. So, here I am apologising for what I've done. I had stole your words and altered them for my own gain for which I feel completely and utterly stupid for having done it. But in time I'll hope you'll forgive me and just know about how bad I feel about everything. Your a truly amazing author and a credit to your work. But I'll hope you'll forgive me on this road to redeeming myself. I'm truly sorry Lizzie 😔

Since this is anon, I’m not sure if this Chell-P as it could be copied from the wattpad apology I saw and responded to. As I’ve gotten a second message in my inbox from chellp88, I’m going to assume this is real. I responded to the wattpad message, so I’m going to copy and paste what I put there here, the requested advice included.

I won't lie and say what you did didn't hurt. To have content from 9 stories and 4 OCs taken and passed off as someone else's is devastating. I was in tears when I saw your Wedding of River Song chapter had taken not just content, but literally took one of my original characters too, that it took my OC Evy's baby and passed him off as your OC's. That was devastating to me. . Plagiarism, any time it happens, is very hard to get through, it makes you question if you should even keep writing if people can't respect you enough to not steal your work. It's even worse when someone who favorited you does this to you. You had me as a favorite author since 2013, for 7 years you've known my work, maybe you've even been there when I was plagiarized by others and saw what it did to me…and then you stole parts of my work too and for at least 2 years you've let people think it was your work. You've let people think and assume that the non-transcript and non-episode content was completely yours, when it wasn't true because part of it, a lot of it in later stories, was mine. You've let people praise part of your work, when those parts were mine, and no one knew it, that really hurts. I've been through this 29 times now, it never gets easier and it takes longer and longer to get back to a place where you WANT to keep writing.

But despite what you did to me, plagiarism is not something I would ever wish on anyone, I would never want anyone to take your work or your OC and try to pass it off as theirs and take credit or praise for your work. I sincerely hope you will never experience for yourself what you did to me.

I appreciate your apology, I appreciate you took the stories down, and I will always wish people the best with their future work so long as it's original. You are one of the few who have been honest about what they've done and actually apologized for it, so that means a lot to me.

The only advice I have for going forward would be:

1. Use a transcript as your ONLY source material. Don't look at someone else's work, don't have someone else's work open, don't highlight or copy parts of someone's work because it sounds good or you liked it, don't use someone else's story in place of a transcript, ONLY use a transcript. This ensures that the only things you're writing are your interpretation of what happened in the physical episode or your own content. It becomes very difficult to plagiarize another user when you do not have access to their work and do not have their work in front of you to use as a base. I don't even use my own work as a base whenever I get to a new Time Lady. I use the transcript, it's the best and safest route to go when you want to be as original as possible.

2. That being said, it's also helpful to NOT use your old content, not even parts from your old story that you just don't feel like typing over again. Really start completely from scratch and use ONLY the transcript. Because any evidence brought up about the plagiarism are not the only examples of the plagiarism, there's always more than what's brought up and the safest way to ensure you don't accidently put plagiarism back into your work is to not copy or use recycled material from your initial posting. I don't say this to make more work for you, I say it from experience because this has literally happened to me in the past. A past plagiarizer took down their work, claimed they would start again from scratch, and put up chapters far too fast to have actually been rewritten from scratch. What they did was go through what they first put up, decided if there were some areas to take out or change, and put that chapter back up just tweaked a little. And plagiarisms were still there. The only way they could have avoided it would be to have their chapter up and my chapter up side by side to compare, and that sort of goes back to point 1, not to look at another person's story while you write your own. Things snuck past this other person and their story was reported a second time under their new profile name and they came across as dishonest in their efforts to 'change,' so really, I can't stress using the transcript and ONLY the transcript enough.

3. Along those lines, something I personally do to try and avoid any unintentional plagiarism is to try your best not to read anyone else's work while you are writing your own. It's hard, it's very hard, because we write in the fandoms we love and we want to see what other people think or imagine about what we love too. But it's a way I use to keep from unintentionally plagiarizing someone. Because you might read something and it sticks with you, the lines, the points, the scene itself, and when you go to write your own version of a scene it ends up being very much like that original content, perhaps even the same exact lines because it got in your head. This can happen with a lot of original content other people write, and the best way to not be influenced by someone else's work is to not read it while you're writing your own versions of events. Of course, it's up to you and other writers whether to continue reading or cut yourself off, if you think you won't be unduly influenced then read on, but just be even more aware and critical of your writing as you go on. Granted, this part of the advice is of little help when the stories have already been read, but so long as the transcript is the only source material, I don't believe too much would actually appear identically in another's story.

4a. Be honest with your readers. They are the best people you will ever know and all they want is for your story to do well, for it to succeed, and for you to grow and better yourself as a writer. Be honest with them about what happened because it shows you did something wrong and are working to fix it, taking responsibility and owning your mistake. (I add this point in because it gives more context to point 4b.)

4b. Don't be afraid to ask your readers for help because they will do whatever they can to assist you. So if you're concerned, as you go forward, that you may unintentionally plagiarize someone, ask them to keep an eye open and let you know concerns they have about your content, especially original content not found in an episode. It's better to be aware of it when it happens than to go chapters and chapters and the entire story is taken down. Chances are people who read your work may have read mine, vice versa, or read other works, and if you ask, they can always bring up points and concerns to you early for you to review, compare, consider, and revise or leave be.

4c. If you are concerned something you posted is too similar to someone else's work, even after using JUST a transcript for the base, it's ok to put a note up that 'Part of this chapter is inspired by 'x' story by y' because it tells people there is another great story that you enjoyed reading that inspired you, and they may like it too, but it also helps relieve any concerns about potential plagiarism. (That's not to say you should put up a note in every chapter and then go on to copy that content and paraphrase it, but just if you use the transcript and it still feels similar to you from a story you read, it's better safe than sorry.)

5. Be aware, going forward, that because this did happen and you did take content from two people and passed it off as yours, some people will be more aware when similarities come up, especially in original content not found in the episode. This shouldn't be the only deterrent, the fear of getting caught more easily, to not plagiarize someone, because stealing from anyone should never happen, but be aware people will notice. And people will be looking more closely and critically when the story eventually gets to the part where the plagiarism first occurred, I, too, will randomly be peeking in from time to time myself at those points and hoping I see nothing of my work again. That's why starting from literal scratch and ONLY using the transcript, not even parts of chapters you'd already put up before, is the safest course to ensure no plagiarism happens.

6. And, finally, because this happened, and not just to me but to another of your favorite authors, a last piece of advice would be to strongly consider and revisit if you've done this to anyone else in any other story and take it down now. I am NOT accusing you of having done this more than the five times it's occurred, but someone raised a concern about another story of yours to me so I say this only as advice and a precaution as your account, unfortunately, now has the stigma associated with the plagiarism committed. I always hold out hope that other works are original even if the ones with my content weren't. So IF you have done this, taken original content and paraphrased it to pass off as your own, in ANY other story of yours, even if it's a very small amount, the best thing would be to take it down now and start from scratch there too. Better to do it now than before it is discovered and it gets reported. The last thing you would want is to go on the website and see your profile has been deleted by the site because of repeated plagiarisms.

It's very hard to forgive plagiarism, especially when it's happened so many times. This may be your first and only four instances doing this to me, but this is not the first or only time it's been done to me. It should have never happened, but it did, and it's not something that can be or should be easily overlooked or brushed aside. It leaves a lasting effect on both sides. Maybe in time I can one day forgive those who plagiarized me in the past, but please understand if I can't do that right now, to them or to you. I really do wish you well with your work as you go forward, and I hope you take my advice to heart and keep things original. Best of luck! LizzeXX

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yeonchi · 5 years

Text

Sasha Fokin (Crazy Ukranian Kid) - Behind the Meme

youtube

The language barrier is such a wonderful thing. Without the ability to understand the context behind something, we can react to it any way we want. As such, people are so easy to judge others.

The three-minute video above is usually the only thing that Westerners know about Sasha (because this is usually the only bit that gets used in memes and as such, is the only bit that gets translated). Sasha’s story is a two-parter that premiered in December 2011 with a lot of golden meme material left untapped. I know because I bothered to watch the videos and I used a bit of extra material in my own parodies, which I did in high school.

This show is a Ukranian adaptation of the BBC show Honey, We’re Killing the Kids, which was broadcast from 2005 to 2007. The show’s name in Ukranian is Кохана, ми вбиваємо дітей (Kokhana, my vbyvayemo ditey) and amazingly, it was broadcast on STB from 2011 to 2017. I mean, is it really surprising for a channel that has been known for reality TV?

I must warn you, I am only able to recap Sasha’s story (in the two-parter) from what I can see. The show was broadcast in Ukranian, but YouTube’s auto-transcription system assumes that it’s Russian, so the English translation I get is not very good. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

Context

11-year-old Sasha lives with his mother Elena and 5-year-old little brother Oleksiy. Elena is a single OL, so presumably Sasha and Oleksiy are left at home. Sasha is addicted to computer games and television. He is known to play violent and gory video games. We see him laughing at a violent cartoon. There was a line where he said something that translated to “swears, blood and tits”. He and his brother are known to fight each other and they don’t eat healthily. His grandmother can’t control him and he refuses to do his homework.

The brothers are taken to do some tests to analyse their current condition. Elena meets with the host, Dmytro Karpachov, who shows them simulated images of what Sasha and Oleksiy would probably look like in their current situation when they turn 40. Sasha kind of looks like Sal from Futurama while Oleksiy reminds me of Brad Garrett (who played Robert in Everybody Loves Raymond). The life expectancy of Ukranian men at the time was 62; it was predicted that Sasha and Oleksiy’s life expectancies would be 59 and 57 respectively. Dmytro gives the family a few rules to live by for the week, which include limiting their screen time and only playing non-violent games, a change in diet and giving the brothers their own spaces.

Next, we see the family implementing their new rules for the first week. The brothers don’t want to eat the healthy food and Sasha begins playing his violent games again. We then come to the first half of the meme video, up to the point where Sasha goes into the kitchen and starts whacking some papers on the chair. What you didn’t see after that was that Elena came into the kitchen and Sasha attempts to attack her with anything he could find. She lectures him for a long time and Sasha is finally convinced to do his homework.

The next day, Sasha and Oleksiy are taken to a karate class in the hope that they can get some exercise. Interestingly, he gets interviewed during the class while the other kids stand in a line behind him. We then see them back at home practising their karate moves. Elena prepares a healthy dinner and both Sasha and Oleksiy are willing to eat it. They have the bedroom renovated and they get the kids involved.

On the third day, the kids are taken to a speech therapist. Upon getting home, Sasha is on the computer again and in getting him to do his homework, there is a verbal altercation between him and Elena. Elena has someone come in to create a new user account for Sasha so she can limit his use of the computer. This leads us to the second half of the meme video. Sasha goes on the computer and is led to use the new account that was made for him. He discovers that he can’t access his games or the internet. There’s the bit from the video where he makes a creepy smile and says “I will install all the games”. The ensuing argument is skipped in the meme video, up to when Elena gets Sasha to turn off the computer and she throws the keyboard away when she can’t. We then have the scene where Sasha starts crying and screaming at his mother. That’s when the meme video usually ends, but what happens after that is absolute meme gold. Elena and Sasha start fighting again, at which point the former gets psychologist Igor Artemyeva (he’s not the father) to restrain him (I interpreted it as a rape scene in my parody). This ends Part 1.

