#and someone put in the annotations that the lyrics were similar

[getaroomryden]

Lyric parallels between Take A Vacation! (2010) and Vices & Virtues (2011)

[only-by-the-stars]

the annotated Tome of the Wild

Part 7: The Wild!

- Link didn't open his eyes. A twist on the beginning of BOTW, where you hear Zelda telling Link to open his eyes. I couldn’t resist.

- Hestu’s cameo was a lot of fun to write too. I always found him adorable, first in BOTW and then in AOC as well, and the idea of him waking up Link with his maracas was too amusing not to do. I also had to include his “shimmy shimmy” battle cry from AOC because I always laugh my head off whenever I hear it.

- This also reveals that Midna brought Link to the Great Deku Tree, a character that debuted in OOT and made further appearances in WW and BOTW.

- Something tickled her arm, breaking her out of her gloomy thoughts. Midna lifted her head and looked down. New growth was sprouting from the branch she was sitting on, wriggling its way up onto her. Nothing like this happens to Beatrice in the show, but I had to put in this chilling little moment of Midna nearly succumbing to the dekuwood. It provides a way later to introduce Rhoam’s presence in his scene, as well as some horror at what could’ve happened to her here.

- Note to self: never visit Tabantha if you can help it... Tabantha, of course, being a very cold region in BOTW’s Hyrule. Link’s newfound hatred of snow mirrors my own, and now he’s going to associate it with this horrible experience.

- “It's a bad habit, I guess.” He laughed softly. He’s referring, of course, to how he casually greeted Riju and Medli back at the school pool and they gave him a bit of a hard time about it.

- “You...” Midna stared at him for several seconds, stunned. “You...” She slapped his hand away and starting swinging her tiny fists at him, which he easily dodged. “You oaf! You idiot! What the hell—what the hell is wrong with you? How can you forgive me so easily, when you're still in a shit situation because of me? Neither one of us would be out here groping around blindly in the fucking snow if not for what I did!” I set up Midna and Link to be parallels of each other in a couple ways. One of which is that while Link has isolated himself from Mipha, hurting and confusing her, Midna is on the other end of something similar with Zelda. And here we see something they both struggle with: forgiving themselves. Midna can’t understand how Link can so easily forgive her actions towards him, while Link utterly despises himself for his actions towards Mipha and cannot forgive himself for causing her pain. He’ll later struggle with the fact that Mipha forgives him easily, just as Midna is having trouble understanding his forgiveness of her here. All of them find it easier to forgive their loved ones than to grant that same grace to themselves.

- “She told me that while she appreciated how much I cared, I should think a little more and be less reckless. I know she'd never call me stupid, but...” Link shrugged. “Honestly, I kind of am.” Another reference to Mipha calling Link reckless, and how she hates seeing him get hurt. He is indeed not the smartest guy around, but she does describe him as being very kind and determined to help those in need, so I tried to emphasize that aspect of his personality in this story. Although the “I kind of am” line is also intended to be a subtle red flag. We’ve already seen that Link thinks very little of himself and his abilities, even when it’s clear from the words of others that he’s very talented. And we’re about to soon see him use a bit of intelligence he very much does have, in order to save the day. He would never believe himself capable of such a thing, but he does it anyway.

- “Even just a few branches could be processed... enough to get us through this storm...” Note the use of the plural here. This is leading up to the revelation about his belief that Zelda is in the lantern. His desperation to find more oil anywhere is because, of course, he believes that if the light goes out she will die. And he wouldn’t be in this scarcity if not for what happened back in chapter one, with Link and Aryll and the dog accidentally wrecking the mill and his oil supply.

- He was soon rewarded with a most welcome sight: a single dekuwood branch, growing out of that of a normal tree. It seemed sickly, withered, and it waved feebly in the air, but he rushed forward and hacked it off anyway. The very same branch that tried to attach itself to Midna, sickly and withered precisely because of that failure.

- And now we come to the confirmation that the dekuwood is made from the people who succumb to despair and exhaustion in the woods, right as we see it growing all around Aryll. Rhoam has been unaware this entire time of all the souls he’s sacrificed over the past several months, and now that he knows, he refuses to do it any longer. For he, like Midna, recognizes that Zelda would never want anyone to be harmed for her sake.

He’s also right that Link would never leave Aryll to such a fate, recognizing Link’s love and protectiveness towards his little sister. This is a point where my characterization of Link wildly diverges from that of Wirt, the protagonist of OTGW. I pulled some things from Wirt for Link and his arc, but one thing I didn’t keep was the resentment and initial callousness that Wirt displays for Greg, who is revealed in the tavern sequence to be his half-brother thanks to his mother remarrying, something Greg frowns at when Wirt mentions it. Aryll is also technically Link’s half-sister, as I revealed in the letters that his mother remarried some years after his father’s death and had Aryll with her new husband, but I could not for the life of me see him being resentful or unkind to his little sister. Whatever his faults, I’ve written him as being, at his core, an incredibly kind and deeply loving person, and his adoration of his sister is a part of that. He doesn’t view her as a “half” anything, she’s just his sister and he’ll do anything to protect her. Which of course is a big part of what led to his breakdown: his feelings of guilt over not doing as good a job of that as he thinks he should be doing.

- “Link, I don't... I don't think that's natural light. It looks more like...” This has a double meaning. The fire in the lantern is not the “natural light” of the sun, and it is also deeply unnatural, given that it’s the Beast’s soul in there.

- Speaking of that! The confrontation with the Beast plays out a bit differently here than it does in the show, thanks to Midna’s personal connection to all this. Rhoam’s mention of Zelda gets her attention, and the Beast uses her love for Zelda as a way to try and turn her and Link against each other with his attempt to make them choose which soul will go into the lantern. He’ll get fuel and kill Aryll either way, but why not pit these two against each other as a way to manipulate them into doing what he wants? Except it backfires, because Midna won’t harm anyone for Zelda’s sake, and Link figures out what’s going on anyway, thanks to remembering the words of Rhoam and Telma.

- Link stood up, his mind racing. It was like when the solution to a puzzle finally presented itself in a moment of stunning clarity. For all that he’s not that bright in so many ways, it’s important to remember that he’s canonically able to solve all those tricky puzzles we do, without benefit of a guide, just using his wits and the tools he has at hand. And so too does he solve this particular puzzle, by remembering what he’s been told and piecing it together with what he sees here, thinking about the fact that the Beast’s story doesn’t add up. Which saves the day, in the end.

- “Am I wrong?” Link repeated, his voice shaking with barely suppressed fury; he took a few more steps, forcing the Beast to retreat further. “No more lies. Tell the truth for once, Beast.” Referencing, of course, the fact that Telma told him the Beast lies. He’s absolutely furious right now because of the attempt on Aryll’s life; you do not mess with Link’s loved ones. The Beast, too, fucked around and found out the hard way.

- In the show, Wirt gives the lantern back to the Woodsman to blow out after the delivery of the “Are you?” line that I kept (and had Link nail the delivery of on his first try, unlike Wirt, because that’s what makes sense for both their characters). Here, I chose to let Link kill the Beast, because he is, after all, the legendary hero who slays the villain. But even more importantly, I felt he deserved and had earned such a moment with his growing courage over the course of the tale.

