#i actually love redman so much

[beachyserasims]

My little cousin is opening for Redman & Method Man today at the Calgary Stampede!!

[septemberlikestea]

big shadow of the erdtree final boss spoilerful thoughts. really long and rambly read!

a problem i have is that i LOVED how miquellas story unfolded and how well it fit in with most of my previous thoughts about him. like that hes kind and has truly noble and good intentions but doesnt completely refuse to use force if pushed (his charm to subdue any ill intent towards him, malenia serving to enact violence on his behalf), the curse extending beyond eternal youth to twist his fate into dangling his full potential just out of reach all the time (failing to save malenia from the scarlet rot, failing to either revive or fully kill godwyn, the haligtree failing to grow into a new erdtree, failing to bring in a new age because we kill him, etc) and that he truly does tend to make others do work for him (likely because of his eternal youth and therefore fragility). it was so compelling to me.

the fresh revelations about him i also enjoyed so thoroughly (how his charm actually works, st trina, how he truly sees the world the way a child does - there is injustice and thats unfair, everyone should be kind to everyone) and the way the messages of the crosses slowly went from him abandoning his flesh to abandoning aspects of his very being... i havent played dark sauce three but making him act as the lothric of the final boss is also very interesting because i do very much enjoy how these games take old concepts and play with them like dolls. its very fun and a unique way of storytelling that fromsoft can do with how rich their game history is.

somehow i did not find myself terribly upset with the lack of mentions of malenia (even though its still a bit.. hmm the way malenia cannot be mentioned without miquella but miquella... can. and is mentioned without malenia) due to how miquellas journey seems to have taken him to the rauh ruins and romina, who accepted and embraced the rot? im a little confused about how dryleaf dane is a summon for her even though hes on miquellas side but tbh the followers of miquella do some pretty misguided things because they want to be closer to him. im still inclined to believe romina could be an ally to miquella or at least agree with his philosophy - she guards the sealing tree that protects him in enir-ilim. she is compassionate, reaching out to the abandoned pests and aeonian butterflies to comfort them. miquellas statements on the order he intends to bring (the age of compassion and love) doesnt say anything about the rot, because the rot itself isnt inherently cruel or loving. it just is. and there isnt any obvious sign of conflict between miquella and romina that i found - and it ties in interestingly to how miquellas cut dialogue for malenias phase transition says "let all things flourish, whether graceful or malign." which always read to me like he is accepting that he cant help malenias scarlet rot beyond what he already did, now choosing to love and embrace her even as she becomes something other than herself. of course, cut dialogue is cut dialogue, but i find that it does offer some insight into the direction miquellas story could have taken and possibly did take.

...but i just cant get over how much of an asspull radahn 2 was like 😭 i did the questlines and i suspected he was going to be there from the dialogues (i still believed the leaks were fake because lets be real. he did look very modded) and i can KIND OF look back and see that there were things that MAYBE served as foreshadowing in the main game... like the st trina items in caelid or the lilies by redmane castle and that the true reason for the battle of aeonia was never wholly clear. i wont count the trailer whisper because that could have been anything. like i KIND OF can get behind the fact that radahn, being a sorcerer and a son of the greatest sorceress to ever live #1 queen rennala, would have a primal glintstone and therefore a soul that is quite friendly to being moved from body to body. we have at least two examples of this occurring, from characters with stories that involve quite a bit of body hopping and also are related to radahn being slain - ranni (his SISTER!!) and sellen (who is the character that introduces the concept of properly switching bodies).

so rannis body is made in her mentors image (though likely the face isnt the snow crones) but even if it wasnt - its a manmade puppet that can be made into anything. it also doesnt look anything like rannis empyrean body, being small and blue. sellens bodies are also puppets and we see that they dont suddenly morph in appearance to fit her soul - her old and new body have different hair colors and facial features. they look like her because they were made to look like her!

so why!! does radahn 2 look absolutely nothing like mohg!! the tiny horns on his arms are the least mohg thing he could have - mohg didnt have horns there!! where are mohgs horns that poked out his eye? where are the wings?? why is he so yassified. like.. hello... we established with ranni and sellen that the newly inhabited body doesnt change to look like the soul. if anything the soul itself might change to fit the body - rannis spirit face doesnt match up with her empyrean bodys face. what the hell happened there.

miquella was not established to be able to give makeovers to people, i dont think. like thats not a thing he was ever stated to be able to do in main game? but he can do that now? what happened? the intent seems to be that radahn 2 is a younger version of radahn but why is that... is it miquellas eternal youth applying to him now too? is he doing some twin prince curse sharing that makes his and radahns age even out? why is he wearing his old armor though.. and if radahn 2 is the idealised version of radahn from miquellas childhood memories im just a little confused why that is. was war enthusiast radahn really so reclusive that miquella never saw him since then? was miquella too busy to go to caelid? were all paintings of radahn property of rykard, even though rykard also seems to have interacted with miquella to some degree? i feel like the reason why radahn 2 looks the way he does is very much lost on me.

i feel like the already bad perception of radahn 2: electric boogaloo i got from having the buildup be so scarce in comparison to the other final boss (elden beast admittedly is a little twist boss but radagon is VERY well established through your whole journey, you learn so much about him as you go) combined with the fact that hes literally being dragged from the grave of his pretty complete story to be here... was made so much worse with his design. wouldnt it have been so much more enjoyable if he was a little... you know... fromsoft freaky. like good ole ludwig the horse-man abomination. or the one reborn. or godrick. or putrescent knight. ???

like even the fact that shamans had flesh that had the property of being able to fuse with others contributes little to explaining why radahn 2 looks the way he does - there shouldnt be any radahn flesh? alexander ate it armor and all? its just his soul in there? argh.

and the fact that omen horns disappear on death (sometimes! aka with morgott, mohgs literal twin. doesnt seem to work this way for other cruicible horned beings?) doesnt seem to be related here because radahn 2 HAS horns. and also two eyes. did he just... always have little horns under all his armor? why is this being revealed now.

also what kind of kindness did radahn have... kindness towards sellia? towards his horsey? the cut description of his cat? he is described as a general, his armies love fighting and war. hes godfreys #1 stan, and godfrey killed soooo many giants for being.. giants. waging war was so central to godfreys being that losing the opportunity to fight made him worthless to marika. he is loving towards dead morgott and that doesnt make him a kind person. radahn being a person and capable of experiencing love doesnt make him a kind person!! what did i miss!! i dont really think there was a retcon but i definitely think that something is really really lacking with this specifc bit.

to close this off ill say that initially i full-on hated the boss reveal. both how it worked as our first meeting with miquella and radahn 2. my feelings have settled a lot since then! but while reviewing miquellas story made me feel satisfied with his arc, i am really really struggling to enjoy radahn being... there. and he definitely is just There. he exists. doesnt say anything. with how little influence he has on the dlc plot i feel like they could have just cut the middleman and kept mohg around. would have honestly worked well enough with the formless mother influence everywhere. though frejya would probably have to go with radahn and that would suck. is it worth having an unsatisfying boss in order to have a very enjoyable npc? i dont know what to think.

also the vessel and lord thing is really adding a new layer of "???" with godfrey. is he also possessing a body that wasnt his??? is there some deep lore about how godfrey is the soul but hoarah loux is the body??? god. i dont know. i dont know.

i do expect that my opinions will inevitably change somehow as time goes on and i find more connections between things... but after 2 weeks of digesting the lore im still not liking how this all turned out.

TL;DR: i love miquella but why is radahn there.

[columboscreens]

i was asked recently about my top three and top ten columbo murderers who i think most deserved their fate. after wrangling with the tumblr post editor undoing my text changes and fucking up my photo placement, i finally finished the post. everything looked good in the drafts, in the queue, and in the blog preview.

then for some ungodly reason tumblr published the rough draft version of the post i'd written weeks ago anyway. i got so frustrated i yelled expletives and nuked it. so i'm starting anew. without further ado,

here are the top ten piece of shit columbo murderers who absolutely deserved it:

justin rowe & cooper redman, columbo goes to college: truly, i hate these two scum-sucking motherfuckers the most. they're brats, yes, but look at the absolute dogshit stakes at hand. all the other murderers in this show are killing for true love, power, multimillion dollar fortunes, careers of great prestige--usually for that upon which they've staked their entire lives. these two tar pits blow their professor's brains out because they Got Bad Grades, which was their fault to begin with! they bully columbo mercilessly. i can't even look at them without wanting to throttle them

dr. barry mayfield, a stitch in crime: though his reasoning for murder starts out with at least some comprehensible amount of dignity, he quickly devolves into one of the most evil murderers of the series, not only by trying to off his research lead, but for causing so much collateral damage. he kills his nurse for knowing too much, sure, but killing her poor vietnam vet ex who's trying to shake his perc addiction while working at the petting zoo is…almost comically evil. it's no wonder columbo gets visibly fed up with his shit.

commissioner mark halperin, a friend in deed: god this guy is such a huge piece of shit. he's a spectacularly corrupt cop, covering for his friend's manslaughter and then using it as an excuse to drown his own wife for her money--to make it worse, his wife is somehow an absolute sweetheart angel darling who spends all her time working with underpriviliged children and people of color. then he's dumb enough to let columbo, the star detective with a 200% solve rate, work on the case, while also openly disparaging and discouraging him. utterly contemptible.

nelson hayward, candidate for crime: in typical politician style, so plastic and two-faced that he's not even a real human being. cheats on his adorable wife with a 20-year-old floozy and then gets mad at his clearly fantastic campaign advisor for wanting him to get a grip and fix his fucking marriage. then he shoots him about it. then he tries to make everyone think he's in danger--and he's such a rutting, lying pig that his own wife clearly believes columbo more than she believes him.

sean brantley, columbo cries wolf: i'm not sure if there exists a more smug columbo villain than sean brantley. uniquely repugnant in that he uses and abuses columbo to generate a media frenzy, then mocks and embarrasses him on international television. uniquely moronic in that when he actually DOES do a murder he hides his partner's body in…his own wall? with her smart watch still attached to her wrist. actual dirt man

dale kingston, suitable for framing: total piece of shit who always thinks he's the cleverest person in the room. says the absolute dumbest shit about art all the time; as in, literally everything that comes out of his mouth makes you want to curbstomp him. the girl who loves him gets kind of scared about being an accessory to murder, so instead of being reassuring in any capacity, he brains her with a big rock. this man deserved impalement

paul galesko, negative reaction: starts off the episode SO sympathetic when we see how bitchy and abusive his wife is, then immediately vanquishes all sympathy by being the most annoying, insufferable fuckhead at all times. fucked around with yet another 20-year-old floozy, killed an ex-con who was trying to rebuild his life, and planned everything poorly. is terribly mean to columbo…

milo janus, exercise in fatality: a complete fucking slimeball with vanishingly few redeeming qualities. kills a guy with his bare hands for even suggesting cooked books and then taunts his estranged widow about it by...asking her to fuck? (in all fairness--he has to maintain Quality. when he grows? you grow). it's no wonder that columbo loses his shit and yells at him

emmett clayton, the most dangerous match: seldom talked about in these conversations but he is so smug and killed one of the least deserving columbo victims because…he's a massive fucking coward who is incapable of losing. pathetic! get over yourself! plus this guy was like Ooo i am so Extremeley Jeanius but when columbo diverted his attention for like five seconds he lost to a fucking fool's mate. literally the quickest way you can lose a game of chess. real bobby fischer swag you big goofy ass bitch. grow up moron

harold van wick, playback: just the most abrasive fucking asshole the entire episode. insufferable proto-tech bro who is mean to beautiful radiant sweetheart gena rowlands and not even in the smug columbo murderer way, just an old school ableist/misogynist who openly says shit like why should i allow my dumb disabled wife to Make Decisions. doesn't even pretend to be nice to columbo at any point and not in the charming robert culp way. loathsome garbage heap of a man.

honorable mentchies go to jack cassidy nazi magician, evil french chef, pedophile johnny cash, weird italian polycule artist, and both william shatners. fuck you

[annabolinas]

Anne of the Thousand Days Review: Part 1

Alright, so I got around to writing this review, and boy do I have some hot takes! Fair warning, though; this is so long I'll need to post this in two parts.

“For six years, this year, and this, and this, and this, I did not love him. And then I did. Then I was his. I can count the days I was his in hundreds … In all one thousand days. Just a thousand. strange. And of those thousand, one when we were both in love, only one, when our loves met and overlapped and were both mine and his. And when I no longer hated him, he began to hate me.”

Where do I even begin with this review? I disliked this movie when I first watched it, and after a rewatch, I still dislike it. Anne of the Thousand Days is a tedious slog of a movie which somehow both has a fundamentally weird premise and forgets its own premise at times, especially in its marketing. The poster for this movie claimed that it showed “the most passionate and shocking love story in history!” As we’ll see, though, it’s hard to claim this depiction of Henry and Anne have a grand love affair when they only mutually love each other, at least in Anne’s telling, for one day.

