#i think it all happens because Gregory just happens to be a not very likable character

[bunnybowling]

Almost every single theory about Gregory that I've seen is people trying to make him have lore significance.

But he just doesn't. There's nothing special about him. He's just some random ass kid. Literally just Some Guy.

(Honestly I don't even expect him to come back in the next games maybe there'll be some reference/Easter egg but that's about it)

[five-miles-over]

New Girl (High School!Commodus x Reader)

Summary: You are a new student at Institutum Romanus Educational (which is supposed to be Latin for “Roman Educational Institute”) and come across some fascinating characters (I mean classmates). Sort of based off a ‘Gladiator’ AU listicle. Hope you enjoy it!

Warnings: A cheesy meet-cute scene

Word Count: 1,663

When you’d came to Rome to visit your father during your winter holiday, you had only hoped it would be a temporary break from your mundane life back in your hometown. Perhaps you’d get a chance to see the quaint streets covered in frost, or visit the Tiber River. And like most children, you would get a present - maybe new clothes, or a gadget. A brochure for a new school was certainly not what you were expecting as a gift.

Yet here you were, on your first day of the new semester in January, walking to your first period. All you were hoping for was nothing but a peaceful end to your 10th year. You were now to be a student at the Institutum Romanus Educational, or IRE as many playfully called it. It was perplexing to you why a school would insist upon retaining its Latin name, but your parents said it was reinstated by its current principal Marcus Aurelius. He was supposedly an admirer of the Classics and wanted his children to have a good understanding of ancient languages.

The first period of the day was Physics, which you never had a huge affinity towards, but were certainly not averse to. The teacher was kind, and he seemed to be quite enthusiastic about the content he was talking about. After being armed with two problem sets about electromagnetism, you had to walk across the entire building to your next class - English.

Throughout the hall, many of the sights weren’t very different from your old school - there were cliques of people talking to each other, and a few couples making out in front of the lockers. Campaign posters of a girl named Lucilla Aurelius were plastered across the wall. You were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her on your way to class and by gods, the posters did not do her justice. She was gorgeous.

Flanked by two “minions” or girls wearing blouses and skirts similar to the pink-and-white combination she was wearing, she held a box of buttons that said, “Vote for Lucilla, Vote for Rome” on them. With a charismatic grin, she was passing them out to various people and telling them to vote for her for their Student Body President.

Another voice rose from the cacophony in the hallways. “I wouldn’t even know if a rat had chewed off the ends of her thin strands, that’s how ugly that girl’s haircut is.” A bald boy wearing an Assassin’s Creed shirt loomed over a girl with a pixie cut, who was crying.

He was answered by a larger boy, a seemingly more bulky one. “Quinn, I don’t think that’s how to get over being dumped. Just leave her alone.”

“Hagen, you piece of meat.” Quinn grumbled, leaving the tiny girl to pick up her books from the floor. Hagen gave her the rest of her things and sent her off to class.

When you entered your English class, you heaved a sigh of relief that you were on time. The board saying ‘Hamlet’ assured you that you had reached the correct classroom. The seats were almost all filled except for one placed in front of a green-eyed boy with cropped dark hair.

He was probably the perfect mix of gothic and preppy - his bangs were long enough to fall over his brow, and he wore a barely noticeable layer of eyeliner. His crisp, black button-down, paired with his skinny jeans and black designer boots, served as a stark contrast to the sweat pants and hoodies many of the other male students wore.

You waved politely only to find him idly writing something in a journal. It looked like something in elaborate cursive, and you would’ve looked further if the teacher didn’t begin taking attendance. And if it doing so wouldn’t make you look completely creepy.

Within moments, the teacher began lecturing about one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, calling upon various students to read scenes out loud for the rest of the class. A few kids named Gregory and Falcon read for the parts of Polonius, the chamberlain of Denmark, and Laertes, the son of Polonius.

You were nearly caught by surprise when the teacher invited you to read Ophelia’s lines in front of the class from Act 1, Scene 3 of the play. It wasn’t exactly on your agenda to attract much attention on your first day, but you decided to accept anyways. Standing in front of the class, you read Ophelia’s lines loud and clear while your green-eyed mystery, named Commodus, read Hamlet’s lines with passion. He seemed like he was born for this role.

“Thank you, both of you.” Your teacher applauded both of you after the scene was completed. When you returned to your seat, you saw a hand reach towards you from behind, holding a yellow sticky note. Quickly taking it, you tucked it under your knee before you could get caught.

“Commie’s passing notes in class again,” Gregory taunted, leading the entire class to laugh with him as the boy sitting behind you fumed with embarrassment. “Infatuated with the girl reading Ophelia, he seems to forget when the stage ends and when real life begins.”

The teacher’s eyebrows furrowed at Gregory’s remark. “Y/N, is this true? Did Commodus give you a note?”

“No, not at all,” you lied for him. “He didn’t give me a note at all, I just dropped my sticky notes and he gave them back to me.” Ignoring Gregory’s eye-rolling, the teacher reluctantly accepted your alibi and continued to lecture until the bell rung.

“Nice reading voice.” A boy in a burnt orange jacket offered you a kind smile as you both left the classroom. “You, uh, the new girl?”

“I am, thanks,” you nodded. “And you are?”

“The new boy,” he joked. “Sort of - I came here a few months ago from Australia. Actually Spain’s my homeland - I was born there.”

“So you’re a Spaniard?”

“No, I’m Max, but Spaniard works,” he winked, eliciting a laugh from you. “Want me to walk you to your next class?”

“If it’s not too much trouble for you,” you answered. “You wouldn’t by chance happen to know where World History is?

Max grinned. “That’s just where I’m headed. You looked confused when you entered - thought you could use a friendly face on your first day.”

“Thank you for making me feel a bit more welcome, Max.” You replied, letting him lead you through the crowd of students. Unbeknownst to the both of you, a pair of jealous peridot eyes followed the two of you until you turned the corner and disappeared.

Later that day, when lunchtime came around, your eyes widened at the color and variety of the flavorful dishes being served. It was almost like they were being prepared by gourmet chefs. You couldn’t help but smile at how pretty your tray looked; penne with a creamy tomato sauce, arugula salad with a balsamic vinaigrette, a piece of bread, and freshly cut fruit.

Deciding against the crowded cafeteria, you decided to take a chance to explore some of the other hallways in your new school. You wondered just how big your new school could possibly be. Did they have an indoor pool, a large gymnasium, a library,…or an auditorium? Holding your tray close to your chest, you walked into the large theater. In the center of the breathtakingly colossal stage, you found Commodus sitting cross-legged next to his shoulder bag and a thermos.

“Hello,” you quietly greeted him, approaching the edge of the stage and climbing up.

“Shouldn’t you be eating in the cafeteria?”, he asked, slightly perplexed, looking up from the book he was reading.”No,” you replied, placing your backpack down. “It wasn’t really my scene at my old school. I used to eat in the library or the music room.”

Commodus hummed in acknowledgment, returning to his copy of Dracula and his thermos of black coffee. “Where’s your lunch?” You asked, sitting next to him.

“I don’t usually eat any. I’m too busy.”

You pushed your tray towards him. “Would you like to share some of mine?”

“Yes, thank you.” He ripped off a piece of the bread and dipped it into the pasta sauce before chewing it. Commodus allowed himself a few more bites partially because he didn’t want to seem rude and…you seemed likable.

A few moments of silence took place while the two of you ate before you glanced at the clock. “Well…it’s time for me to go to my next class,” you commented.

“Oh…” His eyes looked slightly downcast when you told him you had to leave. “You look lovely!” You froze at his sudden compliment. “That…that was what I hoped to tell you in that note I gave you. That you look exquisite - your hair, your lips, your eyes- it reminded me of Lady Ophelia when you read her lines. You’re…you look more beguiling than she would be.”

“That’s quite sweet of you, Commodus.” You said with a small smile, flabbergasted. “Thank you, I…I’m quite flattered.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t like it. Most people don’t understand my references or my vocabulary.” Commodus stammered, relieved that you didn’t find him disturbing for comparing you to a Shakespearean heroine. “Thank you for sharing your lunch and your time with me, Y/N.”  

“Of course,” you extended your hand, expecting to shake his. “It was nice meeting you, Commodus.”

Accepting your gesture, he clasped your hand and softly kissed your knuckles, causing you to blush. Usually, princes from fairytales would do something so chivalrous. “It was nice meeting you too,” Commodus replied.

