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germanicseidr · 4 years ago

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Frisians

We are picking up from where we left off on my post about the Frisii. The Frisians were a germanic tribe/kingdom located in modern day Frisia, Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel in the Netherlands, east-Frisia in Germany and north-Frisia in Denmark. They are the oldest Germanic culture that still exist until this very day with their own unique history, flag, traditions and language.

During the great migrational period, which also marks the end of the iron age and the start of the medieval age, new settlers, mostly Saxons, settled themselves in former Frisii territory. Most of the Frisii had abandoned their homeland and migrated either southwards or to the west to Britannia. Only a very few Frisii remained in their homeland, too little to continue their population.

Around the 5th century AD these migrants were now settled properly and called themselves Frisians. They quickly turned their homeland into a powerful seafaring nation now bordered by the Christianized Franks to the south and the still pagan Saxons to the east, the Frisians were still pagan as well. By 500AD they were possibly the most powerful sea power in western Europe, a power they gained from their long history of sailing and trading.

Since the collapse of the Western Roman empire, the economy in western Europe was in a very sad state. Poverty and hunger were considered to be normal while ancient Roman settlements started to decay and slowly disappear. Between 300-500AD, trade was pretty much dead and time appeared to have stopped moving for the people in western Europe. This all eventually changed thanks to the Frisians who were able to restore trade routes and opened up a path for the now so famous vikings.

During the late 6th century, the Frisians set up wide-spread trading routes all across the north sea, east sea and the Rhine area. In all of these trading areas, settlements grew like cabbage thanks to the wealth that these Frisian traders brought, settlements like: Ipswich in England, Ribe in Denmark and Medemblik in the Netherlands. Already existing settlements such as London and Dorestad grew thanks to this trade. Dorestad, a city which was located in modern day Utrecht, the Netherlands, even became the most important trade hub of western Europe, it was also the capital of the Frisian kingdom.

The Frisians were in fact so dominant in their trade that the term Frisian became a synonym for trader in many Germanic languages until around 1000AD. Curiously enough, many of the trading settlements were not fortified with walls or forts, the 6th and 7th century were relatively peaceful times. It was also the Frisians who reintroduced the concept of money in the form of sceatta coins. The word sceatta itself is Frisian for treasure. Archeologists have found these sceatta coins all around the North sea coast, England, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. These sceattas were based on earlier Roman coins. So you can thank the Frisians for the fact that we use money instead of the old trading system.

So what did the Frisians trade exactly? They traded both luxery goods and more mundane goods per example: Fabrics, skins, pottery, metal, cattle, fish, flesh, salt, wine, dairy products, fur, milling stones and even walrus, sea lion and reindeer products which they got from the far North in Scandinavia. They also traded in human lives because the slave trade was a lucrative business and slaves were essential for the early medieval economy.

Who ruled the Frisians? It is not known when the Frisian tribe turned into a kingdom but we do have written sources of some of the earliest Frisian kings. The oldest yet quite unreliable source comes from the epic poem Beowulf which mentions Finn Folcwalding as the first king of the Frisians. It is however doubtful if Finn actually really existed since Beowulf is not exactly a reliable historical source. According to the Poem, Finn was the son of Folcwalding and married a Danish princes, Hildeburh.

Here is a quote from the Beowulf poem: "The warriors returned then to seek their houses, bereft of friends, to see Frisia, their homes and high fort yet Hengest the death-stained winter spent with Finn, in a place with no fellowship at all; he remembered his land, though he could not drive on the sea the ring-prowed ship: the sea welled in storm, fought against the wind, the winter locked the waves in icy bonds, until came another year to the courtyards, as it still does now, those which continuously carry out their seasons, gloriously bright weathers." Beowulf

The first Frisian king of whom's existence we actually got archeological evidence, is king Audulf, who ruled Frisia between 600-630AD. The most famous Frisian ruler however is king Redbad/Radboud who ruled Frisia from 690-719AD. His story is recorded by the Franks, the enemy of the Frisian kingdom. According to these records, Redbad refused to convert to Christianity exclaiming that he would rather spent an eternity in hell with his ancestors than to go to heaven.

It was also under Redbad's rule that the Frisian kingdom reached its peak. The Frisians and Franks were continuously at war with each other as the Franks tried to expand their empire. Not only did the Franks aspire to add more land to their already massive empire, they wanted to convert the Frisians to Christianity as well which they eventually did with quite some violence. Bonifatius and Willibrord were send to Frisia with orders to built churches and convert the local people.

Bonifatius started to chop down sacred trees throughout Frisia, oak trees which were dedicated to Donar, which were used not only for religious purposes but also for judicial purposes. This angered the Frisians greatly and eventually the mob turned against Bonifatius killing him and his followers out of anger and revenge.

Redbad managed to keep Frisia largely pagan until his death in 719AD. After his death, the Frisian kingdom was quickly conquered by the Franks who divided the kingdom into three parts, East-Frisia, Middle Frisia and West-Frisia. One thing I want to mention is that there is a very popular post going around the internet saying that Redbad is the last Frisian king, this is however not true. The last Frisian king was Poppo who ruled Frisia between 719-734AD. It was during Poppo's reign that Frisia was conquered by the Franks, perhaps the reason why most people conveniently leave him out of history.

By the year 734AD, the Frisians were now largely converted to Christianty but some pagans still remained. The latest pagan burial dates back to around 1000AD and some pagan habits like placing offerings in moors and swamps continued on well into the 18th century. It took a very long time before the Frisians accepted Christianity, almost 1000 years before the Christian faith fully got its hold in even the smallest settlements.

Not only Frisia was conquered and converted by the Franks, the Saxons were also invaded by them which led to the Saxon wars which took place between 772-804AD. These wars eventually led to the destruction of the Irminsul and the forcible conversion to Christianity. Countless of pagans were murdered for refusing to convert. The Frisians provided military support for the Saxons in their uprising but it sadly failed. With the arrival of the 9th century, continental Germanic paganism has almost completely died with the exception of Denmark.

The Frisians were no longer independent and by 839AD, the reign of Frisian counts began. During the 9th century, the Frisian territory, now part of Lotharingia, was repeatedly attacked by the vikings. Thanks to the vikings, the Frisians lost their status of the most powerful seafaring nation and an age of terror began. Dorestad, former capital of the Frisian kingdom, was raided several times by the vikings until the city eventually slowly died. It was rediscovered in 1842 during archeological research conducted by L.J.F Janssen, conservator of the rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden.

Since the Christianization of Frisia went so slowly, many of its people still believed in the Germanic Gods by the time the vikings were active. After the passing of Louis the pious, king of the Franks, in 840AD, a power struggle broke out between his three sons which resulted in devastating civil wars. The Frisians, who are genetically and culturally identical to the Danes, decided to stop defending their territories from Danish raiders and so Frisia fell in the hands of Danish rulers. The Frisians and Danes actually had good relationships with each other as their culture and religion were the same. It is believed that many Frisians turned viking as well and joined the Danes in their viking raids.

Eventually the viking raids stopped but the Frisians, now known as the West-Frisians, continued their good relationships with Denmark, a friendship which continued for many centuries as Holland and Denmark later united to battle the Swedes, in fact this friendship still endures until this very day and was recently celebrated between both governments.

The counts of West-Frisia, who governed on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor, ruled over the area which was formally part of the Frisian kingdom, modern day Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe, Utrecht and east-Frisia. The first known count is Dirk I who governed over Frisia between 916-928AD. This line of counts continued until count Dirk V of West-Frisia declared himself as count of Holland and so the province of Holland was born.

The climate of Europe changed again between 800-1200AD, the medieval warm period had begun. This eventually led to a gigantic flood, the Sint-Lucia flood, which created the Zuiderzee and separated West-Frisia from East-Frisia. Eventually east-Frisia became known as simply Frisia but West-Frisia, now reduced to an area connected to Holland, continued to exist under its former name. The remaining part of West-Frisia refused to join Holland which resulted in the West-Frisian wars which lasted around 160 years.

West-Frisia was eventually absorbed into Holland by count Floris V during the late 13th century after series of battles and a mass slaughter committed by the Hollanders on West-Frisian men, women and children. Even though West-Frisia is nowadays part of Holland, they still remain their own unique identity, anthem, flag and dialect. the province of Holland grew into the most powerful province of the low lands and eventually revolted against their Spanish overlords in 1568, a struggle now known as the 80 years war for Dutch independence which resulted in the free republic of the united provinces in 1648, the creation of the Netherlands as a united land.

Meanwhile east-Frisia, now known as Frisia, continued to resist against every power that tried to conquer the territory. Frisia became an independent territory around the year 1000AD and continued to be independent until they decided to join the Dutch revolt against the Spanish. Frisia joined the union of Utrecht and became part of the Dutch republic and still continues to be part of the Netherlands until this very day although some Frisians want to reclaim their independence again.

I am sorry for this long post on the history of the Frisians but they have a very long history that deserves to be told since they greatly influenced all of Europe and are the oldest still existing Germanic culture of Europe.

Here are images of: a map showing Magna Frisia, the Frisian kingdom at its peak. An image of king Redbad/Radboud, Frisian traders, artist unknown, A map of the Frisian trade network, Frisian sceatta coins with a depiction of Wodan, a map showing West-Frisia before the formation of Holland, A photo that I took myself of West-Frisian remains badly maimed by soldiers of Holland during the West-Frisian wars, Current territory of West-Frisia, map showing present day Frisia and east-Frisia

#Germanic #Germanic tribe #pagan #Frisia #History #Dutch

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aegialia · 3 years ago

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self-indulgent reflection on being on tumblr

so i recently hit 1000 followers on here and this blog has existed for almost exactly 8 years, so i wanted to ramble about tumblr and my experience of it for awhile. under the cut so definitely feel free to ignore this.

i started this blog right around when i was fourteen and had just started high school. at that point, i was out to my parents (and no one else) as bi, i had an inkling i was Struggling with something but i had no idea what and felt like i couldnt actually acknowledge it, and i had left leaning but very vague politics. tumblr definitely has shaped my journey around sexuality/gender/mental health/politics, both for good and for ill.

for good:

seeing other ppl talk about being lesbians helped me realize i could be a lesbian w/o being a traitor to the concept of bisexuality. hearing trans ppl talk about their experiences and explaining non-binary stuff and dysphoria helped me understand what i was going through

i don’t like talking about my mental health stuff in detail on here, but suffice to say, i was Going Through it in high school. i’m still going through it now, but i am in a much better place (thank you medication and 7 years of therapy!). seeing ppl talk about the weird, dumb, awful parts of mental illness let me acknowledge that i was going through those things too, that i wasnt like evil for feeling like that, that i could change. people talking about adhd/autism was particularly helpful---being able to identify why i’d always felt like my brain just didn’t work right is the first step in the (ongoing) process of not hating myself for the way my brain works

politics is definitely the area where i think tumblr was the best for me. i got exposed to so many opinions i definitely wasn’t hearing in school, from intelligent, well-read people who could articulate theory in ways i could understand. tumblr didn’t give me my politics and i didn’t learn everything i know about theory from it, but the communities of people i was around pointed me in the right directions. tumblr was also a good place to learn how to react to criticism. this doesn’t seem to be most people’s experience, but getting called out over minor things on tumblr genuinely helped me learn how to take a step back, look at my behavior, apologize, and try to change, which, as it turns out, is a helpful skill irl as well

for ill:

wrt sexuality and gender, it’s probably pretty obvious someone who’s journey is ‘cis bi girl -> cis with a million different microlabels -> nb w a million different microlabels for both sexuality and gender -> nb butch lesbian who’s not super into romance’ would have some bad times on tumblr. the bi circles i was in made being a lesbian seem like an immoral choice, the ‘’’mogai’’’ (or whatever u wanna call them) circles made me feel like i had to divy up and perfectly label every aspect of myself in a way that really wasn’t helpful for me, the lesbian circles i was in made me feel like being a lesbian was about ending up in a monogamous butch/femme cottagecore relationship and that there was something wrong with me for not really wanting that. to be clear i think microlabels can be very helpful for people/a monogamous butch/femme relationship is a perfectly fine thing to want, they just didn’t work for me. im very very glad ive reached a point in my life where i dont feel the need to stay up to date on the latest discourse and am more focused on finding a way to exist that is comfortable for me and supporting my community irl. 10/10 would recommend to everyone

not going to get deep into it, but social media is. not good for my brain in general. i still enjoy using tumblr, but these days im pretty careful to step back from it frequently and treat it as an occasional hobby.

the cons of political stuff on tumblr are probably also very obvious. there are some just awful discussions on here and the culture surrounding the way we handle bad behavior and justice and accountability and working to become a better person and make up for the harm you’ve caused has historically been fucking awful and trying to unlearn it and find new ways to engage with this stuff is exhausting.

for all that i’ve changed over the course of having this blog, this blog has stayed pretty fucking static. i started out being super into diana wynne jones and the iliad and those are still two of my biggest interests and things i talk about the most on here. there are definitely specific things that have petered away (i started this blog almost entirely to keep up with good omens fan stuff and i pretty much haven’t touched it since the miniseries came out, i haven’t sought out pacific rim/supernatural/elementary/mcu content in years), but im still pretty much interested in the same things. i like relatively small fandoms, i like weird side characters, i like to be a grumpy child playing with my toys in the corner. when a fandom im in gets popular, i tend to stop engaging with it entirely (hello rqg/tma/good omens/enola holmes!). i dont think its a pretentious ‘i liked it before it was cool’ thing so much as a ‘people get Weird and awful when a fandom hits a certain level of popularity and there’s too much content and i really, really hate the bad faith arguments larger fandoms tend to spawn’ thing. i’ll consume content from big fandoms, but i pretty much refuse to actually engage with them at this point.

one of the stranger parts of my experience of tumblr is the social side. i’ve never really known how people make friends online---how do you go from liking each other’s posts and occasionally replying to them to actually being friends who communicate off social media? i’ve had conversations with ppl on tumblr and i’ve had sort-of friendships that are contained to tumblr where i’d like to get to know them better, but i’ve never figured out how to do that. my best friend’s job is pretty much to make friends/connections on the internet (she’s an activist and artist), my dad knows people everywhere in the world from twitter, and i’m just sitting here like a little old grandpa who doesn’t understand how you can have internet friends.

at this point in my life, i’m fine with this, but this has made me feel real fucking bad in the past---like, if everyone online, even the ppl who say they’re weird and brainbad in a similar way to me, can make friends on the internet, what’s wrong with me? particularly in high school and my first year of college, when i was just horribly lonely all the time, it made me feel super disconnected and like there was something fundamentally bad about me. these days, i’m a lot chiller about it. i use social media to engage with stuff i enjoy and share my thoughts about it. it’s okay that my social difficulties extend to me not knowing how to use the internet to socialize.

on a somewhat related topic, it’s wild that i have 1000 followers. obviously, that’s not an actually super large number and a huge number of them are probably bots or inactive. if you post consistently for eight years and follow lots of people, like i do, it’s not a surprise to end up with this many followers. it is also, thankfully, the sort of followers that are not fans. probably most ppl following this blog dont remember why they followed and dont know anything about me or my interests. this sounds like its meant to be depressing but it’s not. i like that my way of engaging w the internet lets me do pretty much whatever i want and no one will care. the mere concept of being. like. tumblr famous in any capacity, even just in one community/fandom, is viscerally horrifying to me.

i really enjoy the space i’ve created for myself on here. on one hand, going back through my blog is obviously embarrassing and full of hating my past self. on the other hand, i now have a very nice collection of things i enjoy in this blog. i like seeing what i’ve been interested in and (when i’m in a good mental health place) i like to be able to remember how i thought and talked about the things i loved when i was younger. im not at the place in my life where i can love a younger version of myself, but sometimes i can laugh at zir with a level of fondness.

i’ve always been paranoid about sharing details about my life on here (and the fact that my parents have always been able to see it certainly contributed), so the version of jack on here is a carefully curated version, who’s super enthusiastic about the things they love, was very conscientious about apologizing and trying to do better when ze messed up, and tried to be polite to others. that’s a younger version of myself that i’m closer to being able to have compassion for than the version i find in essays and poems and memories.

i’m starting grad school in ten days and i’m still using the blog i started when i began high school. tumblr has helped me in a lot of ways and hurt me in a lot of ways, but i still have to admit that it’s been a significant factor in shaping me. i’d be incredibly embarrassed to admit that irl, but it’s true. other than my family and like one friend, this blog is one of the only things that’s ‘known’ me since i started high school. i’ve changed so much in that time and im glad to have this weird little record of myself throughout those changes, even if i’d probably warn my younger self away from tumblr if i could go back in time.

tl;dr i have had a mixed experience on tumblr and i have mixed feelings about that experience. no idea if anyone read any of this very long, very rambling internet memoir

p.s. fun facts about this blog:

i’ve never changed my icon or blog title

i recently got a second version of the poster i got my blog title from. i chose my blog title by looking at what was hanging on the wall directly in front of me.

my original url was gloomthkin. this was not, as you’d probably assume, an otherkin thing. i had literally no idea what otherkin was at that point. i’d just learned the word gloomth from a bill bryson book and thought it would be cool n edgy to be the child of the quality of gloom. i changed my url after i learned what otherkin was and realized everyone probably assumed something about me that wasn’t true which i hated (not bc i had an issue w otherkin, just bc i don’t like ppl thinking untrue things about me)

during my good omens days, i once sent a tumblr ask to nail guyman which, in retrospect, was kinda rude. i stand by the content but id never send an ask like that now. he replied to it privately in a way that so deeply embarrassed and shamed 15 year old me that i’ve never gotten over it. i still get nervous and embarrassed when i see anything about him or his books

#gloomth and circumstance #this is definitely not required reading!#i just felt like rambling for a very long time about my feelings and my blog #w bonus blog trivia at the bottom that amuses me and probably no one else

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allatariel · 4 years ago

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Author Interview

Birthday Edition

Tagged by @callioope, thanks so much, my friend! (It’s only been nearly 2 months... *runs and hides*)

Name: Alli

Fandoms: Well, for posted works, in descending order from most works to fewest: four Original Work (poems), three Star Wars - All Media Types (which further break down into two Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and one Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton), two Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, and one each Last of the Mohicans (1992), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types/TMNT (2007), The Shannara Chronicles (TV), The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, and The Walking Dead (TV).