- “See you later, Link.” Hey, remember how Midna broke all our hearts by saying a similar line to Link in TP as she broke the mirror and went back to her world? I sure do!

- “Sleepers wake, dreams will fade... although we cling fast..." This, and the lyrics that close out this section, are the first few lines of the vocal version of Ballad of the Wind Fish that was done for the LA remake.

- There were lights and shadowy figures coming closer, and voices—was someone calling his name? As I would later reveal in the prologue of a place to start, Mipha was screaming his name as she ran down the hill towards him.

- The words he wanted so badly to say to her hung on the tip of his tongue And it shows on his face, that desire to express the love for her that is all but bursting out of him in this moment, and Mipha sees it. She sees that love shining in his eyes as they stare at each other, giving her her hope back and then some. In a way, Link was right: if he hadn’t hidden from her, she would’ve realized what his real feelings for her are. He just didn’t know how happy it would’ve made her. But he will soon.

- “—and that's how we got away from the evil possessed lady!” Out of the corner of his eye Link saw Aryll shake the frog triumphantly, and Mipha, distracted by the sudden commotion, looked away from him. A small, muffled chime sounded, and the amphibian's stomach glowed. “The ringing of the bell commanded her! Though she wasn't really evil, just...” The series is never clear on just what the otherworld the brothers enter is, but it is clear that it really happened to them, and I preserved that ambiguity in the same way, by showing the bell as still being in the frog’s stomach.

- Link nodded. “Yes.” It didn't matter anymore how it'd gotten into her pocket; he'd made it, and brought it with him tonight, with the intention of giving it to her. There was no more question of taking it back or denying it. Courage has been achieved; he’s no longer going to hide or pretend, or try to take back the gift he worked on so hard. Midna is right: he’s been so brave in the Wild, and it’s time to apply that bravery to confessing his feelings to Mipha and letting her know that he loves her. The words will have to wait till the next day, but for now he’s doing all he can to face his fears and stop running, by hugging her and holding her hand and wiping her tears away, letting his love show in his expression as he looks at her without avoiding her eyes. Plus, of course, admitting to his intentions with the tape and inviting her over to listen to it together. They’re finally getting a breakthrough after two months of separation and pain.

- The doctor, Syrup, is a recurring NPC throughout the series, a witch who brews up helpful healing potions for Link to use on his adventures.

- I'm home, Mipha. Calling back, of course, to Midna’s line about there being someone waiting for him and to go home to her. Not only that, but in Mipha’s letters, I had her mention wanting him to “come back to her”. And now he finally has.

and that wraps this up, as the epilogue is composed strictly of Miphlink fluff and sweet, sweet payoff. if you took the time to read the fic and these write ups, thank you, I hope you enjoyed them! ❤

[thelaurenshippen]

oh hey, here’s a playlist from 2017 that I realized wasn’t on my website with the rest of them and that I totally wasn’t thinking about because there’s actually a part two that has never seen the light of day that may or may not be incoming

notes on my website and also under the cut

As I write, I like to build playlists for all my characters and, occasionally, will make playlists as a character as well. These playlists are part of my writing process and I take them far more seriously than anyone should. Sometimes the playlists come together instantly and effortlessly and sometimes I play around with them for months. As such, there are a fair number of cast-offs that never make it onto the final, official playlist. That's what this playlist is.

So here we are: all the songs that nearly made it on to the character playlists but got cut for various reasons. Those reasons tend to fall into one of a few categories:

There wasn’t space / another song was serving a similar purpose

The song was right for the character but not right for the character at the beginning of their story (which is what most of the playlists are)

The mood/genre/tempo of the song was out of place in the playlist

I discovered the song after the playlists had been put together.

All my playlists are very specifically ordered, so adding or removing songs after their publication is more or less impossible. Instead, I would throw songs into this B-Side playlist as they appeared, meaning that, unlike most of my playlists, the order here is random (aka this playlist has NO flow). Here is a list of where they would have gone had they made the final cut. The characters are listed above the tracks, with a link to the playlist in question.

A/N, 2020: These are the B-Sides specifically from pre-Season 4. Back in August of 2017, I  did a sticker giveaway to see what folks would guess about which songs were for which characters - these annotations were published after that giveaway and thus, there's some reference to how people guessed!

WADSWORTH 

1. “Heavy Metal Lover” - Lady Gaga

This is a Wadsworth song through and through in terms of style and swagger. There just wasn’t space for it.

But would you love me if I ruled the world

DAMIEN 

2. “Reaper Man” - Mother Mother

This is a song that was recommended to me as a Damien song by tumblr user kalgalen and I am actively mad that I didn’t know this song before making Damien’s playlist. The style, the lyrics - everything about this song is Damien. And it actually fits perfectly after the opening track but by the time I was made aware of it, it was too late.

Oh yeah, I’m an ugly mess/not in the face, but in the head - regardless of how attractive Damien is, this is something he thinks. God, what an edgelord line this is.

Oh yeah, I got no choice/got no choice/but to love myself - I mean, it’s just all there.

A/N, 2020: this song eventually made its way onto a playlist -  my playlist for A Neon Darkness, Damien's book.

CHLOE 

3. “Her Morning Elegance” - Oren Lavie

I love that this song really conjures a visceral image to your brain - it paints such a vivid picture. It’s delicate, but determined. I think Chloe sometimes moves through her world separate and observing and that’s what this song is.

There’s also an amazing music video that I think Chloe would watch over and over again.

I got a lot of submissions guessing that this was a song for Sam and I really see that too. It fits well with the aesthetic of her playlist and the theme of fighting for your life everyday definitely resonates with Sam, as does the “Nobody knows” lyric. But the lyrics are also about being out in the world, which is something Sam doesn’t do but Chloe wants to continue to do desperately, despite her ability making it difficult.  

CALEB/ADAM 

4. “Blue and Yellow” - The Used

This was a song suggested by my sister for Caleb and Adam because of the colors involved and also because The Used was a band we both listened to a lot when we were emo teenagers like Adam. Ultimately, this song feels very dated as early emo and didn’t quite fit musically on any of their mixes, either in-universe or not.

And it’s all in how you mix the two/and it starts just where the light exists/it’s a feeling that you cannot miss/and it burns a hole/through everyone that feels it

5. “Stupid for You” - Waterparks

This is another song that was recommended to me, this time by a tumblr user and it is absolutely perfect. I didn’t even realize that there was pop punk being made like this anymore, so I was delighted.

You’re yellow, I’m natural blue/let’s get together and be green like my insides - I mean??? Couldn’t have said it better myself

Also, the refrain of “stupid for you” fits perfectly with the “I’m the guy who’s been so stupid about you that it broke my fucking super power!” I mean, I clearly ghostwrote this song.

ISO: the tumblr user who suggested this song. I have scoured both of my blogs to find the ask to no avail so if it was you, please raise your hand.

Both of these songs would go on a Caleb/Adam ship mix if such a thing existed. But in fact, both their mixes are in-universe and, while one of them might put this on a mix now, it would have been way too vulnerable of a thing to put on one of those earlier playlists. I've linked to their second in-universe mix - the quite lovey one that Adam makes for Caleb.

