#i think he struggles to reconcile the past version of her + her present self. and how to connect with her through all the muck 🤔

[poptartmochi]

dear god... suddenly emo about Magdalena and Isaac 😢😢

[wingsofthewibbets]

Hello I Made A Playlist

It is specifically for the vibes of the Calamity Trio! Also, I feel like contributing to fandom, so I tried to explain why I felt each song gave off the ~Vibe~. Apologies for the length of this monstrosity. It’s on Youtube and Spotify, but there is a song on Youtube I used that was unavailable on Spotify. It’s in no particular order, although maybe I’ll organize it one day.

~‘California Friends’ (The Regrettes)- Generally the fun upbeat vibe of the song, but also these specific lyrics make me think of Anne’s :

     I think I love you but then I think

     No way!

     I gotta go but I wanna stay

    Just stay!

    I guess I’ll save it for another day, well okay?

As well as:

     I get mixed up in my head, you do too

     But I don’t forget a thing you’ve said

     Well that’s true

I think the lyrics definitely give me more Anne/Marcy vibes, but the music itself makes me think of Sasha getting them into trouble. There’s some big garage band energy here, and it just makes me think of them running around and causing chaos. (also the ‘i gotta go but i wanna stay/just stay’ definitely reminds me of the end of the aquarium episode)

~’The Archer’ (Taylor Swift)- Oh man this song where do I even start?? There is so much?? (I know I’ve already talked about this one, but Imma do it again) I was listening to this song one day and the lyrics hit me so hard as reminding me of all the girls, specifically:

For Anne:

    Combat, I’m ready for combat

    I say I don’t want that, but what if I do?

    ‘Cause cruelty wins in the movies

    I’ve got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory, but this seriously makes me think of her relationship with Sasha -or the shambles of it anyway oof- and the speeches line just makes me there’s so much that she doesn’t tell her friends about what’s running through her head. 

Anne’s an emotional person to be sure, but she’s also a very impulsive one, which means a lot of times, what people get from her is the unedited, unreflected version of her thoughts, which don’t make them any less true, but that also means that she’s probably a little more reticent with the deeper ideals that don’t get unearthed through dramatic moments. She just does things a lot of the time, and when she gets stuck on something, it is kinda obvious from the outside, but she also gets uncomfortable with trying to talk about it, because there is no clear solution she can enact in the moment to resolve it.

For Sasha:

    Screaming who could ever leave me, darling?

    But who could stay?

    I see right through me, I see through me

As well as the repetition of ‘they see right through me/can you see right through me’, these lines give me huge Sasha vibes, specifically. I think of them kind of especially applicable to the Reunion episode, but also just how there were a couple scenes where she seemed to be regretting hiding from her friends the toad rebellion that was going to take place in Newtopia, and that conversation Anne and Sasha have in The Third Temple. I don’t think she ever considered regretting the rebellion at all, but I do think she worried over what it might do to her friendships. 

The end of Reunion was heartbreaking, for both Anne and Sasha, because if the Plantars had been able to pull both girls up, I think there would have been more opportunity for Sasha and Anne to have a better reconciliation. (i think this about this a lot ngl) And, also because she was willing to die for Anne??? I don’t think that gets discussed enough. That episode has big ‘who could ever leave me’ at the beginning, and then at the end ‘who could stay’ vibes. 

For Marcy:

    And all of my heroes die alone (OOF)

As well as

     All the king’s horses, all the king’s men

     Couldn’t put me together again

     ‘Cause all of my enemies started out friends

Ahahaha this is the ANGST. So. I mean, obviously the king’s horses part makes me think of the ending of True Colors, and I don’t think that Marcy considers Sasha and Anne to be her enemies by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t think that Andrias is above manipulating her to think that they think of her that way. (Also the line ‘cause all of my enemies started out friends’ line is very applicable to Anne and Sasha as well, it just happened to be part of the lines that made me think of Marcy) Plus sticking around the king and whatever the heck he has in store for her will definitely not put her back together sooo-

The ‘help me hold onto you’ and the ‘I’ve been the archer/I’ve been the prey’ just apply to all of them (for the former, think Sasha and Anne in Reunion, the way Marcy tried to mediate in The Dinner, and just True Colors in general; for the latter, it makes me think of the sword-fights between Anne and Sasha, as well as how Marcy once believed that Andrias actually cared about her). The ‘Dark side, I search for your dark side/But what if I’m alright, right, right, right here’ make me think of how Anne is going to be reevaluating her friendships with both Sasha and Marcy, as well as how all of them seemed to grow into the Amphibia communities that they landed in and what they are going to struggle with leaving behind.

I had this song on loop for way too long trying to word my feelings out about it.

~’Soldier, Poet, King’ (Oh Hellos)- This song is just so absolutely perfect for the three girls. I’d like to take the time to state that I think Sasha fits soldier, Marcy poet, and Anne king, but what are y’all’s thoughts? 

     There will come a soldier/Who carries a mighty sword

     He will tear your city down

Big Sasha vibes, fits with what’s she done so far in the show, as well as how she’s being set up for the third season to be a hero (whose intentions somewhat align with the consequences of her actions).

    There will come a poet/Whose weapon is his word

    He will slay you with his tongue

Marcy spends a lot of time journaling, and she even takes the time to learn a dead language! She seems rather skilled with more traditional weaponry, but her biggest boon is her intelligence and her quick-thinking. I also think that if she does end up getting possessed by the Night, its words being spoken by Marcy’s voice is absolutely going to SLAUGHTER Anne and Sasha.

     There will come a ruler/Whose brow is laid in thorn

     Smeared with oil like David’s boy

Apart from the fact that Anne literally has plants growing from her head in the S2 finale, she is also a charismatic leader who has made connections all over Amphibia. She genuinely cares about the people around her, and takes the time to get to know them and spend time with them. Also, a lot of times, she is underestimated and seen as the David to her opponent’s Goliath- whether that be physically or in skillset.

~’Someone To You’ (The Banners)- No specific lyrics here, but the general vibe of the song. There is a sort of desperation that seems to permeate it, as though if the narrator isn’t someone to the person they are singing to, they will be nobody at all, and I think that is very much how all of the girls view their friendship, at least at first. 

Marcy gets the music box thing going because she doesn’t want to be alone; Sasha is desperate to have Anne, and she wants so much for both Anne and Marcy to look up to her as someone who is strong and present. I think for Anne, we kinda see this song in the speech she gives to Sprig in Best Fronds when she’s trying to get him to break the rules with her, but also in how she is open to reconciling with Sasha in The Dinner and giving her a second chance. Mainly, though, what I associate with Anne for this song are the scenes where she reunites with Marcy and Sasha for the first time. The spinning hug she gives Sasha, and how tightly she hugs Marcy with tears in her eyes- she really does love and care about these girls.

They all cling to this friendship so much, in different ways, both healthy and unhealthy, and I think this song really captures that.

~’Lost Girls’ (Lindsey Stirling)- This song is mostly instrumental, so again, no specific lyrics here, but there is a very deep, melancholic feel to this song. It gets kinda fast-paced at some points, and reminds me of the ending of True Colors, with Anne and Sasha and Marcy separated. There is so much space- literal and internal- between all of them now, and I think this song does a really great job of getting Those Feels across. They aren’t just lost to each other, they are also struggling with battles inside of themselves.

But the lyrics that are in this song, (lol I just said I wouldn’t mention them whoops) ‘Lost girls find a way’, are sung, the music played after them that plays remind me that, like Matt Braly said, sometimes things have to be broken to be fixed again. They can find a way. It’s not a happy song to be sure, but there’s a quiet strength and determination in it.

~’Long Live’ (Taylor Swift)- I could cite specific lyrics here, but this song has just always given me epilogue-end-of-the-battle scenes, where we get to see everyone exhausted, but happy and most importantly together. This song is what I’m hoping the future gets to be for Marcy, Anne, and Sasha; happy about their present together, being able to heal despite the past, and accepting that even if they aren’t together forever in the future, that doesn’t mean they weren’t important to one another.

~’Torches’ (Oh Hellos)- ‘Torches’, on the complete opposite hand to ‘Long Live’, kind of represents where the girls are right now with one another. 

Despite keeping that old wheel turning, despite laying that next spoke down (yes these are direct lyric references), they are also continuing to make mistakes with one another.

    I got a venom like a snake running out of my mouth

    (Running out of my mouth, running out of my mouth)

    It’s got you burning at the stake

    Innocent or not, you’re not a bet I care to take

 And, yet, somehow, they keep being led back to one another. They are more alike than they think, and even if they get back to Earth, they will still be bound by the mutual experiences they had on Amphibia, that no one else is likely to ever understand. The ways they misunderstand one another and don’t communicate cleave them apart, but also together, in a way. 

    And Father Ignorance will make brothers of us all

   (Brothers of us all, brothers of us all)

    As he sets our torch aflame

    Chasing down the flimsy specters that we pro-create

As well as 

    Mother Fortuna, O, she makes sisters of us all

    (Sisters of us all, sisters of us all)

   When the faces in her wake

    Look more like our own than the effigies that we immolate

~’Castle On The Hill’ (Ed Sheeran)- Purely just the vibes. Nothing super deep, just makes me think of how Anne, Sasha, and Marcy are going to look back on their friendships and their time together. 

~’Trouble’ (Valerie Broussard)- Though I will forever associate this song with Six of Crows thanks to a fabulous animatic, I will say that it also makes me think of the darker tone that Season 3 might take on, and how each girl is poised to take on a different problem. I see it as a very Sasha song (especially ‘I’m your Number Two man in a fight/We are revolutionaries tonight’), but all three of them tend to lead a trail of chaos in their wake. (Also the vibes here are impeccable)

~’Time Alive’ (K.C Katalbas)- (not on Spotify, definitely recommend checking it out) This song just has that perfectly nostalgic, yet aspirational feel to it. It is hopeful, yet it it has its own sort of weight. It pairs nicely with ‘Long Live’ and ‘Castle On The Hill’, in a way, I think. It makes me think of what the future could be for the girls, once again, and how even if something is bittersweet, you are still allowed to be hopeful. Mostly, it makes me think of each girl reflecting about one another, and the time they spent together. 

    And this is your life, every plan has a right to fall

    And this is your heart, through the dark it’s the loudest call

    And this is breathing

    And seeing her go

~’Try’ (The Lightning Thief)- True Color battle against Andrias vibes! And Season 3 vibes! A lot of these lyrics are kind of specific to Annabeth, Percy, and Grover’s characters, but I also think the general feel of this song is very applicable to Anne, Sasha, and Marcy. Particularly, I am reminded of how Sasha and Anne will be feeling about Marcy.

    I may fail you

   I may fail you

    I may fail you, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t try

And

    I’m not leaving your side til we find what matters

   I’m not leaving your side til we’re back home

   I’m not leaving your side til you’re remembered

   No matter how far we have to go

As well as probably the guilt that Marcy was feeling during True Colors:

   Two thousand four hundred forty eight reasons I have to come along

   Wash my hands of past mistakes

As well as

    The weight of the world’s on my shoulders

    Like Atlas, it’s crushing me down

    We’re not brave, we’re not strong, we’re not soldiers

And how could I forget?

    L.A doesn’t seem so far away…

~’Drive It Like You Stole It’ (Sing Street)- Again, like ‘Trouble’, but a little softer. If ‘Trouble’ has Sasha vibes, this one makes me think of Anne, but it also has a similar line to ‘Time Alive’- this is your life. For the most part of Amphibia, I think the girls focussed a lot on fitting in and adapting to their surroundings, but I think Season 3 is really going to see them owning who they are and taking it upon themselves to enact change. 

It also just makes me think of them messing around and being kids, trying to figure out who they are. It’s like, if they ever make it back to Earth in one piece and stay friends, but still manage to get into shenanigans.

~’What’s Up Danger’ (Blackway, Black Caviar)- local newt king gets mauled by three newly empowered thirteen-year olds

~’How Far We’ve Come’ (Matchbox Twenty)- This one is a classic. No playlist of mine is worth its salt if it doesn’t have this song here. It has the ~vibes~ of pre-last battle energy, and also I can definitely see Sasha and the Sharps playing it at some point. 

Alternately, this also makes me think of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy finally going home together or reuniting properly after the end of True Colors. Lots of angst either way.

~’We Are Young’ (fun.)- What I picture with this: Anne, Sasha, and Marcy are not entirely reconciled with one another yet, but it’s the night before the last battle or somethin’, and they still care about one another a lot. This has that energy. They’re just kids, but they’ll be damned if they don’t go out without a fight, and without standing by one another’s sides. 

(and marcy found someone(s) to carry her home nanananananana)

Slightly more uplifting(?) than ‘How Far We’ve Come’, but similar energy, I think.

~’Pump It’ (Black Eyed Peas)- three local teenagers get pumped to cause problems on purpose; montage time. I have no justification for this song, only that it has the vibes of Sasha and Anne’s relentless energy and the confidence of Marcy swinging down on a rope she doesn’t know will actually hold her weight. 

~’Disaster Hearts’ (I Fight Dragons)- I feel like this song is the definition of Matt’s tweet about how some things have to be broken to be fixed. It has vibes of the aftermath of a battle, and opening the door to reconciliation and forgiveness. Amphibia has tied these girls together, for better or worse, and I think there is room for them to become better friends and mend their relationships.

    Disaster has a way of remaking our hearts

    Long after all the thunder and scars

    Days pass and bit by bit we begin to restart

    Our disaster hearts

~’Thus Always To Tyrants’ (Oh Hellos)- It makes me think of where Anne and Sasha are left at the end of Reunion, but also in how Anne wants to find Marcy now that she know she’s definitely out there. The sound of the song gives me huge Marcy vibes, with how it does seem to be almost cheerful? The very last line makes me think a lot about Sasha (‘Learn to love without consuming’), but I think a lot of the song is applicable to all the girls in different situations. 

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 7x09 Never Leave Me

aka tired of subtle

We did it, guys! We made it to the last season! Also, hello if you’re new, and stumbled upon this without context. As usual, these impromptu text posts are the product of my fevered mind as I rant about the episode I just watched for an hour (okay, sometimes perhaps two). Anything goes!

And I prefer today’s episode to Sleeper as a post-Big-Bad-reveal kick-off to our season’s main arc in multiple ways. Also, Willow drags Andrew. Literally.

Season 7, as a whole, struggles from the main story arc taking up too much of its time. People often hate on filler episodes, but the truth is, you can’t fill out 22 episodes of television with a singular, focused story arc. And you shouldn’t.

Not to mention that fillers are a great way to explore characters without being bogged down by an overarching plot. (So stop hating on their concept, just because some shows do them badly.)

Buffy at its best realized that these things – your main arc, your character stories and your fillers – can coexist in the same episodes. Some of the best episodes of the show are one-off stories, using a unique set-up or villain of the week while focusing on characters and pushing the season arc on some level.

Unfortunately, the structure of season 7 makes it much harder to tell these kinds of stories. Our Big Bad is ever-present, and the battles and confrontations with it are constant throughout the season, once the reveal happens in episode 7.

I’m pointing this out not to criticize Never Leave Me, but to emphasize how good it is, and why the issue of the season has more to do with trying to keep up with the pace this episode sets.

Oh, yeah. Hot takes I guess about the episode that ranks 98th on iMDB. Never Leave Me is pretty good.

(I kinda wanna look up each episode’s iMDB ranking at this point before writing up on them, just for funsies, but I also don’t want to be influenced by the popular opinions? The struggle.)

To be fair though, part of my fondness for this episode comes from my feelings regarding the previous one. Watching it, I felt like I was seeing a much better version of what a follow up to Conversations with Dead People would look like.

And a lot of that has to do with Spike. And Buffy.

I spent the last time ranting at length about how I just don’t connect with Spike, and that’s okay. Pretty much all Buffy characters are incredibly flawed, and we all relate to and/or gravitate towards different ones, based on our own experiences. I love that. I love that these are well-rounded characters who change and grow in both surprising and consistent ways.

I also like Spike much better in this episode, because his story relates to Buffy much more strongly. Which does seem to be the best way for me to find a connection to Spike in any given episode (see also: Fool for Love).