As for unpublished works, excluding those listed above, I have drafts and notes for stories in: A Song of Ice and Fire, Battlestar Galactica (2003), Beauty and the Beast (1987) (I’ve been obsessing over this particular fandom for months now), Doctor Who/Torchwood, Firefly, Lord of the Rings, Mad Max: Fury Road, Maleficent, Origin (YouTube), The Phantom of the Opera, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Tin Man (2007).

A few other fandoms I haven’t written for but have read and adore: Abhorsen/The Old Kingdom, Alice (SyFy), the Americans, Assassin’s Creed, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Being Human (UK), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chalice, City of Ember, the Expanse, Fringe, Hellboy, His Dark Materials, Howl’s Moving Castle, the Hunger Games, Jupiter Ascending, Killjoys, Lost in Space (Netflix), MCU/X-Men, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Myst, the Old Guard, Persuasion, Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick, the Pretender, the Princess Bride, Pushing Daisies, Resident Evil (movies), Star Trek, Stardust, Stranger Things, Terminator, Underworld, V for Vendetta, Watchemen, Witch Hunter Robin, the X-Files.

Where you post: AO3 (if the format of the above list of posted fandoms didn’t give it away). I have some snippets here on tumblr from unfinished works that will hopefully make it to AO3 one day.

Most popular one-shot: I agonized over how to identify this: kudos, a ratio of kudos to hits? “Catch and Release” with 49 kudos since publishing a year ago today on my last birthday is definitely the most kudos I have ever received, but it has 693 hits. Whereas “I’ve Stumbled My Way Back”, which I published on the same day, has just 12 kudos but that’s with only 99 hits. It’s all relative anyway I suppose. Neither of them can really be called truly popular. Regardless, I’m proud of both of them, even if I’m not happy with the title of the first one.

Most popular multi-chapter fic: That is currently my only multi-chapter fic, Of Scrolls and Sleeping. It has gotten 8 kudos since I reposted it to AO3 in 2016. I originally wrote it in 2003 and posted it to the Sink into Your Eyes archive and the Astronomy Tower that same year. A Radiance That Travels will have more chapters at some point and already has more kudos, 43, in the year since I posted it.

Fic you were nervous to post: Pretty much everything I’ve ever posted. Trollbrain is the worst.

How you choose your titles: Usually I use song lyrics or “clever” wordplay that’s more pun than not, with varying degrees of success and satisfaction on my part.

Do you outline: Kind of, yes. I make a lot of notes on backstory and how I want things to go.

Complete: Complete is a relative term. I have 14 published works. I’d say 8 or 9 of them are complete.

In progress: In progress is also relative. I don’t really consider any of my unfinished works abandoned. I fully intend to finish them one day. When that day will be is anyone’s guess, despite my best intentions.

A Radiance That Travels is intended to be a multi-chapter work and more likely to be updated in the near future (I have a little over 1000 words of chapter two, but they need so much work and I haven’t touched it since April 2020). “I’ve Stumbled My Way Back” was initially supposed to be the first chapter in a longer work, but will more likely be the first work in a series of connected Shannara Chronicles one-shots. “Catch and Release” (I don’t really like this title) was going to be a scene in a longer Last of the Mohicans work but will also probably end up as one in a series of connected one-shots. 4 of my works are officially part of an Unfinished Tales series and are less likely to be completed anytime soon, but I am considering adding more unfinished works that are lower on my priority/interest list at this time.

As for unpublished works in progress, I have roughly 26 documents containing notes and snippets that correspond to the same number of potential works. Motivation is in short supply right now...

Coming soon: T_T Anything, please! I wish my motivation would return from the war...

Do you accept prompts: Well, I am a very slow writer and I hate disappointing people (ADHD/RSD) so I never ask for prompts, but if you don’t mind maybe never getting anything waiting, chat with me about ideas.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: There is one in particular that @callioope and I started laying groundwork for early last year that I would love to work on. (Thank you for your patience with me.)

Tagging: @skitzofreak, @g-r-a-u, @okaynextcrisis, @weshallflyaway and anyone else who would like to do it! (No pressure!)

#author interview #tag meme #my writing #i made this #it's my birthday #happy birthday to me fic post

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teddyshoney · 4 years ago

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I’ve been thinking about posting this for a while now...

Good morning, everyone. I'm going to make a personal post, and you're more than welcome to ignore me if you'd like. I tend to ramble, and I can guarantee that this post will ramble, too. And, as a trigger warning, I'm going to be talking about my anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. I have no idea where I'll end up, but I have a few things I need to get off my chest.

You may be wondering why I'm not making a post like this on social media where people know my true identity, and I'll answer that. I grew up in a small town. When I was living there, there were not even 1000 people living inside city limits. My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents were all raised in the same town. So, this caused what I like to think of as a "generational effect." Things that weren't well-known and understood 100 years ago probably still weren't. This includes opinions on mental health and invisible, chronic diseases. Case in point, I've known and understood that I have anxiety and depression since I was 12 or 13 years old. I'm now in my mid-twenties, and I just told my parents about this 2 years ago. Since then, I've been met with, "If you keep a clean house, you won't be depressed anymore." And, "You need to not let things get to you so much. If you just don't worry about things, you won't be anxious." Not that you need it, but another case: I have flat feet. I have had flat feet all my life. My flat feet affected my body so much that I was once pushed down in the hallway and tore ligaments in my knee. I had pronated ankles for years. It took me coming home from work at age 17, following the knee issue and several months of physical therapy, crying every day for almost a week because my feet burned so badly before my parents decided that they should perhaps take me to see someone about my feet. At age 18, about 5 months before I graduated high school, I finally, finally got arch supports so that my feet didn't hurt quite so badly.

Now, despite all that and some things I haven't gotten to yet, I love my family dearly. I'm the oldest of 4 kids, and I've accepted that I was the parenting experiment, that they were very busy with my younger siblings, one of which was quite a handful, and that they were raised to think a certain way. Without a reason to change, they haven't and likely never will. I love them despite that, and I choose to accept it all.

However, all that being said, that leaves me with little to no one whom I can talk to about my chronic pain and possible fibromyalgia (undiagnosed as yet, but the more I read, the more convinced I become that that's what it is). Now, my parents know I have it. I've told them. They believe me...in a way. One of the last times I was home, my mother told me that she thought I should be more active. "Sitting around all the time will make you too tired to actually get up and do anything." Like I said, I love her, and I know she's trying to help, but her comments have only added to my despaired feelings.

I often felt lazy growing up. I would sit down after doing something and be exhausted. I would feel weary. The idea of getting back up to do something else felt exhausting. I used to think that was just a symptom of me being very lazy, but the more I've researched chronic pain and fibro, I've come to realize that I think I just had early symptoms, long before I would actually have the disease.

I think about that a lot now, especially since it's harder and harder for me to do things all the time. I was a very accident-prone child, and I used to joke that I'd end up in a wheelchair before I was 30. It's a very sobering thought to realize I may not have been lying. It's very hard to watch my mother, who just turned 48, do so many things that hurt me. What kind of life is ahead of me, being old well before my time?

If you read the first chapter of the most recent Blaine Has Fibromyalgia story I posted, you'll see a poem in there that Blaine writes. During one of my recent flares, I wrote that poem. For me. About all the things I can no longer do. A few people here know that, and they've expressed that it makes them sad.

It makes me sad, too. Yet, there's nothing I can do about it. There's nothing I can take or do or think or say that will make this go away. For the rest of my life, I'm stuck. It's staying. And, I wonder, what more can it take from me? It's already taken my love of traveling. It's already taken my productivity. It's already taken my sleep, my short term memory, my ability to enjoy the things I love on the particularly bad days, and it's taken my identity on those days, too. I'm reduced to nothing but a sad, sniffling sap on the couch when I can't even lift a finger without feeling like someone's holding a torch to me or running over me with their car.

Now, it may seem like I'm looking for sympathy. I'm not. I'm not looking for any, "Poor you! That must be so terrible!" No, I'm only really looking for acceptance and a safe place, a place where I don't have to hide. A place where no one is going to point their finger and say, "Well, maybe if you just got off the couch, your life wouldn't suck!" I need to be able to have my bad days and not worry I'm upsetting or hurting anyone. Because I will. I have a husband who, despite not signing up for the "in sickness and in health" thing to be such a reality so soon, has been, to the best of his ability, very supportive and understanding of me. He has his mess-ups, yes, but he's human, and he hasn't given up on me yet. But I know it hurts him to watch me deal with this. I know it bothers him that it seems like I'm always complaining. I know that there are days he'd like to tell me to just shut up. He never does, but I know this is hurting him. So, I've got to try to channel it somewhere else.

If you've made it this far, thank you. I'm not sure what I intended to get out of this post other than a bit of catharsis that I'm talking through what's been swirling in my head for almost a week. Maybe that's all I needed. Whatever the case, thank you for reading this wild mess of rambling. This site and my writing is my therapy. For the most part, I do feel accepted here, and I'm very blessed that I've met some wonderful people whom I can call friends. I love all of you, everyone who reads my posts or stories or just follows along because I occasionally reblog an interesting post.

The truth is, I don't know what the future holds for me. I don't know if fibro will prevent me from having a family, if it will keep me from traveling, or if it will hold me back from following my dreams. What I do know, however, is that I will always need people. Fibromyalgia and chronic pain, as well as depression and anxiety, are isolating illnesses. They keep the sufferer from seeking friendship and other people from seeking out the whining and whimpering sufferers. I know that I need companionship in my life from friends, family, and people who don't know me very well. I need to build a support system, and I need an outlet. Thank you for being my outlet.

If you've skipped down to the end of my post, hoping this monstrosity is over, I just want to implore you to take time to text your friends, tell them you love them, and lend a listening ear. You never know when they might need you, when your attempt at contact will make their day. Reach out. Talk to them. Love them. They need you. We all need each other.

Thank you, yet again, for reading this mess. I love you for it.

#personal #fibromyalgia

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larrydrosalez · 4 years ago

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I like relaxed language and I like blackness. This anthology is a celebration of both.

tawk

Sometimes we’re afraid to talk. Yes, WE. This might be about black talkin, but this here is for you too Sandy-Sue and Jin-Woo. I know you’ve had those days when somethin forces you to speak or preach or teach something you’d be much better off talkin about. You scour your brain in search of synonyms you learned in an English class (some time ago) or for some phrase you picked up from your favorite politically active musician – all for nada – because, in your scavenger-hunt for eloquence, you end up with 1000 syllables that don’t say anything. Trust me, I know the feeling. (Deleting those Gs and forgoing those apostrophes a few lines up still has me wary of some impending doom. O_o) [imagine the courage it took to include an emoticon.]

It is this fear of writing the way I feel most comfortable expressing myself that convinced me that this anthology needed to be compiled. It needed to be compiled and needs to be delivered to every writer that thinks their words aren’t good enough and to every reader that thinks some writer’s metaphors are too big and meaning too small. I want this anthology to combat any notion that in poetry white high-language is right language and that slang is to be reserved for Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. This anthology, black-tawk, is intended to act as an examination of Black-American identity in contemporary poets through their specific use of colloquial vernacular, to be referred to as black-talk. These poems are compiled in order to reject “high language” (white-talk) as the only suitable means of intelligent and normative expression and that slave-talk is the only example of recognizable black expression. I seek to find a contemporary river of black voices that flow somewhere between a Mattie and a Michael Eric Dyson (and certainly above a Tyler Perry.)

So what does black-talk between a Mattie and a Dyson sound like? It sounds like black people you hear talking every day. There are no meanings lost in abstract metaphor, no need to keep a library assistant on call and there’s the occasional glimpse of slang. Nah, I ain’t only talkin ‘bout that talk you hurd on the corner’a 3rd and Main, because while that’s beautiful, this anthology hopes to reveal subtle currents of vernacular that black poets use to express blackness. Of course there’s more than a heap of uses of slang’s shining star - “ain’t,” but he’s joined by “nuff” and “betcha” and even “cd” (could.) And these are sometimes decorated by the absence of punctuation that lends itself to an exploration of space and caesura to create natural and lulling speech patterns that mimic the way black people talk. You won’t find Queen’s English here. Nothing like what Jamil (Robert Sims) in his poem “pre-sentence Report” (page____) refers to as “…nouns that // old Sigmund couldn’t EVEN spell.” Though in his poem Sims speaks of medical jargon, there are certainly poets that employ a sort of poetic jargon requires too much energy to decipher.

Not that deciphering is all bad, we wouldn’t want lazy readers, but when simplicity is forgone merely to sound poetic, the authenticity that makes poetry beautiful is lost. Stephanie Pruitt, a young poet from Nashville, could write novels about the process and love involved in getting her hair hot combed in the kitchen – but she doesn’t need to. Her haiku “Hair raising” (page _____) is beautiful in its ability to, concisely, resonate with black girls everywhere. “Hair burning in the kitchen” could easily become “kinky fibers laid straight by heated comb permeates the air in the place meals are made,” but it doesn’t need to. Now the form of haiku is innately simple but this same current of simplicity can be found throughout the anthology in various forms.

black

Sometimes we’re afraid to be black. Yes WE. This might be about black talkin but if you change black to “chino” or “country” this here is for you too Jose and Billy-Rae. It’s about black talkin because black talkin is what I know best. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been made to feel afraid to express my blackness (or asian-ness or mexican-ness.) If a university environment is any representation of the real world, and I fear it may be more forgiving of race, people don’t want black people to be black. Every scorned sagging pant, every kinky twist pressed to oblivion, every set of braids chopped off for a job where suits and ties are need can serve as a testament that black people aren’t allowed to be black.

Oh, but that’s not true, we have a black president! – right, having one black president negates the pressure every white professor ceo quarterback vice-president student government official city official member of congress employed contributing member of society member of congress places on black people to act white right.

…

I needed space to let that sit. The minority will always be made inferior when evaluated against the majority. Being black isn’t wrong, it’s just not being white. There are thousands of conversations to be had about blackness and black identity and defining what “black” is, but this is not a research paper and I am not an anthropological expert on the matter. So you ask, what does blackness have to do with this poetry anthology, and what does that contribute to life? Well, blackness is in the everyday things that black people do. There is no singular blackness. If you’re a black girl that gets a perm and a silky-smooth 32” Remy, you’re exuding blackness just as much as the sister pickin her afro every morning. If you’re a black boy with clean locks sitting proudly on the shoulder pads of your new Armani suit, you’re exuding blackness just as much as the scruffy brother in the newest Js and a tall-tee (although I personally detest tall-tees, that doesn’t negate the blackness found wearing it.)

Since poetry is a manifestation of expression based on personal experiences, black poets should be allowed to be black poets, right? No. An Essay by Evie Shockley entitled “All of the above: Multiple choice and African American Poetry” included in the introduction to the anthology “Rainbow Darkness,” edited by Keith Tuma, examines the reasons black authors are not allowed to be black authors. In short, he states (and I agree) that black authors (I would say all black artists) are subjected to “the poetics litmus test.” They must be judged based on political allegiances and racial “authenticity” rather than ability or talent. If a poet talks like Langston Hughes, they are authentically black, which is good, but they are a “black” poet not an “American” poet. According to Shockley, in order to receive the privileges “American” poets are afforded:

“An African American poet has had to avoid writing in styles or about subjects that are recognizably “black” in favor of “universal themes” and conventional aesthetics. Or she could slip in the back door by appearing willing to narrate ‘the black experience’ for white consumption in ways that do not fundamentally deconstruct white (liberal) understandings of race or directly advocate revolutionary social change.”

This provides a perfect explanation concerning why black poets are pressured away from talking black. Even I question whether or not I want to be “that black poet” every time my mind wants to pen a thought about kinky hair, “unique” names, or encounters with racism. Just as the fear of talking convinced me of the necessity of this anthology, the fear of being black doubly convinces me that there are people that need this.

black-tawk

I like relaxed language and I like blackness and this anthology is a celebration of both. These poets aren’t afraid to be black even when they’re not talking about black things. This collection includes poets just talkin and poets just being black and poets talkin about being black – none afraid to share their identity and the language they speak. Ntozake Shange isn’t afraid to write poems in a manner that is supposed to be talked. Sapphire sees the significance of what Claireece P. Jones has to say, and how she says it. Celes Tisdale saw the need for people to hear what inmates from Attica think. All of these voices have been gathered to fight the fear of being Black regular Mexican Asian poor Jamaican poorly-educated well-educated strange normal smart dumb black-tawking.

black-tawk is right. Don’t be shamed of it. These are your peers.

my tawk

And now that I’ve splattered you with my thoughts/rants about blackness and language and wooed you with my semi-intellectual prowess, I’d like to free myself of the black burden – a burden that has weighed heavy on my mind since I started compiling these poems. What is the black burden you ask? For me, it is the false interpretation that any black voice is THE black voice. To those reading in hopes of better understanding the black race based solely on the compilation of a 22-year-old-half-black-half-mexican-and-japanese-middle-class-college-guy I say: I am not THE black voice. I am not THE black voice. I am not THE black voice. I, like the poems selected for this anthology, do not represent the entire black race or encompass all Black-American identity. There is no anthology or single person that does. I, and these poems, do however represent a current of thought, a movement, towards talking. Towards tawking. Towards tawking black. black-tawk. Enjoy.