MARK 

6. “Time Machine" - Robyn

This definitely felt a little too on the nose for Mark, so I went with “Hang With Me” instead. But Mark loves Robyn and would love the DeLorean reference in this so it was very tempting. It’s also a song all about making impulsive decisions, which Mark definitely does a lot, but in classic Robyn style, it’s such a bop despite the serious lyrics. That balance fits Mark perfectly.

7. “F U” - Miley Cyrus

I know this song is about someone cheating, but it is such a good angry-fuck-you song that I can’t help but think of it in the context of Mark’s feelings towards Wadsworth. Having missed the heyday of pop borrowing from dubstep and the increasing use of internet slang, I think Mark would have gotten out of The AM and fallen hard for this song. I imagine many an afternoon before Joan gets home from work just angry dancing around the living room singing along to this.

SAM/MARK 

8. “Someone to Fall Back On” - Jason Robert Brown

This is 100% Sam singing to Mark about being his knight in shining armor. Sam is hard on herself - doesn’t realize her own strength - so the self-deprecating lyrics really work for her. It didn’t make it on the playlist because it felt like it was a little further down the line in their relationship - somewhere around Episode 40.

I’ll take your side/if I’m the only one/I’m used to that/I’ve been alone/I’d rather be/the half of us/the least of you/the best of me

I got a lot of guesses for Frank on this one, which completely fits. He’s quite a bit more confident in his abilities than Sam - if he thinks he can be your knight, he’ll say so right from the get-go.

9. “Can’t Get Started With You” - Ella Fitzgerald

This is pretty self-explanatory. It didn’t fit with the very particular structure that I created for the Sam/Mark playlist and it also felt like a later stage of their relationship. That playlist was them falling in love and wanting to be in the same time; this song is getting close to that but then getting pulled apart again, first by Damien and then by the difficult realties of actually trying to have a relationship. If the previous track is end of Season 3 for them, this is a Season 4 song.

A/N, 2020: it certainly is a Season 4 song, because it actually ended up going on their Season 4 playlist.

DAMIEN/MARK 

10. “Elvis Ain’t Dead” - Scouting for Girls

So…this is a reject from an as of yet published playlist. I know - not fair. Think of this as the free square on a bingo sheet. In the course of writing Season 3, I was motivated to make a playlist for a relationship that was becoming increasingly interesting to write. While this playlist could certainly be seen as a ship playlist, I have no intentions to ever put these characters together in a real way, but their dynamic was so compelling that I wanted to explore it. I will eventually release the playlist because it’s one of the best I’ve made, but I didn’t want it influencing anyone’s reaction to the end of Season 3. Loose lips sink ships.

I wish it was me you chose/Elvis ain’t dead/and you’re coming back

Okay, okay, I won’t leave you hanging because a few people actually guessed this one right - it’s from a Damien/Mark playlist. This is actually one of three unpublished Damien mixes - for whatever reason, music is the fastest and easiest way for me to connect to him. He really brings out the playlist-making skills in me.

A lot of people guessed that this was Agent Green which I absolutely love. Poor Owen.

A/N, 2020: I didn't link to the playlist originally, but it exists now! To this day, I think it's some of my best work.

ROSE 

11. “Carolina” - Harry Styles

This was mostly rejected because I felt stupid having two songs called “Carolina” on one mix and Sara Bareilles trumps Harry Styles (as much as I love him). But in style and content, this really feels like a Rose song.

[eveningclouds]

tlgad anon idk if u will see this coz u sent this this morning but i have ur mssg belowww i just copy/pasted it so i could put it under a readmore and also respond to it w more ease :P

I personally love tlgad because she’s telling someone else’s story, but she connects it back to herself in a way that’s unexpected but really fits. I don’t mind self-references— in fact, I tend to prefer the more obviously personal songs because nobody else can write them. The story-telling is top notch, and the build up during the bridge to “and then it was bought by me” is just perfect.

i think we both agree that it’s interesting how she ties the speaker’s story to that of someone else!! i also appreciate the storytelling aspect of this song. i think my issue of it has more to do with the mechanics (i don’t think it utilizes repetition as well as it could, for example)

Also, I love how subtly it deals with the topic of sexism. The Man is great, but since the sexism in tlgad isn’t the main focus (or it is, but it’s within a greater story) it has more of an impact, at least for me. Like, the way Rebekah is judged for marrying into a rich family or already having a failed marriage (“how did a middle class divorcée do it?), and how the town is constantly criticizing her but masking it with a compliment (“the wedding was charming, if a little gauche,” “their parties were tasteful, if a little loud”). Also, their insults to her: they call her mad and shameless, the latter of which is a word often used to describe women who don’t try to conform to society’s expectations. And the Bitch Pack— which was a real thing Rebekah’s friend group called themselves. The town uses that name as an insult, as you can hear in Taylor’s voice as she sings. They can’t stand that she’s bringing all her city friends to this exclusive area. They mock her for her use of finances: “blew through the money,” “losing on card game bets” (not that she’s playing cards, not that she’s gambling, but that she’s losing). You just feel their judgment throughout the entire song, without Taylor ever saying “they judged her.” And yet, Rebekah doesn’t stop. She embraces the Bitch Pack name, she keeps filling the pool with champagne and swimming with the big names. She even bites back at her judgmental neighbors (dying the cat dog key lime green). But neither is she painted as a crazy woman without feelings: the line about how she can be “seen on occasion, pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea” evokes feelings of grieving contemplation, especially once you’ve heard hoax (“stood on the cliff side screaming give me a reason”). It’s affecting her even if she doesn’t want to show it. When Taylor shows up at the end, it’s as if she’s keeping to Rebekah’s legacy. It’s actually very similar to The Lucky One from Red— she’s telling someone else’s story (this time that of a celebrity that came before her) before connecting it to her life during the bridge. However, in The Lucky One, Taylor wishes she could follow in her muse’s footsteps (“you took the money and your dignity and got the hell out”) but can’t, because her name is up in lights— she’s been ensnared by Hollywood society. In tlgad, she’s not trapped anymore: instead, she follows Rebekah’s example of rejecting it all and having marvelous time ruining everything.

agreeeee w all of this; i especially like what u said about the gambling & the bridge!!! i’m very gnsjdfhjfdaja about. the way taylor talks about & writes about feminism tbh but this is def one of her better ones considering the topic imo

i think this is what i mean by self referential though, where it sort of ... requires? you to have a broader understanding of the artist’s discography/album in order to understand the song. i think that that’s def sth rly cool & i love when songs build off of each other, but i think that this song specifically is markedly weaker when listened to in isolation compared to the other songs off of folklore because it is so reliant on external context. idk if this makes sense because i just finished writing an essay for another class and i’m tired ndsfjdjkfhd...like i feel as if there is a difference between personal songs (i love those too!!) & overly self referential songs which risk either being too on the nose or weaker out of context ykwim

This turned out much longer than I intended lol. I love this song— I literally printed out the lyrics and annotated it like poetry when it first came out and have done a close reading on the bridge for the fun of it. It’s so good. But thanks for coming to my Ted Talk 😅

thank you for writing all of this it’s so cool 2 hear peoples’ opinions on songs!!!! & omg...ur mind...i really appreciated reading this, i loved ur insight on the feminist aspect of the song & the way you connected it to the lucky one because i never considered the latter (& will def relisten to that song again)!! 