Anne of the Thousand Days started as a Broadway play in 1948, written by American playwright Maxwell Anderson. With Rex Harrison as Henry VIII and Joyce Redman as Anne Boleyn, the play was a critical and commercial success, running for nearly 300 shows. However, as it dealt with themes of adultery, illegitimacy, and incest, Anne of the Thousand Days ran afoul of the Hays Code, so it took over two decades to be adapted into a movie. Most of the blank verse of the play was removed, many scenes were expanded into two, three, or four, and Anne was given a monologue about Elizabeth’s future greatness to shout at Henry in the Tower. Richard Burton was cast as Henry, and the virtually unknown French-Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold was cast as Anne. Burton’s wife Elizabeth Taylor feared the two were having an affair, so she managed to obtain a cameo to keep an eye on them. Taylor had actually lobbied for the role of Anne, but at 37, she was deemed too old for Anne, who (following the scholarship of the time) aged from 18 to 29 over the course of the film. One can only wonder…

The movie follows the basic outlines of history, with a heavy emphasis on “outlines”. The opening scene is of Henry agonizing whether to sign Anne’s death warrant, as we soon transition into a palace ball where Henry falls for the vivacious and charming Anne as his sober, pious wife Catherine of Aragon despairingly looks on. He orders his chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, to break up Anne’s relationship with the “Northern clodhopper” Harry Percy, much to her fury. She vigorously resists Henry’s advances, her resolve only strengthened by her pregnant sister Mary, who gave in to Henry and now carries his child. Mary prophetically warns, “The moment you’re conquered, he’ll walk away.” Despite Anne’s utter refusal to return his feelings, Henry continues to “love” (yes, the quotes are necessary) Anne, and eventually proposes divorcing Catherine and making Anne queen. She accepts, but unfortunately, political circumstances abroad combine to make it clear that the Pope will not grant Henry a divorce. Having fired Wolsey for his failure to get the divorce, and encouraged by his new chief minister Thomas Cromwell (and to a lesser extent, Anne) to break with Rome to get his way, Henry does so. After a tense confrontation, Anne finally tells Henry that she loves him, and they sleep together; she soon becomes pregnant and they’re married in a shotgun, bigamous wedding. 

Anne is reviled at the coronation, but despite Henry’s hopes and Anne’s promises, she gives birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. Henry is furious and his eye begins to wander towards Anne’s lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour. Anne is furious and demands that Henry make everyone swear an oath recognizing their daughter as his legitimate heir on pain of death, leading to the execution of Sir Thomas More. Anne promptly miscarries a boy and Henry, believing his marriage accursed, orders Cromwell to find a way out. Cromwell soon trumps up charges of adultery with five men, incest with her brother George, and treason, which lead to Anne’s arrest. At her trial, though, Henry suddenly (and ahistorically) bursts in and manages to get the only one of the five who confessed to admit he lied under torture. Henry is still unsure of whether Anne is guilty, and he confronts her in the Tower. Anne utterly refuses to agree to an annulment, even if it means her death, and lies to Henry to hurt his manhood, declaring that she cheated on him with countless men, finding them far better lovers. For good measure, she then proclaims, “Elizabeth shall be a greater queen than any king of yours. She shall rule a greater England than you could ever have built! Yes - my Elizabeth shall be queen. And my blood will have been well-spent.” Henry promptly signs her death warrant and Anne is beheaded by a French swordsman, the movie ending with a shot of the toddler Elizabeth walking towards her destiny.

Incredibly, I did like some stuff about this movie. The costumes, designed by Margaret Furse, are exquisite and mostly accurate; if nothing else, this movie deserved its Best Costume Design Oscar. Even the fact that Genevieve Bujold’s French hoods nearly always lack a proper veil doesn’t matter, in my opinion, since she manages to pull it off. The coronation procession was absolutely stunning, and the recreation of the Tower of London is incredible; they really minimized the distance between Tower Green and St Peter ad Vincula, though. Despite not using surviving Tudor pieces, the score, composed by Georges Delerue, manages to evoke the period really well. 

Concerning the performances, I loved Anthony Quayle’s depiction of Cardinal Wolsey, as he goes from a self-assured, powerful man to a broken, fallen minister. His final scene is heartbreaking, and Quayle humanizes him throughout; even when he breaks up Anne and Harry Percy, he doesn’t seem thoughtlessly cruel. John Colicos’ portrayal of Cromwell as “a man without scruple” is a delightfully villainous characterization, a schemer who owns up to his villainy and revels in manipulation. 

A review of Anne of the Thousand Days, of course, would be incomplete without a discussion of Genevieve Bujold’s Anne Boleyn. While not one of my top three favorite Anne Boleyn portrayals (for the record, Natalie Dormer, Dorothy Tutin, and Claire Foy), Bujold does a good job with Anne. She compellingly portrays Anne’s growth (and increasing ruthlessness) from a lovestruck teenager to a fiercely protective mother, as you can see her grow and harden over the course of the movie. She also captures Anne’s boldness and vivacity of spirit well, although sometimes to the point of straining credulity. Would the real Anne have maintained Henry’s love if she told him at the start of their relationship, “You’re spoiled and vengeful and bloody. Your poetry is sour and your music worse. You make love as you eat - with a great deal of noise and no subtlety”? It seems very unlikely. Anne’s frank declaration to Harry Percy that she’s not been a virgin for a long time additionally seems very incongruous with the historical Anne. Bujold’s acting, too, sometimes feels not just theatrical, but overly artificial and overdone, particularly when she has to express anger. Still, the fact that it is hard to imagine this Anne captivating Henry for seven years is not Bujold’s fault - she performs well the script as written - but that of the writers.

Unfortunately, this is the part of the review where I must tackle the things I disliked about this film. Equally unfortunately, there are quite a lot of them. The elephant in the room is Richard Burton’s depiction of Henry. In both history and popular depictions, Henry was and is the center of his court, someone who shifted from passionately loving Anne to furiously ordering her death on false charges; in any depiction of Anne, he is the other main character. Put bluntly, Richard Burton gives perhaps one of the creepiest portrayals of Henry VIII I’ve ever seen. While not worse than Ray Winstone’s portrayal of Henry as a marital rapist, Burton portrays Henry as a serial sexual harasser and predator. He combines the real Henry’s unshakeable belief in his own self-righteousness with a seedy lustfulness which will stop at nothing, not even claiming he’s only sexually potent with the woman in question, to get into a woman’s bed. There is little trace in this portrayal of Henry’s intellectual or cultural pursuits, and even the times when he exhibits bonhomie feel forced and fake. Furthermore, at only 5’8, Richard Burton is half a foot shorter than the real Henry, meaning he lacks the physical towering presence of the real man; he thus doesn’t physically stand out from his courtiers. In fact, Anthony Quayle as Wolsey is two inches taller than Burton; a screen Henry ought to tower above his courtiers, not vice versa!

Anne of the Thousand Days also completely misunderstands the history of the period, changing it in ways that not only make no sense plot-wise, but which indicate the writers genuinely did not understand the period. Some inaccuracies stem from changing historiography - despite being named after Anne Boleyn, the movie portrays a less politically active Anne than more recent depictions like The Tudors and Wolf Hall. However, this lack of emphasis was the result of the historiography of the time tending to minimize Anne as a political figure; only in 1986 with Eric Ives’ seminal biography of Anne would attitudes change. The inaccuracies I object to are ones which betray a lack of understanding of the basic nature of the history. I’ve already mentioned one of these inaccuracies (Anne admitting to Harry Percy that she’s not a virgin), but there’s several others. For example, Henry is seriously conflicted about breaking with Rome, stating that it would mean “everlasting damnation” and result in his soul being cast into Hell. However, this fundamentally misunderstands the real Henry’s character. When he decided on a course of action, it was not only incredibly hard to dissuade Henry from it, but he often became increasingly convinced of his own self-righteousness. As a pious early modern king, Henry would not have broken with Rome had he harbored as many doubts about its morality as he does in Anne of the Thousand Days. 

Moreover, the Act of Succession in the movie is passed only after Anne agrees to bring Jane Seymour back to court from a (fictional) exile in Northumberland. Henry himself states that “One daughter is much like another. I care not who’s named bastard when I’m dead.” As this Anne points out, this version of Henry is declining to enshrine their daughter’s legitimacy in law so he can sleep with another woman. Unsurprisingly, this did not happen in real life; the real Henry, no matter how much he wanted a son, would not have shot himself in the foot by doing this! To not pass the Act of Succession wouldn’t just harm Elizabeth, but any children, including a son, he had by Anne; Elizabeth, after all, was only heir in lieu of any sons. These are serious departures which go beyond artistic license and veer into a real lack of historical comprehension.

The biggest (and most absurd) inaccuracy, though, comes in Anne’s trial and resulting confrontation with Henry in the Tower. First, Anne is allowed to cross-examine Smeaton, who is brought in, along with her brother George, during the course of the trial. But this greatly downplays just how rigged the real Anne’s trial was, as in real life, no witnesses were called. Even if they had, it is incredibly unlikely Norfolk, who hated his niece in history, would have let her cross-examine them. But then, any semblance of accuracy, realism, or even sense is sacrificed wholly on the altar of drama as Henry himself enters and gets Smeaton to confess that he’s innocent. If this had happened, there would be no reason for Henry to execute him, like Burton’s version promises he’ll do. Moreover, as Smeaton was the only person (both in history and the film) who confessed, retracting his confession would mean there were no witnesses, which would have torpedoed the government’s case against Anne and the men. But Henry does this and then proceeds to mutter, “And yet… it could be true,” which is only explicable in the film if he genuinely thinks Anne is guilty of adultery. The problem is that Anne has never flirted with any of the men on screen; she’s never talked to the ones aside from her brother at all! This means that the accusations of adultery come out of left field, a failure of writing which leaves the viewer wondering where on earth that came from.

PART 2 HERE:

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Now That's What I Call Music! 9 2002 Pop / Hip Hop / R&B / Teen Pop / Alternative Rock / Latin Pop / Southern Rap

Alright, folks, it's time for another fun trip down memory lane, and today we're going back to 2001 and 2002, with the help of the 9th volume from the most pervasive contemporary pop compilation series that's ever existed in US history: the one and only Now That's What I Call Music!

But first, before we..."Dig In"...let's get a dose of some of that good nostalgia with the ad for this release, shall we? Did you know that if you ordered it over the phone by credit or check/debit, you'd also get a free multi-purpose picture frame-mousepad too?! Wow, so cool! 😎

Anyway, being that these sets more or less serve as documentations of what the pop music landscape was like during a pretty specific time period, what this CD seems to demonstrate, in retrospect, is that the teen pop that had really dominated the late 90s was on a bit of a downturn in '01 and '02, and its status as the most prominent type of pop music was being usurped by hip hop and R&B.

But that's also not to say that all of the teen pop on here is of a low quality either, because *NSYNC's "Gone," which was the first track of theirs to ever be fully led from start to finish by Justin Timberlake, is really one of the greatest boy band tunes that's ever been made. Minimal, but emotional, and its bridge, specifically, is spectacular 😍.

Outside of that bit of brilliance, though, the R&B and hip hop tunes are just a lot better. And to me, the song that really stands out among the rest within this whole collection is Ginuwine's "Differences," a terrific slow jam that featured some incredibly shimmering and ringing keys. Normally, I don't go for slow R&B ballads, but this one in particular was really something special.

And there's also some bangers on here that you might've just flat out forgot ever existed too. Like, remember that New Jersey co-ed R&B/hip group, City High, that gave us "What Would You Do?" back in 2001? Well, do you remember their follow-up hit that featured Eve on it, "Caramel"? Its remix, by prolific New York duo Trackmasters, seems to be on that vague South Asian fad that so much mainstream hip hop and R&B was on at around that time, and it received a considerable amount of radio play. But looking back on it, I think it's actually been pretty memory-holed!

Also, we gotta give it up for Petey Pablo's ode to his home state of North Carolina too, with "Raise Up," because the Egyptian-sampled beat on that thing was absolutely bananas. And I can't say that I'm all that fond of much southern rap, in general, but Petey's debut hit was an absolute monster. Rather than him having to sacrifice any of his rawness in order to reach a pop audience, he was able to bring his rawness to a pop audience instead. And clearly, it resonated with a whole lot of folks.

And lastly, I think we all know that Ja Rule wasn't the greatest rapper out there, but his contributions to the turn-of-the-millennium pop landscape were pretty important. He got clowned on harshly by the likes of 50 Cent and Eminem, et al, and, as a result, his career was pretty much eviscerated, but songs like his Stevie Wonder-sampled "Livin' It Up" were straight-up party jams that really deserve more love and respect.

So, another highly enjoyable rush of radio and music television memories here. A bunch of commercial classics and a smattering of jams that are a bit more forgotten too. It's pretty much all you can ever ask for out of one of these Now CDs 😊.