“I’ll see you later, then.” You carried your tray and backpack and began leaving the auditorium. Commodus watched you leave, hoping that perhaps you wouldn’t be like many of the other new kids, pretending to be nice before getting swept away by the popular students. That perhaps you would be…just as special as he already thought you were.

[paula-of-christ]

[Note from Paula: I don't feel like commenting on this other than to respond to the TLDR; just because the laity believe it to be Christian, doesn't make it a Christian practice. What matters is what the AUTHORITIES of the Church say. So no, the authorities of the faith and the magisterium of the Church and the big T traditions of the Church, have not co-opted pagan practices. The rest of this post is submitted by another user.]

This kinda became, longer than i intended so I'm not doing it via anon messages.

I'm not surprised you didn't find anything about St. Gregorjevo. Because it's Sveti Gregor. (If you google it, you are most likelly to find settlements named after the saint.) The "jevo" is like "'s" so calling it Gregorjevo is like calling it George's.

Citing sources will be, difficult since they are all in slovene and I do not recall any translations in english? For example there is "Praznično leto Slovencev" by Niko Kuret  you could search for "The Festive year of Slovenes" as a potential english title for it, which covers all folk traditions that take place in slovenia, their origins and meaning.

It HAS been a very long time since I read it(i should really buy it at some point) and I don't recall the other books I was reading at a similar time.

Also I wish to preface this that I am not writing to you with any ill intent. I myself had a catholic upbringing, but after my confirmation it seemed like the world did not want me to attend sunday mass and the extra faith classes we had in the year after our conformation. My current religious stance is ???. I'm not pagan, even if i wished to be pagan, the religion of my ancestors is..., unlike ancient greek, roman or norse religions, there's no concrete facts about it, only religious items, traditions and practices. I believe in a higher force/power/being, but I do not have the confidence to put a name to it, as I am a mere human, and I am weak and uncertain. I do have an interest in theology, it is the one big thing that stayed with me from faith class. And at the minimum I have to be educated in it if I wish to have a good understanding of art history, as many great arts WERE made as commissions by the catholic church, or pious rich folk (nobles, merchants etc.)

And above all, I have read your blog. And you seem like a really likable person. You feel good natured and I honestly wish you happiness and that you will be joyful once you enter the cloister and are able to be closer to God and your worship of him. <3

Now to talk more about Gregorjevo, It is mostly associated with him thanks to, well,  it taking place on his name day.

I am not sure if name days  are still an important thing in America? Or if they ever were... Funfact, in Slovenia birthdays didn't used to be celebrated on your, day of birth, but on your name day. The tradition still presists, by people wishing you well when its your name day.

Back to Gregorjevo, since saint names tend to be slovenized in slovene. It's probably named after Saint Gregory the Great. I think. St. George is usually slovenized as Sveti Jurij. (More on St. George later)

On Gregorjevo there are quite a few, traditions to be done so to say.  But they arent done all over slovenia, because again it's folk traditions, small things. One such thing is letting candles float down rivers. Iirc, from slavic paganism, it is the start of spring and a ritual to the gods sending wishes for the new year.  (Another spring related tradition is pust, but its more of a pre-spring, scare away winter type of thing)

How is that connected to St. George the Great? Ummm. Theres a legend that he came to his parents in a glowing boat.

No literally. Thats what the priests say. Its a story I recall being said whenever it was the saints name day in morning mass. I can't find, anything, that implies that that happened to the real St. Gregory, maybe it happened to some other saint Gregor and its just a mix up because of the same name? The candles that go down rivers in some areas are inside small church building boats, again to paint it christian.

Then there is Jurjevanje that happens on Jurjevo. Jurjevo again takes place on spring. St. Georges day. It's an important day, especially for herders  since snakes arounf this time are supposed to wake up and come out from the underground. St. George who is known to have killed a dragon, was then believed to come out again on this day to kill the snakes. (dragon/snakes, etymologically the same thing in slavic languages, or atleast the same root word, zmaj, dragon, zmija, snake). So whats Jurjevanje? Its when a young boy dresses up as Zeleni Jurij (Green George), all dressed in green  he would then go around the village to stick saplings or the like at doors, to bring good luck, to ward off the snakes. Zeleni Jurij is supposed to be an aspect of Svet Jurij. Kind of how Marija zavetnica (s plaščem) (Mary the protector (with a cape)), is an aspect of Mary, specifically the part of her that protects worshipers. Depicted usually with a cape that she opens up and covers ovef the worshipers. But its also very likely that Zeleni Jurij is, Yarilo, (I should have mentioned that j is pronounced like y earlier than this) a slavic god of spring time, especially since he doesn't show up anywhere else.

It is really just local traditions that get this overpaint of Christianity, and since they are so local and small, and rural people aren't that important, there's not really much talk about them outside of their regions.  If you ask any grandma who regularly goes to church, she will call them christian. And so will the priests, they won't call them traditions that are practiced everywhere.  Its like how coloured eggs are prepared differently for Easter in different regions, they are all Christian but a different local tradition. Scholars on the other hand will figure out and look where something might have come from, why do these people do these things, and others do not.

This is getting kind of long and I'm sorry about that. But this topic has really sparked up my curiosity and I will need to do some research again. I also wrote this fully on my train ride home, so I couldn't really double check anything and had to rely on my memory. So I also apologise if there are any grammatical mistakes or if I on accident do not make sense.

Hopefully our villages priest might have some time this weekend, because now I wish to ask him about some of these things. If he doesn't then I will have to remember to ask him on Easter since he always managed to visit my Godfather then.

Thank you for reading this and I hope that you'll have a lovely weekend and have a pleasant All Saints' day.

Tl;dr: its local festivies, ask a priest or grandma and they'll call it and believe it christian even if the vatican doesn't practice it.

[iminyourhandskara]

Chris Wood on FatMan Beyond with Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin. (Full interview transcript)

A MASSIVE, MASSIVE THANK YOU TO @bwaybenoist WHO HELPED ME A LOT WITH THIS. ❤❤❤❤

to the anon who requested this, and for whoever wants to read this, enjoy!

__________________

Kevin: One of my favorite people in the world, man. If you're lucky enough, you get to work with people you like, and I met this kid on a set and most people on sets, you know, 'not necessarily all likable and stuff like that.

Marc: Careful.

Kevin: Yeah. (indistinct) This kid ain't just likable, he's fucking lovable, man. I was like, goddamn it, I fell in love with him the way I fell in love with Ben Affleck, where I'm like "You should be in everything! Fuckin, you should play Fletch." I still to this day think he'd be the perfect Fletch based on the Gregory McDonald books. When we got lucky enough to work on Masters of the Universe from Mattel on Netflix, I, you know, there was always a like "We could probably get a big cast for this" and stuff, so I played very few cards in terms of like "Well, here's who I think you could get and stuff like that" because Netflix, Mattel, these cats putting up the money, they should tell us who they want and stuff and Teddy who's our Netflix exec, he loves MOTU, so like casting of course with Netflix, the ability to draw talent is gonna be right up his alley. But one of the only names I put forward in the process..I was like “I worked with Chris Wood, and he is SO good, like he would be an excellent Prince Adam and He-Man as well of course, but like, can I put him on the list?” and they put him on the list, and you know, I thought that was gonna be it, “Kevin made a suggestion and we’ll put him in there and then it will never happen.” And he got the job, legit got the job. Mattel loved him, Netflix loved him, boom, he’s our prince Adam! So, here tonight, you got him? Here tonight, man..*Skype sound* Making a little chit-chat, that’s the sound of joy. That means we’re gonna talk to a guest, we get to open the door and welcome to Fatman Beyond, uh, He-Man himself, ladies and gentleman, Prince Adam, I give you..Chris Wood.

Chris: Oh my goodness.

Marc: Look at that intro.

Kevin: And look at that pretty ass man, look at how pretty he is.

Chris: *Plays Jellicle Cats from CATS*

Kevin: Somebody’s been listening to the show!

Chris: Reminiscing about..the Winter Garden Theater.

Kevin: This is actually..I was gonna say..

Chris: My first Broadway show I ever saw, Kevin!

K: Was CATS?

C: Was CATS!

K: I totally forgot as we were sitting here, going “Nobody’s gonna care about us talking about Broadway.” There’s one guy waiting to be on the show who was like “I’d love it if it was all--”

C: I was having the time of my life! This was like Batman, Broadway edition, I loved it.

K: Give us the full rundown of every Broadway show that you’ve ever seen, and when you say Broadway, do you mean--

C: I mean, I mean Broadway.