Part 2 starts with Elena seeing Dmytro to discuss their progress. He implements three new rules on top of the previous three; “it’s time to grow up”, meaning that they should start living a more adult-conscious life, “get to know the world”, which I might have mistranslated because of auto-translate, but he arranges for them to visit an animation studio, and also for Elena to “care for [herself] more”. Yeah, I kind of borked there. I’m starting the days again.

During what seems to be the second week, Elena goes for a snorkelling session at the pool while Sasha goes to buy food and make dinner. The next day, they go to visit the animation studio, where they make a clay stop-motion cartoon. Knowing Sasha, there is a violent nature to it, but it’s as violent as Dynasty Warriors is “violent”.

Later, Sasha helps plan his birthday party and we see his friends during the party. It’s unclear to me what happens after that, but from what I can make out, we see him bending the rules at home, making food in the kitchen, going to school, coming back from school, has a friend come over, then his grandma comes over and they have what seems to be a little argument about homework or something.

At the end of the week, they see Dmytro again and he implements three more new rules for the next week; “fight against aggression”, “help and respect your elders” and “win against the computer” or something like that, I dunno, there was a finish flag there.

During the next week, the family goes go-carting. While Elena is at work, Sasha learns how to take care of the house and do his homework. He also learns to build a canvas wardrobe. Sasha and Oleksiy start fighting again and there’s another interpreted rape scene where Sasha unzips his pants (but not his underwear) and pretends to pee on Oleksiy. After comforting Oleksiy (this kid, I swear), Elena makes a life-size punching doll for them to punch and hit all they want.

This is where things start to go back to where they were. After some days, Sasha somehow goes back on the computer again. His grandmother comes in and confronts him and there’s this bit where during an altercation, Sasha pushes her away and goes back on the computer.

During Elena’s final meeting with Dmytro, she did not seem positive about the changes. The simulation of Oleksiy at 40 shows a marked improvement over the initial simulation, but Sasha didn’t seem to change much. Dmytro states to Elena that there were rules she didn’t fully implement and some generally ignored. Later on, Dmytro goes to visit the family at their home. He finds Sasha still at the computer and in trying to speak to him, he gets sworn at.

This ends Part 2. There was also a set of behind-the-scenes footage that wasn’t in the episode, but is pretty memetic. Once again, a lot of things have gotten lost in translation, but I managed to get the gist of it. If anyone wants to correct me on something or enlighten me on the full details of what happened, feel free to contact me.

Sasha revisited

In 2015, Sasha, Oleksiy and Elena are interviewed in a special episode of the show filmed in front of a studio audience. I remember downloading the raw footage of it from VK and using the Sasha portion of it for another parody. It was nearly 30 minutes long and I had to fill it with random dialogue. I deleted the raw footage afterwards, but this YouTuber did a reaction video on that, which you can find here. And finally, you can see Sasha in glorious widescreen. In that 2015 interview, footage from this video was shown of him at school seemingly fighting a couple of others.

Around 2017, Sasha started posting on YouTube. For those of you who were wondering, 2017 Sasha looked about the same as 2015 Sasha, so this image is fake news. He’s basically a fucking gopnik now. He did a few crazy videos, but he also did a few videos talking about his time on the show as well. A couple of these “crazy” videos include this one, which seems to be some kind of debate between beer and cider that quickly turns violent, and this one, which seems to be an attempt at gopnik rap (fuck you, there’s no hardbass in this). He also did this reenactment of some key moments from the two episodes. He also had an Instagram account, but it seems to have been deleted.

This is one of the videos in which he shares his feelings about his time on the show. Gathering from this video and some other articles, I deduced that he was bullied by everyone at school after they heard about his family’s problems and was forced to change schools as a result. He also states that he doesn’t know how to act around girls, but I think that’s a separate thing considering there are other people with this problem. In this video, he mentions an incident where he shat himself in class because his tea was laced with laxatives.

Presently, he doesn’t keep up a regular social media appearance. Most of his interactions are isolated to VK, so I have no idea about it.

My thoughts

A lot of people know about Christian Weston Chandler’s life and how he is a “victim” of the trolling he received because he divulges lots of details and/or the trolling is very well-documented. Many people might have a one-sided view of him, that is, you hate him or you feel sorry for him, but there are some who have mixed feelings because of all the factors in his life that made him the way he is. CWC is different from Sasha in that even if you got both sides of the story for the former, you’d still hate him for a variety of reasons.

While there are not a lot of details on the internet (in English) about Sasha, I’d have to be one of the few people who actually feel somewhat sorry for him, after having learnt about what happened after his appearance on the show. Reality TV becomes the talk of the town and if Sasha or Minami-chan (from Japanese Kitchen Nightmares) are anything to go by, it’s that certain people, who the show seemingly fails because they don’t want to be helped themselves, are mocked quite frequently. These two have changed with time, so maybe people should be more forgiving when they see the “where are they now” stuff about them.

At the time when I made the Sasha parodies, I was under the impression that Elena was just a strict mother who was trying to get Sasha off the computer. However, some years and a lot of thinking later, I learnt that Elena was a shitty mother overall. In the end, while she got Oleksiy to eat his vegetables, she couldn’t get Sasha to control his time on the computer or respect his elders. I have mixed feelings for the older Sasha, though; there were photos and videos of him smoking, drinking and being a gopnik, but in other photos and videos, he seemed more mature.

I tried to understand Sasha’s situation as best as I could so I could make this post, but as I said, there are still things that are lost in translation and I might not understand him as well as I might think. I think the bottom line for us Westerners is, given that the meme is practically dead, that Elena was a shitty parent during the program and Sasha was bullied because of it and his actions, but he eventually became mature, even if he did have that gopnik phase. And I swear, sooner or later, I’ll have someone tell me, “Stop saying ‘gopnik’, it’s derogatory to us Slav’s!”

#crazy ukranian kid #sasha fokin

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residentgoodgirl · 5 years

Link

Chances are that you know what made Lorena Bobbitt famous in 1993, even if you aren’t old enough to have experienced it in real time. Just over 25 years ago, Lorena — who now goes by her maiden name, Lorena Gallo — cut her husband’s penis off in the middle of the night, driving away with it and throwing it into a field. The trial and media coverage were sensational, as you might expect them to be around any penis-chopping case — and Lorena’s story became a punchline, an oddity, a way to consider supposedly hotheaded Latina women.

Amazon is now premiering a four-part docuseries about her, aptly called Lorena. The documentary, produced by Jordan Peele, covers the trial, of course, but also explores the context around it that people have largely forgotten, or never learned to begin with: the ways Lorena’s husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, allegedly abused her; the cruel treatment she received from the media, her tender age (she was 24 years old); and how this case brought the issue of marital rape to the forefront for the American public.

The timing is excellent, if a total bummer. The embers of the #MeToo movement are still burning, marital rape continues to be a surprisingly controversial topic for the courts to grapple with, and everyone is still afraid of immigrants. Lorena is compelling and well-made, a narrative that focuses both on the salacious details of the case (wanna see a severed dick? Girl, you got it) and Lorena’s activism in preventing domestic violence and sexual assault. It acts as both a historical primer for those who didn’t live through Lorena’s trial and a rectification for the way she was treated, not just by her husband but by late-night talk show hosts, journalists, and the public. “The media was focusing only on the penis, the sensationalistic, the scandalous. But I wanted to shine the light on this issue of spousal abuse,” Lorena told Vanity Fair in an interview this past summer.

As a documentary that reassesses a notable ’90s scandal with the benefit of a couple decades’ hindsight, Lorena is one among many recent examples. And these retrospectives tend to fit a similar pattern: We are asked or encouraged to reconsider a woman whose public image was linked inextricably with a man’s bad behavior, whose reputation was destroyed while the man got away relatively consequence-free.

2013’s Anita was a reconsideration of Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against then–Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. The documentary recast her not as an angry black woman trying to keep a man from his deserved job, but a reserved, smart attorney who merely told the truth about a man about to be given a tremendous amount of power. (Sound familiar?) 2014’s The Price of Gold gave Tonya Harding room to tell her version of the story of her career and the 1994 attack on Nancy Kerrigan, replete with class context and details about her own abuse.

The 2016 documentary O.J. Simpson: Made in America, though primarily about Simpson, also forced audiences to rethink how his murdered ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson was treated by him and by the press. And 2018’s The Clinton Affair included an interview with Monica Lewinsky herself about her affair with President Bill Clinton — long considered a salacious sexual scandal, with Lewinsky cast as a slut trying to fuck a powerful man — and reframed the incident as one in which a young intern was seduced (and then thrown under the bus) by the goddamn president, who should’ve known better.

These reconsiderations aren’t limited to documentaries. In June, journalist Allison Yarrow published the book ’90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality, which includes Hill, Harding, Lewinsky, and Lorena in telling “the real story of women and girls in the 1990s, exploring how they were maligned by the media.” Podcasts like Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes’ You’re Wrong About… also serialize reassessments of history, often focusing on women mired in scandals. They’ve done episodes on Amy Fisher (the “Long Island Lolita”), televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton (the “dingo’s got my baby” woman, who never actually said that), Courtney Love, and Lorena herself.

“America is going through this period of realizing how much we misread what was right in front of us,” says Marshall. “We came to the realization that we elected a reality TV president. We elected someone whose image was made by reality TV. That kind of understanding can allow us to go back and say, “What else did I just swallow that I was sold?”

Documentaries that revisit scandals are no doubt valuable in that they can profoundly change the way we consider the past and hopefully, the future. But they also pose a certain temptation to get too comfortable: There is some risk that we might watch something like Lorena, pat ourselves on the back for figuring out who the bad guy really is, and walk away thinking that the past is the past and we won’t make the same mistakes again. But what Lorena Bobbitt’s story meant in 1993 “is not that different from what it means today,” says journalist Kim Masters in Lorena. “It’s the same story.”

Then, too, there’s the reality that these reconsiderations tend to revolve around trials or public hearings, which provide a clear way to revisit the past through criminal records and court transcripts and recorded interviews. These were big, splashy stories that now get big, splashy reappraisals. But the world is filled with smaller, more mundane injustices and oversights, and most of those who suffer will never make it to court or Congress, or receive a high-profile opportunity to seek vindication.

Watching something like Lorena feels important, but it also feels lousy, because not enough is different now. Reconsiderations like these can’t be antidotes if we ignore the cure — if we continue to dismiss women and other marginalized, vulnerable people when they’re being abused, or taken advantage of, or otherwise maligned. Lorena receives a tremendous amount of empathy in Lorena, as she should. But why can’t we extend that kind of empathy to more people like her today, instead of waiting two and a half decades to rethink how we’ve behaved?

Apology tours for sexual misconduct are practically rote at this point: Transgressors get plenty of airtime to beg for forgiveness for touching butts, to come out of the closet, to recommend a supposedly great pizza dough cinnamon roll recipe. Meanwhile, victims or survivors are largely forgotten after the accusation becomes public. It’s relatively new that women like Lorena or Hill are getting some space to tell their stories on their own terms, and still rare that the opportunity is afforded to women of color in particular.

Lorena is timely not only in the sense that conversations about sexual abuse and assault have taken center stage over the past year, but also because anxiety about immigrants taking advantage of the system and of poor, unwitting white Americans is currently at a fever pitch. When Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt got married in 1989, she was 20, and in the US on a student visa. “There’s women who are opportunists, gold diggers, they use you as a stepping stone to advance their career,” Bobbitt says, referring to his ex-wife in an interview in Lorena. “These women, they know that their backup is [to] use law enforcement to their advantage by saying, ‘You know what, if you leave or you fuck up this relationship or you don’t get my citizenship, I’ll call the cops.’”

