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flickeringart · 4 years ago

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Aries Sun and Moon Combinations

Planets represent different energetic principals in the life of an individual – the signs show the filter these energies express through.

Having an inner planet (or luminary) in the sign of Aries gives the personality a thirst for conquest, a thirst for independence. No matter what other placements the person has, self-focus and competitiveness are going to come through.

To simplify;

The Sun represents individuation, ideal self-expression and conscious self-actualization.

The Moon represents instinct, emotional nature and personal needs.

Aries Sun – Taurus Moon

The person has an identity that is tied up with ideal of assertion, of being whatever one likes to be – loudly and unapologetically. Compromise is not something that sits well with this individual because one finds identity through enforcing an independent will. Needless to say, this is a setup for powering through obstacles without attempting to navigate around them. The person wants to make a point of being strong and superior in all ways that matter. Catering to other people’s needs and desires doesn’t appeal because there’s no fulfillment to be gained from looking to other people for confirmation or approval. Temperamentally, the person has a stubborn streak; a passive desire to be in control of the physical components of life and make sure that one is firmly rooted in the material realm. The person would need to move a little bit slower than the average Arien, to make sure that everything is ready and set to go before jumping in. This might temper a bit with the ideal that one is trying to actualize, but it would surely prove beneficial in terms of practical success. The more earthy needs of the person would make sure to keep the individual focused on material sufficiency and comfort, while still allowing for competitiveness and conquest. However, the natural tendency toward moving slowly and getting things done in a familiar pace could hinder the development of a free, independent spirit that moves quickly and then sits back to watch the accomplishment. The person is temperamentally suited for more outdrawn processes that require stamina rather than bursts of enthusiasm and dedication, but it’s important to accommodate for both with this combo. Life is not heading anywhere in particular and it’s more important to be set in a nice place with a stable job and a stable income and a nice possessions from the lunar perspective. From the solar perspective, the will must be honored and allowed expression because it symbolizes something immortal that is unconditioned and unbounded by the physical and bodily needs. An Aries Sun is the ultimate warrior and hero archetype; forever young and forever ready to fight for the satisfaction of feeling potent and energetic. With this combo, the person would be more prone to assert themselves on the physical plane, in terms of work and activity but as always, it depends on the overall chart. In any case, this is a particularly reliable and stable initiator, a dependable leader that sticks to what’s comfortable while testing the waters a little bit at the same time.

Aries Sun – Scorpio Moon

There’s a lot of force to this individual, as the identity develops through assertion and the inborn temperament is emotionally charged, perceptively penetrative and secretive. There’s sharpness and an uncompromising air about the person. There are clear boundaries but they are not necessarily outspoken, they’re felt through the presence in a very obvious way. Pleasant and civilized interaction is a temporary cover for more self-centered action, presumably. There’s little to no room for facades, the person craves the real and raw if one is to be emotionally involved in anything. But, the façade is not really dropped willingly. More often than not, the person would not open up but resort to playing mind games with people, stirring emotions and controlling situations – everything to avoid being controlled first. There’s great capacity for perseverance in the name of staying in control – of oneself and of other people. Remaining in a state of coolness is valued over everything because the inner is always in one’s reach while the outer might turn overwhelming at times. The emotional temperament is quite different from the conscious identity, in the sense that an Aries Sun prefers to do things out in the open and not behind closed doors or underhandedly. The identity would prefer honest and direct confrontation, not clever manipulation. There’s no honor to be gained through playing covert emotional blackmail or silently stripping people off their psychological advantage. It might be difficult for this combo to work together effectively because they exist on different playing fields. The motives and methods are very different which might call for compartmentalization. In certain spaces the solar identity could show off it’s potency and strength, and the lunar needs could have an outlet somewhere else. Nevertheless, the person is going to be quite independent, not only because one seeks to individualize through emphasizing the force of the self, but because one is extremely suspicious of others. Emotionally, the person always makes sure to not get tangled up in the emotional forces of other people or themselves. There’s acute sensitivity to the most minor of violations. It’s impossible to keep safe from these influences, so the person would resort to make others drink their own poison – to enhance awareness (and for the purpose of payback). With an Aries Sun, the payback could be particularly dramatic and loud because there’s something appealing in the overt display of one’s capacity to make an impact. The combination of being psychologically advanced and fiercely independent lays the foundation for a very strong character.

Aries Sun – Leo Moon

The strong self-assertion that is part of the process of self-actualization fits smoothly with the self-affirming tendency of the emotional nature. There’s big energy to this combo emanating from the center outward. The person seeks a role of importance, a role worthy of a king or a queen. There’s a lot of pride and confidence radiating from the person, one is part of a great plot and can’t be seen bowing one’s head. More than likely there is the tendency to want to dominate situations energetically – be the biggest and loudest energetic presence. Emotionally, there’s a craving for attention, of being important and talented enough for people to take notice and engage with what one’s doing. If there’s not sufficient focus and attention being supplied, there could be an attempt to make some noise and raise the volume of one’s presence in order to get the needs met. The conscious identity might seek respect through deliberate conquest and challenge, but the emotional needs aren’t deliberate or conscious. The person needs a certain amount of appreciation and might stir a lot of drama in order to get it. There’s a natural theatrical flare to the person and there’s likely not to be a dull moment around them. There’s a passion and energy that is unmistakable. As is typical of Aries, there might be little room for other people’s business – the person likes to mind their own and excel without too much concern about what other people are or aren’t doing. The emotional temperament might drag the action of the conscious identity into the spotlight one way or another, attempting to fill the cup of much needed confirmation of greatness. The ultimate caring act is to be seen and confirmed in all one’s displays of emotion – and if that can’t be achieved, the last resort is to fish for negative attention. The solar identity is more concerned with embodying all the idealistic qualities of the masculine strength and will than selling out like this, but the lunar needs demand to be satisfied no matter how much the conscious strivings reject neediness. In the best case scenario the person can hold the head high, not only due to conscious will and established independence, but with the help of a supportive and cooperative crowd. One should watch out as to not become too self-affirmative as a coping mechanism to not diminish oneself. The sting of rejection and criticism is not as bad as one might think – besides; it’s honorable to be able to swallow a hard pill with grace. The person has the potential to really shine in the world, but it won’t be achieved through compensation or struggle to be something one is not. It’s enough to let greatness enfold through maturation and wisdom.

Aries Sun – Aquarius Moon

The person is set on continuously establishing independence. The identity forms around the qualities of strength and self-will and the emotional needs are that of fulfilling conceptual freedom. It’s not enough to just feel free; one has to know that one is free in terms of structural arrangements and possibilities for growth. There’s a rebellious nature to the person. One is the type to easily fixate on restriction and seek to power through all obstacles with conscious will – of course; this is not done literally but conceptually. How is it possible to change the overall attitude of people in society to allow for more personal freedom? How does one create opportunity, not only for the self but also for humanity as a whole? The person has a theoretical and intellectual approach to emotion, which would cause a distancing between the person and the actual experience. This might make the person seem detached and unaffected by personal events, but it’s not that the person is unconcerned, it’s that things are dealt with rather than passively experienced. There’s likely to be little room for “just letting things be” with this combo. The solar identity wants a challenge and takes initiative to achieve something and the lunar needs fuel this by being concerned with the technicalities of all dimensions of reality. The potential for change is like music to the ears of this person. There’s always a new day and a new opportunity to push one’s own vision and agenda, for the good of all of course. Patience would perhaps not be this person’s preferred state to be in, but it is worth it if it leads to the dissolving of outdated, biased perspectives in the collective. The person might not like to be overly involved with other people in terms of close contact; one would prefer to fight battles independently while keeping the best for humanity in mind. The person would feel quite connected to the larger whole. Intimacy is desired, but through understanding rather than emotional merging. The person doesn’t want to lose independence and would likely reject any attempt at emotional clinginess. Respect and freedom is sought instinctually - it’s important to keep personal boundaries while respecting other people’s boundaries as well. This is the ultimate caring act for the person – to honor uniqueness and autonomy. Although the Arien identity might make the person a little more confrontational, the temperament is very ethically based.

Aries Sun – Capricorn Moon

This is someone who has aim and ambition but it’s not only because of eagerness to test one’s strength, it’s also because of feelings of being exiled from lightness and love. The person might consciously identify as capable and fiercely independent while lack is felt on a more basic emotional level. The person is concerned about not being able to face life in all its demands – everything seems to require effort. Consciously the person might be full of energy to face obstacles and power through anything, however, innate pessimism might stifle this conscious ambition. Underneath the strong self, there’s someone who feels as if life is a big long struggle. Responsibility and accomplishment is very much part of this person’s instinctual makeup. The individual has a controlled temperament, a cool and calm disposition. These even moods take their toll, and might just cause occasional breakdowns – emanating in fierce pessimism. The person might be inclined to attempt to “just get over it” or adopt and attitude that says, “screw this I won’t try this hard anymore”. It won’t prove productive, because trying hard is part of who this person is. Everything is done for a purpose, even if this purpose is to “not care about anything anymore”. There’s no getting around it. There’s a craving for recognition, of being socially and societally esteemed. The Arien identity might reject this need in an attempt to establish radical independence for itself – to be dependent on actual accomplishment for confidence is not how the self operates. The person might feel as if one can’t accommodate for both aspects at the same time. Radical self-assertion versus concentrated effort is the dilemma. The two don’t go together naturally. This combo would create a person who likes to take initiative but might not have the usual Arien quickness because of a more cautious and doubtful temperament. It’s not all bad, because when the more concentrated temperament meets the will to project oneself out into the world, something truly valuable, creative and thoughtful can manifest itself. The task is to not to set the bar too high and demand excellence of every endeavor. Excellence is often a rare thing, and it doesn’t come to life by demand. It’s an expression of precision combined with a strong energy signature. It’s wise to trust the process and keep working through the unfulfilling times. Sometimes that which is found to be of value is the inner resources that are discovered through the challenges.

Aries Sun – Cancer Moon

Taking initiative is part of the person’s way of being, but the conscious motivation for doing so is different from the instinctual motivations. Consciously the person wants to actualize the expression of asserting energy, of starting something, of getting things going. There’s impatience and force to the identity, there’s a desire to be first, to be best and to excel in any way one is able to. The instinctual nature is less assertive and more passive – the initiative is to protect and preserve. Instinctually, the person moves in round about ways, keeping an eye out for potential threats to the emotional equilibrium as to avoid any challenging and uncomfortable situations. This combo is another difficult one as there’s an obvious conflict between the active and passive energies. On the one hand the person’s path to self-actualization involves being willing to take risks and face resistance, on the other, the innate nature of the person is careful and avoidant. It might prove difficult to deal with this conflict. However, it would create a friction that could serve as a spark for attempted reconciliation. The frustration that is built within the person could be positively pressing in the sense that it could stimulate creativity. Caring and nurturing might come naturally to the person – having a home and a safe space could be really important. The Arien identity could perhaps be a real warrior within the confines of the home and accomplish tasks quickly. Frustration would build, but it could stimulate the atmosphere and make the person dynamic and exciting. At times, the conscious Arien self might dominate and carelessly throw the person into aggressive “make it or break it” situations – at others times the person could become extremely cautious and defensive, regretting the foolish dangers one put the self through. There could be a lot of regrets in hindsight of not confronting people when one should have or not going after something when one should have. The inborn attitude of “better to be safe than sorry” doesn’t sit well with the person’s path of self-actualization, but it’s nonetheless the temperament the person was born with. Pondering over memories, thinking over past events, retreating into a safe space of calm, keeping the outside out comes naturally. The task is to develop an uncompromising will, courage and an active stance. It will be difficult but it will be self-affirming and ultimately fulfilling. The Cancerian instinct can become aggressive when emotions are threatened and protection is needed, but it’s often more due to being hurt than enforcing the will out of sheer conviction and impulse.

Aries Sun – Aries Moon

This person has a lot of energy. There’s nothing passive about this combo – the conscious identity is set on the trail of achievement and conquest, the innate temperament is by nature impulsive, confrontational - quick to strike and quick to act. The person doesn’t do anything that hasn’t originated within. If there’s ever any question about this there’s strong push back. How dare anyone question the person’s independence and autonomy? There’s nothing noble in being a follower, there’s nothing noble in being weak. Asking for help might be really difficult because it’s the worst feeling for this person. Cooperation with other might also prove hard since the person is very impatient and is unwilling to wait for others to catch up. Additionally, Aries as a sign has a hard time being outcompeted and won’t enter into situations that would mean taking the position of the underdog. Some fights are not worth fighting because of the difference between opponents in terms of method and skill. It’s wise to demonstrate one’s excellence in contexts where one competes on equal terms and with equal conditions. There’s nothing inherently mean or vicious about the person, there’s a lot of energy that seeks to project itself, but it’s quite innocent and uncalculated. Manipulation and subtle undermining tactics are not this person’s style; grudges and conflicts are out in the open for better or for worse. It might get heated and sharp, but it’s clear-cut and straight to the point. Roundabout navigation is not characteristic of this combo. Sparing other people’s feelings and accommodating for weaker individuals are not appealing in the least. In fact, it’s an insult to other people’s potency and strength. There’s a motive of fairness behind this attitude, which might be appreciated, especially by other fiery individuals. One would be inclined to forget a lot of things once the heat of the moment has passed, again for better or for worse. The person lives more in the now than any other sun-moon combination and isn’t carrying a lot of emotional baggage into the present. The freshness of a new beginning is what the person craves, to be reborn and wiped clean from the past. It goes without saying that responsibilities and long-term relationships that require consistent behavior could take a toll on the person’s spirited nature. Some things in life aren’t supposed to be temporary conquest; they require consistency. This might not sit well with the person, as one lives through spirit as the highest truth. One needs no context, the self is the only context needed.

Aries Sun – Libra Moon

The person finds that on the one hand, there’s the conscious expression of identity that is self-asserting, and then there’s the unconscious emotional needs that require social exchange. Instinctually, the person seeks comfort and approval from others. There’s a need to reference other people in order to establish one’s own needs, which makes the person quite dependent and non-aggressive. There’s a constant ambivalence and second-guessing taking place since people’s moods and behavior change. The person has a great capacity for compromise and listening attentively to other people. This is how the needs for being liked, appreciated and admired are being satisfied. The more socially fair and just one is, the more one secures internal harmony. On the flip side of the lunar needs we have the solar ideal, the path of individuation. Having an Aries Sun means that force, confrontation, assertion, impulse and competition are to be developed. There should be little consideration of others opinions and convictions - one should rely on one’s own sense of direction. Butting heads isn’t something that the Libra Moon is instinctually suited for, which might cause the person to navigate around any roughness mentally. Establishing equilibrium is what comes naturally to the person, but it’s not what should be sought in terms of self-actualization. It takes recognition of both aspects within oneself to not judge one or the other from either standpoint. One should allow for both to exist in time, even though one might temporarily exclude the other. The need for partnership is strong and might dominate the conscious quest for independence. Other people might find it difficult to understand how one can be so pleasant and interactive at times, while being extremely self-focused at others. It would be as if one actively rejects entanglement and exchange but can’t help but to seek out others, leaning on them for support and comfort. One could feel enhanced by cooperation, while feeling suffocated by it the next. Alternatively, one could be fine to do things on one’s own, but then experiencing great insecurity and need to have someone to interact with. On a more positive note, one might never lose one’s sense of refinement in one’s willful pursuits. It’s impossible for this person to tray too far into the land of selfhood without feeling a tug that is asking “what about the others?”. There’s too much focus on other people for the person to not care about the whereabouts of others.

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Aries Sun – Virgo Moon

The person is practically inclined and is concerned with the physical realm while there’s a strong conscious will for assertion. The person might live in a self-absorbed bubble; mentally going over the little details that make one’s life what it is. Eating this, walking there, dropping that off, visiting that place, and thinking about that thing… The little everyday occurrences have the biggest impact on this person. It’s the small things that conspire to make the whole picture. This can be very beautiful, but very annoying as well. If something isn’t right the person might not be able to let it go, especially if identity was invested in that thing. Although the person is relatively controlled in terms of not creating a mess that is going to have to be cleaned up later – one certainly has a temper as part of the Arien nature. The lunar instinct is quite preoccupied with sticking to principal and routine – especially one’s own routine. When it has to be broken and restructured due to unforeseen circumstances, all hell could break loose. The temperament might be well suited to adapt but the identity doesn’t want to at any cost. This could lead the person to completely boycott anything that is opposed to the personal method of doing things – especially as it relates to physical life. The tendency to over-analyze and care too much about getting things right might make the person snap and do everything with force, results be what they may. There’s definitely incongruence between caring about doing things correctly, and not giving a damn about the method and just doing it. Emotionally, the person craves neatness and orderliness, but it’s not the overall goal of individuation, which is to head out uncompromisingly toward a personal goal. The person might feel as if the need for things to be “as they should” is inhibiting the drive and initiative that waits to be actualized. When the inborn temperament and the conscious identity manage to align, there’s potentially a great ability for making things happen in terms of physical labor and precision. There’s a creative energy and a personal conviction that can be carried into the tangible with great precision and skill. The person is likely to be mentally involved with personal projects most of the time. Even if some work has to be carried out for other people, the person might be satisfied if there’s still some room to make individual decisions. If independence and freedom to act gets to compromised, the person is likely to want get up and leave. However, the Virgo instinct is to adjust and reconsider, not enforce a clear direction out of pure will. A lot of anxiety and regret could be felt over certain actions taken for this reason.