P.S.: I'll provide a link to it, but for the love of god, under no circumstances should you ever subject yourself to the first track on this album, which is a remix of P!nk's "Get the Party Started" that features Redman and tries to mesh itself with "Sweet Dreams," by The Eurythmics. Apparently P!nk thought that her hair gave her enough power to also possess the essence of Annie Lennox or something, but good lord, was that calculus completely wrong 🥴. Such an excruciatingly bad song! Don't click on it!

Highlights:

Mary J. Blige - "Family Affair" Jennifer Lopez - "Ain't It Funny" Ja Rule feat. Case - "Livin' It Up" Ludacris - "Rollout (My Business)" Mr. Cheeks - "Lights, Camera, Action" Petey Pablo - "Raise Up (All Cities Remix)" City High - "Caramel (Trackmasters Remix)" Nelly Furtado - "Turn off the Light" *NSYNC - "Gone" Ginuwine - "Differences" Lenny Kravitz - "Dig In" Incubus - "Wish You Were Here"

[blasphemousclaw]

you talked about radahn the other day, and while he's not my main elden ring focus i still find him very fascinating. one thing I'd like to mention is that radahn didn't really seem to have affiliations apart from his own thing in caelid. his faction used fire, which is against the erdtree and prior to the shattering warranted exile, and they use sorceries as opposed to GO incantations. as you said there are also abductor virgins, with the symbolism of snakes and them also considered erdtree traitors. if you go to redmane castle before the radahn festival you'll find both a misbegotten warrior and a crucible knight, beings hated by the regime, defending the castle. even jerren comments on them as if they were a part of his forces afterwards. godskin followers exist alongside his soldiers in his own divine tower, whereas everywhere else redmanes are shown in conflict with the environment. the tower even houses GEQ's sword.

(notably, godskins show up at 3 respective locations important to the carian siblings, but that's another discussion)

in previous versions of the game lore, radahn was known as the giant slayer - that is no longer likely to be cannon given the change of the timeline since, but it is something to consider when you see how much he idolizes godfrey currently. personally i think he may have held beliefs in the primordial crucible, which would explain his adoration for godfrey, as the crucible knights followed the old elden lord, and the variety of creatures employed in his army.

in addition, there's no proof of this, but i like to think tanith's crucible knight was sent by radahn, perhaps after rykard got devoured, for her protection, as rykard himself doesn't really have crucible ties.

I can’t believe it never occurred to me to connect these dots, I think you’re absolutely spot on that Radahn has ties to the crucible! Since the crucible knights directly served Godfrey, it makes perfect sense that Radahn would want to make use of them too. You’ve summed up everything really well, but I have one more potential connection to add:

There are only three colosseums in the game, and one of them is in Caelid. The description for the ritual sword talisman implies that the colosseums are “arenas where ritual combat took place” which occurred during the age of Godfrey, but “died out by the age of King Consort Radagon.”

The crucible knights actually have a connection to ritual combat as well—Ordovis’s sword is nearly identical to the ritual sword talisman…

…so I think it’s meant to be the same sword, which was used in ritual combat. This links Godfrey’s knights with the colosseums.

I wonder if Radahn sought out the colosseum when he relocated to Caelid? There isn’t one in Radahn’s native Liurnia, since Godfrey never conquered Liurnia. It certainly seems like Radahn would be into the idea of ritual combat, especially if it’s an old practice related to Godfrey… just a thought!

Anyway, all of these details that you mentioned emphasize that Radahn isn’t necessarily loyal to the current erdtree regime (as a lot of people seem to assume), and that emulating Godfrey matters much more to him than religious affiliation.

also I LOVE the theory that Radahn sent the crucible knight for Tanith!!!

[roseunspindle]

What I Read in June 2024

reread, and I really need to get more of this series. It's so cute.

So creepy and crawly for this volume in the series. *shudder*

Didn't even know about the newer American Girls, I really liked it.

I hate Apollo in this series so much. Interesting to see how Ares reacts to be turned down by Persephone. Also Hades and Persephone's longing for each other is also adorable.

Finally have a physical version! Reading on webtoons is fine but I prefer actually being able to hold what I'm reading.

Time to meet Aximili!

I love the anime so I decided to check-out the manga...the boobs are little absurd, but over all I enjoyed it.

Found books 1-4 of this series at a local thriftstore and couldn't resist starting book one (I'm a sucker for pretty covers) I really liked book 1 it was my kind of thing.

This was really cute.

Stumbled across the anime on youtube and couldn't resist at least getting volume 1. I love Gerard and Clotho so much!!!

Saw a bit of the anime on youtube and again, couldn't resist getting the manga adaptation.

Continuing my isekai obession... XD

really interesting read, does use the term "redman" often for native americans, but not other noted dated langugae and good information. ^_^

[marshallmatherslptwo]

Eminem: Hip-hop saved my life

"Can y’all hear me? I can’t hear me. Can you hear me?

"This s--t’s crazy. So I wrote some s--t down tonight that I’m never going to f---ing remember, so I had to read it off the paper and s--t, but it’s from the heart. I realize what an honor it is right now for me to be up here tonight, and what a privilege it is to do the music that I love, and the music that basically saved my life.

"Where'd the man, where did Dre go? The man who saved my life, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. motherf---in’ Dre. So I'm going to try to make this as quick and painless as possible. I’m f---ing stuttering and s--t, I mean Jesus Christ.

"So I’m probably not supposed to actually be here tonight because of a couple of reasons. One of them that I’m a rapper, and this is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And there’s only a few of us right now that have been inducted in already, but there’s only a few of us.

"Secondly, I almost died from an overdose in 2007, which kind of sucked. Hailie, plug your ears: because drugs were f---ing delicious, and I thought we had a good thing going man, but I had to go and f--- it all up and take too many. God d--n. OK Hailie.

"OK, so. Hold on, I lost my motherf---in' spot. Paul, did I say, I said drugs were delicious, right? And finally, I had to really fight my way through man to try and break through in this music, and I'm so honored and I'm so grateful that I'm even able to be up here doing hip-hip music, man, because I love it so much.

And they say you won't work a day if you love your job and s--t. This part I'm not crazy about? But, OK.

"My musical influences are many, and they say it takes a village to raise a child. Well it took a whole genre and culture to raise me.

"They say success has many fathers, and that’s definitely true for me. So whatever my impact has been on hip-hop music, I never would have or could have done this s--t without some of the groundbreaking artists that I'm about to mention right now.

"And this is a list man, I put this list together yesterday. And I kept adding to the s--t, adding to the s--t, and if I forget anybody, I apologize. But these were my teachers right here:

"I'm gonna start with the 2 Live Crew, 2Pac, 3rd Bass, Alliance, Apache, Audio Two — Milk Dee, what up! — Awesome Dre, the Beastie Boys, Big Daddy Kane, Big Pun, Big L, Biz Markie, the Notorious B.I.G. of course, Black Moon, the Boogie Monsters, Brand Nubian, Brother J from X Clan, Buckshot, Casual from Heiroglyphics, Chill Rob G, Chubb Rock, Chuck D and Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, D-Nice, Dana Dane, De La Soul — now I’m about a third of the way done.

"De La Soul, did I say De La Soul? Def Jef, Del the Funky Homosapien, DJ Quik, Dr. Dre of course, Dres from Black Sheep, Ed O.G., EPMD, Fat Boys, Fat Joe, Fu-Schnickens, Gang Starr, Geto Boys, Heavy D, House of Pain, Ice Cube, Ice-T, the Intelligent Hoodlum, JJ Fad, Jaz-O, Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Just Ice, K-Solo, Kid & Play: I'm a tenth of the way done.

"King Sun, King Tee, Kool G Rap, Kool Moe Dee, KRS-One, Kwame, Lakim Shabazz, Large Professor, Leaders of the New School, the one and only LL Cool J — love you bro. Lord Finesse, Lords of the Underground, Mantronix, Masta Ace, MC Breed, MC Lyte, MC Shan, Melle Mel, Merciless Ameer, Mobb Deep, Monie Love, Nas, Newcleus, Onyx, Organized Konfusion, Outkast, Andre 3000, Paris, Pharcyde, Queen Latifah, Rakim, Redhead Kingpin, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, I’m almost done.

"Redman, Roxanne Shante, Run-D.M.C., Salt-N-Pepa, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh, Snoop Dogg, Souls of Mischief, Special Ed, Stetsasonic, now I’m all down to the S’s. Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud, the D.O.C., the Roots, Black Thought, the Skinny Boys, Tony D, Too $hort, Treach from Naughty By Nature, A Tribe Called Quest, U.T.F.O., Whodini, Wise Intelligent and the Poor Righteous Teachers, Wu-Tang Clan and YZ.

"Those were my rock stars man, and I just want to say, like, those are just a few of the names that I hope will be considered in the future for induction. Because without them, a lot of us wouldn’t be here. I know I wouldn’t.

"So that’s all I had to say, man. I know this induction is supposed to be me talking about myself and s--t man, but f--- that. I would not be here without them. I’m a high school dropout man, with a hip-hop education, and these were my teachers. And it's their night just as much as it is mine. So thank you."

Hip-hop saved Eminem's life, he saved mine! Congratulations Em, and Thank You!!

[peculiarwem]

Previously on Disaster

So this is my make up post for the past 237 days. I didn't update but I was reading. I did much better on this front than with writing so Yay!

Biggest update that is a continuation of my last one, I dropped Guards! Guards!. Not bc I didn't want to read it. I just wasn't in the right headspace and also it wasn't the book I was actually told to start with so.

Since the last time I've updated and reviewed books, I've read: The Magic Fish by Tung Le Ngygen, Batman: Urban Legends 1-7 and 10, The Desolation of Devil's Acre by Ransom Riggs, Fence volume 1-4 by CS Pacat, The Vision Omnibus by Tom King, Nubia: Real One by LL McKinney and Robyn Smith, Poison Ivy: Thorns by Kody Keplinger and Sara Kiplin, Fangs by Sarah Andersen, The Miraculous by Jess Redman, Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Louise Simonson and Leigh Bardugo, Doom Patrol Vol 1 and 2, House of El: The Shadow Threat by Claudia Gray and Eric Zawadski, Nightwing Vol 1, Harley Quinn Vol 1, Robin vol 1, The United States of Captain America vol 1, Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale by Lauren Myracle and Issac Goodhart, Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle, America Chavez: Made in the USA vol 1, and Batman: Year One. Roughly 30 books 👍😬 I'll make posts for them. Probably grouped.

My main goal for 2022 and reading is to read fifty books again. I still love reading even if it takes some time or it's few and far between. I should definitely get through most of my physical books because I keep buying them and then not reading them. So Yeah. Thanks for Reading.

NEW GOALS:

Daily: 1634 and 1635 20 Jan 2022 and 21 Jan 2022

~ read

~ unpack my books.

[random-anthropology]

please suggest me some good anthropology books

Here’s a list that I posted before:

Clearing the Plains by James Daschuk - This is primarily a history book about how diseases have impacted the First Nations peoples of Canada but I read it as a supplement to my Medical Anthropology course

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language by David Anthony - Yes, it’s bronze-age archaeology but there’s a linguistics focus too!

Fragments of the Afghan Frontier by Magnus Marsden and Benjamin Hopkins - an ethnography and history of the formation of Afghanistan.  As much as Afghanistan has been in the news over the past decades, I don’t think most of us really understand how the country came to be and why the borders are so problematic for their society.

Mothers and Others by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy - I read a lot of Hrdy’s work for my primatology courses and evolutionary anthropology courses. I enjoyed her writing so much that when I found this book, I bought it as soon as I saw it.

Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer - This was required reading for my medical anthropology course. I don’t think I would have read it on my own but I’m really glad that I did.

Books I want to read: (if you’ve read any of these - let me know how you liked them!)

Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes by Svante Pääbo

Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums by Samuel J. Redman

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari - I’ve actually read this now and I remember really enjoying it but I can’t remember what I liked about it? Probably because I read it while I was jet lagged and had my nights and days all messed up. I do remember that I also read the sequel and did not enjoy it as much.  

Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins by Ian Tattersall

I really don’t have much more to add since almost everything I’ve read since making this list has been Metis history and journal articles for my thesis. But if anyone wants to make additions - I’d love to see them!

[saoirse-lyons]

An Unwelcome Reward (Part 2)

A collaboration between me and @anotherbrokenharte​. In which Lir and Saoirse do a good job and get rewarded for it… or not? Part one found here.

"Fuckin' shite," the massive Roegadyn woman said in a deep mutter once the Lalafell was out of earshot, sauntering over to the chair she had formerly occupied, the wood creaking in protest as she settled onto it. Sprawling back in the seat, she kicked one booted foot onto the table and regarded the two of them with a wide grin. Saoirse drew herself up to attention in her chair as she waited for the woman to speak.