[jennathearcher]

I’m Just Gonna Keep Dancing: A Playlist for Jenna in the Umbrella Academy AU; aka “The Siren”

@playingwithroles @edelweissroses

(note: see song annotations for additional details)

1. word up! - korn 2. malambo no. 1 - yma sumac 3. both sides now - judy collins 4. cheap thrills - sia ft. sean paul 5. body talks - the struts ft. kesha 6. drinking in l.a. - bran van 3000 7. bring me to life (synthesis) - evanescence 8. the mother we share - chvrches 9. swan song - dua lipa 10. let it go - idina menzel 11. vuelie - christophe beck & fjord fjellheim ft. cantus 12. l.a. devotee - panic! at the disco 13. someone to you - banners 14. get back up again - anna kendrick 15. i can transform ya - chris brown ft. lil wayne & swiss beatz 16. breathe no more - amy lee 17. dem beats - todrick hall ft. rupaul 18. all i ask of you - jonathan young & malinda kathleen reese 19. almost (sweet music) - hozier 20. people like us - kelly clarkson 21. chasing twisters - delta rae 22. don’t let me down - the chainsmokers ft. daya 23. how far we’ve come - matchbox twenty 24. my way - andy black 25. shatter me - lindsey stirling ft. lzzy hale 26. saturn - sleeping at last 27. …ready for it? - taylor swift

[listen]

notes under the cut for anyone whose 8tracks is acting up:

Track 1: Jenna’s first dance performance with the troupe, as witnessed by Klaus and Vanya

Track 2: Jenna’s solo dance/lip sync performance, during which her powers successfully take down a group of assassins converging on the theatre; targeting Vanya

Track 3: Jenna happily strolls away from the theatre in the rain, while the mangled bodies of the assassins hang in various positions backstage

Track 4: Jenna turns on the radio in her apartment and dances, demonstrating that her powers are mood-based to an extent, similar to Vanya’s

Track 5: Dance practice with Jenna’s troupe, culminating when Jenna unintentionally cracks a floorboard using her powers

Track 6: Realizing she may need help continuing to hone her powers, Jenna seeks out the Hargreeves siblings

Track 7: When the mansion suddenly comes under siege, Jenna demonstrates for the first time that her powers manifest not only through dance -- but also through her singing voice

Track 8: Having proved her strength and trustworthiness to the siblings, Jenna’s training begins

Track 9: Jenna once again uses her powers to fight alongside the siblings, and it becomes clearer that the lyrics of the songs she chooses influence the strength of her powers

Track 10: After being ostracized by the other members of her dance troupe, Jenna finally throws herself into the full extent of her powers, finding new strength and a sense of community with the Umbrella Academy

Track 11: Directly tied to the last scene; Jenna discovers that her inner voice is not one, but many

Track 12: During a practice session, Jenna and Klaus dance together

Track 13: Over time, Jenna bonds with each of the Hargreeves siblings

Track 14: When the siblings are captured by a malevolent presence, Jenna has to venture out alone in order to rescue them, and attempts to sing herself through it

Track 15: Jenna tracks down the first member of the gang at a nightclub, and takes him down using her dance powers

Track 16: Jenna sings to hold an enemy immobilized, but also successfully brings Allison and Vanya out of hiding

Track 17: Jenna successfully keeps a group of enemies at bay by mind-controlling them to dance along with her until they collapse from exhaustion

Track 18: Put on the spot and running out of ideas, Klaus decides that the best way to help Jenna find where he’s been locked up is to sing

Track 19: After a narrow escape, Jenna and all of the siblings are reunited

Track 20: At Five’s behest, Jenna hijacks a television broadcast and sings a call-to-arms to try and reach all of the others who were also born on 10/01/89

Track 21: The theme for Jenna and Klaus

Track 22: Jenna once again finds herself opposite multiple enemies, and sings in an attempt to call the siblings and their new recruits to her

Track 23: Jenna and each of the siblings reflect on things as they once again face a threat of apocalyptic proportions

Track 24: Once again, the confrontation comes to a head in the music hall, where Jenna sings their enemies into submission to give the siblings an advantage

Track 25: The obligatory Jenna and Vanya teamup

Track 26: Things look bleak when Klaus’ bond with Ben falters, causing him to be injured in the final fight

Track 27: Driven by pure blind emotion, Jenna unleashes the full force of her powers

[thesinglesjukebox]

EMINEM - DARKNESS

[2.20]

We’ve come to talk about Em again...

Alfred Soto: Good lord -- an Eminem single called "Darkness," surprised yet? The Simon and Garfunkel interpolation and sound effects come off as cheap contexualizing for the sake of a bait-and-switch in which Em unmasks himself as Stephen Paddock. With critics paying renewed attention to the complexity of his flow, it's also worth stressing that ability tethered to self-pity deserves scorn. [4]

Brad Shoup: I swear to Christ I saw the title and knew he was gonna interpolate Simon and Garfunkel. But I also knew he and Royce were making their own "Six Feet Deep," and I was way off. Turns out it's a creative-writing assignment designed to keep the grader's pen dangling forever. What do you do with something detailed so painstakingly and painfully? The parallels Em draws are clever enough linguistically. (Has any song ever flattered Genius annotators more?) But the only ones that feel legit involve substance abuse. This is a megalomaniacal idea presented bashfully -- I should be grateful he isn't trying to do voice acting -- and framed thoughtlessly. The gunshots and screams are ghoulish enough without considering how the rest of his catalog uses them as cartoon gags. A fantastically bad idea that I will be thinking about for at least as long as the song's excruciating runtime. [5]

Kylo Nocom: Em forces the audience to endure his balladry, only to reveal that they were, like, empathizing with the Las Vegas shooter the entire time! The set-up is... intriguing (to call it "well-executed" feels like making another lame pun he'd squeeze in) yet it still sucks in many ways that don't even require public moral outcry: the sound effects spoil the twist way too early, his singing burps out remnants of emo rap, the beat samples fucking Simon & Garfunkel, and I still hate the sound of this guy's voice doing anything. To write any more on this feels like losing a game that Eminem will win -- a point he makes annoyingly often and remains true. But it's a shame that something meant to be poignant from the guy comes out as weak shock humor. [3]

Julian Axelrod: In theory, I'm not mad that Eminem is still trying to pivot to Social Commentary Anthems. I guess I'd rather hear him use his platform to wrestle with knotty issues than peddle stale punchlines about killing Honey Boo Boo or whatever. But what's really frustrating is Eminem's refusal to drop his gimmicks when it matters. You can't make a song about real life survivors and reference Saturday Night Fever. You can't condemn gun violence at festivals and condemn festival-goers concerned about gun violence. And regardless of the subject matter, you cannot punctuate a belabored alcohol-as-gun metaphor by muttering "Double entendre" like a sadistic, self-satisfied SparkNotes. That's the worst part: No one outside of Eminem's stanbase will be swayed by this, and very few within it will either. When will his reign of terror end? When no one cares. [0]