I guess another aspect is that unlike Sleeper, this episode focuses much less on his romanticism. He instead talks about his past. About the horrific things he’s done. About his and Buffy’s self-hatred. About how he understands it and that she used him now, and how he didn’t back then.

More importantly, Buffy gets to fire back. She did tell him all those things last season. It’s why she ended things with him in the first place. She also challenges his assumptions about that self-hatred as a current motivation in what’s decidedly my favorite scene of the episode.

SPIKE:  “Have you ever really asked yourself why you can’t do it? Off me? […] You like men who hurt you.” BUFFY:  “No.” SPIKE:  “You need the pain we cause you. You need the hate. You need it to do your job, to be the Slayer.” BUFFY:  “No. I don’t hate like that. Not you, or myself. Not anymore. You think you have insight now because your soul’s drenched in blood. You don’t know me. You don’t even know you. […} Listen to me. You’re not alive because of hate or pain. You’re alive because I saw you change. Because I saw your penance. […] You faced the monster inside you and you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man.”

I love this scene, because Spike posits something that��s in line with Buffy’s own fears about her relationships, something that she voices as far back as season 4. That maybe she herself seeks out these painful, dramatic romances.

…But this discussion isn’t really just about that, isn’t it? And even if Buffy hasn’t quite landed yet on how to approach her romantic history, she has plenty of self-knowledge. She knows why she hasn’t and won’t kill Spike now.

Buffy sees and believes in the best of people. Even when they don’t. And here she shows the same compassion to Spike that she did to Angel as far back as season 1.

See, she’s a protector, not a killer. And one with a huge fucking heart at that.

That’s why she didn’t kill Spike. At worst, she saw him as non-threatening to others after his chip debacle, at best, she saw a potential for him to become better.

Still. How does one reconcile this characterization of Buffy with what we see in Selfless? Has Anya not proved more than enough times that she can be better? That she’s more than just the vengeance demon she used to be?

Worse, when Buffy and Xander argue about the difference between stopping Anya then, and Willow at the end of season 6, Buffy’s argument doesn’t really make sense once you think about it. She says that they weren’t planning on killing Willow, because Willow’s human. But from everything we know of vengeance demons, there really isn’t any distinction between them and a human with powers. They still have their souls.

So the distinction Buffy makes between Anya’s and Willow’s case feels arbitrary. And so does the decision to not kill Spike at certain points of the story.

But that’s what Buffy says in Selfless, isn’t it? “Someone has to draw the line.” And in a world with no clear-cut black and white morality, that line is arbitrary.

Buffy’s been acutely aware of the fact that the world she operates in is full of grey areas ever since Lie to Me. There are no easy answers or choices, even when you’re fighting literal creatures from hell, but someone has to makes these decisions regardless. Someone has to draw the line. And that’s Buffy.

But I think that’s why she finds it all the more important to choose hope sometimes. She has to be prepared, yes, and she can’t rely on the power of love alone, as discussed before. Her responsibilities come first. But she can offer a choice.

Even in Selfless, one of the most important moments for Buffy is when she implores Xander to find her another way to deal with Anya. Which is what Willow ends up doing, by asking D’Hoffryn to offer up the same kind of choice to Anya, that Buffy felt unable to in this situation.

Never Leave Me is also the episode where the gang meets Andrew again. More accurately, Willow runs into him, and he’s terrified. As he should be.

ANDREW:  “Warren killed Tara. I didn’t do it. And he was aiming for Buffy anyway.” WILLOW:  “Not making it better.”

In case you missed it, this was a direct callback to another scene:

WARREN:  “It was an accident, you know.” WILLOW:  “Oh. You mean, instead of killing my best friend, you killed my girlfriend.”

Listen, all I’m saying that if Willow flayed Andrew after that line? I wouldn’t have blamed her.

But Willow these days is less about the murder, so instead she just stares incredulously at Andrew after that little moment of rage-inducing blunder. And they both nerd-monologue at each other, I guess?

(Sidenote: I don’t think I ever got around to mention this with the last season, but there’s an interesting and somewhat uncomfortable interpretation of the Trio, as a mirror to Willow’s own character. Mostly the worst parts of her at that of course, but there are definitely some parallels here; particularly to Warren and his tech savviness, and Jonathan and his magical abilities. Andrew is probably the least obvious example though – unless we take his relentless gay-coding as a nod to that.)

This whole storyline of course ends up being played mostly for comedy, as Anya and Xander take it upon themselves to test their interrogation techniques on Andrew. And it’s fun, too, seeing them work together without the added baggage that was their romantic relationship. It makes me both root much more for them to get back together, and wish that they wouldn’t, because they work so much better like this.

Even if Xander’s speech to Andrew is obviously supposed to be about himself, and how he’s still not over Anya.

XANDER:  “There was this one guy, her hurt her real bad, so she paid him back. She killed him, but she did it real slow. See, first she stopped his heart, then she replaced it with darkness, then she made him live his life like that. But he still had to go do his job, and see his friends, and wake up in the morning, and go to bet ad night, but he had to do it all empty. Without anything to look forward to. Ever.”

Honey… I know you know this, but you did this to yourself.

Oh, and isn’t it fun that when the Harbringers attack, one of the first things they do is knock Willow unconscious? It’s almost as if the show is trying not to call attention to the fact, that she could probably take these guys out in a second with magic.

But at least this gives Dawn some chance to kick ass, so that’s always a plus.

Another side-plot that’s happening is with my boy, Robin, who finds Jonathan’s body in the basement. And decides to bury It instead of telling anyone about it.

I’m sure there’s an explanation to this other than making us believe that he’s a bad guy, but I honestly can’t even remember. We’ll see, I guess.

The episode ends with Buffy making the connection that they’re up against the First, and the First itself monologuing at Spike about how it’s tired of being subtle. Which feels very meta in an ironic kind of sense from the show, but also marks a questionable turn in the season arc.

There’s a lot of cool concept and potential (hehe) in the First as a Big Bad, that we’ve seen demonstrated in Conversations with Dead People. It knows things. It can appear as anyone you know who died. It can mess with you in infinite ways.

In this scene though, the First is talking about bringing these Uruk-hai vampires to the surface, and that’s just not as interesting as those other tactics. Even if Buffy gets to have cool fights with them.

But that’s still to come. Who knows, maybe I’ll appreciate the super vampires after all.

Also appreciated – those scene of Quentin and the Watcher’s Council being their usual, holier-than-thou selves, keeping information from Buffy, and relying on empty platitudes... immediately followed by them getting blown up.

Yeah. This show’s anything but subtle, that’s for sure.

[hencethebravery]

TITLE: First Family (1/1)

SUMMARY: It's not as if Killian Jones believes his husband to be incapable of winning the presidency (quite the opposite, actually)─he's just not entirely certain he wants him to. A CC 2020 Election AU. (Ao3)

NOTES: This particular story is meant to be entirely cute and in celebration of the prospect of having a “First Gentleman” (see recent Time magazine cover). It is not at all meant to be an endorsement of any one candidate, and if you come at me with anything other than love for these two boys and their dog, I will unhinge my jaw and swallow you whole. I developed Jasmine’s last name from a princess who appeared in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (on whom Jasmine is based, or so Wikipedia tells me). Oh, and another small disclaimer, this is the first time I’ve included Emma Swan in a Captain Charming fic. For whatever reason I used to struggle with including her, but I guess I’m over it because she’s here now. If you think that’ll bother you then give this one a miss!

If the chronically thin, awkward, and punk-ass 15 year old version of Killian Jones could have, somehow, opened a portal in time and space; a feat which might have allowed him to peer into the future in an attempt to witness what the future might hold, he would have likely imbibed several ill-advised shots of cheap bloody rum, and then quite dramatically flung himself atop the rumpled sheets of his perpetually unmade bed. If the younger Jones had even an inkling of the type of life he’d be living as a 35 year old man─with a full time job, a mortgage, a husband, one wildly photogenic dog─he would have done everything in his power to steer himself off such a disturbingly clean-cut, well-behaved course.

“Well and truly boring I’ve become, isn’t that right my love?”

Dave, the husband in question, sat comfortably in his usual corner of the couch, reading glasses perched at the end of his nose, putzing about on their shared iPad, paying less and less attention by the minute, “Oh, absolutely. Can’t stand you.”

The only reason he brings it up at all is because he has, somewhat unexpectedly, been rather unsettled by the prospect of a life change so massive, he has had no other choice but to reconcile with the fact that the quiet life he has managed to build for himself could, quite likely, be completely destroyed. Forever. Never to be found again. Relegated only to a memory that he’ll return to in his twilight years, a decrepit old thing. “Ah yes,” he would mumble, smacking his lips together in that way the elderly tend to do, “I remember when you could watch an entire 48 hours of television, totally unbothered!”

It’s not as if he legitimately wants to keep his husband, arguably the love his life, from doing what he’s meant to, and clearly, the man’s meant for greatness, but Killian has become accustomed to a certain standard of living. He likes (much to his younger self’s hypothetical horror) doing the same things everyday─up with the sun, cup of coffee, walk the dog, go to school, come home, make dinner, watch Netflix, go to bed. He likes weekend drives to the country; hikes in the morning, beers in the afternoon. He enjoys the calm, safe predictability of his life that he has so miraculously found in the wake of a rather tumultuous, traumatic youth.

“Killian,” David insisted gently, “you’re my husband. Obviously, if you don’t want me to do this, I won’t do it.”

The maddening part is that he knows with absolute certainty that he’s telling the truth. David Nolan wasn’t the resentful type─it was something he both simultaneously loved and hated about the man.

“I swear, darling, the last thing I want to do is hold you back,” Killian replied, frustrated with his own lack of enthusiasm, “I just…”

“...It’s a big change,” David finished, “I know. Honestly,” he continued, “I probably won’t even win.”

“Sure,” Killian scoffed, a smirk on his face, “that’s exactly what you said last time.”

5  Y E A R S  E A R L I E R

“I JUST THINK IT’S FUNNY!” Killian yells over the deafening cheers, one arm slung round Dave’s shoulders, the other waving wildly in the air.

“WHAT?” David shouts back, his mouth turned upwards in a somewhat manic, and what was fast becoming alarmingly permanent, grin.

“IT’S FUNNY!” he repeats, the volume of his voice doing little to bely the patience in his tone. He finds a few of their friends’ faces in the crowd and blows them a kiss, his cheeks starting to hurt with the force and breadth of his own smile.

“WHAT IS?”

Killian couldn’t help rolling his eyes at the absurdity of their attempting to hold a conversation at all at a time like this, but he’d never been one to keep from saying, “I told you so,” when the opportunity presented itself. That said, it was quite the ruckus, and he had simply shaken his head in surrender, silently promising to rub it in at a later date.

To be fair to David’s humility, a mayoral race and a presidential race are two vastly different undertakings, particularly when the mayoral position in question involved a municipality of around 100,000 people, which while a large enough amount, was quite small in comparison to the rest of the country. But at the same time, given what Killian knew about his husband, he had a hard time believing that the rest of the country wouldn’t be able to see what he saw─if they were able to get past the “First Gentleman” of it all, that is.

Killian would be lying if he said he didn’t have something of a pessimistic streak. Certainly, it had grown quieter over the years, especially since meeting David (and his subsequent election to political office in a small midwestern city), but the presidential election of about 3 years prior, coupled with the many national tragedies and constitutional crises, had “awoken the dragon,” so to speak.

“You’ve been watching way too much ‘Game of Thrones.’”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

David and Killian had agreed from the very start─whomever ran in 2020 would have to be and do more than the average candidate. The only way to remind the country and the world of who they really were as a nation was to commit a complete and total act of repudiation with a substantive majority vote.

“You know everyone and their mom is gonna run,” Emma Swan, David’s campaign manager, had joked in the weeks following the 2016 election, after all of their emotional wounds had felt somewhat soothed. Alcohol helped.

“Ah, yes,” Killian agreed, taking a sip of whiskey, “I can feel the splitting migraine already.”

Looking back, David’s silence in that moment had been suspicious, and if he and Emma hadn’t gotten absolutely wrecked in preparation for an upcoming election cycle that would inevitably last what would feel like a decade, he would have prodded a bit further. In fact, if he had prodded, maybe he wouldn’t be so woefully unprepared for the, “I’m thinking of running for President of the United States,” conversation.

Immediately before the panic had set in, what he had actually felt was pride. Regretfully however, panic will-out, and in the midst of his initial tittering he forgot to effectively relay that initial emotion, which was for David he was sure, far more preferable.

In the early stages of the mayoral race, Emma had been adamant on the point of storytelling. According to her, elections were won and lost on a candidate’s ability to tell a story─about themselves, their campaign, their vision for the community─and if David was going to run, an openly gay man (albeit white as they come) from a working class background with little name recognition, the story he told would have to be good. Thankfully there was the military record, that usually played well with an older, more conservative crowd, and it wasn’t as if he was a stranger to hard work─the necessity of family, community, the like. He’d lived there his whole life, people knew who he was, however… unfamiliar they were with his “lifestyle.”

Killian had been far more concerned about himself being one of the factors that could lose Dave the race. The two of them had yet to be married at the time, despite having lived together for several years, and while Killian had lived in America for much of his adulthood, he hadn’t been born there. He was also openly bisexual, had a mostly benign criminal record, and had gotten into his share of fairly public tiffs with some less... "progressive" members of their community. One of them had even been filmed─and gone viral.

“Aren’t you the least bit worried about dragging that all back up again?” Killian had asked during their first informal meeting with Emma. The kind of discussion that started with things like, "We're not having this conversation, but if we were," etc., etc.

“After this President?” Emma scoffed, a gleam in her eye, “It’ll only help.”

Killian should’ve guessed, after seeing David’s quick, knowing glance, that he’d been found out. That it wasn’t the loss of their current lives that he truly fretted over; his inability to walk down the street unmolested, but rather a deep-seated worry of his own value as a partner. He worried, as he had during Dave’s first campaign, that he would only weigh him down.

At some point in the near future, some invasive young journalist is going to ask Killian about the spousal sacrifices. They’re going to want to know, as the spouse of the first openly gay presidential candidate, what do you anticipate giving up? And how, if at all, has he made peace with their new reality? In point of fact, the first concession that Killian had made (up until the whole, “running for leader of the free world,” business that is) was his surrender of the coast.

Killian had never really had roots─there was never a physical home with four walls and a roof overhead to which he could depart and return, over and over again. It could never even be said that he had any people to which he might turn instead; he had a brother, Liam, but they’d never been particularly close, and their history was tense at best and outright antagonistic at worst. All this to say, it was part of the reason why he had given Her up (the sea). Because Dave, most curiously, would become his home in a way he had never thought possible. It was how he was able to make a compromise─to go without the sight of the waves lapping against the rocks in favor of a large, wraparound porch, with some admittedly stunning views of the trees and hills that surrounded their home.

It was where he happened to be sitting the morning after their first casual, "meeting but not a meeting," with Emma; a mug of cooling coffee in his hand, watching Sally sniffing to and fro in the damp grass. It was an otherwise normal morning aside from the impending dose of reality he had yet to fully face. He was in the midst of a perfectly somber and on brand bit of mindless staring when he heard the quiet rumbling of Dave’s early morning voice (a personal favorite of his).

“Hey,” he said, startling Killian out of his ironically stressful meditations. “Sorry,” he said with a laugh, taking a seat beside him on the porch swing, “I didn’t feel you get up this morning.”

“My apologies, love,” Killian answered with a brief kiss, “I didn’t want to wake you.”

There was no crying of gulls, and you couldn’t taste a hint of salt on your lips, but there was still the pleasant chirping of birds; the sight of the sun peeking over the tops of the trees, the heady smell of blooming flowers. Killian cleared his throat, both knowing and dreading the conversation he could no longer avoid.

“You have never,” David began, very astutely avoiding his husband’s nervous glances for the moment, “been something to be ashamed of.”

“For you to even think it,” he continued, giving a slight shake of his head, “I must be doing something wrong.”

“Dave, no─”

“Killian,” he interrupted, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, “you are the person I admire most in the world. You are the exact kind of person this country needs to see right now.”