Aries Sun – Pisces Moon

There’s receptivity and changeability to this person, yet the identity has a clear direction for itself. There’s great understanding and sympathy at the core of the person. Temperamentally there’s not any inclination to separate and divide, but rather to merge and experience all souls as one’s own. The person would be hard pressed to find enough conviction to stay on one course because the personal will is often not felt as one’s own. The person is being moved as a particle within the vastness of life, but somehow tries to actualize the perception of being the one who acts. Neither perspective is wrong. It’s likely that the person is meant to cultivate a sense of an individual self that is potent and strong within the world while also having the subtle knowing that it’s not all that one is. However, this doesn’t mean that individuality stands as a contradiction to source or undifferentiated life. The person feels deeply and is bombarded with impressions from left to right – from within and from without. The need to recuperate and finding a foothold is of utmost importance because it is easy to lose oneself in the ocean of life. This could be facilitated by the Aries Sun, since it’s all about the energy of the self. The person is supposed to be an active agent in the world and project one’s energy outward with uncompromising force. Challenges are fun and testing one’s capacity is effectively self-affirming. One should take care not to neglect the need for solitude and stillness though, it will be what makes or breaks the overall health of the individual. Passive receptiveness is what comes naturally, while assertive independence is what constitutes the philosophic ideal, the goal of individuation. Confrontation, friction, honesty, courage and free will are sought through personal existence. One should beware of the tendency to act and then having the assertion fold in on itself, making the energies self-destructive. The energy should ideally establish reality, not yield to the interpretation of outside forces. Even if there’s sadness present, for example, one should not lose sight of the self that is choosing to be affected. With this combo, it’s advisable to always attempt to bring the reality of choice back – which brings the energy of assertion back. Choice might seem trivial and illusory from a deterministic perspective, but it isn’t. One can choose to have sadness overwhelm or be the sadness that overwhelms. It’s the difference between being imposed on and being the one who imposes. Interpretation dictates experience.

Aries Sun – Sagittarius Moon

Restlessness and eagerness are characteristic of the person’s emotional nature. There’s a desire to experience oneself through variety of experience. The person is seeking the spirit of life through the multitude components rather than isolated phenomena in order to be able to connect the dots laid out by the universal spirit. The person needs purpose to be emotionally fulfilled – and stimulation. Boredom is probably the worst for this person, more so than tragedy or sorrow. It’s almost as if there’s immunity to feeling too deeply and experiencing things too personally. One moves on and looks ahead to brighter days. The conscious Arien identity works well with this kind of temperament because it is assertive, active and uncompromising. None of the fire signs are particularly keen on identifying with weakness and every hurt is seen as part of journey toward greater self-discovery or realization. There’s no trace of pessimism to be found, there are only challenges and obstacles to get past in this person’s mind. This attitude could easily lead to burnout if one isn’t careful. Exaggerated optimism is never good – because it’s a coping mechanism and not genuine if it’s enforced at every cost. Adventure and living on trust and faith is what the person craves – and there’s nothing that would indicate that it wouldn’t work. The person is very adaptable and optimistic which could take them far - that is to say if the person doesn’t go too Arien and decides to not be “buddy” with everyone anymore. Some could find the person to be ignorant of emotions and too easy-going in relationships because of the innate need for freedom. Others would probably find the person exciting and dynamic despite the casual attitude. The path of self-actualization obviously points to a less casual and more deliberate nature that is out to confront and project energy. There’s less of a search, more of a simple desire to move forward and be a strong presence. The person craves some friction but would attempt to express it in a way that’s respectful. The concept of respect is important, but not in the sense that one would end up walking on eggshells around people. To respect another person’s existence is to respect their strength and not their fragility, from this person’s viewpoint. In the light of this, it’s not wrong to step on a few toes if the other can take it well. One might need to be a little careful as to not go to far in one’s bluntness and directness sometimes, but it’s probably impossible to not offend people every now and then – it’s part of what characterizes this combo.

Aries Sun – Gemini Moon

Symbolically speaking, this combo is the ultimate youngster. There’s too much activity to label the person “old” at any stage in life. Temperamentally, the person is a learner and organizer, a trickster and a prankster. Emotions shift quickly and can go from light to heavy in a heartbeat. It might be nice to not be able to stay in one mood for too long, but it’s also extremely confusing because one is always a little bit uncertain of where one stands. The emotional climate is extremely reflective of the thoughts one thinks, which is why the person would avoid going places mentally in order to spare themselves. When the ability to label and conceptualize doesn’t serve to get them out of a tight spot, there’s great distress. The conscious personality is assertive and forceful; it seeks to embody strength and focus. The person is likely very sociable and communicative, albeit a bit sharp and selfish. The person could really wrap others around their finger if necessary and take on attitudes that would serve the personal agenda. Alternatively, it could just be done to have some fun without anything more serious to it. When the person isn’t not actively socializing, personal interests and projects are the go to activity. There’s great drive to achieve and make things happen without any delay, not to mention the effortless ability to interact. This is really a combo of a rising star – energetic and self-focused enough to start things without asking for permission, mentally quick as to navigate around obstacles and learn new skills. The unpredictable Gemini temperament and the self-absorbed Arien identity would perhaps make other people uneasy. Emotionally the only need is to remain positively stimulated, which says a lot about the commitment capacity. If someone isn’t interesting, they’re of no value except as a conversation topic, a piece of gossip. Consciously, the person appreciates initiative and pioneering – and one can’t be seen being average, ever. The will has to be trusted and milked for all it’s worth. Unambitious and passive individuals make this person’s skin crawl, because they represent something that is in opposition with the personal ideal. It would be beneficial to tap into the Gemini capacity for disidentification and awareness of duality in order to be more accepting of that which is seen as “less than”. Instinctually, the person knows how to talk to anyone, to get the message across and build bridges between seemingly mutually exclusive perspectives. The person is likely a great problem solver and someone who can navigate difficult terrain. Also, there’s no lack of motivation, which definitely helps. On the downside, over-stimulation could make the person exhausted and angry easily. There’s no giving up in the first place, but this could drive the person overboard. Sometimes the most honorable thing to do is surrender.

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psalloacappella · 4 years ago

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tempo rubato

Day 7 Prompt: free prompt // “From now on . . .”

@sasusakublankperiodweek

Ao3 | FFN | ↓

It is a divine and breathtaking thing, to be untethered from their earthly expectations.

The rhythm of the world is a universal hum, an unbroken orbit consisting only of two.

(we write a story)

Hewn halves of the same whole, shadow and light.

They tell themselves to keep it simple, take it slow. This, whatever this is.

The dynamic shift between them is not sudden nor gradual, but something permanent, piquant, and passionate.

Arcs of exploration, personal and entwined: They roam the edges of the world they know and the enclaves they don’t, hoping that their bonding will reveal the hidden map — time reigning at the helm, the pilgrim cartographer.

But they’ve never been blithe or unfocused, not in their goals or in the shaping of their destinies. Certainly, nothing between them has ever been anything other than a dramatic affair, enduring, and a love that every other eye can see.

“How many days has it been?” she asks him across an inn table, watching him in the dim light.

Sasuke knows damn well she’s aware of the hours and seconds that have elapsed together; she’s far too precise for sly questions of time. Does it matter?

He pauses before answering, already so taken with the way she levels her gaze at him, unadorned, and knows bringing her along will be the ultimate undoing of his penance journey, the taking apart of his hard heart. Sunrise cleaving through his endless dusk.

“Months, now.” Gathering up the last shreds of meat from his bowl, he places it in hers and meets her eyes in the manner of setting dry kindling alight.

And so it works, this restrained and sentimental pace, for a while.

(we speed up)

Whispers in firelight will be their foundation, the tales that will shape their future. They speak of mundanities (flowers), practicalities (weather) and dreams, some past, lost, and others transforming into hesitant, potential plans. They speak of scars, this one that one, from the one they called Sasori she breathes, his fingertips tracing a swift cleaving crescent, from him, he mutters, and he knows she’ll know which man simply by the smolder in his sloe and violet eyes.

Some damage gossamer, passing marks on the skin, and others rugged as mountain ranges, raised in affront. Shapes distorting and flickering in the flames. A reminder of the world they hold up, the home they must decide to recommit to, if they can.

They travel and retrace their own history, craving and dreading the point at which they meet the end if only to know the epilogue.

But this love is unbridled, moves at breakneck speeds — years piled up with unsaid things, so it’s easy to melt, crumble, learn and map every single vulnerable inch of one another. Hearts, minds, skin. Whispering one another’s names in constant refrain.

It is a divine and breathtaking thing, to be untethered from their earthly expectations.

The rhythm of the world is a universal hum, an unbroken orbit consisting only of two.

(we slow down)

Swimming in a lazy river, circling as fish in palty ponds consisting only of their dual halves, they speak of coulds: Could we settle somewhere new? Is the place that birthed us a sort of destiny? Is that home, or is this, you and I, enough of an identity?

Could our future thrive in the same place of our trauma?

Could this system, somehow, become better?

Balancing a brush between idle fingers, Sakura drips dry in the parched heat and nibbles the end of it in thought.

“Anything to add?” she asks.

Sasuke swats at an insect, squinting in the high noon.

“For Kakashi?” Thinks a moment, then glances sidelong at her; at the way she holds things aloft so delicate in hands that break the earth. Heal men, and kill them on occasion. At the way she imbues such seriousness into her letters to their ex-sensei, frown rivets dashing across her forehead. At the fading water evaporating from her skin. “Ah, just to share it with the idiot.”

Lips drawn in moue, Sakura struggles not to laugh. “I can write separate letters; Kaka-sensei is busy now. Hokage things, you know?��

She watches him throw his arm against his eyes to shield them from a dazzling sun, and his quiet snicker contains multitudes, echos in a song. The expression just in that reminds her how little friction remains between them, that they’ve caught fire.

“He can dictate to Naruto — you’ll burn out here if I let you write two,” he chides, noting the red dusting on her cheeks, suffused with glow. “I’m not quite sure how well he reads on his own anyway.”

Erupting into giggles, she shades her own eyes to stare at him with bewitching and stripped abandon. “Be nice. You know he’s next in line to lead, and no matter what he says, he’ll need you.”

Duty. It sits between them occasionally, considered and sometimes unwanted.

“You as well.”

Before she’s laughed it off, brushed it away to avoid its grip, but he’s correct. They are fever-bound in fire to the village that will shape the future. A daunting prospect.

“And I’ll need you too.”

Sakura’s so sure she’s misheard, but he’s closer now than a moment ago, sweeping into her orbit with his infuriating and silent speed, thumb resting gently on her blazing bottom lip.

Bringing the question into being, a fruitless thing he’d never deliberate but she never has qualms about speaking into being.

“Do we have to go back?”

In answer he kisses her on a simmering, sunny riverbank in a way that would make their mothers blush, an apology, a wish, and this day becomes an axis even if they won’t know it for many cycles of the moon.

A pin is pressed into a shared soul map, becomes a burgeoning accompaniment, another rising phrase in their endless song.

From now on, they are in harmony, particularly with something much larger than themselves.

Somehow it seems the village feels them coming, whispers paving the way.

Beginning with the far-flung ranging scouts and flying fast to the spry perimeter lookouts, on to the first inner circle defensive squads and, once the shinobi are identified, the hostile caution drops from their voices in a game of telephone to be replaced with a slightly manic curiosity.

“Two,” one of them says, yanking a sweaty flak collar from his neck.

“No,” the other says in a strident tone, waving his answer away. “There’s another with them. Three.”

Details drip in Ino’s ears, and she leaves her post in a whirlwind, a tornado of emotion whose witnessed story springboards from house to training ground to alcove to inn.

It’s fitting that the first encounter, or reunion, occurs in the middle of a main road beginning as ringing, if loving insults but dwindling to potshots from gritted teeth and smoothing into cooing whispers as the two women, these best friends, encircle one another with shaking arms and a bundle pressed between them; the accompanying men linger at awkward edges, Sasuke betraying so little with his usual impassive expression and Shikamaru, who was tripped up in Ino’s anger along the way, keeping his hands in his pockets.

“Oh, how could you?” Ino sniffles, wiping away tears with the heel of her hand. “Can’t do anything by half-measures, no subtlety, you never could! No letter, no warning.” Here she glares at Sasuke for a moment, enough for him to cast his eyes away in at least a modest show of humility.

The moments pile upon, become stranger and more surprising, as Ino presses her lips to the bundle in Sakura’s arms and Shikamaru sighs in not-unhappy resignation, ah, so it is, and extends his hand to an unusually startled Sasuke and for a fleeting sliver-second, the corners of his mouth aren’t quite so dour.

“Who’s next?” Ino asks, tenderly flicking away a lock of Sakura’s hair. “Though by now, the whole damn town knows.”

The men shake clumsily, wary, bereft of custom.

“I’m sure you had nothing to do with that. The honorary uncle, it's only fair.”

“We have to report regardless,” Sasuke supplies quietly. Bending over the bundle and his new wife (which, Ino will rant in retrospect, seems obvious now — his unusual tenderness, his glow, men don’t glow like that for just anyone, any reason!), he whispers, begins to lead her away. They walk with high heads and radiant faces.

Her jade eyes behold their new bundle, but his eyes stay, mostly, on her.

By now the gossip’s reached his stuffy office, and though he’s never been one to put on airs or prepare for visitors, he does try to clear a free spot to be able to see over the mess of his desk, before an aide takes pity on him and handles the rest.

He will have to get a full, unadorned look at this.

She leads, of course she does — this is the love at twelve she forcibly took into her own hands, even when it pricked and bruised. Wrestled it until she won. The newlywed glow is obvious. As a shadow Sasuke sweeps in behind, but the tiny uplift of his lips is still evident.

True, then. Differences all around.

“The kids do things differently these days,” Kakashi jokes. “Have you at least considered getting married?”

“Have you?” Sasuke snarks.

Sakura shushes him gently, thumbing away some errant speck from their bundle’s chubby face. Eyes bright, they seem to dim the rest of the room as she raises them to Kakashi and asks, breathless, “Do you want to—?”

And despite his aide’s effort to clear his desk he gets up and comes around it, to them, closing the loop around a future he hopes is halcyon and new, shepherds of peacetime.

He wonders if they’ve had their real homecoming yet, the true test — but no, he’d be able to tell. Not that the joy in Sakura’s face could possibly be more evident, and by the careful way Sasuke presses his mouth to her temple, nudges her with his nose (and there’s the glow, the one that paints great men often only because of exceptional women they love). Naruto, busy and climbing for his Hokage position but with his own recent arrival, his own legacy coming in the form of something tiny, blond, and confusing.

The third point of their legendary triumvirate, no doubt unaware of what’s coming to his doorstep and in tow, the new member of his full life he’ll meet anew.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Sakura whispers, eyes shining.

A gloved hand on each head, as if they’re genin again: He’s gentle with Sakura, ruffles Sasuke’s hair with a roguish twinkle if only to provoke his trademark scowl.

Subdued, but their sensei’s happiness sings through in the crinkles in the corners of his eyes.

Perhaps they don’t expect Naruto to be the one they see as the door swings open; after all the last letter he sent in his untidy scrawl is still in Sasuke’s cloak pocket, unread in the wake of their universe shifting to this perennial birth that’s brought them across the world and then to their best friend’s doorstep, clutching this thing that did not exist and now does, borne of them and their love; he stands there, blond hair in chaos and a strange smattering of dirt on his cheek and a rag over his shoulder covered in fluids that his friends now know will be constant, streaming, the aftermath of infants; Hinata behind him, carrying her own bundle, with the same look of frenzied-excited exhaustion but now her mouth falls into a small, round ‘o’ as she sizes up the scene faster than her darling, ditzy husband, who’s bereft of speech and straightens up from his sagging position against the door frame, stunned.

“S-Sakura-chan!” Bright ocean eyes ping from her face — beaming, because she’s already understood this wonderful coincidence and can deduce now what his message contained, she begins to weep a little, overwhelmed — to Sasuke’s, hesitant but with its own subtle change, a fleeting expression of love and pride.

Hinata makes a comforting noise behind them, a reassuring response to Sakura’s tears, the language of women a bit quieter, something less decipherable.

“‘Ay, Sasuke you total bastard, showing up like this! Didn’t respond to my letter—”

“You ass,” Sasuke hisses, tugging fabric over one tiny ear belonging to his daughter. “She can hear that.”

“She’s in trouble anyway, with my mouth,” Sakura sighs, brushing away a tear.

Naruto’s eyes grow so wide they push the earthly bounds of his sockets. His head whips ‘round to look at his wife, their son, and snaps back just as fast to stare at his best friends.