Isabel Cole: Oh, fuck you: for being tacky enough to open a limp-pulsing track called "Darkness" with a phrase that's been memed into meaninglessness and then marrying it to our particular American plague so that I feel irrationally bad about dismissing it with a flippant joke. But, fine, Eminem has put on his (boring, ill-fitting) big boy clothes, so let's do this. Being a grown-up, like being an artist, means being accountable for your choices, beginning with not just the choice to rap from the perspective of a mass shooter (although it's hard to imagine a level of artistic merit or political efficacy that would justify that decision), but specifically the choice of this shooter, this tragedy. It's easy to imagine why this particular incident would call to Eminem, from the infamy of the body count to the anxiety he must feel about the possibility of a similar event striking one of his own audiences. In choosing a mass murderer who remains so enigmatic, Eminem gets to dwell in the alleged mystery of violence, emphasizing its senselessness even to those who commit it. But it's more than the scale that makes that massacre unusual (although the scale also bears on the irresponsibility of his selection: come on, dude, how can you profess concern and not see yourself laying the groundwork for some other asshole to think "if I kill enough people someone famous will write a song about me?"); the perpetrator had no known history of domestic violence, but the majority of such men do. You can't talk about American violence without talking about American misogyny, and selecting a narrative that enables you to avoid the connection between the two marks you as someone with nothing to contribute to the conversation; implicitly generalizing this genderless narrative by layering news audio clips of shooting after shooting brings it from stupid to evil, emphasizing the pervasive danger of American culture now that men are dying too. This is of course particularly galling coming from goddamn Eminem, who has profited so handsomely from the commodification of violence against women. Galling partly because it retroactively dims whatever insights on the topic he may have laid claim to: rather than the inscrutable, almost mystical lost soul portrayed here, most of these men are something more like the narrator of "Love the Way You Lie" plus a couple years on the wrong parts of Reddit. He could have chosen to bridge that gap for his long-time listeners, to make the connection between hating the bitch who ruined your life and being self-centered enough to want to watch the world burn, but he didn't. Making me wonder what exactly he thought he was rapping about all those years, if he finds this form of violence so novel. [0]

Will Rivitz: I see Lin-Manuel's done away with his orchestra's string section. [2]

Andy Hutchins: The distance between "Hi, kids! Do you like violence? / Wanna see me stick nine-inch nails through each one of my eyelids?" and a three-verse double entendre that doesn't exactly strain itself to not sympathize with one of history's most nefarious mass murderers is not as far as one should probably walk in 20 years of life. A less clever rapper would not have found as many ways firearms buttress our vernacular; a cleverer one might have made this song about that instead of a five-minute trigger warning. A wiser one wouldn't have attempted this at all: Noble though the aim may be, there is no target audience here. [3]

Will Adams: Eminem stepping into the mind of a mass shooter is not surprising. Punctuating said narrative with in media res sound effects (shower curtains! pill bottles! loading clips! screams!), turning "The Sound of Silence" into a Talkboy sample, and making this shit five and a half minutes long? That takes extra chutzpah. [2]

Katherine St Asaph: I suspect the efforts to prevent copycat shootings were doomed ages ago, if not after Columbine then definitely after Rodger. Even if every mass shooter permanently closed off his chosen inspiration to all future comers, there are still enough sprees strewn throughout history -- hell, just through this millennium -- to produce years of trauma; and even if every media outlet declined to report shooters' names or manifestos, all of that would still circulate on chans and Discords (where they probably originated anyway) that any given proto-shooter is far more likely to read than the Associated Press, and infinitely more likely to trust. It's a failure of imagination: far easier to high-mindedly decline to acknowledge shootings than to reckon with them, to dissect and understand what makes them happen and more importantly what doesn't, and thus learn how to stop them. As a certain folk duo sang, silence like a cancer grows -- which brings us to Eminem's "Sound of Silence"-sampling, presumably cautionary foray into the Vegas shooter's mind. If your average caustic millennial isn't reading the mainstream news, he's definitely not listening to Eminem in 2020, and yet "Darkness" crumples under the burden of needing to not inspire anyone. The rapping is low-energy, the rhymes distractingly stiff or goofy -- trigger/convictions, booze/snooze -- the flow lumbering and often just bad. Where Disturbed heightened "The Sound of Silence" to Game of Thrones grandeur, Em and Royce -- perhaps building on a popular mashup -- desiccates it. The arrangement is the midpoint of Alex da Kid and "Teardrop": a smothering quicksand, meant to drag listeners into inertia and keep them there. (For all the gunshots-and-cussing masculinity of this, the piano loop reminds me most of Sarah Brightman's cover of "Scarborough Fair": delicately hypnotic.) Eminem conveys neither Slim Shady's glee nor "Love the Way You Lie"'s visceral anger, nor much but a morose slog, but give him this: It is mostly impossible to imagine someone hearing "Darkness" and buying a gun. Mostly. Why, if you're aiming not to inspire, would you musically accompany the killing-spree verse by finally moving past line two of "The Sound of Silence," to where the melody gratifyingly blooms upward? The vodka bottles in the video -- the lyrics' metaphorical gun, shown in appealing product-placement close-up -- are thankfully fake prop brands -- but then why do the close-ups at all? Most tellingly, Eminem chooses one of the few shooters with no manifesto to disseminate and few known motivations. Whether that's out of a desire to avoid spreading the truly hateful shit (which would be a recent development), to avoid the issue in general, or just to play the guy with the biggest body count, it means he gets away with lines like "you'll never find a motive, truth is I have no idea" instead of engaging with the specific kind of nihilism shooters are all too happy to tell you about -- a nihilism that is, in some part, his creation. When will this end? When enough people care what "this" is. Begrudging point for the part where, after Eminem says "magazines," the video cuts to actual magazines, like the glossy paper kind: the best trolling he's done in years, specifically of the sort of gunfuckers who were already halfway through a comment about him saying "clips." I suppose it's not the bleakest way he's made people laugh. [3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: At one point Eminem had the capacity to make jokes. He's way funnier here, his faux-double entendres and sampha-soundalike Simon and Garfunkel interpolation adding up to something so maudlin and obvious that it's almost impossible to listen to as serious political rap. It's not even disgusting. [0]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[gyrlversion]

What the Google-Genius Copyright Dispute Is Really About

The antitrust pitchforks are out for big tech. First came the European Union, then Washington, DC. Not to be left out, now comes hip hop lyrics.

Over the weekend, the music annotation site Genius publicly accused search juggernaut Google of stealing its crowdsourced song transcripts and natively publishing them on its search pages in knowledge panels Google calls its “One Box.” Doing so, Genius alleges, hurts Genius’ bottom line by diverting traffic away from Genius in favor of keeping people on Google’s monetized search page instead. As Genius sees it, this is an example not just of lyric lifting but of Google using its scale to unfairly home in on a smaller competitor’s territory, which experts say could constitute a potential antitrust matter. Google strongly denies all of it, blaming a contractor for any similarity between its lyrics and Genius’.