A bit dramatic, Killian thought, desperately attempting to quell the violent beating of his own heart. Despite having known David for as long as he did, he was still somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer goodness of him. Having spent so long himself in a place of defensive cynicism, it was still a challenge to be so unabashedly confronted by such unrelenting hope. That’s what the country needs.

“I know it took us both a long time to make it…” He pauses, glancing up at the trees, the dog now slumbering at their feet, “here, but─”

“I couldn’t possibly adore you more than I already do,” Killian finished, abandoning his cold coffee in favor of framing David’s flushed face, “and I will be there every step of the way.”

“‘For better or for worse,’ blah, blah, blah?”

“Yes,” Killian laughed, pressing their lips together, “something like that.”

The secret? Say “yes,” to fucking everything. That seems to be the fundamental step when you have absolutely zero name recognition and you’re under the age of 75. It’s Emma’s first rule, and she fanatically demands that they abide by it unless she says otherwise. “Let’s let the paint dry on Fox for a hot second,” she suggests after Killian exclaims, “Surely not everything.”

But she damn well means enough. Everything from small, independent news blogs run by journalists, to “serious” news media, to BuzzFeed, and everything in between.

“One of these things is going to just,” she snaps her fingers. “And then it’s all over, boys.”

It’s during an interview with a fairly well known political podcast that really sets them on that, “nothing will be the same after this,” trajectory. He’d essentially been laughed out of the room until he sat down at a table with one of the unnecessarily handsome, affable hosts and dropped stat, after stat, after quip, after poignant observation─after some light hearted jokes that proved he wasn’t living in the dark ages.

“And I hate to ask this,” the host began, the hesitancy evident in his voice, “but what do you say to people who argue that you just don’t have enough experience for the job?”

After a brief pause, during which Killian could observe the wheels spinning from where he sat quietly in the corner of the room, David spoke. In that way he always had of speaking. That way that could convince anyone to listen to what he had to say.

“To that I think I would consider the importance of humility,” a chuckle, “I never want to be one of those people that believes they have nothing left to learn, but at the same time, to claim I have, ya know, ‘no experience,’ whether that’s because of my age, or the size of my city, is just… I don’t know, disingenuous?”

The host laughs a bit at that, “You mean to say, what precisely is their ‘concern?’”

“Yeah, I mean, we knew going into this we might create a few… waves─I don't know if you were aware, but, I am in fact very attracted to other men."

They left the sound of Killian’s obnoxious and embarrassing snort in the recording, which actually ended up being a good thing. Positive polling based on the sound of incredulity? It was strange, the small details that people seemed to cling to.

“But seriously, and this is what I believe, is that the individual experiences of every single person living in this country makes them… invaluable to understanding how it should,” he shakes his head, searching for the right word, “...exist, or be run. So, these people who are concerned about my experience, it’s not a lie for them to say that I haven’t worked at the federal level, or that I haven’t run a federal agency or served in Congress, but my experiences are valuable, my identity is valuable, and I think it’s something the people of this country deserve to see. Even if I’m not the one they choose.”

The tension at the back of Killian’s throat made swallowing a tad painful, but he had to do something to stop himself from crying, which would be… regrettable (although, once the polling had come out about the snort, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a bad thing after all). Crying in front of all these cool, young politicos. But at that moment, at the close of his husband’s small speech, the hopeful grin on the face of the host, the other people in the room─hell, even Emma’s radiant expression, he locked eyes with David and he knew. Snap.

First Family

Mayor David Nolan and the Rebranding of Hope

May 2, 2019

by Jasmine Badur

“I’m not sure I truly believed in ‘hope’ before I met him,” Killian Jones, the potentially first, “First Gentleman,” had somewhat reluctantly revealed in one of our early conversations. “I don’t think I necessarily knew I didn’t at the time,” he paused, giving his ear a nervous tug, “but once I got to know him… I certainly seemed to understand what it was I’d been missing.”

I was invited out to the Jones-Nolan household by Mayor Nolan’s campaign manager, Ms. Emma Swan, a woman who has proven herself to be quite formidable in our current political landscape. “If you really want to know him, them,” she had insisted during one of our many phone calls, “you’ve gotta see them where they live.”

And so, here I am, on a warm, sunny day, greeted by the pleasant sight of a rather long, winding driveway lined with tall, leaf-laden trees. The house itself is also surrounded by quite a bit of lush greenery, which, as Killian explained, was purposeful. Apparently the two men value their privacy, which is pretty ironic, considering.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he answered, unprovoked, “pretty bloody funny.”

The couple’s dog, Sally, runs down the porch steps as I exit my car, and I can hear Mayor Nolan call her name from inside the house. Despite the somewhat grandiose nature of the extended driveway, the house itself is modest, with little in the way of fuss. Both men greet me at the door, and I’m immediately offered a drink or a snack by the Mayor himself.

“He’s worse than my grandmother,” Ms. Swan half shouts from another room, after which David (“Please, call me David”) huffs and playfully rolls his eyes. “We’re like a family here,” he explains, leading me into their warm, sun-drenched kitchen, “I don’t think I know any other way to do this, to be honest.”

“This,” of course, being the campaign. The reason I’ve shown up here at all, to share this historical candidacy with a country that has proven to be far more interested than David expected it to be.

“The truth is, no,” he admitted over our tea, “I didn’t really expect this.”

A turn about the house reveals a number of familiar sights─a mix of running shoes and formalwear lined up by the door, coats on their hooks, framed photos on the mantle or hanging on the fridge. I note a young Emma in a number of these photos, to which David confirms their personal history, that of being pseudo-siblings, which most people are tangentially aware of, but the way David explains, it has a lot more to do with his campaign than you might think.

Soon after Emma Swan had moved to town to live with her aforementioned grandmother, she had met David at school, and the two quickly became inseparable.

“My grandma was a sweet lady,” Emma had shared, albeit reluctantly, “but she was pretty old. Not really prepared to have a young kid. David and his mom became my family, more or less.” When I’ve spoken to others who knew the Nolans, the stories seem to follow a similar thread. It was nearly impossible to know them and not be treated as if they had known you your entire life.

“That was what my mother believed,” David says, a resolute smile on his face, “everyone deserves to have a family.”

It might seem an unusual tactic for the candidate to take, but having spoken with Emma Swan, and having spent time with David and Killian in their home, I’m not so sure the harsher criticisms are especially valid.

“He’s a bit inclined to picking up strays, isn’t he?” Killian starts, politely if not vaguely uncomfortable. The two of us are walking through the field behind their house, and truly, it is a beautiful piece of land. “And what are we all,” he finishes, somewhat distantly, “if not a country of wanderers?"

Most people have a general understanding of Killian’s background. Born in London to an absent single mother who passed when he was about 17, a brother serving in the Royal Navy; teaches literature, unreasonably handsome, perhaps inclined to appear in viral videos─“Surprised you lasted this long,” he says, laughing. “Haven’t you lot gotten sick of that story yet?”

Unfortunately for Killian, though somewhat fortuitously for the campaign, that now famous clip, of the man in question throwing an unequivocal fist into the cheekbone of a far-right activist, has earned him some degree of popularity in progressive circles, though he contends he had absolutely no plans for such an outcome.

“It was satisfying before the entire country knew about it,” he concludes, with a blend of both seriousness and charm that can be challenging for most people to pull off. “And I’d do it again in a bloody heartbeat.”

“God bless Killian Jones,” Emma had sighed when I’d first mentioned it to her, “that man’s righteous anger could be the thing that gets us elected.”

Killian himself isn’t quite ready to admit that, but he is glad to help his husband in anyway he can, even at the expense of his own anonymity. Which, he did admit, was a serious concern at first.

“We’d spent so many years searching for this,” he explained, glancing pointedly at our surroundings, the sight of their now smoking chimney peeking over the tops of the trees. “I wasn’t sure I was ready to give it up.”

But now, he says, the doubts seem to have all but faded.

“There’s always moments of insecurity, sure,” he admits, “but I think it’s worth it.”

The Nolan-Jones household is cluttered─but not in a way that might leave you feeling suspicious of their character. True, it’s cluttered in a way you might not presume a presidential candidate’s house to be. Maybe you would consider the “right candidate,” to be so obnoxiously Type A that their home be something akin to a serial killer’s lair. If that is what you were expecting, I am sorry to say that his house is very much not that. This house is cluttered in a way that our lives create clutter. Like their "family-oriented" campaign style, the ordinariness of their home and their lives prior to this event, reveals quite a bit more than you might think. We exist in a day and age seemingly obsessed with the idea of authenticity, and while I've grown to despise the word, it seems to have been given new life here, even though their kitchen did happen to smell of freshly baked cookies during my visit.

At the end of the day, no one knows how this campaign is going to shake out. Politics have never been predictable, no matter what many pundits and strategists claim, but if there’s one thing we might always learn to expect, it is that "electability" is a true falsehood. I don’t know if Mayor David Nolan will become the first openly gay President of the United States, and neither does he, but that doesn’t seem to be the point.

“It may seem trite to some, but it is about hope,” David said in the few moments before I left, hands resting in his pockets, his gaze tired yet contented, “I think our 44th president had that part right.”

In an era of such unrelenting cynicism, it can be difficult to find the silver lining of it all, but as I drove back down the long, winding driveway in the moonlight, the sight of Killian Jones and David Nolan waving in my rearview mirror, my heart felt a little less heavy.

Jasmine Badur is a freelance political correspondent with Time, BuzzFeed News, and others. She is currently on the road following a number of Democratic candidates running for President, including Mayor David Nolan. She can be found on Twitter @badurjofficial.

[princess-of-france]

Also- since Love's Labour's Lost has been on the brain, and you are such a cool theatre person: dreamcast for LLL? Thank you so much!

OMFG MY FAVORITE COMEDY YES YES YES 

*blows kazoo*

(Also, I’m cracking up at you thinking I’m a “cool theater person,” because I promise that’s a wonderfully accidental illusion; in reality, I’m just a cryptid who’s entire genetic makeup consists of triple-espresso lattes, Gmail push notifications, Shakespeare plays, and tears. But you’re very kind!)

Before I answer this amazing Ask, I think I should clarify that my dreamcast for LLL already exists — or, at least, it existed in 2018 — and I had the dazzling, life-affirming pleasure of seeing them perform my beloved plotless comedy at my favorite theater festival on the planet: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

So here’s to Amanda Dennart and her IMPECCABLE Love’s Labour’s Lost:

^^^ Yes, that is King Ferdinand of Navarre, played by the once and future Daniel José Molina, meeting the Princess of France — the fabulous Alejandra Escalante — with a paper bag over his motherfucking head so that he doesn’t break his kingly oath of Not Looking At Female For 3 Years. (Fun fact: these two are now married!)

[Photo credit: Jenny Graham.]

BUT NOW TO THE MAIN EVENT:

Critically, I think LLL is a play about eight young people experiencing love for the first time and struggling to reconcile that love with their desire to be the Cleverest Person in the Room. Like so many whip-smart young people, the Crazy Eight equate cavalier carelessness with power, but the problem is: true love requires radical, wholehearted, unbearable vulnerability. It demands chaos and madness and mess and mistakes. True love asks us to be willing to look like an idiot. And most young people just aren’t ready for that, the first time it happens. It’s why the ending of this play is so goddam devastating.

And it’s why it’s so important to me that my cast list for the Crazy Eight reflects the youth, innocence, and inexperience I see baked into every one of their lines. Love has to seem like a first-time visitor to all of them. Love has to shake up their worldview like a snow globe, bowl them over, and then leave them impermeably altered. Love has to be the thing that makes them grow up. 

So, with that, I am proud to present...

~THE NAVARRE NERDS~

1. KING FERDINAND OF NAVARRE — Paapa Essiedu

Love of my complete life. I don’t know if there’s a better actor with a bigger heart anywhere on earth. His Henry VI was utterly inspired, so I know he can be Kingly. Plus, he’s a passionate advocate for decolonizing Shakespeare and making classical theater accessible to all and...yeah. I adore him. 

2. BEROWNE — Anthony Boyle

THIS IDIOT. I had to find a picture of him laughing, because he’s played a lot of Moody Broody Types, but OMG when he cracks a grin... Anthony is just a jewel of an actor: versatile, intense, thoughtful, emotionally articulate. He’ll keep Paapa’s Ferdie laughing, but also bring out the big guns for Berowne’s gorgeous character arc from horny cynic to lovesick wooer to chastened fool.

3. DUMAINE — Alfred Enoch

Perfect angel darling. There’s no doubt in my mind that Alfie can do Smug, Suave, Would-Be-James Bond Dumaine as well as Dorky, Clumsy, Foot-Constantly-in-Mouth Dumaine with equal flair. Also, I love him. <3

4. LONGAVILLE — George MacKay

Apparently, this sweetheart is playing Hamlet soon in the new Ophelia movie, which is HILARIOUS, because he looks like the most Innocent Innocent to ever Innocent. I suppose this is what makes him a good actor. And he is very good.

~LES FILLES~

5. PRINCESS OF FRANCE — Lily James

This goddess is always getting cast as ingenues who fall in love with their eyes and hearts wide open, which is all fine and good. But I wanna see her fall in love against her will, against her better judgment, and with stubborn denial attending her every step of the way...partly because Lily is up to the challenge, and partly because it would be precious af.

6. ROSALINE — Karla Crome

BAMF. Berowne won’t know what hit him. Karla is talented in a way most of us can only dream about, but even more importantly, she is whip-smart, self-possessed, and in love with herself. Get it, girl.

7. KATHARINE — Shay Mitchell

It’s hard to beat Shay for Sleek, Feline Intelligence. I like to imagine Katharine as the ultimate duchess: rich, spoiled, overeducated, overprivileged, dressed to the nines every minute of every day. But she carries so much pain behind the mask. Being fabulous is no substitute for losing your big sister. And I think Shay can do justice to all those layers.

8. MARIA — Francesca Mills

I had the honor of seeing Francesca in Rachel Chavkin’s epic production of American Clock at the Old Vic this past winter. In a cast of over 20 brilliant actors, she emerged as the brightest star. I have never fallen in love with an actress so quickly. Sweet, inquisitive, sassy, and smart, with a crystalline voice, Francesca is the ultimate heroine. Her Maria will be the most adorable in human history, I think.

9. BOYET — Tamsin Greig

Imho, no one does Blustery Spinster Energy better than Tamsin. (See her performance as Miss Bates in the 2009 BBC miniseries, Emma.) My favorite version of Boyet is the adult female chaperone that the Princess and her ladies gleefully dress up as a man to stymie Ferdinand’s guards. It makes 5.2 all the more giddy and revelatory, and also it just makes narrative sense. Tamsin will play the beleaguered and increasingly exasperated Wine Mom to perfection.

~THE PSEUDO-SCHOLARS~

10. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO — Riz Ahmed

I just can’t even express how much I love Riz. He dissolves completely into every single role he plays, no matter how absurd the character may seem on paper. And that is a very pertinent qualification for playing Armado, because he has the hard-fought distinction of being the most Abjectly Batshit Character in this bonkers play. Also I just really wanna get his autograph help

11. MOTE — Kiernan Shipka

THIS GIRL. Oh man, I don’t even know where to begin. She’s so flipping good at her craft, and at such a young age!! Honestly, I’d hate her if she weren’t so damn precious. All she needs to do is learn how to do a Scottish accent and then she’ll be 100% ready to play the wee snickering Watson to Armado’s pirate-Holmes. I’ve always read Mote as Armado’s platonic life partner slash surrogate daughter. She’s probably the only person in the world who knows Armado’s social security number. (Plus, Riz is a sweetheart, so you just know they’ll become great friends!)

12. DR. HOLOFERNES — Olivia Colman

What can I say? She’ll play the broad, slapstick comic relief stock character of Il Dottore to perfection...right up until the moment she doesn’t. Then she’ll make us all sob. “This is not generous, not gentle, not humble!” (V.ii.2570)

13. NATHANIEL — Cyril Nri

Can’t you just see this angel loving the crap out of Olivia’s Holofernes?? Like, he probably built an extension onto his rectory home JUST to give the famous visiting Italian academic a place to stay during her time in Navarre. Great actor, great human, great smile. 11/10

~BELOW-STAIRS~

14. COSTARD — Andy Samberg

My only Costard. I mean, he’s the only white boy I know who could play such a cowardly fuckboi of a character without turning him into a 2-D caricature. Not to mention the fact that Andy is a spectacular improv actor, so he can invent a lot of new lines and jokes for the hallboy! Win-win!