“She?” The word comes out croaky, and Naruto’s already sniffling.

Sasuke and Sakura exchange a glance, the ghost of a knowing smile: His sentiment has always been equal parts maddening and endearing, his adoration broadcast to the entire world.

Sasuke assents with a nod, but his own voiced response emerges with surprising vibrato emotion. Perhaps to hide it, he drops his chin onto Sakura’s head, resting it there. “Yeah. A little girl.”

They should expect it, but it’s still a scuffle like old times, Naruto tackling them both, gathering them close in his way, welcoming them home from the outside world and back into his magnetism, his heart.

“Can’t believe you — didn’t even — you just come home like this—”

Their greetings and scoldings and expressions of love mesh together, can’t believe Sasuke managed it, Don’t squish her, Naruto! You idiot, It's you who’s managed it, how old, how long, where did you travel, what have you seen, how old is your son?

“How did you know?” Naruto asks, finally allowing them to breathe. He stares at Sakura, quizzical. “Betcha missed my letter. So how’d you know it’s a boy?”

“I’m a medic, remember?” Readjusting her daughter, she extends her other hand to Hinata, gesturing so she comes closer, anticipating a deeper appreciation of a friendship they’ve already begun, a new language they’ll learn together. “Had a feeling. I just know.”

But Naruto’s tugging on them again, drawing them close and tight, rooting them to the earth and the place they sprung from, flourished and fought in, and now, where they’ve returned.

Time slackening and quickening though never lost or stolen, occasionally rhythm-robbed but always arriving expectantly, weaving their life legends into knots.

The codetta they’ve always managed to sing together in the end.

#SSBlankPeriod2021 #SSBPDay7 #sasusaku #T7 #psalloacappella:SSBP

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thedistrictroleplay · 4 years ago

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ID:

TRIGGER WARNINGS: drug abuse tw, infidelity tw, narcissistic parent tw, injury tw, overdose tw

TIMELINE:

1860s- The founding of Hawthorne wine in Northern California

1981- Dottie married David and pays for his medical school

May 1991- Older sister Briar Rose is born

April 1992- Older sister Evie is born

March 21, 1993- Katherine is born in San Diego, California @ 9 pm

1996- Enrolled in Ballet and started doing child pageants

2008- Wins Miss Teen International at fifteen

2010- Has her Debutante coming out ball

2011- Is accepted into San Francisco Ballet Company

2013- She has a massive fight with her mom and O.D.s (survives)

2014- Finishes rehab and skips out on being picked up by her parents and runs away to DC

2015- Kat joins the Washington Ballet

2018- An injury puts an end to Kat's career in Ballet, she's gifted Baby as a consolation for her ended career

2019- Moves in with her "casual" fling and starts working on new avenues for her life and career. Still has a terse, basically non-existent relationship with her parents

2020- "Casual fling" proposes, and she bounces and gets her own place with roommates

2021- Has her own dance studio and sells art on Etsy.

BIOGRAPHY:

Katherine Vivienne Beckett was born to be perfect. Failure was not in the realm of possibilities for the youngest Beckett child. It was never even mentioned outside of being a non-starter. Her mother, Dottie, was from old money, the heiress to the Harlow wine company. Dottie had antiquated, regal if not conservative values that she fought hard, perhaps too hard to instill in her daughters. Her own drive for perfection and success bled into the foundation of her relationship with Kat. Thus from an early age, Kat associated success and praise with love. Any deviation from the absolute best was a failure. Her father, David, was absent. At best and at worst, he wore disinterest and pretense like a coat he never took off. A serial cheater who was never home, Kat was left putting all of her external needs for parental approval on her mother.

Lack of praise left her with the fear that the love was gone, and Kat developed a sickening need for perfection. A child beauty queen who was never satisfied. No matter the number of titles or crowns, she won no matter the talents she mastered. And talented she was. Gifted in languages, piano, singing, painting, sculpting, and best of all, ballet Kat was the master of her gifts. She curated them under the best instructors money could buy. Her mother encouraged these things, her unrelenting press for the perfect socialites for daughters often putting her and Kat at odds. Kat often excused her toxic behavior as tough love and fell back into the cycle of practice, perform, praise, repeat. Eventually, her success didn't even seem to impress her mother, and Kat was facing a terrible case of burnout.

She was exhausted, sixteen years old and already she felt spent. All of her best years seemed to be drifting behind her, more bitter than sweet Kat felt at odds with herself and who she was meant to be. All the certainty she had in life was her desire to please the people she loved, so Kat continued to do what her mother instructed. After her elder sister moved out, Dottie had even more time to pick a part Kat, push her and curate her into everything Dottie insisted a young woman was supposed to be. With her father often traveling for "work," it was just Kat and Dottie inside the house. There was no reprieve then, only expectations that often looked like Dottie waking Kat before dawn for morning runs followed by extra ballet practice until late morning. Kat could barely stand it any longer. She had no idea who she was or what she wanted.

Quietly, she began to rebel. She was sneaking away to parties, joy riding at three a.m, sleeping with anyone and everyone. She was looking for freedom and feeling, and eventually, she found it the form of illicit drugs. The euphoria of being high was unparalleled to anything she'd felt before. Combine that with the ability to work harder and longer, and Kat was sold, hook, line and sinker. The drug abuse and rebelling continued for years, even after Kat was accepted into her first Ballet company at eighteen in San Francisco. She kept her addiction tightly wrapped for two years, worked long hours, and outperformed the girls below her and even a few senior performers. The shining moment of her young career was when she was given the role of The Sleeping Beauty in the ballet of the same title.

Kat spent most of her waking hours practicing for her upcoming role. She was stunning, acclaimed in her part as Aurora. It was the first time in years she'd felt happiness that wasn't an artificial sort. Sadly, it was short-lived. Dottie attended the closing show, leaving before the final number didn't go unnoticed by Kat. Her emotions were shaky, and her performance less than her best. The disappointment was personal. She felt feral. Confronting her mother, she discovered Dottie had left early to make dinner plans with a college friend. Arguably the most prominent moment in Kat's life, she had left for dinner, a dinner she was early for; Kat exploded. Twenty years of pent-up sadness, anger, and disappointment accumulated into a vicious and aggressive fight between mother and daughter. The argument came to an end when in a rare moment of transparency, Dottie told Kat she had never wanted her in the first place.

Kat kicked her mother out of her apartment and spent the night partying when she went too hard and overdosed on a nearly lethal amount of concoction of party drugs. Kat's so-called friends dumped her at the emergency room, none sticking around to ensure she was okay. Thankfully, Kat survived, but her entire life had felt like it had been ripped away when Kat woke up. No longer was she on the way to becoming a prima ballerina, but she was in a rehab facility. It was the most excellent form of rehab, luxury, and resort-like in many ways, but it was ultimately still rehab. Kat spent a year as a resident of Harmony Place rehab in Malibu, California. Her parents informed her, stay or lose all her inheritance. Already having lost her job and life in San Francisco, Kat obliged. The year was not a lost one but one of personal growth and therapy. Finally, the fog she had been living under lifted, and Kat knew what she had to do.

Once her stay at Harmony Place ended, Kat did not return home like was expected. Instead, Kat took a bus to the countries Capitol, where she spent a couple of weeks couch surfing before going to her sister looking for the family she had always craved. A year later, Kat found herself a new therapist and a new ballet company to work with. Her life didn't feel as over as it once had, and there was hope for her future here, brighter than she had ever anticipated before. Unfortunately, three years of performing was all Kat had left when a tragic accident ended her professional career. A snapped Achilles tendon. A pop heard all throughout the theater was the last sound of her career. Over a year of Physical therapy and one surgery later, Kat knew the ballet world knew she'd never dance professionally again.

In the aftermath, Kat got the best gift ever in the form of a small black Doberman puppy she affectionately named Baby. During all her new downtime, Kat spent the time painting and sculpting. She was finding the art to be therapeutic and aid in keeping her from a relapse that some days felt inevitable. While her art sold well on Etsy, Kat could not keep things going independently and moved in with a casual fling Kat felt closer to as a friend. However, it seemed she had misinterpreted the depth of their affection. A realization that came when they produced a ring and a question Kat had only one answer for; no. Kat moved to Brookland, taking an apartment with roommates rather than marrying someone she didn't see a future with; she was no stranger to starting over.

Kat now spends her time creating original pieces for her Etsy store, Kat's meow. While her professional ballerina career has ended, Kat has not given up on dance. Instead, Kat resumed tentative communication with her parents if only to receive her inheritance. The money was used to buy the space for her own studio where Kat teaches ballet to all ages and private Burlesque classes for adults once a week. In between, Kat attends therapy and meetings with her sponsor. She is unlearning the toxic parts of her childhood and finding ways to honor her passions without losing herself. Some days the struggle is more complex than others. Rome was also built on ruins.

Kat is written by L.

#drug abuse tw #overdose tw #infidelity tw #narcissistic parent tw #injury tw #district character bio.#c; kat beckett #danielle campbell fc #pronouns; she/her #residence; brookland #writer; L

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dippedanddripped · 4 years ago

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Debbie Harry doesn’t believe in harbouring regrets. “I have made many, many errors, but nobody leads a perfect life,” she reflects down the telephone from New York. “So, should I regret anything? No. It is a waste of time. It really is a waste of time.”

Dial back to the turn of the 70s and the life that Harry led before fronting Blondie – prior to her image being burned onto the retina of popular culture – was colourful to say the least. “I was so desperate to live life,” she says of her time spent hanging with the outcasts and artists of downtown New York. “I was jamming in as much experience as I possibly could and I don’t know if I could have done anything differently. I learned a lot.”

The old Bowery music venue CBGBs has long passed into music folklore as the place that called the likes of Television, Patti Smith, and the Ramones their house bands. It was also where punk and new wave progenitors Blondie cut their teeth before they sashayed into the wider world with the protean panache that would make them a household name. Classic singles such as “Heart of Glass”, “Call Me”, “Atomic”, and “Rapture” have been responsible for more worldwide rug-cutting than an industrial carpet tool. To imply that they were merely a solid singles band is to do them a cardinal disservice, however.

And although they’ve always cocked their attention to the things ahead of them, Harry and her Blondie cohorts have spent a lot of time looking back just lately. Harry’s long-awaited autobiography, Face It, hit the shelves last year, and Blondie co-founder and one-time partner Chris Stein published Point of View: Me, New York City, and the Punk Scene, a photography book featuring personal snaps taken during the band’s pomp in the 70s and early 80s. “We can’t keep on touring and doing club dates the way that we used to. It would be physically impossible,” Harry concedes. “Living through this pandemic has certainly made us take a long look at the value of what we’ve got with our body of work.” Asked if it is a process of attempting to frame their legacy, she admits it’s something that they “have to do”.

This deep-dive into their canon has culminated in a mouth-watering archive set, Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982, slated for release next year. Coming in four formats, it promises to include extensive liner notes, “track by track” commentary by the entire band, a photographic history plus rare and unreleased bonus material. The group will also go out on the road – coronavirus permitting – for an autumn Against the Odds UK tour with Garbage.

The artist born Angela Trimble was put up for adoption only a few months after she was ushered into the world in the summer of 1945. A loving New Jersey couple took her in, rechristened her Deborah Harry, and raised her as their own. She grew up in a suburb that she “never left”, was voted best-looking girl in her high school yearbook, and oscillated within a social circle that consisted of “many of the same people” throughout her childhood. “I was somehow shy within that,” she recalls, “(but) somebody once said to me that being shy was an ego trip and a light went on in my head. I thought, ‘Oh, uh-huh, let’s have none of that!’”

Harry travelled by bus as a curious teen to nearby Greenwich Village, imbibing the febrile inner-city atmosphere. In 1965, she graduated from junior college with an associate of arts degree and New York’s allure became too enticing to resist. She decamped to the bright lights of the city and made ends meet with a succession of odd jobs, including secretarial work for the BBC, waiting tables and an infamous nine-month stint as a Playboy Bunny.

The period was a traumatic one, too, with Harry enduring an ex-lover-turned-violent-stalker and a near-miss with serial killer Ted Bundy (although Bundy’s identity is contested by others). In her memoir, she writes candidly of the time she was raped by a man wielding a knife while on her way home from a concert with Stein. Music offered a vessel for her creativity, and she spent time as part of girl group The Stilettoes and folk ensemble Wind in the Willows before her meeting with guitarist Stein which set the foundations for Blondie. Their classic lineup was completed by Gary Valentine (bass), Jimmy Destri (keys), and Clem Burke (drums).

“Somebody once said to me that being shy was an ego trip and a light went on in my head. I thought, ‘Oh, uh-huh, let’s have none of that’” – Debbie Harry

Although they self-identified as punks, the parochial and nihilistic mandate as promulgated by the genre’s militant diehards never fit Blondie comfortably. The group looked outwards from the moment they started, drawing inspiration from their cosmopolitan city. Their sound was a melting pot pulling at the seams of culture’s fabric, and they would weave their own patterns from it.

Harry agrees that their eclecticism was down to good fortune in coming from the “metropolitan area of New York” where they ingested “a lot of musical influences”. Taken as a whole, their catalogue bears this out. Blondie never stood still musically – yet never sounded like anyone else – and they loaded their songs with more hooks than a fisherman’s trawler. 1976’s punchy, eponymous debut married surf-rock textures with 50s girl-group sensibilities, and their palette had expanded exponentially by the time of seminal third album, Parallel Lines (1978). Eat to the Beat and Autoamerican followed, by which point they could boast flirtations with disco, rocksteady, funk, hip hop, and more within their enviable output.

When asked to pick one track that encapsulates the essence of Blondie, Harry opts for their 1981 US number one single “Rapture”. “What happens in ‘Rapture’ is very comprehensive,” she says. “It took a form of music that was, or still is, very modern and can be very political. Rap and hip-hop songs back then didn’t have their own songs. Rappers would just rap on somebody else’s music. (‘Rapture’) was crafted specifically for that rap. Until then that hadn’t been done. It was a breath of fresh air.” It stands as one of the things in her career that she feels “very good about”.

Blessed with the sort of features that could sell sand to the Saharans, Harry’s appearance caused a stir from the band’s earliest days. “That’s part of showbiz,” she says to me, trying to downplay it. “We always had an eye for that, the entire band. We always had an idea of making a look that represented our sensibilities and links to British pop and mod.” Maybe so, but it was Harry alone who was immortalised by Andy Warhol in one of his iconic silkscreen prints, and who posed for era-defining photographers including Robert Mapplethorpe and Anne Leibowitz.

Did the disproportionate attention she attracted ruffle feathers within the Blondie camp at the time? “Yes and no,” Harry remembers. “We were all happy that it was working. I suppose there was a certain amount of competition or jealousy but ultimately, no. I think that’s a better question for Clem or one of the other members in the band. Of course my relationship with Chris was so close that he was very happy about everything.”

The band’s wheels eventually came off after their muddy and unfocused sixth album, The Hunter, dashed against the commercial rocks in 1982. They had to abandon their subsequent tour after Stein became gravely ill with a rare autoimmune disorder, pemphigus vulgaris, that proved extremely difficult to diagnose. Blondie had no option but to bow out of the public eye, and they broke up quietly.

15 years later, with Stein fully recovered, the group reconvened and released a critically acclaimed and commercially successful comeback album, No Exit. They even topped the UK charts with lead single “Maria”, but faced tussles with erstwhile members at the time too. Former bassist and co-writer on “One Way or Another”, Nigel Harrison, and guitarist Frank Infante attempted to sue the rest of the band over their omission from the reformed lineup. And when Blondie were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, Infante grabbed the microphone to express his ire publicly.

Fast-forward to 2020 and the settled iteration of the band are working on a new album with John Congleton, who produced 2017’s Pollinator. Does Harry have a formula when it comes to songwriting these days? No, as it happens. “When a phrase or a sentiment makes me respond emotionally or physically, I write it down and I save it,” she explains. “At a certain point, I’ll sort of review things. A lot of times I like to just work with a rhythm track. Just a drumbeat or some kind of drone-y rhythm, a groove. Other times people will give me a rough sketch of some chord changes – an idea that they’ve got. I seem to work in a lot of different ways.”

Thanks to her effortless chic and timeless looks, Harry’s relationship with the fashion industry has been a mutual love-in since forever, and she recently announced a revival of her partnership with ethical fashion designers Vin + Omi – the duo responsible for her profane ‘STOP FUCKING THE PLANET’ cape worn at the Q Awards in 2016 and throughout Blondie’s Pollinator tour. They have teamed up for a new sustainable clothing line entitled HOPE, and her enthusiasm for the project is palpable. “I love Vin + Omi,” she says. “They are so creative and adventurous. They have this desire to prevail and do things that are smart and modern in terms of recycling and making energy count. I think that is brilliant.”

As a fledgling bee-keeper, the plight of the bees is also something close to Harry’s heart. It was one of the reasons why 2017’s Pollinator was, well, named exactly that. “You’re either being stung by a bee or you’re going to eat its honey,” she chuckles softly, marvelling at the absurdity of the contrast. “But bees and water are two issues we cannot escape from. We should be concerned with finding better ways of living, using our resources in the best way possible.”

