#i know the poetry doesn’t rhyme I just didn’t know how else to format this

[plush-candles]

Memory of a Funeral

I asked my mama, once when my sister stopped coming home Where everybody else went and why I wasn’t allowed to go.

She said that my little brother got lost in the woods because he and his best friend read too much. and my sister got on a train and never came back because the boy she loved got on it first.

She said my big brother tore out pieces of his soul to help other people stay alive and that one day he ran out of soul to give

She said that’s why our house is so empty And there are rooms where nobody sleeps because now we’re all that’s left Just her, dad, and me.

And when i look at those pictures at those people that we lost I know I’d go away too if it meant you’d love me half as much.

[damienthepious]

uhhhhhhhh TUESDAY. i’m gettin’ OLD SCHOOL.

The Rite Of Movement (Chapter 5)

[ch 1] [ch 2] [ch 3] [ch 4] [ao3]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters:  Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, The Keep, Original Monster Character(s), Sir Marc, Sir Talfryn, Sir Angelo, Quanyii, Sir Caroline, Original Human Character(s)

Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Engagement, Domestic, Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Poetry, Presents, (this is the MOST self indulgent tooth rotting fluff I've ever ever EVER done please enjoy), (i love my ridiculous scalie/scaley trio), Monster Customs, Dancing, Second Citadel, Post-Season/Series 02 

Fic Summary: Arum has a surprising revelation about his own feelings, and then decides to take matters into his own claws since his humans don’t seem to realize what they are denying themselves.

Chapter Summary: Continuations of two conversations.

Chapter Notes: Don't.... pay attention to how long this fic has been left hanging. Also don't..... hold me to regular updates for this in the future either, lmao i've proven myself unreliable in that context XD i swear i'm doing my best! this one is very freeform tho and sans plot i have trouble kicking things along. ALSO, EDIT, @shorter-than-her-tbr-pile inspired the second half of this chapter pretty directly!!! and i love them dearly with my whole heart!!!! aaaaaaa<3<3<3

~

“They cannot stay here,” Arum says, managing to both snarl and speak under his breath at the same time. It’s- a little impressive, actually. Rilla watches him pace a tight circle at just enough of a distance from the portal that Puck and Tetch probably can’t make out his words. “They cannot. I do not run some sort of- of halfway home for wayward miscreants, be they human or monster or- or anything else.” He pauses, then scowls darker and gestures with a hand, claws slicing the air. “And yet, they cannot leave because they have seen you and if anyone were to bring our- our- to bring us as we are to the attention of the Senate or the humans, all of our lives would be- and with the wedd-” he cuts off, shooting a suspicious look towards the portal again, where Puck appears to be examining the vines that make up the frame the magic fills.

“I am going to have to kill them,” Arum says flatly, eyes narrowing and hands clenching, and Rilla can’t help it anymore. She bursts out laughing.

“Arum- Arum we’re not going to kill them. What are you even- seriously, pay attention, here. Who would they possibly tell?” She smiles, just a little exasperation creeping into her tone. “Look at them, Arum. Look at them and tell me what these two would gain from talking to the Senate or the Citadel.”

Arum looks at Rilla, instead, for a long moment, his jaw clenched tight, and then he sighs, flicking his eyes to the mismatched pair.

Puck runs their hands along the vines of the portal, their face bright with a delighted sort of curiosity. Tetch is behind them, still out in the swamp. Within reach, tense as if anticipating a blow, anticipating the need to defend, but mostly just- watching. Watching Puck, with her head tilted just slightly to the side, her fuzzy antennae twitching.

He presses his lips together, then looks to Amaryllis again. “What does it matter,” he mutters, his tone a little stilted, “if they happen to- if they are-”

“Like us?” Rilla suggests gently.

“They are not-” Arum snaps his jaw shut again, growling low, because-

“You know that they are,” Rilla says. “I mean, I figured we couldn’t be the only ones, but- if I’m being honest I didn’t really expect that we would ever meet another-” she shakes her head. “Not the point right now. Arum, I’m not saying we should let them move in or something, but- it’s not like the swamp is tiny. If all they’re looking for is a place where they can be safe for a little while… it’s not like that would be a difficult thing to help with, would it?”

“Amaryllis-”

“They can’t tell anyone about us because anyone they would tell would hate the pair of them just the same,” Rilla says. “Honestly-” she pauses. “Honestly, Arum, aren’t you even a little bit curious? Or… or even a little bit tempted by the opportunity to talk to someone who’s gone through something like what we have?”