"All right, I'll keep this short and simple, because you both look like you're already several fathoms deep. I head up the Acquisitions division in Limsa, which is where you're headed, if that spurious speech didn't make it clear. To you, my name is Boss Lou, or Redmane -- and you're my new greenhorns. So," she rapped her knuckles on the table and grinned, "we'll get into the details of your assignments once you're in town, but I'll give you the wide view so you're not caught unawares."

"First," she paused to swing her foot off the table and leaned forward, "your main hustle is a long con. Our esteemed leader alluded to it. You're a rich couple, new money, relocating to Limsa to enjoy your ill-begotten gains. Oh, and you're married. Sign the papers before you go." She tossed a folder on the table and leaned back, grimacing. "Seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble if you ask me, but T'sviah was insistent on making it official.” Behind her the Miqo’te grinned in her usual smug way, but said nothing. Lou waved a hand. "I got no patience for these charades. I'm sure you can work out the details of your story on your own, Silver,” she said, glancing at Saoirse. “They tell me that's something you're good at. What's important is that your cover is believable, and that your new rich friends don't suspect what you're actually doing -- casing locations, gathering information, leveraging your connections, operating as an inside man when we need it for a job. Simple stuff. Rich people are gullible."

Folding her arms across her broad chest, Lou began inspecting her fingernails as she continued. "Of course we'll have other jobs for you on occasion. Don't want you going soft on us while you're living the high life. Can't get into much more detail than that, but be prepared for some action. And speaking of that," she snapped her fingers and pointed at Lir, "we've got a suit of your old armor that we'll be returning to you. I'm told it'll be delivered to your flat today. Bring it to Limsa. You'll need it."

Drawing in a deep breath, Lou stretched her massive arms above her head and looked toward the ceiling. "Guh, what else... oh. We're moving you into another apartment. It's a nicer part of the city -- gotta keep up appearances -- but still close to Maelvaan's Gate. You'll continue your studies, Silver. In fact, you're being given a disbursement to commission a new tome. Replace that ratty textbook with something that wouldn't look out of place at a gala. And speaking of money," she leaned forward, pointing her gaze at Lir, "that bank account of yours is locked down. You'll get a monthly paycheck from it. But if you need something from it for a job -- bribery money or hosting a tea party or whatever the fuck -- you come to me and we'll work something out."

Blowing out a breath, Lou rapped her knuckles on the table again, clearly already impatient with how long the meeting was running. "I think that covers it, so before I blow this place, I'm just gonna leave you with some parting wisdom. Silver," she said, swiveling in Saoirse's direction, "you're in Acquisitions now. That's a different game than Shipping. Things can get spicy. You got a taste of that with Onyx Court, I hear. Hope that didn't spoil your appetite. Be ready for more." She paused, eyeing the smaller woman intently. Saoirse didn't reply, merely nodded stiffly as she met the woman's gaze, her expression sober.

"And you," Lou said abruptly. She rounded on Lir, her eyes hard as she leaned toward her. "I'm not gonna sugarcoat this. If T'sviah hadn't pushed for you, I would've been happier to leave you here. I've worked with street toughs from Ul'dah before. Lotta loose cannons looking for any excuse to get into a scrap, or put someone down for lookin' at 'em funny. Those instincts might keep you alive here, but in Limsa, they'll get you locked up, killed, or worse -- they'll cause trouble for the Seal. And then you'll wish you were dead." She paused for emphasis, keeping her intense stare locked on Lir. "When you're in Limsa, I'll be seeing to your training personally. I don't want to hear that you got scuttled before you even got to the docks. There are people in Limsa who would love to make trouble for us, and when they find out you're from Ul'dah, they'll see you as an easy mark. If it seems like someone's trying to get a rise out of you, you don't take that bait. You turn the other cheek. Savvy?"

It took Lir a moment to muster a response, her voice a little stunned still, “I hear ya loud and clear, Boss.” Her eyes flicked to T’sviah as the miqo'te rolled her eyes behind Lou’s back and waggled a hand in a bobbing, obscene gesture of dismissal. Lir’s jaw tightened as she went on,  “I ain’t got any desire to fuck around, so consider it turned.”

Looking satisfied with Lir's answer, Lou pushed herself up from the table. "Ha, well. Had about enough of this heat for another decade." She stretched again, then bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, the floorboards creaking a protest underneath the massive woman. "You two have a week to set your affairs in order here in Ul’dah -- then I'll be expecting you in Limsa. Silver knows where to find us. Looking forward to doing business," she said, favoring the pair with another toothy grin as she gave them a casual salute. "Got a feeling we're gonna make some real good trouble together."

[khoicesbyk]

The Nanny Affair

The Fight.

Author’s Note: This fanfic right here is another challenge thrown down by a skilled writer/sister friend. I once again accept! Talley Ho! *in my Sherlock Holmes voice*

Song and Story inspiration: Ro James-Burn Slow and Sign Your Name-Terence Trent D’Arby.

***Rated: Mature 18+. Contains strong language.

***Bolded and/or italicized words are conversations and thoughts of the characters.

***Characters: Sam Dalton (LI) and Krystal Parker (MC).

***All Characters and names (except MC) are property of Pixelberry.

Current Word Count: 2,600 words.

3:34am.

That’s what the clock on her phone read, when she checked it.

3:34am.

For the third time in 2 weeks; she woke up in the middle of the night, gasping for air, shaking and in a cold sweat because of him. Because she’s being haunted; not just by how much she wants, misses and needs him. But; by how much she wants that night at the gala to happen again.

It has been 2 weeks since everything had happened; between Sam and Krystal. She hadn’t heard from nor seen him in that long. Because; he was either gone before she woke up; or she was already asleep when he got home. She knew he was avoiding her. And the poor girl was starting to crack under the misery.

After finally forcing herself back to sleep; Krystal was up and getting the boys ready for their week long trip, with their grandparents to their beach house in The Florida Keys. They both were excited to go but; bummed that Krystal wasn’t going with them.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna go Krystal?”, Mason asked.

“Yeah, you could even sleep in the Grandpa’s boathouse!”, Mickey quipped.

“After being Krystal smashed, squished, sandwiched, piled on AND pillowed for the last 2 weeks: I need a break!…preferably BEFORE I wind up in the funny farm.”, she said as she helped the boys tote their suitcases to the front door.

“Awwww!”, the boys collectively pouted.

“None of that! You’ll be back before you know it! And don’t forget to bring me some seashells, you two!”, she told them. “I’m gonna miss you two while you’re gone!”

“We’re gonna miss you too! We promise to be very good for Nana and Grandpa!”, Mason said to her.

“Yeah! What he said!”, Mickey told her.

“That’s all I ask. Alright you two! Carter just texted me. He’s outside. Let’s go load up!”, she tells them as she leads them to the car. Before they left; they wrapped her up in the tightest, fiercest and most loving hug, their two little bodies could give. And she gave that hug right back to them. She watched as they pulled off and got misty eyed.

She missed her two sweet babies already.

They are what kept her around. They are what made that house bearable, since their father was seemingly AWOL as of late. And now that they’re going off to Florida for a week; the house seemed colder. Because; instead of 4 people in that house, it was just 2. Her and Sam.

What was she gonna do?

Well, for starters; she was gonna attempt to NOT traumatize herself, by straightening up their room. As she got to their room, she put her headphones in, turned on Amazon Music and let Ro James take her away as she cleaned up.

About an hour after her straightening up; Sam came home. He was coming from the Airpark. He had to say goodbye to his boys; before they left for a week of fun in the sun. After having to put out yet another fire due to the data breach in Milan; he was a mix of flustered, anxious and feeling like he could break something with his bare hands.

Without even thinking, whether or not Krystal was home; Sam went and changed into his gym clothes. He hadn’t noticed she was home until he saw her in the kitchen. She was getting a bottle of water and still had her headphones in. He had no idea what she was jamming to; but it was clear that she was jamming.

At least she was until he scared her by tapping her on the shoulder.

“Jesus Fucking Christ! What are you doing here?!”, she asked as she tries to calm her breathing and heart rate.

“…I live here? I mean the last time I checked; I owned the house.”, he told her as he leaned against the kitchen island.

She rolled her eyes in clear annoyance. She was also trying to hide the fact; that she was loving seeing him in his workout gear. He chuckled as he asked her, “what have you been doing?”

“A little something I like to call: just finished cleaning your kids room. I never thought that; two 7 year olds could traumatize me. Apparently I was wrong.”, she told him.

He grimaced at the thought. “Yeah…I guess I should’ve warned you about that. Remind me to put a little extra in your check.”, he told her. She nodded.

“What are you doing home so early? I thought you’d be spending the day in the office.”, she told him.

“I was. But; I remembered that the boys and my parents were leaving today. So, I met them at the airpark in Gaithersburg then came home and saw you. And here we are!”, he said with a shrug. She rolled her eyes again.

“Headed out for a run?”, she asked.

“Nope. About to hit the punching bag and maybe the weights.”, he told before he asked her. “You wanna join? I could use the company.”

“Sure. I got some steam to blow off, anyway.”, she replied.

After changing into her workout clothes she joined him in the gym. It was pretty decent sized gym. It had a little bit of everything in it, even has a boxing ring and a sauna.

Every so often; she would catch herself looking at him; out the corner of her eye. Sam is gorgeous! Especially whenever his muscles flexed or he rolled his neck and shoulders. She was still royally pissed at him but; when it came to seeing him sweat she couldn’t help but want him.

He was her entire weakness.

After about 2 1/2 hours; they both had worked up a pretty good sweat. She was feeling invigorated. She needed the distraction and she got it. Even if what caused her to need the distraction from in the first place; was in the same room.

While taking a small break; Krystal watched him on the punching bag. He reminded her of her older brother Kelly; who’s a former Marine. He was pretty good. Except for his right hook. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t all that good.

“You need to work on your right hook.”, she told him.

“Huh? I need to work on what?”, he asks her.

“You need to work on your right hook. It’s lacking. Quite a bit actually.”, she replied.

“Well alright hotshot! Since I’m lacking quite a bit; as you put it why don’t you show me how it’s done?”, he asked in a sarcastic tone.

She rolled her eyes, taped up her hands and went to work. When she was finished; she told him, “you have to have better control on your speed. You’ve got the right amount of strength; but your speed is horrible.”

He flashed a small smile. He was both impressed and insulted by her.

“Well…now that you’ve all but insulted my skills; hit the ring with me. Let’s see you in action.”, he told her.

“It’s your funeral.”, she shrugged; before stepping into the ring with him.

When they were across from each other; she asked him. “So pick your poison boss. A boxing match or a little game I like to call: tap or pass?”

“Definitely tap or pass!”, he replied.

“Alright then! Rules are simple. You make other person tap out or pass out.”, she answered.

“So it’s about submission, eh? Works for me! Besides it wouldn’t be the first time that you submitted to me.”, he replied. She wanted to punch that smug grin off his face.

At this point; she was beyond annoyed by and pissed at him. And was full on ready to kick his smug faced ass.

“Like I said earlier: it’s your funeral.”, she tells him before going to one corner; he went to the corner across from her.

“You ready?”, she asks him.

“Let’s go!”, he replies before taking his shirt off. He hoped it would distract her. But; he was about to find out that; when it comes to tap or pass, Krystal isn’t easily distracted.

With Redman’s “Let’s Get Dirty” blasting through the surround sound in the background; the “game” was on. They circled each other; waiting on the other one to strike. Sam was first to strike. A fury of punches and blocks soon followed.

They danced around each other; both looking for an opening on other one. Krystal found her opening and she took it, with a stiff right hook to his jaw. It caused him to drop to one knee.

“So that’s what we’re doing?”, he asked while briefly holding his jaw as he stood up. She merely shrugged and said, “it’s called tap or pass for a reason.”

He simply nodded as he returned fire. She was able to dodge most of his shots; until he got a good one in on her kidneys. He stopped and asked, “are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine! Let’s go!”, she said through ragged breaths.

Soon; punches and kicks turned into takedowns. With each trying to trap and out do the other. He wanted a fight and she was giving him one. But; what they both failed to remember is that neither likes to lose. At all; for any reason. He intensified his attempts to take her down. She was going to lose. He just needed the right time and she thought the same for him.

Like a spider does a fly in its web; Sam finally caught her. He had her pinned face down to the mat, in a sleeper hold with his knee on her back.

“You’re not getting out of this, kitten. I’ve got you right where I want you!”, he whispered harshly in her ear.

“Don’t call me kitten!”, she sneered. She managed to get free but; because that sleeper hold zapped a significant amount of her energy; it didn’t take him long to capture her again.

This time; he had her in another sleeper hold, but with his legs around her midsection. By slightly arching his back; he had the sleeper hold as well as the body scissors locked in. She was going to fight her way out of this. But; the more she tried to move, the tighter that body scissors felt.