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#thoughtsscatteredgrammarbent

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bealight1009 · 5 years ago

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Favorite Character Post: Ivan Karamazov

Name: Ivan Fyodorvich Karamazov

Book: Brother’s Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Dostoevsky is one of my favorite authors)

Position: Anti-hero/Protagonist

Age: 23/24

Family: Fyodor Karamazov (Father)

Alyosha (younger brother –share the same mother)

Dimitry (older brother –share a different mother)

Smerdyakov (brother –an affair (if you could call it that) of Fyodor Karamazov)

Katerina Ivanova (object of his affection, though she pretends to love Dmitry)

Nationality: Russian

Time Period: Mid-1900s.

Favorite Quotes: “I am too young and loved you too much…you’ve been tormenting me so consciously that I am unable to forgive you at the moment. Later I shall forgive...”

“And cherry preserve? They have it here. Do you remember how you loved cherry preserve at Polenov’s when you were little?

“No one, by the way, ever died of hysterics.”

“Me, laughing? I wouldn’t want to upset my little brother who has been looking at me for three months with so much expectation.”

“Though I’m terribly fond of one Russian boy named Alyoshka.”

“My dear little brother, its not that I want to corrupt you and punish you off your foundation; perhaps I want to be healed by you.”

“It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I must most respectfully return him the ticket.” (245)

“You little plagiarist!”

Thoughts:

Ah, Ivan Karamazov, a favorite of mine. I could write a book about him, but, for your sake, readers, I will not. Ivan Karamazov is the middle brother in The Brothers Karamazov, and it seems every literary analyst has something to say about him. His epic poem “The Grand Inquisitor” is regarded as a work of geniuses, though it bears a frightening amount of totalitarianism. Throughout the book, Ivan is troubled by the suffering in the world, and a good God. Therefore, he refuses to accept God’s world. He is a great thinker, and proposes a theory that “everything is permitted,” since God does not step in for His people. However, when someone uses Ivan's ideology to commit murder, Ivan feels responsible . Ivan is racked with such guilt that he develops brain fever. He is a tortured anti-hero. He has been classified as a villain, an atheist, and a madman, yet, he is more.

Our Ivan is a middle child. His father is Fyodor Karamazov, a man who loves to give himself up to debauchery and buffoonery. Ivan lived with this man for eight years, yet his father hardly knew he existed. Having Fyodor Pavlovich would certainly not be a blessing, and I imagine that poor little Ivan suffered emotionally while watching his father bring loose women into their home and become drunk every night. As for his mother, she was abused as a young girl and married Fyodor to escape (so their relationship certainly wasn’t healthy). When Ivan was four, she had another son, Alexi (Alyosha). Around this time, she also started having mental attacks that would leave her insane and shrieking. I think the fact that both his parents would not (or could not, in the case of his mother) care for him, is often overlooked. I mean, imagine being young and watching your father humiliate your mother, who would then lose cognitive ability and shriek. This definitely impacted Ivan –he’d need to learn to be independent, which is so sad to see in young children. Perhaps he’d feel alone; there would be no one to comfort him or protect him.

Once his mother died, he and his four year old brother were taken to live with his mother’s benefactress. Though she took them in, it seemed to be not because she wanted to, but because she felt it had to be done. For example, she called them orphans, and only allotted them 1000 rubbles a piece for all their education needs –anyone who would give them more she deemed would be “wasting their money.” Ivan old enough to hear this, and being extraordinarily intelligent, would have picked up on her disinterest in him and Alyosha. I imagine this is where his “gloomy and taciturn” nature started to form, as now not only did he not have a supportive parental figure, but he was unwanted.

However, the two brothers did have a friend, a Mr. Polenov, who, when the grouchy old woman died, took the little boys under his wing. He didn’t touch their 1,000 rubbles wanting to save it for them when they came of age. It is mentioned that Ivan realized that he would forever be indebted to this man—which might have hurt his pride a bit. One important note is, while Polenov cared for both boys, he did favor Alyosha. Ivan went off to study out of town and lived with his professors. Speaking from experience, it’s a wounding thing to know that people like your younger sibling better than you. Poor Ivan!

He did make a very successful academic career for himself at the young age of 23, which is when the Brother’s Karamazov truly starts. Ivan has returned to his father’s house to act as a mediator between the old man and Ivan’s older brother Dimitry.

Honestly, Ivan’s relationship with his father is messy. At times, Fyodor seems to like Ivan: he calls him his Karl Moor, and at times heeds his advice. However, at other times, he despises Ivan; he insults his son going even so far as to say he hated Ivan, and encouraged Alyosha to hate Ivan as well.

Ivan’s relationship with his younger brother, Alyosha, is precious, despite what their father may want. Alyosha obviously likes Ivan, he is willing to defend him in front of their father, and in front of the prideful Katya. Ivan tells Alyosha that “I have no friends,” but he wants to try to be friends with Alyosha. (Though brothers, the two haven’t seen each other for about nine years). Ivan and Alyosha philosophize with each other and care for one another. Ivan even remembers that his little brother likes cherry preserve, and says that while he (Ivan) doesn’t like Russian boys, he is terribly fond of one Russian boy named Alyoshka. Aww! (He uses the diminutive of Alyosha’s diminutive!!!)

This post has been a lot, but it barely scratches Ivan. He a neglected genius, overshadowed by his younger brother, and terribly lonely. Yet, the story ends with a bit of hope; he has Alyosha, and he has Katya, who has finally admitted her love for him. Ivan’ suffering and his intelligence, not to mention the love of mankind , make him one of my favorite character.

#Favorite Character #Brother Karamazov #Fyodor Dostoevsky #Ivan Karamazov

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thenightgazer · 5 years ago

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A Dead Body Revenges No Injuries

It should’ve been another good time for Vergil and Lyra to read some books at The Literarium, but one of the guests is suddenly dead. The devil and the librarian must team up to find the truth, since the dead can’t tell tales and its body can’t revenge the injustice.

“He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”

-Sigmund Freud

Someone’s dead, and it wasn’t Vergil’s fault.

It’s Spring. It should’ve been the season of rebirth. It should’ve been a divine moment to be cherished, when the embroidery of colourful plants and calming breeze comes to life again. Everything blooms after enduring from winter for so long. A new beginning has come.

It was meant to be beautiful.

Everyone who strives after gain in the perishable world will necessarily come to regret it, at the time of separation and the moment of non-being.

The line from The Epistle of Forgiveness sums everything he had gained from his pursuit of power and it craved agonizingly in his heart. Weeks after learning and contemplating about what it means to forgive himself, Vergil finished his reading of the eschatological literature book and now it’s safely stored in his private bookshelf at his bedroom. It relieves him how easy to let go of his nightmares and it gives him a better sleep without the fear of any illusion anymore.

I’m intrigued by what a book and a little of miracle can do to a sinner like me.

It’s hard for him to think about book and miracle without thinking about Lyra.

Like a carousel, the thought about the witty librarian spins around Vergil’s head and that annoy him in the most unique way. He should’ve hate it, for that makes him oftenly distracted. If his head was a mind palace, Lyra would be the random variable that always pop out from nowhere in every thought that Vergil tried to focus on.

Yet he chooses to be here now—sitting on his usual corner at The Literarium and reading Lyra’s another recommendation; Beowulf. That remind him of the demon he once fought years ago with the same name. Such a disgrace for this masterpiece became the name of a filthy demon, he thinks. Beowulf was on Vergil’s reading list since he was a boy, but he never had a chance to fulfill his list until now. There’s a gleeful sensation everytime he reads the passages, feeling his inner child deep down inside him exclaiming in victory.

The hybrid glances at the woman who sits across him. Vergil has recommended Lyra to read The Turn of The Screw, since she’s fond of horror and mystery. He marginally surprises that there’s still people who hasn’t read this illustrious work of Henry James, even the bookish Lyra. The librarian’s eyes scan through the page seriously, examining every words. She has been quiet since 20 minutes ago without moving or even glancing at anything.

This view isn’t too bad, Vergil quietly grins.

He turns his focus back at his reading.

Beowulf is the oldest and longest epic poem with more 3000 lines long, written by an anonymous in Old English. Nobody knows for certain when the poem was first composed, but some scholars have suggested that the manuscript was made in the early 11th century, which makes the manuscript approximately 1000 years old. It exploits the tale of Beowulf and his battles with a monster and a dragon which was guarding a hoard of treasure. Basically a poem of hero who seeks for glory, Lyra said to him. That confuses him since Vergil doesn’t want to seek any glory at all, yet the librarian picked the book for him.

“I once defeated a demon named Beowulf,” Vergil says. “It was too easy.”

Lyra nods slowly without breaking her gaze from the book, “When?”

“Years ago, when I raised Temen-ni-gru. It was one of the demons that guarded the tower.”

“Uh-uh…” Lyra nods again. “Was the demon… look heroic like the fictional Beowulf?”

“Not at all. Too noisy. But I acquired a strong Devil Arm from its corpse. It wasn’t in my possession again since I jumped to Underworld.”

After a moment of awkward silence, Lyra mutters, “Oh, sad.”

Vergil holds himself to not rip off the book that steal the focus of his dear friend by bringing his cup to the receptionist table to refill his coffee. Since the end of winter, Mr Steiner gave a new instruction for the guest to refill their own cup at the receptionist table. We don’t want to intrude the guests when they read. Privacy matters, Lyra said. Though Vergil can’t comprehend why Mr Steiner didn’t give that policy since the first time he decided to serve free coffee. He nods to Nate, who gives him a friendly wave behind the table as he speaks on his phone. Vergil doesn’t have many interactions with him, but he tolerates Nate’s existence since the young man never get Vergil on his nerves.

When Vergil turns his back after get his refill, he almost bumps to two women who just entered the library.

“Sorry!” a woman in floral dress cheerfully apologises to him without giving Vergil a chance to reply. The other one who wears white dress and looks fragile smiles at him as an apology. They immediately join a blonde woman who sits at the Fiction reading section. They greet and hug each other like old friends, then starts chattering. The hybrid rolls his eyes at that sight and continue to walks to his corner, only to find that Lyra still fixates on her book.

I’m literally going to rip off that damn book.

“These people…” she murmurs suddenly.

“?”

“… are idiot.”

What?

“Why do they always following and calling the ghost around?” Lyra complains. “Like, I don’t get why people shout ‘Hello?’ everytime they see something.”

“Curiousity can be infuriating sometimes.” Vergil silently grins while opening the pages Beowulf again. He peeks over his book to see Lyra’s reaction—she glares at him like she realizes Vergil is being sarcastic to her own habit of curiousity.

They continue to read in peace. The doorbell rings, a sign that there’s another guest entering the library. When Vergil hears giggles and babbles from the women at Fiction, he knows that the new guest is their friend. Their steps are a little bit too loud for his enhanced ears, but thankfully it’s soon over as the women go to take their seats and lower their voices.

Once again, all is well, at least for the next five minutes.

Because now Vergil catches coughing sound from the Fiction section.

The sound is getting worse until Vergil has to look up to see who interferes his seclusion. It’s the same floral-dressed woman who apologised to him earlier. The woman excuses herself to the toilet. Even with Vergil’s enhanced senses, he can hear the cough turns into vomit.

“You might want to ask your customer if she’s alright,” Vergil grumbles.

Lyra put down her book and glances at the toilet, “I should never let Nate to brew the coffee again.”

She leaves her chair as the woman comes out from the toilet, still coughing. Her breath is rougher as she grabs her chest hard, like she’s suffocating.

“Clarissa? What happened?” the blonde woman approaches her and tries to lead her back to her seat.

“I’ll get water.” Lyra hurries herself to the office after exchanging words with Nate to look after the woman, Clarissa.

“Is she alright?” Nate asks panicly after spotting rashes on Clarissa’s skin.

“Of course she’s not!”

“Did she eat something weird before she came here?”

“Do I look like I know?!”

But Clarissa never make it to her seat. She collapses.

The scream gets louder as Vergil immediately stands up to approach the crowd. The woman’s friends are too scared to even touch their poor friend. Clarissa’s face turns blue as her body convules greatly.

Cardiac arrest?

There’s a sound of broken cup. “Clarissa!!”

Before everyone could even make any movement, the tremble stops. The woman’s eyes dilate before it stops moving again.

Vergil can sense the life is leaving her body.

“OH GOD WHAT’S HAPPENING?”

“Someone help her please!”

“Call the cop! Now!”

Police?

But Vergil’s suspicion elapses as he spots Lyra.

In the middle of the tragedy, tears, screams and panic, he watches Lyra who’s standing not too far from the crowd. She brings a glass of water on her right hand, yet something’s off.

The hybrid’s direct experience with human emotions might not quite much, but he knows something about human emotion in hysteria. These people are in panic situation, they’re all consume with sadness and can’t even think clearly. All those emotions can affect human’s body. Panic can cause tremor to their body. Sadness can cause their tears stream down on their faces. Disgust and disbelief can make them feel nauseous.

But the librarian stands still. The hysteria affects nothing to her. The water in the glass doesn’t move, not in the slightest.

For a human, her calmness on this situation is… disturbing.

Vergil tries to deny the chill in his spine when he brushes off Lyra’s emotionless reaction from his head.

The ambulance and police are already in the library. Nate flips the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Close’. The library is supposed to be a peaceful palace, but today it turns to be a nightmare for him. He has been a librarian in The Literarium for years, but he never imagined that someday he’ll see a guest die in front of him. This is shocking, of course. They’re already send Clarissa’s corpse to the morgue to be examined. Polices are busy doing investigation and asking witnesses. This fuss makes Nate almost having a nervous breakdown.

“Hey, Lyra,” he calls Lyra who’s standing beside him. “What did the cop ask you?”

She shrugs, “Standard things like where was I when it happened, how was the victim’s state before she collapsed.”

“They asked me the same thing. Man, I feel like we’re in some kinda crime movies.”

“Ah, they also asked me who made the coffee.”

“What?”

“I said it was you. Didn’t they ask you about the coffee?”

“Not a word! God, they’ll suspect me!”

“Relax, Nate. We drank from the same coffee pot and we’re alive. If there’s someone to blame, it must be her friends.”

Nate lets out a relief sigh, “You’re right. Anyway, is it okay with your friend? He looks like he will kill the cop who interrogates him.”

“To be fair, he always look like he wants to kill someone.”

“Yeah that. To be honest, your boyfriend scares the hell out of me.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“No shit!”

“What?”

“Dammit Lyra! Don’t you notice the way he look at you all this time?!”

“Don’t talk out loud next to my ear, Nate. You’ll lower my IQ. And no, we’re friends. He already has a son.”

“So what? Did he tell you he has a wife?”

“… as far as I can remember, no.”

“Then you are more than legal to be his girlfriend!”

Lyra gives him a disbelief look, “Shame on you, Nathaniel Steiner. Your father took a long holiday and entrusted you this library, yet you’re gossiping in the middle of someone’s death!”

“So what?! Honestly, I have a good feeling about this. Imagine this case spread to the whole city, it will attract more guests to come! And don’t try to change the subject!”

It’s no use for Lyra to reply Nate’s babble. She rolls her eyes in boredom, leaning herself on the wall. A smile curve on her lips when she sees Vergil’s interrogation is done as the hybrid approaches her. She can tell he’s in his cranky mood—the crease on his forehead crumples and he looks like he’s ready to use his sword anytime to stab anyone.

“Bad day, isn’t it?” Lyra greets him.

“You bet it is.”

“Did you tell them that you’re a devil hunter?” Lyra whispers after Nate excuses himself and gives Lyra a mischievous wink.

“Of course not,” the half-devil grunts. “I told them that I’m a delivery man. That’s the safest fake occupation for mercenaries, since any higher and crucial occupation requires too much further identification.”

Lyra bursts in laugh, “I pity that police. He seems scared to even look at you.”

“That I didn’t beheaded him should tell my effort to spare his life.”

“Well… that’d be more corpse to clean.”

Vergil has to admit that he’s confused with Lyra’s drastic mannerism. The woman who stands beside him is the Lyra he knows all this time, unlike the woman who stood still with soulless face an hour ago. Was she just shock to see a corpse in front of her? But she looks calm and even unbothered with the fact that there’s someone died in the library. Since Vergil is a hybrid, he can easily sense people or demon’s anatomy and micro expression better than normal human. It almost impossible to fool him. Yet with Lyra, it’s useless.

From the tail of his eyes, he quietly observes her saying something about the polices and the women.

“They’re weird,” she comments. “What’s the use of calling police? Shouldn’t they call ambulance first instead?”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about.”

“Really? But seriously, I was going to call ambulance before she shouted. I think it’s the first thing to do if you find someone who suddenly collapse.”

“Unless it wasn’t an accident.”

“… could it be murder?”

“Probably.”

Vergil can use his supersenses and his prodigious knowledges to find the perpetrator, but he’s not in the position to easily do the investigation. He’s son of Sparda, older twin brother of Dante the infamous Legendary Devil Hunter. Any reckless movement can reveal Vergil’s true identity. While Dante is proud of his reputation all over the world, Vergil doesn’t share the same excitement. He prefers to keep on low profile, invisible from public. Clearly, going to and fro to investigate won’t be his best choice at the moment.