K: You mean like seeing it on Broadway, not just live theater.

C: No man, that’s where I got my start, that was my whole...the stage was my whole thing. You’d have to sit here for like three hours to hear all of the shows I ever saw..

K: Are you serious? So wait you-

C: It’s got a soft place in my heart still.

K: You uhm, I remember when I was working on Supergirl, at one point Melissa was just like: “He was in Sweeney Todd!” and I was like “What?” Were you in Sweeney Todd?

C: It’s true, yeah.

M: With Victor Garber?

C: Yeah.

K: Yeah, it’s surprising, he was in Sweeney Todd and has worked on a Victor Garber adjacent show.

C: Yeah.

K: I (was) saying before Ben Affleck’s my last card, I’m turning to Chris Wood to make that Victor Garber connection.

C: Yeeees! Hey guys!

M: Hey man!

K: How are you sir?

C: What’s going on?

K: So wait, what- you were a musical theater guy.Correct?

C: That (was) my thing, man. All through college and high school and growing up, that was like-- aside from making movies on my Super8-- that was my, that was my other hobby.

K: What is uh- look, for those who don’t follow very closely: Chris has acted for a long time, I met him playing Mon-El when I was directing Supergirl episodes. Of course as I said, he’s playing our He-Man. What was the vampire show that Mewes loves that you were on?

C: The Vampire Diaries, yeah, yeah.

K: The Vampire Diaries as well and stuff, uhm, and he’s a wonderful actor and gorgeous human being but-

C: You’re always- you have the kindest intros in the world, Kevin. You’re- I come on just blushing every time I talk to you. 

K: He’s wonderful (but) this is wanna lay out there: he is a fucking hell of a writer.

M: Outstanding. 

C: Oh wow! It’s still going!

K: And you know that like I’m not just saying it’s a butter him up because we could totally just talk about He-Man and that’s it but like-- I’ve read a script that he wrote that took me back to 1994, where I was like-- This is what I felt like when I saw Indie Film. It reignited a love for indie film because the film was impressionistic and wonderful and original and singular in vision and stuff..

C: And nobody will ever make it..*Laughs* All of the qualities of a terrific independent film.

K: You got- you got some pushback on the movie. “Some people like this? What?” but he wrote- didn’t you write a script that went someplace legit or whatnot? Are you allowed to talk about it?

C: I did, yeah. It’s not public yet, but we’re--

K: That’s not public? That wasn’t in the trades or anything like that?

C: Not yet, man. It’s still like..under the table wheeling and dealing.

K: Alright, we can’t say what it is, but I can tell you right now, it’s like- it’s something that you and I (Marc) would work our Whole lives to achieve and we’ve been doing- all we have is writing. And this motherfucker has everything in life and he’s about to have that as well. But well worth it, because he’s wonderful at the written word. What do you attribute that to?

C: The written word?

K: Yeah. Where’d you- How come you’re such a good writer?

C: Well, that’s very- Thank you first of all. Uhm, writing, I always kinda did it. I think I was like you, Kev, when I was a kid I just- no one was giving me pages to shoot or to have my friends put on plays in the garage, so I had to write my own words. So, I kind of always done it. I remember writing plays and I’d write up thirty pages of a script when I was 13 years old and I’d hand it out to my cousins and we’d perform it for all of our aunts and uncles and grandparents. I kind of always done it, just never been paid for it.

K: Yeah, that’s the dream, to get paid for it at the same time. I saw when my man got married, he whipped out beautiful words as well. Like you know, where you get to like say something to your-

M: Your vows.

K: There you go. That’s that word, “vows”

C: “What do we call those *snaps fingers* those promises we make.

K: I smoked those away. *Laughs* Even his vows, were like beautiful, like incredibly well fuckin written, beautiful choice of words, look-

C: My missus..

K: I mean, yes.

C: (Blew me out) the water.

K: Who went first, was it you or her who went first?

C: She went first, that’s why I couldn’ t-- I couldn’t speak through mine.

K: Yeah, both of them got real beautiful.

C: Oh man..

K: The thing is, I knew Woody was a writer because I read his script and what not. Didn’t homegirl open with “I’m not a writer” and then dropped one of the most beautiful fucking speeches that you’ve ever heard in your life? It was really great, really special for me to be there for, man. The point is this kid here writes well, the point is one day he’s gonna take my advice and write himself his own fucking lead in the movie that he should make, particularly that one that I love and make a movie, ‘cause he’s got all the ingredients. Like you know, like me I was like “I wanna make a movie” but like I had to hire actors and shit like that. Well, not hire but beg them to be in it. Thank God they were. But like he could write himself a part and be that fucking part and direct himself in the part, because he’s been on enough sets so knows how the process works.

M: So what you’re saying is he’s unfair.

K: Yes, I don’t want to say it in front of him and embarrass the man but yeah.

C: I’m so sorry.

K: Um, take us into, for those watching at home uh, talk a little bit about Vampire Diaries. When did that, was that the first thing you did?

C: That was one of my early kind of like public roles, um, I had done some stuff before that, nothing really that caught on with a fan base. That was sort of the first thing I did where people got excited about a character I was doing, um and wanted more of them, so they wrote me more stuff, um, yeah that was, I guess, I started on that seven years ago? Eight years ago?

K: And what was the, did you leave? Did they kill you off gracefully? Did you leave because you were like “I don’t want to do this”.

C: Yeah, I was a bad guy, so with like all good villains in our favourite shows, they have to meet some sort of demise or just, you know go into a spin-off *Laughs*. It’s kind of either-or. Or they’re Skeletor and then they just exist forever as an equal force.

K: So after, how long were you done with that show before you went and did Supergirl?

C: So I did a couple of things after that, um, I did a mini-series and I was on a limited series called ‘Containment’ about a pandemic, much like what we’re living in now. A little too timely, I kind of don’t recommend it at the moment, but yeah I did that and then right after that ended, that’s when I went up to Vancouver.

K; So wait, and if I remember correctly, Containment, did Julie Plec do that? Didn’t she also…

C: Yeah, yeah, that was Julie Plec, who did Vampire Diaries. She kind of pulled me across, from that experience.

K: When you’re making it, are you like “silly fictional world this will never happen.”.

M: “I’ll never need to remember any of this.”.

C: You know what, I feel like in a way the show kind of prepared me for the quarantine because I read so much about the Spanish Flu and about outbreaks and what actually happened, so when this all started happening, I was like “guys no no no, this is real” you know like, when people who play lawyers think they’re lawyers? It was kind of one of those things, suddenly I thought I knew, I was like “send me in I’m ready guys”.

M: Was there any Containment swag that you got to keep like “oh they sent me all these masks, I got all of these masks!”

C: I wish! I think I have some uh, dog tags and that’s about it..

K: Alright so wait, did they come after you to come audition for Supergirl? How does that happen?

C: That was the first time in my career where I got offered something without reading for it. Which was kind of amazing. And I played hard to get for a second because I wasn’t sure if it was the right coloured spandex. I was always more of a Batman guy than a Superman and then eventually it clicked and apparently, there was some part of me that knew I was going to meet my future wife and the mother of my children. *laughs* So I guess it all worked out.

K: I mean, yeah, and aside from just getting to play a hero and stuff, it gave you the rest of your life.

C: The rest of my life, which is a pretty lucky thing to get from a job, usually the job doesn’t serve you that. So that was pretty fantastic.

K: And there are very few people who can walk away from the CW going “and that built the rest of my life”, you know what I’m saying?

C: *laughs* Well it does match, the network that matches my initials should promise me something like that. I think it’s somewhere in the rulebook, I don’t know where.

K: I just put that together.

M: Like the Wendy's girl walks into Wendy's and is like “I will take all of your hamburgers, I’m Wendy."

(all laugh)

K: When you, when they gave you the suit finally, which is something you know, for the run of the show was something you would look forward to and then finally they do give you the suit, looked tight. Was it as uncomfortable as it looked?

C: Oh yeah, they’re terrible. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever wear in your life. You know, it’s like a giant onesie. A onesie is known for comfort and relaxation and too many zippers. This is as few of zippers and you can have including no accessibility to use the restroom, and you really can’t move in them, it kind of squeezes your everything, if there’s a thing that can be squeezed by the spandex. So things are going like, your elbow is going up to your shoulder and you’re not really sure why. You know that you’re not controlling it. Uh, it’s an odd experience, but um, I’ll tell you what, those lunch breaks were always very, it was like a great release to unzip the spandex and just lay on the couch.*laughs*

K: Tell them what it’s like to be up on the harness thing man, when you have to do flying and shit, on the green screens.