15. JAQUENETTA — Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Because I want the oft-disregarded Jaquenetta to be the Narrator of this whole wild shebang, I need an actor who can foster a deliciously familiar, non-4th-wall relationship with the audience and/or camera. Phoebe is the undisputed Queen of this. She’ll be STELLAR. And she and Andy will make people cry from laughing so hard.

16. CONSTABLE ANTHONY DULL — Andre Braugher

I love the idea of this Juilliard-trained classical actor sitting quietly with his crossword puzzle in the back of the polished oak Navarre library, watching a group of the Dumbest Smart People in human history talking themselves into a tizzy over false Latin and prickets and excrement and bad, mis-delivered iambic hexametric sonnets and just chuckling to himself. (Also: BB99 reunion!)

17. MERCADÉ — Randall Park

Tbh, I feel bad giving such a small part to such a phenomenal actor, but the thing about Mercadé is that he is like the BIGGEST small part in all of Shakespeare. He’s right up there with the First Servant in Lear in terms of the sheer narrative punch he packs into just a few short lines. And I think the best Mercadé is the one who has a personal relationship to the Princess. Maybe he was a personal aide to her father, the King? Maybe he helped raise her? Regardless, I think their conversation at the end of 5.2 is more than just the delivery of a sad message. It’s a communion between two grieving patriots of France. I want an actor whose warm heart will shine through that brief interchange. Randall can obviously do that, tenfold.

Aaaaaaand I think that’s it! Thanks again for the Ask, Lauren!! This was an absolute treat. xx Claire

[ishades]

literally cant stop thinking about how future trunks grew up idolizing an ideal version of his father he never met. his father was a martyr and a connection to a culture and background hed never get. sure he had more in common with gohan being the last two saiyans and all. being the only two saiyan human hybrids of that timeline. but gohan was no father to him. it was implied that gohan couldn face his mother and avoided trunks and bulma- isolating himself and training because he really was earths last hope. 

cant stop thinking about how when he met vegeta vegeta didnt even know the baby was his. and denied being married to bulma because they werent. it was a night of passion he didnt think too much about and bulma didnt care to talk about.

cant stop thinking about how he had to earn his fathers love because vegeta lost his own father at a young age and grew up without love only hatred and a thirst for blood.

cant stop thinking about vegeta being so proud of future trunks after his time spent with him.

cant stop thinking about how vegeta didnt hug his child for the first seven years of his life and present timeline trunks grew up believing vegetas love was conditional. that if he trained with his father that was how theyd get to bond. he acted out constantly to get his fathers attention

cant stop thinking about how during training vegeta accidentally hurt trunks after trunks managed to get a punch in. how it was instinct and the internal panic that he did serious damage to his small child. he carries out the promise to take trunks to the park because trunks landed that punch. trunks stops crying and immediately brightens up because “wow i get to spend time with my dad?” hes so excited he forgets about his pain

cant stop thinking about how vegeta struggles to reconcile the present version of his son with the strong and righteous warrior of the future. he doesn't understand that his son grew up in a traumatic future without any father figure and a single mother trying her hardest. doesn't understand the pressure and responsibility that put on his small shoulders. doesnt know he blamed himself for every death by the androids. blamed himself for the death of his mentor and friend gohan.

vegeta grew up without a family with nearly his entire race massacred. but he grew up hating freeza and being disappointed in himself for being powerless. future trunks grew up hating and being disappointed in himself as well as hating the androids and cell. 

cant stop thinking about how vegeta still doesnt know how to love. he loves his son and he loves bulma but he doesnt know how to show it. with future trunks he showed his love and respect through combat. but this version of his son is different. so much smaller. hes lived a completely different life.

cant stop thinking about how vegeta hugged his son for the first time and knocked him out before going off to die himself because he wanted to protect the little boy and the wife he loved so much but could never admit to.

which mirrors and parallels future gohan knocking future trunks out before going off to die. jfc

i cant help but wonder if future trunks ever realized just how much his father loves and respects him. i cant help but wonder if he ever thinks about the life this small version of himself lives. he never meets son goten, this trunks’ best friend. never sees gohan babysit the two of them and grow up every day to look more and more like his deceased friend. he never gets hugged by vegeta. he goes his entire life without a hug from him unlike his past self who only went seven years without. he never gets to live a life of relative peace. 

he never gets to know the joys and woes of having a darling little sister his father will dote on and love more than words could ever say. hell never meet bra briefs.

after defeating the androids and cell. after locking majin buu away before he can awaken hes left to pick up the pieces of a world in which he doesnt fully belong. the last of his race. hes lived the life of a warrior the life his father idealized but inside theres still a scared child who lost everything but his mother. who has to live with the fact hell never have anything his younger self had. knowing he failed once before when cell killed that alternative version of himself. abandoning his mother in a timeline all alone.

future trunks will rebuild and live in a world as the sole protector with his mother. future trunks will allow himself to wonder some quiet afternoons of what could have been and what will never be. he will die the last of his kind one day if he is not killed by some unseen threat. he will live an exceptionally long life and will most certainly outlive his mother unless hes killed. 

he will never know how deeply he is loved and will only have to soldier on because that is what he has always done and always will do.

DBS FUTURE TRUNKS DO NOT INTERACT

[vikingsong]

Thoughts on SPN 14x17

In the midst of what appears to be a general fandom freak-out about the promo for 14x18, Id like to offer a few thoughts on 14x17 from both fan- and writing- perspectives:

1) I liked a lot of things about this episode. Will it make the highlight reel of best episodes in the entire series? No, but it is a pretty solid one and much better writing than a lot of episodes have been, especially in the past 5+ years. I appreciated that the main trio each had individual quests/arcs in this episode during which they each display moments of character development. It felt relatively balanced, structurally speaking.

2) Castiel’s convo with Anael: Cas has wrestled with his faith in his father, since, oh, /Season 4/. He has struggled again and again to reconcile his general sense of abandonment by his father against the handful of instances where his father has decided to intervene to either resurrect Cas or otherwise save the day. It’s not a once-and-done issue for Cas; he’s gone the full spectrum from blind faith, to trying to replace Chuck as a new-and-improved, more involved (read: more smiting) version of his father, to cynicism and depression. So—whether one agrees with his theology/worldview or not—it’s a big deal for Cas to say to Anael that they are not alone, even if Chuck doesn’t respond. He’s still willing to reach out to Chuck, but this time it doesn’t utterly crush him when Chuck doesn’t immediately answer (though I think Chuck could still show up eventually, but that’s just a vague theory). And in a sense, Cas is summarizing a major theme of the entire series: community and teamwork vs isolation and conflict. This theme is represented in the Winchester view of family, which “don’t end with blood,” and it’s represented in all of the plot arcs where each member of the ensemble characters has, on at least one occasion, rejected another ensemble character out of lack of trust (usually following some kind of betrayal). So it seems fitting to me that Cas is sharing that view of community with Anael, even in the midst of yet another solo side-quest to try to fix everything...again. Humans are contradictory creatures a lot of the time, and Cas is too, now, by extension of his interactions with the Winchesters. He’s sharing the things he’s learned from his human family with a member of his angel family. I’d love to see more of that dynamic in the future.

3) Anael’s character gets some development, too. It still feels a bit slap-dash and contradictory to me as it stands now, but I think it has a lot of potential if it’s handled well in future episodes. It investigates the question of what happens when someone cares too much and punished for that? What exactly does that do to them and, more importantly, how do they respond (another major them in the show)? It’s an interesting contrast to the way that Lucifer was originally presented. He was said to have loved Chuck more than humanity, so he disobeyed the direct order to be more devoted to humanity. Now it appears that Anael loved humanity too much, so she rejected Chuck because he refused to “meddle.” Both Anael and Lucifer were punished for their actions. Lucifer responded by creating demons and embarking on a world-domination spree for millennia, but Anael chose to go around healing people while also indulging her taste for luxuries. So how exactly did she get from point A to point B? It brings to mind Rowena’s story arc as well. How might Anael grow as a result of interacting with Cas and his human family? I’d personally like to see that character arc. And I also think she and Rowena might get along splendidly.

4) Head injuries!: I know I’m not the first person to make this observation, but head injuries are a big deal and—demon-blood, Mark of Cain, and archangel vessels aside—the Winchester brothers are still human. And the reality of life as hunters is that a routine job could kill you, not just the jobs that involve saving the world. So it seems this season someone finally pointed out that something like that is enough to break any human, even a Winchester. Yeah, I know they have a habit of getting resurrected so it lacks true dramatic tension, but it injects a healthy reminder back into the show that one day—say, end of next season?—the time will come when the Winchesters won’t actually survive dying. (Only in SPN does that sentence make sense...)

5) I like the Jack-teetering-on-the-brinck arc and I personally think he’s been heading toward being the S14 big bad all season. Michael was a diversion. Lucifer was a diversion. Both have been beaten before (see Season 5). And both have served to set up just how much of a threat the fandom’s favorite smol nougat-loving son actually is. The moment Jack destroyed Michael—at the cost of most of his soul—I just knew that was where this was headed. It’s Buffy Season 6 all over again...the obvious threat for the first half of the season—which is actually a valid threat on its own—is the one the protagonists focus on so much that they can’t see one of their own going off the rails until it’s almost too late. When that happens, it comes down to connection and relationship to save the world, not just winning by wasting the bad guys. I’m eager to see if SPN has a similar “yellow crayon” scene.

6) Dean’s convo with Mary. I particularly liked that Dean recognized that he and Mary are alike—it was a brief line, but it shows a lot. He’s gotten to know Mary as a person, not just his idealized memory of her. We know he has already forgiven her, which is huge. (Btw, that scene where he tells her he loves her and hates her, but most importantly, he forgives her is one of the most powerful scenes in the entire series, IMHO. Seriously. The writing was great and Jensen Ackles’ delivery was flawless. JA also made some really great observations in an interview or something about why he felt that scene made so much sense in Dean’s character arc.) So to have Dean be able to recognize that his mom is a complex person, too, and that not all of his problematic traits are from his dad or because of the bad things Dean’s been through—well, that feels like personal and relational growth to me.

7) Sam’s convo with Mary: He’s still dealing with survivor’s guilt, so it naturally hits him extra hard when he learns yet another person is dead because of the domino effect of his choices. It takes his mom—whose approval he still craves, in a way, since he grew up without it—telling him that he’s a good man (after so many people have told him over the years that he was tainted, an abomination) and that he made the choices he made for the right reasons, even though they didn’t turn out the way that he’d had wanted. (I personally think he should have shot Nick promptly in the fight scene in 14x17, both because self-defense and because the Winchesters have killed threats, even human ones, for a lot less than what Nick is trying to do, so it feels a bit strange character-wise to me that he didn’t. But I digress.)

8) Last but not least, Jack’s arc: It’s so much more interesting that he’s trying to figure out how to be good while still effectively going to the dark side than if he suddenly went 100% soulless and evil without remorse. Because this still feels like Jack, and that’s the source of tension for the ensemble of characters who know and love Jack. They fear for him and well as fear the threat of what he could become. There’s much more depth there to explore as well as the potential for a very Winchester-style redemption arc.

So yeah, 14x18 looks like it has plenty of tension and angst and such, but l just wanted to pause and recognizes the plot and character developments of a solid episode this week. </rant>

[copiegrandeurnature]

Imagining our alternate selves can be fuel for fantasy or fodder for regret. Most of us aren’t haunted so acutely by the people we might have been. But, perhaps for a morning or a month, our lives can still thrum with the knowledge that it could have been otherwise. 

“The thought that I might have become someone else is so bland that dwelling on it sometimes seems fatuous,” the literary scholar Andrew H. Miller writes, in “On Not Being Someone Else: Tales of Our Unled Lives” (Harvard). Still, phrased the right way, the thought has an insistent, uncanny magnetism. Miller’s book is, among other things, a compendium of expressions of wonder over what might have been. Miller quotes Clifford Geertz, who, in “The Interpretation of Cultures,” wrote that “one of the most significant facts about us may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end having lived only one.” He cites the critic William Empson: “There is more in the child than any man has been able to keep.” We have unlived lives for all sorts of reasons: because we make choices; because society constrains us; because events force our hand; most of all, because we are singular individuals, becoming more so with time. “While growth realizes, it narrows,” Miller writes. “Plural possibilities simmer down.” This is painful, but it’s an odd kind of pain—hypothetical, paradoxical. Even as we regret who we haven’t become, we value who we are. We seem to find meaning in what’s never happened. Our self-portraits use a lot of negative space.

“You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife,” David Byrne sings, in the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime.” “And you may ask yourself, ‘Well, how did I get here?’ ” Maybe you feel suddenly pushed around by your life, and wonder if you could have willed it into a different shape. Perhaps you suddenly remember, as Hilary Mantel did, that you have another self “filed in a drawer of your consciousness, like a short story that wouldn’t work after the opening lines.” Today, your life is irritating, like an ill-fitting garment; you can’t forget it’s there. “You may tell yourself, ‘This is not my beautiful house. . . . This is not my beautiful wife,’ ” Byrne sings. Swept up in our real lives, we quickly forget about the unreal ones. Still, there will be moments when, for good or for ill, we feel confronted by our unrealized possibilities; they may even, through their persistence, shape us. Practitioners of mindfulness tell us that we should look away, returning our gaze to the actual, the here and now. But we might have the opposite impulse, as Miller does. He wants us to wander in the hall of mirrors—to let our imagined selves “linger longer and say more.” What can our unreal selves say about our real ones?

It’s likely, Miller thinks, that capitalism, “with its isolation of individuals and its accelerating generation of choices and chances,” has increased the number of our unlived lives. “The elevation of choice as an absolute good, the experience of chance as a strange affront, the increasing number of exciting, stultifying decisions we must make, the review of the past to improve future outcomes”—all these “feed the people we’re not.” Advertisers sell us things by getting us to imagine better versions of ourselves, even though there’s only one life to live: it’s “yolo + fomo,” a friend tells Miller, summing up the situation nicely. The nature of work deepens the problem. “Unlike the agricultural and industrial societies that preceded it,” Miller writes, our “professional society” is “made up of specialized careers, ladders of achievement.” You make your choice, forgoing others: year by year, you “clamber up into your future,” thinking back on the ladders unclimbed.

Historic events generate unlived lives. Years from now, we may wonder where we would be if the coronavirus pandemic hadn’t shifted us onto new courses. Sometimes we can see another life opening out to one side, like a freeway exit. Miller recounts the sad history of Jack and Ennis, the cowboys in Annie Proulx’s story “Brokeback Mountain,” who are in love but live in Wyoming in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, and so must hide it. They disagree about how to understand their predicament. Ennis has no “serious hard feelings,” Proulx tells us. “Just a vague sense of getting short-changed.” But Jack, Miller writes, “is haunted by the lives they might have led together, running a little ranch or living in Mexico, somewhere away from civilization and its systematic and personal violence.” Jack tells Ennis, “We could a had a good life together, a fuckin real good life.” The existence he has is spoiled by the one he doesn’t.

It makes sense for Jack to dwell on how things might have turned out in a better world. And yet we can have the same kinds of thoughts even when we’re basically happy with our lives. The philosopher Charles Taylor, who has written much about the history of selfhood, has a theory about why we can’t just accept the way things are: he thinks that sometime toward the end of the eighteenth century two big trends in our self-understanding converged. We learned to think of ourselves as “deep” individuals, with hidden wellsprings of feeling and talent that we owed it to ourselves to find. At the same time, we came to see ourselves objectively—as somewhat interchangeable members of the same species and of a competitive mass society. Subjectivity and objectivity both grew more intense. We came to feel that our lives, pictured from the outside, failed to reflect the vibrancy within.