Despite Bobbitt’s own laundry list of arrests — many of which are for domestic violence against past partners — he still uses Lorena’s citizenship (or lack thereof) as supposed proof that she was unstable, demanding, and manipulative. “She was obsessed with having her American dream, her American dream, her American dream,” Bobbitt told Vanity Fair. “She just wanted too much, too fast.” And even in a supposedly silly reality series like 90 Day Fiancé (a show about bad American people marrying other, noncitizen but still-often-bad people), it’s clear that many of the same biases against immigrants that were at play in the Bobbitt case are alive and well today.

Lorena takes great pains to draw similarities between then and now, reminding viewers that domestic violence is still a secret shame for countless women, and that it’s still incredibly challenging to get away from your abuser. The last episode of the series is called “The Cycle of Abuse” and opens with a slideshow of women’s bruises and scars from domestic violence. “This is about a victim and a survivor and this is about what’s happening in our world today,” Lorena recently told the New York Times.

And that may be true of what Lorena experienced at the hands of the media, as well as her husband. “If Lorena’s story hit today, Fox News would take the place of Howard Stern, and the 24-hour news cycle would focus on what she did, rather than what he did,” says Kim Gandy, the president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Documentaries like Lorena are timely for a reason — a bad reason — and instead of feeling smug for finally listening, 25 years later, it’s worth taking the opportunity to see what we can do better now.

While the outrage around Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court this past fall might have sounded deafening depending on who’s inside your political bubble, the result is ultimately the same as it was for Clarence Thomas after Anita Hill’s testimony. He’s in, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Meanwhile, Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who came forward to detail Kavanaugh’s alleged assault, was left unable to work and in need of a security detail.

I was 3 years old during Lorena Bobbitt’s trial. I was 7 during the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. I was a few months old for Anita Hill’s hearing. When Blasey Ford testified late last year, I was 27. And yet somehow her testimony still felt like unbearable déjà vu, as if I had lived through this already and already knew the inevitable conclusion.

Today, though entertainment industry figures like Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves are facing some long-overdue music for accusations of sexual assault and harassment, it’s taken decades for that to happen. For figures like Bryan Singer and R. Kelly — both the subject of recent reporting that details sexual abuse allegations stretching back many years, both of whom continue to deny any wrongdoing — it remains to be seen what lasting consequences, if any, they will suffer. Their accusers, like Lorena, have been vulnerable people from already marginalized groups — in these cases young, primarily queer boys and black girls — who have been either painted as liars and manipulators or outright dismissed.

What’s upsetting about these stories is not just the abuses they describe, but the public indifference they often get in response; the rumors and allegations around Kelly, for example, have done astonishingly little to tarnish his celebrity or dim public affection until very recently, following the release of the Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly. And it’s taken 10 years since Michael Jackson’s death for a significant documentary about the allegations of child molestation against him, HBO’s Leaving Neverland, to crack through the surface.

Ten or 20 years from now, will we be watching a heartbreaking five-part docuseries on the alleged victims of Bryan Singer? On the many accusations against him, on how they were ignored for years, on how they sort of broke through in early 2019, how they quickly petered out, and how he continued to get work — and watch his movies win awards — even after the allegations were made public? (Hopefully not.) Is years or decades of hindsight the only way any of us can begin talking about things like domestic violence or sexual assault? The distance might make it feel safer to discuss, especially when powerful people are involved, but it also means the conversation starts far too late.

Lorena also reminds audiences that she was the subject of wild cruelty from the media and comedians during and after her trial. “David Letterman used to call me his girlfriend,” Lorena says in the docuseries. “The jokes did bother me, because I didn’t know to handle it. People were talking about my background. They were saying I was just a hot-blooded Latina woman. It hurts my heart. It hurts my brain. It hurts my whole body.”

Howard Stern practically made a career out of promoting Lorena’s ex-husband — he had Bobbitt on his show repeatedly and during his 1994 Rotten New Year’s Eve Pageant special, raising money for Bobbitt’s medical expenses. During the pageant, Stern airs a mocking reenactment of Lorena’s crime. “A penis is a terrible thing to waste,” Stern says, holding two pieces of a fake member, cut in half, aloft. The Bee Gees performed a parody song that included the advice “Don’t ever piss off your wife.” The metaphor is so blatant it’s embarrassing: A man’s penis is his power, and this woman had the audacity to try to take it away. She needed to be put in her place. “To me it was just cruel,” Lorena told the New York Times. “Why would they laugh about my suffering?”

In hindsight, jokes like these may seem to be in such bad taste that it’s a wonder Stern still has a career. But jokes at the expense of victims and marginalized people haven’t gone away, and neither have most of the comedians who make them. Amy Schumer used to crack jokes about Mexicans being rapists; she apologized for it years later. Sarah Silverman did blackface in 2007; it took her until 2015 to apologize for it (sort of??). Louis C.K. is, currently, mocking the Parkland shooting survivors and joking about his history of masturbating in front of nonconsenting women, all to applause from comedy club audiences. Every Saturday, Michael Che and Colin Jost turn Saturday Night Live into a Statler and Waldorf sketch where they complain about having to learn a few new gender pronouns. None of this will age well, but even in the moment, plenty of us don’t find these “jokes” all that funny to begin with.

The only tangible thing to learn from watching Lorena, besides the full facts of her case, is that the strongest advantage people like Lorena have on their side is time. You just have to wait. You have to wait out the cruel late-night jokes and the sexist media coverage about you and the gossip and conjecture and slut-shaming and mockery. You have to wait two and a half decades, and then maybe, if your case was a big enough deal, someone will make a movie about you, and you’ll get a chance to wear a nice blouse and trousers and sit on a couch and tell your story from the beginning, without interruption, for the first time in your life. The world will turn in your direction, and your abusers will look worse and worse with every passing day (even if they’ve evaded any concrete kind of consequences), but first — you have to wait.

Scandalous stories like Lorena’s are also undoubtedly complicated by the fact that they don’t only boil down to a bad man and a woman wronged. Even in light of widely publicized and well-produced reconsiderations, not all viewers will be on board with Lorena, who did commit a crime, just as Lewinsky is far from a fully redeemed figure now in the public eye. And both women will always be punchlines to some people; even for the few who do get their turn to reframe the stories of their own lives, not everyone is going to listen.

“We always want to find a victim, a villain, and a hero,” says Marshall. “We accept the story we’re told. Having everyone filed away as a certain kind of person and every event filed away as a certain kind of story is how we impose order in the world.” But if you’re able to turn away from that tidy story, and hear what the people who lived it are really saying, “you get closer to the truth.” ●

CORRECTION

February 19, 2019, at 6:34 p.m.

The name of the Michael Jackson HBO documentary Leaving Neverland was misstated in an earlier version of this post.

#news #tw: domestic abuse #tw rape

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canonicallysoulmates · 5 years

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SPN SDCC 2019 OPINIONS

Right now some of you are probably wondering why the fuck you're seeing a post about SDCC when it's September and the answer to that is that I did not have a computer when SDCC happened back in July so I couldn't make this post then, trust me I would have preferred it if I could have, and why am I even bothering to make it when so long a time has passed? Cause I said I was going to and as I've stated in the past I was going to watch the panel and some interviews anyways and share my opinion so I might as well make it into a proper post. Or at least try to, this turned out a little over the place. Now, originally, back in July, I was thinking of doing something like I had done last year meaning a massive post full of spoilers and info available but as you can guess from the title of this post that did not happen this is because of two reasons: 1) I feel like there was less info than there was for s14, to be fair like I said I didn't have a computer during the time and I wasn't on SM a lot so it's entirely possible that there was a bunch of info and spoilers that never made their way into my very limited radar. 2) September is ending, the s15 premiere is literally around the corner, I don't have the time necessary to go through any and all news and info and spoilers about s15, and to be very honest I don't have the patience either. So this post is going to be just my opinion on the panel and on some of the things that were said in SDCC interviews, there are still timestamps and some transcripts and all the interviews I talk about plus the panel are linked at the end in their entirety. I watched 4 interviews for each person on the panel with the exception of two people, I did not watch any of M. Collins interviews, I also didn't watch any of Berner's interviews I was going to but Dabb, Singer and BuckLemming test my patience enough as it is. Also I want to keep this post brief so I'm only talking about things that really stood out to me. Standard disclamer applies that these are all just my opinions and you might not agree with them.... SDCC 2019 Panel I don't have much to say about this panel, most of it was everybody talking a bit about the legacy of the show, there wasn't really any info given about s15 and in that regard, I am a bit disappointed, I wish they had used the panel more and found a balance between talking about the legacy of the show while also incorporating info about the final season. But I can understand why they would do something more subdued. The only things that stood out to me was Dabb trying to make what I hope is a joke about the ending of the show pleasing only 30% of people and bringing up GOT, regular which I'm not gonna comment on cause I want to keep this post general but those who know know 😉, should go without saying that my heart broke all over again seeing j2 cry over the show ending 💔 And I cannot go without mentioning Dabb's intro to the panel cause it fucking killed me, he must have written it himself 😂 "our next guest very first job on tv was writing for supernatural, after eight seasons in the trenches he ascended to the coveted position of showrunner. Armed with genius talent and deep respect for the characters and stories he's beautifully shouldered the shows vision for the past 3 seasons and now leads us bravely forward on the shows final chapter" [TIMESTAMP] Interviews

Let's talk about Chuck, everybody seemed to be on the same page about this, they all gave similar answers when asked about it which is a nice change of pace usually they all give different answers but to me it seems like they, once again, dug themselves into a hole they don't know how to get out of and are trying to back out of it, like in one of the interviews Lemming says at one point Castiel will point out to Sam and Dean that whether or not it was god playing tricks on them they would have come across the same crossroads and they are the ones who made the decision about which direction to go not someone else ("cas will point out to them weather it was god playing tricks on us or us doing it ourselves out in the world we would have met the same crossroads or they would have been different crossroads but whatever crossroads we would have come across we made a decision whether to go right or left no one else did that to us" [TIMESTAMP] ) which to me sounds a hell of a lot like free will. And look, everybody has a different interpretation or views on what free will is, I, personally, think free will has nothing to do with whether or not someone/something puts an obstacle in front of us it has to do with whether or not we're the ones who decide how to deal with it meaning that someone/something doesn't make the choice for us. So to me what Lemming is talking about is free will which is what supposedly Sam and Dean never actually had, to be fair it's possible that scene won't happen or that explanation won't be given or it'll be something different but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that it was all a test by Chuck and when Sam and Dean go to kill him or something he'll be all 'surprise! you passed your mission is done now you can have peace'; I also wouldn't be surprised if Dabb&co do what they usually do and ignore things after the first three episodes until the mid-season finale and the finale. But hey, maybe they'll prove me wrong, and do something really interesting and complex...not gonna hold my breathe for it though. Since I already mentioned Lemming there was something she said that irked me, she was asked about the shows influence/impact on sci-fi shows and stuff, I'll leave a link so you can see the whole thing point is she was talking about early seasons and said: "....we really worked on the physical nature of horror and the psychological results of that, but that takes you just so far as a writer then you sort of realize we have to write about personalities and psychologies of the people living in that horrible universe, so you end up once again revisiting what drama is..." This irks me. Look I'm not a horror buff, so perhaps it's not my place to talk and to be fair maybe this is not the way she meant to come across and I'm probably alone in this but the way she talks about horror at least in this particular answer comes across to me as somebody who doesn't understand or respect horror. I don't really know how to properly explain myself but her going "but that takes you just so far as a writer then you sort of realize we have to write about personalities and psychologies of the people living in that horrible universe, so you end up once again revisiting what drama is" to me this come across as somebody who doesn't know or understand that you can write personalities and the psychology of people and still be horror. Still stay in that genre, without going into drama territory like horror is so much more than just jump scares. I don't know maybe it's that I'm so tired of everything being put in what I consider outdated boxes of either comedy or drama. Or that I'm tired of horror being shoved into drama's box. Or horror being shoved into a box where it's just gore and jump scares and if it's more than that it's a drama or artsy horror or classy horror or some other bs people say when they don't wanna admit they like horror. Or maybe it's the fact that Eugenie Lemming of all people is the last one that should be saying this when with the exception of ONE episode she and her writing partner don't actually explore personalities or peoples psychology. Or maybe it's the fact that the early seasons where this show was more horror it explored personalities and the psychology of the people in that world way better than the later seasons, even though the later seasons have moved into drama territory and have moved away from its horror roots! Anyways I'm gonna leave a full transcript here plus the timestamp so you can go and get full context, this was just something that like I said irked me: "when the show started the mission was to do an hour horror film every week, and really pay attention to the elements of what made horror horror and really put a lot of money into production and make it look good i think we didn't really break ground- yes there were some scary things and special effects in prior shows but we really approached this and build up a post production community, we really worked on the physical nature of horror and the psychological results of that, but that takes you just so far as a writer then you sort of realize we have to write about personalities and psychologies of the people living in that horrible universe, so you end up once again revisiting what drama is love between brothers betrayal between family members, hope dreams promises honor deceit and you do all that- so that can be in every genre it's just packaged as a very classy horror genre..." [TIMESTAMP]