“You could just go, you know, the moment they called police,” Lyra says. “You said you don’t want anyone knows that you’re a son of… that war hero.”

“And that I am.”

“Why are you still here then?”

“Can’t let a friend facing adversity on her own.”

“All I need to do is just cooperating and let the police do the hard work. It isn’t really an adversity.”

“Call it what you want. I know you’re aware of the anomality in this case.”

Lyra giggles, “You got me there.”

The hybrid sighs and cross his hands on the chest, “From what I can sense through those women, I have my own hunch.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“I think one of them has something to do with Clarissa Watson’s death. All of them are anxious and terrified, but their behaviors are unusual, like they keep something from the police.”

Lyra watches the three women; The blonde woman is the one who shouted to call the police. Her face shows a great grief, but surprisingly her behavior is unnaturally calm. While the woman in white dress is constantly crying since Clarissa’s death. The last woman, who has red hair and looks older than the other women, is the one who seemingly the most normal between them. She cries, but still manages to calming the other two women.

“Miss Martha Ventham,” Lyra points the blonde woman. “Mrs Holly Smith,” her fingers points the red-haired woman who Vergil assumes is the one who comes late, because he hasn’t seen that woman before. Then Lyra turns her finger to the woman in white dress. “And that’s Miss Elena Roberts.”

“How did you know their names?”

“I’m a librarian, Vergil. I have records of everyone who visited this library.”

“Or maybe you were eavesdropping when they were interrogated.”

Vergil doesn’t even have to look at Lyra’s mischievous smirk to see that his words are all true. “Typical.”

“Tell me Vergil, can hybrids die because of poison?”

“No. Our bodies have demonic immune to any kind of viruses, bacterias, and poisons. In a huge amount, we can still get hurt by the pathogen and poison, but it won’t critically damage us. We would heal eventually.”

“So… hypothetically speaking, poison won’t have effect on you.”

“True. But I presume your insane idea of having me drink Clarissa Watson’s coffee to make sure whether it’s poisoned or not isn’t really hypothetical for you, am I right?”

“I… haven’t even say a word—but yes! It takes time for the police to decide whether this is accident or murder. Look, they haven’t sent the forensic team.”

“… you’re right. It’ll take too much time to wait for the forensic team, if this is really a murder.”

“So, let’s split up, shall we? You go collect some evidences. Let me do the most difficult part.”

“Which is?”

Lyra glances at the group of grieving women. “Socializing, of course.”

It’s quite hard to tip toe and get away from the sight of the police, but Vergil has a practical idea. He leans his back on the wall, pretending to be bored, while quietly sends his doppelganger to investigate the crime scene. He measures his energy to make the doppelganger as transparent as possible to be unnoticed. With this, he doesn’t have to be directly hanging around the crime scene and catching any attentions.

From his doppelganger, he can see the Fiction section is already empty from officers, but they keep the place as it is for now to be further examined by the forensic team. Vergil’s doppelganger passes through the police line and spots three cups of coffee on the table, along with four books beside each coffees. One cup is shattered under the table, leaving stains of the coffee on the floor. He remembers the woman in the white dress, Elena Roberts, dropped the cup out of shock. That remind him of Elena’s dramatic behavior—she can’t stop crying and sobbing to the point Vergil finds it unusual. It looks like she’s very close with Clarissa, since she takes Clarissa’s death like the end of the world.

His focus turns to the cups on the round table with four chairs. Vergil remembers their seat positions. Clarissa was sitting between Elena and Martha Ventham. That makes it almost impossible for Holly Smith to do anything suspicious, since her seat was right in front of Clarissa’s. But that doesn’t mean she’s free from suspicion. She was the latest person to join the group. The doppelganger shadowy fingers touch the books on the table; Pride and Prejudice on Holly’s side, The Language and Poetry of Flowers on Clarissa’s, The Great Gatsby on Elena’s, and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings on Martha’s. There are no sign of unusal things from the books. No dust, no stain or anything, but it’s important for Vergil to take notes at everything because it can be useful.

Now the coffee. Aside from the broken cup, the other cups are all half-emptied. Poison might have no effect on him, but he has a profound knowledge of toxicology and can recognize it if there’s any poison in the cups. He examines the cups, even the broken one, but find nothing unusual. If there’s poison inside the coffee, even the doppelganger can smell it.

But why did Martha Ventham insisted to call the police?

Thinking the crime scene is clear, Vergil almost send off the doppelganger to spy the police before he catches Nate stares at the doppelganger dreadly. His eyes and mouth are wide open as if he sees a ghost. Technically, the doppelganger is a spectral created from Vergil’s demonic power. From human eyes, it could be seen as a ghost.

Poor man will never forget this haunting moment.

Nate holds his breath and fasten his steps away after the doppelganger vanishes.

Vergil grins in amusement. It’s funny to see people afraid of something they don’t understand yet.

“Clarissa was a good person. The kindest one. I’ve never thought…” Holly Smith sighs as her teary eyes meet Lyra’s. “I just can’t believe…”

“Did she have a heart problem?” Lyra asks, wrapping Holly’s hand with her own hand. “The way she collapsed, I think she—you know…”

“She had mild arrhythmia. Usually it’s not dangerous. I don’t know, she was just fine—completely fine before it happened. She still laughed with us. But then she said she had a sudden headache and nausea. I thought she would be okay after she vomited but…”

“Poor lady… did she take her medicine today?”

“I don’t know. I just saw her drinking her coffee. I know because I sat right in front of her. She usually took digoxin to stabilized her heartbeat. I guess she forgot to take her medicine or she had too much dose of it, who knows…”

“I see… that must be horrible,” Lyra mutters sympathetically. “How long have you known Miss Watson?”

“About three years. She was my wedding’s florist. She was all lovely and kind. Her customers adore her. It’s hard to dislike such a person.”

“It must be hard for you and your friends.”

“Of course… but I can’t imagine how Elena’s and Martha’s feelings… they were close with Clarissa since high school.”

Well, that’s new. “The police said you were the last one to join the group.”

“Yes, I need to check my husband first before I came here. He got lung cancer and need to be hospitalized.”

“When you arrived, did you see anything unusual from your friends?”

“Unusual…? No, no. At first I didn’t see them because I took my coffee first, then I spotted their bags and cups on the Fiction section, so I put my coffee and my bag there and searched them between the shelves. I found Clarissa and joined her to browse a book.”

Holly lowers her voice. “I have to say… I—I don’t how to put it into words… but Clarissa told me that she had an argument with Elena before they came here. She didn’t exactly tell me the details and I didn’t ask her further because they seemed to have resolved their problem. It must be hard for Elena to take this matter. I can understand why she cries like that, you know, you fought with your best friend and a minute later you found out she’s dead.”

The librarian nods. “Your voice is getting sore, Mrs Smith. I’ll get you water.”

“Thank you.”

Lyra walks to the office, quickly pour water inside three glasses. She contemplates on Holly’s words. She had arrhythmia. Could that be the main cause of the death? But arrhythmia is generally not too dangerous as long as the patient regularly takes their medicine in appropriate dose as prescribed by doctor. Perhaps she took too much of it? Or maybe one of them intentionally gave the wrong dose? Since the police hasn’t declare the result of the autopsy yet, it will be difficult to find out the true cause of Clarissa’s death.

Lyra lifts the tray and passes Vergil, giving him an understanding smile. The hybrid gives her a sly smirk in return. Lyra spots a subtle of his demonic power around the police. It seems that Vergil uses his doppelganger to eavesdrop the police. And he called me typical? That sly devil.

“Here you go, Mrs Smith.” Lyra gives Holly Smith a glass of water.

“Thank you. You’re so kind.”

“You’re welcome.”

Lyra excuses herself and approaches the other two women who sit a bit far from Holly Smith. Elena Roberts is still crying, leaning her head on Martha Ventham’s shoulder. Lyra presents the water on the table in front of them and take a seat beside Martha.

“My condolences for your loss,” Lyra says.

“Thank you,” Martha sobs. “We’re sorry for causing commotion here.”

“It’s alright.”

Elena drinks the water almost hurriedly before she sobs again. “I-I can’t b-believe—Clarissa was just fine when we were heading here—we knew this library from internet and we thought it would be nice if the four of us v-visit—“

“I know, dear, I know.” Martha pats Elena’s shoulder.

“I—I need to get out for a while. I can’t stand it—“

“Of course, Miss Roberts.” Lyra answers politely.

Martha helps her friend to stand up as she and Lyra watch her walks shakily outside the library and closes the door abruptly.

“Elena is always the most sensitive between us,” Martha explains as she wipes her teary eyes with handkerchief. “She can cry almost all the time if something touches her heart deeply.”

Lyra nods in understanding, “I can understand her feeling.”

“All of this… is just… unexpected. We were here to having fun. I came early because I was too excited to meet my friends again. Clearly I never expected to see my best friend died in front of me. She didn’t deserve any of this.”

“Did she show any kind of sickness before she collapsed?”

“No. Not at all. As I said, I came here first, then we browsed the book together. About ten minutes later, Holly joined us. Nothing happened before Clarissa suddenly coughed and… you know the rest of the story.”

“Mrs Smith told me that Miss Watson was a florist.”

“Ah, yes! She was a proficient florist. She had a flower shop at Carrington Street. She loved flowers as it was her own soul. Since our graduation from high school, she always wanted to be a florist.”

“By the way, Miss Ventham, I need your opinion, since you think there’s something wrong with this case.”

Martha’s eyes are narrowed, “What do you mean I think there’s something wrong with this?”

“You shouted to call the police. Then you must know that something’s off. Otherwise, you would call the ambulance first instead of police.”

Martha gulps as she straighten her back. It’s obvious that she knows something. She scans through the room, making sure that no one will hear them before she whispers to Lyra, “It’s personal. I can’t tell the cop because Clarissa made me promised that I won’t tell everyone. But I feel like I have to call them, see if they found something suspicious from her death.”

Lyra nods as she wraps her hand on Martha’s, giving her reassurance, “I know that promise is a sacred thing. It just… I’m afraid police will get suspicious to you, Miss Ventham. Everyone has already witnessed that you’re the one who shouted to call the police. And to be very honest, that’s a rather suspicious thing to do. The police might have come to their conclusion that you have something to do with Miss Watson’s death.”

“For the love of God, no!” Martha’s whisper sounds desperate. “I won’t ever hurt my best friend! Nonsense!”

“Then you must tell your own story about this… a small thing to help the police to finish this case, and who knows it might help you free your worries.”

Martha considers Lyra’s words seriously. She closes her face with her palms, feeling extremely drained and frustrated. She takes a deep breath and murmurs, “Clarissa said she was blackmailed.”

“Blimey!”

“A week ago, she asked me to come to her house. She sounded terrified. She told me there was a bouquet of dark crimson roses at the front door of the house. I saw the bouquet; it was so dark that it almost like black roses. You know, in the language of flowers, black rose means—“

“Death.”

Martha slowly nods, “Exactly. I was going to tell Elena and Holly, but Elena was still in grief because she recently had miscarriage and Holly’s husband is hospitalized. Besides, Clarissa made me promised to not telling this to anyone. After the day she received the bouquet, nothing happened until today. I wish… I wish I could prevent her death. This madness drives me mad to think that Holly might be the one who threatened her, because she has a garden of roses at her house and she was jealous for Clarissa’s attention to her husband when she visited him at the hospital. But Clarissa was always kind to everyone! I know it was just a blinded accusation. It just a crazy thought in crazy situation. Holly is my friend. I should’ve never pointed my finger at her.”

She wipes her eyes again, “I’m sorry. I think you’re right. I should tell the police about this. It’s no use anymore to keep it as secret. At least this is the only thing I can do to help Clarissa.”

“I hope your testimony will help to finish this case.”

“Thank you. Anyway, would you do me a favour to look after Elena while I talk to the cop? She can’t be let alone or she would making scene.”

“Sure thing, Miss Ventham.”

“Thank you so much.”

Lyra’s eyes follow Martha’s steps as she heads out from the library. She suspects the police will change their direction of the investigation after they hear Martha’s explanation. She watches Nate gives a cigarette to Elena Roberts as they smoke together.

“Nate!” Lyra greets her co-worker. “I was looking for you!”

Nate blows the smoke out from his mouth, “I need to evacuate myself outta that hellish building.”

“Why so?”

“I saw a ghost! A real ghost!”

Lyra snorts. He must’ve seen Vergil’s doppelganger. “Nate, you work with your father for almost your entire life at this library. I work here for only two years, and I never saw any ghosts.”

“Ouch, that hurts! You don’t believe me, right? Then wait for your turn to be haunted by that frigging transparent ghost.”

“You’re exhausted, Nate. Relax.” Lyra approaches Elena Roberts who says nothing since Lyra’s arrival. “Miss Roberts? Are you alright? Your friends are waiting for you.”

Elena Roberts looks weary as she lets the smoke out from her mouth. Her makeup looks messy. It must be a horrific burden for her, to had miscarriage and the death of her best friend all of sudden.

“I-I’m sorry…” she sobs. “This is too much for me…”

“I understand.”

“I’m sorry… I broke the cup.” She mutters and wipe her tears. “I don’t know what to do. I saw her and—and I still can’t believe it!”

“It’s fine, Missy. A cup is replaceable.” Nate tries to cheer her up.

“I regret that I had a fight with her before we went to this library. But it was all over. We apologized and we made fun of our earlier argument. Everything came back to normal. It was all fine.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. I heard from the police you had miscarriage, and now your friend…”

Nate coughes as he drops his cigarette, “—dammit! I’m so sorry, Missy. Couldn’t imagine how hard it’s all for you.”

Elena nods and gives him a weak smile, “Thank you. It was just a month ago, and now my friend died in front of me. I must be cursed!”

“I believe it just an unfortunate event.” Lyra says.

“Then why do these miserable things happened to me? They all left me—my baby, my fiancé, my best friend! She was just fine when I picked her up, even when we arrived and browsing books along with Martha before Holly joined us. Then after she drank the fucking coffee—for Christ’s sake!”

Lyra and Nate exchange a pitiful look.

Elena begins to tremble again and panicly holds Lyra’s hand. “Martha brought us our coffee because she came here first. My heart tells me it was her doing. Who knows she put something to our cups? Clarissa told me that Martha borrowed a large amount of money from her to pay Martha’s rent, but she hasn’t pay it while Clarissa needed her money to return. Yet Martha scolded her for being arrogant and heartless! I know it must be Martha! That greedy, ungrateful bit—!”

“Whoa, whoa, Missy! Calm yourself down! You’re not serious with your words, right? It’s your friend we’re talking about!” Nate cuts the accusation.

Elena starts to sob again. “Oh God… what have I done?”

Nate gives her a cigarette again to calm herself down. Lyra decides to leave them alone because it seems like she has all the necessary informations from the women. She enters the library and walks to the Rare section where Vergil is already waiting for her.

“The forensic team comes to take samples on the crime scene,” Vergil says. “Because they found out cardiac glycosides inside Clarissa Watson’s blood, and they assume it could be murder.”

“According to Mrs Smith, Miss Watson had arrhythmia. It explains why her blood contained cardiac glycoside. She took digoxin regularly.”

“That I know. But they also found a large amount of some glycosides from convallaria majalis plant inside her blood.”

“Convalla—you mean that lily of the valley flower?“

“Correct. All parts of the plant contains at least 38 known cardiac glycosides. Convallaria has been used to treat congestive heart failure and some types of arrhythmias. However, the safe amount of lily of the valley is still debatable and if ingested in uncontrolled dosages, the effects on the human heart can be catastrophic.”

“So... if combined with digoxin...”

“It will cause more irregular heartbeats and increase the side effects of those glycosides. And there’s more than that. The plant contains non-protein amino acid called Azetidine-2-carboxylic acid. It’s incredibly toxic to humans even in small doses. Misincorporation of that acid into humans proteins can alter collagen, keratin, hemoglobin, and protein folding. Basically it changes human body function on a molecular level.”

“... that’s a terrible way to die.” Lyra contemplates. “Miss Watson was a florist. She must had a bunch of lily of the valley at her shop. It could explain why there’s convallatoxin inside her blood. But I think it’s impossible for a florist to do reckless thing such as intentionally consume lily of the valley.”

“Then it leads us to one conclusion; someone intentionally poisoned her. This person knows her illness and the medication she was taking regularly. But that’s the problem. I found nothing in Watson’s cup. It’s just a coffee.”

“Oh, bugger!”

“Miss Lyra Clayton?”

Lyra looks up to see the man who calls her. It looks like the man is from the forensic team, “Yes?”

“I’d like to ask your permission to collect the coffee cups as the evidence to be examined.”

Lyra smiles politely, “Of course.”

The officer hurries himself to join his team to the crime scene.

“Clayton,” Vergil emphasizes. “All these months, you never told me your surname.”

“Is that important now?”

The hybrid shrugs, “At least you could tell me.”

He looks adorable when he’s sulking like that. “Alright then. My name is Lyra Clayton. Nice to meet you.”

“I didn’t ask you to re-introduce yourself.”

“Well, I’m just emphasizing my name to you.”

“… I prefer your first way to introduce yourself.”

“With a riddle? For real? I thought you hate riddles!”

“It just seems natural,” Vergil looks away. “I just… I don’t like the idea of not knowing you entirely.”

“…”

“Nevermind,” he blurts. “Now tell me what you find from those women.”