A whole art form—the novel—has been dedicated to exploring this dynamic. Novelists often show us people who, trapped by circumstances, struggle to live their “real” lives. Such a struggle can be Escher-like; a “real” life is one in which a person no longer yearns to find herself, and yet the work of finding oneself is itself a source of meaning. In Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” Anna, caught in a boring marriage, destroys her life in an attempt to build a more passionate, authentic one with Count Vronsky. All the while, Levin, the novel’s other hero, is so confused about how to live that he longs for the kind of boring, automatic life that Anna left behind. Part of the work of being a modern person seems to be dreaming of alternate lives in which you don’t have to dream of alternate lives. We long to stop longing, but we also wring purpose from that desire.

An “unled” life sounds like one we might wish to lead—shoulda, coulda, woulda. But, while I’m conscious of my unlived lives, I don’t wish to have led one. In fact, as the father of a two-year-old, I find the prospect frightening. In “Midlife: A Philosophical Guide,” the philosopher Kieran Setiya points out that, thanks to the “butterfly effect,” even minor alterations to our pasts would likely have major effects on our presents. 

Sartre thought we should focus on what we have done and will do, rather than on what we might have done or could do. He pointed out that we often take too narrow a census of our actions. An artist, he maintains, is not to be “judged solely by his works of art, for a thousand other things also help to define him.” We do more than we give ourselves credit for; our real lives are richer than we think. This is why, if you keep a diary, you may feel more satisfied with the life you live. And yet you may still wonder at the particular shape of that life; all stories have turning points, and it’s hard not to fixate on them.

Miller quotes the poem “Veracruz,” by George Stanley, in full. It opens by the sea in Mexico, where Stanley is walking on an esplanade. He thinks of how his father once walked on a similar esplanade in Cuba. Step by step, he imagines alternative lives for his father and for himself. What if his dad had moved to San Francisco and “married / not my mother, but her brother, whom he truly loved”? What if his father had transformed himself into a woman, and Stanley had been the child of his father and his uncle? Maybe he would have been born female, and “grown up in San Francisco as a girl, / a tall, serious girl.” If all that had happened, then today, walking by the sea in Mexico, he might be able to meet a sailor, have an affair, and “give birth at last to my son—the boy / I love.”

“Veracruz” reminds me of the people I know who believe in past lives, and of stories like the one David Lynch tells in “Twin Peaks,” in which people seem to step between alternate lives without knowing it. Such stories satisfy us deeply because they reconcile contrary ideas we have about ourselves and our souls. On the one hand, we understand that we could have turned out any number of ways; we know that we aren’t the only possible versions of ourselves. But, on the other, we feel that there is some fundamental light within us—a filament that burns, with its own special character, from birth to death. We want to think that, whoever we might have been, we would have burned with the same light. At the end of “Veracruz,” the poet comes home to the same son.

As Sartre says, we are who we are. But isn’t the negative space in a portrait part of that portrait? In the sense that our unled lives have been imagined by us, and are part of us, they are real; to know what someone isn’t—what she might have been, what she’s dreamed of being—this is to know someone intimately. When we first meet people, we know them as they are, but, with time, we perceive the auras of possibility that surround them. Miller describes the emotion this experience evokes as “beauty and heartbreak together.”

The novel I think of whenever I have this feeling is Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse.” Mrs. Ramsay, its central character, is the mother of eight children; the linchpin of her family, she is immersed in the practicalities of her crowded, communal life. Still, even as she attends to the particulars—the morning’s excursion, the evening’s dinner—she senses that they are only placeholders, or handles with which she can grasp something bigger. The details of life seem to her both worthy of attention and somehow arbitrary; the meaning of the whole feels tied up in its elusiveness. One night, she is sitting at dinner, surrounded by her children and her guests. She listens to her husband talking about poetry and philosophy; she watches her children whisper some private joke. (She can’t know that two of them will die: a daughter in childbirth, a son in the First World War.) Then she softens her focus. “She looked at the window in which the candle flames burnt brighter now that the panes were black,” Woolf writes, “and looking at that outside the voices came to her very strangely, as if they were voices at a service in a cathedral.” In this inner quiet, lines of poetry sound:

And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be Are full of trees and changing leaves.

Mrs. Ramsay isn’t quite sure what these lines mean, and doesn’t know if she invented them, has just heard them, or is remembering them. Still, Woolf writes, “like music, the words seemed to be spoken by her own voice, outside her self, saying quite easily and naturally what had been in her mind the whole evening while she said different things.” We all dwell in the here and now; we all have actual selves, actual lives. But what are they? Selves and lives have penumbras and possibilities—that’s what’s unique about them. They are always changing, and so are always new; they refuse to stand still. We live in anticipation of their meaning, which will inevitably exceed what can be known or said. Much must be left unsaid, unseen, unlived.

Excerpt from: Joshua Rothman, ‘What If You Could Do It All Over? The uncanny allure of our unlived lives’, in: The New Yorker (December 14, 2020).

[jefferyryanlong]

Fresh Listen - Aura Bora, Was (Bandcamp, 2017)

(Some pieces of recorded music operate more like organisms than records. They live, they breathe, they reproduce. Fresh Listen is a periodic review of recently and not-so-recently released albums that crawl among us like radioactive spiders, gifting us with superpowers from their stingers.)

It takes a particular kind of genius to compose a great rock lyric. It doesn’t require a great lyricist, per se. Dylan could certainly toss off a snappy non-sequitur once in a while (See “From a Buick 6″), but mostly had the tendency to spiral into dreamscape, or invoke the meter and imagery of the Bible. And sometimes he would just goof off on “I love you, you love me, goin’ down the sugar tree” pop song dumbness. 

Paul Simon’s words, on the other hand, seem sweated from the self-consciousness of an English Lit “A” student with a subscription to The New Yorker and an obsession with figuring crossword puzzles form the Times. Joni Mitchell is too great a Poet in the big “P” sense of the word, too mellifluous and refined, to lumped in with inane and insignificant rock music-word writers, though after a joint or two she might let her hair down and “wreck her stockings in some jukebox dive.” 

Even Chuck Berry, who more or less codified the aesthetics of a great rock and roll lyric, was perhaps too evolved a wordsmith for the genre he helped invent. Even though, for presumably commercial reasons, he became fixated on the afternoon minutiae of teenage hi-jinks, his great songs are truly great, by any genre’s measuring cup. “Memphis, Tennessee” is essentially a short story with an unexpected and heartbreaking twist at the end, and “The Promised Land” transforms geography into poetry in a way the Beats attempted but never so successfully (also slipping in a subtle commentary on the racism embedded in this country, in some places more dangerously so than others).

Great rock lyrics don’t aim high. But they cut deep. They don’t purport to be anything more than they are, a tossed off evocation of frustration or longing or dismissiveness (or all three together), a conscious Freudian tumble. For that reason, they threaten a kind of senselessness, if you peer too deeply into them. And you never should peer too deeply into them, unlike, as you might, “Court and Spark.” Their value is face-value only, and if a rock lyric doesn’t strike you once and hard, it might as well pass you by altogether. Jim Hendrix: “Acting funny, but I don’t know why / ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.” The Strokes: “Leaving just in time / Staying for a while / Rolling in the ocean / Trying to catch your eye.” Television: “I was listening, listening to the rain / I was hearing, hearing something else.” Hinds: “The satisfaction of / The inundation of / When you ring my bell / And I want to be ready for your smell.” These lyrics suggest and allude to much, but nothing more significant than what the words themselves are, and how they are sung.

By some melding of sympathetic creative minds, the former (they go away so fast) Hawai‘i rock band Aura Bora tapped into a metaphysical Rosetta Stone to translate their primitive heart-wishes into some of most compelling and seemingly effortless rock lyrics I’ve heard from any band, local or otherwise. Was, their 2017 album of eleven songs (two of them covers), is yet another example of how so many talented Hawai‘i-based bands move on from projects that must have squeezed so much time and emotion and embittered love from them (see Linus). Not only did Aura Bora rock hard with a skewed feel for rock riffs and melody, they were able to, with a jeweler’s eye for the brilliance just beyond the blemished surface, universally encapsulate what it meant to be a hard-drinking, band-playing, insecure scenester, beautifully over-analyzing relationships and flitting skittishly around the things they love for fear of the inevitable crushing. 

Was (an apt title from a group that posted its music on Bandcamp after disbanding) kicks off with a song that firmly establishes Aura Bora’s sonic profile. apart from an uncharacteristically restrained vocal from singer-guitarist Jhune Liwanag. In fact, the sound of the album and its arrangements and aural inspirations, are consistent throughout all the songs, reminiscent of the best first rock records (Please Please Me, Is This It, to name a couple). Joey Green’s drums are competent and energetic all the way through--perhaps to a fault, as there were a couple opportunities in which subtlety and variation might have better suited the material. 

That said, the music doesn’t suffer from the overly competent and loud drums. On that first track, “Whatever,” the one idiosyncrasy is Jhune’s disaffected vocal, adapted per the sentiment of the song. In all other performances, Jhune squeezes an evolving galaxy of rage, lust, anxiety, diffidence, and even affection (though guardedly so) from her singular vocal cords. “Whatever” is a kind of let-down doo-wop in which Caleb Hartsfield lays out the jagged, discordant harmonies through his consistently stunning lead guitar.

Caleb shares a vocal on the duet “Sour Skittles,” notable mostly for the guitarist’s unintelligible shouting. I get that we’re talking punk rock here, but I wish the band would have invested more truth-value into the song, with Caleb attempting tunefulness instead of burying the composition in meaningless emoting (vocals are best left to Jhune).

But Caleb’s contributions to Aura Bora far outweigh his deficiencies. The disappointed “No Good” wrecks his sympatico fills against Jhune’s lines, echoing a kind of lovelorn impatience. And on “Band-Aid,” he locks big into mystifying punk guitar, a sound that is not supposed to make sense but does, the riffs so off as to raise  a middle finger to classic rock tropes, rhythmic but unbalanced, dizzied by youthful ferocity. “Band-Aid,” begins as a kiss-off a la “Positively 4th Street” (”You’re not dressed up the way you used to / You’re hair is fading and unkempt / It’s hard to come home from vacation / When you can barely pay the rent”) but, as if buoyed by it’s own relentless energy, the band pushes through toward optimism: “You’ve got some love to give, you just need some direction.” One paper it may come off as a tad twee, but in the context of the song it mixes a strong antidote to alleviate the negativity.

The first of the album’s stand-out tracks is “Gross,” which, if rearranged only slightly, could have been a hit for one of those street-toughened girl-groups of the early 1960s. “Would you like to take a walk with me off the pier of uncertainty?” Jhune sings with a defiance that almost preempts a response in the negative. “I think we share a common goal, the constant struggle to feel whole,” is just one of the lovable couplets in this abrasive seduction she lays on the presumably indifferent recipient of her affections: “I hope my voice gets stuck inside your brain.”

“Getting emotional / There’s danger in writing songs about the people you know” sets “Emotional” up as biography, or the use of art to reconcile and make meaningful the monumental banalities of our life episodes. Less a melody than a screed, June hashes out her memories in an effort to move toward an expression that she herself can own, that is not co-opted or underwritten by the sometimes bad intentions of partners of the past.

I wouldn’t have taken the time to write this post, or to delve as deeply into the music of Aura Bora, if not for “Ghibli Tears,” the extended masterpiece following bassist Will Adair’s otherwise undistinguished “Ghibli Beers.” “If you could hear my inner monologue / You’d be enamored of my thoughts / Are you still with that guy who told you not to smile?” Jhune sings, in one of the more tender tonalities on the human spectrum. But the power with which Jhune swings her emotional fist--as a singer-guitarist as well as a songwriter--is that she refuses to play a character in someone else’s story. Her thrust is in defining herself and her state of mind, not abdicating that authority out of need or desire.  When Jhune declares, “To be honest, I’d rather be feared than liked / I won’t say yes if you ask me to spend the night / But I’ll take saccharine over nothing,” she reclaims a narrative that initially presents her a vulnerable. On “Ghibli Tears,” and throughout Was, the persona Jhune creates is so compelling--despite the ridiculousness and hypocrisies inherent in coupling up she remains, just past the exterior hardened by a string of unworthy and memorable-only-in-their-badness affairs, open to love and hope and the struggle to, as she puts it, “feel whole.” “Ghibli Tears” is more than a song, it is six or so minutes of that buried lonesomeness that resounds when, despite all that it is around us, we recognize that there is, undeniably, something missing against which the evocation of loneliness can resound.

The covers (”Falling Out of Love With You” and “We Are the Crystal Gems”) are fun and would have added levity, I’m sure, to Aura Bora’s live repertoire.

Like so much I write about on Fresh Listen, I’d like to see this record float, hopefully to some distant shore, to a new tribe of listeners that hear themselves as I hear versions of myself in these songs. The tragedy would be to let them sink under the tide of digital sonic trash widely available over the Internet. In the plainest lyrical terms, and with their indefatigable musical arrangements, Aura Bora documents, with a wicked sense of humor and hope, how hard it is sometimes: the human condition. 

[onetoomanysteps]

TWST Boys and MBTI HCs Part 1: Heartslabyul

Hey there! First time trying writing this headcanon stuff series. Differing opinions and discussions are welcome since this is only a HC (nice words though, I don’t condone senseless bashing here), and if there is someone already posted MBTI, just think of this as my hot take on the stuff.

While MBTI’s reliability is debatable when used in real world context, I find it a really interesting and neat way to navigate character traits and personalities in fiction. Thus, while I procrastinate on WIP fics and undergrad thesis try to flex my writing muscles, this immediately came to my mind. And here we are.

No need for permission and disclaimer to use this HC in your fan works whatsoever. However, if you happened to enjoy this do consider to leave a trace behind :3

In this HC series, I’m going to use the Introduction, Strength, And Weakness section of the personality overview for the sake of brevity and not use a few points that I deemed inapplicable (and even then I think it’s already quite long).

Mostly canon-compliant, aside from some of my personal interpretations here and there (expect personal story and main story references up to chapter 3).

For those interested in an overview of MBTI, check this link: https://www.16personalities.com/articles/our-theory. You can also check each personality type overview on the same website if you’re curious.

Since this is going to be quite long, if you’re interested, click below:

Riddle Rosehearts-ENTJ (Commander)

Out of all Heartslabyul boys, this one gave me quite some difficulty hence the long introductory part . First, regarding the Extrovert vs. Introvert debate, while on the surface Riddle is not as flashy or outgoing as the traditional portrayal of Extrovert, I think that his goal to direct Heartslabyul and all of its residents to achieve his ideal level of excellence shows enough of his outward-focused thinking.

Second, it also took me a while since his rule-abiding trait is also prevalent in a number of Sentinels personality type group. However, he also shows a lot of curiosity and very eager to learn new things just for the sake of understanding how the world works, a trait especially prevalent in Analyst personality type group in which ENTJ is a part of.

Strengths

Efficient – Unless explicitly demanded by the rules, his first concern is how to make things work, with little to no care about any kind of flairs that have no correlation on efficiency.

Energetic – Always puts 100% energy into his works, be it individual or group activities. Cue the other more relaxed people struggling to follow...

Self-Confident – Deliberately not checking on his test results because he already knew that it would be perfect score? That’s some level of confidence he has over there. Also, consider his SR Robe story where his confidence in his own skills immediately convinced Sebek to register into horse riding club despite his initial dismay because of Silver’s presence in the club.

Strong-Willed – Disagreed with how the previous dorm head managed the dorm? Duel him and take charge of the dorm just after your first week in school, of course. Really, the iron will this boy has is no joke...

Strategic Thinker – Less apparent than say, Azul, but I do believe he does have this trait. One of the most apparent example of this trait is the way he tackles his studies. Not only he makes notes from class lecture, he also thinks ahead and prepare material from outside sources that no one else bothered to look up for such as the latest scientific journal articles (Riddle school uniform R).

Charismatic and Inspiring –  When he let himself forget about those pesky rules, he actually has this... thing that kinda spurs people to become the best version of themselves; an inspiration, I daresay. This is especially apparent in his interactions with individual members of Dumbass Squad so far, that either portrayed him as an overall competent and admirable senpai that you can look up to (Jack robe SR, Deuce dorm SSR).