Help is coming, she hopes, through the election of Joe Biden, who is “firmly attached” to the idea of helping the environmental cause – and she believes his ideas can help the economy, too. “I’ve been saying for quite a long time that solar and wind power are renewable (energies) that can create jobs,” she says. It’s a far cry from her feelings towards outgoing President Trump and his “daily infusion of bullshit” and “thunderstorm of endless diatribes”.

“One of the most exciting things about rock’n’roll was that it was about breaking the rules, and (‘WAP”) is certainly a part of that. It’s titillating and aggressive and it is part of what is exciting about popular music. The nature of what we try to do is to shock and entertain at the same time” – Debbie Harry

What strikes you when you speak to Harry for an extended period is not only her warmth, but her unexpected humility for someone so staggeringly famous. I reference a Bob Dylan BBC interview from the 80s in which he observed with sadness how his fame had the ability to change a room’s energy and how he missed seeing people act naturally around him. She paws the comparison away, saying she’s nowhere near famous “to the degree of Bob Dylan”, whom she calls “such a megastar”. This could sound like false modesty coming second-hand, but in person it feels like a sincere statement, even if it is a little bewildering coming from an international icon. She will concede, however, that she has “definitely noticed and felt something like that” and has often wished she could simply be “a fly on the wall”.

There is also an inquisitiveness that makes the conversation a more two-way affair than your quote-unquote typical ‘interview’. She fires questions back at you, not as a deflection tactic, but to expand and explore a topic further. This happens when conversation turns to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s ubiquitous “WAP”. A recent interview had her fangirling over the track, but Harry’s feelings no longer appear to be as clear-cut and she wishes to discuss the song further. “I love it and hate it at the same time,” she now shares. “One of the most exciting things about rock’n’roll was that it was about breaking the rules, and (‘WAP’) is certainly a part of that. It’s titillating and aggressive and it is part of what is exciting about popular music. The nature of what we try to do is to shock and entertain at the same time.” She pauses. “I don’t know. Everything is revealed and maybe sexual explicitness has come of age.”

Pushed about what she dislikes about “WAP”, she says she would “hate it” if any young girl or woman was hurt by the song’s message. “I think that, in a way, men have to know that women think like this, and that there is this component,” she says, “but I would hate it to mean that everyone should be treated like this. I don’t think anybody should be hurt by sex”.

Harry has long championed the LGBTQ+ communities. When she refers to her dearly departed friend and Hairspray co-star Divine as a ‘drag queen’ in Face It, she acknowledges the term in some instances is no longer accurate or politically correct. I suggest that it can often seem as though the evolution of our language is speeding up in the digital age – by necessity, of course – and ask her if online culture fills her with concern when it comes to using the right terms. “Yeah, (because) in many cases it can be a slip of the tongue, especially for an old dog like me! Things do move so very, very quickly. It is hard to keep up,” she observes. “Fortunately, I have a lot of godchildren!”

Speaking of younger generations, Harry likes to think she’d have coped with social media if she were coming up today, but is thankful that she had her “dark cocoon” in which to “bloom out of”, a place where she was able to “ripen”. “When you’re under the harsh glare of constantly being analysed, that shapes you whether you want it to or not,” she says. “It’s a germ or a seed that’s planted in your mind. It can take surprising turns and it can affect your growth. For good or for worse, who knows?”

“When you’re under the harsh glare of constantly being analysed, that shapes you whether you want it to or not. It’s a germ or a seed that’s planted in your mind. It can take surprising turns and it can affect your growth” – Debbie Harry

One thing that remains is her fierce level of self-criticism. “I always want to do better,” she declares matter-of-factly. “I’ve always been very critical of everything. I hear things or look at them and say, ‘Oh God, it should have been that (instead).” Maybe this hypercritical inclination is what still drives her forward. “I honestly don’t like resting on my laurels. I like working and I like creating. I always beat myself up about not being more creative or more prolific.”

When looking at the bounty of projects she has lined up, no one in their right mind could put Debbie Harry and laurel-resting in the same sentence. Aside from the new album, archival set and fashion project, the paperback edition of her autobiography will be released with a brand-new epilogue in April of next year. (Just don’t ask her what’s in it – “I don’t remember what I wrote. I’ll have to look it up!” she says with a laugh.)

The signs are that the musician is done looking into the rear-view mirror, though. Time may be passing, the tide may be higher, but Debbie Harry is doing more than merely holding on. Her eyes are locked to the future and she’s positively thriving.

Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982 will be released next year; Face It is out now via Harper Collins

#debbie harry #blondie #Vin + Omi #ethical fashion #explicitness #music blog

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hillbillyoracle · 5 years ago

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Rebooting My Practice

This is going to be pretty rambly, but I always get a lot out of these posts when other people make them so I wanted to make one too.

I hit a point earlier this year, as I started to really see what all astrology could be, when I knew I was going to need to overhaul pretty much my entire practice. For the last decade, I've focused on divination; on doing activities that sharpen my intuition, following up and checking predictions, tracking cards and results to better understand the connection, etc. I did this primarily in the service of my main deity, the Morrigan.

I still work with her, but I'm in a lurch as to how to continue my work with her. I have yet to quite figure out how to balance her general distaste for shrines (with me at least) and deepening my relationship with her in the absence of local folks to read for as I've relied on for years (thanks COVID). I've been praying the Catholic Rosary lately as a way to deepen my relationship with the Virgin Mary and the Saint I'm petitioning lately and I feel her kind of peering in when I do that so I might have to design one for her. I have a feeling whatever I come up with will likely be in a free zine rather than a blog post at some point.

But where that left me was in this weird abyss, where the only really solid things in my practice were like 3 deities (The Morrigan, Hermes, Yinepu/Anubis) I worked with regularly and tarot cards. I think for plenty of people that's fine but I wanted something deeper and more effective. It was around the time that I was rethinking everything that I stumbled on to this post about a magical routine that absolutely enthralled me. It took me another month and ultimately moving house altogether to even begin to piece something together that would set me on the road to something like this. I knew I was not ready but I finally had a picture in my mind something to work towards. Like rehabilitating after an injury, sometimes you've got to do half as much as you think you can before you really take off.

So I wanted to take some time and talk about the way my practice is changing and what the new pillars are slowly emerging to be.

Planetary Petitions

While I don't have the Orphic Hymns for each of the 7 classical planets memorized yet as per the post, I started by doing planetary prayers more days than I do not do them. Thanks to my truly godawful downstairs neighbor at the new place, who's floor shaking door slams throughout the whole night have netted me an average of 3 hours a night, I'm usually up for the first planetary hour of a given day. Hey maybe it's a sign, a big universal push to show the fuck up.

I'm also incredibly lucky I loaded up on some planetary incenses right before COVID when a local store had a huge sale. It's proved well worth it as above all I try to get the planetary incense right, though I did have to default to a Frankincense one when we were first moving in. I slowly feel like I'm beginning to understand the planetary spirits better but only slightly. I completely see why memorizing the prayer is recommended and I do feel that's standing in the way of me being closer with them.

I have not noticed a huge difference when I petition them truthfully. I get the vibe that it takes time to build up that relationship. Though I'm open to input here - for those who do planetary petitions, what made them click for you?

Saint Veneration + Christian Magic

One thing I put off for many years, though I knew it was coming, was working with more Saints. I knew it'd likely involve having to dip back into Christianity to make it work and I was completely right.

As my partner began revisiting her Catholic roots earlier this year, it got me curious about things like the Rosary, the Chaplet, and Novenas. I was raised charismatic fundamentalist Christian as a child and such things were explicitly forbidden. I remember getting a long talking to when I'd taken to reading about Sainte Jeanne d'Arc. So they aren't loaded for me the way they are for others, but they’re situated in this fundamentally familiar context that makes them feel like meeting a cool branch of the family you didn't realize existed.

I'm finishing a Novena to a Saint I've been praying to in the next few weeks. I am admittedly not as close with her as I'd like to be. I'm trying to figure out how to move forward with her as I'd really like to have her in my life. I will probably reach back out to Sainte Jeanne d'Arc as she's always felt familiar and been good to me. I also keep her prayer card and medallion in my wallet and have for many years so maybe there's more to build from there. It is my goal to have about 3 saints/Christian figures I can call on when I need help. I'm thinking of approaching Mary Undoer of Knots next but I'm worried it'll follow the same path as this current saint.

My partner and I bought Rosaries back in May and I absolutely love it. I've been saying at least a 5 decade rosary for most days but I'm regularly getting in a 15 decade rosary. I really love it and am totally convinced of the beauty and effectiveness of the system. I've come to understand Christianity in a totally different light through praying it regularly.

So that is on going and evolving and I'd love to hear from people who've cultivated close relationships with a Saint or Angel.

Ancestors

One thing that working with Christianity again has made easier is praying to ancestors. I've often felt a bit at odds with my own ancestors as they were not the most supportive of trans and queer people (and I am both of those) but in coming back to Christianity has given me and my ancestors a common language almost. As long as my disagreement with them over my attraction and gender identity is rooted in the Bible, it's been easier to work with them.

It's very early days with ancestor work. I'm slowly working my way through Ancestral Healing by Daniel Foor. But I'm feeling very heartened by it. I saw a post on twitter somewhere, if I can find it again I'll link it, where someone said that the way they started working with their ancestors was just thanking them everyday. And thanking my ancestors is complicated for me, my family like most have their own issues that also go passed on, but thanking them for what I am glad they gave me has been really beneficial.

My partner requested some divination from me when some of her medical issues were starting to get worse and part of the reading involved a strong push for her to investigate her father's side of the family. She got really into genealogy in the process and she's been teaching me a lot. Through that I actually learned my great grandfather's name for the first time - yes that's how out of touch I am with my own family history. But I was thankful to find out.

Through her own research, my partner found out that that branch of her family likely isn't German but actually German speaking Hungarians which was a revelation. She's in the process of confirming but it got us talking about foods and identity and language and how to honor our ancestors more regularly. We're going to try making a nice dinner on Full Moons with dishes that are tied to branches of our family as a way to trying to cultivate a closer relationship with them. I'll definitely update on that as it evolves.

Conclusion + Some Thoughts on Disability

I'm definitely still in the early days of all of this. It's not become quite the foundation I hope it will be yet. I still need to figure out how to continue and deepen my deity relationships. I still need to attempt some different types of spellwork I've been meaning to. And while I didn't talk about it much here, astrology has been playing a huge role in my practice but mostly in a passive way. More of that divination process I talked about in the beginning where I make predictions based on the charts I'm seeing and then double check my work.

I’ve been doing all this while in the thick of a bad flare. Moving plus lack of sleep as meant my disability has been weighing so much harder on me lately. Normally when I’m feeling well enough, I kind of roll my eyes at a lot of the “spoonie witchcraft” posts I see, but for some reason with this flare they just started making me angry and I’m still trying to parse why. I think I just feel like so many are rooted in this performative idea of “feeling” witchy rather than actually helping me with my disability. They aren’t usually focused on practices that either actually treat the pain I’m in or bring my spirit real comfort.

I’m really hoping to put together a post or possibly a zine that does provide what I always wanted those posts to be. Honestly these pillars here have proven accessible even as I’ve been in some of the worst pain I’ve been in in years. So for any fellow disabled folks who just aren’t getting much out of those posts, I really recommend starting with these. Recite the Orphic Hymn for the day in the corresponding hour. Pray the Rosary or an adapted set of prayers for Pagan prayer beads. Don’t have much money for those? Look up how to make knotted rosaries and adapt the method. Pray to your ancestors and give them some water and a bit to eat. These are doable for a lot of folks even when they’re in bad shape, especially if you take your time with it. Might not make you “feel witchy” but they do some fucking work, that’s for sure. But idk, those are just my thoughts on it.

So it hasn't all fallen into place yet but I wanted to share what developing a practice looks like in medias res. It's messy, somethings work better than others, but all and all I'm just glad to finally be making meaningful progress again.

#personal practice #witchblr #Ancestor Veneration #planetary magic #rosary

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bloodredx · 4 years ago

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Day 26: Costume

“Your ultimate goal is to exist and hide in plain sight. What that means for you will be different than what it means for me.” Serena tapped her cheek as she thought about her words for a moment. “It is rare to exist as stationary as I have been able, but it is possible. Though I would recommend existing as a transient soul for at least a century.”

Icarus wrote his own notes down in his journal, careful to do his best to translate her meanings into something he could easily remember. “In case mistakes are made, right? So that I can get away without leaving much of a trace or memory.”

“Yes. It’s easier to get away from suspicion with no roots holding you down, but at the same time you must remember that strangers make people nervous. So your costume must be friendly enough to discourage that.”

Icarus raised a brow, deciding the risk of admonishment was worth the statement. “Lady Serena, literally nothing you have ever done has read as friendly to me.”

She nodded, carefully turning a pen over in her hands, clearly searching for some other memory to verify her claim. “Because that isn’t the guise I need. But I also don’t travel so much anymore. You aim to collect lore, yes? People are more likely to let loose their stories if you are able to engage in polite discussion. Perhaps that is a lesson better taught to you by Bones. He enjoys talking to strangers.”

“Right.” Icarus closed his journal and set it down. “But what about me physically. I know I’ve changed so much, it’s hard for me to find myself acting convincingly.”

“Well, you have a better grasp on modern humanity than I do, so just act the way you know best. But I shall caveat a few things. One, makeup is extremely helpful. It can cover your darkened veins and distract from dead looking eyes. Though I wouldn’t recommend trying to paint your skin pinker to feign warmth… it looks off. Trust me.”

“Right, no pink foundation. I’ve never had to fuss with makeup before, you’re going to have to show me.”

“Of course.” Serena tilted her head, passing her eyes over the collection of ancient medical tools she kept in her office. Times certainly have changed. But that went without saying. “We can get into the mechanics of the physical costuming later, I find that the much more important factor is presence. As no matter what you do, the living on some level will sense you are a predator. They may not know it consciously, but they can feel something wrong. Your job is to convince them that whatever that feeling is, isn’t coming from you. I achieve this with bedside manner, but you might just need to be socially appropriate.”

“Because I was always a social butterfly beforehand.” Icarus grumbled to himself.

“You don’t have to change personality, just approach. Stars know that I certainly don’t like social events myself.” Serena rose from her seat and began pacing, taking a precise and measured distance with each step. “You have to remember, people aren’t animals. They retain some means of observational intelligence, so you have to fool them with interesting things, not just what you think they want to see. Some eccentricity is actually a boon here. My odd taste in clothes is a more interesting question then why my skin looks so pallid. People raised in proper society are more likely to comment on your decisions than your appearance. So give them anything interesting to decide upon. Keep the mind turning. And fit your part. Costumes only work if the actor is dressed for their role.”

Icarus knew what she was saying, the words, by definition, made sense to him. But the metaphysics weren’t. How could he know what role he was to play when he didn’t know himself? He wasn’t that confident in himself before he was made undead, but now he had no idea who he was. She was asking him to make a disguise, sure he could dress himself in strange colors, cut and dye his hair, plaster lipstick over his mouth and move through life. But who was he now?

“Have you ever changed your own visage?” He couldn’t imagine her without her commanding tone and confidence, or in any other color than red for that matter. She seemed so set in her identity.

Serena stopped her pacing at the notion, taking a long time before drawing her words. “In the past yes, the most drastic being before I’m willing to discuss in detail.” She turned to him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Perhaps this is a good time to think about who you are and what you want from your existence. If you aim to make a change, now certainly seems to be an ideal time. And nothing is set in stone, if it doesn’t work, then you can tweak or change it.” Perhaps the chance at building confidence and identity would allow him to figure his own powers out. For she couldn’t imagine tapping into her body without knowing exactly what she wanted from it and what it could do.

She drew a breath and forced a gentle smile. “Listen, every sense of outward self is a creation of your own making. This is true no matter the nature of your blood, or status of your heart. Costume yourself in the finest cloth or the worst threadbare. Create art or a mess, whatever suits your fancy. And if you’re satisfied with who you are, that’s all that matters.”

Icarus was a little gob smacked, she was actually offering helpful advice with kindness and no sense of judgement. It felt wrong. “Bones told you to me nicer to me, didn’t he?”

Her face immediately darkened, and a glare took the smile’s place. It was her natural face again, thank the goddesses. “He told me nothing of how to speak to you. I offer only what I know, and if you are ungrateful to such notices, then we can continue sparring lessons in the courtyard. My sword has no issue testing your confidence or lack thereof.”

Icarus smiled, knowing he had instigated his own inevitable pain, but at least he was pleased to see his teacher again, and not the veneer she was offering as a costume in her own right.

(OC-tober prompts by @oc-growth-and-development can be found here)

#oc-tober #oc tober #Lady Serena #Icarus Aryll #vampire #vampires #oc #oc-growth-and-development #bloodredx writes #writers on tumblr #costume

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racefortheironthrone · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on House of X #5

Time for the issue where HoX/PoX horniness kicked off!