She tells him everything, from Clarissa’s illness to the women’s personal problems and accusations to each other. Vergil keeps silent throughout the librarian’s explanation. He almost think that maybe this was a mere accident, that maybe Clarissa Watson accidentally consumed lily of the valley. But that sounds forced and too… incidental. The timing, the place, the blackmail that Clarissa received a week ago, the mental condition of Clarissa’s friends… It just not right.

Vergil recalls his memories of the broken cup. He didn’t taste the coffee—of course it’s humiliating to lick the coffee stain on the floor. He’s not a mindless animal. Yet he believes he saw something. Not unusual, but quite noticeable and looks completely normal.

“… none of them wear red lipstick.”

“Sorry, what?”

“I think it’s normal for women to wear lipstick.”

“Sure. It’s normal. I wear it sometimes too. What is it, Vergil?”

“It just… strange.”

“Why so?”

“The broken cup. There’s a red lipstick mark on it. I remember Clarissa Watson wore red lipstick. That makes it possible to someone to switch their own cup with Watson’s cup without raising any suspicion. Each of them are not always sit still to read, sometimes they searched for a book at another section or refill their cups. And when Watson collapsed, they switched back the cups and dropped it on purpose; to erase the suspicion.”

“But the police must’ve found the poison container already when they searched their belongings.”

“… you’re right.”

“But I agree with you. They all are suspect now. But first, we need to find the container. That’s the only way to find out the true killer. They have motives. Money problem, jealousy, and the unknown argument… Their accusations towards each other are not reliable.”

“All of them had a chance to put the poison. We need to look closer to their motives and the remaining evidences.”

Vergil sighs frustratedly and turns his head to the group of women. The case shows the light at the end of the tunnel, but they haven’t reach its end. They need to find the evidence; the poison container, if it really existed. The container must be still with one of them. But what could it be? Who brought it?

“The necklace.” Lyra murmurs.

“Pardon?”

“The necklace is gone. See?”

Ah.

Foolishness, Vergil. How could you miss that?

MURDER IN THE LIBRARY

Clarissa Watson (35), a florist and owner of Persephone Flower Shop died after collapsing at The Literarium, a small local library at Michelangelo Street on 11 March. The police declared that Watson’s death was caused by lily of the valley (convallaria majalis) poisoning. The library served free coffee and the cardiac glycosides from the lily of the valley flower was found inside Watson’s cup. According to the police, Watson had arrhythmia and she had to take digoxin regularly. With the digoxin combined with convallatoxin, both cardiac glycosides lead her to death. It was revealed that her friend, Elena Roberts (35) was the one who poured the poison inside Watson’s coffee. To cover her action, she dropped Watson’s cup that she switched earlier to erase the evidence when Watson collapsed.

At first, Roberts objected that she was too panic and can’t think clearly while dropping Watson’s cup, thinking it was her own cup. She also claimed she didn’t possess the poison. It was revealed that Roberts’s fingerprints are also appeared on the broken cup. The police also found Robert’s necklace from her clothes. The necklace contained residue of liquid convallaria majalis inside its removable tube-shaped pendant.

According to another of Watson’s friends who were present at the moment, Martha Ventham (35) and Holly Smith (37), Roberts was depressed because of her recent miscarriage. Roberts herself finally admitted that she thought Watson took part of her miscarriage by giving her chamomile and ginger tea when she visited Watson’s house three weeks ago. Roberts didn’t know she was pregnant until the miscarriage happened. She claimed she was devastated and it was hard for her to not blame Watson for the miscarriage. She put a bouquet of dark crimson roses at Watson’s house a week before this tragedy happened as a threat that she could never forget Watson’s mistake. Ventham confirmed this statement since she saw the bouquet when Watson told her about the blackmail, but she never thought that it was Roberts who sent it.

“Clarissa made me promised to shut my mouth about it,” Ventham stated. “But when she collapsed, I remember that bouquet and I couldn’t help myself to not call the police. Something’s wrong, and I have to find the truth for Clarissa’s sake”. Smith also confirmed that Watson and Roberts had an argument before their arrival at the library. It was then revealed that Roberts confronted Watson about the miscarriage, but Watson denied it.

Roberts said that the idea of murder just popped on her head since two weeks ago and she chose lily of the valley because it was Watson’s favourite flower.

“Lily of the valley means return of happiness” Roberts stated. “I know because Clarissa told me that. I thought with her death by her own favourite flower, it would return my happiness after I lost my baby, but I can only feel nothing. I lost everything, and maybe I deserve that.”

12 March, 02:00 pm

Lyra closes the newspaper and turns her eyes to Vergil, who continues to read Beowulf, “Do chamomile really can cause miscarriage?”

The hybrid grumbles, “Do I look like I’m capable to answer that?”

“You know, it’s rude to answer question with question.”

Vergil grunts. “All I know about miscarriage that it could happened by many factors. Too much chamomile might trigger the miscarriage, but that’s not always the case.”

Lyra nods slowly as she puts the newspaper down and picks up The Turn of The Screw. “At least that explains Miss Roberts’s over-dramatic reaction. I guess she feels guilty after murdering her friend, realizing that it was all to late and she can’t redo everything. But we can never really blame her frustration. She wasn’t in the right state of mind.”

“It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning,” Vergil recites the line from Beowulf. “It’s strange what human could do in devastation.”

“Yeah, such as stabbing themselves with a magic sword and split them into two different beings.”

Lyra laughs when Vergil gives her his usual deadly glare.

“Well, at least we have more customers thanks to Miss Roberts,” Lyra chuckles as she observes the guests. “Nate was right about that. Though Mr Steiner stopped giving free coffee. No more murder in the library, he said.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“You don’t look happy.”

“I don’t have to smile like Joker to tell you that I’m happy.”

“You’re funny guy, you know that?”

“Don’t call me funny.”

“And you’re the best partner in crime!”

“Silence.”

Even though Vergil dismisses her words harshly, Lyra still can see the subtle warm smile on Vergil’s lips. She flips the page of The Turn of The Screw and tell herself to finish the book today. There’s a long pause before she realizes that Vergil stares at her with unreadable expression. Uncomfortable with that kind of gaze, Lyra chuckles, “You know it’s rude to stare, right?”

“Pardon me. I was just trying to recall.”

“Of what?”

“Remind me again, what did exactly you tell the police once we found out the disappearance of Elena Roberts’ necklace?”

“Well… as we agreed, I told the police that Miss Roberts’ necklace could be the evidence they’ve looked for. As we know, the necklace has a tube pendant which could contains approximately 1-2 ml of liquid inside it. It was odd that she suddenly removed the necklace out of the blue, for we know she wore it since her arrival here with Miss Watson. It was a gamble, but the police confirmed that the tube contained residue of convallatoxin. It was easy for Miss Roberts to pour the poison inside Miss Watson’s cup and quickly removed the necklace right before she joined them to browse the books. We know that Mrs Smith might have turned to be the suspect since she was the latest to join the group, so she didn’t have any chance to witness Miss Roberts’ position before her arrival and she sat at her chair first to put her coffee on the table before she joined her group.”

“And Martha Ventham had witnessed that Holly Smith has a garden of roses at her house, which could indicated that she was the one who brought the bouquet of dark crimson roses as a threat to Clarissa Watson.”

“Correct. That strengthen Miss Roberts’ alibi.”

“So all the pieces of puzzle was collected,” Vergil leans forward and taps his fingers on the table. “But there’s a major plot hole.”

Lyra tilts her head, “And what is that?”

Vergil deeply gazes at Lyra’s eyes, his voice is almost gentle. “How did you know that Elena Roberts wore the necklace since the first of her arrival?”

Vergil has read too much micro-expressions and even if just a slightest, he can senses a fight-or-flight instinct from the librarian as her face turns pale and her eyes dilate before she quickly collects her self-control and pretending to be confused with Vergil’s question.

“Because I saw it. Don’t we all, Vergil?”

“I saw the necklace because she and Clarissa Watson almost bumped at me near the receptionist table. When the murder happened, the necklace was already gone. You were reading seriously all the time before you stood up to get some water for Clarissa Watson when she vomited at the toilet. That means Elena Roberts had already poured the poison before that moment happened and she already hid her necklace. Panic and sadness consumed them all and that made them unaware of menial thing like a necklace.” Vergil stops his finger’s movement. “In conclusion, Lyra, you never saw the necklace. But somehow you recognized the disappearance of the necklace. How did you know that?”

“I… asked her friends, of course.”

“That would be invalid, because they must’ve suspected it too and would immediately confronted her about the necklace, or at least they would report it to the police. But no, they all gathered up and crying for the loss of their best friend.”

That statement edges Lyra to her loss. She sighs deeply in defeat, looking around her like she’s making sure that no one heard their conversation. She slowly bites her lips and looking at Vergil’s eyes, seriously considering something.

The hybrid knows this is the time he finally get his answer for his long unsettling feeling to Lyra. He waits patiently all these months to find out, even hoping for Lyra to tell him in person. When he said that he dislikes to not knowing anything about her yesterday, he means it and deep down he wishes Lyra to understand it. It’s obvious that he likes her a little too much, but there’s still a border between them that he finds it hard to completely trust her.

I want to trust you.

“Stardust,” he lowers his voice. “You accept me for who I really am. You consider me as your friend despite my flaws. Please understand that I intend to do so to you.”

The feeling of grateful and relief fill his heart when Lyra finally nods in agreement at him. Her smile blooms again, now it’s brighter and sincere than her first fake smile. She still has her own doubt, but finally she takes a deep breath and grins.

“You’re right, it’s not fair. You told me everything and I’ll return the favor. I believe you can keep it a secret.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

She giggles.

“My head is full of ghosts,” Lyra says. “It’s a metaphor, because it sounds like whispers, then it turns into pictures.”

What’s she talking about?

“I don’t remember since when I possess this, nor how I acquired it. It just happened automatically. It’s… mostly frustrating. It mentally drains me, to know things I should not and never want to know. At least before I met you. Whenever you’re around me, it’s always stop. It goes normal just like everyone else doing. You don’t know how relieved I am to be with you. You stop the ghosts.”

“I am honoured,” Vergil says. “But I’m afraid I still don’t follow—”

“I can’t read your mind, Vergil.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s the thing, because I always can read everyone’s mind, whether it’s humans or demons. But not you, and not when you’re around me. It seems like your presence disables my ability. But yesterday, when I touched those women’s hands, I realized that I still able to read mind when you’re around if I touch them. Now you know how I recognized Miss Roberts’ necklace, as well as the fact I know that she’s the killer all along. But I can’t just tell you all informations I acquired from her head. That’s why I have to discuss it with you. To guide you to the answer.”

Ah. The realization comes to Vergil’s head. She’s a telepath.

The librarian touches Vergil’s hand and grab it softly. It surprises him and he almost pull his hand off, but he restrains himself. He won’t lose to his own fear of physical contacts.

Slowly, she releases Vergil’s hand. “Yet… even if I touch you like this, I still see nothing. I wonder if it’s Sparda’s protection on you. I don’t dare forcing myself to look inside your head. I fear that would make you aware of my ability. Besides, I respect your privacy. I see too much. That’s why I like it when you’re with me. You give me solitude.”

I was wrong all this time. The voidness that Vergil always see whenever he watches Lyra’s eyes is the burden of the eyes that see too much. The eyes that exhausted and always wander to find peace and calmness. Sometimes it’s hard to see the truth behind the unfamiliar eyes, especially the eyes like hers. But now he understands the meaning of it. Vergil knows that knowledge can be a curse—she suffers silently with her ability to read mind.

“Thank you for your honesty,” he states. “You should’ve tell me earlier.”

“I thought it would make you uncomfortable.”

Nonsense. Of course I won’t feel uncomfortable whenever I’m with you.

“Will you try to read my mind again?” he asks.

“I told you already, I can’t. I’ve tried.”

Vergil reaches out his hand, “Just try it. I will allow you to read what’s on my mind at the moment.”

Lyra grabs his hand and trying to focus on Vergil’s head instead of his icy, alluring eyes. At first she gets nothing, just a static darkness, then she sees some blurry images that she can’t perceived. It seems that whatever protection in Vergil’s mind, it will endure itself if Vergil allows it, but although Lyra tries her best to clear her vision, the pictures are getting hazy, in fact, the more she tries to break Vergil’s mind, the darker it goes.

Then she hears it. It’s not quite like Vergil’s voice, more like a brainwave, but she can clearly interprets the meaning, and that makes her smile gets wider as she realizes that Vergil also awares of her presence inside his mind.

‘Our minds are connected!’ she exclaims.

Vergil still tries to adjust the new experience, ‘This is… curious. Have you done this before?’

‘No. This is the first time. Must be enchanced by the power of Sparda, eh?’

‘Could be.’

‘This is wicked!’

‘Even without opening your mouth, you’re still a chatterbox.’

‘And you’re still a grumpy devil.’

A sudden thought comes up from Vergil’s mind, but he hastily holds himself before Lyra could interpret it. That breaks their mind connection. He seems flustered, gripping his book tightly. Knowing that Vergil hides something, Lyra eyes the hybrid in front of her in a playful manner.

“You know no one can hear us, Vergil.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Then you know I won’t tell it out loud, whatever thought you just hold before. I’m the only one who can hear you.”

“That’s precisely why I won’t tell you.”

Lyra shrugs and pick up her book again. For a moment they don’t talk to each other. But when Lyra almost finishes her book, her head jolts a little as she receives a thought from Vergil.

‘Places among the stars,

Soft gardens near the sun,

Keep your distant beauty;

Shed no beams upon my weak heart.

Since she is here

In a place of blackness,

Not your golden days

Nor your silver nights

Can call me to you.

Since she is here

In a place of blackness,

Here I stay and wait.’

Vergil gives her a quick glance and small grin after Lyra nods to him as a confirmation that she gets what he thinks. She knows that Vergil has a hard time to uttering his feelings and prefers to recite poems as his odd way to express whatever inside his mind and his heart. She knows that the poem isn’t exactly what Vergil wanted to tell her earlier, but she knows that this is the other way to tell her his intention. It’s still too subtle for her, but the poem warms her heart. It’s like a promise that Vergil will keep her secret and he accepts her the way she is, not even asking how could she possesses such a power, for Lyra is just a human.

Because Vergil will wait for her, and perhaps Lyra should never underestimate his patience.

‘Thank you, Vergil.’

List of recited poems and quotes

Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

The Epistle of Forgiveness by Al Ma’arri

Beowulf by Anonymous

Places Among The Stars by Stephen Crane

The title of this story was quoted from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

Tagging @drusoona @queenmuzz @shiranyaaww @harlot-of-oblivion @andieperrie18 @lovemadnessharleyquinn @rubixa-seraph

Ao3 | Masterlist

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coolmarriagerecords · 4 years ago

Text

Johan Kugelberg's Top 100 DIY Singles

From Ugly Things via http://www.hyped2death.com/Kugelberg100.html

1. The Desperate Bicycles -The Medium Was Tedium (Refill Records, 1977 UK) The Desperate Bicycles are the yardstick for this obscurist sub genre. No one did it as easy or as cheap as them. Of the slew of unfathomable brilliant pop 45's, The Medium Was Tedium is the apex: The enthusiasm, anger and joy de vivre that oozes from the tracks contained within has me reaching for Village Green-Kinks and first album Cramps to describe the passion. For drunken, leftist dorm-room intellectuals to describe the faith and for Dez/Chavo-era Black Flag to describe the power ? notwithstanding that the recordings themselves are of 4-track bedroom shut-in lo-fi jangle. Too bad the band don't want the material re-released but a good thing indeed that the records barely rate at all in the collector scum price guide pantheon.

2. Beyond The Implode -Last Thoughts EP (Diverse Records UK 1979) Barrett/early-Floyd psych as good (or better) than any Soft Boys, obscurist strum & drang way more passionate than any Flying Nun band I've heard and Inflammable vocals of the purest Oxbridge confusion. The Spacemen 3 never did anything to match this record. [Messthetics #6]

3. V/A -Weird Noise EP (Fuck Off Records UK 1980) The legend doesn't start here, but at least this isn't a cassette-only release in an edition of 50 copies or so like the majority of the Fuck Off Records oeuvre. This lines up the finest advocates of tuneless bashing within the UK late 70's underground: The 012, Danny and the Dressmakers, the Instant Automatons, The Door and the Window and finally the Sell Outs who seem to be Danny and the Dressmakers under a different moniker. The cut "Please Don't Make Another Bass Guitar Mr. Rickenbacker" showcases one of the odder qualities popular music can have: The ability to disorientate the listener. "Simply the very best in bad music" indeed! [Danny...Messthetics Greatest Hits]

4. Desperate Bicycles ? New Cross, New Cross (Refill Records, UK 1978) The godlike power of "I Make The Product" or "Advice On Arrest" (two of the songs on this six song EP) deliver a little salvation of sorts ? the Desperate Bicycles make you believe, make you feel a sense of belonging. Music does that when it is this good. 5.Slugfuckers ? Three Feet Behind Glass EP (No label Australia 1979) Invoke the god Nyarlathotep they do, cover Manson-songs w/o ever having heard him they do, shmear on the middle class art school elitism thick they do. This is an extreme record; noisier and more abrasive than most first generation industrial stuff, a hell of a lot more punk than, say, the Lewd and intelligent in a scary, vicious bullying kind of way. A blazing, hard record at the same time as everything is slightly out of tune, kind of inept and sorta shoddy sounding.