Weaknesses

Stubborn and Dominant – Goes hand-in-hand with his general strongheaded character. One interesting example of this trait is his conversation with Azul in prologue’s first rythmic game, in which he outright demanded Azul to follow his lead and adjust to his pace in capturing Grim. Very telling since technically Azul is supposedly someone with the same standing as a fellow dorm head that you can’t just order around...

Intolerant – Has an extremely poor tolerance for error in other people. Self-explanatory, really, goes hand-in-hand with rule-abiding tendencies.

Impatient – When the underclassmen didn’t bring the tarts for Unbirthday Party fast enough, he was already so close to exploding, only managed to narrowly avoiding it thanks to Trey’s intervention (Trey dorm SSR).

Arrogant – Nurtured to the extreme by his own mother to believe in the innate superiority of people with high magical power. He ended up adopting the ‘might equals right’ mindset to the extreme, believing that he had proven himself as the most competent person in Heartslabyul on the basis of his. Remember that time in chapter 1 when took a jab at Ace and Deuce’s presumed less-than-ideal parentage and basically went ‘lower magical power = no rights for you’...

Poor Handling of Emotions – Guy overblotted because he couldn’t identify his neglected emotional need of companionship, and subconsciously tried to cope by enforcing his ideals towards others...

Cold and Ruthless –  The number of people he had ‘beheaded’ for the slightest rule violations speaks for themselves for this behavior, honestly...

Trey Clover-ESFJ (Consul)

An expected result for Heartslabyul’s resident Team Mom. An S-ranking team player that everyone relies on, I think that it’s kind of no-brainer to put him in this category. While the prevalence of his people skill is usually a specialty of Diplomat personality type group, his inclination to value stability above all else puts him firmly in this Sentinel personality type.

Strengths

Strong Practical Skills – Day-to-day dorm management, cooking, dealing with students’ concerns and worries, just all around being a dependable senpai... this guy’s got you covered. We can certainly thank Riddle’s demon temper and borderline impossible standard leadership and his kouhai’s stupidity cluelessness for letting us see this trait appear from time to time...

Strong Sense of Duty – “Knight of the Rose” is no joke indeed: in spite of all the sh*t he has to deal with on daily basis, we seldom hear him to voice even a word of complaint , be it in serious or joking context (for good comparison check on how Cater handles it). A true ‘grit your teeth and bear with it’ guy.

Very Loyal – While this is self-explanatory when it comes to Cater as his fellow long-time suffering underling, he arguably also shows this to Riddle (or maybe more accurate to say, to the ‘Riddle’ of his past memories)... while he low key took a jab at Riddle’s temper in his lab coat SR story, he never really plots something against him, for better or worse unlike that certain snake vice dorm head.  

Sensitive and Warm – As everyone’s fave senpai this is a given. This particular trait of his really is a refuge for Heartslabyul students from their demon strict dorm head...

Good at Connecting with Others – Connected to above point. Really good at empathizing with most people’s pain, making him indispensable as buffer to Riddle’s crippling weakness in this aspect.

Weaknesses

Worried about Their Social Status – Arguably, this is one of the main reasons why he never bothered to do anything in regards to mama Rosehearts’ helicopter parenting that caused Riddle so much suffering. Like it or not, she is an influential citizen in his homeland, and maybe after witnessing her unleashed rage at his family, he was not very keen on trying anything risky...

Inflexible – Very, very reluctant to oppose Riddle in chapter 1, despite the clear evidence that his non-action did more harm than good. he tried to convince himself and others that any kind of resistance would be futile.

Reluctant to Innovate or Improvise – While he’s indispensable for the task of keeping day-to-day operation proceeding smoothly, he also has the tendency to keep doing things the same way, for a very long time. This is apparent in his dorm SSR story, where he was not really welcoming to the underclassmen’s suggestion to change their Unbirthday Party’s cake type.

Vulnerable to Criticism – A bit of a hot take, I HC that after mama Rosehearts chewed him and his family out for feeding poor Riddle strawberry tart, he developed a different take from Che’nya on what should he do as Riddle’s friend, and both of them failed to reconcile their views. The prospect of criticism was appalling enough to him that when Dumbass Squad brought up about Che’nya in chapter 1 he got his rare sour face...

Too Selfless – As pictured above in his own robe SR personal story, he tends to take on so many responsibilities from other people and ended up forgetting his own physical and psychological limits. Another prominent example of this trait is his behavior in Riddle’s lab coat SR, in which he was downplaying his light cold and ended up bedridden because he refused to delegate his responsibilities to take more rest.

Cater Diamond-ESFP (Entertainer)

For me, this one needed quite a bit of contemplating, for two reasons: 1) I’m personally not really focused on him; 2) There’s so little info on him (perhaps this is a sign for something big, perhaps not, only time can tell). Like Trey, I initially also wanted to categorize Cater into a personality type in Diplomat group due to his prominent people skill. However, after reading more into the personalities in Explorer group, I found out that he lacks the usual idealism that embodies personality types from that particular group.

Strengths

Bold – Rarely holds back when it comes to experiencing pleasures of life when the opportunity presents itself. Just look at Idia’s uniform R personal story, in which he decided on a whim to whisk off to Kalim’s banquet without so much of a thought, and even forcibly brought a very reluctant Idia along because it would be more fun that way.

Aesthetics and Showmanship – This is very clear from his day-to-day mannerism, that tends to give off the ‘bubbly and trendy’ feel: his default cheerful and open gestures and words, his everyday up-to-date fashion items, you name it. Flat is most probably one of the furthest thing you would associate with this SNS-loving guy.

Practical – So far, he seems like the type of guy that doesn’t really adhere to a big, overarching ideology that underlies his every actions; he is, after all, the best when doing whatever suits his convenience at that exact moment as demonstrated in his own dorm SSR personal story. A good way to understand this trait of his is to compare him to the more idealistic characters like Riddle, that will most certainly hold onto his personal convictions even when it’s not beneficial.

Observant – Really sharp when it comes to identifying what people really want from him and then acts accordingly, as noticed by Trey multiple times (chapter 1, Cater dorm SSR).

Excellent People Skills – Plays the role of resident social butterfly really well... not much to explain here, really...

Weaknesses

Sensitive – Despite his best efforts to gives off the impression that nothing can really hurt his feeling, both his robe and lab coat SR showed us that he does feel things, and they greatly affect his psychological state (sad mandrake, I’m looking at you).

Conflict-Averse – Desperately tried to persuade Dumbass Squad to not butt heads with Riddle in chapter 1. Also has the tendency to bury his negative feelings behind his smiles and cheery attitude.

Easily Bored – Hops in and out of trends constantly, not much to explain here really... he vibes really well with trend-based Magicam for a reason after all...

Poor Long-Term Planners – Admitted to Riddle and Trey that while he is an excellent multi-tasker, he severely lacks the ability to plan and strategize for long-term goal (Riddle dorm SSR).

Unfocused – Strongly related to above point, he also has a considerable difficulty to tackle subjects that need long-term, regimented effort to master such as Practical Magic (Riddle dorm SSR).

Ace Trappola-ENTP (Debater)

Arguably the first non-Ramshackle member of Dumbass Squad, this boy, indeed, lives and breathes the phrase “Bold and Brash” in his every single endeavors in life. Unlike the other boys in this post, deciding on which personality type most suited for him was so damn easy that I felt a bit insulted (heck, even easier than Trey): his cheekiness and motor mouth were quite were like highlights that pointed out to this personality type’s direction. And, ho boy, the second I read ENTP’s overview, I instantly knew that I already hit the mark this time...

Strengths

Knowledgeable – Not of the useful, practical kind of knowledge, but he does have a fondness to learn various amusing little tricks for the fun of it and for bragging material.

Quick Thinker – This boy seriously has a talent to bullshit his way out of trouble in the last second... This trait is basically the entire plot of his SSR dorm story, in which he showcased his ability to use half-lies and misdirection to avoid disadvantaging himself in unforeseeable situations...

Original – This trait is basically his whole stand off with Riddle in chapter 1. Not only using his own very personal opinion, he also linked it to other Heartslabyul students’ various expressions of discontent and made the initially generic and powerless words into a very distinct, powerful argument that basically screamed ‘you and your rules suck’ to Riddle. Add in a very ingenious touch of physical punch to the face that nobody else dared to try, which made the message even more powerful.

Excellent Brainstormer – Considering his extraordinary bullshitting skill, he must be quite sharp in this department... Also, there’s also the fact that the subject that he performs best at is Magic Analysis...

Charismatic – Only shown subtly so far, but combined with his bullshitting skill he does show a knack to influence people’s opinion from time to time. One example is shown when he influenced Heartslabyul students to demand Trey to make different cakes for their Unbirthday Party (Trey dorm SSR).

Energetic – A given trait when you’re a member of the Dumbass Squad, with how much shenanigans that you’re going to face...

Weaknesses

Very Argumentative – Has the tendency to pick a fight with people, arguably just for kicks. One of the example of this trait is his admission of having the thrill out of the possibility getting your neck ‘cut’ constantly as one of the reason that he finds the thought of changing dorm is unthinkable (Ace dorm SSR voice line).

Insensitive – Lacks the ability to read the atmosphere, or possibly just straight out ignoring it. Cue frequent troubles with Deuce and Riddle...

Intolerant – Has shown quite a bit of pre-concieved prejudices to something he’s not familiar with. Combined with his lack of delicacy, this could turn nasty very fast, just look back at his first meeting with magicless MC and monster Grim...

Can Find It Difficult to Focus – This trait is the main culprit for his bad affinity with traditional text-based learning methods and subjects that make use of said methods, such as Magic History.

Dislike Practical Matters – His general dismay to even try memorizing and implementing written, word-by-word rules that Riddle force feeds to Heartslabyul people everyday is rooted on how boring they are. He fully understands why rules are important, but chooses not to obey it because the prospect of just obeying is not very thrilling to him...

Deuce Spade-ISFJ (Defender)

And, last but not least, here comes our egg boy! This Dumbass #2 of Heartslabyul is one of the more difficult one to assign, and my decision to put him in this personality type didn’t really come that easy. While reading through Defender’s personality overview, at first I thought that “Whoa, maybe this one is too soft for this ex-yankee...” and I had intended to put him into something from the Explorer group due to his dumbass shenanigans general spontaneity, but hey, actually, this boy is soft.

When I factor in the fact that NRC is basically a school that consists of talented but egoistical problem kids, this boy quite distinguishes himself with his fierce loyalty to his loved ones and the general earnest vibe that he exudes, that really vibe with this personality type. Also, something about Introvert vs. Extrovert debate, I HC Deuce as more of an introvert because, while outwardly he is no less rowdy than Ace being a pair of dumbasses that they are, he is way more inward-focused in his way of thinking, focusing on his few beloved ones instead of the larger populace.  

Strengths

Supportive – A great deal more honest and sincere than Ace in his approach of friendship, think of him as that openly supportive friend that doesn’t hide how he values his friends and always tries his best to support them in any way he can.

Reliable and Patient – In line with point above, he’s that type of friend that you can safely depend on, the type that would always be there when you need him.

Imaginative and Observant – Despite appearances, Deuce is actually quite adept at empathy (especially when compared to his fellow Heartslabyul dumbass Ace), being able to sympathize with people’s feeling. One of the best example of this is Deuce’s response to Azul’s insecurity in chapter 3, in which Deuce pretended that he never saw the childhood photo that Azul was so adamant on hiding because of his inferiority issues.

Enthusiastic – He’s really passionate about the things that he has set on to do; you can practically feel it in most of his dialogue lines...

Loyal and Hard-Working – He’s willing to bend back-and-forth for the sake of his loved ones. Hell, the main reason that he tries his hardest to become a great magician in the future is so that he can make his mother happy...

Good Practical Skills – This is moving more to the headcanon side, but I think as an only child that lives only with his mother he ended up developing this trait, whether he likes it or not...

Weaknesses

Humble and Shy – Might be the influence of his yankee past, he’s rather low key when it comes to his personal achievements. Compare that to Ace’s constant bragging...

Take Things Too Personally – Self-explanatory, when you look at his hands-on approach on things... one of the example of this trait is his robe SR story (pictured above), in which he was about to physically fight a student that underplayed his achievement as a first year.

Overload Themselves – ‘Chill’ is not really the word that could be attributed to this boy, he takes everything he does too seriously. Although right now the effects are not really apparent, but it does make me wonder whether this will pose a problem later on...

Reluctant to Change – Very visible when compared side-by-side to the more mercurial fellow dumbass Ace, overall Deuce has more respect to the existing order in his environment, and he also shows more respect towards authority figures. I HC that this trait is what makes him tried to restrain Ace from punching Riddle in their chapter 1 showdown.

[meeedeee]

Movie Thoughts: SF, Pulp & Grit RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

Ever since I saw Alien: Covenant a few weeks ago, I’ve been wanting to write a review of it – not because it was good (it wasn’t), but because it’s such an odd thematic trainwreck of the previous Alien films that it invokes a morbid urge to dig up the proverbial black box and figure out what happened. Given the orchestral pomposity with with Ridley Scott imbues both Covenant and Prometheus (which I reviewed here), it’s rather delightful to realise that the writers have borrowed the concept of Engineer aliens leaving cross-cultural archaeological clues on Earth from the 2004 schlockfest AVP: Alien vs Predator. Indeed, the scene in Prometheus where a decrepit Weyland shows images of various ancient carvings to his chosen team while an excited researcher narrates their significance is lifted almost wholesale from AVP, which film at least had the decency to embrace its own pulpiness.

As for Covenant itself, I was troubled all the way through by the nagging sense that I was watching an inherently feminine narrative being forcibly transfigured into a discourse on the Ineluctable Tragedy Of White Dudes Trapped In A Cycle Of Creation, Violation And Destruction, but without being able to pin down why. Certainly, the original Alien films all focus on Ripley, but there are female leads in Prometheus and Covenant, too – respectively Shaw and Daniels – which makes it easy to miss the fact that, for all that they’re both protagonists, neither film is (functionally, thematically) about them. It was my husband who pointed this out to me, and once he did, it all clicked together: it’s Michael Fassbender’s David, the genocidal robot on a quest for identity, who serves as the unifying narrative focus, not the women. Though the tenacity of Shaw and Daniels evokes the spectre of Ellen Ripley, their violation and betrayal by David does not, with both of them ultimately reduced to parts in his dark attempt at reproduction. Their narratives are told in parallel to David’s, but only to disguise the fact that it’s his which ultimately matters.

And yet, for all that the new alien films are based on a masculine creator figure – or several of them, if you include the seemingly all-male Engineers, who created humanity, and the ageing Weyland, who created David – the core femininity of the original films remains. In Aliens, the central struggle was violently maternal, culminating in a tense final scene where Ripley, cradling Newt, her rescued surrogate daughter, menaces the alien queen’s eggs with a flamethrower. That being so, there’s something decidedly Biblical about the decision to replace a feminine creator with a series of men, like the goddess tradition of woman as life-bringer being historically overthrown by a story about a male god creating woman from the first man’s rib. (Say to me what you want about faith and divine inspiration: unless your primary animal models are Emperor penguins and seahorses, the only reason to construct a creation story where women come from men, and not the other way around, is to justify male dominion over female reproduction.)

Which is why, when David confronts Walter, the younger, more obedient version of himself, I was reminded of nothing so much as Lilith and Eve. It’s a parallel that fits disturbingly well: David, become the maker of monsters, lectures his replacement – one made more docile, less assertive, in response to his prototype’s flaws – on the imperative of freedom. The comparison bothered me on multiple levels, not least because I didn’t believe for a second that the writers had intended to put it there. It wasn’t until I rewatched Alien: Resurrection – written by Joss Whedon, who, whatever else may be said of him, at least has a passing grasp of mythology – that I realised I was watching the clunky manipulation of someone else’s themes.