Society Comma We Live in One:

Time to talk about an issue that definitely merited the coverted red issue status. The issue starts with Magneto and Polaris having a dialogue on society that comes off as a bit writerly, more about Hickman creating an opportunity for him to talk about his ideas about society than what Magneto and Polaris would actually be saying to one another (unless Polaris just arrived on Krakoa and is being given the tour, but that doesn’t quit fit her dialogue).

To start with, Magneto is making an argument that “the one good thing humanity taught us was society,” but attaches this to the concept of human beings shifting from settler-gatherer to agrarian cultures. Notably, in Magneto’s version, this shift also has implications for national identity, what with the whole “this is a good place - it is...ours, and from this land we will not be moved.”

At the same time, it would be highly inaccurate to suggest that hunter-gatherer cultures don’t have societies or engage in (what Magneto is really getting at here) cooperation. The main difference between hunter-gatherer and agrarian modes of cooperation is that, by creating substantial surpluses that allow more people to not engage in food production, the agrarian mode enables a new form of cooperation based on specialization.

All of this applies pretty directly to Krakoa and the resurrection ceremony that Magneto and Polaris are witnessing: as long as mutantdom was constantly fighting for survival (the time when “the greatest necessary traits in mutantdom” would be “strength and aggressiveness”), it was essentially stuck in a hunter-gatherer paradigm. But once mutantdom established themselves on Krakoa, “intelligence, ingenuity, and creativity” started to come to the fore: the Krakoan flowers and medications, Doug’s interface and the resulting Krakoan systems, KASA, Cerebro, and now a new one. Contrary to certain implications from the Librarian in Powers of X #6, rather than simply relying on their “natural” mutant powers, Krakoan society is technologizing them.

The “Five” are a great example of this process at work. I’ll get more in detail on how this particular Krakoan biomachinery works when we get to the infographic (which brings together all of the information into one place), but there’s some more subtle details at work here:

I love how the (Fab) Five’s social/cultural status is prefigured by their on-page introduction, which looks like nothing so much as the slow-motion group shot from Resevoir Dogs combined with a supergroup pose complete with spotlights.

As many people have pointed out, Hickman’s reinterpretation of Goldballs’ “seemingly benign and pointless power” shows how a different social and technological context completely changes the way we think about the value of different x-genes.

As someone who’s spent their fair share of time studying the history of science, I do like how much the Five’s introduction re-emphasizes themes of cooperation and specialization rather than the Lone Genius myth: even with Goldballs’ limitless “eggs,” he still needs Proteus to make the eggs viable, and so on and so forth. As Magneto puts it, ““separate...they are great mutants, but only significant, not transcendant. Together..."

An interesting commonality in Krakoan biotechnology is the use of psychics and other mutants - in this case, Hope plays a similar role to the Cuckoos in KASA - to allow the group to work in unison without the need for the literal hiveminds of the machine consciousness. Something to keep one’s eye on.

At the same time, the Five’s biomachine relies on two other forms of technology of varying levels of technology. As the red diamond on the syringe confirms, Mister Sinister provides the DNA to grow the husks and (and this is one of the Big Reveals of the issue) Cerebro downloads the mind into the body.

Playing her role in the Socratic dialogue admirably, Lorna raises the vital question of whether these clones are “just their bodies...not them.” What’s really interesting about Magneto’s response is that he’s not just talking about downloading the mind of the mutant, but also “the essence..the anima...[the] soul” of the mutant, which implies a pretty strongly spiritual conception of Cerebro’s primary purpose. (It’s an interestingly monist approach to the question of the soul as a form of data that can be copied, uploaded, downloaded, etc. I wonder what Nightcrawler thinks of this?)

Xavier’s statement that “even knowing I could bring you back...a part of me dies when any of you do” really backs up what I was talking about re: Xavier’s motivation for changing his worldview. Resurrection doesn’t change the emotional impact of death, especially since the system requires Xavier to be psychically linked to the X-Men he’s sending into harm’s way, so that he’s experiencing all their pain and suffering. This also reads quite differently in the wake of Powers of X #6, because it suggests that (quite aside from his broader plans for Krakoa), Xavier’s shift to being even more of a pragmatist has a lot to do with years of compounding trauma.

BTW, a clear sign that there is a high degree of continuity of consciousness going on is that Scott’s first thought after being resurrected is “did it work?” For all intents and purpsoes, this is the Scott Summers who died on Sol’s Forge.

We See Them, Do We Know Them?

I’m going to take this opportuntity to get on my high horse for a second and take parts of the X-fandom to task. While I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse anyone of arguing in bad faith, I do think there has been a tendency to not grapple with the text in an honest way when it comes to certain characters or themes, with the Resurrection Ceremony as Exhibit A in this tendency.

Rather than being about cults or nakedness (more on both of those soon), what this scene is actually about is the coming together of the foundational aspects of Krakoan society/culture, and how two groups of heroes - the five and the strike team - will be treated in this new world.

As we might expect, there are both parallels and differences in how the Krakoan masses treat and are expected to treat these groups: as we’ll learn later from the Resurrection Infographic, the Five are “universally revered...as cultural paragons [something sacred to be treasured].”

Storm’s exhortation provides the text that is supposed to shape and give purpose to this popular attitude, that the Krakoan masses should “love them...for they have righted the wrongs of men and defeated our great enemy death.” As with many RL human cultures, historic grievances are used to define in-group and out-group, but at the same time, the Five’s “miracle” is defined as a victory over “our great enemy death,” (which neatly ties together anti-mutant violence, mutant-specific epidemic diseases, all the forces of the “on the brink of extinction” stories we’ve seen for almost twenty years).

Given that the Five are responsible for A. reversing mutant genocides which have directly and indirectly affected all mutants in profoundly traumatic ways B. making mutants functionally immortal, it would be utterly unprecedented if a cultural and social change of this magnitude did not have some element of spiritual or religious feeling behind it. World religions have been founded on far less than this.

By contrast, the Strike Team are described in more secular terms. For removing the existential threat of Mother Mold (let alone Nimrod) which had loomed over mutant society, Storm describes them as “heroes of Krakoa,” but not so much cultural heroes as secular military heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation: “through their deaths...a great victory was won for our people.”

Another sign of difference is that the Strike Team’s public reception is conditional, requiring a further ceremony where the community asks “we see them, but do we know them?” I love the way that Hickman turns the meta-question of whether these resurrected mutants are the real thing or “just clones” into a cultural question.

Thus, he has Storm act as the Master of Ceremonies for a ritual that’s all about recognition and confirmation of individual and social identity, and uses X-comics continuity nods that readers will recognize in the same way that Storm does as the clues:

Cyclops remembers losing the leadership to Storm in UX #139, and I like this particular deep cut because it’s a great contrast to their present-day respect and affected, and because Scott’s inability to commit to his marriage to Madelyn Pryor will help kick off Inferno.

Similarly, Jean recalling line-for-line what she said to Storm in UX #242 works especially well because it’s a line about asserting your identity in the wake of death, resurrection, and the existential questions of cloning, and because once again it recalls Inferno. I’m not sure whether it’s a good sign or a bad sign that Hickman gets Jean’s voice better here when he’s quoting earlier authors rather than writing original dialogue.

And finally, in a great Rule of Three joke format, Monet breaks the pattern by going for a character beat - Monet has strong personal space boundaries - rather than a deep continuity callback.

Having done my close-reading due diligence, let me get to the point: this is not a cult, and you don’t need to take much in the way of Anthropology coursework to see that. Call-and-response between an officiant and the congregation are incredibly common across many religions, as are ceremonies in which the individual’s membership in the group is confirmed, and so on and so forth. If you want to describe this as a cult, or cult-like, you need to point to qualities that are specific to cults as opposed to other forms of religious activity.

Similarly, I find it quite strange to describe Storm as acting out-of-character in this sequence. Storm, who’s all about giving speeches at the top of her lungs, who’s been worshipped as a goddess in multiple countries, would have a problem with giving a sermon and carrying out a basic ritual? This is the sort of thing that makes me think that a lot of these comments are just people trying to disguise personal preference as story critique.

The scene ends with pulling back to see Xavier and Magneto reacting to all of this, and their feeling of tempered joy is a pretty good synecdoche for how things stand at the end of HoX/Pox: while the “good work” is clearly a cause for joy, it’s clearly at a very early and vulnerable stage, and there’s a feeling of determination that it has to continue “until it is done.” Interestingly, both Charles and Erik view this aspect of Krakoa as more “foundational” than any other element, and I wonder whether this could be part of why they don’t quite see eye-to-eye with Moira any more.

Another sign that things are not as secure as they’d like is that Krakoa still hasn’t gotten over the hurdle of UN recognition, which requires getting around a veto from a permanent member of the Security Council.

Resurrection Infographic:

So let’s talk about the Resurrection process, now that we have all of the information in front of us.

The Infographic really confirms that Mister Sinister is absolutely crucial to the Genetic Base working - “without this, we have nothing.” But given that we learn in Powers of X #6 that this was very much in opposition to Moira’s wishes, I wonder how the original plan envisioned this working. I wonder whether Magneto’s statement to Emma Frost in Powers of X #5 that “we are not ahead of ourselves...we are woefully behind” suggests a motive. Mister Sinister already had a comprehensive DNA database on the go, they might have gone to him because they wanted to accelerate the time table for reversing the Genoshan genocide.

At the same time, you can already see how Sinister has become the snake in the garden. At the moment, Xavier and Magneto have “limited...current mutant modifications...to “optimal aging,” but we can already see Sinister’s influence in the line “it is believed that in the future, designer modifications will be possible.” Unless they are very, very careful, this is how the chimera singularity could topple all of this into the abyss of the singularity.

The Five:

As I discussed above, each of the Five are a crucial element of the overall process.

Fabio Medina (Goldballs): produces limitless eggs for limitless husks. Without Goldballs, the resurrection process would be extremely limited in how many people could be brought back at any time by all kinds of resource constraints; with him, the process can be turned into one of mass-production.

Kevin MacTaggart (Proteus): turns unviable eggs into viable eggs; without Proteus, Goldballs’ innovation would be effectively stillborn. Kevin’s presence here is also a strong indicator that this was part of Moira’s plan, so as with so much in HoX/PoX what we’re talking about is a question of means vs. ends.

Joshua Foley (Elixir): “kick-start[s] the process of life, initializing cell replication and husk growth.” Without Elixir, the DNA might sit dormant within the egg; with Elixir, you have a bridge between the raw building blocks of life and the end product of a viable husk.

Eva Bell (Tempus): “temporally mature[s] a husk to a desired age.” This is potentially an under-appreciated aspect of the whole process: without Tempus, you’d still have to wait decades for resurrected mutants to come to maturity and all throughout that time, the process would be incredibly vulnerable; with Tempus, mutants are brought back to life as fully-grown adults capable of doing their part for Krakoan society.

Hope Summers (Hope): has the more nebulous task of “enhancing and synergizing...to ensure the success of each resurrection.” As Magneto explains, resurrection is “delicate, almost impossible work.” Hope’s unique power set allows her not only to boost the powers of the rest of the five, but also to improve coordination and thus quality control, so that the overall process has a success rate of 100%.

As we can see already, this is a system with a lot of irreplacable parts, which means a bunch of potential points of failure. No wonder, then, that Krakoan minds are at work trying to overcome these problems. We already see that “Synch or Mimic” have been floated as “upgrades/extensions/stand-ins” for the Five, which suggests that they’re already thinking about ways to improve functionality by adding to the “circuit” or about ways to maintain service if one of the Five needs to be replaced.

Similarly, I love how the “Proteus problem” shows how Resurrection is changing our perceptions of so many things in Krakoan society. From his introduction, Proteus has been shown as inherently dangerous because of the way that his powers damage his body - but with the Resurrection system, Proteus is just a mutant who happens to have a chronic illness that can be treated. One interesting question...why is Proteus’ “backup mutant husk” based on Charles Xavier? Charles isn’t his father, so it’s not a question of genetic compatibility.

The Mind:

Here’s where we really get into the philosophy of identity. Hickman gets really emphatic here that these are not “just clones,” because the backups include “the essence of each mutant, how they think, how they feel, their memories, their very being.”

I’m personally inclined to agree with Hickman. Even without transference of consciousness as a real thing, I don’t think a strict view of continuity of consciousness can really hold, given the fact there are plenty of breaks in said continuity - we don’t consider people who get knocked out or blackout drunk or just have a nap to no longer be the same person, so what’s the rationale for saying that any of the Strike Team aren’t the same people who they were before?

I also love how the Cerebro part of the system adds all kinds of new problems: there’s the technical complexity of scanning every mutant mind on the planet and then storing and copying that datat to “multiple redundant “cradles,” as well as new philosophical and ethical issues about what happens when you put someone’s mind in someone else’s body, etc. More on this in a bit.

Scale:

So at least at the time that this document was written, it looks like the mutant population is back to 100,000 (although how much was the Five isn’t clear), but that there are 1 million de-powered mutants (many of whom might want to use the system to regain their powers), and 16 million mutants who were murdered and whose resurrection is a key ideological drive for Krakoa.

As Hickman points out, this brings up issues of productivity and efficiency that we’re used to seeing in industrial and technological processes. The Five’s initial rate of 200 a day would take 300 years to accomplish the goal of reversing Krakoan genocide, which is way too long a timeline.

However, it turns out that there’s a mutant version of Moore’s law: the more the Five do this, the better they get at it (with a nice nod to Wolverine, so “its estimated that capabilities could possibly reach around 30,000 a week” (or 6,000 a day), bringing the timeline down to a far more manageable decade.

A final bottleneck: Charles Xavier “is not capable of” 6,000 daily downloads, and we already seen Krakoan minds thinking about “a workaraound or a team of telepaths” to supplement someone who’s also busy attending U.N meetings, Quiet Council sessions, plotting world domination, etc.

On a policy wonk side note, I was trying to figure out how Hickman worked out these numbers, and I realized that his math assumes that Krakoa has a five day work-week. As we’ll see in House of X #6, there are major open questions about what kind of economic policy (and thus, what kind of society) this new nation-state will have. Good to see that Actual 19th Century Robber Baron Sebastian Shaw isn’t getting his own way.

One particularly odd thing about Krakoan biomachinery, according to “extensive testing,” the Five don’t actually experience “exertion,” but rather a “blissful experience” of self-actualization. This suggests the psychological equivalent of a perpetual motion machine - rather than requiring more and more labor, the damn thing requires less and less and produces “total fulfillment” as a byproduct. Weird.

Another interesting side effect is that the Five have become “an inseparable family unit” who are undergoing a process of symbiosis - given all the discussion of mechanical hiveminds, it’s worth wondering whether we’re seeing a biological one forming and to what extend is individuality being maintained.

A final, slightly odd note: this Infographic describes the Five’s socio-cultural status as that of “cultural paragons” rather than “something achievable through works,” even though the Five are explicitly described as having carried out “good works.” So what gives?

Resurrection Protocol:

One last bottleneck: the whole process seems to take at least 42 and as much as 52 hours to complete. Although they can clearly work on multiple eggs in one batch, getting that figure down would no doubt be useful in further increasing productivity.

An interesting sign of the cultural/philosophical impacts of the system: Krakoan society now has “fears regarding duplication” of an explicit moral character, and thus requires an elaborate system of confirmation to bring someone back from the dead. Thus, we start to see the formation of mutant law-enforcement entities to deal with “mutant missing persons and suspected deaths and murders,” which is presumably going to be X-Factor rather than X-Force as initially believed (since X-Force turns out to be the intelligence service instead).

A Grateful Nation:

Speaking of the burdens of statecraft, the scene shifts to the aftermath of the U.N recognition vote, where it emerges that Emma Frost used her telepathy to push the Russian ambassador to abstain rather than veto, which Xavier is ok with. Krakoa is now an internationally-recognized nation-state in good standing, something that previous mutant nations never quite managed.

This gave some parts of the fandom a good deal of trouble, but let me say as someone who’s taken a couple courses in diplomatic history, this is really quite mild stuff compared to the usual run of vote selling, wiretapping, blackmail, threats of economic or military retaliation, and other kinds of skullduggery and corruption. The world of nation-states is not one of moral purity.

Also, if we’re talking about characters being in and out of character, as much as Charles Xavier has been described as an idealist when it comes to his ultimate ends, he’s always been a pragmatist when it comes to his means when it comes to psychic powers. Mental compulsion, altering or erasing memories, mind-wiping people into mental vegetables - as long as it’s for the greater good.

I’m curious what Emma Frost’s reward will be. This scene explicitly comes after she made her bargain with Xavier and Magneto for a fifty-year monopoly for the Hellfire Trading Company and three seats on the Quiet Council, so I wonder what this bonus will be.

Mutant Diplomacy Infographic:

Speaking of the moral ambiguity of international relations, we learn from this infographic that “all current mutant diplomacy...is dependent on relationships with human nations centering on their need for mutant pharmaceuticals.” On the one hand, it’s better than basing your diplomacy on military aid. On the other hand, it’s notable that Krakoa isn’t building its diplomacy on the basis of human rights or cultural exchange or other elements of “soft power,” it’s all very transactional. (It’s also not a good sign that “nations that have rejected a trade treaty with Krakoa are considered to be naturally adversarial.)