6. Popes -Knup In Your Eye (Vatican Records. UK 1980) This appeared on the worldwide punk list a few issues ago, and educated guesses can be made for this appearing on any other lists I might do in the future. Not only is the record the cats pajamas as far as relentless art school mirth goes (Derek & Clive go through puberty, again!) but the throb and spark of the band makes for repeated play. And then we have to tag on the swollen nostalgia of my friend buying the only copy at the Rough trade shop in 1980 leaving me with none until Bill Forsyth digs one up for me in his back room, oh yeah, and one for Geoffrey too.

7. The Flak -EP (Northern Records UK 1980 (?)) Starts with a depressed "why am I here" poem and moves straight along into "Knocking on Heaven's Door" done dorm-angst-diy-style. This is followed by what sounds like the band attempting a Joy Division-style song the first time they pick up musical instruments. Completely inept, utterly charming and brilliant indeed. Top shelf genre defining DIY.

8. Fatal Microbes -Beautiful Pictures (Small Wonder, UK 1979) Certainly the best record with Honey Bane on it. Charming, relentless punk-crazed homemade guitar crunch. The window of opportunity of the UK underground musicscene in the late 70's is clearly demonstrated here: I doubt the Fatal Microbes stupendous teen energy could have been nurtured in the world of merchandising deals and first-look demo A&R we live in today.

9. The Silver -Do You Wanna Dance (Black Label Finland 1980) The Silver -No More Grease (Black Label Finland 1979) A riddle wrapped inside an enigma etc. The band appears to be around 12 ? 13 years old. They hail from Finland where the trail grew cold a long long time ago. Maybe upon the release of the record. Pussy Galore without post-modern baggage. "Love Theme from the Snails" as performed by SPK. 12 year olds virtually destroying a recording studio captured on tape, not once but four times.

10. Instant Automatons -Peter Paints His Fence EP (Deleted Records UK 1980) More Fuck Off/Street Level-related sublime nonsense. The battle call is the track "People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music" which states: "I was at a pub the other night, when a bunch of mods came in, they eyed me up, then they asked me: Hey man what's your scene? Are you a hippie a mod or a punk? Got a scooter or a motorbike? I can't understand why they burst out laughing when I told them the music I like, because: People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music People just don't understand Why pay six pounds for an album when you can, listen to a weird noise band for free I had a girlfriend named Josephine, she liked Abba and the Bee Gees. She thought music was about lawyers and accountants, percentages and legal fees. Just the other night we stayed up late, playing records til half past ten, then I played the Danny and the Dressmakers tape and I never saw Josephine again, because: People Laugh At Me Cuz I Like Weird Music People just don't understand Why pay six pounds for an album when you can, listen to a weird noise band for free" The gospel, folks. From God's mouth to your ear via the Instant Automatons. [Instant Automatons 'Another Wasted Sunday Afternon' CD]

11. Sir Alick and the Phraser -In Search of the Perfect Baby (Black Noise UK 1980) As Chuck Warner put it: They wrote beautiful pop songs then destroyed them. More Homosexuals pseudonymous mystique. The intelligent reader who followed our previous musings on this band and their universe know how much we love them and how much they perpetually pull our collective leg. No straight-ahead answers in this lifetime which is fine ? fine as far as record collecting is concerned, fine as far as lifemanship is concerned.[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

12. The Four Plugs -Biking Girl (Disposable Records UK 1979) The subtle charm of marginal culture: Truly marginal culture where 1000 singles were pressed more than 22 years ago. How many got lost? How many are never being played? How many are stored in a box in the attic? How many are being played repeatedly on turntables that cost ten times as much as the recording and pressing of this given 45? "She used to be my biking partner ? she used to be my biking girl. We used to go for rides in the country side". A true punk rock/diy statement issued by the Damaged Goods people, who knew their Chesterton and Thomas Browne.

13. The Evening Outs -Channel (Refill Records UK 1980) Super-fierce skronk from a pissed-off pseudonymous Desperate Bicycles. Puts that no wave stuff to shame, really.

14. Puritan Guitars -100 Pounds in 15 Minutes (Riverside Records UK 1980) How much it cost to make the record and how long it took. Genius sturm und sturm und sturm und drang clank from a seriously inspired one chord wonder.[Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #104]

15. The Flying Brix -EP (Modello Records UK 1980) So subtle it can barely be heard: A band consisting of Wally's and Erberts, with the odd dead-end yob or two. This record could've been released by Illegal, Fuck Off or fit in on Carry On Oi. It could also have been performed on an episode of Noddy or by Flanagan & Allen. Ur-English music, this.[Messthetics #104]

16. Shrinking Men/Beevers -Hazards in the Home EP (Pop Records UK 1981) The Beevers present a Guthrie-esque talking blues here, except that it isn't a blues, but a charming DIY-shuffle, and that Woody Guthrie as far as I know never sang about the plight and blight of the office boy. The Shrinking Men in turn showcase an angry, loutish anti-army rant that Phil Ochs would've been pretty proud of I think. And there you have it: The folk music connection rears its uncombed head. [Beevers -Messthetics #6]

17. Handgrenades -Demo To London (Phonographics (?) USA 1980 (?)) Coulda fooled me ? Excellent primitive punk/chug/diy from Noo Yak City! Who woulda thunk? Somewhere between "Pink Flag" and Fuck Off Records.

18. Homosexuals -You Are Not Moving The Way You Are Supposed To (Black Noise UK 1980 (?)) An untouchable band, and the lack of a retrospective isn't much of a crime in this house (I have lots of their records snicker snicker snicker) but in other people's houses it sure is. As if Gang of Four would've been any good, as if Wire would've immersed themselves in dub, as if indeed. Parallel universe chart toppers indeed. We all know that there is at least one world out there in the ultra-cosmos where the proverbial kids are kicking these jams daily. A truly inspired and inspiring record..[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

19. Cindy and the Barbi Dolls -Press The Shutter EP (A Not Major Production UK 1980) Dorm angst at its very best. Dark, brooding overtly romantic without gothing it up, these jams have the same lurking power as the pre-Joy Division Warsaw EP or the spookier first line up Soft Boys tracks. A possible sister band to Beyond the Implode in the sense that they play a curiously British form of psychedelic music in the midst of the DIY lack of musical chops. This Cornwall band were seemingly very hip to musical peers, thanking the Desperate Bicycles, the Mekons and Ralph and the Ponytails on the sleeve. There are musical (and one lyrical) nod to the Kinks "Village Green Preservation Society" as well. A very good thing. [Messthetics #7]

20. Versatile Newts -Newtrition (Shanghai Records UK 1980) If this record hadn't existed we would've had to invent it: The marriage/blend of the Swell Maps, This Heat and the TV Personalities. In equal chunks with no lumps. Gadzooks! [Messthetics #103]

21. Pink Dirt -Hey Sir (No label Norway 1979) As far as inept, crazed joi de vivre goes ? Here's the acme. I've written this one up before and will do it again. While this is obviously a straight-ahead angry punk rock band, the abandon and enthusiasm of this record could raise the dead. An angry rant against organized religion ("I have this to say tonight ? never, never get involved with christianity!") howled in a barely English Johnny Rotten-imitation by some Norwegian genius backed by shitrock more primitive than the first Endless Boogie rehearsal. There is no sleeve, no labels, just the legend "Pink Dirt Hey Sir/Hooker" scrawled in magic marker. Who were these gods and why did they walk among us? Please email me if you know anything about the people behind this stunning art experience.

22. Scrotum Poles -Revelation EP (One Tone Records Scotland 1980) Helicopter Honeymoon is going to be played at least three record collector funerals I know of, not including mine. The mighty, mighty Scrotum Poles, proudly proclaiming "DIY! We love the TV Personalities" on the shoddy, xeroxed sleeve. Their website (http://home.switchboard.com/hornstreet) is highly recommended, though we're hesitant to vouch for its complete veracity. Here's how they tell it: "'Pick the Cats Eyes Out' featured lyrics found on the back of a set list by one of the first Dundee punk bands, Bread Poultice and the Running Sores..." [Somebody please send us a demo tape!] "Helicopter Honeymoon," meanwhile, came from a headline "in the Sunday Post." What we should add for American fans is that "cats eyes" are what Brits (and Scots) call those little orange reflectors embedded in highway pavement: "Cats Eyes Out Ahead" used to be a common roadside sign. [Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #105]

23. File Under Pop -Corrugate (Rough Trade UK 1979 (?)) Godlike DIY power. Primitive grunting, out of tune skeletal instrumentation and noises recorded at Heathrow. I know a guy with an extra copy who'll swap it for Butchy Butch and the Butch Butchers.

24. Nancy Sesay and the Melodaires -C'est Fab (It's War Boys UK 1981 (?)) Un-musical, un-punk and possibly unpleasant music hall-esque skronk/DIY by the godlike Homosexuals using one of their myriad of pseudonyms. And whence you can't imagine the doofus art wank getting any more unlistenable, they spin on a dime and throw in a beautiful chorus sitting on top of a backwardsy funky drummer beat. I am, as per usual, in awe. Shall I hook some enterprising young bootlegger up with a CDR of all their stuff?

25. Performing Ferret Band -Brow-Beaten (Dead Hippy Records UK 1981) Deeply moving primitive musical fumble from this rare 45 by the masters behind the in my mind most seminal LP to come out of DIY. The eponymous Performing Ferret Band LP, which features jaw-droppers such as "Plastic Macho Man", "Fizzly Drinks" or "Great Duos Of Our Time". Fantastic over-enthusiastic juvenilia of an almost supernatural beauty. The Performing Ferrets - no one told us CD (Messthetics #216)

26. Different Eyes/Royston - Shish EP (Tuzmadoner Records UK 1979) One of the two masterpieces released on the Tuzmadoner label (the other being a 12" comp entitled, uh, "folk music" bringing up more parallels to skiffle that we should probably choose to ignore). Royston are like Flanagan & Allen fronting the world's greatest shit rock band. Different Eyes sound more lethargic than anyone else I've heard I think, and I used to work for Pavement's label. Simon Gilham from either Royston or the 'Eyes later played in Colin Newman's solo band. [Royston -Messthetics Greatest Hits and #1; Different I's -Messthetics #101 (plus their even better track from Folk Music)]

27. Homosexuals -Hearts In Exile (Black Noise UK 1978) Words fail me. As far as beauty goes, this is like Mozart or Shirley Collins. Probably their greatest moment. Somewhere along the lines of Brill Building and traditional UK folk and the Upsetters and ESP Records all at once in perfect harmony. A milestone, I think, and a record that I'd place in a timecapsule of 20th century folk art.[The Homosexuals -Astral Glamour 3CD]

28. Andrew Klimek -Felt Hammer (Mustard Records USA 1979) The guitar break alone sends this one soaring over the sky scrapers. Has that patented and most beautiful basement 4-track sound down pat even though I get more and more convinced that all those legendary Cleveland bands all were record collector rock of the umpteenth degree. Extraordinarily self-aware, sly and with meticulously thought out records, this one being no exception. The pompous liner notes on the sleeve of the 45 proves me right. You got to be some kind of Apples in Stereo-type shmuck to brag on a record sleeve that you put the bass guitar through a ring modulator.

29. Mekons -Never Been In A Riot (Fast Records UK 1978) Way before they became icky hippy-punk icons for aging counter culture types across the world they released a couple of singles of gorgeous nihilist slop. This is the first, and the funniest and the noisiest.

30. Jelly Babies -De Nada EP (No label name UK 1981) Simply heaven. A clumsy speed-chug with lyrics about a day of roller-skating and lovely pre-pubescent boozy backing vocals. Genius. Extra-tinny sound, extra passionate execution. I've quoted this portion of the notes on the (shoddy xerox, natch) sleeve: "Recorded at Dirt Cheap Studios, the best studios in the whole wide world by Grant Showbiz, the most silly person in the whole wide world, who steals your food and has a nice red guitar with a super tremelo arm which somebody gave him." Like Blake, the words transcend space, time and mortality. You need this record. Crunchy granola collectors should also note that I have personally seen at least five different (shoddy xerox) picture sleeves for this record where the priority can be determined with relative accuracy using the carbon 14 method. [one from the EP is coming on London v.III: another song from the EP demos appears on Messthetics Greatest HISS (Messthetics #110)

31. Thin Yoghurts -Girl On the Bus (Lowther Street Runner Records UK 1980) More sing-a-longa-slop-charm. You can take the limey out of the music hall but you can't Cute, touching and romantic lyrics about lusting over some tasty lassie on the bus to the kippers factory. They did this record as well as a cassette, which is a hundred bucks in your sweaty palm, if you send it to me. [Messthetics Greatest Hits]

32. Lucky Pierre -This Could Be The Night (No label USA 1984 (?)) Scuzzy, phenomenal art-rant by some Ohio Bowie-boy who'd re-record these musical chairs of Chain Gang, Klaus Nomi and cocaine freebase ten years later for Trent Reznor's label adding a "industrial dance beat" to the mess and changing the band name to Prick. Supposedly (some record-log-pincher told me) there were only 50 copies pressed for Lucky Pierre to use as record deal bait (also the reason that the lyrics are etched on the flip together with a ten second excerpt of the song). Well, I guess it worked. I seem to recall seeing a video for the re-recorded version on MTV during ol' Pierre's 15 seconds in the spotlight. The awe-inspiring power of this record remains tho'.

33. Skabb -78 EP (Mistlur Sweden 1978) Track 2 side one is jaw-dropping Opus-style DIY-crunch punk with Kriminella Gitarrer-guitar breaks. I can't believe this isn't a hotly pursued record by herd-following punk rock turd-swallowers round the globe. Fantastic slop-o-rama-lama-fa-fa-fa production too.

34. V/A -Angst In My Pants double EP (Street Level UK 1979) Imagine how good the previous 33 records on this list are, as I guarantee by risk of punishment of rock writer hyperbole, that this is doubtlessly one of the finest records I've ever heard, and the second greatest compilation in the history of rock! How can I say this wonders Rutger the Punk from his bedroom in Krakow ? Well the proof is in the pudding: Not only does the record include some of the finest recorded moments by the legendary Instant Automatons (who unknowingly channel the Monks!), 012 and the Door and the Window, but furthermore a rare vinyl appearance by the Digital Dinosaurs, heralded by me, Mario and Geoffrey in that most smug sort of way as unheralded gods of music! If that ain't enough you get some fine TVP-related spurts from the Missing Persons and extremely do it yourself DIY frenzy from the Midnight Circus. Who in "Silicone Baby" and "Hedonist Jive" have out-poignanted a tow-truck full of Aimee Mann's and Michelle Shocked's edgy humanity and funny as shit to boot. [Digital Dinsaurs and Instant Automatons are on Messthetics Greatest Hits: Midnight Circus have their own CD...And there's more on Deleted/Street Level at the Instant Automatons website]

35. Pleemobielz -Dagenlang Balen (Kamikaze Records Holland 1981) More sociological sloganeering a la Midnight Circus here: Dagenlang Balen which needlessly translates as "fuck all day" roars through the speakers with all the might of a bunch of over-testosteroned 16 year old virgins singing about what they think it'll be like to have sex some day. Tinniest sound in history. When a copy finally showed up on my doorstep after the fucking (literally!) record had spent a solid 10 years on my want list my expectations were quite low since anyone I had talked to who had heard the record all stated that it was weak/a waste of time etc. Well: It being a want list staple has more to do with the scarcity of the disc than it being a desirable punk rock record. However: It is an extremely desirable record if frenzied DIY bliss is your chosen poison.

36. Just Urbain -Guns & Guitars (No label Australia 1979) Another amazing DIY record from Australia, this one definitely sports a spiritual kinship with SPK, the Slugfuckers, the first Thought Criminals record, and those Systematics and Tactics records I need to find. Very dark, scuzzy art-damaged DIY that (a la Cabaret Voltaire or early SPK) is well aware of the fine krautrock musics coming out of Germany on Ohr or Sky a few years previously. The proto punk of say Neu or Cosmic Jokers is here handled with poisonous skronky passion.

37. The Gags -Sex Ist Schau (Leg Auf Records Germany 1981) And then one has to simply wonder if the belly laughs generated by this piece of vinyl have racist connotations: How much are we allowed to laugh at the Germans? This might be the stiffest record I've heard. The vocals lyrical bark manages to reanimate Basil Fawlty's classic performance in the "Germans" episode as well as the Sprockets. The jams are crazed. Stiff, yes, but crazed.

38. Desperate Bicycles -Smokescreen (Refill Records UK 1977) Their debut, more aggressive than a lot of the other classics and maybe it was the year. This is the 45 that launched hundreds of others: Two songs on one side to save mastering costs, the cheapest packaging, music that had to be documented, and it didn't matter if it was done in the cheapest and easiest way imaginable. [Messthetics #8]

39. Butter Utter -Jävlarnas Jul (Leonid Breznjev Records Swe 1977) Took me ages to find this one. Extremely inept, Shaggs-like fumble with a certain Je Ne Sais Qui of punk rock aggression. A lot of Killed by Death-types paid a lot of moola for this one, that some guy hyped to the moon in a Boston straight-edge fanzine back in the 80's. Only truly "punk" in the musical disaster sense of the word.

40. Cut-Outs -DIY (EMI UK 1979) Great novelty pop monster complete with carpentry noises. Possibly not a DIY record at all, but since the genre is made up by people like me this is a DIY record cuz I sez so. [NOT on Messthetics #7]

41. Massmedia ? EP (Massproduktion Swe 1979) Debut sloppiness from future KBD mainstays. There is no discernable musical ability to be found on this record and yet they play and play and play. The energy level is however awe-inspiring.