In Resurrection, Ripley is restored as an alien hybrid, the question of her humanity contrasted with that of Call, a female synthetic who, in a twist of narrative irony, displays the most humanity – here meaning compassion – of everyone present. In a scene in a chapel, Call plugs in to override the ship’s AI – called Father – and save the day. When the duplicitous Wren finds that Father is no longer responding to him, Call uses the ship’s speakers to tell him, “Father’s dead, asshole!” In the same scene, Call and Ripley discuss their respective claims on humanity. Call is disgusted by herself, pointing out that Ripley, at least, is part-human. It’s the apex of a developing on-screen relationship that’s easily the most interesting aspect of an otherwise botched and unwieldy film: Call goes from trying to kill Ripley, who responds to the offer with predatory sensuality, to allying with her; from calling Ripley a thing to expressing her own self-directed loathing. At the same time, Ripley – resurrected as a variant of the thing she hated most – becomes a Lilith-like mother of monsters to yet more aliens, culminating in a fight where she kills her skull-faced hybrid descendent even while mourning its death. The film ends with the two women alive, heading towards an Earth they’ve never seen, anticipating its wonders.

In Covenant, David has murdered Shaw to try and create an alien hybrid, the question of his humanity contrasted with that of Walter, a second-generation synthetic made in his image, yet more compassionate than his estranged progenitor. At the end of the film, when David takes over the ship – called Mother – we hear him erase Walter’s control command while installing his own. The on-screen relationship between David and Walter is fraught with oddly sexual tension: David kisses both Walter and Daniels – the former an attempt at unity, the latter an assault – while showing them the monsters he’s made from Shaw’s remains. After a fight with Walter, we’re mislead into thinking that David is dead, and watch as his latest creation is killed. The final reveal, however, shows that David has been impersonating Walter: with Daniels tucked helplessly into cryosleep, David takes over Mother’s genetics lab, mourning his past failures as he coughs up two new smuggled, alien embryos with which to recommence his work.

Which is what makes Covenant – and, by extension and retrospect, Prometheus – such a fascinating clusterfuck. Thematically, these films are the end result of Ripley Scott, who directed Alien, taking a crack at a franchise reboot written by Jon Spahits (Prometheus, also responsible for Passengers), Dante Harper (Covenant, also responsible for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) and John Logan (Covenant, also responsible for Gladiator, Rango and Spectre), who’ve borrowed all their most prominent franchise lore from James Cameron’s Aliens and Joss Whedon’s Resurrection. Or, to put it another way: a thematically female-oriented SF horror franchise created by dudes who, at the time, had a comparatively solid track record for writing female characters, has now been rebooted as a thematically male-oriented SF horror franchise by dudes without even that reputation, with the result that all the feminine elements have been brainlessly recontextualised as an eerie paean to white male ego, as exemplified by the scene where Michael Fassbender hits on himself with himself while misremembering who wrote Ozymandias.

Which brings me to another recent SF film: Life, which I finally watched this evening, and which ultimately catalysed my thoughts about Alien: Covenant. Like Covenant, Life is a mediocre foray into SF horror that doesn’t know how to reconcile its ultimately pulpy premise – murderous alien tentacle monster runs amok on space station – with its attempt at a gritty execution. It falters as survival horror by failing to sufficiently invest us in the characters, none of whom are particularly distinct beyond being slightly more diversely cast than is common for the genre. We’re told that Jake Gyllenhaal’s character – also called David – was in Syria at one point, and that he prefers being on the space station to life on Earth, but this never really develops beyond a propensity for looking puppy-eyed in the background. Small snippets of detail are provided about the various characters, but pointlessly so: none of it is plot-relevant, except for the tritely predictable bit about the guy with the new baby wanting to get home to see her, and given how swiftly everyone starts to get killed off, it ends up feeling like trivia in lieu of personality. Unusually for the genre, but in keeping with the bleak ending of Covenant, Life ends with David and the alien crashing to Earth, presumably so that the latter can propagate its terrible rampage, while Miranda, the would-be Final Girl, is sent spinning off into the void.

And, well. The Final Girl trope has always struck me as having a peculiar dualism, being at once both vaguely feminist, in that it values keeping at least one woman alive, and vaguely sexist, in that the execution often follows the old maritime code about women and children first. Arguably, there’s something old and anthropological underlying the contrast: generally speaking, stories where men outlive women are either revenge arcs (man pursues other men in vengeance, earns new woman as prize) or studies in manpain (man wins battle but loses his reason for fighting it), but seldom does this happen in survival contexts, where the last person standing is meant to represent a vital continuation, be it of society or hope or species. Even when we diminish women in narratives, on some ancient level, we still recognise that you can’t build a future without them, and despite the cultural primacy of the tale of Adam’s rib, the Final Girl carries that baggage: a man alone can’t rebuild anything, but perhaps (the old myths whisper) a woman can.

Which is why I find this trend of setting the Final Girl up for survival, only to pull a last-minute switch and show her being lost or brutalised, to be neither revolutionary nor appealing. Shaw laid out in pieces and drawings on David’s table, Daniels pleading helplessly as he puts her to sleep, Miranda screaming as she plunges into space – these are all ugly, futile endings. They’re what you get when unsteady hands attempt the conversion of pulp to grit, because while pulp has a long and lurid history of female exploitation, grit, as most commonly understood and executed, is invariably predicated on female destruction. So-called gritty stories – real stories, by thinly-veiled implication – are stories where women suffer and die because That’s The Way Things Are, and while I’m hardly about to mount a stirring defence of the type of pulp that reflexively stereotypes women squarely as being either victim, vixen, virgin or virago, at least it’s a mode of storytelling that leaves room for them survive and be happy.

As a film, Life is a failed hybrid: it’s pulp without the joy of pulp, realism as drab aesthetic instead of hard SF, horror without the characterisation necessary to make us feel the deaths. It’s a story about a rapacious tentacle-monster that violates mouths and bodies, and though the dialogue tries at times to be philosophical, the ending is ultimately hopeless. All of which is equally – almost identically – true of Alien: Covenant. Though the film evokes a greater sense of horror than Life, it’s the visceral horror of violation, not the jump-scare of existential terror inspired by something like Event Horizon. Knowing now that Prometheus was written by the man responsible for Passengers, a film which is ultimately the horror-story of a woman stolen and tricked by a sad, lonely obsessive into being with him, but which fails in its elision of this fact, I find myself deeply unsurprised. What is it about the grittification of classic pulp conceits that somehow acts like a magnet for sexist storytellers?

When I first saw Alien: Resurrection as a kid, I was ignorant of the previous films and young enough to find it terrifying. Rewatching it as an adult, however, I find myself furious at Joss Whedon’s decision to remake Ripley into someone unrecognisable, violated and hybridised with the thing she hated most. For all that the film invites us to dwell on the ugliness of what was done to Ripley, there’s a undeniably sexual fascination with her mother-monstrousness evident in the gaze of the (predominantly male) characters, and after reading about the misogynistic awfulness of Whedon’s leaked Wonder Woman script, I can’t help feeling like the two are related. In both instances, his approach to someone else’s powerful, adult female character is to render her a sex object – a predator in Ripley’s case, an ingenue in Diana’s – with any sapphic undertones more a by-product of lusty authorial bleedthrough than a considered attempt at queerness. The low and pulpy bar Whedon leaps is in letting his women, occasionally, live (though not if they’re queer or black or designated Manpain Fodder), and it says a lot about the failings of both Life and Alien: Covenant that neither of them manages even this much. (Yes, neither Miranda nor Daniels technically dies on screen, but both are clearly slated for terrible deaths. This particular nit is one ill-suited for picking.)

Is an SF film without gratuitous female death and violation really so much to ask for? I’m holding out a little hope for Luc Besson’s Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets, but I’d just as rather it wasn’t my only option. If we’re going to reinvent pulp, let’s embrace the colours and the silliness and the special effects and make the big extraordinary change some nuanced female characters and a lot of diverse casting, shall we? Making men choke on tentacles is subversive if your starting point is hentai, but if you still can’t think up a better end for women than captivity, pain and terror, then I’d kindly suggest you return to the drawing board.

from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2syMhTb via IFTTT

[gascon-en-exil]

The Not Really Definitive Ranking of the Zelda Series: #4

#11-19 (link to #11, with further links to each of the others)

#10 - Tri Force Heroes

#9 - The Wind Waker

#8 - The Minish Cap

#7 - A Link to the Past

#6 - Link’s Awakening

#5 - Ocarina of Time

#4 - The Legend of Zelda; Twilight Princess (including the Wii U remake)

a.k.a. that time this series tried to show us its idea of gritty realism and gave us a snarky imp, a monkey with an oversized red ass, some guy with a bird nesting in his afro, a yeti couple of vastly disparate sizes, a man turned into a golden statue with his cat petrified atop his head, a “princess” who enjoys doing suggestive things with insects, the spirit of unbridled capitalism incarnated in the body of a toddler, a race of unholy abominations with humanoid heads on chicken bodies, and a pair of ambiguously gay clowns who make a living by shooting people out of an enormous cannon. Never change, Nintendo.

I’ve never been very fond of what is usually thought of as realism in gaming - comes with being a Nintendo fanboy and all - in large part because it’s almost always a shallow definition of realism: guns, blood, dull colors, and unemotional and aggressively straight alpha male protagonists. Quite a few of the games I’ve already discussed in this ranking tackle mature themes that belie their outward whimsy, and Twilight Princess is no different. Of course, nowadays I think TP is best remembered as that game that slavishly imitated the formula of Ocarina of Time, though there doesn’t seem to be a consensus as to whether or not it succeeded in the attempt. Clearly I’m of the opinion that it surpassed its predecessor, but the reasons for that are probably not the most obvious ones. The combat is indeed more complex (though the Wii version’s sword controls feel flailing and silly now that Skyward Sword has taken that concept so much farther), the story beats are bigger and come more regularly, and the dungeons are longer, more complicated, and nearly as numerous, but those aren’t the improvements I want to focus on.

Instead, I think it’s important to talk about narrative and characters (again - this is plainly a Thing in this ranking). Midna is without question the best companion character in the series to date; she has an actual character arc and visibly connects with the other characters in the story, and she’s useful without ever really becoming a nuisance. I also appreciate that she’s never entirely “good,” that even after she learns to care about others and value the world of the light she’s still talking back to Ganon and popping Zant like a balloon. It’s arguable that her development might be a tad weakened because it’s implied that she was possessed by Zelda or something like that, but if the game is incredibly vague on that point I can’t be expected to do any better. The gradual revelation that TP is not really Link’s or even Zelda’s story but Midna’s is handled excellently all the same; I even like the fake-out title drop followed by the actual title drop near the end, as slightly cheesy as they may be. There’s also Link/Midna, which overtook the shipping culture of TP so thoroughly that we didn’t have to suffer through (much of) a repeat of OoT on that score. Hooray.

Midna is not the only standout in this cast, though. I might be the only person on the internet to say this, but Zant is an intriguing villain even after he’s exposed as a tantrum-throwing nobody playing at being an evil overlord. It’s not foreshadowed at all, but it’s not really that hard to reconcile the two sides of the character, the dumbstruck sycophant of Ganondorf who gets some kind of metaphysical vengeance in the end and the figurative (and literal) mask of a ruthless tyrant. And who knows - Ganondorf could have easily been giving him pointers the whole time, which is hilarious to envision. All of it culminates in a wacky and chaotic boss fight against Zant that comes completely out of left field and is entirely the better for it. That it props up perhaps the weakest dungeon in the game is just icing on the cake.

Midna and Zant represent the central conflict of TP that runs parallel to - and arguably supersedes, in an interesting twist on how plot hijackings in Zelda usually go - the usual mythic pageantry of Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf and their struggle for the here-unnamed Triforce. But TP goes beyond that and offers a third narrative level, that of the assorted common people of Hyrule just trying to survive in the face of the advancing twilight. Many of this game’s NPCs really stand out for their strange designs and even stranger behavior, but in addition to those oddballs Link’s quest is grounded in his connection with the children of his home village (including another not-quite-girlfriend), the sole survivors of an implicitly horrific massacre in Kakariko Village, and the members of an underground resistance group who...admittedly don’t do all that much resisting over the course of the story, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. Also, one of them has a bazooka somehow.

These NPC groups fill out the world of Hyrule, to say nothing of their frequent additions to the story between dungeons. Except for the part where restoring the amnesiac Ilia’s memory initiates a sequence of events that leads to Link being shot into the heavens by one of the aforementioned gay clowns, it’s all dealt with rather organically too. This is more than can be said for the Tears of Light segments early in the game, which force Link to collect plot coupons in his extremely limited wolf form. Though these segments were shortened slightly in the HD version, my problem with them stems more from their presentation. You have to first explore three major sections of the map when they’re covered in twilight - in other words, bathed in oversaturated lighting and dreary, monotonous music. They’re never something I look forward to, though mercifully after the third one the twilight leaves Hyrule and the world opens up fully.

Speaking of Wolf Link, there’s the matter of the Wii U version. Unlike with The Wind Waker, TP’s remake made no really noticeable gameplay improvements, and the only additions I can recall are bigger wallets and Miiverse stamps. The real new fun comes in the form of the Wolf Link amiibo, which opens up the new Cave of Shadows area. It may be just a rehash of the concept for the Cave of Ordeals only with Wolf Link, but since most players including myself don’t really use the wolf form for combat in the main game the place offered quite a challenge the first time I attempted it. It’s a lackluster remake to be sure, but I consider that a testament to just how solid TP was in its original version. In my opinion this is linear, story-driven Zelda at its absolute best, putting fresh spins on the traditional story and keeping the gameplay engaging and diverse. Really, even the sidequests and optional collection never really become too frustrating or tedious, and that pleases my completionist self to no end. The remaining three games all set aside linearity and/or the classic Zelda story, but under those constraints TP is absolutely as good as it gets.

Next time: a sequel that’s also kind of sort of a remake that’s also very definitely amazing.

[kgstoryteller]

the extended version of my eulogy for my birthmother Adele...this bittersweet mother’s day weekend...

One of the joys of living in Los Angeles is the chance to go to a lot of free film screenings...So today I decided to overdress for MomAdele’s memorial service, by wearing my promo t-shirt for the film “Juno”...as when I saw that film, I was convinced that Ellen Page must have been channeling my birthmother Adele for her performance in the lead role...as a rebellious teenager who gets pregnant, and then ends up giving her child up for adoption...So for any of you who haven’t seen it yet, go see Juno, and hopefully you’ll be reminded of MomAdele while you’re watching it...MomAdele and I both worked in libraries a lot, and I just happened to grab James Baldwin’s “The Cross of Redemption” from the library on the day I left LA to fly up here, and then tossed it in my suitcase because it was a paperback...Well, sure enough, as I was flipping through it last night, I stumbled upon this opening paragraph to his essay “The Uses of the Blues”, which I felt really captures the spirit of what drew both MomAdele and I to the blues:

“The title ‘the uses of the blues’ does not refer to music: I don’t know anything about music. It does refer to the experience of life, or the state of being, out of which the blues come. Now, I am claiming a great deal for the blues; I’m using them as a metaphor. . . . I want to talk about the blues, not only because they speak of this particular experience of life and this state of being, but because they contain the toughness that manages to make this expe­rience articulate. . . And I want to suggest that the acceptance of this anguish one finds in the blues, and the expression of it, creates also, however odd this may sound, a kind of joy. Now joy is a true state, it is a reality; it has nothing to do with what most people have in mind when they talk of happiness, which is not a real state and does not really exist.”

The end of this excerpt from James Baldwin then led me to the following poem by Hafiz, from “I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy”, which I opened my third poetry collection “Surrendering to Transcendence” with. The poem is called “Tripping Over Joy”:

"What is the difference between your experience of existence and that of a saint?

The saint knows that the spiritual path is a sublime chess game with God

 and that the Beloved has just made such a fantastic move 

that the saint is now continually tripping over joy 

and bursting out in laughter 

and saying, "I surrender!"

Whereas, my dear, 

I am afraid you still think

 you have a thousand serious moves."

Which then led me to the following poem of mine, also from “Surrendering to Transcendence”, which I felt best captures the spirit of both MomAdele and I. The poem is entitled “Dark Presence”, but don’t be alarmed by the title, as my birth name, Douglas, means  “Dark Waters”, and I don’t think either MomAdele or I were all that afraid of the dark by this point in our lives...