C: The flying is fun, that’s one of the really, that’s when you feel like you’re on the trampoline in your backyard as a kid fighting the invisible villains. It’s literally the same thing, except someone is doing the jumping for you with a rope. But that’s when you get to play and feel like a kid. Those are my favourite, the big action sequences. They’re a bear to shoot because they take days to shoot two minutes, as you know. But when you’re actually doing the thing, it’s a great time.

K: How long before you think, because I know it ain’t happening now, how many years from now do you think it’ll be before you and Melissa are like “let’s watch the episodes and see if we can spot the chemistry, and see if I can see myself falling in love and blah blah blah.” Do you think you’ll ever get there?

C: You know, I think it’s probably all over every second of every frame *laughs*. You could probably just uh, start at the beginning and then the first second on-screen probably in some way, shape or form go “oh there it is, there’s the first bits of it”.

K: I believe that, Mr. Broadway.

C: Mr Broadway!!

K: Can I tell him [Marc] a quick Broadway story? I actually went to a Broadway show, where I got to sit next to Mr Chris Wood.

M: Did you now?

C: Oh man, yeah you did.

K: It’s beautiful. So we go see Beautiful, is the show, the Carole King musical.

C: It was also beautiful.

K: It was beautiful, branded and in my heart. The lead of the show that night is of particular interest to both me and Mr Wood, him a lot more. Melissa Benoist, "rhymes with moist", I learned that from Chris Wood.

M: That sounds awfully romantic.

C: He texts me late one evening..

K I used to say Ben-o-ist all the time, I don’t know why.

C: And then I shot you a text I was like “You know it’s Benoist like moist, like a chocolate, decadent chocolate cake”.

M: That was the most Christopher Walken thing I’ve ever heard: “It’s Benoist like moist”.

K: “And delicious like a chocolate cake”. We’re watching Beautiful and we’re watching Melissa open, this is the debut, the first opening night of the show, and Chris is there um, a bunch of people that love Melissa were there. Fucking Lynda Carter was there, Wonder Woman was there to watch Supergirl, how awesome is that? The curtain opens and it opens with Melissa, she’s up top like bang, singing, right at the top of the show and I’m sitting right next to Chris Wood who is crying. Crying those joyful tears of seeing his lady love’s dream come true. She always wanted, is that her first Broadway performance?

C: It was, first and last. *laughs*

K: *jokingly* She’s not going to do it again?

C: No, no, no, no, no I’m just kidding, no it was her first. Life long dream.

K: She was like, she’s like Chris, she’s a theatre kid. A couple of musical kids and stuff, drama kids.

C: You can say nerds, it’s okay.

K: Drama nerds, the idea of Broadway, that was the goal, it wasn’t like “one day I’m gonna be Supergirl”, that was the surprise and the delight where she met the love of her life and stuff, but the dream was Broadway and her dream came true and as you know, if the curtains open and Melissa was crying, of course, people forgive it because they’re like “Oh look at her dreams coming true” the fact he was bawling, I was like "oh my God, she’s got the right guy." All of the joy he felt for her joy, as she was concentrating on doing the very thing that she dreamed about doing, performing, so she can’t just stop the show and be like “can you fucking believe this?” which is how she feels inside, he’s expressing for her just by emotional, he was crying, it was one of the most beautiful things in the world.

C: I’m not ashamed of it.

K: No!

M: Nor should you be.

K: It was so fucking wonderful so supportive but he is a- point of the story, he is such a Broadway kid.

C: You could say I’m a Jellicle kid.

K: Somebody could explain that.

M: I too was sitting next to Chris Wood when he was crying, but it was in New Orleans, in a waiting room to shoot a scene for Reebot, and he's like "Listen, I gotta fly back to Vancouver and my flight is like twenty minutes from now and we haven't shot yet, and it's 4 AM and I'm a little bit daffy in the brain.

K: *Laughs* It's true.

C: Yeah, we were drinking- we were on coffee number four, at like 5 AM, and I looked at my watch and I went "Oh!! My flight's at 6:30." *Laughs*

M: "Anytime you're ready, Kev!"

C: But we got it done.

K: The boys were so sweet, they came out uhm- Chris and Jesse Rath came out and they're in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot during Chronicon, if you haven't seen it on Amazon Prime.

C: With the most extensive and detailed backstory that any limited amount of screentime has ever had in the history of film. There's a story in those eyes, if you look closely.

K: Oh my God, he's working. But he's sitting next to Mr. Marc Bernardin.

M: Yes.

K: Throughout the night, and it was- we ran up against- what time do we finally shoot you guys?

C: I don't even remember.

M: It must've been like 5:15 or something like that.

K: And then rush them to the airport so they could get on (a) plane and get back to Vancouver, correct?

C: That's right, I had to get back to work.

K: Such a special-

C: But it was such a blast, though. And thank you again for letting us come out and play. That was such a trip.

K: It just means that uh, one day your kids are gonna watch that movie and be like "They're both in this terrible movie? Who are Jay and Silent Bob? Was this before you guys met on Supergirl? Why would you be in a movie like this?"

C: *Laughs*

K: Let's talk He-Man. What-- Had you done voice work prior to He-Man?

C: So, when I was broke, living in New York, in between babysitting for three boys on the Upper West Side to make cash so I could support my acting aspirations, I bought a little USB microphone and I joined this- I can't even remember the name of the site. It was some like, some freelance voiceover site, where you join and you can record audio samples and submit auditions and that was the only voice work I had done. I would- I was making like 100 bucks here and there, doing a voiceover for a animated-- "Hey kids, don't run in the cafeteria!" Like a school PSA, or I did some military PSA teaching soldiers etiquette in the barracks and-- so strange. But that was all I had done.

K: Tell'em about how- what acting in front of a microphone is like, 'cause it is acting-

C: Oh yeah.

K: -And in some ways, it's way more acting than one can do on a camera, on a camera one can be subtle, you can't be subtle behind a microphone. You gotta communicate emotion just with the voice, tell 'em about it.

C: You know it's so funny, I actually would describe voice acting as incredibly physical work, whereas camera acting it's all- you know, it's what you're feeling, it's..they say it's through your eyes, which actually means they're seeing through your eyes, through your soul, right? If you're feeling something you'll see it. But for voice acting, we don't see anything, it's all voice, so you really have to take the feeling and elevate it, and sometimes it helps to physically express it, so people sweat in the booth and they, you know, they grit their teeth and they stomp into the ground, and really, you have to really dig in, to grab the emotion and kinda amplify it, otherwise *monotone voice* you're just kinda talking like you do on film and nothing's really happening, and no one cares. Which is sort of what American acting is a lot of the time, we kinda just try not to seem like we're interesting and care about anything. *Laughs*

K: Is that the secret to acting? Did you just let it-- Is that all acting or just CW acting? What kinda acting are we talking about?

C: I'm actually doing a master class series on early '20s acting and basically, the first lesson is to speak as monotone and enunciate as little as possible.

K: Fucking worked out, you married Supergirl for heaven's sakes.

C: Listen-

K: Mumble away, kids! That's what your future looks like if you can mumble your way through a performance.

C: Mumble core.

M: So what you're saying is, voice acting then is very much like theater acting? Where like you've gotta play to the back row, right? Like you can't see that person's eye from a hundred feet away.

C: This guy!

K: Right? This fucking guy, he made-

C: You've found a way to bring it back to CATS! Wow!

K: Thank you, fucking excellent job, now there's a writer. Marc Bernardin is a writer.

M: *singing* Midnight and the kitties are sleeping..

K: Yes, your theater training really comes in handy in that shit, I never fucking put that together!

C: Yeah! Because you learn how to take a truthful feeling and amplify it, that's what the best stage acting is, right? An emotion that an actor is feeling that can reach the back of the house and, with voice acting is that same sort of thing, but your relationship is with the microphone uhm, and it needs to go through the microphone and then into the character and then the audience gets to it. So it's a whole-- There's a learning curve, I feel like it takes a second. Hopefully we got it right.

K: Now you're way younger than us, so I don't know if like- was He-Man in your wheelhouse growing up? Or that was before you?