42. Dagens Ungdom -EP (Mistlur Swe 1980) Having an art school wank with Dagens Ungdom. Brilliant faux-DIY released on one of the major noo wave era indie labels of Sweden, home of Ebba Gron. All songs have titles nabbed from Kafka books, lyrics are more adjective heavy than a tub full o' Morrisey and the music is flawless DIY stumble n' fumble.

43. The Discounts -Selling Records (Original Records UK 1980) Blank 1000-yard stare DIY novelty straight out of High Fidelity. The lyric is a monologue as by a bored-to-tears record store clerk. The jams are sub-sub-sub-Blockheads DIY stumble. Extremely amusing.

44. Grinder Wickford's So Boring -EP (Wax Records UK 1979) Forget punk rock, bring in hick-rock! The aliases of the band read: "Dav-Id, Si-Kic, Terry-Ball, Stu-Pid and Holy-Grail"!. Three band members have moustaches! The singer is wearing a Rocky Horror t-shirt! The a-side is a "humorous" ditty about the acne problem of Spiderman, reflecting the sleeve front depicting some fool in a Spiderman costume driving a tractor, The b-side is an anti-fuzzy dice song. Genius. It is obvious to me that Wickford wasn't boring at all as long as you hung out with the bold gents of Grinder. The songs range from primitive clunky riff-rock to DIY jangle of the highest order. Messthetics #101

45. Psykik Volts -Totally Useless (Ellie Jay Records UK 1979) More Music Hall-punk DIY genius. The spirit of Vivian Stanshall is looming large; as is the empty pint glasses littering the room as this 45 is stuck on repeat. All together now: "It's to-tal-ly useless"!! The sleeve bears the legend: "Side A: recorded in a sock, Side B: recorded in a morgue. May god bless vocalist and songwriter Victor Vendetta. Now pardon me while I go to the corner and cry.

46. Raisinets -More Fun To Play Than To Listen To (Fun-Ethic Records USA 1979) Fantastic record-collector hippie-punk a la Gizmos/Afrika Korps/Half Japanese. Primitive guitar duets complete with questionable production values and mucho muchacho helpings of pure static. Great post-arrest pre-OD lyrics making fun of Sid too.

47. Dag Vag -Dimma (Ball Records Swe 1978) Two years after this record was released, Dag Vag were playing new wave-scented white-boy reggae to sell-out crowds all over Sweden. This, however, is a one-man band bedroom project by a Träd Gräs & Stenar roadie who had discovered punk rock and the DIY scene. Beautiful dark/sinister home studio atmospherics, killer fuzz guitar and demented lyrics about psychiatric care and drug experiences. A great record. And by all means: Don't buy any other Dag Vag records after you've obtained this one.

48. I Jog & the Tracksuits - Redbox (Tyger Label UK 1978) More lost artform unique stumble-rumble from the UK. Sounds like it was recorded under water this one. A petty miracle of a pop tune with a sublime lyric about waiting for the bus. Gotta bless em for the stamina it takes to get a record out: Recording, Mixing, Mastering, Designing, Printing, Approving, Distributing, Balancing. All to get a little song about missing the bus heard by me 22 years later.

49. Injections -Prison Walls (Radioactive Records USA 1980) This has always been an extremely desired and expensive record in KBD/Japanese Tasty/Moustache circles, and it doubtlessly deserves its inflated price tag even though we aren't talking chainsaw-buzz punk rock per se here.

50. Devils Hole Gang -Free The People (Slow Burning Fuse Records UK 1979) Huge moustaches, huge choruses, and a record that sounds like it was recorded inside one of those Moroccan hotel showers that basically consist of a huge tube of aluminum siding. My pretentious nature is such that I feel forced to unleash the folk art metaphor for this again. If your friendly neighborhood rare record dealer charges you a couple of C-notes for this and you feel like your being had for big G's by the sleaze, then remember that you are investing in art, not buying a record!!

51. Funboy Five -Life After Death (Cool-Cat Daddy-O Records UK 1980) A pure pop record indeed, but where pricey production values would've turned this into a memorable Stiff Records 45, the band's lack of bucks and resulting throwaway/enthusiasm production and energy has created a masterpiece. Both sides are stalwarts for a neighborhood sing-song or a rousing music hall chorus. Punk rock music hall: A genre waiting to happen again! [Messthetics #101]

52. How To Get Rich In Rotterdam - Dapper Dan (Vormgeving Rotterdam Records Netherlands 1981) Brilliant, plodding art-slop that reeks of inside jokedom. This record is a reason unto itself to pay ebay prices for vintage drum machines.

53. Come -Come Sunday (Come Organization UK 1979) Before William Bennett became the Benny Hill of industrial noise, his band Whitehouse were called Come and released a single and an album which both are quite lovely homemade art-dirge crankiness, a friendly psychedelic kind of crankiness indeed.

54. The Riotous Brothers -Vicki's Dancing (Riotous Records 1980) How all these disparate bands came up with a sound this cohesive is a mystery to me. Any of the hints handed to us through fanzines and interviews only mess things up further: Yes, anyone could form a band, make a record, start a record label indeed. Where it gets weird is why so many of them harbor a similar tinny guitar sound, cardboard-y drums, messy synths, inept recording techniques, smart-assed lefty lyrics and nasal singing tone. This was not a movement. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened. That's all. This record has the beautiful simplicity of a Shaker chair or a Maine seafood soup. The swanky speedpunk of "Operation Zero" or the plink-a plunk-a guitar solo on "Emotional Cripple" will some day have their own wing at the Victoria and Albert museum. Make my art primitive!

55. Partizans -Goods (A-Noyz Records UK 1980) Chain Gang's retarded English cousins. Ace!!

56. Amor Fati -Economics 100 (Yuck/Flesh Records USA 1984 (?) Very angry anti-r&r/anti-big-business slightly tongue in cheek rant that shows spiritual kinship to "Rat City" by the Art Attacks. Vertical Slit/V-3. The odd blend of wanting in, wanting to play the game and wanting to stay the fuck away that is symptomatic for a lot of Ohio underground musicians (Shepard, Hummel, House etc.)

57. Desperate Bicycles -Skill (Refill Records UK 1978) Blazing DIY-shuffle and unmistakenly Bicycles. More pro production which has this one slip further down the list. Still godlike though.

58. Sarah Coffman -Titta Jag Ar Död (Konkurrenz Rekårdz Sweden 1980) Excellent primitive shit-rock by band from my hometown!

59. Hornsey At War -Deadbeat Revival EP (War Product UK 1979) Extremely amusing ultra-sloppy DIY. No discernable production values, sound-as-filtered-through-ground-beef, emotionally charged out-of-tune vocals, crackly guitar (broken cable?) and a true aura of dead end yobs (and jobs) instead of the more common middle class art school vibe as prevailing on most DIY records. Hornsey At War are complaining about English radio too: "They won't play this record on the radio because it poses a threat!" Here tis again: That charming blend of hubris and defeatist that seems to penetrate the psyches of most people involved in underground music and/or collectors of it.

60. Take It -How It Is (Fresh Hold UK 1979) Stunning out of control DIY/noise not unlike a more frenzied Soft Boys, a more good Gang of Four or a less psychotic SPK. Igor and Simon seem like a couple of gents with some hardcore political and intellectual pursuits, and like the Desperate Bicycles before them I sense that the choice of releasing a noisy cheaply recorded 45 with a xerox cover was an act of some sort of political defiance, back in the day where such an act was not co-opted from the ground up by extreme sports and Wall Mart hair dye. [Messthetics Greatest Hits and Messthetics #2]

61. Rough Cuts EP (Z-Block Records UK 1980) Inspired sampler of four bands (The Boywonders, The Ghoulies, The Czechs and the Decadent Few) two of which tell us their age on the cover (The Boywonders are all 16, The Czechs are all 17). Humbling thought that such musical spirit could be mustered at such a tender age. Great variety of flavors too: The Boywonders great inept, spooky DIY strut where the band might think that a reggae influence is prevailing, us knowing that the stumbleblock shuffle bears more resemblance to ancient Celtic airs, the unbearable beauty of the Czechs utter disregard of tone, meter and signatures or the Ghoulies oddly Booker T-esque chug n' scrape. The business, all and all. [Boywonders and Czechs on Messthetics #104: The Z-Block Story is here]

62. The Petticoats -Normal (Bla-Bla-Bla Records UK 1980) Ripping good-kind-feminist anti-normalcy rant. Spiritually uplifting in a way not dissimilar to first-hand experience of medieval church architecture, I shit you not. Recorded at Street Level which means that this record is Fuck Off Records related.

63. Reducers -We Are Normal (Vibes Product UK 1978) The sub genre Geoff Weiss-punk is hereby coined to describe this record. High-energy ineptitude. There is a strange kinship to the Pink Fairies/Deviants axis on this record ? A similarity in energy and attack, notwithstanding that the Reducers really don't know how to play their instruments very well. [Messthetics #1]

64. Il Ya Volkswagens - Kill Myself (Mechanical Reproductions UK 1981) One more year in the rehearsal space for these guys and I wouldn't be writing this. Discernable elements of gothrock and Bauhaus influence can be noticed as a faint vapor in this aural air to speak it in goth-speak, the crunch of the slightly sour guitar, the plodd of the (genius) bass line and the all-in slouch of the lethargic vocalist and the cracked-everyday electronics elevates this dirge into an 18 carat DIY-cruncher.

65. Quite Ridiculous Nonsense -Identity Crisis (No Label USA 1984) Most ace industrial wank of that rare late 70's variety. Wildly entertaining experiments in four track flatulence and transistor radio static.

66. Pervers/Deutscher Abschaum split 7" (Suff Productions Germany 1984) The Godhead. Reminds me of Teddy and the Fratgirls or the Foams in the sense that one gets the notion that these must have been fun gals to hang out with or date. The timeless splendor of the arty urban misfit girl: Her goofy charm and no-holds-barred enthusiasm for all that she found weird, interesting or sexually appetizing. A toast to the art school weirdo outcast girls of the world: May they forever paint their room black or read Hermann Hesse to you in bed! The music is wild, out of control amateuristic slop goes from Electric Eels fuzzed out haterock to drumkits thrown down the stairs to minimal teen-angst and then back. Beautiful stuff. Got this in trade from Thurston Snore for some boring free jazz records back in the day. What a chump!

67. The Prats -Disco Pope (Rough Trade UK 1979) 15-year old Scottish schoolboy punks seething with rage over the demon disco. Early Downliners Sect-style one chord R&B shuffle complete with the drum breaks that made God decide not to spare humanity. Don't miss it!

68. Plast -EP (Stranded Rekords Swe 1979) Four song EP of the finest in teenage punks attempting to embrace the confusion in their head from listening to TG, Cabaret Voltaire and Pere Ubu. An ungodly racket where the hostility of the chosen sounds meets the cozy ineptitude of the random noises. Plenty of short-wave noises and the crappiest of synths. Utterly charming.

9. Raincoats -Fairytale in the Supermarket (Rough Trade UK 1979) All enthusiasm/zero chops Ubu-esque DIY-charm from these stunning ladies. This is the best of their many records. Some kinda CD anthology that I can't find right now was released in the USA on the basis of Kurt Cobain being a big fan.

70. Tone Deaf and the Idiots -Why Does Politics Turn Men Into Toads? (Blue Angel UK 1979) Tone Deaf and the Idiots how do I love thee. This flexi is taken from their debut album Catastrophe Rock which still stands alongside the Damian & the Criterions "Avant Garde", Alvaro's Drinking My Own Sperm and Kräldjursanstalten's Voodoo Boogie as peerless monuments of original thought as far as late 70's underground albums are concerned. Catastrophe rock indeed. This is what "Music from the Big Pink" would've sounded like if it had been performed by the Portsmouth Sinfonia.

71. Desperate Bicycles -Grief Is Very Private (Refill UK 1980) One of the mighty Bicycles more introspective and subtle moments. Their entire recorded output is well worth hearing, and the range of emotions they paint from their palate quite astounding.

72. Door and the Window -I Like the Sound (NB Records UK 1979) One of many brilliant anti-music art school rants by the grand old daddies of the very genre. They like sound, they don't like the Pop Group, they like noise (um yeah!), they don't like butter The list goes on and I can't say that I reached any enlightenment as such by the end of this demented scratchy noise-fumble. But the journey sure was great.

73. Slugfuckers -Instant Classic (PRS Australia 1979) Homosexuals-y whiteguy funk/noise fracture that Liquid Liquid would've been pretty stoked about. Screeching scrape and dumb jokey asides. Who could ask for anything more?

74. Happy Cadavers -Nothing New (Undefined Records UK 1982) Punk/wave slop from the Midwest ? kind of aims for the Stranglers but hits Small Wonder Records. Charming stuff. Give me a fake English accent any day.

75. The Reflections - 4 Countries (Cherry Red UK 1981) Coulda been by the Desperate Bicycles this: stop/start gurgling plodding slop with most excellent Mark P. whining on top. Patented Karl Blake crumble-o-rific drumming not to mention the ambience added by the illustrious Nag of Door and the Window celebrity status. The Reflections album is well worthy of your grease as well as it is more of the same DIY-gunk but with a more contempo Recommended Records-type sound. [Messthetics #1]

76. Reacta -Stop the World (Battery Operated Records UK 1979) Another one that demands the Desperate Bicycles as cultural cookie cutter ? A beautiful ramble with the edgy guitars of Hilton Bomber-Thought Criminals.[Messthetics Greatest Hits]

77. Crash Action Winners - Hurricane Fighter Plane (Sonic International UK 1979) Somewhere in this mess of static and filtered mud are the chord-change(s) of "Hurricane Fighter Plane". The sleeve hints at the band being American, the sounds point straight in the direction of an English middle class art school, and the record cover furthermore defines them as a bunch of record collectors to boot. Not only is a Roky Erickson tune given the same crap-o-riffic sonic treatment, but the shoddy crumb-bum picture sleeve showcases record covers by the Seeds, the 13th Floor Elevators, Russ Meyer and Question Mark and the Mysterians displayed in tasteful collage form. Messthetics #104

78. The Plastic Mechanical Pig -Book Brains (IX Recording Company Japan 1981) Tricky one here, Ricky and Paul, the two guys on the cover of the PMP 45, look like a couple of student teachers and the record sounds like a couple of student teachers recorded a Raisinets/Half Japanese hybrid on a primitive 4 track. Charming record this, with two folky DIY-punk cuts, but why on earth was it released in Japan?

79. V/A - Mell Square Musick EP (Yaw Records UK 1979) I've listened to this record a good dozen times or so, and my jaw still drops. Frenzied homemade punk where the energy could light up a medium-size town. Similar to the Tandstickorshocks, Seems Twice or Red Cross "Born Innocent" LP in its instinctive disregard for notes, chords and melody, the Accused or the 021 are more than deserving of particularly exquisite golden wings in the halls of the Valhalla of Amateurism. I bow my head. [Cracked Actor Messthetics #7; Accused and 021 - Messthetics #103]

80. Tandstickorshocks - Allan Vogalan (King Kong Records Holland 1980) The Dutch Puritan Guitars right here, it is almost spooky how similar the sound of the two bands is. Spinning these 45's makes me wonder if this music somehow managed to sidestep rock & roll and the black music tradition as a core influence. There is something about the Tandstickorshocks which at the same time manages to remind me of Schoenberg, microtonal composers and Irish tin-whistle folk music. This is, needless to say, evidence that I should get out more often, but also that these slices of true-life counterculture juvenilia are not isolated from a cultural context, but embracers of it. Even if it did take a couple of decades for these records to be collected in some kind of organized manner. The kids in Tandstickorshocls must have been aware of Wire and the Young Marble Giants, but the minimal primitive music they create is original in the same manner as the artists on Pat Conte's "Secret Museum of Mankind" compilations.

81. Foams - Paint Me (Pet Me Quick Records USA 1981) A classic of sorts. Frenzied, inept live recordings by this all-girl Austin Texas punk band. The only way that I can explain the similarities to the Slits or the Raincoats are that gals sure have a different way of looking at things, or at least playing drums. Great smutty lyrics and barky art-school vox too.

82. SST -Clutch On the Ward (Tidal Wave Records USA 1977) Super-inept hippie punk/DIY from California with lotsa early punk scenesters name-checked on the sleeve. Ted Falconi pre-Flipper on guitar.

83. The Simple Approach to Newtown Products EP (NTP Records UK 1980) My approach was to pay the inflated price the dealer was asking and happily walk home with this great record. 4 songs, four bands: Crimedesk are toilet-recorded DIY-slop, Basic Unit must be the most amateuristic goth band I've ever heard, Beat Necessity showcase only the finest in tuneless death-dirge with off-key howling and Story So Far is an awesome Joy Division/Factory Records attempt, but with no discernable musical talent. Needless to say, the whole EP is as charming as the day is long.

84. Hörförståelse -Förläst Jävel (CTR Sweden 1980) Demented art skronk of drums, bass and crap keyboards featuring out of tune vocals regurgitating about someone being an over-educated bastard. Perfect, really. A must for fans of primitive shit music.