How could Genius be so sure the lyrics on Google came from its community? Its engineers employed a clever trick, as the Wall Street Journal reported: They boobytrapped a selection of their transcripts, secretly embedding a watermark in order to track who copied their lyrics across the web.

Beginning on an occasional basis in 2016 when it first worried Google was copying its lyrics and sent the company a letter asking it to stop, and then ramping up last year into a systemic approach, Genius engineers alternated a pattern of straight and curly apostrophes in the transcripts that in Morse code reads out the phrase “red handed.” Genius sent 100 examples of transcripts it says it found on Google with the watermark to Journal reporters, who verified that the secret code was present in three songs randomly picked from that bunch.

But the day after the story published, Genius noticed something: The watermark had disappeared on most of those lyrics now on Google. Now, for most of the 100 songs that Genius had sent the Journal, all the apostrophes are straight in Google results. Had Google tried to scrub the evidence of its pilfering? That’s how it seems to Genius. “Google has known exactly what is going on for two years,” says Ben Gross, Genius’ chief strategy officer. “Now that the issue is public, they are apparently removing evidence of their behavior without addressing the underlying problem. Google is still displaying lyrics copied from Genius.”

The engineering team at Genius has been keeping track of what appears on Google lyrics One Boxes since last October, scraping and caching hundreds of Google song lyrics results every day. So they went and looked back at the daily caches to see when the watermark disappeared. They found that the watermark had been present on all the sample lyrics until June 12, and then it disappeared on June 13. WIRED examined the HTML of a random selection of these cached pages, and they do appear to show the watermark present until June 12. Though the WSJ story published on June 16, Genius says it had been in contact with WSJ reporters before June 12, raising the possibility that the watermark was scrubbed after being reached for comment by journalists.

When reached for comment, Google denied making any changes. A spokesperson for Google insists the company doesn’t create any lyric transcripts itself or scrape any websites for lyrics, relying instead on multiple third-party providers to source song lyrics for its knowledge boxes. It pointed WIRED to Canadian-based lyric transcription service LyricFind, which on Monday publicly took the blame for the Genius watermark showing up on Google Search pages (while refuting the framing of most of the reporting on the issue).

“It’s basically indisputable that this Google contractor LyricFind was just copying their lyrics from Genius,” says John Bergmayer, senior counsel at the nonprofit Public Knowledge, who has worked on numerous antitrust issues involving Google and has been watching the Genius allegations closely. LyricFind says it previously used Genius as a legitimate “reference” for its transcriptions, as it did many other sources, and is now reassessing that practice.

When asked directly if LyricFind had gone through and scrubbed the secret Morse code from the lyrics that it was providing to Google, LyricFind CEO Darryl Ballantyne did not confirm or deny doing so, saying that he believed he had answered that question in the company’s public blog post from Monday. “Our team is currently investigating the content in our database and removing any lyrics that seem to have originated from Genius,” the company wrote.

So is the watermark disappearing proof that someone was trying to cover their tracks, as Genius suggests, or that LyricFind was actually removing Genius-sourced lyrics from its database, as its CEO seems to be suggesting? It’s unclear. Genius says it hasn’t gone through to see if all the Google lyric results it was tracking now differ from Genius transcripts in any way beyond the apostrophes, though the engineering team says that, of the handful they have carefully checked, the only change they can find is those apostrophes. If the lyrics were now being sourced from somewhere else, they presume there would be other differences, like typos or dissimilar words or punctuation.

One thing that some news stories have missed about Genius’ allegations is that Google is far from alone in surfacing lyrics that may have originated from Genius. Microsoft Bing and Amazon Music also appear to have Genius-watermarked lyrics. Genius would not comment on other sites’ apparent use of its transcripts. Keeping the focus on Google may be a way to emphasize Google’s market power and thereby its anticompetitiveness, Bergmayer suggests.

Interestingly, though Google’s results are now mostly clean of the watermark, some of those other sites are still displaying the same LyricFind-sourced lyrics bearing Genius’ watermark. At the time of writing on Tuesday, Bing, for instance, was surfacing lyrics for the song “Not Today” by Alessia Cara with the curly/straight code clearly visible. That doesn’t mean Google or LyricFind necessarily changed the Google results and not the others—it could be that Microsoft just updates its feed from LyricFind less frequently, for one thing. (Microsoft has not responded to a request for comment.)

And the watermark disappearing on Google pages doesn’t change the fact that Genius appears to be right: Its lyrics seem to have been copied and pasted all over the web. But the thing is, as icky as that is, it’s not illegal. Genius doesn’t hold the copyright to these transcripts. The publishers and songwriters do. No matter how much work Genius or its community puts into compiling the lyrics into text, the song lyrics still don’t belong to them. Rather, they license them and print them with permission.

Both Genius and Google hold a license from the music publishers to print song lyrics. And because the publishers don’t have a canonical database of lyrics for licensees to plug into, every license holder is left to cobble the text together however they can. If that means copying and pasting from one another, well, that’s fair game from a copyright perspective, according to Bergmayer. The publishers themselves could even copy Genius’ lyrics and give them to other licensees if they wanted to. “So it’s a very awkward situation for Genius,” Bergmayer says, “given the fact that both Google and Genius have licensing rights from the rights holder.”

It’s even more awkward when you remember that at Genius’ inception it had no licensing agreement with the publishers at all and took tons of heat for building a site that transcribed and annotated songs it had no right to, without sharing any revenue with the creators. Genius underscores that it has grown up a lot since then. A spokesperson says it now works closely with the industry to ensure songwriters make money when Genius makes money. One of its original fiercest critics, songwriter David Lowery, came out in support of Genius this week.

Even if Genius has no copyright claim here, Google or its contractors copying from Genius still might be unfair from a competition standpoint. “It’s still potentially an antitrust problem if Google is using its search monopoly to enter some unrelated market and tie that product to the search engine in a way that gives it a huge advantage over competitors,” Bergmayer says.

That’s the real question, and one which applies not just to lyrics and Genius but to all information that appears in Google One Boxes. Is Google entering an unrelated market (i.e., music lyric transcription) by presenting lyrics on its pages, or is it just improving its own search results? It’s not always easy to tell. When you search Google for the answer to a math question, and the search engine completes the equation for you rather than surfacing a calculator, is that anticompetitive with calculator sites? Bergmayer argues no; that’s just improving Google’s product to make it work the way people want it to.

When it comes to things like reviews sites or travel booking, the anticompetitiveness argument is easier to make—as the likes of Yelp and the travel industry repeatedly have. When Google begins not just surfacing factual information like a place name or a flight time but actually allows you to post a review or book a hotel or buy something, it’s leaving its bread-and-butter search behind and doing something new. That’s the kind of behavior that got it fined by the EU for prioritizing its own products over possibly superior ones from competitors.

Some see the whole trend toward One Boxes as part of Google’s focus on keeping people within its ecosystem—sending people to its products but also just keeping them on search pages filled with Google ads. Genius says traffic from Google to its site has dropped since Google began surfacing lyrics on its search results pages. The harm there is clear: Whether those lyrics are taken from Genius or not, by not sending people over to Genius, Genius loses out on the chance to get people more involved in their community and to sell ads against its traffic numbers. This is true for sites like Wikipedia as much as it is for Genius.