C: He-Man, yeah, He-Man was on uh-- we didn't have cable when I was a kid, 'cause we didn't have the money for it. So I was watching, they were rerunning it on-- I'm trying to think what network it would've been. I can't even think of the names of what they were back then, but they were running- it was the rerun after the original series had aired. 'Cause I would watch that and I would watch X-Men, those are my cartoons.

M: Where'd you grew up, in New York?

C: In Ohio. Yeah, Dublin, Ohio, home of Wendy's, yeah.

K: That's true, that's where Wendy's begins, is in Ohio!

C: Yeah and there's a callback to Wendy! So..

M: This guy!

K: There's a writer, there's a writer! *points at both Marc and Chris*

M: High five!

K: What uh-- you know, we gotta be very careful of course, when we talk about MOTU, all of us are NDA'd up the A-H. You gotta play two different characters, what was that like?

C: That was one of the fun aspects of Prince Adam slash He-Man. It's finding these very different placements for the same person, right? So it has to feel like the same character but that, their emotional states are- Prince Adam is sort of in a different place: he's covering, he's deflecting, he's more fun and goofy..And then He-Man we have to drop the truth of his core mission, you know, to save the world, so..I mean, it starts with registers, right? That was the easy part. Prince Adam is supposed to be full of youth so he's a little higher and a little more excited, and then He-Man, *lower voice* go down and be more heroic, down in the basement and use his big fighty-fight voice.

K: It's pretty awesome, like you join a tradition of storytelling in which performers get to be two people, like you know, whoever plays Batman gets to do Bruce Wayne, and then they get to do the Dark Knight, whoever plays Superman gets to do Clark Kent and then they get to do the Man of Steel, so you get to do Prince Adam and then you also get to be his heroic alter ego, man.

C: Right.

K: It's a wonderful fraternity that you join.

C: Although I hear I'm in deep trouble, because the internet has found out that I'm not bulking up--

M: You're not doing the work?

C: --for my performance.

K: Somebody on Twitter was just like "Chris Wood, he's not big enough to play He-Man!" and they meant in size!

M: "Have you seen his thighs? His thighs are not nearly there!"

K: "He skips leg day all the time" but oh my God--

C: You're right! "He can't possibly play the character!"

K: Yeah I had to point out, I was like "I better get in touch with Netflix and see if they'll send Chris some steroids and a fucking peloton so he could do the the voice in an animated series."

M: Also, Chris is not from another planet. That's also an issue. Could you not have cast an indigenous actor to play somebody from Eternia?

K: Who was it tweeted, somebody tweeted something about Griffin Newman, they were like "Oh, tell Griffin we gotta cut his fucking legs off". Maybe it was there, texted that, tweeted that. What uh, now that you've voice acted and led an animated series: is it something that you see yourself doing again? I mean, of course, hopefully we all get to do this one again, but other stuff. You got like one of them Disney voices and you can sing like a motherfucker, man.

C: Oh man, I would love to do Disney too. Let's uh, put that in the bucket list. I honestly, I get a real kick out of it, it's..like you said you can really go to a larger-than-life place, and it all, it always has to come from, you know, something sincere, that sense of play has to be grounded in something. You just kind of yell and scream, I think people can hear that..so there's a challenge to it, but it's also super rewarding because you get to, you know, play characters that fly on cats that are oversized and wear armor and..

M: Jellicle cats?

K: None of that Jellicle shit in our show, Marc! Battle cats!

M: What kind of Jellicle are you? I'm a cringer cat!

K:*jokingly* Somebody point a sword at me, quick. Yeah man, it's a..

C: It's a long life with He-Man too, 'cause this, I mean the character is so fun and obviously..I had the action figures when I was a kid and those toys..I hope to introduce my son to Masters of the Universe via the action figures, 'cause I mean they're so weird! They really went there-- have you seen that special that they do on the toys on the Netflix show?

K: Oh yeah, the toy, the wonderful-

M: The Toys That Made Us.

K: -The Toys That Made Us.

C: Yeah, yeah The Toys That Made Us.

K: Their He-Man episode is unbelievably wonderful.

C: Oh, it's great! And it just shows you- you know they were thinking "what weird crap would a little boy like, put together on a toy?" And then they end up with these wild names, and these characters who do insane things and it's part of why it's so fun. And the fact that they found a way to build a story around those bizarre toys, that was also compelling.

K: Thank God they did--

C: 30 years later, it's amazing.

K: Thank God they did, we all have fuckin jobs, all three of us.

C: *laughs* You're right.

K: Wait so before we let you go, it occurs to me that Melissa just had her episode air of Supergirl, that she directed.

C: Directorial debut!

K: That's right! Did you- Did the Wood-Benoists or Benoist-Woods- did you guys like kick back and watch it together?

C: You know, we didn't because *laughs* we don't have cable. So, no!

K: Don't let CW hear that, or perhaps do and they'll pay for cable! Why don't you have cable? Where are you quarantining?

C: We're in California, so we're home, but we're usually not home.

K: Right! Oh my gosh, that's right!

C: As a fortunate actor you move to California to never be there. I was shooting in New York and she was shooting in Vancouver when this all started and we were lucky to get home quickly but uh, but yeah I mean, we don't spend that much time in our house, so we don't have cable!

K: Tell 'em why you were in New York. Was it the- that's been announced, right?

C: Yeah, yeah for Thirtysomething, Thirtysomethingelse which is an ABC show that hopefully, knock on me, hopefully ends up going when we get out of this situation with Covid. Yeah, it's a reboot of Thirtysomething, another 80s classic.

K: Oh my God, that's-- you'll have two, you'll have fuckin MOTU and Thirtysomething. I watched Thirtysomething in real time when I was a kid, I loved that show, my mom watched it so I watched it with her and stuff, so I know all about Hope and Michael. I saw that they were redoing the show and I saw that fucking Chris was involved and I was like "What?!", and I texted him "Are you fucking for real?" and shit, and you're playing Hope and Michael's- did they announce that? I don't know

C: Yeah, yeah, I'm their son, yeah.

K: So he's tied in-

M: He's a legacy character!

K: Legacy character and like-

C: Legacy! This is what's all about.

K: That's fucking dope, man. So I mean, look I can't wait to watch that, but I have seen and heard four animatics so far of MOTU and-

C: Oh man.

K:- your performance..

C: I cannot wait.

K: It's wonderful, you did a great, great job and made me proud as the guy who was like "You know who'd be good? This guy." Put you forward--

C: This guy and they're like "who's that?" and you're like "hang on, let me tell ya!"

K: Yes, "Here let me pull up IMDb". They knew who he was, they know you, man.

M: If you did like The Music Man it wouldn't have been an issue: “You know who’d be good? Wood would be good, if he could do that, I bet you Wood could.”

C: *Laughs* Well, you got He-Man, my friends. (inaudible) city.That was a, that was a deep cut.

M: Hell yes.

K:Look at you, look at how you came to life with a little theater ref, man. Jazz hands all around.

C: Oh yeah, you can feel the jazz hands from there in the Cantina.

M: Touching us all over

K: Go back and enjoy the rest of your Thursday night, thanks for hanging out with us, say hello to the good lady Benoist and whatnot.

C: Thank you gentlemen. It was wonderful seeing you both.

M: Good to see you, sir. Be well.

C: Alright guys, be well.

K: Give it up for He-Man himself, Chris Wood, everybody.

M: *cheers*

K: Mon-El..flies away. He’s so good, such a good guy. I forgot he was such a fucking theater kid, that’s right, and we were like talking theater and shit. And I forgot his connection to Garber. One more we wrote in.

M: We have another point of entry.

K: That’s true, that’s good. Man, I’m telling you, I ain’t fucking around, his script was one of the most impressive thing I’ve ever read,

M: Yeah, that’s awesome.

K: It did make me feel jealous where I’m like “he’s that pretty and he can write like this? Like, all I had was writing, fuck!”

M: That’s a problem.

K: God, what a good guy.

[rosalind-of-arden]

Sword and Pen Reread, chapter 11

Oh shit it’s the Annis chapter. There will be tears.

For the ephemera, we have a letter from the Archivist of the Library of Pergamum to the Archivist of the Great Library. They consider each other rivals. This fits with real history, it looks like. What does it not fit with? The story Jess tells in Ash and Quill. In Jess’s story, the Library of Pergamum was a rival to the Great Library “in the early days”, but by the time the Romans came along to try and loot it, Pergamum was a Serapeum of the Great Library. Here’s another of those little inconsistencies suggesting that what we know of Library history is very heavy on the propaganda.