“No,” Arum grumbles, looking away, but Rilla steps closer and lifts a hand. He flicks his eyes to the strangers when she cups his cheek, suspicious of the scrutiny, but they don’t seem to be paying attention, so he only rumbles low in his chest and meets her eyes again. “I care about you,” he mutters. “I care about Damien. They have nothing to do with me, or us. The pair of you and my Keep are my only priorities, Amaryllis.”

Her thumb brushes soft over his cheek, and her smile goes a little more gentle. “I know,” she says, “but helping them too doesn’t take away from that. You’re allowed to do unselfish things, you know. No one here is going to make fun of you for being kind. Honestly, if you just pointed them towards a patch of swamp without any traps that they could camp in for a day or two, they’d probably be grateful enough, but- but I really think we could help more than that, don’t you?”

Arum grumbles, still standing stiffly to keep himself from gathering her close as he truly wishes to. He cannot embrace her, not while they might see, because-

The moth (Tetch, his mind supplies unhelpfully) stands close behind the human as they examine the portal, close enough to wrap a gentle wing around their shoulder like a cape, and even at this distance Arum can see the easy way that Puck leans back into that contact, the light smile that curls their lips.

He pulls his eyes away, and realizes that Amaryllis is still looking up at him, is still waiting for him to answer.

“We… could help. Theoretically.”

Rilla’s own lip curls, then, into an indulgent smirk. “Theoretically,” she echoes.

“There are…” he hesitates, eyes flicking around the room and not settling on any one thing in particular. “A number of outposts in the swamp, of course, similar to the one…”

Rilla’s smirk breaks into something softer when he hesitates again. “Like the one you brought me and Damien to, after… after Fort Terminus? Where we went to talk?”

“Y-yes,” he says. “Smaller places. Technically Keep-grown but not within its direct consciousness, without effort at the very least. Most are… hidden. Indistinguishable from the surrounding flora. Places no one would look, even if they somehow managed to penetrate the outer defenses of my swamp unseen in the first place.” He pauses, and Rilla doesn’t interrupt. She can tell he’s not quite finished, and she doesn’t wanna scare him off of this particular thought. “It… it would not be difficult, of course, to- to allow… rather… I suppose, if all they require is… is a place to exist for a short while…"

Arum pauses again, and again Rilla waits, lifting her other hand so she can cup his face. He glances towards the other pair again, and this time one of them is returning his gaze.

Or- he thought, for a moment, that they were. Puck's expression is even, curious, vaguely fond as they look at Amaryllis, something like recognition in their eyes. They do glance towards Arum, then, only the barest sliver of hope shining through them as they lean back into Tetch's wings with a very, very small smile. They drop his eyes, turning to laugh at something Tetch says in their ear, then, and Arum blinks back to himself.

Rilla waits, and Arum is grateful for her patience in a way he is never quite sure how to voice. He is grateful for every ounce of her being, though, and the small part of that gratefulness devoted to her patience is easy to lose among the whole. Arum sighs, resting his face in the safety of her palms, and then he curls his mouth into a wry sort of smile and lifts his own arms. He has wanted to hold her since he saw her in the doorway, despite his concerns.

Let them see.

Why should he be concerned? He is her betrothed now, after all, and that certainty pools warm at his center as he gathers her in his arms and tugs her against his chest. She breathes a light laugh against him, surprise and delight, one of his favorite noises in the whole of the Universe.

"… until the patch on her wing sets properly," Arum says, very quietly. "I- we will provide a place for them until then. It was my trap that damaged her- her own fault, of course, for- for trespassing, but- nonetheless, my handiwork. It seems … appropriate, to provide some… to provide some small degree of shelter. Until then."

Rilla leans back enough to look up at him, her eyes dark and warm and fond, and then she leans up to kiss him, just gently on the cheek.

"Okay," she says simply, still smiling, and then she reaches and takes two of his hands in her own, slipping her fingers between his, gently playing his digits between her own. "That sounds reasonable. C'mon, let's go let them know, yeah?"

~

“Angelo-”

“Almost there, Sir Damien! Patience for a few moments more, and all shall be revealed."