In the end, this could even hurt Google. At its most basic, Google is a repository, be it of links or of actual knowledge, and it depends on knowledge-creating sites for that data. If Google imperils the ability of those sites to make money, Google imperils itself. “It’s like, are you eating your own seed corn?” Bergmayer says. “If Google is a good product because of all this information that is out there on the web, then you want to make sure you’re not inadvertently destroying the vibrancy of the web.” Google has always been better at organizing the web’s information—not cannibalizing it.

More Great WIRED Stories

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[myyenlee]

Welcome Atavist! A Groundbreaking Publishing Platform Joins the WordPress.com Family

Today we’re announcing that Atavist, a multimedia publishing platform and award-winning magazine, will be joining WordPress.com parent company Automattic.

This news is exciting to me on a few levels — eight years ago I had my first introduction to Atavist when I met a journalist named Evan Ratliff for coffee at Housing Works in New York. He showed me the first pieces of what became a bold new platform for long-form storytelling, which he created with co-founders Jefferson Rabb and Nicholas Thompson. At the time I had just started Longreads, so we shared an interest in seeing a revival for long-form journalism on the open web.

Fast-forward to today and we’re thrilled to have the Atavist and Longreads teams now together under the WordPress.com banner. Atavist’s publishing platform will be moving over to WordPress, and its award-winning magazine The Atavist will continue to serve up outstanding in-depth storytelling with a new feature each month, under the editorship of Seyward Darby. Also joining the team is Atavist CEO Rabb and head of product communications Kathleen Ross.

I chatted with Rabb, Darby, and Ross about what’s next.

Jeff, Seyward, Kathleen, we’re excited you’re here! You’ve had a terrific run over the past eight years — leading innovation around the design and process of multimedia storytelling, winning many awards along the way — what are your hopes and priorities for Atavist moving forward?

RABB: Thank you, I’m thrilled to be here! My number one hope in joining [WordPress.com parent company] Automattic is to bring everything we have built and learned to an audience that is orders of magnitude larger. I’ve spent the past eight years honing a toolset and sensibility for digital journalism, and now I’m excited to put this to use for a mass audience. When these are integrated into WordPress, I am hoping we will have an unbeatable product for storytelling and journalism. There are many fascinating challenges and problems in journalism today, and now more than ever I want to be part of the solution.

DARBY: I’m also excited to be here! I’ve been at The Atavist Magazine for the last 15 months, and it’s the best job I’ve ever had. The list of things I love about our publication is too long to include in full, but some highlights are the intimate collaborations with creators, the anchoring belief in the timeless power of cinematic storytelling, and the commitment to nurturing the next generation of long-form writers. Certainly, we work with big-name journalists, but we’re also a magazine that supports up-and-coming narrative writers who want to take a swing at a really, really big story. I love nothing more than helping someone crack the code on a 15,000-word feature’s complex structure. (I’m a big fan of Post-It notes and story trees, and of fist-pumping to no one in particular when an article section falls into place.)

Moving forward, the magazine’s foundational priorities will remain the same: We’ll tell great stories, design them beautifully, treat our collaborators well, and have a lot of fun in the process. My hope is that, by combining forces with WordPress.com, we’ll get to push the boundaries of our projects: dive into more multi-part narrative investigations, produce more original video or audio where it makes good sense, improve the diversity of our roster of writers and artists, and provide journalists with the resources and time they need to report the hell out of topics they’re passionate about.

Winning awards and getting our stories optioned for film/TV, which we also have a strong track record of doing, will be goals, absolutely, but never at the expense of providing a quality experience to every person who contributes to or reads The Atavist.

Tell us about some of your favorite stories you’ve hosted.

DARBY: I’m proud of every story I’ve shepherded as the executive editor, so it’s hard for me to pick favorites. The most successful Atavist stories share the same key ingredients: a propulsive, satisfying narrative, rich characters, and scenes that make readers feel immersed in the world the writer is describing. At first blush, Kenneth R. Rosen’s story “The Devil’s Henchmen,” about what is being done with the bodies of the ISIS dead in Mosul, doesn’t seem to have much in common with Amitha Kalaichandran’s “Losing Conner’s Mind,” about a family’s quest to save a child from a rare, fatal disease; Allyn Gaestel’s “Things Fall Apart,” about an over-hyped art installation in Nigeria; Mike Mariani’s “Promethea Unbound,” about the tortured life of a child genius; or David Mark Simpson’s “Not Fuzz,” about a millionaire hotelier who moonlights as a serial police impersonator. Yet these stories all have compelling plots about everyday people whose lives are shaped by sheer will and unpredictable circumstance. You can’t put them down because you want to know what’s going to happen.

As for Atavist stories that predate my time at the magazine, I’ll award a few superlatives. Quirkiest goes to Jon Mooallem’s “American Hippopotamus,” about a bizarre plan to alter the national diet. Most Lyrical goes to Leslie Jamison’s “52 Blue,” about the world’s loneliest whale. Most Ambitious goes to Evan Ratliff’s epic “The Mastermind,” about a crime lord whose empire spanned pretty much the whole world. (It’s soon to be a book and TV show.) And Couldn’t Get It Out of My Head goes to Will Hunt and Matt Wolfe’s “The Ghosts of Pickering Trail,” about a family living in a haunted house. I’ll stop there, but I really could go on and on.

ROSS: Before I worked for Atavist, I actually worked right down the hall, so I have been reading the magazine for a long time. To me, the best Atavist Magazine stories are transporting: in “Welcome to Dog World,” Blair Braverman shows us Alaska; socialites head to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for an early feminist victory in “The Divorce Colony” by April White; and James Verini’s “Love and Ruin” (the title story of our 2016 collection) is a romance and historical epic all in one, and I think about Nancy Hatch Dupree’s library in Afghanistan often. “A Family Matter” may be one of the most important stories we’ve done. Finally, I love stories about spectacular failures, so I have to mention Mitch Moxley’s article “Sunk,” which is about a disastrous attempt to make an epic movie about mermaids; plus, the piece has some excellent moments of maximalist design, including pixelated fish that bob across the page.

RABB: I have a soft spot for the very first stories such as “Lifted,” “Piano Demon,” and “My Mother’s Lover.” In addition to being great pieces of writing, they were the petri dishes in which our experimental approach to storytelling was born. They included ideas such as pop-up annotations, maps, and immersive sound elements. Even though the way we distribute our articles has changed dramatically since those stories were published—back then, they were exclusively on the Atavist mobile app and Kindle—many of the concepts and approaches in them formed the DNA of our company’s product. Developing those first few stories was an exciting and vital time for me.

Finally, I’m wondering what you think about the state of storytelling on the open web today. Where do you think things are headed?