“Give up Krystal! You’re NOT getting out of this!”, he growled in her ear.

“The…fuck…I’m…not!”, she replied. She was determined not to lose. Especially; not to the one person, who had her heart and emotions all over the damn place. But! Try as she might Krystal was trapped. Especially after; he shifted his weight slightly; by rolling onto his left side and trapping her left arm. Doing so, put her in a position that all but killed her left shoulder.

“Give up Krystal! It’s over! You have nowhere else to go!”, he told her.

“No!”, she shouted as she struggled to get free.

“Let go Krystal! It’s NOT worth you passing out!”, he told her.

She tried her hardest to try to hold on. But he was just too strong and she was too tired. With; tears full of frustration and fury in her eyes…she finally tapped out.

When he let her go; he felt everything but victorious. Especially when he saw the tears in her eyes; as she tried to put some feeling back into her left arm.

“Are you okay?”, he asked her clearly concerned about her.

“I’m fine!”, she snapped at him as she finally got up off the mat.

“You’ve been off ever since I came home. What’s gotten into you?”, he asked her.

“What would you expect from someone; that you’ve been ignoring for ohhh what is it, two weeks now?”, she replied with a question of her own before walking away.

That’s when the realization hit him like a gut punch. The gala…or at least everything that happened afterwards.

“Krystal wait a minute! Please!”, he called out to her before catching up to her.

“About that night—“, was all he said before she turned around; eyes blazing with heart ache and fury, “don’t okay? Just don’t! You’ve said all you needed to say to me! Or lack thereof that is.”

As she turned back around; she heard three words that she never thought she’d ever hear from him.

“Krystal…I love you!”, he said to her. She instantly froze in place.

“What did you say?”, she asked him. Not because she wanted to get her hopes up but; because she wanted to make sure she heard him correctly.

“I love you! And I’m sorry baby. I’m so sorry that it took me this long to say it to you. I haven’t been intentionally trying to ignore you. I promise you that. But; I realize now that I have been distant. And that’s not fair to you. Look, it’s not that I don’t want to be around you. Because I do. I always want to be around you! Hell I want you! I need you! I HAVE TO have you! I want to taste you! I want to touch you! I want to please you! I want to see you smile! And right now if I’m to be honest: all I want to do is kiss you.”, he told her. She was stunned.

“Are you…are you serious?”, she asks him.

“Every word baby. Every single word.”, he responded as he got closer to her. He pulled her into an embrace; careful not to hurt her already sore left arm and shoulder. As soon as she was in her arms; the dam of emotions she was holding back broke. And she burst into tears.

“If you love me like you say you do; then why shut me out? Why treat me like I’m some dirty little secret of yours? Why keep me at arms length but expect me to welcome you with open arms and heart?”, she asks with tears streaming down her face. He did the one thing; he swore; he’d never do: he broke her heart.

“I should have a response to that. But the truth is; I don’t. I don’t have an answer for my actions towards and about you. Other than; I’m a selfish and self centered bastard who is absolutely crazy about you. I just…God this is hard! Baby; you have to understand that I haven’t felt this way about a woman since, my wife Samina died. When I lost her; I felt like I lost my heart and soul. I did actually. I lost my heart and soul. And I swore that I would never again; love any woman like I loved her. That was until I met you. The day that you walked into my office for the first time; as cliche as it sounds; it was love at first sight for me. And it’s been that way ever since.”, he explained.

She was stunned once again. She just stood there; trembling in his arms as she cried. She finally heard it. He finally said it.

“Sam…”, she managed to say through her tears.

“Yes?”, he replied as he rubbed her back and placed a small kiss on her forehead.

“I love you too.”, she told him.

At that moment; he gave into every ounce of unrestrained and unbridled passion; that he had in him. And he kissed her like his life depended on it.

Because in that moment…it most certainly did.

“Come with me?”, he asked her.

“To where?”, she replied.

He never said a word. He just took her hand and led her to his bedroom.

@lucy-268 @txemrn @choicesficwriterscreations @lovelyladyk88

😘

K.

[popculturebuffet]

Reviews: The Stand: Captain Trips

Halloween Havoc rambles on!  I decided to read a Stephen King Classic via it’s comic book adaptation from Marvel Knights 4 and Afterlife with Archie scribe and future Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sarcasa. A deadly plauge sweeps across the US that kills in it’s wake while the goverment tries to cover it up. Because that’s not at all terrifingly close to home.  But as this pandemic creeps around the US we meet 5 dispearte people with a part to play in what the world becomes after the end: Stu, a hard nosed man who finds himself imprisoned by the government since he was next to patient zero for the outbreak and lived. Frannie, a young woman who finds herself pregnant and dealing with her disaproving mother and the babie’s less than ideal dad. Larry, a would be one hit wonder whose come home to new york to dry out and to let Stephen King go on for several pages about how much he fucking hates new york, because that was important. Nick, a deaf and mute teen drifter who finds himself subbing for a kind sherieff who sadly got the disease. And Lloyd, a dumb criminal who finds himself in jail after a robbery gone bad. And waiting in their dreams and the shadows for his acendency, the walking dude, Randall Flagg, evil itself. Waiting paitently for the soon dawning time of his ascendency. Spoilers and the review itself under the cut. 

So yeah i’m back to doing some comics reviews and I.. genuinely missed it. I did. I just needed to reajdust from doing one issue at a time to doing full arcs as well as get it in my head to do one.  And while I didn’t INTEND to review these, I ended up liking this series, at least for this mini, so much I couldn’t resist diving into them critically.  As for why I decided to read these comics it’s simple: i’ve never read the Stand but always wanted to. No real complex motives: I’ve liked some adaptations of King’s works with It: Chapter One being the reason I finally started watching horror movies after a good decade or two of avoiding them like the plauge, finally breaking down my squeamish cowardly barrier and opening up a greater world. Granted the sequel was a giant balloon parade of disapointment, but I can get to that some other day. Point is I like Stephen King: he seems like a decent enough guy, has had some good adaptations of his works and even the bad ones have some fun. Like this trailer for maximum overdrive where it’ shard to tell if it’s his tragic drug addiction or just him that’s responsibile for that wonderful delivery. 

So yeah, with little options to read the stand and the series out of print, I decided to dive into the comics because they seemed accurate enough from the way reviews had them and frankly before horror films, I really got into horror through comics, with my gateway there being Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s afterlife with archie. Many of you may know RAS, as i’m calling him so I don’t horribly mangle his namem, as the guy behind riverdale, sabrina, which is partialy based off his own sabrina comic and kathy keene, but before he became Archie’s golden boy, he was a writer at marvel, hence these mini series, and wrote the wonderful fantastic four series marvel knight’s 4, which I might cover at some point, which followed the four as they lost all their money and had to live like us normal folks. It’s really fucking good stuff and easily one of the best runs on the characters period. Afterlife with Archie is no slouch either so pairing both guys who brought me to the terrordance of horror seemed like a match made in heaven.  So that’s where we Stand, pun intended: I haven’t read the stand or watched the mini series, only know or remember some spoilers, and am walking into this blind but eager to see what happens. So if your willing to join me on the ride and on my fresh perspective, here’s Stephen King’s the stand by RAS and Mike Perkins.  Now since, at least at this early stage, The stand is divided up by the characters and what their going through as the virus hits, i’m going to cover this character by character, with an additional section on the progress of the pandemic itself and the government response.  Before I dig in I will say there is something I really love here: The Pacing. NOw I will grant it’s slow: By the end of this mini we only JUST meet big bad Randall Flag as the pademic and it’s goverment coverup both kick into high gear.  So why does it work? Simple: The characters. By opening up as the end of the world is happening instead of shortly before or after like most post apoclayptic stories, and focusing on each of our surivivors we get a real sense of who our heroes were before society collapsed as it collapses, and get to really care about them and WANT to see how they react to the end of the world and what they become. It justifies the series, and the book’s , massive length by using that giant stretch of time to get us invested in the cast and really want to see where this story goes. It’s really good storytelling and holds up really well. So with that out of the way, we can dive into the meat of the story itself. And before we can get to our protaganists, let’s get to the plauge itself 

THE OUTBREAK

The story starts with a soldier breaking out of quarantine after getting hit with a miltary virus, infecting his wife and child  while trying to go awol and dying.. thus starting the plauge known as Captain Tripps. It crashes into a small town gas station, where we met Stu, one of our heroes, more of him later and starts to slowly grip the nation as the book goes on.  The Goverment handles making a plauge that will end up dooming the human race.. by pretending it dosen’t exist, supressing the media, and cordening off whole cities and taking them over. An early attempt by the media to get the story out get the reporters shot horribly, and we get to see all the gore in this version. it’s not plesant but it’s a well done sequence. We get an even worse sequence where the general in charge of the facility captain tripps came from seeing tons of dead bodies in the cafeteria from their sceintests failed attempts at a cure, one of which is horribly bloated, and then shoots himself..... yeah I got nothing. Just.. wow. Good horrible stuff. 

So yeah tha’ts basically how it goes: the goverment can’t figure out how to stop it and tries desperatley to cover it up or downplay it instead.. and why yes our own goverment’ sbungled handling of coronavirus, with our own PRESIDENT, in the hospital right now, does make this extra chilling to me thanks for asking!  It SOMEHOW gets worse with the final issue as various media outlets rebel against the goverment  supression with tv, newspaper and radio all reporting on this despite the risk.. that comes true as the goverment STILL dosen’t learn their lesson and kills them all and we end as the virus only gets worse and the president urges everyone that it’s all fine despite teh mass bodies dumped into the sea and to just take some juice. Just.... just..... 

Yes exactly thank you Jon. It’s good stark horrible stuff, I just have no more commentary other than please make it stop. I will say however it’s well done stuff that lets the creeping dread seep in until it really hits fever pitch at the end. 

Stu Redman: 

As I mentioned, we meet Stu very early on, as he’s on site when patient zero crashes his car into a gas station.  Unfortuntely for him this gets him and hsi town swept up to a goverment black site where as seen above, he has no time for the bullshit their feeding him and is in no mood to actually cooperate till they actually talk to them. Which.. yeah it’s entirely resonable: the Goverment is holding him here against his will, refusing to tell him anything and asking to get samples from him. How does he know their not just going to shoot him the second their done with him? He dosen’t and given what we’ve seen this version of the goverment, and hell the real goverment do, yeah. Maybe blind trust needs to be earned rather than demanded. Just saying.  Stu gets his answers, that everyone else they brought in and thus his whole town is dead, and they don’t know how to stop the virus.. and that they don’t know where it came from but as the above makes clear, that’s a load of garbage. So Stu relcutantly and grumpliy coperates. He’s basically if Ron Swanson got freaky friday’d into nick millers body. 

Stu eventually gets taken to a diffrent facility after the jounalist thing and becomes even more coperative, as they start bringing in an armed guard every time someone visits him.. and Stu starts to get even more wary of this shit as it’s very obvious he’s become expendable, he uses those exact words, and by the end of this mini is plotting his escape. He also has dreams.. of iowa cornfields.. and a sinster man in black floating above them.  I like stu a lot: A hard nosed down to earth guy who dosen’t take shit, but is clever enough to know when to bite his tounge and bide his time, easily sussing out both why he’d been moved to a new facility and just how disposable he now is: He’s a man who will fight when needed but knows when to hold back and wait for it. He’s also a nice protaganist ot be our main viewpoint in the goverment sections and is easily my second faviorite. My faviorite is coming shortly. 

Frannie Goldsmith: 

Frannie is a college student who just ended up pregnant by her  boyfriend Jesse. She dosen’t want to marry him despite him offering.. and given his reactions to her telling him this are to whine “but you were supposed to be on the pill”, which she was and gave plenty of reasons why that may not have worked, and then give a loud , what was probably groaning “Aw hell” before proposting.. yeah good call. 

Frannie’s dad takes it well as he’s sad, but he understands and loves his daughter and wants to support her. Her mother.. is a selfish nightmare who bearates her for it, berates her husband, who usually backs down as Frannie is used to at this point, for standing up for her and then just for added terrible points physically abuses Frannie, who is PREGNANT, by slapping her hard. I know that can’t hurt the baby but fucking really.  Thankfully Frannie’s father decides even if he wont’ divorce the crone to stand up to her at least, and points out she really hasn’t been the same since Frannie’s brother died, igorning her up until the pregnancy and calling her out. She leaves in a huff defeated, and Frannie leaves to go stay at a hotel for a bit while tryign to find somewhere to stay, with her mom not wanting to talk to her and her dad insiting she come around.  Given her mother had signs of the virus earlier.. she dosen’t. She dies, Frannie, having come home to help her is devistated and we actually get a devistating if confusing bit as she hugs her dad and talks about eating the pie. Something lost in translation but the visuals cover well enough. And that’s where he story ends, though with a montage in the last issue, which is all we get of htem as the issue is focused on Flagg and the pandemic response instead. Not a bad move mind as it’s easily the best issue of the series, just a note.  Frannie is a likeable enough character, a strong woman who knows what she wants, wants to keep her baby and has decent enough family drama.. if well worn at this point but fraknly the book was written all the way back in the late 70′s so this is forgivable as it probably wasn’t AS common as it is now. Frannie has plenty of personality but her plot is one of the less intresting as it’s pretty easy to tell where it’s going in comparison to the other, more intresting plots going on around it. That said you still connect to frannie enough for it to not feel like a drag on the story and to feel important, so it’s not too bad a section. 