"I trust you with my life, Sir Angelo, but-" Damien ducks his head, weaving slightly to avoid thunking his head off of a stalactite. Ahead of him, Angelo moves with a deftness of foot that really should not surprise Sir Damien at this point. Sir Angelo the Strong was once simply Angelo of Quarry, after all, and he knows rocks and caverns as Sir Damien knows syllables and rhyme. "But- but we are rather deep, I think, and-"

"Oh, hardly! Why, Sir Damien, I've been in caverns a full three times deeper than this little hole, darker and with far more interesting formations of rock! We are not here for my interest today, though, my friend." Angelo grins wide over his shoulder, the light from the torch in his hand dancing orange and gold over the both of them.

"And… why are we here, exactly?" Damien tries, not for the first time, and an expression of near-comical mischief slides across Angelo's face.

"Soon!" he says by way of an answer, and then he presses his free hand over his wide grin, muffling a laugh. "Very soon, Sir Damien. Just a little further!"

"But you said that same thing," Damien pants, "ten minutes ago, I'm certain it must have been, and I would like to return to my-" he lowers his voice, despite the impossibility of being overheard in this moment, "my fiances before it is too terribly late in the evening, certainly you must understand-"

The narrow cave opens out, revealing a yawning space, an enormous wide bowl of a cavern with a cool, utterly still pool of water submerging the floor of the far half, the ceiling completely covered in wavering forms of stalactites stretching down from every corner. In the low light of the torch the water looks like glass, and the cones on the ceiling gleam with subtle moisture, and the noise of their footsteps resounds softly through the space.

"Angelo," Damien murmurs, "this place is… where are we?"

"I used to come here often when I was young," Sir Angelo says, fond and wistful, placing a hand on the uneven stone of the wall as he carefully arranges the torch to stand on its own in a crack between a pair of rocks. "I am rather boisterous even by my own family's standards, and this was one of very few places I could come where I would not prompt any number of complaints about my- well, my volume."

"Oh," Damien says gently. "Oh, Sir Angelo-"

Angelo turns, grinning wide and delighted, and he grips Damien's shoulders. "Which is why I knew it would be perfect for you, Sir Damien!"

"Er- come again?"

"You must speak your heart, Sir Damien," Angelo says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, and Damien-

Damien could laugh. He's said those words often enough, he supposes. It is the most obvious thing in the world.

"You are not meant to hide your love in whispers, Sir Damien. You are not meant to keep yourself so quiet, and I thought- I thought, perhaps, that you could use this place as I once did. You may speak as loudly as you wish, here, and you need not fear being overheard by anyone at all. If no one ever heard me, they will certainly not be able to hear you, Damien. Not even if you shout."

Damien blinks up at him, feeling his heart rise in his throat, and Angelo only grins a little wider, squeezing his shoulders.

"I thought, perhaps, that you might wish to shout, to make up for all those whispers."

"Angelo," Damien says, his voice wavering as he lifts his hands to grip Angelo's wrists.

Angelo's eyes sparkle with delight, and he squeezes Damien's shoulders once more before he releases them, stepping aside and patting him on the back instead.

"Now, Sir Damien," he says, his voice conspicuous and loud and his expression exaggeratedly sly, "I believe that you had news to share with me, did you not?"

"I-" Damien inhales, breathes a watery laugh, looks around at this wide, empty, private place that his best rival chose to share with him. "I- Sir Angelo, I already-"

"Come now, Damien, don't be shy! What did you wish to tell me?"

Damien presses a hand over his mouth against his own smile, pressing back against the laughter that he is certain will dissolve into tears. Angelo continues to grin, and he waves his hands in the air, encouraging and nearly giddy, stoking Damien's smile even wider.

Damien inhales, then exhales to try to soothe his overwhelmed, thrumming heart.

"I… I am going to be married," he says, and the cavern bounces his voice back to him in a subtle, soft wave. "Arum- Arum asked us to marry him. He- he wants to," Damien says, the surprise of it still coloring his tone, his voice beginning to raise as the enthusiasm wakes, shivering off his fear. "He wants us, he does, he wants us as much as we want him- he wants us to be married, Angelo, he's going to-"

Damien laughs, wild, reckless.

"I love them so, so much, Angelo, I love them with all of my heart, and they- I want to marry them, I want to be with them for the rest of my life, and they want it just the same! They want to marry me! Me, Angelo, oh Saints above, I-"

He pauses, pressing his hand over his heart, and Angelo waits, patient, his hand pressing as a gentle anchor on Damien's shoulderblade.