Let's move on to Buckner, he, unsurprisingly, said a lot of things that made me roll my eyes, like he said romance might make an appearance which why??? that's not the point of this show, and: "that's one of the more exciting aspects of this season is that it's actually covering new turf instead of just doing the things that ave worked for us and just going out on a high note actually it's going to be quite experimental" [TIMESTAMP]

Do I even need to point out why this is a dumb ass approach to handle a shows last season? Speaking of dumb asses...Dabb. He got asked if Sam was still psychic he answered: "No, since Sam decided to stop drinking demon blood his powers have gone away, unless he picks it [demon blood] up again" [TIMESTAMP]

Sam had his powers before he got addicted to demon blood, he got his powers when he was a baby because of Azazel, ffs we saw him use his powers in an episode! In season 2! Before the demon blood addiction! He drank demon blood to enhance the powers he already had; it would have made more sense if he had said something like Sam burned his powers after what happened in s5. Sucks that we might never see Sam with powers again but with Dabb behind the wheel it might be for the best.

Now you’ve probably noticed that so far I’ve made no mention of Jared, Jensen or Alex and that’s because with the exception of Jared and Jensen talking about the ending nothing stood out that much to me and as for why I don’t talk about the ending it’s cause I don’t have much to say, Jensen said it took some time but he’s ok with the ending now, Jared that he was ok with the ending they had planned but that it might change and I am both comforted and concerned by their words; even though I didn’t talk about them I am going to link to the Jared and Jensen’s interviews I watched, I personally really enjoyed Jared’s (I love the way he answers questions ❤), sadly I forgot to save the links to Alex’s interviews but if I might try to find them and add them.

So there it is my edited down opinions on this year’s SDCC, if you read this whole thing, thank you. If you read it and didn’t agree with any of it that’s ok, this is as I said just my opinion.

Links:

SDCC Panel

Lemming Interview 1

Lemming Interview 2

Buckner Interview

Dabb Interview

Jensen’s Interviews:

Interview 1

Interview 2

Interview 3

Interview 4

Jared’s Interviews:

Interview 1

Interview 2

Interview 3

Interview 4

#you can tell i lost some steam at the end that's because i am tired af #anti bucklemming #anti andrew dabb #do i even make sense in this post? probably not #mine #incredibly late opinion post about #spn sdcc 2019 #one of jared's interviews might be repeated cause i lost the original link and had to go off my history #there are most definetely tags missing but i am too tired to care #i was going to include jared's analogy that ending this show is like putting down a pet but it's gonna get its own post

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homebrewpodcast · 5 years

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Transcript: Home Brew 07: Abandoned Places, Liminal Spaces

Hey ya’ll! Thanks so much for supporting ☕Home Brew☕ thus far - especially because we a still a pretty young podcast and not yet in the wide world of Apple/Google yet.

Ever since Danny and I dreamed up this project, accessibility has always been a part of our vision - especially as audio recordings can be tough for some of our audience to process. Thanks to some kind and incredible volunteers, we will be able to bring you transcripts of the episodes soon after they are published!

Please explore this transcript of our latest episode at your leisure and look forward to more transcripts to be posted here and on the homebrewpodcast.podbean.com page.

Thanks again everyone!

-Johna💚

Transcript: Home Brew 07: Abandoned Places, Liminal Spaces

Order of events:

☕ Make Talk Good

☕ Main topic: LIMINAL SPACES!!!

☕ Mythic feature: John Henry: The Steel Drivin Man

☕ Devotional thought with Danny

DANNY: Hi, and welcome to Home Brew podcast. I'm Danny…

JOHNA: And I’m Johna, two pagan friends exploring spirituality in the Modern Age.

DANNY: We’re queer…

JOHNA: And definitely not so white.

DANNY: So please be aware that we are grown-ups, who may discuss sensitive topics as they relate to our own experiences.

JOHNA: That being said, we welcome and incorporate the experiences of our listeners. You can contribute by messaging homebrewpodcast.tumblr.com—

DANNY: Or by tagging @homebrewpagans on Twitter. And so, let’s get into the episode!

[transition music]

JOHNA: All right, we have our order of events. The first thing on our list is Make Talk Good, as per usual.

DANNY: And, we are very very excited to introduce our main topic, which is liminal spaces, specifically abandoned places.

JOHNA: [chuckle] So after we’re done being nerds about that, I am going to share a myth with you. This is going to be the Ballad of John Henry, the steel-drivin’ man.

DANNY: And we're going to close out with a devotional thought about plants! [chuckle]

JOHNA: Yay!

DANNY: Yay!

JOHNA: [sing-song] Make…Talk…Good!

It's Make Talk Good again. This is our update on our language learning efforts, which are an act of ancestor veneration. So, let me tell you what I have for this week. It is “Paki-ulit?”

DANNY: Ooh!

JOHNNA: “Please, paki-ulit?” Uh, so, okay, Danny, let me explain to you. This is like saying, like, “pardon? Excuse me, can you repeat that? Can you do it again?”

DANNY: Oh, okay, okay, okay.

JOHNA: [long sigh] This is important, because there's like a lot that I've tried to learn, but I’m not always able to like, use it, and not always able to, like, talk to other people, and it's hard when you're always learning new things, so just like reviewing what I...you know, started out with since we first started doing this.

You know I learned "Kumusta ang lahat," which is “Hello, everybody.” It was really important to me that I learn that. "Na--[laugh]--Nag-aaral ako ng mga multo." You need to know that I study ghosts. And then there's that, you know, very heartfelt one, "Minsan lahat napupunta sa impyerno," which I feel a lot better about but I also feel more strongly about how everything can go to hell.

DANNY: Yeah. I remember that one. [chuckle]

JOHNA: But things like "Tao po?" Easy. Paki-ulit is going to be regular, so regular. I need that phrase a lot. Pardon me, you guys, I needed time to review. It’s important. [laugh] But how about you, Danny?

DANNY: Um, I can start saying sentences!

JOHNA: Ooh, say a sentence now. Like right now, say a sentence.

DANNY: Oh geez, okay, alright, okay. I'm going to say an untrue sentence. “Ni-TLAca-tl--” Aww, but you know what, I forget that the syllable is not going to be in the middle, it's going to be the second to last syllable, so let me try that again for everybody.

JOHNA: All right, take two!

DANNY: “Ni-tlaCA-tl.” And “Nitlacatl” means “I am a man,” which I am not.

JOHNA: [gasp] You’re not, though!

DANNY: But that is the first sentence that they teach. I'm not, but that's the first sentence that they teach in this book. I'm going to once again plug it. It's called Learn Nahuatl: Language of the Aztecs and Modern Nahuas by Yan Garcia. It's a workbook, it's neat, and I am learning simple sentences. And basically how these simple sentences work—

Last week we talked about plural nouns. And we learned that an, a noun in Nahuatl ends with what's called an absolutive ending. And what we are doing now is we are taking that noun and we are also adding a subject prefix, if you wanna just do a simple sentence.

So, in the sentence that I used, “tlaca” means “man.” What you do is, if I wanted to say, “I am a man,” the way that you would conjugate that noun is to add the prefix “ni-,” so “Nitlacatl,” that's a way smoother way to say it. But, as we kind of covered last week, if it's a plural noun in certain situations, the ending is M-E-H. In this sentence, if I wanted to say “we are men,” I would say “Titlacameh,” instead of “Nitlacatl”.

[sigh] So, pronunciation is still not a strong point, and this is a lot. This is, like, very very different than how they do things in English, um, and they only kind of do this in Latin, which is the only other language I know sort of how to do. But I am very excited to be able to start even conceptualizing simple sentences now, ‘cause so far it's just been, like, kind of words a little bit.

JOHNA: Hell. Yeah. Dude. Awesome. Sooooooooooo…

DANNY: Let's get into our main topic!

JOHNA: [laughs]

DANNY: So, in this episode…this is probably, I want to say, our most dense episode yet. It's not necessarily our heaviest, but it's really packed full of stuff. We cover a lot of terms, we cover a lot of concepts, and we introduce some ideas that are only barely like getting revisited post-Enlightenment in the Western World. So if it feels a little confusing and we get a little academic, hang with us, we just have to kind of cover a couple of things.

So our main topic here is liminal spaces, with a specific focus on abandoned places. The reason why we chose to split this up is that if we just talked about liminal spaces as a whole we would be here for a thousand years.

JOHNA: So many thousands.

DANNY: And it would be way more complicated than, like, anybody is prepared for. Did I discover that I wanted to write a thesis on liminal spaces more than usual when doing this prep? Yes.

JOHNA: [chuckle]

DANNY: But we narrowed it down for you because we wanted to, um, really give each subcategory of liminal space the time it deserves. But we're going to get into a lot of good stuff. But for right now, let’s start with some foundation work.

So, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines liminal as “relating to or situated at a sensory threshold, specifically being barely perceptible.” And then space is “a physical space independent of what occupies it.” There are a couple of different definitions that were also listed there, but I picked these two because I felt that they directly related to liminal space as a concept, and also was helpful to connect liminal spaces and abandoned places. A liminal space is a physical place that situates itself between the perceptible, or the real world, and the imperceptible in such a way that creates an overlap between now and the past-slash-future in various ways. Phew! [laugh]

JOHNA: Yes. Okay. That's a good place to start, aaaa… I mean, in layman's terms, I feel like liminal places tend to be busy, you know--

DANNY: Mm-hmm.

JOHNA: --sort of like byways, and that haunted places tend to have, uh, more consistent residents. Even if there is a doorway, there tend to be the same characters around. Does that make sense?

DANNY: It does. And I think, also, before we kind of jump away from haunted places, it’s kind of important to talk about what haunted means. Um, at-at least in terms of how we're, like, looking at it from this podcast. Because we are taking the ‘hauntedness’ out of abandoned places for those who might think that those things are interchangeable.