Larry Underwood: Larry Underwood is a musician whose also a bit o fa scumbag, using people and drugs like theres no tommorow and riding high, in both senses, off the sucess of his single.. a title that sums up the 70′s in a nutshell “Baby Can You Dig Your Man?”. Just.. it sounds like a parody song from SCTV... so in other words good job on making a goofy 70′s pop hit title stephen. Respect. 

But yeah a friend of Larry’s seeing he’s hit bottom suggets he had back to new york. Larry bunks with his mom who worries it’s too late for him to change from the scumbag he is now and that only a great catstrophe could do that. 

So yeah obviously it’s gonna, but we’ll likely see that as the series goes on. So mostly Larry’s segment is one incident of him having a one night stand that seems a bit overblown.. I mean it is scummy of him but her screaming “your not a good guy and what not as seen above just seems narmy as hell and utterly stephen king in terms of writing.. but the scene of him trying to convince himself she’s wrong after is really strong. Larry’s self doubt, self hate and wondering if he’s that bad is really strong stuff and really godo character stuff showing he is an asshole who uses people including his own mom.. but also genuinely DOSEN’T want to be that person but dosen’t know how. We also get a crushing bit where he calls for his friend who helped him only to find out not only is the guy in the hopstial but it’s getting bad. As the chapter ends larry looses his mom too.  The one real weakness of this bit is King goes on a bit of an author tract that’s kept via larry’s narration, which by the way I love how the books narration is kept REALLY damn well via the caption boxes, it’s really nicely done and a way to help keep some of the bits from the book while still taking bits out where necessary. It’s a nice touch. But back on point yeah.. Larry REALLY hates new york.. which to me translates as Stephen King REALLY hating new york, and wanting you to know how much he hates new york, how much the city was festering back then, how much of a crap hole it is, how it farts turds during thunder storms etc. IT’s likely trimme down from the text but boy does it feel unecessary> We get it, 70′s pre clean-up intiative new york was REALLY fucking awful. You didn’t like it there. But if you want to rant about new york for several paragraphs.. 

Like I get that he’s TRYING to make the point Larry dosen’t like new york and dosen’t fit in at home but instead of trying into his character arc entirely it just feels like an excuse for King to ramble about his hatred of new york. I’ts easily the weakest part of this mini series and I only think it was kept because RAS, as made clear in the question and answer sessions with marvel.com in the back of one of the issues, is a huge king fan and wanted to keep as much as possible. It’s the one time I feel the comic, and the story it’s retelling, really stumbled that bad. Thankfully with that rant over we can get onto my faviorite character

Nick Andros: Nick is easily has both the most unique narriatve and is the most intresting character to me. A mute and deaf teenage drifter, he goes from town to town finding work.. and between towns get beatup by a bunch of local assholes the ringleader of which is your standard Stephen King bully because depending on the kindness of strangers in a stephen king story is just asking for a beating.  Though oddly enough that ends up working as Nick finds himself in a jail cell with the local Sheirff and after getting a pad and paper, not only verifies he was working with someone in town, and who he is , but also who beat him down. And oddly for a king story since while he DOES have a heroic sheirff i’ve heard of, most of his law enformcent seem to be corrupt hicks at best, this one.. is a nice guy who makes sure the assholes that assaulted nick are brought in despite the ringleader being his wife’s nephew and knowing he’ll get no sex for a while because of it.. the narrative points this out because we needed to knwo that apparently. 

But said wife happily takes Nick in along with the Shierff while the sheirff takes 3/4 of the assholes in, with said nephew booking it out of town. But soon our kindly sheiff takes ill from the virus and Nick gladly fills in for him as his new deputy to make sure the idiots at the jail don’t starve. He continues this throught the book even as he looses his new family tragically due to the virus.. and soon his prisoners catch it too and clearly aren’t long for the world.  Nick is a THROUGHly likeable character. Just from body laungage it’s clear there’s a bit of an edge and a bit of harshness to him.. but he’s mostly just a good kid who goes out of his way to make sure three assholes who tried beating him to death get fed and watered, and wants to do the right thing despite the world crappign on him constnatly. He’s throughly intresting and his disablity is nicely portrayed, with him being portrayed as a normal guy who simplyg ot dealt a really crappy hand and does his best with it. Easily the best part of this mini, closely followed by the last issue but we’ll get to that in a second. We have one more character to get through. 

Lloyd Henried This bit will go fast since he’s only in two sections this mini but Lloyd is a dimwitted crminal who clearly gets a thrill from the crime sprees and murders he and his pal have done but also dosen’t murder inscreimatley. Unfortunatley his partner in crime does and Lloyd gets arrested after his first scene and hsi friend gets his face gunned off. Lloyd is last scene with his lawyer teaching him to lie. He’s basically just a dumb criminal at this point who likes thrills. Not a lot to dig into comapred to the other characters soooooo let’s move on to our final focus character and the focus of the final issue only, but hitned at before... 

Randall Flagg The breakout character of the piece, one of king’s most loved and most used villians. The Walking Dude. The Devil HImself. I had high expecations of this character with all that hype and he did NOT disapoint. 

Flagg is a mysterious supernatural drifter who dosen’t even know how long he’s existed but is evil itself. He makes anyone he passes feel nervous, glass crack and everyone uneasy, yet when needed can slip in and out of any extremist or hate group easily and hands out pamphliets for whatever will get people riled up the most, good cause or bad. and easily worms his way in and out of heavily armed groups and into women’s beds. My words do not do kings words put onto the final issue justice. They jsut impart he is evil, he is here, and he is about to RISE. And you’d better be prepared to run. After a few issues of only appearing in one dream.. we meet our antagonist and he is a lot. Throughly engaging, throughly creepy and throughly unesettling we get a full sense of who flagg is a drifter who SEEMS resonable enough when talking but just.. gets under your skin, yhou just feel.. WRONG around him. This one sequence REALLY got me excited to see what this bastard does. Not a lot elsse to say  throughly engaging creepy impressive villian who lived up to the hype and star of one of the best single issues i’ve read. No notes. 

So yeah overall.. I really love this story so far. Obviously I have a LONNNG way to go and 5 more mini series to go so I hope you’ll join me but the art is good, the decisions fantastic and the writing adapted well, clearly compressed but in a way that works. A fantastic way to read the story for a newcomer such as myself and if you can find it somehwer,e read it. Ill continue with it as hte month, or months probably, go on. Until then check back on my blog for regular ducktales coverage and some more halloween fun, hit up my asks if you have some comics you’d like to see me cover, and until next time, happy halloween. 

[asteriuszenith]

VT Investigation Files: POI Files: Nocturne

(Masterpost)

Account/s

Blogspot

Updated As Of:

7/27/2020

With Regards to His Name

Nocturne is obviously not his real name. He preferred to use that pseudonym in order to maintain some anonymity despite, as he claimed, the fact that a lot of people already probably know his true name due to his whistleblowing days for a company like Montauk. I suppose it could also be a way for him to become more comfortable with sharing his own personal feelings by pretending that the anonymity could protect him from behind the scene.

Nevertheless, as a point of reference for my own files, I’ll state it here that his name is Vincent.

The name Nocturne has a rather interesting meaning behind it. According to google dot com, a nocturne is usually either a musical composition or a work of art that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night.

Vincent, on the other hand, came from the Roman name Vincentius, which was also derived from the latin word vicere which means “to conquer”.

The Nocturnal Archives

Nocturne created The Nocturnal Archives blogger account in order to record his journey on life after he graduated from high school.

At least, that had been the original intention of the blog before a certain event obviously caused an upheaval on his personal life.

After the death of Adrain Carter on October 14 2017, Nocturne became emboldened, or rather to be more accurate, passionate slash obsessed with finding the truth. What sort of truth? I think that originally, it was just to prove his mentor’s innocence with regards to the sexual harassment allegations Dr. Miz Cardozo made around a month after Adrian Carter’s death. However, the deeper he searched for the truth, the more he realized that it wasn’t just about proving his mentor’s innocence at that point but also beginning to pinpoint certain things that doesn’t add up such as his mentor’s research, the fishy events circulating around Miz Cardozo herself, and more.

Most of the entries in the blog contained some self-reflection and reminiscing that tells us of Nocturne’s inner thoughts as well as little facts sprinkled in here and there that told us more about what sort of person he was. Most of the times, however, the entries would focus on his journey for the truth, telling us with some frustration that he’s been encountering roadblock after roadblock in his search for information and sometimes, even when he got some intel, whenever he attempted to piece them all together… It always felt like there was something off or impossible about the information.

It’s definitely a very personal blog and for someone who gives off the vibes that he is a very private person save for when he is around people that he actually cares about, I’m surprised that he actually took the suggestion of his friend to create this blog and put it on public seriously.

Another thing that I’ve noticed on the format of the blog is that it might be heavily inspired by the House of the Leaves book written by Mark Z. Danielewski considering quotes from the book are heavily peppered in around the different entries especially when he’s getting in too deep when he’s talking about a heavy topic. Did he deliberately edit it like that? I don’t know. But I suppose I could always ask him when I manage to muster up the courage to actually talk in the comments.

On the Topic of Adrian Carter

Nocturne looks up to Adrian Carter. He’s constantly singing the man praises for his genius work and personality. He also admired Adrian’s parenting skills and his parent-child relationship with Cassie Carter, noting that despite the long periods of time when they’re physically distant, Adrian was still a hell lot more present in Cassie’s life compared to his own parents who lived much closer to him in distance.

As I said, Nocturne looks up to Adrian as his role model. He admitted in one of his entries that he practically worshipped the grounds the man walked upon with some self-aware light hearted humor:

“It felt like God himself had come down and was like, ‘hey guys, lemme give you some guidance in person here, face-to-godly-face.’”

I wonder if Adrian considered Nocturne as his personal student. If Adrian had been obsessed with perfecting the RedMan then he would have only allowed people that he trusted to influence the creation of the AI, right? So the good relationship between the mentor-student must have been a mutual one.

It appears that Adrian left behind his research to Nocturne or at least, Nocturne had been able to access the man’s lifelong research studies and projects as the creator of the blog had been expressing a nice mixture of appreciation, confusion, and frustration from what he was reading from Adrian’s texts. It appears that most of it doesn’t seem to make sense. He claimed that Adrian seems to have been looking for monsters in the dark judging from some of the ramblings he read through.

Still, Nocturne has nothing but respect and good words for his mentor despite his frustration. He remembers the man fondly and is very much insistent on clearing Adrian’s name after Miz Cardozo stained it with her confession.

Miz Cardozo

It appears as if the two barely crossed paths even as they worked closely with the same man. Nocturne mentioned that Adrian never worked with the three of them together, only ever working with him once Cardozo had gone home for the day (they were working together on RedMan). This claim might get updates if Nocturne will divulge more details on his and Cardozo’s relationship, if there is one outside of the loathing vibes he’d often give off whenever he talked about Cardozo on his blog.

Originally, Nocturne had stayed his tongue when talking about Cardozo after the harassment confession came out. It appeared that he was rejecting the notion that Adrian Carter would do such a thing and was also rather peeved at seeing how Cardozo turned a blind eye on how the world decided to treat Cassie as their newest scapegoat. He decided then that he’ll get to the bottom of these claims, find out for himself and for Cassie’s peace of mind on whether Cardozo’s claims were the truth. If not, he will let the world know of Cardozo’s lies and prove his mentor’s innocence.

However, when the news about Rosemary Road came out, all pretenses of politeness finally melted away from his mask and Nocturne basically declared war against Cardozo calling her a despicable person who had done so much disgusting things that it wouldn’t be surprising if they found out that she made that sexual harassment allegations in order to give her a better chance at taking Adrian’s place on the company as its new CEO.

Miz responded with a mocking, passive-aggressive post that called him a delusional conspiracy theorist and may or may not have peppered in some subtle/not so subtle threats at the end of his section in her answering post to his and Cassie’s callout posts.

Needless to say, I really wouldn’t recommend leaving these two alone together in one room as they might as well start ripping each other to shreds.

Montauk

Nocturne interned in Montauk during his last year in highschool and while he was studying in UCLA. During his time there, he must have shown a lot of promise to have captured Adrian Carter’s attention and satisfied his expectations along with maintaining an amicable relationship with the man to the point that he allowed him to work with him on RedMan.