"I so rarely feel that I know what I am doing, Angelo. I am- so frightened. I am always so frightened, of dangers real and imagined, of failure, but- but with them I feel safe. Always. Even when they bicker, even when Rilla is exhausted and short-tempered, even when Arum and I cannot see eye-to-eye on a matter, even when I fall into the mire of my own mind, I still and forever feel safe with them, and I know- I know, beneath the terrified churning of my mind, I know in my heart that I am loved. I know that I am held beloved by them, and now I know- I know they wish to stand with me in marriage, they wish for us to pledge ourselves to our union. I am- I am held beloved by the most incredible woman I have ever met, and a regal, stubborn, glorious monster. A monster."

"A monster," Angelo echoes, steady and soft.

"I am…" Damien exhales slowly, then lifts his chin, and his next words are not a shout, but they are firm and confident and so, so proud. "I love a monster. I am loved by one in turn. My beloved flower Rilla loves and is loved by a monster just the same. I love Amaryllis, and I love Lord Arum, and I intend to love them both forever. For as long as they want me. I love them, and they love me, they do, and I- I am going to be their husband."

Angelo's eyes go bright, and his grin approaches the quality of a bonfire, and he throws his arms around Sir Damien's shoulders in a crushing hug.

"Congratulations, my friend!" he booms, his voice loud enough to rattle the space, sending droplets down from the stalactites to ripple the surface of the water. "Congratulations! I am so, so happy for you, Sir Damien. I will be so proud to witness so joyous an event!"

Damien-

His tears are as joyful as the congratulations, and Damien cannot help them in the least. He returns the fierce hug, sniffling against Angelo's shoulder as his eyes well.

"What- what did I ever do, Sir Angelo," he keens, his voice wavering hard, his throat aching, "to deserve this? To deserve to be the husband to such beautiful, radiant, loving, clever beings? What did I do? How could I ever be worthy of-"

Angelo tightens the hug, holding his best friend, best rival steady in his arms. "You loved them, Sir Damien," he says, "as much as they loved you. You loved each other, and you chose each other as your family. That is what you did."

Damien sniffles hard, burying his face in Angelo's shoulder and smiling through his tears. "And you as well," he manages, and Angelo makes a questioning noise. "You are my family too, Sir Angelo. Thank you. For this. For- for standing beside me in every dire conflict, for always encouraging me to grow, to strive, for-"

Angelo lifts, and as Angelo hugs him tight, Damien kicks his feet in the air with a squeaking startled laugh.

[mysticsparklewings]

NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 15: Music Inspiration

I'm not okay that book that's torn & frayed you read me when you need me just turn another page I'm not okay even when you fall there's a better ending after all ____ We officially halfway through NaPoWriMo! :D And I have to admit, I found today's prompt a bit ironic for a few reasons that I'll explain later. The prompt in question being, "write a poem inspired by your favorite kind of music," except napowrimo.net also goes on to say, "try to recreate the sounds and timing of" [insert types of music here]. This confused me a little because does this mean I'm required* to make my inspired piece sound something like the music that inspired it? Or is this part about sounds and timing a recommendation of what I could do with the prompt? Do you mean sounds and timing as in lyrics or as in the actual instruments/backing music? *Technically all the prompts are optional, but because I'm me I want to stick to them as closely as possible, otherwise, what's the point having the prompts? Naturally, it doesn't help that I start working on my NaPo's as soon as possible after the prompt is posted...Meaning as close to 12:01 a.m. that day as I can manage. I usually write the poem for the most part, then make the mandala, and then get up the next day to actually pull out all the mini magnets, put the poem together and post the final product. This means I pretty much never have others' NaPo's to use as a guide for formatting and instead have to look elsewhere if I want that. Looking at what's been posted now, after other people have actually posted their's, I was correct in my assumption that the prompt was trying to guide us to, essentially, writing a song or part of one in a similar style to whatever music we picked. In which case, I have to say...Why could the prompt not just say that? Why not just say, "write a poem as if you were writing a song inspired by your favorite kind of music." That's so much clearer! *Ahem* I digress, I'll simply add that to the list of my problems with NaPo's prompts and save my further grumblings for another day. Now, I found this prompt ironic because I very nearly almost tried to incorporate My Chemical Romance, my favorite band of all time (which you probably knew already if you pay attention to my posts ), in yesterday's NaPo because the prompt was to write about the poets/poems/people that inspire you to write poetry. MCR does inspire me a great deal, mostly just to live in general and sometimes to make art, but not necessarily to write poetry, which is why I ultimately didn't include them. And I figured I'd get another excuse to include them sometime before NaPoWriMo was over, anyway. Oh, how right that ended up being, the very next day should such an opportunity appear!   It was also a bit ironic to me because I ordered their biography, Not the Life it Seems by Tom Bryant a few days ago and it arrived to me yesterday. Just, very funny timing how that all worked out. So when I first read the prompt, I was almost cackling at it, because I thought it would be easy. Then the thing about sounds and timing settled in as I was listening to a few songs and trying to jot down a few ideas, and I realized that my poem writing style does not really suit the beat of an MCR song...and my confidence promptly (haha) fell apart. I did come up with something more in-depth and complicated than this that I thought was okay as a poem, though I was very convinced it wasn't something MCR would write and sing. But I still had a mandala to make, so I decided I'd move forward and make that because that part I knew really would be fairly simple--reds, black, silver/gray, just avoid extremely flowery motifs for the most part but otherwise really anything will work--and then I could come back to the poem part later. Before I went to bed, I still hadn't thought of anything that I could use to make a better poem, so I decided I'd once again move forward under the assumption I'd just use what I'd already come up with (which I'm not mentioning just in case it becomes useful for another NaPo later) and that maybe after some sleep I'd wake up with a new idea that worked better for me. Lucky for me, that's kinda what happened. I laid everything out to start working on the construction, and I looked at what I'd written last night and thought essentially the same thing; It's not a bad poem about MCR, but it's not a poem/song/whatever that sounds like something they'd write. It doesn't "fit" with their sound. I briefly started thinking about some of their lyrics again and decided to try a bit more brainstorming, just for a few minutes, one last time to see if I could turn things around. I came around to the first song I ever listened to by them, I'm Not Okay, and my mind has always hitched on one line towards the end: "You said you read me like a book, but the pages all are torn and frayed." Which I think explains quite a bit here. Two other things that came to mind while I was toying with that, "Go find another way," from their song Disenchanted, and the fact that before they broke up in 2013, there were plans for an MCR5, a fifth album, called The Paper Kingdom. And, of course, the whole overarching theme for me is that while their music is considered Alternative Rock, usually, and a lot of people classify it as "emo," both of which imply roughness and darkness. Which is definitely there, but most (most, not all) of their songs also have a positive message woven into them. To sum the music feeling up in one word: Bittersweet. To my surprise, I also realized they usually have fairly consistent rhyming in their lyrics. It was something I surely noticed before, but it never really sank in. So I took all of that, mixed it up, and this is where we landed. Just turn another page, in my head, would be to the same tune as, Go find another way, and the last two lines are a direct reference to what I just mentioned about their music being largely bittersweet. About being largely dark but often underlyingly positive. And, on a less direct level, it's kind of also a reference to the fact that they came back last year. So to speak, they "fell" in 2013, but there was a better ending--or continuation?--yet to come in the form of their 2019 Return. Beyond that, I really don't have much else in the way of an explanation. But this does sound at least more like something they'd write than what I had before, and that's mostly what I wanted. I tried to be a bit different and less conventional with the mandala shapes, which I think fits their image pretty well. ...That's really all I have to say. This one was a bit of a rollercoaster in terms of poem creation. I no longer know how scared or excited I should be for the forthcoming prompts, so! Tomorrow, what will be? Horror or a breeze? Only time will tell. ____ Artwork/Poem © me, MysticSparkleWings Inspired by FridgePoetProject ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[podcake]

Must Listen May: Mabel Review

An interesting piece of trivia I’d like to offer to you all before starting this review is that this show officially premiered nine days after my nineteenth birthday. And when I think of September, the first thing that comes to mind is how much I enjoy doing September in Review and how long it took for me to figure out whether or not I wanted to squeeze Mabel into it. 

But the siren’s call of horror has been a strong one this month, and I was compelled to go with my instincts on the SABLE and Mabel match up for the end of spring. Also, I like rhyming as much as I love perfect timing.

Mabel is a podcast that is, as vaguely as the real description puts it, about “ghosts, family secrets, strange houses, and missed connections”. It is primarily centered around Mabel Martin, a troubled young lady with a dark secret as a woman named Anna Limon, our main narrator and the caretaker for Mabel’s frail grandmother, tries to get in touch with her. 

This is the first audio drama brain child of esteemed writer, tarot card reader, and now podcast producer Becca De La Rosa, and as far as debuts go, Mabel is a fairly eclectic little number.

For starters, the episodes are done entirely in missed voice mail messages that provide a surprising amount of depth and a general synopsis of what we’re in for. So if you’re always looking forward to Night Vale’s “The September Monologues” episodes or those certain mini episodes of The Bright Sessions, this might be up your alley from the get-go. 