So let’s kind of go back to the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition. There's two that I really want to kind of chew on. The first definition that I want to kind of look at is haunted as “to visit or inhabit as a ghost.” So that's, like, that was one of the first ones that they list online. But another one, alternative definition, is “to visit often or continually seek the company of.” And I think that that is a more interesting dichotomy for, like, what haunted means. The idea of just visiting often, seeking the company of, is inviting us to consider that things other than ghosts can haunt places.

So while we might consider haunted places to be liminal, and they have liminal qualities, we are going to talk more here, like how you phrased it, like, we're going to talk here more about spiritual byways, rather than like, a haunt. That will be later.

JOHNA: [laugh]

DANNY: So that’s sort of--[laugh] But that’s where we’re approaching this difference.

JOHNA: Mm-hmm. So a common belief among non-western religions is that existence, not just life, is primarily spiritual, and may express itself physically. So this idea has been pretty well eradicated from Western culture, like, particularly after the enlightenment, but it has been something that has been sort of rediscovered by a lot of Western Pagan traditions. So essentially we can recognize this life as an expression of our being, but far from the sum of it.

That invites you to consider, like, how does that apply to things that physical beings have constructed? Does this mean that places and objects existed spiritually, too? Are we able to create spiritual objects or beings by creating them physically first? I think that this is, like, typically the first way that we sort of try to approach that, but that kind of question implies that we're asking whether the chicken comes before the egg. In my theology, and sort of in the perspective of this podcast, pretty much everything is an egg that occasionally makes chicken shapes. You see? Like, you get it? Do you get the--?

DANNY: Yeah, yeah. I kind of love that, too. I like that relationship, I guess, between like our spiritual life and our physical objects we make and like what does what first. And I think that, okay, if we assume “yes,” that at least part of our spiritual life impacts the physical non-living objects we create, it kind of leads, like you were saying, to the question of like, “what happens to these places, objects, spaces when we're done with them?” Like, the idea of leaving a spiritual footprint is how we can kind of connect liminal space to abandoned place.

And I think, also, and here's kind of where things are going to get, um, I guess, a little non-western here, is that time, like you were saying, is a really strong factor here as well. So if a building, for example, can hold onto the physical, the spiritual footprint of those who used to utilize the space, even after the people themselves are gone, then liminal spaces become a really useful tool when conceptualizing how time and spiritual energy becomes less linear than we are accustomed to thinking about that in this day and age. That is to say that liminal spaces sort of become an example of how time exists all at the same time. [chuckle]

Our spiritual footprint kind of leaves the-the energies that we imprinted into the ground on one specific day, and holds it for potentially forever, so that, like, one day that you were there can be sort of suspended in this liminal space for all time. And I think that understanding space as it relates to nonlinear time and overlapping energies can be a really really useful tool when growing in your faith as a pagan, or even just as a spiritual person. I know that personally this kind of interaction with space and liminal spaces has improved my relationship with my gods, um, has simplified and improved how I interact with the natural world, and also how I handle my own mortality and the concept of death as a spiritual person.

JOHNA: Mm-hmm, you know what, I do like that. I like that the Western world is warming up to nonlinear time--now that we have, like, math to theoretically explain it so it's not laughed at as much. But, like, as you continue to deepen a practice with your gods, your ancestors, or just your exalted self, you come to experience, like, dialogue and answered prayers as something that isn't limited to your experience of time, right? Like, you might pray for a job and thank your ancestors for the answered prayer, and then realize that it was possible because they made a demand of you like months before you even needed that job, before the need for that job existed.

So it's difficult to examine how this happens in relation to our own lives, sometimes, when you’re thinking of time totally linearly—

DANNY: Mm-hmm.

JOHNA: --so it helps to, you know, study liminal space instead, and use that as a starting por—sorry, use that as a starting point. So, like, I understand that the way that we talked about this, like, lacks academic nuance sometimes, and, like, for now I'm okay with that ‘cause, you know, when it comes to paranormal subjects, the field is still incredibly new, we still rely on a lot of anecdotal information, but that's not to say that you can't trust your own observational skills.

DANNY: Yes, absolutely. And sort of speaking of anecdotes, I-I do have a lot of perception about liminal spaces with regards to abandoned places in particular, and I wanted to sort of highlight a couple of things to sort of have like a real world example of the concepts that we’re talking about. This is sort of to underline the—the concepts and ideas that we've introduced so far and how I use them in my practice, and also kind of in my hobbies, which, as we all know, end up overlapping eventually.

JOHNA: [chuckle]

DANNY: I very casually do urban exploration. I don't live in a place where it's super easy to do. All of the good good stuff is, uh, really hard to get to, and it’s also hard to find again. If you find, like, a sweet sweet house that you want to get your little fingers in, it's hard to find it later.

BOTH: [laugh]

DANNY: But, and I’ve been doing this for a while, but only recently have I started conceptualizing urban exploration as part of my spiritual exercise, and I find it actually really meditative, sort of before I knew that I-I needed to have a meditative practice. It's a really unique experience for me to sit quietly in a space and to try to feel all of that energy that's ever been there. That is to say, like, if you sit quietly in a messed up house in the middle of nowhere and settle your mind for a second, it really feels like you can feel everything that has ever come in, has ever been around, and has ever passed through that house. And it's a little different than, like, interacting with a forest or, you know, like, your favorite park. It's a, it’s a very very specific energy that is different in every place that you go. And for me that's like, it’s… as closest as I think we can get to straddling a few different worlds, sort of because of the way time happens in liminal spaces. It’s really beautiful.

But I do want to have a disclaimer. [chuckles] And my disclaimer is: please be careful when urban exploring. Be mindful of No Trespassing signs, be mindful of security cameras. You might approach a house that looks really cool, but the structural issues will make it too dangerous to go in. It is not worth dying for the aesthetic. Do not walk into a house that looks like the entire floor is covered in bird shit without a respirator. Do not go onto second floors unless you're absolutely sure that it is safe and secure. I always recommend that you go urban exploring in pairs, at least. I'm happier if people go in groups of three or four, that way if somebody gets hurt you can have someone stay with the person and you have someone go get help. There are times you will lose cell phone reception. That's when you're going to want and need partners. Bring flashlights, bring batteries, don't tag up the joint. Thank you.

JOHNA: Mm-hmm. Good advice from the neighborhood weirdo.

DANNY: That's me!

JOHNA: So I myself, like, I don't like to visit liminal spaces. I like to look at them from a comfortable distance. Now, like, okay, I hate to apply the word “sensitive” to myself because I think that word is used to excuse how other people would rather, like, completely deny their own experiences and the experiences of other people instead of considering that reality is not what they taught themselves to expect, right? But I guess I am, uh, some kind of sensitive in the way that, like, a sensitive person is someone who uses some kind of psychic ability, right?

DANNY: Yeah.

JOHNA: Whether that’s conscious or not. But I also hate the sound of that, because it makes it sound like it's supernatural, but it's not. It's a normal and regular thing that people are. [sigh] Okay, anyway, anyway.

I don't like to hang out in liminal spaces ‘cause they feel…busy. It's like I'm standing in the middle of a hallway, you know, and everyone around me knows where the hell they're going and why they’re there, and I’m just taking up space. Like, I feel like I'm bumping into people at an intersection, because I'm not actually going anywhere. And I don't have business there, and I know it, and whatever or whoever's there knows it, and I'm just standing there, and I’m being impolite, and I don't like how it feels. Unlike you for who it sounds like you sort of like it, like white noise.

DANNY: Yeah.

JOHNA: And I get that. But for me it's not white noise, it's just so noisy. But I do like to observe from a distance, because it's a little like people watching. Which is pretty much what you do up close. But because it’s too much activity for me, I’ll like sit further away and sort of watch, like, an abandoned railroad. And when you quiet yourself, you can sort of feel the land’s memory of trains rushing past. Sometimes you can feel when, like, spirits use them as byways, and sometimes you'll see—well, I say see—but sometimes you can sense people or entities, like, congregating nearby, waiting. And in that way it’s sort of calming because there's this reassurance that people have always just been people.

And sometimes it's just this frightening awareness that it's not just the spirit of a person that’s aware of you, it's the spirit of a place that's become aware of me, and they have an opinion on that. And when that happens I just leave, ‘cause I don't like people watching if I also have to be watched. You know what I mean?

DANNY: [laughs] It's a one-way street.

JOHNA: Mm-mm, I don't like it.

DANNY: We’ve touched on this before, but I think about it every time we talk about this. Um, especially when you were talking about how it feels to, like, sit by an abandoned railroad and feel like the trains rush past, etc. It makes me think of Spirited Away, in that, my, wh-… how do I wanna put this. The feeling for me of, like, watching a world, like… At the very, very beginning when they, like, actually like pass through the tunnel and they're in what appears to be an abandoned theme park, and then that transitions into, like, a thriving place where people are doing stuff, that is how it feel—like watching that, is how it feels for me. But I feel like for you, experiencing…

JOHNA: [laughs]

DANNY: …a liminal place is, like, what it's like to be Chihiro. [laughs] Whereas—

JOHNA: Yes.

DANNY: --I’m still at least enjoying, like, watching Chihiro, I’m st—I’m, don't feel like I am physically a part of the energy, it's just kind of, like, not acknowledging me. Whereas for you it seems like there are eyes on you and you are—someone you know has eaten a bunch of food they should not have.

JOHNA: Oh man. Aw, man.

DANNY: Does that kind of…does that seem like kind of…?

JOHNA: No, it just…feels like… It feels like when you, like, walk into a classroom that you’re not supposed to be in, but you walk in…

DANNY: Oh my gosh.

JOHNA: …with so much purpose that everyone’s just like “ok, and what did you bring?” Aaand…I don’t have answers!

DANNY: Yes, actually, that makes so much sense, like the walking into a classroom and everybody kind of looks at you like “well, you’re here, aren’t you?” And you’re like, “this isn’t the right place.” That makes a lot more sense to me, of all of, like, the times you’ve talked about, like, your feelings about liminal space, I guess.

JOHNA: Yeah.

DANNY: But like, kind of on that vein, we—you know, we touched on Spirited Away, which is a Japanese film, and we are, you know, we're talking about a North American experience. And, like, there is this concept that I sort of want to like touch on before we, we move on, that abandoned places as a liminal space are a really really interesting part of the US, like, the United States experience, in particular, because as an established country, we are pretty young.

So someone who…a hypothetical listener listening in like, England or Japan, might have a different perspective on abandoned places altogether. Because some people…when I went to England, like, some people were living in houses that were older than the established country I live in.

JOHNA: [laughs]

DANNY: And obviously, like, disclaimer, like, we understand that, like, the indigenous peoples of America have been around just as long as every other settled place, you know. We're sort of talking about that in the post-colonial timeline, unfortunately.

Kind of in that vein, in the short amount of time that the United States of America has existed as a country, we have gone through several changes of Industry that has created and then abandoned factories, apartment buildings, whole cities. Uh, pretty much every time that America, like, encounters a change in capitalism, so that’s, so like an economic boom or an economic crash, we change the landscape of our land. We changed the shape of that space, um, as part of our, like, perpetual manifest destiny bullshit.

So the idea here also, the thing with liminality may also relate to how we as pagans or as spiritually sensitive people interact with the energy of our North American culture, and how--

JOHNA: Hmm!

DANNY: --someone who's Japanese would be interacting with their Japanese culture. So, like, liminal spaces might be completely different energetically, depending on where you are! And I think that that's also really super cool!

JOHNA: Oh my God. That's a thing that we're going to have to talk about later, for sure.