However, as the years passed by, notably after Adrian’s death, the relationship between the corporation and this man must have soured enough due to Nocturne’s own digging into the company’s dirty secrets that he whistleblowed on the company’s shady dealings. Was the issue that he blew the whistle on the dubious experiments that caused the deaths of so many people? Perhaps that’s another thing to ask him in the future too.

Cabbage Girl

One day, during the summer of 2015, Nocturne burst into his mentor’s office without knocking in order to tell him about his progress on his tasks and met the daughter of Montauk in a humorous way that the head of the massive corporation introduced his daughter to him and created the birth of the fondly remembered inside joke slash nickname “Cabbage”.

Nocturne and Cassie are obviously close as they are both cohabiting together and are actually in a romantic relationship with one another. The man obviously adores Cassie, his dorky little love letter praising her and telling her how much he loves her in his blog is already evidence enough as it provided a glimpse into the man’s softer side that I believe is generally reserved for his cat, Cassie, and their friends. He’s also really protective of her which is rather cute, in my opinion. He’s been really supportive of her over the past years since her father’s death and you could see it or rather hear it in the way Cassie would often pepper in (heh) mentions of him during her stories over the months.

However, it does make one wonder if they both think that it’s just the two of them against the world as nobody or almost nobody is taking their side that Adrian Carter is innocent of the accusation that Cardozo threw at him after his death. From what I saw, the world even condemned Cassie for not ‘cancelling’ her father.

Thankfully, they are both acting as each other’s support system in their trying times and from what I observed in the tiny peeks into their interactions with each other in Cassie’s entries and Nocturne’s journals, they trust the other to drag them out of their own heads when they get in too deep in their own thoughts to the point that they were shutting the world out. I’m just glad that they’re not alone right now as what they are attempting to do would be nigh impossible without anyone they could trust backing them.

Investigations and Seeking the Truth

Nocturne seems to have taken it upon himself to investigate a hell lot of things in his quest for the truth. The Cardozo-Lawrence case, Cardozo’s Relationship with Adrian Carter, the thing with Rosemary Road, Montauk Stuff, Continuing Adrian Carter’s Research and Projects, and it seems he’s beginning to delve into investigating the Bureau of Unreality and how they seem to be innately connected to Cardozo and Montauk and the Rosemary Road case.

All I can say is… My dude, my man, you need to learn how to delegate this shit to others.

(Bold words coming from someone who’s also doing the same thing. Jesus fucking Christ, Robin… What on earth are you doing?)

No wonder he’s having a hard time seeing the forest making up the trees when he’s trying to take in so much information as much as he can. I can’t exactly blame him since I’m not any better but seriously… This is just one massive way to burn ourselves out easily. Anyway—

It appears that for every information that he gets, he also receives fifty more questions which would understandably be very frustrating for him and it doesn’t help that since this is something that could bring quite the dirt into light, a lot of people and organizations are trying to prevent him from being able to dig in too deep and sink his teeth into actually helpful information rather than being led away into another possible dead end via crumbs for intel which would equal to a lot of time lost which could have been used for actual progression in the investigation.

I would suggest finding someone they could trust in order to help them with the investigation but how would you even know if somebody is trustworthy when it seems like the entire universe is completely against you finding the truth?

How would one be assured that the person whom they dragged in to help would also fall for the same trap of getting stuck in the minimal details to the point that they start seeing and hunting for monsters and lies in the dark? Especially when you, yourself, are starting to fall for the same trick?

Honestly? I don’t know if any of us would have an actual answer to that question. You could go the path of the more people to help with the search for the truth, the better, but then wouldn’t that just run the risk of all of us suffering from a horrid game of Telephone? It’s just such a high risk thing.

Either way, it seems that Nocturne’s investigation did at least yield some intel as word about his determination to find out what the actual fuck is happening in the world is getting around and people have started giving him leads that did bear some fruit even if it also created more questions.

Your Cat Pictures… Give It To Me.

Oh.

Nocturne also has a cat baby named Truant and I want a picture of him, damn it!

Somebody stop me from spamming the shit out of the poor man’s blog with begs for serotonin shots.

[amplesalty]

Halloween 2020 - Day 1 - The Stand (1994) - Episode 1 The Plague

Gee, an epic post-apocalyptic story about an out of control pandemic. Never heard that one before.

Much as we like to tie the Halloween season to the Christmas one by opening up with a festive horror movie, why not link back to the TV binging that provided some content to this blog earlier in the year by partaking in this mini series? We’re only covering part one here today as this is like four feature length episodes. In a worst case scenario, the rest will serve as backups that I can plug in if I’m having an off day so to help me from falling behind. But ideally they’ll go up once a week on the same day as a standard movie post. You manage to go back to actually doing 31 entries for the first time in donkeys years and it all goes to your head and you suddenly think you can do 34!

This has actually been on my list for quite a while now, we do love a good (or bad) Stephen King adaptation around here and I have a distinct memory of seeing this on TV when I was a kid. I’m guessing it must have played over a few nights over here at some point or maybe over a bank holiday or something? Not that I really remember much in the way of details, just the cornfields and a creepy face which we’ll get on to.

It’s something that’s stuck with me over all these years, I actually got a copy of the book at one point in what must have been the early to mid 2000’s. Still have it actually, I dug it out for the sake of this entry. Seems it’s a version from 1980 from it’s first run as a paperback in the UK. Seems to have a page or two missing near the start in amongst all the copywright business but otherwise it’s in okay shape.

Even has some writing on the first page that I can only make out in parts, one section seems to read ‘an old man beats a mule’. Or perhaps, more pertinently to this story, a mute...

Cover seems a bit dull and non descript compared to the various other ones that have come out over the years. There’s something interesting to this original version with the two figures fighting, very much a literal take on the good versus evil nature of the story with one figure dressed in light colours and the other dark. The dark figure is wielding a scythe which is obviously closely associated with the Grim Reaper. Seems to have some form of beak sticking out of its hood too and the robes and shoes seem to be almost harlequin or jester type clothes?

I wasn’t really expecting much going into it, especially based on the 1990 mini-series of It. I think because of the nature of It being partly set in the 60’s, as well the contemporary portion which just looks very 80’s, gives it this image in my head of being very dated. Outside of a few actors like Tim Curry, John Ritter and Seth Green, there’s not really any notable stars in it either and even though, Green’s notably arguably came much later on. The Stand though? This thing has some names, even if the bigger ones are just small cameos. Amongst the main cast you’ve got Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe. Obviously Ringwald isn’t a massive star or anything and is only really known for that string of John Hughes movies in the 80’s but around this time was peak Sinise. He’s not long removed from starring in Of Mice and Men (...and men....and men...) and would have roles in Forrest Gump, Apollo 13 and Ransom in the following years. Plus that big stretch in CSI:NY in the 00’s. But then you’ve got people like Ed Harris and Kathy Bates showing up, albeit briefly but these guys have some clout. I mean, Bates had just won the Academy Award a few years prior for her role in Misery so maybe she felt compelled to do more work under the King umbrella. Even the more minor roles seem like a roll call of ‘hey, it’s you!’ with Ken Jenkins (AKA Bob Kelso from Scrubs), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the proprietor of Joe Bob’s Drive In, Joe Bob Briggs.

The landscape of TV feels very different today with actors much more willing to work in the field as it’s taken on much more artistic integrity. The greater availability of shows after they’ve aired, be it through DVR, home media or streaming, has enabled people to watch in far greater numbers. There was a time when the big break was deemed to be making it to Hollywood and starring in motion picture epics but it seems more and more that story tellers are moving away from the relatively cramped 2 hour-ish format of the silver screen to having their vision play out over a long form story and the big name actors are following suit. I feel like things would have been very different back in the early 90’s so to have these names attached.

Seems for a long time there were plans to turn this into a movie, it’s even referred to during a ‘making of’ feature on the blu-ray (pretty much the only feature on there I might add) as a ‘motion picture epic’ but this must have been done way into production so either they were confused or trying to mislead viewers for some reason? Apparently in the early 80’s the idea was for the success of Creepshow to finance production of The Stand but took until the early 90’s for everyone to finally settle on the miniseries.

Very much a big budget affair too for a TV Show, $6m per episode. And it’s needed given the scale of the story, taking place in all these different locations, the special effetcs and with so many characters involved with over 125 speaking roles across the series. It’s definitely a jump up from It, even though that had the two different time periods, it only had a budget of $12m across its two parts compared to the $24m here across four parts.

But to finally address the massive elephant in the room, this story centers around an outbreak of a strain of influenza seemingly created in some shadowy government facility. After something goes awry in the lab, a doomed insider pleads with the guy watching the main gate to seal the facility but he instead piss bolts for his nearby house and hurriedly bundles his wife and child into their car as they make their escape. Everyone else is not nearly as fortunate though as the camera pans the facility, lifeless corpses strewn throughout that have seemingly dropped dead in the middle of their everyday activities, there’s even one guy doubled over on a ping pong table. All of this is set to the sounds of BOC’s Don’t Fear the Reaper and culminates with the image of a crow picking at a doll dropped by the child in the rush out of the front gate. The crow features prominently on the front cover of the blu-ray I have, perched atop of a skull. Though, I know they’re going for the whole post-apocalyptic vibe but what about the superflu is causing the road to burn up and crack like that? The bird also shows up a fair bit throughout the episode, I was going to talk about it being a raven and how such birds are linked with ill omen and death but it’s a crow apparently. Who knew? Not me, I’m no ornithologist. It also seems to be very closely linked with a mysterious figure that is alluded to throughout, a ‘dark man’ or monster.

When the original carrier of the disease makes his way into Arnette, Texas, and crashes into the gas station that Sinise’s character Stu Redman is working at, his dying words are of his efforts to escape from a dark man that was chasing him and that no one can out run him. Maybe in that moment you’d think this is just a state of delirium and he’s speaking oddly poetically about trying to outrun Death himself but as the show goes on, more and more people speak of this dark man, almost as if everyone in the grip of this disease comes to share this vision.

And speaking of visions, we can’t forget Mother Abigail and her cornfields. Both Lowe and Sinise’s characters are whisked away in their dreams to the middle of nowhere where a centurion on her porch warns of them of an ominous future. Think Mama Murphy from Fallout 4 only with much less chem addiction. The only thing Mama Abigail needs is her bread. What is it with King and fields anyway? You’ve got In the Tall Grass, plus the corn fields here and in Children of the Corn. There’s probably more I’m forgetting too. It’s either cornfields, writers in distress or killer ‘whatever I can see in front of me whilst I’m pitching this story’ with this guy.

In a way though it’s good that the show takes this supernatural turn because otherwise this would be a little too on the nose to be watching in this current climate. It’s very eerie to see such similar events play out on screen, starting with the widespread rumours and misinformation. It starts out innocently enough with talk of this so called superflu being downplayed, covered up by the government as an anthrax attack or outbreak of swineflu. I remember back to those more innocent times at the start of the year when COVID was naively dismissed as little more than another flavour of the month disease like the swineflu, sars or ebola that would be here today and gone tomorrow. But then you’ve got things like the sense of paranoia suddenly surrounding a simple cough or sneeze, talks of quarantines, social distancing, the implementation of masks (which one reporter describes as not being able to stop a flu germ with a hangover) to the more disturbing scene of lethal force being used against a TV news crew who refuse to surrender footage they’ve shot of army troops disposing of bodies. Granted, we never got anywhere near that level, I think the worst we had was that guy from CNN getting arrested or that Aussie reporter being pushed over.

They even managed to mirror how universal a pandemic like this is, from the common man to the height of celebrity. One of the characters we’re introduced to is a singer who, whilst he seems to be one of the few lucky to have some immunity, still sees his mother succumb to the virus. Just like we saw with the likes of BoJo or Tom Hanks, it really is a great leveller and, as a wise man once said, ‘You might be a King or a little street sweeper but sooner or later you dance with the Reaper!’. I guess we can take solice that we haven’t quite had the societal collapse that this show manages to pull off in less than a week, with Times Square on fire and a guy running around shooting people like he’s in Falling Down. That’s not to say we wont get there, we seem to be hovering more around general civil disobedience right now with the growing frustration of lockdown and PPE spilling out into protests.

It makes for compelling viewing to see how quickly things break down from simply a man having the sniffles to people being rounded up from their homes and ushered into army vehicles. There’s a lot to take in as the show has to establish the events taking place and introducing it’s multitude of characters so there’s not really much room to breathe. Hopefully episode 2 can relax a little now and give the cast some time to grow. There’s still some standout performances though such as Redman’s growing frustration at being cooped up in a test facility, lashing out at the doctors and nurses coming in in their hazmat suits, prodding and poking him. It would have been nice to see more scenes with him and Dr. Dietz. They have one argument where they nearly come to blows before having a big showdown by the end, with the Doc being one of the last staff members left alive, seemingly crazed by their inability to find any answers in Redman’s tests and he threatens to take his frustrations out on Redman by shooting him. He might be immune to the virus but I bet he’s not immune to a bullet. Dietz starts out with this complete lack of empathy, almost to the point of having a rather cheery deposition considering the circumstances, as he finds some fascination in the speed at which the virus causes death. But he becomes more and more short tempered and threatening as the days wear on and it would have been good to see a more gradual descent.