I’m honestly surprised more people haven’t taken advantage of this simple but effective format as it makes for some natural but memorable monologues. 

As far as audio editing goes, it’s as modest as it needs to be with the ongoing “beep!” noise being the only constant alongside subtle sound effects and melancholic music to back the narration which is all used to help make the show as heavily atmospheric as possible.

If there’s anything Mabel has plenty of its eerie silence and the kind of ambiance that’s equal parts calm and creepy, a central theme woven into the story from the start that’s strengthened by its choice of horror tropes. 

And the horror trope Mabel has in mind, beyond mysterious old people and endless phone calls, is that of sentient houses. This alone brings back memories of reading Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, one of my favorite novels and a door-stopper thick with some of the best surreal horror descriptions and dialogue. Not a podcast but an excellent book that I can certainly say Mabel drew some inspiration from.

It’s not everyday I can recall a book to describe an audio drama so kudos to De La Rosa for the homage to some quality literature. 

I’m also a fan of the idea of a protagonist who plays straight man in the beginning but ends up coming off less and less stable overtime as their sanity becomes questionable. 

This all the more to do with the aforementioned spooky house thing I mentioned before, making Anna less than comfortable in her surroundings though something implies there’s something else simply off about her despite the unsettling nature of her job.

But the descriptions don’t just stop at the house and the elegant streaks of face juice likely gracing Anna’s phone screen as Mabel has an interesting take on fairy tale motifs as symbolism and imagery that correlate with fairy folk, princesses, and being trapped in towers comes up more and more in Anna’s narration. 

Along that are some haunting and equally beautiful descriptions connecting to roses and roots, some place called Fairy Hill, and any symbolism that can be squeezed out of bodies of water.

As someone who has grown use to audio drama descriptions ranging between strange town locations, apocalyptic wastelands, and the insides of spaceships, I had to say the visuals here were equally chilling and refreshing to imagine. 

The same way I took some grisly delight in SABLE’s love for twisted storytelling, I get a similar and slightly softer variation of this with Mabel, a show abundant with images freaky more in that metaphorical sense. 

This still being a dual review month, I feel compelled to draw at least some type up comparison between these two shows beyond the obvious horror with a rhyming thing. And it turns out that I did find something that the two didn’t just have common, but one glaring feature that made them distinctly different from one another.

In my review of SABLE, I mentioned how the excessive gore can become overwhelming but doesn’t weigh down otherwise simple tale while Mabel seems to have the opposite problem. It’s not a particularly violent show and works around a more whimsical-psychological thing, though the contrast comes to mind with how underwhelming it can be. 

Everything is so subtle and quiet and soft all the time that it can take awhile to fully understand what’s happening even if we know we’re meant to be given a complete picture composed out of a lot of tiny, tiny pieces. This can make an average listening lean more on the tedious side as we try to meticulously pick apart the central narrative and as to what exactly is going on. 

An interesting mental exercise, certainly, though an often grating one that makes tuning in quite a chore if one is just looking for a story they can sink their teeth into without choking on the tough exterior.

It’s a show that requires your full attention as a lot can be said in just a few minutes, with little agency from the narration to imply how important it really is, and is the equivalent of walking a very thin tightrope for a vaguely implied promise of a prize at the end. It can be a lot of thinking and concentration for not much of a reward, forcing one to tune into the next episode more out of sheer confusion than curiosity. 

And it can be hard to stay focused with so many bewildering details, red herrings, and imagery being presented in a way that straddles the line between purple prose, some pretty good poetry, and a casual one-sided phone conversation. 

I understand that this is all for the sake for keeping the main mystery as vague as possible but the execution just doesn’t have that right effect.

Unfortunately, Mabel just is not as eerie yet fantastical as it wants to be, making for a listening experience that doesn’t quite fall flat as much as it fails to really get a rise out of itself. It’s a story overwhelmed by its own complexity that can make for some great background noise if you’re just here for the pretty music and nice words but a trial to completely comprehend even when going through the current stretch of episodes available. 

Which is a pity because I really love the ideas here, I just wish the execution was better than some appealing but not particularly interesting window dressing. In short: I didn’t get it.

The truth is that Mabel is a very acquired taste, incredibly niche even in a niche crowd that it puts itself in. And I know for a fact I’ve said this often and are the first to sing praises to strange ideas, testing out new genres in an audio format, and getting as much beautiful, elegant world building out there as possible and Mabel should very much be in my ballpark for doing all of this.