DARBY: There are so many stories being told in the digital space right now, in so many ways, and to so many different audiences. Take SKAM Austin, which D.T. Max recently wrote about for The New Yorker. It’s a teen drama told entirely through Facebook posts, Instagram stories, texts, and other digital scraps and marginalia—a story crafted for its young target audience, based on the way they consume information and communicate with one another. That project is fictional, but there’s similar experimentation happening in the non-fiction space. Certainly, publications are pushing the envelope on transmedia (multi-platform storytelling) and rethinking story structure based on how events now unfold in real time in the palm of your hand. I’m thinking of projects like WIRED‘s story on police brutality, “How Social Media Shaped the Three Days That Shook America,” and National Geographic‘s partnership with ProPublica, “How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico.” Recently, I was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Lab, an incubator for storytellers who work with emerging technologies like VR, AR, and AI. It was incredible to hear the ways that this diverse group is reimagining how to create and deliver narratives. I can’t wait for all of the projects they were workshopping to be out in the world, and I hope to bring what I learned there to bear on my work at Automattic.

That said, I’m a journalist first, and when it comes to technology, I always have this nagging fear that form might compromise substance. No one should tell a story entirely via social media or VR or video just because they can; they should do so because there’s actual benefit—to the story itself, to the audience reached, and so on. I’m reminded of my very first job out of college, back in the aughts. I was a journalist in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and I also conducted research on media training needs in the region. I met lots of aspiring journalists who said, “This international NGO helped me set up a blog, but I don’t even really know how to conduct an interview or fact-check. Can someone help me with that?” The experience has always stuck with me as a reminder that the basics of great journalism should apply no matter the platform. At The Atavist, we like to say that story comes first, and by that we mean plot and accuracy, then form and reach.

from Blogging Tips https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/atavist-joins-wordpress-dot-com/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[greenleafbird-blog]

Greenleafbird’s Testimony

I’m probably more surprised than anyone to say that today, October 18, 2017, I became a Christian.

For years now (I’m 21), I’ve been digging into not only Christianity but all religions, seeking to disprove them and going as far as to call those who believe in them ignorant, moronic, and blind. I have been obsessed with having empirical proof and undeniable scientific evidence that I became mean and aggressive - even just seeing someone praying silently in public, I would feel anger come over me, thinking, “How much of a fool do you have to be to believe in this nonsense?”

Well, as of today, I choose to believe in this nonsense.

It’s true, it’s nonsensical - it’s difficult to fathom, and there’s no way to be 100% certain that Jesus is real and that the Bible is true. Still, I’m actively choosing to believe.

Why has this happened so suddenly? It hasn’t, it’s been a long process, but I’ve met people within the last couple of months at college who have answered all of my questions with patience and - best of all - admit that there is no complete certainty; their faith isn’t blind, something I’ve always criticized.

Through this church group on campus, I’ve met many people who have shared their testimonies and views with me. One of those people is Mary* (pseudonym). Mary has especially helped me, as she used to be quite similar to me. She was an atheist, and in fact never even looked into religion as anything more than fairytales, as she is European and comes from a highly secular country (she moved here to the U.S., where I’ve always lived, for school). She was an angry atheist, calling people names, even acting physically threatening. She explained how her life has changed since accepting Christ, and others around her who knew the “old” Mary agree. She went through a difficult time, like me, without many friends - but then, she found this campus ministry, and they love her unconditionally, making her wonder what it was about them that made them different. I wondered the same thing. Everyone I’ve talked to has answered in the same way - it’s Jesus working through them.

It is so strange to type these words. A year ago - heck, a month ago, I’d be slapping my current self in the face for giving into peer pressure and social norms, but now I see that no, I want this. I want to have what they have, feel God like they do, and experience the joy that they show.

The tipping point for me was a very small, but clear sign. At first, I tried to brush it off as coincidence - it was so trivial, after all - but that got harder to do the more I thought about it.

So, here’s the story:

I was walking on campus one day and came across a table where a church was handing out free Bibles. I don’t know why, but I went over and grabbed one, just so that I’d have a copy here that I could annotate and argumentatively shred in debates. I stuck it in my backpack and didn’t think much about it.

At this time, for the past week or two, I had been talking to people in this campus ministry that Mary is a part of and started to pray, asking God to give me a sign if he was real. I was basically saying, “unless you show me you’re real, I’m not going to believe. It’s too crazy. I don’t have faith.”

I didn’t want faith. I wanted facts.

So, that evening, I was praying again, this time in the shower, while singing. As a previous choir kid, I always do this, singing randomly, just coming up with lyrics as I go, and the only difference this time was that I was essentially singing to God/Jesus/the universe (though it certainly felt like I was talking to myself).

One of the lyrics I sang was, “send me a dove with a green leaf, to remind me that your love is free.”

No idea why I sang that - it felt very hokey, and moderately embarrassing - but nonetheless, that’s what I sang, what I prayed.

I got out of the shower and lay in bed, the new Bible on my nightstand. I picked it up and decided to just glance through it. I decided to look at Proverbs, just on a whim, and read a couple of chapters before just leafing through (ha, I made an unintentional pun, ha, tell me I’m funny). Then I came across Proverbs 11:28, which said, “Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.”

Weird. Very weird. I got really hyped for a second but again, skepticism kicked in, and I said “nah, that’s just coincidence.” Plus, if God was going to give me a sign, I wanted it to be big, bold, and sort of a slap in the face.

I talked to one of the women from the ministry, Tina*, about this, complaining about how the mention of a leaf seems very trivial and stupid as a sign from the so-called creator of literally ALL OF THE THINGS. Tina then asked me what sort of sign I would actually believe.

I realized in that moment that no sign would be good enough. If I saw a vision or heard a voice, I would pass it off as a side effect of my antidepressants or the onset of schizophrenia. If Jesus literally came down in front of me and said, “Hey fam, I’m real, yo,” I’d react in the same way, doubting my sanity and calling my psychiatrist. But this, this little sign, it’s clear and not a product of imagination. It’s right there, on paper, in the Bible I picked up.

The other day I decided to download a Bible study app, and I just picked a random one with a high rating. I didn’t even notice it until it was installed, but its icon is - uh huh, I’m getting predictable now - a green leaf.

It was small, but had to deny. Coincidences happen, I think, but this? This was very precise.

Last night I studied (that’s a lie, we were not productive) with some of the church girls, and one said, “I love fall, the leaves are so pretty. I want to be a leaf. An evangelist leaf.” I laughed along with everyone else, but that hung in my mind.

I got back to my dorm and prayed for quite a while, saying, “a lot of this doesn’t make sense. I don understand how a man was born of a virgin (like where did half of his genetics come from?),died, and then came back to life. All I know is that, if I put my faith in Jesus, things will change for the better. I‘ll be surrounded by better people - sincere, genuine people - who openly say they love me and call me their “sister.” I’ll have a community of support. That’s why, even though it confusing, I’m going to choose to believe. From this moment forward, I want your plan to take precedence over mine. I want to become a new person. I want to find what all these people say they have found in you.”

I met up with Mary today between classes and told her all of this, and I “officially” became a Christian when we prayed together. I repented of my sins and asked to grow in faith, to come to see the world and others through eyes of forgiveness, and to be saved.

There it is. I’m still like “????” and I’m sure I will be like that a while, if not forever. Still, I decided to dive in. The best outcome? I learn  swim. My faith grows. Jesus does wok through me, and someday this will all make sense. The worst outcome? There was no water to dive into in the first place, so I won't drown anyway.

From now on, however, I will choose to believe that the water is there.