85. What To Wear - Casual But Smart EP (Basic and Typical Records UK 1980 (?)) Inspired stumble as an attempt to play dub, The Homosexuals can do it ? These guys can't. I don't know if this given failure brought about something new, but this record is a very listenable stab at atmosphere by a DIY band with limited budget and equipment. The flip also contains a couple of amazing speed-pop DIY-rambles. [ Messthetics #104]

86. Contact -Future (Object Music UK 1979) An avantfied klutz by a band who probably wanted to be Tubeway Army one thinks as one gazes upon the sleeve. They move from sloppy pro-rock attempts to full-on art-noise to excellent DIY jingle and jangle. One of many excellent items on the Object label. [ Messthetics #106 and Messthetics #7]

87. Good Missionaries -Deranged in Hastings (Unnormality Records UK 1979) A great stop/start hiccup with the patented GM/ATV tinny guitars and peripheral production. What makes this stand out is that barely concealed aggression, like a slow fuse or something.

88. The Potent Human EP (L'Aventure Records UK 1980) I maintain, and not only because of my middle class lifestyle, that the Bathroom Renovations is the greatest band name in the history of rock. This EP is a four out of four winner. Brilliant DIY fumble from The Mekon (no relation), The Liggers , The Spurtz and the ultra-wah-wah power of the Bathroom Renovations. Let me type that again: Bathroom Renovations. [Liggers: Messthetics #106]

89. Disco Zombies -Here Comes the Buts (Dining Out Records UK 1980) This is my favorite of their three spectacular singles. Thw thuick brogue of an accent blends in a most interesting way with the crappy guitar and dull throb of the melody line or the voluptous Steve Severin-style bass line.

90. Record Players -Double C Side EP (Wreckord Records UK 1978) The Record Players came from Kent, which mustered a bit of a mod scene a couple years later, but otherwise wasn't much of a factor in the punk (or DIY) world. Here they've mustered up an anti-MOR rant with a chorus that comes off kind of, eh, MOR-sounding. Imagine the classic DIY trashing, bashing and gnashing, but with one big ol' chorus, and the most obvious bridge you'll ever hear. "Ignore Us" on the flip is self-defeatist art that'll piss all over any Magnetic Fields as far as smug self-hatred goes. "It's just one thing you gotta do if you want to move along, ignore the music and ignore this song ? Ignore us and we might go away". How about that. [Messthetics #1]

91. Boys and Girls Come Out and Play EP (Boys and Girls Records UK 1980) Might be a grade school project this one, and not an art school project. Bands like the Human Cabbages, The Profile and The Famous Five are very young sounding. The fragile beauty of these tunes remind me of the UK Voice of the People anthologies of field recordings of folk songs. The purity, private nature of the songs and homemade-ness makes for a truly intimate, moving listening experience. The people on this record should be proud of this slice of juvenalia 20-odd years later.[Profile -Messthetics #103 -also a Human Cabbages song]

92. False Idols -Ego Wino (Old Knew Wave Records UK 1980) Paul Morotta's unknown English nephews. This could be a Poli Styrene Jass Band outtake. Great, spazzy DIY with jazzy chording and great, supressed aggression.

93. Bandage -Republik (Bandage Records Sweden 1978) Seems as if the average age of the band members is 16 or so, and that the mere existence of this record points to the purest and most blissfully unaware state of do it yourself: Some kids in a suburb of Stockholm getting turned on by punk rock and the notion of releasing their own record. The four songs are all fuzzed out riff rock, not unlike say, the Crucified EP, but the poor quality of recording, sound separation, levels and what have you is why the record is mentioned on this list. Not that any of that was done on purpose, mind you, for any DIY-ethic of sorts. Necessity and gratification and all that good stuff.

94. 49 Americans -Big Value (NB Records UK 1979) Another hidden Fuck Off Records release? The 49 Americans certainly moved in the same circles, and furthermore share plenty of aesthetic choices with Danny and the Dressmakers or the Instant Automatons. This record consists of 14 short blasts of fuzz punk meets art wank and is absolutely brilliant.

95. Gods Gift -925 (New Market Records UK 1979) Three tuneless tunes of the finest in fuzzed-out death-dirge DIY-slop. Kilslug jamming with the Door and the Window.[Messthetics #106]

96. Mud Hutters -Declaration EP (Defensive Records UK 1979) Mud Hutters ? Information EP (Dead Good Records UK 1979) Truly original band this. Somewhere in a Heartwork Records/Rock In Opposition neighborhood, but with a real Safe As Milk-crunch. There are psych elements on both these records, moments of blistering punk rock, and a generous infusion of the Desperate Bicycles (or Thought Criminals) ethics and esthetics. Fantastic records, and mandatory listening for any fan of the underground music of the late 70's era. Unfortunately, their subsequent album isn't great. By that time the band got Gang of Four damage.[ Messthetics #106: a track from their first EP is on Messthetics Greatest Hits]

97. Horrible Nurds -Consuming Passion (Half Wombat Records UK 1980) Oddly enough, this record sounds a hell of a lot like early Problem (Sweden) on the a-side, with the b-side being Tim Rose backed by ATV in a fantastic art-rock/DIY howler In that lost art form kind of way.

98. Reptile Ranch -Animal Noises EP (Z Block Records UK 1980) Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 (one of the most under-rated bands of the last 15 years says I and ponder an upcoming UT article) are here channeled way before they even were formed by some UK art school kids. Fantastic Beefheart-y R.I.O-hybrid DIY. Passionate, crude and obnoxious, sending this record to the top shelf of any record room! [Messthetics Greatest Hits]

99. Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle - EP (Zick Zack Records Germany 1980) Ace generic DIY/punk that could've been at home on an early Rough Trade 45.

100. The Rutto - Ei Paluuta (Ikbals Records Finland 1983) Figured I'd seal the circle with this one: A record as stupendous as "Medium Was Tedium" and as prominently throwing all the weight of the DIY-aesthetic on us, the listeners. The Rutto seem to be your 1983 run-of-the-mill small town punk rockers, and this 45 is generic, frantic buzzsaw guitar 2-chord punk. The magic with this one, however, is that in between the choca-blocks of teen nihilism is a noticeable sense of wonder and joi de vivre oozing thru' the grooves, or maybe I am just getting old and sentimental. Thanks for reading.

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randomnameless · 5 years ago

Text

I was browsing a tag (i know i shouldn’t do that) and i read an old post nerding about ancient civilisations and parallels with FE16 which made me glee bcs i love to nerd about history

But then i was disappointed

Important Agarthans seem to have greek names (?) so they could be ancient greece, okay why not (the superiority complex over the rest of the world feels adequate but then idk if Socrates (Soloncrates?) would call actual humans beasts or not).

But then it was affirmed that Rhea, not the Nabateans, but Rhea, was Ancient Rome (Romea?). She 1) razed the Agarthans, 2) expanded the Church in the continent and 3) allied with Wilhelm of Adrestia and later Loog who represents the various germanic tribes.

Which made me raise an eyebrow.

1) I’ve already posted earlier about the Sothis/Agartha war but here it seems a bit odd to single out Rhea amidst her people for having rekt Agartha when it was, at most, a collective action of several Nabateans, regardless of the fact that Rhea may or not have participated in the first war.

Also, in FE16, the Nabateans gave their technology to Agarthans, who in turn developed it and turned against them. Ancient Rome was tsun-tsun with their greek neighbours, but it is now commonly accepted that the first romans tried to “copy” or at least were heavily inspired by Ancient Greece to build a national identity. I mean Virgil even wrote a poem to make a Trojan ancestor to what would later become the roman people, and that’s not talking about how the old Roman pantheon borrowed the Greek one but with aliases worse than Danved and Devdan...

In FE16, “Greece” actually borrowed/received their technology from “Rome” but tried to attack “Rome” and failed. “Rome” retaliated, destroyed “Greece” to the point where romans don’t even know what “Greece” was and can only make suppositions about its existence.

This doesn’t match RL history.

2) Expanding the Church in the continent : this is actually speculation, but afaik, when Adrestia conquered the continent, its religion would have automatically been spread? Still, comparing the Church of Seiros to another religion starting with a C doesn’t really work.

Adrestia was founded by a dude who had been annointed by Seiros herself. The Church, or at least Seiros and her pals, already existed before the Empire. Constantine the Great was the first Emperor to convert to christianity, but he was not the founder of Rome! Christianity became a “state” religion after Constantine. Heck, Julian thought his uncle’s religion was lousy so he returned to a polytheist cult.

In FE16, the only schism between Adrestia (the Empire) and the Church happened after the Southern Church was expelled, giving a good 1000 years of church approved Empire.

Saying Romea expanded the reach of the church through out all of Fodlan isn’t wrong, iirc part of the mediation accepting the Kingdom’s existence is to allow the church to preach in the newly formed kingdom, but i’m not sure it could be tied to RL history, because in Fodlan, Wilhelm walked side by side with Jesus, and Jesus crowned him Emperor. Jesus won against Nemesis. Adrestia’s legitimacy/creation comes from Jesus.

So I don’t think it’s Rhea expanding the reach of the Church through Fodlan, but more Seiros is part of the Empire’s lore, she’s that actual saintly figure who defeated the strongest man ever so everywhere in the Empire tales of Seiros and her deeds are heard of, it makes sense to follow/buy her story.

Also, if the “religion” the church of Seiros preaches is the rewritten history, people must have “converted” after the unification of Fodlan and yet, if Seirosism is the state religion, and the state is controlling Fodlan, can we say Romea expanded her religion through the continent, or Fodlan, after being conquered by Adrestia, automatically became Seirosist?

It would actually echo the bid to allow the Church to preach in the newly formed Faerghus, if Loog wanted to fig off Adrestia, he might even want to have a different religion than the one from the Empire he came from, hell, the Kingdom even returned to the former naming practices existing before Adrestia.

The Church would have wanted to make sure that no matter what Loog was doing with his bunch of humans in the North, he would still believe crests are a gift from the goddess, they shouldn’t be misused and if you ever find Macuil don’t murder him to make weapons out of his body.

short story long story : it’s the story of the egg and the chicken, did Seirosism became the leading religion in the continent because Rhea actively preached around, or because it was Adrestia’s state religion? idk.

3) Rome “allied” (well, TC said Rome lorded and traded with germanic tribes until shit hit the fan) with germanic tribes. They could be traded with. But they were not roman citizens. I’m not that well versed in this part of the Roman Empire (even if some part of France was classified as Germania at that time! RIP Franche-Comté T-T). Thing is, Rome never asked for Germania’s help to defeat some enemy, hell, when barbarians invasions happened, it hit Germania first and then Rome.

This is where the Romea analogy falls.

First of all, Wilhelm became Wilhelm of Adrestia thanks to Seiros who annointed/crowned him, without Seiros there is no Adrestia. (iirc in one of Seiros’ books it is said Seiros makes emperors out of men, and the tradition needs the archbishop to bear witness each time a new emperor is crowned, so i suppose Rhea crowned/proclamed/anointed/made Wilhelm an Emperor).

Rome never had that kind of influence (afaik?) on the various germanic tribes.

Before Adrestia we had Enbarr and, I guess, several tribes. As I see it (it may be wrong!) Adrestia is made to mirror Rome, sort of. Wilhelm “of Adrestia” set out to conquer unify the world. Now, did Seiros told him to conquer the world or did he came to that conclusion alone, we will never know. And yet, in the time period we’re speaking of (antiquity?), there’s no “Germanic Empire”. Adrestia started as an unified state, not as several tribes. Adrestia thus cannot be likened to “germanic tribes”.

Second, Loog did not receive help from Rhea, but it’s implied (still it’s from the shadow library so i’m not holding it against the TC) he received help from Mole People.

But from what we know, in the Vanilla game, Loog defeated the Emperor of Adrestia. It is during the aftermath that the Empire, House Charon and the Church negotiated and decided Loog could found his Kingdom. I do not see how Rhea “allied” with the guy, nor, again, what kind of germanic tribe he represents given how he actually got his independance from the Empire to create his own Kingdom.

Then we have another set of facts which are less about history and more about the game, but for the history ones :

Romea cannot 4) enforce the will of the Church and Western branch rebelling mirrors Rome’s western’s provinces being unruly and Romea gradually losing grasp on Adrestia 5) The Church isn’t completely sacked but still remains in CF to mirror Rome’s “gradual” fall/out of powerlessness (for funsies 6) Edel and the Agarthans make Rome face what they did to Greece and represent the germanic tribes coming after Rome after they managed to free themselves from its influence)

4) Unless I’m mistaken, the most occidental border of the Empire was the Atlantic Ocean? astérix is a product of french chauvinism

Northern borders were more problematic, we had Hadrian’s Wall to keep Picts at bay and in the 3rd century the “Saxon Shore” to fend off against invaders coming by the sea.

Of course around this time there was an important crisis that weakened the Empire, so it might explain why there was unrest everywhere. This crisis saw the birth of the Western Gallic Empire, but also of the Eastern Palmyrene Empire (everyone was happy when Diocletian unified the empire afterwards). After, let’s say, 300ish, the Empire, in general, had difficulties to deal with and keep its borders.

Back to FE, the western church rebelling is actually at odds with Rome, because when it comes to religious stuff, the eastern provinces were the most concerned/active, not the western ones (1st council of nicea was made because of the arian controversy (The Son and the Father are the same entity or not? Discuss) in the eastern provinces).

Apparently, the Western Church rebels because they don’t like/follow the creed of the Central Church, but if we wanted to keep the Rome analogy, it should have been the Eastern church rebelling. From what we see, it is not because they follow another religion, but they have a difference in doctrine (but then it is muddled because mole people, otoh, it is never said that the western church thinks seiros is a hax or the goddess doesn’t exist, they want to claim lands on behalf of Saint Cichol which means they adhere, at least, to the main dogma about saints) and really don’t like Rhea for some reason. tbh i think some “germanic tribes” converted to arianism but they weren’t the theologists who theorised it

Central Church lost its grasp on Adrestia in 1065 (iirc?) when the southern branch was expelled. Idk if everything was fine and dandy before, but given how Rhea oversaw the construction of Garreg Mach after the WoH and tried to resurrect Sothis with the Chalice, I’d say she already said “peace i’m out” to Adrestia and would just be there for some ceremonies (crowning/being a witness for new emperors i suppose).

I’ve said it earlier, but Adrestia is not supposed to represent the “germanic tribes”, Adrestia is Rome. Adrestia having german names could also mean that the devs were lazy because Gaius Claudius isn’t a funky name, but the HRE was situated in western-central europe. Edel’s rebellion against the central church could mirror HRE and the Reformation, save for the fact that Edel dgaf about the goddess bcs humanity doesn’t need gods or something. So the analogy doesn’t really work...

5) Coming to which, CF!Church is not anything like Seirosism or, i suppose, the former Sothisism cult. Various bloggers already tore this take apart, but the “Church” in post CF-Fodlan seems to be less spiritual and more of an organisation which is overseen by the Emperor.

I mean, if Edel says humans don’t need gods, what is the Church supposed to do? Fodlan has a cult? A religion? Faith? Faith in what? People are supposed to be free to chose what to believe in, but it is clear that “humans” don’t need gods, so what? You can believe in whatever you want, but not in Sothis because we don’t need her, and fig to the children of the Goddess or fig you if you’re still a follower of Seirosism? Rome still exists nowadays as a capital of a living country, I cannot affirm the Church exists, or if whatever the church of Seiros did is still maintained.

Also, “Rome” as in the Roman Empire (kind of) survived with the Byzantine Empire and the HRE. I don’t think offshoots of the Church of Seiros would be allowed to prosper in CF’s Fodlan.

6) :)

I cannot remember if Romea’s people (well a civilisation cannot have brethrens it’s not a being!) were turned into various weapons by Socrates and Plato (if they had been blacksmiths i’d have been more interested in philosophy classes i swear) but as far as i know Edel’s Adrestia didn’t wage war against Romea because of her conquests or what she did to Soloncrates/Ancient Greece, nope or to free Adrestia from Romea (especially since Adrestia got rid of the church since 1065). Edel wants to conquer the world and change the “system” in place.

Bonus : About names, yes, the devs validated the “Adrestia is both rome and germany combined” which is as WTF as it seems, and yet, last Emperor from the HRE was named Francis II with his birth name being Franz Joseph Karl which is very far removed from, idk, Trajan being Marcus Ulpius Trajanus. I don’t think the devs thought a lot about names tbh, still, if Emperor Wilhelm might sound “german” and yet his second name Paul, is latin (paulus) so idk. Ionius was apparently a name used in Rome?

#FE16 #wew that was long #semi-rant?#history of fodlan?#not going to pick everything apart of course #this post was made before the DCL and the Dev's interview #but i thought it was clear since the beginning that Adrestia was Rome #it fell apart and now it's a shell of itself like HRE #especially with the von switch #Romea #I'm not that knowledgeable on ancient roman history btw #or the roman empire through the ages #yes rome had trouble to deal with germanic tribes #but at one point rome even had trouble dealing with itself so #After Trajan Rome kind of fell apart and was never able to recover #i was bored to death by a class of the council of nicea and arianism so if i can use it for once in a fandom related post i will #now i know i'm hammering wilhelm/lycaon being emperors of the world #but lbr if seiros really wanted to rule she would have been able to who was going to challenge her?#she defeated nemesis she is the prophet #otoh when the church doctrine started to become wide-spread?#what was even the church of seiros during the war? Rhea cannot rewrite history if people are living in the same era #i mean more of this looks like a rant but i felt the Greece/Rome antagonism was misunderstood #jupiter is totally not zeus because we thought your pantheon looked cool so we wanted to copy it nope #nabateans were the more advanced ones who shared with aghartians not the inverse #and then i went on a wiki spree #pre imperial era #if we have to HC everything about Fodlan then i'd rather waste my time pondering about pre imperial Fodlan than anything else #i am very proud of soloncrates if you wonder

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