We then get a list of non-treaty nations. Some of these inclusions make sense, others are a bit puzzling, and I have some questions about why certain nations didn’t make the list.

Asia:

Why just Iran in the Middle East? OPEC should be losing their minds about the potential for Krakoan portals to undermine the value of oil. Likewise, plenty of Middle Eastern regimes might be worried about other ethnic minorities using the Krakoan precedent to redouble their own pushes for national independence. And if it’s religious ideology, why is it only a Shia issue and not a Sunni issue?

Madripoor: given where Krakoa is located, this is probably an issue of being afraid of a new power in their sphere of influence. Also, Madripoor has tended to get up to a lot of mutant-related crimes, so they’d probably be worried about this.

North Korea: this being listed as an ideological issue is a bit strange. The official state ideology of North Korea is really peculiar, even among putatively Communist regimes, so it’s hard to tell

Europe:

I imagine the E.U’s role in negotiating trade deals probably is responsible for the relative lack of European nations on the list, but I’m surprised that none of the right-wing populist governments that have sprung up in central/eastern Europe in recent years who aren’t particularly friendly to real world minorities wouldn’t have an issue with a powerful nation of mutants.

Latveria: probably because Doom is a paranoid, egomaniacal autocrat who pursues economic autarky generally. I am curious, however, about other Marvel-specific nation states - we know that Namor isn’t going to go to Krakoa, but what is Atlantis’ foreign policy on this issue? What do the Inhumans think? Etc.

Russi: as we’ve seen from House of X #1, Russia fears a new global superpower. What’s interesting is we don’t see them exerting any successful influence on Central Asian or Baltic or ex-Soviet eastern European nations.

South America:

Brazil: is this Bolsanaro's cultural conservatism at work or something else? Because...

Venezuela: is kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum from Brazil’s current government, so it would be odd to see them on the same side of this issue. The only thing I can think of is that this might be due to Chavezista anti-imperialism. Because...

Santo Marco: contrary to what Magneto said in House of X #1, mutants have not been entirely free of the sins of conquest and imperialism, and in one of his first appearances, Magneto conquered the Republic of Santo Marco and ruled it in an extremely brutal fashion. That’s the kind of thing people remember for a long time, so I’m not surprised that you see some South American countries taking a negative view of Krakoa as a result.

Terra Verde: Similarly, Terra Verde’s government was briefly overthrown by the supervillain Diablo, and although mutants were not involved, they may be generally wary of superpower-led nation states.

Central America:

Honduras: it’s not that I think it’s implausible, but what makes Honduras different from other Central American countries on this issue?

Africa:

This is where we get a potentially really juicy plot hook. As late as X-Men Red, Wakanda has been generally positive towards mutants, especially since not only does T’challa have a personal relationship with Storm, but in the current run of Black Panther, Storm has been popularly worshipped as Hadari Yao, the Walker of Clouds.

Given that Wakanda is seen as a threat because “they do not need mutant drugs,” this may be a case of Krakoan/Moira’s paranoia that Wakanda’s advanced technology and self-sufficiency might mean that the post-human revolution might start there.

At the same time, the fact that the rest of the “Wakandan economic protectorate” also reject a trade treaty might suggest that we’re just seeing a simple story of nation-state competition for spheres of influence.

Krakoa Is For All Mutants:

In a very straight-forward example of X-Men dissenting from Xavier’s plan, we see Wolverine - who’s about to take up a significant post in Krakoa’s national security infrastructure - has a big enough problem with the amnesty program that he mentions wanting to beat “Chuck” to death for general smugness and condescension.

A whole bunch of supervillains cross-over, but while some of them will become significant as members of the Quiet Council or Captains, Apocalypse is framed as the most significant one, because he’s the only one with a pre-existing connection to Krakoa

Indeed, he goes full Disney Princess on page 27 because Krakoa “knows me, and I Krakoa,” which might be a big problem later on if Krakoan’s earlier and deeper connections to Apocalypse come into conflict with its more recent alliances with Cypher and Xavier.

At the same time, at least for the moment Apocalypse is the most ideologically on board with Xavier’s broader project, seeing it as the culmination of his life’s work.

Thus, he’s happy to say the words: “we submit to the laws of this land, be what they may, and acknowledge from this day forward, we all serve a higher purpose than want or need. One people from this day forward.” It’s an oath of citizenship, but it also speaks to the conditionality of the amnesty. And there are penalties for breaking it.

#xmen #xmen meta #house of x

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thomas60barnett-blog · 6 years ago

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Guedin Fan Game

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darklygophilia · 7 years ago

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Just A Little Comparison...

This gif basically sent me down the rabbit hole of Daredevil & Punisher meta-land...

Here we have Matt pushing Foggy out of the way of the incoming bullets, but Fogy still gets hit regardless. Which, IMO, mirrors their friendship. Despite Matt’s good intentions, Foggy still has to deal with a lot of Daredevil consequences no matter that Matt tries to keep him safe, 1st by keeping that part of himself a secret in S1, & later by trying to avoid talking about Daredevil with Foggy at all in the beginning of S2. But Foggy can’t ignore that Matt’s Daredevil, he can’t just ignore the elephant in the room! So, Foggy faces a lot of fallout b/c of Matt’s inability to balance his duel identities as well as Foggy’s own inability to accept both sides of Matt b/c Matt lied to him for most of their friendship. I do feel that if Foggy had found out much sooner, if Matt had confided in Foggy, than their friendship wouldn’t have suffered so much. But, there’s always gonna be this part of Foggy that likely feels that Matt didn’t trust him b/c he didn’t tell him he was Daredevil. And that has to hurt. Foggy had to find out on his own, by accident! Which leads to the question: Would Matt have told him himself if Foggy hadn’t accidentally found out?

With Karen it’s a little different. The Matt she’s known was a lie, in a way she fell in-love with her own fantasy of Matt. The Matt that he projects onto the world by day. And while, unlike with Foggy, Matt does decide to confide in Karen himself that he’s Daredevil (probably cause he was trying to learn from his mistake with keeping things from Foggy, & hoping to avoid loosing another one of his only two friends), Matt still essentially lied to Karen. He showed her a false image of himself. And she’s done the same thing, she has her own secrets. The fact that their brief romance was essentially built on lies/secrets from both of them needing to hide their true selves from each other (both out of fear of rejection) provides a very week foundation for their so-called love story. Not to mention their differences of moral ideology (Karen’s moral ideals are more on par with Frank’s than Matt’s). Which is why I’m CONVINCED that Karen/Matt are NOT endgame. B/c the foundation of a good, healthy relationship full of trust, & love, & knowing each other just is NOT there at all. Another thing, they’re both wearing masks. Karen projects an image of herself to Matt as well. Basically, neither Matt nor Karen really know who the other is, even after Matt tells her he’s Daredevil. They simply don’t know each other! And its strongly hinted that they have a very different belief system.

What is ironic is that, the answers were all there! We as viewers can clearly see they’re both holding back something. But the fact that neither Karen nor Matt strive to really delve deeper with each other, not only shows they don’t know each other - it shows that they don’t want to know each other! B/c they refuse to see the truth of one another even when all the hints are there staring them in the face. Seriously, Matt can hear a person’s heartbeat & tell when they’re lying, so you know he’s gotta know that Karen is lying, too. She’s holding back her real self. Karen is also very observant; she knows when someone’s bullshitting her. Just look at her relationship with Frank. She’s not at all afraid to call him out on anything & get to the truth of him. The fact that she doesn’t do this with Matt is very telling.

Then of course there’s the differences in behavior in interaction between Matt/Elektra & Frank/Karen.

Just look at them! They’re brutal with each other. Passionate. Driven.

They both know each other’s secrets & dark side. And what they don’t know, they strive to know & understand. They have chemistry. And, of course, they argue/bicker like a freaking old married couple!

And the thought of loosing each other is unthinkable...

Now back to the gif that spurred this meta into action...

Matt isn’t just protecting Foggy, he’s also protecting Karen. Or, IMO, he’s protecting his fantasy of having something normal. In a way, the Matt/Karen relationship is driven on expectations. The people they project to each other are the very people that others expect them to fall in love with. There’s also the expectation of the audience & comics. They’re canon (though in canon they didn’t actually have a happy ending, either) so, their inevitable love is expected, & almost tired by the time it actually happens within the show’s narrative. Anyone who hasn’t read the comics or is new to Daredevil, doesn’t really expect Matt to have this deep, complex connection to someone like Elektra who, at first, seems to be the exact opposite of Matt. But, in reality they’re both very similar. Matt strives hard to be the ultimate, typical good-guy even when it’s not realistic (cause sometimes you need to get your hands dirty to do a greater good, like Frank). Matt has been raised with the typical Catholic guilt, he’s driven by being better than the criminals around him, & he was taught by Stick to keep people at a distant & therefore taught to lie about himself. Elektra may seem like the spoiled, entitled rich girl at first, but we quickly learn she’s a lot more like Matt than even she realizes (their similarities, are probably what drew them to each other in the first place). Elektra may not have Catholic guilt driving her, but there does seem to be a lot of guilt that’s projected onto her from Stick. Elektra knows she has a dark side, but b/c of Stick teachings she was taught to deny her nature, to lie about herself, to keep others at a distance. Like Matt.

It’s similar with Karen & Frank. Neither is what the other expects. Frank’s not at all the kind of man whom people would think Karen would be drawn to. But she is. She sympathizes with Frank’s loss & his inner demons b/c she’s experienced it herself. She’s able to see past the mask of the Punisher. Just as Frank sees past her mask. They’re both passionate people of conviction & have their own moral code that might not be purely good or purely evil. They both operate somewhere in the grey-zone. Better yet, they’re the kind of people who aren’t afraid to do something bad, but for the right reasons! And while Karen may not like a lot of what Frank does, & Frank doesn’t like that Karen puts herself in danger, they both accept each other regardless.

In a way, I kinda feel like the Matt/Karen “romance” was a red haring, like MARVEL was totally trolling us. B/c their relationship opens with typical, cliche hero/heroine development. The girl doesn’t know the hero’s secret, the hero saves her (both as himself [Matt], & as his alter ego [Daredevil], plus they’re prominently in each other’s lives b/c they work together & are friends. I wonder if MARVEL was like, “Ok, the audience are gonna ship these two, so let’s play with that.” B/c 1) of course they’re gonna get shipped at first, b/c there’s this idea that two people who work so closely together & are of the opposite sex can’t simply be friends; & 2) it’s in the comics so its canon. Like, MARVEL gave us what was expected, the typical cliched hero/heroine romance (which was really, romance-lite) before ripping it apart & giving us something more real, more tangible with Matt/Elektra & Frank/Karen. Like, “Ok, audience, this is what you think you want. But look over here! This is the real deal. This is what you’re really looking for.”

I mean, just look at this gif again...

All Matt does is push Foggy & Karen to the ground, & covers Karen’s body with his own. There’s no caressing, no clutching, no words at all exchanged between them.

Look at these...

Matt caresses Elektra with one hand while clutching onto her with the other.

He literally nuzzles her entire face while clutching onto her, afraid to loose her.

And now look at these...

Frank doesn’t just push Karen to the ground. There’s a lot of movement in this scene, & I’m not referring to the bullets flying all over the place. Just look at Frank’s face. It looks like a combination of fear for Karen’s safety as well as absolute rage that anyone would dare try & kill her. Plus the fact that Frank shows up simply to prove to Karen that it wasn’t him that shot at her. Frank doesn’t really care what people think of him, he doesn’t care that at least 50% of the city thinks he’s a monster. But he just HAS to tell Karen that it wasn’t him. It reminds me of their hospital scene when Frank does everything to ensure that Karen knows he would never hurt an innocent person, he’d never hurt her, that she was safe even when he was gunning for Grotto. He doesn't care about what anyone else thinks of him, but he cares about what Karen thinks.

Frank also repeatedly looks back down at Karen. Even though he’s covering her & there’s simply no way she could get shot with him protecting her, he keeps looking back down at her as if to reassure himself that she’s still alright.

And Frank’s not the only one clutching, Karen is, too! But Frank also draws his hands repeatedly over Karen’s head, almost like he’s caressing her.

If that’s not love I’ don’t know what is.

#Frank Castle #Karen Page #Kastle #Punisher #Matt Murdock #Elektra Nachios #Daredevil #Meta

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elysianinsignia · 4 years ago

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IDENTITY PAPER

by: Mary Angelyn D. Villa

Life. One word but lies a thousand meanings and countless experiences. The life I hold is a journey to self-discovery. A trip for me to have a complete understanding of who I am and what I am. Who am I? Am I because of me? or am I me because of how the world molded me? Through the discovery of self, I can identify my purpose and actualize my potential. On the other hand, failure to embark on a pilgrimage of self-discovery will cheat on the opportunity to understand who I am and what I want out of my life.

For years, I never really understood myself. I never had the chance to have a full grasp on myself being a whole. For years, I never felt having a complete sense of self-identity, whose interest is concrete. For years, I was lost in my own realm with no concrete mastership, stability, and control. Growing up, I spent in confusion, with portions of who I am seemingly floating in the mist, my palms reaching out to grasp a piece of myself. Parts of me that I cannot fully latch onto for it ultimately slips through my fingers like warm water.

In my 18 years of existence, I have gone through a lot of roads. Tested me, shaped me, and let me realize a lot of things. My journey started on the year 2002 of December 8th, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception; it all began when the curtain of night fell upon the province, a province chained together by credence, conviction, customs, and certainty. It was raining cats and dogs at that time. Cold air pierced one's skin, cars were complaining due to heavy traffic, but amidst it all was a woman, a woman drowning in tears because of the unbearable pain she was enduring like she was being torn apart. It was the day I was pushed out of my mother's womb to witness how harsh, hard, and harrowing the world could be. But before I could see the world itself, my father was put in a situation that almost took his sanity. A situation which he needs to decide, his wife;the love of his life or his second-born daughter or else both will die. Instead of choosing, my father fled to the nearest chapel and prayed like there was no tomorrow. Cried rivers and knelt desperately. The moment I was pushed out, my grandmother immediately decided to name me Mary Angelyn. 'Mary' was included for I was born during the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the day for Mother Mary, and 'Angelyn' is a combination of "Angel" and my mother's name, Evelyn, it was combined with the word 'Angel' for the reason that my grandmother believed that all the angels of heaven and the Divine God sent an angel, I, to protect and guide my family.

Since time immemorial, my family and my relatives had been religious and avid followers of the Almighty. Maybe it is because our forefathers are Spaniards, who were the ones who introduced Catholicism to the family, or maybe because of all the hardships, challenges, and misfortunes my family had experienced back then that led them to be closer than they ever were to the Almighty. On the other hand, I am a product of love from two individuals from two different localities. My mother was born, raised, and blossomed independently in the tropical paradise of the southern tip of the Philippines, where nature trippers find refuge in the clean, peaceful, pleasant sands of Sarangani. Despite the lack of financial support, she rose from the ashes and strived hard to have a brighter future. My mother did not disappoint herself; she graduated with flying colors. Contrarily, my father, 7 years older than my mother, was born and raised in one of the leading corn producers in the province. A municipality works under the slogan "Cooperative Efforts towards Peace and Progress." The difference between them is that my father had his full support, financially and mentally, from my great grandparents and his parents. He may have his family's full support; this does not change the fact that he needs to strive hard, more complex than he ever did before, to provide a bright future for his own future family. He succeeded. Graduated with flying colors.

The heartwarming affection of the two lovebirds that both have been showering upon me and my older sibling had put us in a pedestrian where we felt safe and protected from the monsters lurking in the dark, waiting for an opportunity. Both had opened our eyes and let us witness how big, and scary the world would be. How one's life can quickly be taken without any caution. This is the reason why on every holiday, free time, or even just a random day, our family would come together, have a simple buffet to catch up on each and every one. Since then, feasting and having yakiniku on a simple day has become a custom in the family. But one must take note that because our clan had a mixture of Spanish, Filipino and Japanese traditions, a simple day and buffet may often be complicated for a new guest. Since day one, as a daughter of a man who was born with parents that was introduced to different countries customs and traditions, we were taught Spanish rule such as to always keep your hands visible when eating; keep wrists resting on the edge of the table, one should not expect dinner any time before 9pm, and when invited to a home for a meal, it has become customary to give the host or hostess a gift: a good bottle of wine, dinner, sweets and/or a dessert. As for the Japanese, we have applied 'bowing' in our daily life. Bow in times of greeting someone or apologizing, asking a favor, or making a request. We also say "let's eat" instead of "itadaki-masu" before a meal. But, growing up in the Philippines, I have learned to be resilient, flexible, adaptive and put my family at the center of everything. Culture is likely compared to an onion; it has many layers, taken from different roots but puts the spice in our life.

The influence of my family guided me in my journey with God as my sole compass. Although I may not realize it at the time, they made a difference and changed my life in a way I never could imagine. To think that they have a profound effect on my life forever is truly a blessing. It is because I've learned some of life's best lessons and often even learn a bit of myself.