Eskander can sense Obscurists leaving the Iron Tower even if they aren’t wearing collars. Most stuff Obscurists can do, at least very powerful ones. 

Annis hates her collar but also feels uncomfortable without it. Probably a very common feeling among Obscurists.

“Don’t tell her I said she wasn’t fluent.” There’s just... so much relationship in this line, and I am incredibly sad that canon does not allow for Eskander/Annis to become a thing.

Language stuff: There is a text essential to understanding Heron’s Poseidon automaton that is written in Assyrian. Why not Greek?

Annis is literate in Assyrian. I feel like knowledge of obscure languages would be a popular thing in the Iron Tower. WTF else is there to do but learn languages to read more stuff?

Now, Eskander just said he’d know if Annis left the Iron Tower... but he can’t locate her. Is it that locating a person that precisely is impossible? Or is this our first hint that she’s dead? Obscurist powers work with life energy, so a dead person might be impossible to find. Eskander is exhausted and busy, and when he can’t detect Annis right away, he decides it isn’t worth the trouble when Morgan can just go look. It’s probably hard to pick one person out of a tower full of people. The guilt he must feel after this. That irritability might even be covering a bit of denial: he should be able to track her, he can’t, that’s not good, but he’ll assume it’s just that he’s tired and it’s difficult.

“He’d spent too many years a hermit to gladly bear regular interruptions.” Eskander trauma effects here.

Like Khalila, Eskander has set up in an old storeroom.

Obscurists Magni. Must remember this is the plural.

ANNIS! *cries* @eli-wray had some good thoughts on the narrative value of this death in their excellent reread post that I am failing at finding on this hellsite. I’ll just add that Caine didn’t kill many (named) characters in this book. Instead, she made a small number of deaths really count. Annis was one of the few remaining side characters who was genuinely likable, and it hurts to see her die.

Obscurist power can change doors into walls. Morgan can feel this happening. It takes “expert manipulation of quintessence, and prewritten formulae” to do this. Must eventually try to work out differences in what can and can’t be done without writing out formulae.

Morgan is just so shaken in this scene. She’s struggling to accept the reality of what’s happened, and she isn’t thinking effectively. If Annis is tied to a post and dead, what are the chances she still has her knife, Morgan? That’s how hard Morgan’s brain is fighting against acceptance.

Morgan can immediately sense when a Codex has been tampered with. Because she’s made her own untraceable, too.

The ex-Archivist had distinctively “eccentric” loops in his handwriting. Also, Gregory apparently used to wave orders from the Archivist around a lot when threatening Morgan - good to know for canon gap fic.

More Eskander trauma effects: he doesn’t always answer his Codex. Why would he? He isn’t used to people talking to him and might even have some anxiety about answering.

And that gets me thinking. Who else doesn’t always answer his Codex? Thomas. Who also only very recently got out of solitary confinement.

Magic ring can transmute a gun into its component parts and put up a protective field around Morgan. It can throw people back hard enough to knock them out. But Gargi only will do this when Morgan can’t handle the fight on her own.

Evil Obscurists used silencing spells to stay hidden.

Canon gap fic I want to see: Annis investigating the ex-Archivist’s conspirators in the tower. Even knowing it ends badly, it would be nice to see Annis have her badass spy moment.

Eskander’s Translation is loud. I don’t think Translation is described as loud anywhere else. He was able to Translate in right in front of Morgan, which means he could locate her.

Eskander is better at undoing other Obscurists’ work than Morgan. She can’t even figure out how he gets the silencing effect off.

More magic ring powers: altering air density to block bullets.

Ring pulls power “from the walls of the Iron Tower, from the generations of powerful Obscurists who had been born, lived, worked, and died here.” Confirmation that the Tower is drawing energy from the Obscurists, sounds like.

Eskander has had worse injuries than this gunshot in his youth.

Eskander-Santi parallels: guilt because they trusted someone for an important job and were betrayed, resulting in the death of an important person. Eskander assigned one of the traitors to investigate the tampering with the automata.

Morgan-Khalila parallels: as adults are injured/killed or turn out to be untrustworthy, they keep stepping up to higher positions of authority.

Morgan directs people to get Eskander to a Medica. Morgan is used to taking care of her adopted family and knows they will be dumbasses and not take care of themselves.

Iron Tower layout: 4th floor is for automata control. Staffed by 50, “working constantly on monitoring and rewriting commands.” Always this busy? Or is it because this is a crisis?

Sergeant Mwangi - Morgan’s new guard, someone to bring back post canon?

Chowdry and Salk. Obscurists Morgan trusts enough to work with her on the automata. How does she know them? Met during canon gaps in Smoke and Iron? Annis’s friends/partners?

Things a mirrored book can do, at least for an Obscurist: rearrange information according to requested criteria, overlay text for comparison, flag items with a verification code.

Signs that Morgan is not ok: mentally, she’s so absorbed in working on the automata that she can’t even parse the sound of screaming.

Multiple companies are responding to the Iron Tower attack. That’s how important it is.

Mwangi makes the critical mistake of telling Morgan not to do something. We all know how Morgan reacts to that sort of thing.

More shit Morgan can do: rearrange the chemistry of Greek fire to make it harmless. 

Oh look, the ex-Archivist plots to burn something important to the Library and Morgan risks herself to stop things from burning. Hello foreshadowing.

Iron Tower has a central open space.

Artifex forges are enhanced with scripts to make fire burn hotter.

Vanya Nikolin, the ringleader of the traitor Obscurists, used to do favors for Gregory. He was someone both Morgan and Eskander trusted. Probably acts like just an all around nice guy? Really, did either of them have enough experience with the other Obscurists to know who to trust? Annis might have been able to help them a bit in that area, but still.

Vanya has removed his collar and bugged out, heading for the Tomb of Heron.

What I didn’t see in this chapter? Energy vampire Morgan. Either the ring has fixed her, Eskander fixed her again, or she’s just gotten so damned used to the gnawing need for power that she barely notices it anymore. She’s exhausted, she’s having trouble focusing and processing information, but she’s not fighting compulsions to drain people.

[shioritsumi]

so lately I’ve been attempting to flesh out characters for a story set in hell

and man I’ve been trying to write HPI for YEARS now, guys. Part of why I haven’t said too much on the protagonists is that...uhhh....one of them is kinda a hot button. Well, maybe both of them are, actually. 

Brief overview: Souls guilty of sin and crimes beyond grievances are sentenced to hell, where the only thing they have to their names is their own Karma. This Karma is all they have, so it is what is used to buy, barter, and trade. They say if you earn enough Karma, you can do anything-you can even buy you way out of hell. You can go to heaven, be reborn on earth-with enough Karma, you can go anywhere. Two Hell Private Investigators band together to try to make this dream a reality and earn their way out of hell and back to earth again, for one more shot at doing it right. 

Protagonists!

Ephraim Woodrow Age 27 6′2″ Black hair Brown eyes Born: January 27, 1987 Died: August 15, 2014 Race: Human Classification: Suicide Designation: Pharmakon Occupation: Fundamental Christian Pastor Survived by: Lisa Woodrow, 33, spouse; Paul Woodrow, 13, son; Bernadette, 16, daughter; Gregory Woodrow, 58, father; Ashley Woodrow, 51, mother Notes: Handle with great care, this soul experiences powerful clouds of Emotional Corruption even while conscious, which may expand beyond physical parameters. Under no circumstances should those of Angelic origin physically touch this soul. Highly inadvisable for those of demonic origin as well.

Gabriel Scheiner Age 26 5′ 7″ Blonde hair Blue eyes Born: March 20, 1917 Died: December 17, 1943 Race: Human Classification: Damned Designation: Supplicum Occupation: SS-Oberschütze Survived by: Alfons Scheiner, 97, younger brother Notes: This soul has made remarkable progress over the past several decades, and in terms of rehabilitation is blocked only by numbers. That said, do not let this soul weave words around you, and do not pit yourself against his tactical mind-use force where necessary. When he is determined to get something, he will not stop. Keep your wits about you in this one’s presence-he’s likable, a very deadly game. Do not be his friend. You are his jailors, not his friends. 

These two are just beds of drama. Gabriel has honestly worked on his behavior and beliefs over the past century nearly of being in hell. That said, he wasn’t just a random recruit in the nazi army in the past-he wasn’t a high ranking officer, but he had some influence. He has tactical and battlefield experience under his belt, he’s just trying to use it to help people rather than pretend the experience never happened at all. The angels in hell don’t like him much. 