DANNY: Yeah, it's a lot to think on right now.

BOTH: [laugh]

JOHNA: But for now…do you wanna hear a story?

DANNY: I would love to hear a story. Let's bring it back.

JOHNA: Whoo whoo whoo! Okay. It’s…this is going to be a story told through song. As I mentioned before, of John Henry, the steel-drivin’ man. This is a version of the song that has been adapted from a Harry Belafonte performance. There are so many different versions of this. The song became popular in the early 1900s when locomotives were first getting popular and companies were laying tracks down all across the country.

Just a preface, a steel driver is someone who hammers down screws that tack down the railroad. And for your reference during the song, a shaker is somebody who twists the screw in between the hammer hits. So, labor intensive, took a lot of people to do this. And locomotion tycoons wanted to make as much money as they could, so they tr--worked hard to be able to replace people with automated drills. So here is The Ballad of John Henry, the steel-drivin’ man.

John Henry was a little baby

Sittin’ on his papa’s knee

He picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel

Said “Hammer’s gonna be the death of me, Lord!

Hammer’s gonna be the death of me.”

The captain said to John Henry

“Gonna bring that steam drill ’round

Gonna bring that steam drill out on the job

Gonna whoop that steel on down, Lord!

Gonna whoop that steel on down.”

John Henry told his captain,

“A man ain’t nothin’ but a man

But before I let your steam drill beat me down

I’ll die with a hammer in my hand, Lord!

I’ll die with a hammer in my hand.”

John Henry said to his Shaker

“Shaker, why don’t you sing?

I’m throwin’ 30 lbs. from my hips on down

Just listen to that cold steel ring, Lord!

Listen to that cold steel ring.”

John Henry said to his Shaker

“Shaker, you’d better pray

’Cause if I miss that little piece of steel

Tomorrow’s gonna be your buryin’ day!

Tomorrow be your buryin’ day.”

The Shaker said to John Henry

“I think this mountain’s cavin’ in!”

John Henry said to his Shaker, “Man

That ain’t nothin’ but my hammer suckin’ wind! Lord!

Nothin’ but my hammer suckin’ wind.”

The man that invented the steam drill

Thought he was mighty fine

But John Henry made 15 ft. of track

The steam drill only made nine, Lord!

The steam drill only made nine.

John Henry hammered in the mountain

His hammer was striking fire

But he worked so hard, he broke his poor heart

He laid down his hammer and he died, Lord,

He laid down his hammer and he died.

Now John Henry had a little woman

Her name was Polly Ann

John Henry took sick & went to his bed

Polly Ann drove steel like a man, Lord!

Polly Ann drove steel like a man.

And John Henry had a little baby

You could hold him in the palm of your hand

The last words I heard that poor boy say

“My daddy was a steel-drivin’ man, Lord!

My daddy was a steel-drivin’ man.”

They took John Henry to the graveyard

And they buried him in the sand

And every locomotive comes a-roarin’ by

Says “There lies a steel-drivin’ man, Lord!

There lies a steel-drivin’ man.”

Well every Monday morning

When the bluebirds begin to sing

You can hear John Henry a mile or more

You can (heal--) hear John Henry’s hammer ring, Lord!

You can hear John Henry’s hammer ring.

Doo-doo!

DANNY: Wow. I told you this earlier when we were planning, but it’s been like a hot minute since I've heard the story of John Henry, and like, it gets—I’m like, that's some good stuff, dude.

JOHNA: Yeah, that's some good shit.

DANNY: Mm-hmm.

JOHNA: Um, historically, John Henry was a real man, an ex-slave. And it's generally believed that he drove steel in, like, the Virginia area. There’s uh, things to support that, things to refute it. But, generally we agree in the late 1800s he was driving steel. And the warning of John Henry is, I think, especially meaningful today, the way that it was in the early 1900s. That is to say capitalism is bad and the man ain’t here to help us, so you should go unionize, like, yesterday, and your ancestors all agree to stick it to the man, but… [chuckles] …also…

DANNY: [chuckles] It's true.

JOHNA: Yeah, as heroic and glorious our people are, we are gonna have to stick together and work together in order to take care of each other, because these companies certainly do not. That’s it. Over to you, Danny.

DANNY: Thank you. That’s, like, its own devotional thought, honestly.

JOHNNA: Yeeeah.

BOTH: [laugh]

DANNY: Fuck capitalism! And also! [laughs] …bought a mint plant. That’s your devotional thought for today. No. I bought a mint plant--

JOHNA: Congratulations.

DANNY: Thank you, it's so finicky. Um, and I only say that because I'm used to taking care of succulents and cacti, which are not. And…but caring for this, this mint plant kind of got me thinking about life, as plants usually do. And how if you neglect one thing--it doesn't have to be anything big. Say you don't mist your mint plant that day, or you don't rotate it so that it gets all the good good sun around all of its little leavies, the whole plant gets uh, unhappy. It gets brown, crusty leaves, it lists to one side, it looks real stupid. And--

JOHNA: [chuckles] Oh…

DANNY: --most importantly, it doesn’t fix itself on its own. Mint plant, your mint plant, whatever that, like, may be for you, things that rely on you to take care of it, are important. But also remember that you are also reliant on you to take care of yourself.

So take some time at the beginning of winter to check in on your needs, uh, physically, mentally, emotionally. Make sure that you're stocked up for what is typified as a fairly barren time, winter. And if you feel off-balance, if you feel like you are getting the proverbial crusty leaves or a part of you feels like it is listing off to the side, or if it's wilting, it just means that something you usually do to take care of yourself isn't happening right now. So, you know, check in with yourself, stock up on yourself, be kind to yourself, and turn yourself towards the sun every once in a while. It's, it’s gonna be okay. [chuckle]

JOHNA: Aww, yay.

DANNY: I love you.

JOHNA: Thank you, Danny. [laughs] I love you, listener.

DANNY: I fuckin’ love you, dudes. [laughs]

JOHNA: So okay, we're going to send us off. I love our question this week, it's great.

Have you seen Spirited Away, the excellent excellent Miyazaki film by Studio Ghibli? Spirited Away? Have you heard of it, yet? Go see it now, immediately, and when you’re done…

DANNY: Immediately go watch it.

JOHNA: …when you're done, get back to us online and tell us, which Chihiro moment do you relate to most?

DANNY: Hell yeah.

JOHNA: Yeah. For me, obviously, it's like, when the sun goes down and Chihiro finds herself in the middle of a busy intersection, and she doesn't know what to do and has no money and everyone…kind of wishes she weren't in the way.

DANNY: [laughs]

JOHNA: That's it. [laughs]

DANNY: I just want to be the boiler man. [loud laugh]

JOHNA: Oh man, good one.

DANNY: That's not a Chihiro moment, I just wanted to make that known to everybody.

[outro music starts]

JOHNA: Oh, definitely get back to us on that you guys. Thank you so much for joining us this week. You should look out for new episodes every other Friday.

DANNY: A big thank you again to Vexento for the use of our theme song, “We Are One,” and to The Miracle Forest for the background, “The Magical Tearoom.”

JOHNA: Again, you can send your comments and experiences to us on Tumblr and Twitter with #homebrewpagans.

DANNY: We are at homebrewpodcast.tumblr.com and @homebrewpagans on Twitter. We’ll talk to you real soon. Bye!

JOHNA: Bye!

DANNY: See you!

#home brew podcast #home brew pagans #homebrewpodcast #homebrewpagans #transcript #podcast transcript #pagan #pagans of color #queer pagans #liminal space

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 6 years

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Idea: What if, partway through the war, all the yeerks (on Earth) died? Not killed by the Animorphs-- maybe the Andalites got their act together, maybe they were wiped out by an unexpected plague, whatever. But suddenly, the teen soldiers find their enemies just... gone.

Embarrassingly enough, it takes them almost two weeks to notice. Well, that’s not quite true. They notice the suspicious lack of yeerk activity in less than a week, but mostly in the form of Marco declaring it to be “quiet… too quiet” and Jake wondering what has the yeerk inside Tom acting so morose all of a sudden. It takes almost two weeks of Tobias lurking over known Yeerk Pool entrances wondering where the heck the controllers are, two weeks of Ax mentioning that the internet chatter is more full of yeerk talk than usual, two weeks of Erek reporting no Sharing meetings anywhere in the country, and two weeks of Cassie telling them to appreciate the break for a change… and then Rachel snaps.

Specifically, she gets fed up with the tension, marches up to Tom in the middle of a school hallway, and (poking him in the chest every so often for emphasis) demands to know whether the entire Yeerk Empire has suddenly gone into hibernation or— or what.

Tom’s response is to grab her by the arm and drag her into Chapman’s office.

Rachel fights him with literal teeth and literal nails, of course — right up until the moment Tom turns to Chapman and goes “See? She remembers that there were brain-stealing aliens too. That proves I’m not crazy.”

Rachel stares at Tom in shock. Chapman heaves a put-upon sigh and says, “I never said you were crazy. I said that we should all probably forget it ever happened and move on, because if we told anyone then we’d appear to be crazy.”

“But…” Tom frowns, petulant. “But if we, like, got a reporter to talk about the yeerks, and enough of us agreed about what happened…”

“Then no doubt the school district would send gas inspectors out to determine why so many people in this town are hallucinating,” Chapman drawls. “The yeerks are all dead, their bodies entirely decomposed in the Earth atmosphere by now. The nonhuman hosts were last seen wandering off in search of that mystical colony of free hork-bajir somewhere in the mountains. I don’t have a way to contact the andalites. All of which means that the only proof you have is a rapidly-evaporating puddle of kandrona under the school.” He sighs. “Any reporter with an ounce of sense will blame the fumes from that for the gas leak, and we’re back to square one.”

“The yeerks… are dead?” Rachel asks.

“How did you not already know this, if you were a controller?” Tom says.

She should probably wait and confirm this with Jake and the others. Probably. But then, she’s never been very good at waiting. “Because I’m one of the morphers who’s been fighting them.”

After all that, Rachel doesn’t even get to tell the others the news. Because she bursts into their meeting only to find that Toby is already standing there looking grave, and Cassie’s mouth is hanging open. By the time Toby is done telling her story — and answering all 500 of Marco’s suspicious questions — most of the details come out.

A few days ago, close to a thousand hork-bajir and taxxons had simply wandered into the free hork-bajir valley. Toby had assumed an attack, until one of the taxxons, who gave the unusual-for-a-taxxon name of Arbron, had explained that none of them were controllers. Because, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, all the yeerks simply dropped dead a few days back.

Toby, not being born yesterday, had forced the entire cavalcade to wait three days under constant guard before letting them into the valley. They passed. All signs point to the conclusion that they’re telling the truth: the yeerks inside them all have died without warning.

Marco, being Marco, maintains that this is all some elaborate yeerk conspiracy. Until Rachel shamefacedly mentions that she blurted the whole thing out to Tom. Until Tom, muttering about their questionable taste in tourism destinations, takes them through a Yeerk Pool entrance under the car wash and shows them the cavern: empty, echoing, deserted. Filled with detritus and congealing kandrona and abandoned junk.

Cassie becomes the one to voice the question that’s been on all their minds, later that afternoon as they sit around her barn. “So…” she says slowly. “Now what?”

“We’ve gotta tell someone, right?” Rachel looks around at them. “Just pick any adult, show them that we can morph, and then…”

«And then come the conspiracy theorists,» Tobias points out. «Then come the social workers. Then come the paparazzi. Is that really what we want?»

«Prince Jake? What do you recommend?»