The aforementioned Ed Harris plays General Starkey overseeing the initial bioweapon project and the fallout of it’s outbreak, perhaps overseeing to a fault as it becomes pretty clear from his ever increasing five o’clock shadow, dishevelled clothing and massive bags under his eyes that he’s slept very sparingly since the initial breach in containment. I think for the entire time we see him, his screen never changes from a shot of one of the cooks at the base of the initial outbreak slumped over, face down in the meal he was preparing. It makes a bit of a change to go from the quite verbal exchanges of Redman and Dietz to Starkey’s physical appearance and facial expressions putting across his mood.

[imuybemovoko]

I die inside while dissecting Jesus music, part 2

Oh, did the pause in my posts lately make you think I was done with emotional self-harm?

Apparently we both have lessons to learn, because here we go again.

I have a shitload of this stuff squirreled away in a youtube playlist I haven’t deleted yet for essentially this exact reason. I felt like it might be a good thing for me to go through and deconstruct some of the songs. That or I’ve just gotten used to suffering. Can’t tell; don’t care.

Trigger warning, of course. If Jesus music is going to mess with your head too much, please for the love of all that you find holy find something more wholesome to read. 

Now that I’ve started down this dark path, I start to wonder, when was the last time I talked about my worldbuilding and other crazy hobbies? I’ve been yelling about my trauma a lot lately. Anyway...

Let’s do this. 

"Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men." -Plato, apparently. 

If, like me, you like suffering enough to look at the song I’ll be analyzing, here it is. I’m looking at Matt Redman’s “Gracefully Broken” today. This song also features Tasha Cobbs Leonard. This felt weird as shit to listen back to. 

I’ll be using the transcription of the lyrics on Genius as my main source for the actual words in the song, though the video I’ve linked does have lyrics on screen as it plays. 

Without any further ado, let’s get into the structure of this fucker. There’s about 25 seconds of instrumental to start this studio recording out, then the first verse plays. The last line, “Set me on fire”, is sung twice, and then in this case the entire first verse plays again. (Holy shit contemporary Christian songwriters like repeating things. Did I say that enough last time?)

After this, the chorus plays through once and you basically smash cut right into the second verse. The second verse is half the length of the first one and the words are only said once. In this case, the repetition does that trick where it uses KJV-flavored language and then modern language to say a similar thing twice: “ You won't forsake me, You will be with me”. 

Then the chorus plays twice, each time followed by a random tag that reiterates something within the chorus and, in the case of the first one, isn’t found in the lyrics on Genius. I read it as a musical flourish coupled with the lyrical equivalent of yelling “AMEN” during a church service when the pastor says something you find cool. (Not all churches do this). 

Genius does something I find a touch unusual here, but I think it makes sense with the way the song plays. It lists two sections as “bridge 1″ and “bridge 2″. After this repeated chorus, bridge 1 plays, repeating the first line twice, the second original line twice, and the last line of the thing four times. After this, there’s another doubled chorus. This time, with even more amen flourishes. 

Then the instrumental goes really chill and the second bridge comes in. This is a stanza that they repeat six times (Genius lists it four times) while they slowly build the instrumentals back up and, since in this case there are two singers in Youtube’s edition of this, Redman drops out and Tasha, who he’s featuring on this, sings the first two repetitions of this while Redman does amen tags. On the third one, they switch roles. On the fourth one, they each sing the entire section but Redman leads and Cobbs follows like a round. Then, they have this entire chorus setup on the last two repetitions. 

This is the climax of the song. And then everything goes really chill again. They sing the chorus once and then everything fades out to one last piano chord, fade to black. That’s the structure in the youtube video. It’s not exactly uncommon for studio recordings of songs like this, though at live events, Jesus camps, and some church services people will repeat sections of this ad nauseam because of course. Even this structure works to cement ideas really strongly, as if every single fucking thing the song says is very important. I find that this doesn’t happen remotely as often in secular music to anything approaching this degree. They’ll repeat the chorus, sometimes you’ll have lines repeated, sometimes you get a bridge that’s four lines a few times over, but it’s not like this. 

Alright. On to the actual content of this thing. 

This is going to hurt a bit. :^) 

I’ll do the verses, then the chorus, then the bridges. This shit isn’t going chronologically. That would suck. 

Take all I have in these hands And multiply, God, all that I am And find my heart on the altar again Set me on fire, set me on fire Take all I have in these hands And multiply, God, all that I am And find my heart on the altar again Set me on fire, set me on fire

This repeats twice; I won’t go over it twice. 

Take all I have in these hands is basically saying “I surrender to you”. Which is a thing that’ll come back up a fuck of a lot in this song. It’s kind of the whole message... with a twist I’ll get to later that gets really cursed. This is a message that speaks of letting go of control of one’s life so God can do whatever with it. It’s like a surrendering of agency, at least the way it plays out in fundagelical circles like the one I left a year and a month ago. 

And multiply, God, all that I am is, aside from being a sentence that’s weirdified so it fits in a song better, is directly addressing God by name, making this entire thing addressed that way. This basically refers to the concept within at least some strains of Christianity where God is said to increase what people are and what they’re capable of when they’re “right with him”. This is, at least possibly, also a reference to Matthew 13:8 (Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown), which uses a metaphor that relates, as I was taught about it, the word of God to someone sowing seeds into a field, where sometimes you yeet the seeds and they land in rocks and screwy circumstances but other times they grow and give a good crop. I’m inclined to read this line as asking God to fulfill this in the singer’s life because of how heavy of a focus is placed on the concept it contains in many churches. Redman might not have intended it to refer to this necessarily here, but it’s the kind of metaphor and the kind of language that people very often use even if it’s not a conscious reference. 

And find my heart on the altar again implies some kind of re-dedication of the core of the singer’s being to God. There’s this strong tendency in your spicier churches towards thinking that believers continually need to re-commit themselves to God after having been distracted; this is at least one of the things that it refers to. I suppose Redman knows his audience. This can also be taken as a reference to Romans 12:1-2, since an altar implies sacrifice most of the time. My instinct is to say it plays both roles. 

After that you have this Set me on fire, set me on fire line, referring to a common concept whose origin I’m not that familiar with in which being “on fire for God” refers to having a passion for doing what whoever you hang around thinks he wants you to do. It might be a reference to that scene in Acts 2 where God’s power in the church is marked by tongues of fire that come and rest on people. Of course it’s like the fire from that burning bush Moses encounters because this is an instance of God burning people metaphorically rather than physically. 

Sarcasm and gallows humor aside, God has been known to yeet fire from heaven at things and sometimes even people. In both Acts 2 and this song, the reference is more or less metaphorical and refers to a driving force rather than to an attack. This line is basically a prayer for a passion for God. 

Verse 1 was sung just by Redman; for verse 2, both Redman and Cobbs are singing. 

My heart stands in awe of Your name Your mighty love stands strong to the end You will fulfill Your purpose for me You won't forsake me, You will be with me

I touched on this in the “on the altar again” line from 1, but I typically read “heart” as “core of being” in these contexts. So this first line, My heart stands in awe of Your name, refers to this deep sense of reverence towards God. 

Maybe someone ought to tell Redman about the hypocrites, because god damn does this seem like performative righteousness to my outsider’s mind. Maybe Paul’s “renewing of the mind” from Romans 12:2 works both ways lmao

Joking aside, the role of this line is to normalize this feeling of reverence and to try to instill it in the listener. It serves a purpose that isn’t hypocrisy and Redman would probably say the same thing if some cheeky heathen walked up to him and told him about the hypocrites as I joked about. 

The entire rest of this verse is essentially saying the same thing in different ways, framing it through God’s love, purposes, and presence in a believer’s life. The idea is that none of these three things are believed to ever fail, and this verse is meant to reinforce that perception and to give thanks to God for it. I don’t feel like saying what these lines are going for three times so I’ll treat them as one unit because functionally, they are. 

I’ll do the chorus last because that seems like a fun idea. Bridge 1 is:

All to Jesus now All to Jesus now Holding nothing back Holding nothing back I surrender I surrender I surrender I surrender

oh god oh fuck

so what can we get from this weird disaster where you say the same thing a bunch of times in a row? Basically, the singer surrenders everything to Jesus and holds nothing back. But it’s really really important, so they say it slowly and each piece is said several times. It feels pedantic as fuck looking at it from the outside, but on the inside it instills this mood that makes you, at least in that moment, want to do exactly that. Pretty wacky. 

Second bridge:

Your power and work in me I'm broken gracefully I'm strong when I am weak I will be free

It’s this, four times on Genius and six times in the Youtube upload. I’m not copy pasting that full length in here lmao

Basically the first line reads to me as an attribution related to the rest. Like, “what follows is because of God’s power and work in me”. Your spicier evangelical circles will attribute good things in themselves exclusively to the work of God. It gets super goddamn toxic depending on exactly how they handle it, but the general vibe I’m talking about is “I’m a piece of shit and therefore if anything good happens in me it’s God not me”. It’s really a sad thing, and it messed me up real good when I used to think that way. 

So that’s fun I suppose. 

As for the rest of this, uh... it’s not better. So. “I’m broken gracefully” is just about the most cursed sentence in this section here. To be “broken” in this case is ...more or less what it sounds like. Basically God breaks the believer down in the process of sanctification so that they release their own identity and replace it with one that’s more from God. This is then framed as a grace. I read “gracefully” here as both referring to the grace of God and to its other usage, like “they moved gracefully across the whatever the fuck” as a descriptive term suggesting beauty and elegance. In both senses, this broken state is considered a good and beautiful thing. Which ...is a bit cursed. 

“I’m strong when I am weak” is this weird reversal that alludes to several passages in the Bible including, the first one I can think of, John 3:30, which says “he must be greater, I must be less” (and specific wording will vary based on translation). The idea is that a person has more real “strength” when they’re weak in themselves and trusting in God for everything. So this sentence might be expanded to “I’m strong in God when I’m weak in myself”. Which is one of those gaslighty self-denying concepts that is the reason my time in these weird fundagelical circles fucked me up so much. Pretty fun. See why I say it’s emotional self-harm to come back and review this music? It’s not always that dark of a thing, I genuinely want to analyze this shit, but good grief can it get tricky to deal with. 

The last line here is “I will be free”, which cements the previous concepts by referring to freedom from “sin” and from the “old, fallen nature”, i.e. freedom to be a slave to God instead of “a slave to oneself”. Another spooky reversal. 

And that’s the bridges. 

I’ll grab a chorus that doesn’t have amen tags and only happens once: 

Here I am, God Arms wide open Pouring out my life Gracefully broken

These first lines speak to someone who accepts God’s calling with open arms. Pretty straightforward I think. It gets a bit funky from here because this “pouring out my life” line is a bit deeper. It could refer to the act of confessing things to God in kind of a spilling of energy and secrets, a breakdown of barriers that believers keep their issues contained within, that kind of thing, and it could be a reference to the Old Testament practice of pouring out blood or wine or both as an offering before God, in a metaphorical sense in this case because believers are called on to offer their lives as a “living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” as Paul writes. The image of pouring something out is quite a common one within Christianity because of the Old Testament imagery and the degree to which New Testament writers allude to old practices. 

In compiling an overarching message for what I read out of this song, I’ll compare it to a sonnet written by John Donne, for a bit of fun hyperbole. 

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurped town, to another due, Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end. Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captived, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, But am betrothed unto your enemy: Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

The whole message of this sonnet here is, in a phrase, “I’m having a hard time submitting to you, God, so break down my gates, steal me from Satan, and rearrange my guts”. 

Yes, ravish is sometimes a sexual term. In my medieval literature class last fall, the professor understood its sense as such in this context. I agree with that reading because the word immediately preceding the phrase that contains it is “chaste”, which is clearly establishing that kind of context. 

Basically, the reason I include this is, without the “fuck me God” part of it, the message of the song I’ve been dissecting is the same as this. It speaks of surrendering to God as something that’s desired, but frames it as a battle through the “heart on the altar again” bit and the “brokenness” part of this narrative that suggests it’s a desired, beautiful act of God. Donne accomplishes this message through much more violent terms, but the end result is very similar. 

I know.

So, why did I start this shit with that Plato quote? 

Ultimately, because I think that an important part of the role that Christian music like this serves in the church is pretty much the same as Plato’s understanding of the role of rhetoric. If “rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men”, then contemporary Christian music is the result of using shit, repetitive lyrics and actually good instrumental tracks to convince the human mind to yeet itself deeper and deeper into Jesusland. 

Which is pretty cursed. I relate, vacuuming lady. I relate.

What was that I said about conlangs again?