Ephraim, meanwhile...oh man, where do I start. Not all fundamental Christian families are as bad as the Woodrows, I’m going to put that out there. Ephraim lucked out when he found Lisa, honestly-he lasted way longer than he would have otherwise because he met her. His father did quite a lot to destroy everything he knew about mental stability. In a better situation, Ephraim and his mother would have been out of there way sooner and he wouldn’t exist in hell at all. But things happened the way they did instead so here he is. 

Explanatory about Ephraim’s status in hell: Suicides being in hell honestly has very little to do with the designation of suicide as a sin in and of itself. It’s more of like....those charged with unforgivable sins end up in hell. Suicides tend to charge themselves with unforgivable sins, so rehabilitation through angels and demons doesn’t really work with them. A Suicide can earn Karma faster than literally anyone else in hell if they can pardon themselves of whatever they thought they did wrong. But a lot of them are steeped in self-loathing, and all the custodians can do is gently talk to them and encourage them, and it’s very slow-going. To date, no Suicide has ever left hell...but the Custodians would like to point out it’s not for lack of trying on their part. They WANT the Suicides to be able to leave and go to heaven or back to earth, they WANT these guys to be happy and free. They figure these humans lived with all these things in their heads and they died with them....why can’t they just let go and be free now?

Ephraim getting up and working towards his own redemption with Gabriel is considered highly unusual. Not as rare as you’d think, but still highly unusual. 

Emotional Corruption: A cloud of miasma usually encircling human souls in hell. It is ordinarily limited to within inches of the human body and can be transferred through physical contact, or close proximity if the Corruption is powerful enough. Demons are susceptible to this, and Angels can be incapacitated by this given a high enough dose. Emotional Corruption forces all of the human’s sins, guilt, panic, and anxiety into the mind of a non-human entity, and is considered the most powerful weapon in a human’s arsenal against angels and demons. 

Fun fact: Hell is incredibly incredibly large, and is distributed into various factions for different religions. Souls of the same religion are generally located in the same faction, but once you get beyond your personal hell it’s possible to take a train to the other factions if you have the Karma for the ticket. (HPIs have a train pass to travel to any faction they want-their jobs can take them all over Hell, after all.) Ephraim is confused to only see other varieties of Christianity in their faction, and Gabriel has to go out and explain the organization of the place. 

Hell’s Location: “Are we under the earth?” “Do you really think they could fit all this UNDER the Earth? Jesus, Ephraim, no...we’re in another plane of existence right now, that’s what hell is. Welcome to your Isekai.” “......I....don’t know what that means.” “....forget it. We’re not underground, we’re in another world, that’s all you need to know. If you fly up, you won’t find Earth, or Heaven.”

“Gabriel...does every faction call this place Hell?” “I’d imagine not. That’s just what we call it here in this faction.” “....what do the demons who live here call it, then?” “Probably nothing? It’s just the place they live. Leave the stupid names to humans. They probably find it easier.”

“....do you look forward to being a good person, Gabriel?” “I look forward to being someone who doesn’t suck. I don’t think I could ever call myself a good person, with what I’ve done. But not being shitty? Being...okay? I can see that. I might achieve that eventually.” “.......I’d like to be okay, too.” “That’s the spirit, Ephraim.”

[sienna27]

TWD Spoilers - The King, The Widow, and Rick (8x06)

/

/

/

/

/

/

First, whoever wrote this one, credit due that it did have some great lines.  That said, the theme of the whole episode seemed to be, “Everyone Does Stupid Shit And Almost Dies Because Of It,” which genuinely did detract from the overall ‘enjoyment’ shall we say.  Because everyone was acting like morons and if these people were really all that stupid, they wouldn’t have survived beyond day one of the turn.

Examples (getting all the negative stuff out up front):  Michonne and Rosita.  Both still limping around, completely unable to fight, “yesterday” decide “today” to just go off on their own to do some Savior Compound sightseeing.  In the process, nearly get themselves both killed, and nearly LIBERATE the Savior Compound(!), because neither of them were strong enough to take out the one woman who was driving off with the damn speaker truck to clear the place of the walkers.  

Which leads me to Daryl and Tara.

Yes, yay, they saved Rosita and Michonne’s bacon by taking out the Speaker Truck and the Savior woman driving it.  EXCEPT, them deciding to go rogue means that the people who are supposed to be keeping track of Rick and whether or not he gets out of the garbage heap alive . . . have just abandoned him.  Good job, guys.

Which leads me to RICK!

Dude, WTF?!  Why would you walk in there alone with NOBODY nearby to save your ass?!  These people have already turned sides on you.  I do agree that it is not unreasonable to think that they might not turn again, but as of right now, they are aligned with Negan.  And now you’ve been taken hostage, stripped naked and dumped into a transport crate to be shipped off to the Saviors.  Oops.  

Now let’s go to Carl.

Another callback to season 1 . . . Carl being an idiot 😑  I don’t care if the new guy seems okay, your dad said to leave it alone because you can’t trust new people right now.  But yeah, fuck that because again, you’re Carl so you just do whatever the fuck you want.  And oh look, you almost got eaten FOR NOTHING!!!  The whole thing was just so, so stupid and was more of something season two Carl would have done when he was like eleven.  It was eleven year old stupid.  

The Hilltop.

There are only three people I’d like to see dead by the end of the season.  Negan, Dwight (because it’s the only way to end that story line) and . . . Jesus.  I did mute every time he spoke because I’ve been done with the sanctimonious bullshit for three episodes now.  Please note, he gave away their emergency food supply to the people possibly about to be executed because they missed A meal!  Like it wasn’t Day Six of the Siege!  All of the events of these episodes are overlapping.  You took them hostage, and took them for a walk, and then gave away all of your people’s emergency food storage on THE SAME DAY!  I was so glad Maggie took him to task for that, and that she flat out told him that she wasn’t keeping those people alive because he wanted it (as in he was right) but just because it was the only pragmatic move in case they needed to do a hostage trade in the short term, but in the long term she was executing their asses.  THANK YOU, MAGGIE!  

We need SO much more Maggie, and NO MORE, Jesus, please and thank you.

The Kingdom.

So E is just a pathetic spineless bitch now?  Because that was what I got from his scene.  I understand he was pretty devastated by recent events, (rightly so) but he had some time to get his shit together and Carol very calmly explained to him how he needs to stand up and go help those people grieve because he DID make those decisions for them, and he needs to take responsibility now for his actions, and he’s like, yeah, no.  Not happening.  So I hope all those people who were thinking C and E would be a great couple (*eye roll*), get how they can fucking suck it.  Because if you think The Amazonian Warrior who has suffered from pretty much day one and still keeps on kicking ass and taking names, deserves to be saddled with a man who has so little personal character that he can’t even take responsibility for what he did, then you have no respect for Carol.  At all.   That’s just putting aside the fact that she already has a man, and it’s a huge fuck you to the Caryl relationship to be an A, B, C, D’er, but whatever.  And I don’t even blame E for the deaths, but I do blame him for how he’s responding to those deaths.  You made choices, and you got people killed.  It happens.  But if you take to your bed now like you have the damn vapors, then fuck you, you’re being a punk bitch.  We already have Eugene filling that role.  And no matter what else happens with him later, E’s already shown his true character here and he’s tainted because of it.  Sort of like last week with Negan and all of the pathetic penis commentary.  It seems deliberate that these characters are being knocked down off their pegs to make them less likable for whatever is coming next.  Not saying it’s bad writing, I’m saying it’s people being pushed to the wall and now showing their true colors.  The results have been pretty abysmal for both of them.

Now to the Positive stuff, because that was a lot of bitching :)

Good opening line from Rick:  “It’s scarier than I thought it would be.”  

For some reason I really love that they wrote letters to each other with the updates.   And that The Kingdom letter wasn’t to E.  it was to Carol, because her people know that Carol’s the one in charge :))

Poor Carol getting saddled with another kid.  Like she needs that shit.  

Jerry breaking my heart:.  “He told me that I didn’t need to do this anymore . . . this is what I do.”  Again, pointing out that E’s failure here as person, is doing a hell of a lot more damage beyond just the deaths.  Jerry doesn’t know who he is if he’s not this guy.  

Maggie cuddling baby Gracie.  💕  Though I do think it’s fair to wonder if Gracie’s mom might still be alive out there.  