Jake runs his hands through his hair. “Honestly? I want to go home. I want to finish my stupid English essay, since I guess I’ve got time for it now. I want to go to the UCSB game on Saturday. I want to…” He takes a breath. “To catch up with my brother. Maybe even get some sleep for once, while I’m at it.”

They vote on it, for lack of a better solution. Rachel and Marco are all for telling the world. Cassie thinks they should wait on a decision until they talk to Toby and some of the ex-hosts about what everyone else wants. Tobias and Jake seem exhausted even by the thought of the media circus that would ensue. Ax, as always, abstains.

“Okay,” Jake says. “I guess that’s two votes in favor of sharing our story, three against. We’ll go with Cassie’s suggestion: hold off for now, revisit the idea after talking to the others.”

Things get back to normal. Kind of. Sure.

Rachel punches a girl she doesn’t even know in the face after said girl rudely ignores Marco. And then, when Marco makes a breathy comment about Rachel defending his honor, she punches him too. Detention is a relief; it’s high time someone punished her.

Cassie breaks down crying in the middle of dinner for, really, no reason at all, and finds herself crying harder when her parents hover and worry and offer explanations: it’s about a boy, it’s about the goose last week they couldn’t save, it’s about hormones.

Tobias wavers. He practices, a little bit at a time. Pretends to be human long enough to walk downtown. Grows fingers and dull eyes to see what happens when he rings Rachel’s doorbell like any other boy on the planet. Each time he goes back. Each time giving up human shape feels more like disappointment, more like relief.

Jake wanders the house in restless circles for six or more hours a night, trying to wear himself out so that the nightmares won’t wake him yet again. Sometimes he hears the crisp pock-pock-pock of a basketball on concrete outside, and feels less alone.

Marco’s dad comments on how many evenings they’ve spent together with a reheated pizza and the latest Madden. Marco brushes it off with a comment about earning enough brownie points to get a car.

Ax, with a little help from some commandeered yeerk tech, calls home again. He tries to tell his parents everything that happened, and finds he doesn’t have the words. They assure him they’re coming for him the moment they get permission from the Electorate, and he tries to believe that that time is coming soon.

Ten days later, when it seems that every single trace of yeerk activity really has disappeared for good, a kid with messy blond hair and soft grey eyes walks into their high school to enroll. There are some inconsistencies in his paperwork, of course — he lists his uncle as his legal guardian in spite of said uncle being less than a year older than him, he gives his home address as a P.O. box downtown, he has no transcripts from previous schools — but the vice principal proves willing to overlook all of those issues in light of everything that this kid has done to keep the planet safe. Chapman even signs off on the form claiming that Tobias requires access to a private bathroom once every two hours all day long for unspecified medical needs. It feels, in some ways, like the first true commitment to the idea that this peace might just last.

Which is why Marco corners Tom the next day in school. “So,” Marco says, “I had a question. And you probably don’t know the answer, but you’re like, my second-to-last resort before Chapman, so let’s go with you’re kinda my last hope. Anyway, I was just wondering, in case you happened to know—”

“Supervising the invasion of the Anati system,” Tom says over him, “as of the day all the yeerks on Earth kicked it. No one’s heard from Visser One or her forces since.”

“Anati. That’s far away, isn’t it.” Marco doesn’t wait for confirmation. “And if I wanted to, say, send a message to Anati…?”

Tom considers for a minute. “Find Alloran. He’ll know how.”

So Marco goes to Ax. Just to Ax. He’s getting closer and closer to the others all finding out about this, but… it’s his mom. His problem. He doesn’t want to trouble the others, who all deserve their rest.

Ax, however, seems to be bored out of his mind. He seizes on Marco’s “mission” with enthusiasm, hacking every open-circuit camera he can get his hands on in about two hours flat.

Between Tobias being at school for several hours a day and Jake having essentially ordered them all to take a break, Ax has a lot of time on his hands. It takes him less than three days to catch sight of a very familiar human morph — tall, balding, with a commanding smile — and figure out where Alloran has been hiding. The paper trail takes a little more tracing from there, but eventually he gets a hit on a four-star hotel whose penthouse is currently being paid for by a Yeerk Empire shell corporation… and whose penthouse guest has already been reprimanded twice for stealing too many tiny Danishes from the breakfast bar.

Alloran listens to Marco, and even seems sympathetic, but insists that, as long as they don’t know what killed the yeerks on Earth, he’s not going to contact the yeerks elsewhere to let them know so that they can start invading Earth all over again. Which is when Marco reluctantly gets the others involved, on the assumption that one of them will know how so many yeerks ended up kicking the bucket all at once.

Chapman, when asked, immediately blames the oatmeal crisis that was underway at the time when the yeerks died. However, he has no proof to back up this theory, so he’s not much use.

Tom blames the whole thing on inbreeding. He does not listen to Ax when Ax points out there’s no way a lack of genetic diversity could kill a whole species that quickly.

Jake comes up with an elaborate explanation about them having all died of the common cold. Rachel pokes fun at him for plagiarizing War of the Worlds, until Cassie points out that technically a lack of genetic diversity could in theory leave them open to all being affected by the same disease.

Marco and Tobias, it might be said, get a little too far into tinfoil-hat territory around the time they connect an experimental weapons test out of Zone 91 with a fractional shift in the pH of the surrounding atmosphere, which might have something to do with the acid rain out of Nevada… which probably has nothing to do with the yeerks dying.

Alloran makes a single, muttered comment about quantum viruses. He refuses to explain himself, or even to tell anyone what a quantum virus is.

Marco writes the whole thing off as a colossal waste of time. He goes home that night frustrated, defeated, and wondering if Ax is quite bored enough to steal an unused Bug fighter so that they can go on a kamikaze run for Anati.

He wakes up tied to a chair in the middle of an abandoned warehouse.

“Listen to me, parasite,” a very familiar voice says. “We can do this the easy way, where you worm yourself out of him right now and no one has to get hurt… or we can do it the very, very hard way.”

Which is right around the time that Marco remembers that he pretended to be a controller the last time he saw his mom. “Oh crap,” he says out loud, and then, “I’m guessing you’re not a controller anymore.”

“Edriss dropped dead out of the blue, don’t know why. I stole a Bug fighter and came straight here.”

“Huh,” Marco mumbles. Must be genetic.

Eva raises the dracon beam in her hands until it’s pointed at his head. “Surrender or don’t. Either way, I’ve got no plans for the next three days.”

Marco blinks several times. Judging by the fuzziness of his vision and the cloying taste in the back of his throat, his mom friggin’ drugged him. There’s no telling how long he’s been gone. “I should probably warn you. Jake and a couple of my other very dangerous friends are gonna be looking for me, and I can pretty much guarantee that when they find us—”

“Your threats don’t mean anything to me.” Eva smiles bitterly. “After all, I’m already dead. So I suggest you be quiet, or I might be forced to gag you.”

Marco does as he’s told. Staying quiet and staying put until his mom figures out he’s not a controller seems preferable to fighting her, at any rate.

By his extremely crappy system of internal timekeeping, it is either two hours or two days later that there’s a scraping sound on the roof of the warehouse… almost like a bird of prey landing on the corrugated iron. Eva stands up, tilting her head to listen. In the process, she lets the dracon beam drop to her side — which is when the grizzly bear hits her like a freight train. Her body goes skidding across the floor, a small mountain of brown fur and claws following.

“Stop!” Marco bellows. “Rachel, STOP!”

«I’m not gonna kill her, jeez.» Rachel pins Eva to the ground, leaning just enough weight on the arm that holds the dracon beam that the weapon clatters out of her hand.

“She’s not a controller!” Marco says. “Visser One is dead.”

«She has you tied to a chair—»

“Yeah, exactly!” Marco really wishes he could hold up his hands in a placating gesture right now. “Which we both know I could get out of in about two seconds. So if she knew I could morph, why bother trying to capture me alone? If she didn’t know I could morph, why capture me at all?”

Rachel pauses for a second, looking between him and Eva. «I don’t get it. Why did she kidnap you, then?»

“Because she thinks I’m a controller.” Marco raises his eyebrows. “Which means she isn’t.”

«Marco’s logic does appear to be sound.» Ax steps delicately forward. «In that case, we apologize for inconveniencing you, Mrs. Marco’s Mom.»

Rachel sits back on her rump with a whuff of indignation.

Eva climbs slowly to her feet. She looks over at where Marco is awkwardly shifting out of the way so that Ax can cut him loose. “Mijo,” she whispers, “who the hell told you that you were allowed to fight in a war?”

Marco stands up, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Does this mean I’m grounded?”

“Oh yes,” Eva says, pulling him into the tightest hug he’s had in his life. “For the rest of existence.”

It finally happens less with a bang than with a whimper. The mall downtown is expanding to a new wing, and the construction equipment encounters a sinkhole larger than any California has yet seen. After a trackhoe breaks through to an underground cavern the size of a football stadium, the county immediately halts all activity and sends a team of archaeologists down to excavate what everyone is clearly expecting to be ancient ruins… and instead proves to be stranger than anyone imagined.

It is with no small sense of surreality that Cassie finds herself sitting on her couch with her parents to her left and Rachel to her right, watching on TV as scientists dissect a dracon beam while a Discovery Channel personality narrates the debate about lost civilizations and secret underground cities.

“I think it’s high time we gave them some answers,” Rachel says. “Don’t you?” Her tone is casual in a way that Cassie recognizes as an act, covering for some of the same nerves she’s feeling herself.

Cassie thinks of Toby, struggling to keep her colony alive and hidden. Thinks of Tom, too-casual just like Rachel when saying “I’m not crazy, right?” five or six times. Thinks of Ax swinging by twice a day, just to see if there’s anything she needs. Thinks of Aftran, who — she hopes — would’ve wanted this.

And then she picks up the remote and turns off the TV. “Mom. Dad.” She smiles in a way she hopes is reassuring. “There’s something we have to tell you.”

#au #animorphs au #animorphs #implied character death #long post #visser mom #sol cares too much about the meatsuits #Anonymous #asks

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dailyaudiobible · 6 years

Text

02/01/2019 DAB Transcript

Exodus 13:17-15:18, Matthew 21:23-46, Psalms 26:1-12, Proverbs 6:16-19

Today is the 1st day of the 2nd month of the year, also known as February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Welcome to a brand-new month. And, I guess, you know, you get this far and we’re starting to really settle in. If you make it another couple week’s till Valentine's Day then the chances are that you’ll make it the whole way. So, well done. Well done on the first full month of the year. It’s, you know, we've sailed outside of shore and we’re out into the deep now as we journey through the year together and head toward the end of the year and the next year. So, happy February. We’re still in the same week so, we’ll obviously be reading from the Common English Bible, which is what we've been reading from this week and we’ll still be picking up the story where we left off with the children of Israel newly set free and trying to figure out what comes next. And quite a bit of opposition still out in front of them. Exodus chapter 13 verse 17 to 15 verse 18.

Commentary:

Okay. So, paying attention that proverb would be important since it outlines seven things that God hates. So, it would be good to know the things that God hates and to look and see if we’re doing any of the things that God hates because I mean, if we’re gonna do things God hates that's probably a nonstarter and probably not on the narrow path that leads to life. So, reviewing these things that God hates would be helpful to go back to today.