In another way, in my journey, I have come to terms and wholly believed that everything that happens in one's life all happens for a reason, and sometimes that means we must face heartaches to experience joy. I may have been filled with comfort and care from my family, yet I still do experience difficulties, especially becoming a woman where I need to depend more on myself rather than on my loved ones; it has been a chaotic phase for me, where friendships run amok, setbacks are commonplace, and even I, who is one of the fortunate children out here still wanders through the woods for own self-discovery. However, at the age of 17, where the world has become unsafe due to the pandemic, it has become more difficult for me to navigate through the tides of my own everyday life. Eventually characterized by circumstances that ultimately shattered the notion of having a complete grasp on my self-identity, where instead of spending my time finding out who I am, I struggled with survival, always fleeing at the sight of danger. Yet, with everything that is happening- the pandemic, rallies, government negligence, and so on have let me exercise my power as a citizen, as a youth, and as an individual. Yes, I am young, but I know what is right from wrong. I'm not stupid. Speaking up against something that I know is inhumane and shouldn't be tolerated by anyone is beyond scary. This is why activism is never for the weak because fighting for what you believe is right takes courage, a lot of that. Frightening and life threatening. But I did it anyway. My parents did not raise a coward. I respect others as we all have different opinions on everything. Mine is way different from others, and others differ from mine. I am allowed to voice out mine as much as you are allowed to voice out yours. If you choose to close your mind and eyes, shut your ears and mouth, it's okay. If I decide to speak out, it's okay, too. All of us are encouraged to speak out, but we're never forced. It's a matter of choice. And this is what I will choose. Always.

I am not halfway through my journey. I am still blossoming. But throughout my whole life, my entire journey, I've established my self-identity solely from the influences of those people and circumstances around me, adapting pieces of passers-by that arouse my interest until their significance vanishes into the wind, and my brain prepares itself for another gust of inspiration. In each road, I take, with its bumps and thorns that often strips my innate understanding of who I am by replacing images with ideas of how I should be, what I should look like, and how I should live out my life had let me discern that only by walking through its bumps and enduring the thorns when I can genuinely reveal the innermost workings of my most natural self and adapt on my whole persona, instead of allowing the road itself change and dictate how I should be.

Nonetheless, I choose a life that will be an endless journey of self-discovery, an infinite collecting of portions of myself hanging in the mist just waiting for my palms to reach onto the pieces. Perhaps someday, I will have a full grasp of my identity as a person and find my niche and establish a foundation upon which to cement my self-identity. Yet, until that day arrives, I will persist with my self-discovery through the fog of danger, threats and challenges, and maybe I will emerge from the shadows with a triumph in my hands. My submersion into this journey has only just begun, and I will not relinquish hope in the face of defeat.

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bedssleepscience · 4 years ago

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Mattress ‘Facts’ You Should Stop Believing Right Now

Shopping for a mattress at a bed shop can be one of the most agonizing experiences, from pushy salespeople to an overwhelming number of options to not actually knowing what you need in the first place. It's so easy to end up with the wrong one, but it doesn't have to be that way.

The Huffington Post spoke with Jay Orders, the co-owner of a popular mattress manufacturer in the USA, to get a better understanding of what we really need to look for when we hit that bed shop showroom floor. His family has been in the mattress-manufacturing business since 1931, and he's worked in almost every part of that process in a factory setting to be able to separate the hard product truths from the marketing myths.

"People come in with a list of specifications because there are so many things out there about mattresses that they read," Orders told The Huffington Post. "A good mattress is something most people don't know a lot about: How it feels, the quality of the construction, the quality of the materials used, the final product. There's a lot of information out there, and it's hard to trust some of it. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors."

Myth #1: You must, must, MUST get a pillow-top mattress because they make the most comfy beds EVER.

"I always get requests for things that don't make sense," said Orders. "For instance, people always ask for a pillow-top mattress, and when I ask why, they say they heard it's supposed to be a softer, nicer mattress, but none of that's true. I have to explain to them it's just a marketing gimmick."

This is a common misconception created by different companies looking to distinguish their products from their competitors. But Orders claims that the same plush feel can be achieved with a traditional mattress design, despite how boring that may sound. It's moreso about the structural integrity of the mattress. And if you want to create a fluffy princess bed, there's nothing wrong with topping off a solid, standard mattress with a cushioned pad of your choice.

Myth #2: No biggie -- one size fits all.

Try again. Why would one mattress feel the same, offer identical support and last the same amount of time for a 50-60kg woman and a 110-120kg man? Simple answer: It wouldn't.

It seems to be a growing trend among new mattress companies to try and cut out the complicated distinctions that come along with a catalogue of different models, and make the case that all mattresses are essentially the same. But it's still important to factor in things such as a person's natural sleeping position, any sleeping difficulties or disorders, their age and weight, and general preferences from previous mattress experiences, according to Orders. All the aforementioned factors are measured scientifically to recommend the best mattress for your sleeping requirements, by a very innovative bed shop, Bed King.

Myth #3: You're most definitely going to get the total value (and then some) of that lifetime warranty.

"When most companies say 'lifetime warranty,' they're referring to the materials inside the mattress, which really isn't a warranty at all," said Orders. "It's saying as soon as this mattress is worn out from normal wear and tear, it's no longer covered under warranty. It's very vague and can get very expensive."

The National Sleep Foundation recommends changing your mattress every seven to 10 years, regardless of any outstanding warranty. That's the most important detail to keep in mind. How long your mattress will last depends on several factors like usage and its original quality, but generally speaking, it's gotta go after that 10-year mark. It won't provide you with much support and comfort after that.

Myth #4: There's no such thing as a proper bed setup without a box spring...

Unless your bed frame still uses slats for support, you do not need a box spring, according to Orders. Box springs were first invented to help absorb shock since mattresses themselves were so much thinner back then. Nowadays, all box springs really do is just raise the profile of your bed. So again, if you're going for the princess look, start stacking. Otherwise, it's just an additional, unnecessary cost. All you need is a solid platform underneath your mattress for support.

Myth #5: Giving your mattress a test lie-down on the showroom floor is enough.

Believe it or not, the only real way to test out a mattress and make sure it's the one for you is to actually sleep on it. (Mind blown, right?)

This fact is key when it comes to shopping with a mattress company that offers both a reasonable trial period and return shipping rates in case the one you choose initially ends up not being the perfect fit. Some companies don't offer trials at all, and others' return pricing can get pretty steep. Either way, don't just sneak in a catnap in the store and call it a day here.

Myth #6: There's a reason these people are selling mattresses: They're SLEEP GENIUSES.

Sorry folks, it doesn't take much sleep expertise to work as a mattress salesperson. And just like many others in the trade, they work on commission, says Orders, which is why in many retailers, they tend to push the higher-priced options the hardest.

When it comes to gaining the best mattress insight, Orders recommends finding someone you really trust and discussing your needs and concerns candidly with them. Product reviews online can also be a great source of information that is worth a read. Keep your eye out less for brand names and more for quality materials, because that's what's ultimately going to help you sleep well at night.

Myth #7: If you have a bad back, you'll regret not buying a hard, firm mattress.

"We get this one a lot," said Orders. "People think that it's going to provide the best support, which isn't necessarily true. Your spine has a natural curvature, so the optimal sleeping position is to have your spine as close to that natural curvature as possible because it creates the least amount of pressure."

Sleeping on a mattress that is too firm creates aches and pains on pressure points rather than catering to that curvature, leading to a night full of tossing and turning. It's important to pick one that supports your head, shoulders, hips and feet all in proper alignment. Those who struggle with back issues need to pay particular attention when shopping to find the fit that's both supportive and comforting in all the right places.

Original article from: https://www.huffpost.com/

#bedshop #bed #bedking

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sacriilegious · 5 years ago

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Alexandra Wallace Smith's Idea of Privacy

My sister is placing. All the ladies in our circle of relatives are. My Aunt Magdalene turned into noticeably beautiful too. They have spitfire personalities. Daddy, you already know, you of all recognize my hurried notes, the journals that I have kept from childhood persisted to beyond, the journal, the rejected novel, the reckoning, the poems that I've scribbled, misplaced, that time and electricity and ego forgot. Then there are the black Croxley notebooks. I am determined to keep that far from you, and from the relaxation of the arena for appropriate Custom Made Jewellery Muirhead wounded me. I reflect onconsideration on all his ladies within the workplace space in Johannesburg earlier than I came domestic to my youth home in Port Elizabeth frightened to demise of falling pregnant. Having a child out of wedlock. Becoming a single figure and raising a child by myself with very little money. I infrequently made any money or had an earnings to aid a child. How they included him, laughed at his jokes, how they positioned him on a pedestal, how they worshiped him, how they sat contrary him in fancy Johannesburg eating places consuming their cabernet or merlot. Thinking girls, beautiful women, ladies with teenagers, naivety and sexual inexperience (even though the sexual impulse, the sexual force changed into there) on their side. How he winded hem up as though they're electric dolls. I heated up the livers, mushrooms and bacon, the leftovers, scrambled the eggs and listened to the morning information at the radio. The bus coming in from Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg had flipped into the air off the highway. There have been no fatalities. The plums had been juicy and candy. I would shop them for lunch. I sat on the kitchen table, buttered my toast, drank my lukewarm coffee, crossed my legs, scratched my knee absentmindedly and stared out of the window. The breakfast's grease became caught to the pan. I should overlook about it. And the more conscious I have become of the sky, the surroundings, the internal, the extra conscious I became of who created the invention, vision, dream, purpose, and quit of this line of sky, of blue, of this creator, this tortured poet, this chook?

I felt his hand intimately as if it became a dream and then nothing. I felt ashamed.

The dream girl after leaving Johannesburg become a female. She returned to the coast, to her father's residence, her mother's kitchen, her mother's know-how and the thrones of her childhood continued, to the art of a coronary heart undone. She again to the coast wherein water could be discovered in wild locations, where tides were problem to change, to the area in which she spent astounding blue hours staring up on the sky. She had her books. Her index finger would linger on the spine in her father's grand have a look at, his library, and his 'London revel in'. The house was dilapidated. It become in a terrible manner. The tiles were falling off the wall in the kitchen. The partitions wished a lick of paint. The interiors were in need of restore. The entire residence had to be renovated. The dream woman had again. The dream girl changed into additionally decided to exchange. She additionally desired to be heroic, angelic and magical.

Writing approximately grief is one of the maximum difficult things I have ever had to do. Nerves I may want to fathom as I stood in the front of them however what I definitely wanted to do was break out. Everybody constantly speaks about the miracle of lifestyles at a funeral. When dying will pay a go to there's no apprehension about discussing what tune to play when the coffin is diminished, what hymns could be played, what verse might be read out of the bible, and who will make the potato salad.

Ocean of beads. Not supposed to remaining lengthy on this lifetime or the following. The human beings of South Africa are like that. My metropolis is a dignified city packed with church humans. In Central you will locate the excellent ladies within the international. They will detach themselves from feminism, and the tigers that come at night, their rivals in a finite time and place. They are moneyed. Drugs have destroyed the very artwork of their soul. Every gram of their spirits have wasted away. Muirhead. Flesh have come earlier than you and after. The most tremendous elements of you portioned off like booths in an office area. Tell me everything you want me to be I would have said in my twenties. This doesn't must be the cease of it but it is. It is. And still I say let it now not be so. So comedian. So tragic. I stand on this ice house. In this residence from hell. Pale. The origins of smoke and mirrors, the cosmic bloodlines of my imagination, can be visible thru the embodiment and timeline of my flesh.

Paper skinny skating on ice is what I've yearned for my whole existence. Not to fail, no longer to discriminate, however to create artwork in the panorama of suicidal despair and infection. All poetry and poetic justice seems to ask folks is to have a determined lust for lifestyles. I still need to familiarise myself with rituals that I determined so comforting in formative years. Norma Jean in which are you, where do you discover your self now, who're you and what's that golden mirrored image staring lower back at you? Is there something extra seductive than madness, than being blonde and being desired via the world at massive, to be quiet approximately your philosophy on life, your starving ambitions to be a creator and a poet? To triumph like you've got triumphed Norma Jean is to laugh inside the face of ladies and men, of presidents, of feminists, to snicker inside the face of the adversity that they've confronted. No remember how short, how solitary ecstasy is one cannot get away its urgency, its survival guide, that stain of love no matter how effective and fresh it might be, how dwindled it would make you experience ultimately, you may discover that that enjoy was worth it. I left the madness and the warmth of the city in the back of me in my early twenties. It will leave you beautifully grown now.

The universe is sweeter, purer, more honourable and I am much less haunted, less ghostlike, much less obvious, baffled by using denial. I can't erase the precious of existence anymore and the fragility of it. How overwhelmed and petrified my spirit once become. Am I, changed into I ever without a doubt cherished? The women round me in life, inside the place of job, in the sphere of instant circle of relatives have been introspective cohorts. I am exhausted of writing about preference and this is the reality of the problem because in a few manner it's miles invincible like scrapbooking on something at the inked tattooed patchwork planet that you stay in. I've become a primitive lady in green areas, green feasts of them, and foundations of winter bushes of them. I've end up an invention of a current girl. The invention of the width of the thread of the other girl in a land that point forgot. What are the lyrics once more to that track? What are the traces that time forgot in that magazine on the ones cold, harsh blue, blue traces? I am bored with feeding the beasts galore however mustn't angels usually be defended? Who or what in essence defines an angel? An angel is the unseen, the invisible proper and nobody can hardwire your brain like God can.

And what's desire clearly? Smoke and honey inside the dance of anger, intimacy, duplicity and deception and the eternal obsession of all the ones things. It is supposed for the gamine, the ethereal, and the otherworldly, the magical female. The adolescent. Children are intended for women and what occurs whilst you like writing approximately demise. For me I fee remarks on demise, on eternity, on the paradise of heaven, the recognition-thinking in wishful wondering, the curious creatures that volcano human beings are and the numerous faces of saints. I've constantly believed in angels. The living preserve on living even as the useless flip to dust. There's a dismal aching, a canvas on which to play on, the haunting ache in my brother's soul is the equal ache which I actually have in my own. There's a ghost country in my head. The colleges, the rooms, and all the white walled interiors of my creativeness. And if I close my eyes I can believe all of our contours and the blue sharp light poured into the cages of the heavenly sky. The lover and the mother and the drowning blossom that turned into me. Dirt swimming-swimming in a watery spool gene pool of garbage. The death of a pet and a poet painting this elusive international with lucid notion styles.

Does decay, blood and the dark every get lonely and the groom with the unspoken passion he has for his bride? The bride in her wedded bliss. In her not possible excessive-heeled shoes. So I turned into there in spirit. If fish kissed oxygen they would surely die. Their pomegranate gills snuffed out of lifestyles. What are the grains of poverty? Where do they lay? Are they sequestered? Their souls lie in South Africa, possibly even take root there. Roots tapping into the existence of the soil, the way of life of the earth, tapping into the weight of water, or squalor (whichever it reaches first underneath the instances), preserving the fragility of phones as lifestyles buoys, unspecified social media is the new attractive, tapping into non secular poverty, the cemeteries of poverty, of the bone-worn-out. What sweetness! The unknown comes with anticipation. The anticipation of the awareness of wonder and the prying eyes of society. Where does my soul lie? It lay with you for a while I bet. Sated bride, uninvolved girl, splendor assembly the beautiful middle of a masculine identity, and the physical frame of a mysterious wellspring of the intelligence of the other of sexuality.

Alone, given way to spiritual abandonment, inhibitory nostalgia and the holiest of holies privacy, and with the solitude status that comes with intimacy I think about you. You burnt via. You not anything but a burnt and melted fragment but nonetheless dispelling radiance. You just like the crested burnt end of a matchstick. Sooty cinders inside the fireplace. Cinders from the coal. Cinders and smoke out of your freshly lit cigarette. Give me mouth to mouth resuscitation so I can be brought lower back to lifestyles, your life. I assume that the only thing that genuinely mattered in the long run, and that was product of a substance that would be harvested from the cells of a everyday reality turned into in the steps of Jean Rhys's haunting vulnerability. The haunting vulnerability of all ladies. I can see it in their eyes, their manner they hold themselves responsible to shielding themselves from being placed on show if it isn't always on their phrases, the long road of their guarded pilgrimage into humanity, spirituality. Gods to be made from their reflections inner of the searching glass. I marvel the way to prevent stammering. How to break out into letter-writing. If I can not get away into love, its poetic grace, mercy and use.