And yet I find myself not being as enamored as I expected to be. There’s a very good story and a contained, gorgeously written set up to keep all its pieces in place, and yet it still left me feeling all sorts of dizzy and at a complete distance from what it wanted to share.

As a big fan of less than sane content, be it dealing with time travel, dimension tearing shenanigans, and mole people-I honestly surprised myself to see I wasn’t registering the same genuine intrigue that made me enjoy those titles to begin with.

With some thinking I realized exactly why that is. 

What Mabel lacks that, to name a few, the post-apocalyptic camp story of Our Fair City and the sci-fi reality bending time travel tale of Ars Paradoxica, is that despite their bewildering plots and one of a kind narrative, is a sense of coherency. 

These shows both work around the rules of chaos and trying to make sense of it, allowing listeners to put the pieces together and make the big scary puzzle in the end look a lot more simple. 

There’s a central purpose and underlying kind of human sanity that doesn’t completely alienate you from what’s going on, something Mabel has yet to fully commit to. 

Not that Mabel lacks a central narrative, just that it’s so bogged down by its own setting and single, unchanging, eerie tone that it lacks any sort of punch that it’s been slowly winding up from the beginning of season one. It may just be because it’s only the first season and second season to work off of, but I have yet to...how do I put this, get the point.

Perhaps a show of this style, if one can call it a style, is beyond my realm of intrigue and is meant to be appealing to people who just aren’t...me. I do love non-direct storytelling and mysteries that press and press on, but the way Mabel handles these ideas doesn’t quite engross me in its world and instead pushed me into the sidelines to watch from afar. 

Above all, Mabel has a pretty good sense of suspense and budding tension with some gorgeously presented visuals, but its slow pace and confusing writing might leave more people behind locked doors.

[edge-hill-university]

Words As Weapons

Liverpool poet Malik Al Nasir is a revolutionary. And he wants us to join him.

We’re not necessarily talking about violent struggle, political upheaval, a world in crisis. Rather, we’re following the words of Malik’s spiritual guide and mentor, the late Gil Scott-Heron, who famously said that “the revolution will not be televised”.

Revolution will happen the moment you turn away from your tv, get off the sofa, and grab hold of your own destiny with both hands:

“The beginning of the revolution is when you change your mind,” says Malik. “If you're in a position when you can actually decide that a given thing, or way of being, or way of thinking, or way of behaving is just not acceptable to you, then you change it.”

As part of the University’s Black History Month programme, Malik has been discussing his own history as a black person growing up in Liverpool in the 1970s and 1980s, and the pivotal moments in his life that led him down the twin paths of performance poetry and civil rights, culminating in a performance, with his band the O.Gs, as part of a night of music and performance in tribute to the late poet, musician and civil rights activist Gil Scott-Heron.

His journey from Mark T Watson, born in Toxteth in 1969, to Malik Al Nasir, poet and performer, is best told by the man himself in his film Word Up From Ghetto to Mecca. But very briefly, Malik had a troubled childhood, spending much of it within a care system that didn’t really seem to care at all.  Having been excluded from school, from formal education, for a substantial period of his young life, he found multiple barriers to education: “I was semi-literate at 18 with no prospects.”

A revelatory backstage encounter with a touring Gil Scott-Heron in Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre started the process of removing those barriers as his eyes were opened and he glimpsed his own potential. Gil’s kind words were backed up by kind actions, when Malik eventually joined Scott-Heron on the road as part of his crew.  This led him to Jalal Nuriddin of legendary artist-activists The Last Poets, who provided a critical commentary during the height of the civil rights era in the US, and is regularly referred to as the grandfather of rap.

These experiences were life-changing. They mentored him, educated him, nurtured his natural gift for language, encouraged him to articulate his thoughts, and to always be honest. They helped a “semi-literate” Malik find his way, and his own voice.

“Gil Scott-Heron and Jalal Nuriddin’s [poetry was] borne out of people trying to find a voice for the people who had no voice and were excluded from the mainstream media narrative, and that was the black people in the ghettos of America during the civil rights era, and that was part of the black arts movement. I met those guys and they mentored me, and through that process I was able to develop a skillset that enabled me to enter higher education.”