In the book of Matthew though, we have interesting conversation, but also confrontation happening between Jesus and the Pharisees. So, between Jesus, who is God made flesh, and the religion that had formed around God. And, so, we have to at least acknowledge what we're seeing here. Jesus greatest confrontations and conflict were with what had become of the religion that grew out of the Mosaic law. So, there's this law in place and there are the keepers of the traditions, right, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin collectively. And then there's Jesus, almost a self-styled rabbi who hasn't come up through the system. And yet He is more compelling and signs and wonders are following Him. And, so, they're coming to Jesus and saying essentially, “who gave you the right to do this.” And, so, quoting from Scripture, “what kind of authority do you have for doing these things? Who gave you this authority?” Of course, Jesus knows what's going on here. Like, they're essentially telling Him, “you didn't come up through the system. Like, you know, right, you’re an outsider. What do you think you're doing?” But they can't argue with the fact that the hearts of the people are turning toward Jesus and this is bringing up a lot of jealousy but also a lot of paranoia because there is a very, very tenuous power share going on between the Romans and the leaders of the Jewish religion and if they can't control Jesus and the hearts of the people are beginning to turn toward Jesus and He's gaining momentum then Jesus could be a problem. So, from the perspective of where we sit 2000 years in the future and being able to look back at the story, it's sad and comical in a way that these people would be trying to defend their power, defend their power share, defend their control over the people and the hearts of the people against God. Oh, but my friends, we do it too. In all kinds of big and small ways we do it too. We’ll look at anyone who doesn't believe the way that we do even though they may be believers in Jesus and love the Lord. Maybe they this see some things nuanced in ways that we don't. And, so, we go after them defending the traditions, defending what we think the truth is. This is what the Pharisees were doing and basically what they had done over the millennia is build an infrastructure, a religious infrastructure, that would not allow God to do a new thing at all. Of course, that didn't stop God from doing a new thing. In fact, He came in person to make all things new and do a new thing and in the process blew up a bunch of stuff. Let's not think that He wouldn't do that again. Let's not think that He's ever stopped doing that. We will never run a circle around God with our theology that He can't escape or that he even really cares about. So, Jesus told a couple of stories and its…this is really a beautiful moment where we see how Jesus uses stories because He uses the stories to confront situations where everybody knows what's being talked about and yet He's simply telling a story. He’s not directly confronting a person but rather critiquing a situation that involves a lot of people. So, He says a man had two sons and he went to his first son and said, “son I need you to go work in the vineyard today.” And the first son said, “I don’t want to do that.” But then later he thought it through and obeyed his father. And then he went to the to the second son and said, “son I need you to go work in the vineyard today.” And the son said, “yes”, but he didn't go. And Jesus question is, “who did the will of father?”. And the answer, of course, is the one who obeyed the father. Even though he said, “no, I don't want to do that”, he changed his mind and he went and obeyed, whereas the other kid said that he would go and he didn't. So, in this scenario the son that said, “no, I don't want to, I don't want to obey you” but then and later changed his mind, these are the people that Jesus is ministering to and He brings even tax collectors and prostitutes into His conversation as an example, people who might have heard the call of God, who might have been raised up to understand an awareness of God. And God comes and compels them to move forward but they’re like, “no”. They’re like living in rebellion, they’re living in sin but later change their mind and go and obey. Then ultimately they went and obeyed the father, whereas the person who gave lip service to what the father invited them to do and then didn't do it, well that kinda represents for Jesus what the Pharisees, what the religious system has become, had become. And then He tells a famous story about the tenant farmers, right? So, a landowner leases the farm to tenant farmers who raise a harvest and then the landowner sends for his share and then there's all kinds of this drama, people getting killed and all this kind of stuff until the farmer sends his son thinking, like, this is the heir, like, this is the owner of this property, they’ll respect him but they don't, they kill him. And Jesus is asking the question, “what will the landowner do?” And, of course, they’re like, he’ll destroy those wicked farmers. But the thing is, those wicked farmers in that story were religious leaders, were the Pharisees. Like, they’re the keepers of the law, they’re the keepers of the traditions of God that God handed down through Moses, all the weight going back to Abraham. And then God comes and says, “okay, now it’s time to open this up, it’s time to…give me my share.” And they’re more interested in trying to take over the field. So, to try to take over the religious system and own and control it and be the de facto judge about who is right and who is wrong, who needs to be judged, and who needs to receive mercy, and the keepers of all the recipes for how to worship the Lord. So, in this story God sends His son and they kill the son, which is a bit of prophetic utterance about the future for Jesus ministry. But to properly think this through we have to wonder how much more success Jesus would have if He came today. No really, if somebody came claiming to be the son of God with signs and wonders…I mean…it would be kind of the same scenario. And, so, what becomes compelling is when we read the stories that Jesus used as illustrations during this confrontation and try to find out who we would be in those stories. And we can very easily go, like, “I wouldn't even be in that story. That’s not like…if I'm in that story…I'm one of the disciples of Jesus” until we actually begin looking at our actions and our biases and the way that we treat one another, the way that we judge each other, which is something we’ve been talking about out pretty poignantly as we've wandered this far into the Scriptures. So, the work for today is really to do that, to revisit these particular parables and understanding their context trying to locate where we would be because we’re probably more like the Pharisees than we would like to admit. And, so, as we go through the Gospels we’re gonna keep observing the Pharisees and we’re gonna keep observing the way that Jesus interacts with them and, you know, we’re gonna continually be invited to decide or to observe what we’re most closely like and what might need to change, what might need to be repented of.

Prayer:

Jesus, this is where we are, this is what has come up in the Scriptures today. And, so, this is where we are and we open ourselves to Your counsel and we invite Your Holy Spirit to speak, to show us all these little subtle things that actually create our character in the way that we look at the world. And the truth is in each of us there’s far more judgmentalism then we’re ever really aware of or admit to and often this comes from our fear of just getting it wrong about You. So, we get together and we really really try to nail down every aspect of what it might be like to walk with You and be in a relationship with You and be doing it right. And yet it just won't…it won't distilled down into that kind of a formula. And, so, we keep those efforts to get it right and become more and more like the Pharisees just trying to define every eventuality when relationships…just…they don't work that way and You've invited us into a relationship, an adventure, an intertwining, that we get to be on this earth as You intended us to be because we die to ourselves and allow You to live through us. So, come Holy Spirit into all of the Pharisees and that might be found in our lives. We reject that and renounce that. We want to follow the path that You are leading. And, so, as we see the stories unfolding in the Gospels we’re continually given an opportunity to examine ourselves. So, come Holy Spirit into that examination. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello, this is a word for my dear sister Margo the missionary. I want to thank you Margo for answering the call the Lord’s put on your life and I am so greatly encouraged by your courage and especially your honesty and the transparency of your heart. It sounds like this is a mountaintop experience. So, I’d really ask the Lord to give me his words to speak to you. So, I pray that you are blessed by this. My dearest daughter Margo, fear not, neither be discouraged for this pain will pass. I promise to uphold the words to you which I’ve spoken into your heart. This road you have chosen is not easy and I ask it only of my greatest saints because it requires great faith and courage. And these gifts I have and will continue to pour into your heart. Everything you grieve for today you will receive double even an abundance of joy in the days to come. The longings the of your heart will not be replaced, they will be upheld. I go before you, I travel with you, I will allow you to see the great harvest of souls for my kingdom for the work which I have called you to do, therefore be comforted. Your pain will be to their deliverance. Your sorrow will become our joy. Receive My love and My praise. You are My beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased. And I want you to know Margo that I will be praying for you and your husband and lifting you up to the Lord in just praising Him and thanking Him. Love your sister in Christ, Treasured Possession. Bye.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family, this is Shelley. I’ve been listening for a few years and I’m checking out Chronological this year. I’m calling it for the first time because I felt the Spirit prompting me to take that step now, so it wouldn’t be harder to do if I wanted to do it in the future. I’ve been really ministered to by the time spent in Job and realize that this touches on some of my fears. I know God is faithful and that He’s with me but I’m also afraid of going through painful things. I think part of my personality is being prepared for worst-case scenarios but that can easily give way to fear and in trying to stand against that I tend to block off part of my heart. It’s easy to distract myself with what people around me need or with serving others or with work or household responsibilities. So, my prayer is that I will take God’s hand and walk with Him through whatever things He wants to do in me or situations that I may face. By the way, the word He gave me for this year is courageous. So, that seems to fit. I really have come to value this community even though we don’t see each other. Thanks Brian, China, for all the others there, for your ministry. And thanks for the way all of you support each other in prayer. Blessings to you today.

Hello, my name is Stephanie and I’m calling from Virginia and I was just calling because I’ve noticed that quite a few people have called in to talk about their own mental health concerns or the mental health concerns of others and I just wanted to share a testimony of someone who has struggled with mental illness for about 15 years. I’m 35 now and I’ve gone through some pretty dark periods. Depression that was so bad that I needed to be hospitalized. I’ve actually been hospitalized four times and I share that just to say that I know what it’s like to be just really, really sick in terms of my mental and emotional health. And God has been really faithful to me. He’s taught me a lot through His word about freedom and His love. And I just want to tell you if you’re struggling and you can hear my voice right now, just remember that your body is subject to this world, this fallen world that we live in, and your mind is as well, but your Spirit man is strong, and you can overcome. You know, currently I take medication and that helps me every day to go overcome. And whatever it takes for you to overcome, counseling and fellowship with other believers and medication and therapy, whatever it takes, you know, don’t be ashamed. Just like if you had kidney failure or migraines or…

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Laura in San Diego. I am calling...I just heard some people calling in at the end of the day, the 26th. My heart is sad. My heart is happy when I hear your calls but on a daily basis in my own life my heart is sad that I don’t have a community or even a few close friends of people such as I hear on the Daily Audio Bible that are just about Jesus and real about their life and, you know, supportive of each other. And I’ve been on a long journey in my life. I moved from Ohio to California several years ago but ever since I’ve been here it’s a different environment and people are just not as willing to be genuine or maybe I just don’t know the right people. So…so yeah, I guess my heart is sad but I would like your prayers, that I would be able to find a few close friends that love Jesus and love me and my family and that we can do this walk together. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Sophie and I’m a first-time caller. I’ve been listening for a full year and before that and maybe a couple of months. My very best friend, Karen in Pennsylvania, told me about this app and when I first started listening I...I was so moved and so touched at the sound of Brian’s voice. I’m legally blind, and so voices mean a lot. And whenever I would feel alone or whenever I just couldn’t handle it I would turn to this app and listen to Brian and the Scriptures and I still tell people that, but Brian was the voice of love. I wept __ years and I didn’t know love…I did know I had to pray, but I kept trying, I kept turning to Him and eventually I found Him or He found me, He got through to me. I now…I feel like this is my family. I love you guys. I just wanted to thank you guys and I just wanted to make my place known.

Hi, this is Chaz from New York. This message is for the girl with the lumpy dog, I believe that’s what she refers to herself as. I was listening to you, I think it’s maybe the first time I’ve heard you and I just wanted to say that I love you very much and I empathize with your…with your…ordeal? I don’t know if I mean ordeal, but I empathize with the process that you are undergoing having brought my parents through cancer treatment and I just want to say a word of prayer for you, just a word of comfort and encouragement. Father, I just bring before You my precious sister. I thank You for creating her. I thank You for her life. I thank You for how for You have created her Lord God. And Lord I thank You that You know every cell in her body, You know every organ system. Lord God, You know her heart, You know her mind. Father, I place her at the foot of Your cross Lord and I pray that Your healing would take over her life. Lord God I pray that she would be a miracle Lord God amidst the physicians that are in charge of her care. Lord God that You would normalize every cell cycle Lord God of every cell in her body Lord God. Bring her body to homeostasis Lord God. Bring healing.

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