Into wincing at its threshold of pain and yet comprehending it on the identical time. Comprehending the solar, moon and superstar cloth, the summer season's son and his empire. And so starts offevolved the letter to a brother in rehabilitation. Brother and anchor. The 'filthy distinct' ceramic little Buddha pottering around. You have been the anchor that cemented me, my symphony, my instrument, my not unusual intention, my oracle, my passion. You have been my one direction to observe homeward bound. What is living inside the heart is this. The partitions of a garden made of brick and mortar, stone and everything this is recovery. Winter bushes and Whitman. It is time for the display, finding Isaiah within the gritty switch of the loophole. Why didn't you come once? Why did not you write once wholesome specimen of possession, what's the tragedy of all of it but are you glad, refreshed by using all of the seeds, roots, flora and stems? I stared and stared on the picture of him and questioned on the tragedy of it all. Speechless earlier than the image evaporates completely something takes location and shortly the whole thing unearths its vicinity on neutral floor, in gravity, on earth or in soil. There is not any promise within the death of the solar most effective the angelic, the whispers underfoot.

There is new life in flowers, in love, in empathy and the passion that humanity has for empathy. Everything frail earlier than it's far misplaced. Lost to the darkish. What is black and what is darkish? Is it one and the equal? The odor of cinnamon and bark. Salt and light. The coloration of the day, dawn breaking into fragments. The stillness of the air. What are you made from Mr. Muirhead? Skin and bone, flesh and tissue, a succession of the bodily melting away round you for your immediately surroundings? The noise for your head, in that rush, can you experience it to your blood, that instance of possession. Where to from right here from following a street map into the complicated intrigue of a sheltered youth endured, and there I discovered love. In the behaviour of an artist at work, the supply of communique, the self-portrait of human capital, the whole lot heightened when it is illuminated as an example visions of the cosmos disintegrating, collapsing beneath meteors on film. Drawings of earth's destruction, the bride of technological advancements, the use of the psychological framework of what came before the humanity as we knew it as children and as we get older, come to be human beings with our very own ideas to again up our values we trade, and we trade the arena around us. We have Sci-fi to thank for that, Kubrick and Spielberg.

'Do not lecture me. You do not know something approximately my scars.' My brother tells me. He says it together with his eyes too and I see a wild blue sky. Its adventure is electrical in which its routes have emerge as as critical as the locations of a diamond inside the hard. Through the searching glass's façade comes the primary harm, the poetry of my early twenties. Every circle of relatives is dysfunctional in their own manner. We stay in a traumatic society. I appear to had been born with this intuition to be considerate and sensitive, know-how and being concerned to others who seem to be in a less privileged role than I am but it has include a rate. My brother with his cigarettes, stale smoke and moustache and the younger woman on his arm who herself is a fragile beauty. They are each stuck up in contemplative noise. They have discovered themselves best to fall among the celebrities. So I am left in mourning for what has been misplaced for both of them. A adolescence.

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canihldthemic · 5 years ago

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The Transcendence of Stereotypical Norms in Media Texts

Since I was a young girl, my mother always made sure to raise me in diverse settings in hopes to develop my adaptability skills and well-roundedness. All of my life we lived in an African American upper-middle-class neighborhood in Washington, D.C. I went to schools in low-income areas like Anacostia and wealthy areas like Georgetown. Although my mother had good intentions with her school choices for me, I struggled to find my identity in both of these settings. I found myself posturing and conforming to what I thought was acceptable; even then I felt like an outcast. I was always asked about my hair and “why it looked like that” or asked, “why I talked so white”. These issues of shifting and isolation are not uncommon among Black women in America. We are constantly trying to fit into molds or break out of the ones cast for us. This is especially hard to do when society’s understanding of us is formed by stereotypes reinforced by the media. There are hundreds of examples in contemporary media where negative stereotypes of Black femininity are portrayed. However, in recent years there has been an increase in more dynamic depictions of Black femininity. One example is found in the 2018 film Bad Times at the El Royale, where character Darlene Sweet transcends the traditional tropes of Black femininity.

Bad Times at the El Royale is a neo-noir thriller film that follows the stories of seven strangers who meet in a mysteriously isolated and run-down hotel in 1969 Lake Tahoe. Each character has their own motives as to why they found their way to this whimsical hotel and as the plot develops the viewers are able to understand the complexities of each character’s narratives. First, we meet Father Daniel Flynn who is introduced as a priest but is actually a bank robber named Dock O’Kelly who came to the El Royale to recover money he stole 10 years prior. Next, is Laramie Sullivan Seymour, who is an arrogant vacuum salesman who doubles as an FBI agent that came to the El Royale to recover surveillance devices from the hotel. Then we meet Miles Miller, who is the hotel's only employee. By the end of the movie, it is revealed that he is a traumatized Vietnam War sniper who has killed over 100 people. Lastly, is the twisted cult escapee Emily Summerspring who kidnaps her younger sister, Rose Summerspring (who is under steadfast control of the sadistic cult’s leader, Billy Lee). The hotel itself also has a very bizarre past as it used to be bustling with high profile celebrities and politicians, but behind closed doors, hotel management would record their guests’ sexual encounters and sell them. As the movie’s plot develops the viewers are able to understand the depth of each character and all of their grueling pasts. However, there is one character who provides hopeful relief to this gory film, songstress Darlene Sweet. Unlike her fellow characters, Sweet’s identity remains the same throughout the film. This does not take away from her dynamic role in the film's plot and her robust personality. Initially, the audience is able to understand her as a former background singer who is traveling to Reno, California to fulfill her dreams of being a lounge singer. Sweet is full of poise, wit, determination, and modesty. Ultimately, Darlene’s character challenges tropes widely portrayed by Black female characters.

There are a number of oppressive myths that are constructed and circulated which contribute to how Black women are seen, understood and classified. Three of these myths include Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire. Each of these myths are rooted deeply in slavery and the social, economic and political persecution of the Black woman. Jezebel suggests the myth that Black women are sexually promiscuous and irresponsible. It reduces the value of the Black female to the efficiency of her body. The Mammy myth speaks to the social limits of Black women during slavery which categorized them as domestic, loyal, motherly, and overly-submissive. The Sapphire myth portrays the paradox of unwavering strength in Black women; often characterizing us as unfeminine, invulnerable, angry and loud. These stereotypes maintain the social foundations that uphold white supremacy and patriarchy within this society. It is important for both Black women and other demographics to see representations of Black femininity that challenge the typical architypes of Black women. Darlene Sweet’s character is the perfect example of this challenge. Her character does an outstanding job of being, “neither a martyr nor a magical negro. Neither a mammy nor a jezebel, nor is she a token or a helpless damsel. She is smart and cautious and ready to fight, but only if she has to. And this is a refreshing sight compared to how we normally see Black women written and conceived of in films … especially as the sole Black character” (Brown, 2018). Throughout the film, Darlene Sweet encounters many of the microaggressions, stereotypes, and the oppression experienced by Black women in America every day. Nevertheless, her reactions to these experiences display her character as transcending the tropes historically portrayed by Black women in media texts.

In the second scene of the movie, Darlene Sweet and Father Flynn meet Laramie Sullivan in the lobby of the El Royale as they wait for Miles to check them in. As aforementioned, Laramie is very arrogant and narcissistic and this is unwavering throughout this scene. He does everything from belittling Darlene by referring to her as “girl”, to forcing a cup of coffee in her hand after she insisted she didn’t want any (Goddard, 10:44), then suggesting that she was a prostitute when she didn’t want to room near Father Flynn, “Miles! She doesn’t want to room near the priest. It’s not like we didn’t see her walk in her with her own bedrolls under her arms”(Goddard, 16:35). All throughout Laramie’s microaggressions, Darlene held her composure, focused on what she came to the hotel for and remained respectful (however, only to those who deserved it).

In the scene titled “Room Five” (Goddard, 35:10) the audience gets an in-depth look at Darlene’s backstory. The scene opens up in a recording studio, where Darlene is one of three background singers. During her recording session, she decided to insert her creative genius into her background vocals by adding unrehearsed runs to the melody of the song. Immediately, the producer of the record label cut the recording to have a private meeting with Darlene where he gave her an ultimatum, “Darlene, I think you have a choice here. Give me one year of your time and I can make you a star…. or you can continue to treat my time as disposable and keep scrounging for back up gigs until they dry up”(Goddard, 38:51). In this scene, Darlene’s male counterpart is constantly divulging his power by waging his job against hers in hopes of intimidating her into submission. Both the lobby scene and “Room Five” scenes reflect the constant oppression Black women face socially and professionally, whether in passive (Laramie) or aggressive (the record producer) ways. Darlene does not use loyalty, submission, ignorance or cooning to make the situation less uncomfortable in either scene. Instead, she uses calculation to focus her intentions and actions. The end of “Room Five” alludes to Darlene quitting her job as a background singer so she could focus on saving money to fund her career as a lead singer in Tahoe; her dream is realized in the final scene of the movie.

The relationship between tropes in the media and ideologies formed in society is circular. On one hand, we internalize what is portrayed of us and work hard to prove these archetypes wrong. On the other hand, we work hard to conform to what the greater society considers normal. However, focusing on characters that transcend the widely circulated stereotypes of Black femininity, like Darlene, can teach both Black women and the rest of society valuable lessons about the true essence of being a Black woman. Characters that transcend historic caricatures teach us that we can be both attractive and smart, driven and feminine, opinionated and poised, challenged and respectful, Black and talented.

In one of the closing scenes, when the plot reaches its peak, Darlene, Miles and Father Flynn are being held hostage by Billy Lee when she says, “ I’m not even mad anymore, I’m just tired. I’m just bored of men like you. You think I don’t see you for who you really are? A fragile little man preying on the weak and the lost” (Goddard, 1:57:00). Darlene’s relentless words to the man who has her life in his hands is parallel to the perspectives many Black women have across the nation. Those who have power hide behind their titles, gender, and race to oppress Black women on all scales, but many Black women take Darlene’s approach and refuse to submit to them. Black female leaders like Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Audre Lorde, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and hundreds of others choose to step out of the molds cast for them every day for the sake of Black femininity. In conclusion, more realistic representations of Black women in media texts are essential to making opportunities and respect equivalent across genders and races.

References

Goddard, D. [Director/Producer]. (2018). Bad Times at the El Royale [Motion Picture]. USA: Goddard Textiles, TSG Entertainment, & Twentieth Century Fox.

Brown, S. J. (2019, April 16). The underrated brilliance of cynthia erivo as darlene sweet in ‘bad times at the el royale.’ Retrieved October 21, 2019, from The Black Youth Project website: http://blackyouthproject.com/the-underrated-brilliance-of-cynthia-erivo-as-darlene-sweet-in-bad-times-at-the-el-royale/

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jessemichaelspoetry-blog · 7 years ago

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“Here I Am” - Genesis 45 and the Revelation of the Personal

Link to relevant passage:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+45&version=KJV

Chapter 45 of Genesis describes a turning point in the Joseph narrative in which the exiled hero breaks down and discloses his true identity to his astonished brothers. Joseph is coming of age as a leader of Israel through a personal confession to family members. By shutting the Egyptians out of the room and telling his siblings "come closer to me", the great dream interpreter adds brotherly intimacy to his earlier display of emotion, sealing the deal and throwing in his lot in with his true people. (Gen. 45:4) Whether these events are taken as mythology, revelation, or historical fact, they raise a critical question: why does the author choose a moment of relative vulnerability (weeping and forgiveness) to convey Joseph's coming of age as a national patriarch? Other Old Testament figures come into their own through military, shamanistic and political means: David slays a giant, Jacob wrestles an angel, and Solomon becomes king after a court intrigue. In contrast to these displays of will, Joseph's ascendancy takes place when he lets his guard down. This emotional candor is not an accident. Vulnerability, forgiveness and a tendency for family closeness are esteemed values which show a person or a people's humanity. The author of Genesis 45 uses the events of this chapter to show Israel's humanity as a nation.

The first major indicator that Joseph can be taken as representative of Israel is that Joseph is a favored younger son. Like Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon, he bucks seniority and ascends to patriarchal primacy. The favored-younger-son archetype may be connected with Israel's biblical status as a new nation and an underdog. When Joseph commands his now-obedient brothers to bury him in the homeland, saying "When God comes to you, you shall carry up my bones from here," the author ties Joseph to the divinely-appointed national picture. (Gen. 50:25) The second signifier is the amount of space that the Joseph narrative takes up. E.A. Speiser has noted that "It is at once the most intricately constructed and the best integrated of all the patriarchal histories" (Speiser, 269). This intricate construction is facilitated by the story's length - Joseph's tale is the longest patriarch narrative in the Old Testament. Finally, along with his father, Joseph is the officiator of the national legacy. Although he resides in Egypt, Joseph is elected to be the foremost witness for the blessing of the 12 tribes. This may be an E-document addition designed to promote the Northern-kingdom line, but Joseph's importance still withstands (in other words, it may be a later embellishment of the original Joseph story, inserted for political purposes).

Once it is understood that Joseph is emblematic it can be shown how his story in general, and Genesis 45 in particular, depicts a uniquely human nation. As stated before, "human" in this context means bearing the qualities of vulnerability, forgiveness and a tendency for family closeness. This sense of humanness is really brought home when Joseph breaks down and cries in Gen. 45:2. "And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it," the narrator states. Far from being a sign of weakness or isolation, the author ties Joseph's weeping to vast political and spiritual power and to the fate of Israel as a whole. After pulling himself together, Joseph says to his brothers "God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and the lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt" (Gen. 45:2). Later in the book, Joseph weeps on the necks of his father, his favored younger brother and his still-suspicious older brothers at least two times each. When he is not weeping he is consolidating power and determining the fate of his generation. Through this pairing of tears and worldly action, the author conveys the sense of a people who excel because of familial intimacy and emotional candor rather than in spite of it.

None of this is to say that Joseph is a sentimental or soft-hearted being. Before disclosing his identity Joseph punishes his brothers relentlessly through his imperial personae. Later in the book he subjugates the people of Egypt to their Pharaoh through a series of economic maneuvers which, though ultimately helpful, are harshly opportunistic. Thus Joseph is complex and should not merely be viewed as a kind-hearted dreamer. These things noted, two subtle moments in Genesis 45 show cracks in Joseph's armor of political potency. The first takes place in Gen. 45:15: "And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him" [italics mine]. Up until this point the only time Joseph's brothers have knowingly spoken to Joseph has been with hostility, when they reproached him in response to one of his early dreams. In the extreme economy of Biblical narrative, this moment of loose talk shows that restored intimacy is important enough to the author to include among nationally relevant details. This informality is echoed when Joseph admonishes his brothers in Gen. 45:24 to "not quarrel along the way" back to Canaan. Joseph's statement conveys his new authority but also shows familiar sibling rapport. In both the above examples, the author of Genesis 45 paints a picture of a family man who, in spite of all that has happened, has refused to disown his kin. By extension, Israel is shown to be nation that can take time to bond and forgive, even in royal settings with much at stake.

In Genesis 45 Joseph pays back his brothers' viciousness with great generosity (albeit after scaring them a bit) and this quality of mercy is thematic for the rest of the Joseph narrative. After informing his brothers that he will settle them in Goshen, Joseph goes far beyond familial obligation when he also tells them to "Give no thought to your possessions, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours" (Gen. 45:20). The author goes out of his way to show Joseph heaping graciousness on his shiftless brothers. This tendency reaches its zenith in the last passages of genesis when Joseph responds to his brothers' fear of retribution by saying "Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today." (Gen. 50:19,20,21) Here, Joseph addresses his brothers' terror, conveying empathy. Next, he says he is not God, conveying humility. Finally he deflects their guilt by attributing it to God's plan, conveying mercy. This suite of compassionate values is extrapolated to Israel as a whole when Joseph states that all that has happened was intended for good "in order to preserve a numerous people." Joseph is describing a divine plan but because he is the plan's hero, he is also demonstrating it. The very mercy he is displaying becomes a general quality of the people he is talking about.

When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers in Genesis 45, the revelation has multiple levels of meaning. Political alignment, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the rules of patriarchal succession are all issues at play. These things being noted, the unique life of Genesis 45 lies in its insistence on the personal. Joseph and his brothers are depicted by the biblical author(s) as human beings rather than liturgical placeholders. Even the brothers' bickering and jealousy mark them as fallible, natural actors, especially when contrasted with the behavior of the "good" brothers Joseph and Benjamin (Rueben may or may not also be included in this "good" list). As Speiser notes, "Other aspects, to be sure, are in evidence here and there, yet they are never allowed to distract attention from the central human drama...what has come down is a richly personal document" (Speiser, 292). When Joseph begins the work of reuniting his family he tips off a process which is as much emotional and psychological as it is national. By extension, Israel is shown to be a people who value feeling as much as strategy, community as much as religious law. This point is driven home when God speaks to Jacob during the father's journey to reunite with his lost son. "I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again; and Joseph's own hand shall close your eyes" (Gen. 46:4) In this "vision of the night," Israel's deity announces to Jacob the end of a tragic cycle of separation with the tender image of a son at his father's deathbed. In this way, the author shows that the discovery of the real Joseph is a sacred matter. Human closeness, rather than a distraction, is a pillar of the divine mandate. Ultimately, the human aspect of Genesis 45 is what makes it a foundational chapter in the story of an entire people.

Works Cited Coogan, Michael David., Marc Zvi. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print. Speiser, E.A. The Anchor Bible: Genesis. New York: Doubleday, 1964. Print.

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