Education was the key, then, but Malik knew he had to help himself:

“I was motivated by the fact that once I’d acquired the skills to be able to enter academia I could elevate myself as an individual, against all the odds, because the people who were in the situation I was in, I think, were largely written off by society. I fought against that narrative, and I subverted that by devoting a lot of time to self-education, to just sit down, and - not even subject specific - literally reading and writing, initially doing creative writing, writing poetry, writing rhyme, writing songs, playing with words.”

Malik went to university, got a degree, got a Masters. But he didn’t study the English language. He was seeking knowledge, insight, not necessarily the rules of the game. Having the confidence to play with language is sometimes the result of not knowing the rules, and Malik cites the way children learn to speak as an example of how we use language effectively and creatively without possessing the grammatical nuts and bolts. Another example is grime music, he says. It “will always connect with people”, and when it is academically deconstructed “in years to come, I'm sure they'll find things in it, whether from a musical or linguistic standpoint that actually surprises them. Because something can be right but technically wrong.”

Malik’s approach to his art, as with all art forms, is ultimately about freedom to experiment and to push things forward. Not being told what you can do, just doing it, and letting everyone else catch up.  Rules are designed to constrain, but to ignore them, or even perhaps to not know they exist, is liberating, and has signalled great artistic leaps forward as far back as Shakespeare, and beyond: “It's in the breaking of those conventions that the magic happens,” he says.

His subversive approach produced his first book of poetry Ordinary Guy (as Mark T Watson, his name before he converted to Islam), and subsequent album Rhythms of the Diaspora Vol.s 1 & 2, which featured the poetry from Ordinary Guy delivered over a wall of percussive sound.

Malik’s inspiration for this radical sonic approach was once again his mentors, who would, back in the day, recite their poetry on basketball courts accompanied by a simple percussionist. He took a similar approach, but used the full array of percussive instruments – no stringed, brass or wind instruments. Only the human voice and natural effects – water flowing, wind blowing – were allowed. His production team were initially thrown by his approach “but the result was something that all who'd been involved felt proud of and inspired by. Because they were working with conventional wisdom they would never have ordinarily gone down that route because they were constrained by convention, I'm not.”

It’s a great message – and story - for all students of the creative arts who feel they have something to say but feel they don’t have the skills, or lack confidence, opportunity, or encouragement. Tear up the grammatical rulebook, says Malik, and just “write what’s in your heart… don't think about making it good.” Emotional honesty is the most important element, believes Malik, because “we have a natural ability to connect with sincerity. If you feel something, or think something, and you feel like you want to get it out there on paper, then just get it out while you're feeling it, and get it out as true to the feeling as possible, don't be constrained by the rules of language, just get it out how you feel it, in whatever dialect, meter, format, make it make sense.”

Although Malik’s poetic odyssey began with a few thoughts, jotted down as they came to him, the next step was the real leap of faith: performance. He was coaxed into the arena by another North West poet, Lemn Sissay, who was performing with Jalal Nuriddin. He asked to hear one of Malik’s poems, told him it was good, and invited him to perform at the open mic event which followed the show:

“I remember standing up there with my head bowed, and all these people staring at me, and I was really self-conscious, introducing myself saying 'I'm Malik Al Nasir, I'm not a poet, I'm just an ordinary guy who happened to write some poetry', and then I launched into my poem, and I got a standing ovation, and that changed everything for me, that was the point at which I realised that I could actually do this.”

And how. Malik now recites his work in front of audiences of all sizes, and doesn’t miss a beat when invited to perform in places like Cambridge University, delivering his passionate verse and heartfelt opinions on weighty issues such as immigration and citizenship to students and academics.

As an artist unafraid to subvert tradition and convention and mould words and ideas in his own style, Malik is in good company. Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, rapper MIA, artist and film-maker Steve McQueen, poet and writer Toni Morrison, musician Afrika Bambaataa, and, of course, Jalal Nuriddin and Gil Scott-Heron, are just a handful of creative artists who have achieved success on their own terms, and Malik believes there’s no end to what “ordinary guys” and women can achieve, as long as your ideas remain true to yourself:

“If it comes out like something no-one's ever heard before all the better, because you might be the next big thing.”

“The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat”, claimed Gil Scott-Heron. Is this the moment you too take control of your own destiny?

As part of Black History Month, on Saturday 4 November at the Arts Centre A Tribute to Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Be Live! will feature Malik & the O.Gs, alongside Kim Jordan, in tribute to his mentor Gil Scott-Heron’s musical, literary and activist legacy.

Edge Hill’s next Open Mic Night is Monday 6 November, 7.30 pm: put yourself in the driver’s seat.