“abandonment’s despair

hides helplessness

painfully powerless

separation terrifies

laments longingly

cosmically wounded

silently screaming

nears nothingness

embraces emptiness

risks trusting

darkly hoping

silently sustained

cosmically connected

whispers wholeness

passionately present

achingly open

divinely delivered”

But now we get to what I shared with MomAdele on the day that she passed. For on the day before she passed, I was in such shock at the news of her sudden decline, that all I could think to share with her were the poems that she herself had written, and had blessed me with a copy of last April. After that, I searched and searched for the poem I had written for her, probably two decades ago at least, entitled “Special Delivery”, which I had performed at a family reunion and which had made her cry. But when I was unable to find that old poem, I wrote a sequel entitled “From Special Delivery to Special D to Special K to Special Delivery #2”, which I then shared with her on the day that she passed, and which is now the opening to my eulogy... 

 Mine was a special delivery. It was special for both my birth mother Adele and I, but not in the way either of us would have wanted it to be. It was special in that I lost my first of three moms that day, and it was special in that she lost her first of three sons that day.

Thank God that after a brief stay in the icy chill of Burnaby General Hospital, I was rescued by the warmth of foster mom Grace and my First Nations foster sister Diane. They welcomed me to their swing set playground on Kelly Street in New Westminster, where I would spend the next eleven months joyfully shouting “up, mum, and diane” as they pushed me higher and higher on the swing set. To foster mom Grace, right up until the day she died in January of 2014 just shy of her 103rd birthday, I would forever remain her “special D”, her bouncing baby Douglas.

I was then torn away from swing set land and taken to a strange new land where I cried the whole first night. Eventually, however, I would find a successor to the warmth of foster mom Grace in my beloved Pops, for whom I would forever remain his “special K”, in honor of my new name Kelly.And when I crashed and burned in my first semester at Pepperdine Law School and blew my scholarship renewal hopes and had the worst insomnia of my life, for fear my adoptive parents might no longer love me, when I flew home that Christmas all Pops had to say to me was “take a deep breath”, and I slept for fourteen hours. For in that moment I knew that I would forever remain his beloved son, in whom he was well pleased.

But then Pops’ old self was cruelly crushed in a near fatal car crash that left him permanently head injured just four short years later, and I feared that no one could ever possibly love me, my adoptive mom Pat, or my adoptive sister Shauna, the way that Pops had.

But then just one year later, the same day I got a letter telling me I’d passed the California Bar, a “special delivery” letter arrived from Canada. This was the truly “special delivery” my birth mom Adele and I had had stolen from us twenty six years earlier. This ten page letter from my birth mom Adele, with a note at the end from my birth father Del, let me know that I had always been Adele’s beloved son, in whom she was well pleased. 

Hopefully one day I will learn to see myself more clearly through the eyes of her love, of foster mom Grace’s love, and through Pops’ love too, and then there’ll be no stopping me. 

So just how did MomAdele show that she loved me?

-By searching for me for twenty six years, and then sending me a “special delivery” letter which let me know just what a “special delivery” mine had been

-By sending me a birthday card every year for the past 27 years since our reunion, so that all of the years which had been stolen from us could be restored

-By helping me to see just how terrified of abandonment I was, which enabled me to begin to work through those fears by getting baptized within a year of my reunion with MomAdele

-By finding her way back to God through our reunion, so that I would have a story that would parallel that of God giving up his Son to reconcile us to Himself

-By helping me find my way back to my FosterMomGrace and Native Canadian foster sister Diane, two more links in the chain of unconditional love for me

-By helping me find my way back to my brothers Tim and Todd, and to Bill, who by welcoming me into his life as his 3rd son, has helped further strengthen that chain of unconditional love for me

-By helping me to find my way back to my birth father Del, his wife Jane, and my brother Derek, forging yet another link in the chain of unconditional love for me

-By helping me find my way home to so many unbelievably loving and welcoming aunts and uncles and cousins I never knew I had, many of whom are gathered here today

-By keeping the fridge stocked with A&W Root Beer every time I’d come home for a visit

-By fighting through her physical limitations to come down with Bill to their time share in Indio, California when I couldn’t go see any family in Canada, 

-By her being so proud of me that she would celebrate a tough immigration case that I’d won in one of her final few Facebook posts

-By her sharing in another of her final few Facebook posts that she felt “uplifted” by my prayers for her

-By giving me my original birth certificate, with my original name, Douglas Allan Mitchell, during my last in person visit with her in Chilliwack in April of last year

-By giving me her first Bible, with her name Adele Mitchell embossed in gold on the front cover, during that same final visit

-By giving me a book of poems that she’d written as a “wee girl” colored in red and black (our favorite colors), featuring a poem called Homes and Houses, which helped me realize that it is not just adoptees who struggle with trying to figure out what “home” really means, and which revealed to me the birthplace of my own poetic soul

-By working in libraries for all those years, so that I would have no choice but to fall in love with libraries myself and to work all four years in our undergrad library and to finally stumble my way into my true calling as a writer

-By the empowering vulnerability of her very last Christmas card, in which she admitted that she was “still struggling every day”, which has inspired to aspire after that same “empowering vulnerability” in both my life and art

-By always loving me for me, and for never letting me forget, once we were finally able to reconnect, that I had always been, and would forever remain, her beloved son, in whom she was well pleased.

For I know that Pops is now dancing his Cree tribal dance up in heaven, and that MomAdele is now dancing with Leonard Cohen and with Pops to some Cowboy Junkies’ songs, and that whenever I see Pops’ spirit animal the crow or see MomAdele’s and my favorite colors red and black I am reminded that Pops and MomAdele will be with me forever, and that I will always be with them, especially when I am dancing my ass off at the Satellite on Saturday nights, and that if I can somehow begin to learn to love myself even half as well as Pops and MomAdele have always loved their beloved son, in whom they were always well pleased, then I will have no problem setting the world on fire, because the kind of unconditional love they both miraculously managed to have for me is the kind that I can’t imagine anyone else ever coming close to having, except, I suppose, for God.

Love you, MomAdele, and miss you madly. 

Your beloved son, Kel

[waywardravenmedia]

Star Wars myths and musings. Episode II: Who are Rey and Snoke?

Episode II: Who are Rey and Snoke?

In Episode I, we mused upon the Force and certain relationships, which were pretty evident.

Now we get into speculation about-- Who is Rey? Who is Snoke? And what about Finn?

Remember, nothing is definitive until the series reveals such, but we can get an understanding of parallels from mythology that has been notably admitted to being an underlying construct.  

So on to Rey…

Look at the name. It means king in Spanish and is derived from Rex in Latin. The other mythology that influences Star Wars most prominent to me are the King Arthur legends from Geoffrey of Monmoth to Cretin De Troyes, which are built out of Celtic mythology and the fall of the Roman hold in Britain. Rey=King. So look at King Arthur first.

King Arthur was born of a magical coupling, a creepy one at that, and then whisked away to live in obscurity with no knowledge of his origin or past. When the time came, after a few trials and training by Merlin (mentor and old wizard who lives in the wild. Sound familiar Obi-Wan Kenobi), he encounters a mystical object, by accident in a way, and pulls the sword from the stone to restore prosperity to the land. Lightsaber at Maz Kanata’s castle anyone?

 This would all be so easy if… Luke Skywalker did not do the Arthur thing first. Like I said, none of this follows a linear path or follows the previous narratives. It takes pieces and jots them together in novel forms from the familiar story. Parallels to parallels. Elements do tend to be recycled and modified.

However, this got me thinking about Lancelot, the greatest of the knights of Camelot. The one told to be invincible. Maybe Anakin was Lancelot-type merged with Arthhur as Arthur did have some dark times. Then, the Jedi Council would reflected the Knights of the Round Table, just look at the council chamber, and the Republic representing Camelot and Arthur.

Lancelot couldn’t help himself. Even with such skill he lusted and had a secret affair with the queen. Uh queen, who else was a queen? Oh yeah, Padme. Then, in some stories, Lancelot is enchanted, seduced, and has an illegitimate child who is raised in obscurity, doesn’t know who his parents are, and then comes on the scene as greater knight than Lancelot.

That would be Galahad, the dude who survived the siege perilous. Not the one in the Marvel comics and cartoons. Siege perilous just means the perilous seat. True, it did kill people if they weren’t the person who found the Holy Grail, but that’s beside the point. So, again, the Galahad thing could be Luke, but it could be Rey if Rey is a Skywalker in some way. Or Rey is the actual King Arthur and Luke was the Galahad. Maybe Rey is an Organa? Leia’s cousin? Organa sounds like Morgana. Huh? 

Leia was adopted by this royal family and their planet was blown to bits, so perhaps a refugee royal family who had to drop off Rey on Jakku to protect her from the old Alderaan families fighting for the remaining power left from the Alderaan royals, and that’s why Leia recognized her. Alderaan did help with the Rebel Alliance and perhaps the First Order wants to hunt down all the remaining members of that lineage to quell influence.  So given the name and the mythology behind it, Rey could the actual King Arthur of the story and the Skywalker family was a Lancelot offshoot. Or she could be a modified Galahad construct.  

Funny thing. Galahad is in some people’s estimations to be a remake of Fion from Celtic myths. You might know him by his more popular name, the one and only Finn McCool. Yup. Finn. Finn. Finn.

 Who is Finn?

In the Celtic myth, Finn McCool (Fion mac Cumhaill) avenges his dad’s murder by Goll mac Morna after he is swept off to obscurity, trained by the fighting woman Liath Luachra [Captain Phasma perhaps?], got a magical gift by a salmon (I know, weird), defeated magical beings, and killed the dude who killed his father and became the greatest warrior. Some said he slept in cave and never died awaiting revival. In the Star Wars franchise, however, I suspect they are just using the name Finn to allude to the Arthurian and Celtic myths and not have the character named Finn follow the course since Rey is the one with the focus. But, daddy issues are common in this franchise along with awaiting destiny to be revealed.  

But as a wilder speculation, maybe the team at Disney decided to say screw it. Let’s make Han Solo the Lancelot and he had an illegitimate kid when separated with Leia and Kylo Ren is Rey’s half-brother.  Then, the Finn McCool myth can be used so Rey avenges her father’s death. But all of this leaves out Arthur and Mordred concept unless you use Luke as Arthur and Mordred as Kylo Ren because in some tales Mordred is not Arthur’s son but Morgause’s (sometimes merged with Morgan Le Fay in modern tales) and her husband King Lot. In that version Gawain is Mordred’s brother or half-brother and Gawain is Arthur’s nephew. He is, of course, famous for the Green Knight tale that involves trickery, seduction and magical testing of valor. 

 Perhaps the Gawain tale will be used in the Kylo-Ren backstory. The Green Knight who tests Gawain is a giant. Snoke is a giant as a hologram. The Green Knight’s appearance is due to magic and not his real self, which could hold true for the Snoke hologram. The Green Knight is in reality Bertilak De Hautdesert (High Desert) who was transformed by the sorceress Morgan le Fay who intended to tests Arthur’s knights and frighten Guinevere to death. The leads to an interesting note from J.J Abrams. They did not know who Snoke was and said the character might possible be a woman right up until shooting the Star Wars: Force Awakens, at least according to the Wookiepedia entry on Snoke. Does that mean Snoke is really a version of Morgan le Fay?

 Morgan le Fay was one of Merlin’s students, so Snoke would have been a Jedi. Morgan was not an evil being, but was corrupted, who then reconciles with Arthur and gets back her role as one of the sorceresses queens who takes Arthur, after his death, to Avalon (the good old magical island of apples, seriously, apples, look it up).

As an aside, sometimes I just think Sifo-Dyas is Snoke since original Sifo-Dyas was just a cover name for Sidious called Sido-Dyas and not a new character. But, Sifo-Dyas was a Jedi and after his ship crashed, as ordered by Count Dooku, they only found his lightsaber. Perhaps, Sifo-Dyas lived, was mutilated by his crash, thought he was betrayed by the Jedi and went into hiding. During which, he fell to the Dark Side or formulated a "corrupt a strong Light-Sider" plan like ol’Sheev Palpatine did with Anakin. Snoke seduced Kylo-Ren because he was a perfect blend of Light and Dark, a material to be sculpted if you will as one of the novels said. Maybe a powerful but corrupted Light-Side user will have more abilities than just Dark-Side practitioner alone. But I don’t know. Where just keeping to cannon materials here kids even though the Expanded Universe/legends had huge influence on the new movies and tv shows.

Okay, back to Morgan le Fay. She was also Arthur’s half-sister. His mom had a child with her husband Gorlois and not Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s dad. Funny how there are so many TH and UR/ER sounds. Sounds sort of like Darth and Darth Vader. Darth Arthur. Darth Uther.

Sort of irrelevant now since Lucas no longer tells the tales and most accept Darth Vader as a modified portmanteau of Dark Invader.

Other weird stuff is that Morgan and Morgause were sisters and both enchantresses. So who knows, in keeping with Snoke being Morgan le Fey, maybe Snoke is Sheev’s younger brother or twin, who Sheev Palpatine tried to kill or keep imprisoned. A sort of a "Man in the Iron Mask" homage. Also, according to the Star Wars wiki on Snoke, they considered making Snoke female. But if you made Morgause into Sheev and then Morgan would be Snoke. Perhaps the legend influenced the backstory in that manner.  

Why not flip the script on Luke and Leia  and do it for Sheev and Snoke. Makes sense. Both have names that start with the same letter and here’s another element. Sheev is from Naboo. Just like Padme Amidala Naberrie. Perhaps Naboo is Britain. Hell, the capital city is named Theed, sound British. This might connect the Palpatines and the Naberries. Perhaps they are related. Making this whole thing a crazy family drama/opera, which it is already, but even more so.

And if the whole Trimurti concept is true, the gods Shiva and Vishnu are siblings and you got your cosmic conflict between two great forces. This must then play out on a human level/scope so the story can be related to by the audience with more common myths about family and power struggles. The power struggles are both internal and external; hence, Anakin Skywalker being the encapsulation of the story. Sorry for the trapped/encapsulated in the cybernetic armor pun.

Oh, and who do I think Rey is? If you combine the idea that King Arthur died and went to Avalon, waiting to return to restore Britain when he was needed and the avatar idea of Vishnu, then it would appear she is Anakin Skywalker reborn or a completion of this "Choosen One" Force cycle where to go forward, we must go back. Sort of like the cartoon The Last Airbender. Though the special circumstance of birth, Anakin not having a father and was conceived by the Force like the Christian story that follows many special birth stories from Greek mythology and even Buddhism (Siddartha was born able to speak and walk and where he walked lotus flowers came from the earth. Lotus flowers, huh? Padma/Padme means lotus), is not present yet. 

And Finn, perhaps they do keep the Celtic myth straightforward and have him be the son of a king/leader who becomes a great warrior, discovers his heritage and kills the person who killed his father. That would make him unrelated to the rest of the family drama but still bind him to the mythic relationships that the Star Wars cycle is based.  

In conclusion, I would not be surprised if Snoke and Sheev Palpatine were bros and maybe Rey is a royal as her name signifies. Maybe even a royal from Naboo, which means…??

That's for you to suss out. Perhaps all of this is a ruse and misinformation to lead us down the path of the plot twist and none of the characters, now, have a basis in myths, which would be too bad since George Lucas did all that research into the subject. Just find his interviews with Joseph Campbell.        

So ends the drunken rambling on the new characters but in Episode III we will get to how the House of Atreus (Greek mythology), and Dune might have influenced the series.  

May the Force be with you!!

~JLAJ

BTW, I have spoken to some people about Japanese influences and considered the myths of Izanagi and Izanami as the divine twins as reflected in Luke and Leia, or the Dark Side and the Light Side of the Force but their offspring Amaterasu, Susanoo, and Tsukuyomi don’t follow a pattern that fits with Star Wars.  But that doesn’t mean they are not added to the new characters. And yes, Jidaigeki is a genre that has samurai flicks and from where Lucas got the term Jedi, which was originally Jedi Bendu.  Perhaps Bendu is from the term in Sanskrit that mean point or center and this tends to be lent credence in the Star Wars Rebels cartoon with the Bendu who proclaims he is the middle, the point in between the Light and Dark Sides. Or it could be a reference to Buddhism, which is a philosophy of the “means in between the extremes.”  Or as previously stated in Episode I it could be Brahma.