Good line for the new guy, Sadiq:  “Killing them would free their souls.”  And it is an interesting idea.  That is one thing that hasn’t been touched on much is the ‘spirituality” of the undead.  Back on the farm Hershel et al thought they were just sick and could be cured, but that was just because they were in denial.  Since then walkers are just treated as monsters and that’s that.  It did add some needed depth to show someone who saw them differently.  And saw killing as many as he could to be a ‘righteous’ act, and not just a matter of “vengeful clearing” like Morgan does.  It was funny though because before Sadiq even said that, I was looking at that walker stuck to the post trying to get the bag he would never reach, and I was just picturing that as being someone’s eternity.  And how that would be a special kind of hell.  Then he freed him from that.  

I liked that Carol’s pep talk to E didn’t include the words “I need you,” because she doesn’t.  She doesn’t need him.  She needs for him to get his shit together to go deal with his people.  That’s what she needs.  

The one positive of Gregory is that he’s done with Jesus and is just going to call him Paul again.  The passive aggressiveness of it, pleases me :)

No Caryl this week.  Not even an inferred bit.  Though at least the mid-season finale is lined up for both of them to be at the Savior compound.   

Side point to that, I skipped Talking Dead even though it was MMB because it made little sense that she was there so it seemed like they were wasting her time.  It wasn’t her episode.  Airtime was pretty evenly split with everyone, but Christian or Danai still would have been more logical choices because it was their first episode back and hearing their take on things to date just made much more sense.  For some reason it just felt like Melissa was the only member of the main cast who agreed to go, if that makes sense, and it kind of annoyed me in an odd way.   And then they put her with someone brand new who we have no allegiance with at all, so I didn’t even feel the need to watch to see her interacting with a friend.  Meh.    

Anyway, overall the episode felt kind of bloated.  TWD has always been at its best with more focused scenes and constant whiplash trying to keep up with everyone at once, in all these locations, doesn’t allow for that to happen.  I’m just glad the next big fight is coming up so the crew will get culled down a bit more and we’ll be getting even closer to re-consolidating back to just one (maybe two) communities.  I hold out hope because if we think back, so often the A to B storylines totally shifted gears, so maybe we’ll luck out and the Negan stuff will start to wrap much earlier.  I just want to move on to what’s next 😔

[protoslacker]

I remember Nixon

Gregory Bateson gave a lecture in 1966-- when he was about my age-- entitled “From Versailles to Cybernetics”--a digest of the lecture here, and audio of the lecture   at the Internet Archive.

 Bateson observes, “the important question about history is: Has the bias or setting been changed? 

I was loading some stuff into a customer's car and noticed his bumper sticker:

I miss Reagan (hell I miss Nixon)

I remember Nixon and Reagan, but not with longing. But  at least from my perspective the ground seemed to shift with  each of these elections. Although our politics are different, my customer and I  seem to agree that Reagan made a difference and that Reagan was in  heir to the difference which Nixon wrought. Constructing credible memories can be tricky remembering what we know now that we didn't know then.  In the case of Nixon for people of a certain age there's an emotional intensity to reckon with too that tends towards exaggeration.  Of course powerful people matter, and stuff like someone getting up on the wrong side of the bed personal foibles maybe more determinative in how history plays out than we may wish to admit. But my hunch is that when it comes to Bateson's question there are broader patterns in play than individual personalities.

In the breakroom at work talking with young colleagues my age came up. One guy, nineteen years old, did a quick mental calculation: "Oh my God! You were born in the Fifties!" Another colleague wore a Reagan-Bush  tee shirt, an administration finished years before he was born. At my age, it seems to me that the election of Richard Nixon signaled a change of the sort Bateson thought important. My gut tells me that the election of Donald Trump signals a change in bias too.

My interest is to better understand the shifting ground that the election of Donald Trump presents. Like the lyrics of an old song, “something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear,”  I'm feeling old and unsteady, entrenched in an old setting. What follows are some personal memories and links to articles about the election of Richard Nixon.  I'm trying to think about what's happening now by looking back and wondering what it was like the last time something like this happened.

 I was just 13 years old in 1968, a mediocre suburban kid.  But so much happened that year that shaped me. Anyhow, the winds of change blew strongly in 1968. Here’s a page of 1968 photos in The Guardian which appropriately begins with the iconic Earth rising over the Moon photo from Apollo 8. A global view is part and parcel of the significance of 1968 to history.  I am old enough to remember when we first got a TV as a kid, so it's not easy to exaggerate how significant TV was to me as a kid.

Matt Taibbi wrote a blistering obituary in Rolling Stone, Roger Ailes Was One of the Worst Americans Ever.  In 1968 records were beginning to be published in stereo and more folks were getting color TVs. A TV program called Laugh In debuted in January of 1968. The show presented a “youth-culture” aesthetic, but as  Kliph Nesteroff noted in a brilliant essay at WFMU's Beware of the Blog, The Comedy Writer That Helped Elect Richard M. Nixon: “It was, in essence, an establishment show, profiting from the anti-establishment sentiment running through America.” It's interesting how much Ailse's theory or philosophy for Fox News is visible in his work for Nixon. Nesteroff writes about how Ailse used Marshall McLuhan's treatise Understanding Media to shape a more likable television image of Richard Nixon. 

Nixon is remembered for the Southern Strategy.  The link is to a 1970 New York Times profile of Kevin Phillips by James Boyd. It's useful to remember that Nixon's southern strategy succeeded his election in 1968. And that Phillips developed the theory as an outgrowth of looking at New York City politics. A thumbnail picture of the theory is presented in the article as, “political success goes to the party that can cohesively hold together the largest number of ethnic prejudices.” Nixon won in 1968 without winning the Deep South, those state went for George Wallace, the Independent Party candidate.

Democratic party politics certainly weren’t my area of expertise at 13. But the story was a national drama. When Robert Kennedy entered the presidential race, Lyndon Johnson went on TV to say: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President." Opposition to the war in Vietnam came center stage. Hubert Humphrey avoided the primaries, but some young people got clean for Gene to support McCarthy in the primary elections because of McCarthy’s stance against the war. In June Robert Kennedy was assassinated. His assassination rattled me in my boots, making me feel very unsafe. By the end of August I was aware that young people would show up in large numbers at the Democratic convention.  The convention was a catastrophe played out on national television.

Here’s an iconic photograph by Fred McDarrah of young people at Grant Park (Getty Images). McDarrah was a photographer for The Village Voice. (A quick Google Image Search for McDarrah is worthwhile.) Getting my hands on an occasional copy of The Village Voice was important to me as a kid. In the classifieds were addresses to send away for information--often taping quarters to index cards. I don’t have an overall picture of the underground press at the time, but I think the stuff I sent for would qualify. News in print was important, but television news mostly informed my sense of the Democratic Party convention. What stood out  was the police wanted to be seen and shown mercilessly beating young people with clubs. It was shocking.

The convention debacle was devastating for Hubert Humphrey. Young people found it hard to support Humphrey because he wasn’t speaking out forcefully against the war. Huber Humphrey’s political career was built on the issue of Civil Rights. In retrospect it’s so significant that the Democratic Party stood firm in support of Civil Rights. And it’s hopeful because it show how positive change can be effective without a solid majority pushing a position.

More significant to the election than youth support for Eugene McCarthy was George Wallace’s campaign. Wallace won five Deep South States in the election. Wallace’s rhetoric heightened the already charged emotions of the time. It was easy to feel there was a war against young people and Wallace contributed to this perception. Wallace seemed antagonistic to young people outside his bastion of support. Nixon in contrast went on Laugh In. Nixon  adopted much of Wallace's platform but with different rhetoric, and a deft use of wedge issues.

I lived in Greenville, South Carolina in 1968. In February three young people were killed and twenty-seven wounded when police fired into a crowd which gathered at South Carolina State University, a historically Black institution, to protest the segregation of a local bowling alley. The event became known as the Orangeburg Massacre. In April Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Both events deeply disturbed my youthful sense of justice. I was a kid longing for acceptance, so it’s noteworthy that being called  a “nigger-lover” for my reaction to King’s death I didn’t flinch.   It feels true my reposte should have been “Well, yeah!” And one way to understand why is this top 100 list of R&B and Soul songs from 1968. At thirteen my idols were Black. I don't imagine I was too exceptional.

Coming home from work I listen to the radio. Over that weekend the  station WYEP was playing album sides at the beginning of each hour and on my ride home the side was from Allman Brothers Live At The Fillmore East an album I hadn’t listened to for years.  The next day Greg Allman passed away.  Richard Gehr’s obit for Allman in Rolling Stone captures in a way how popular music of the sixties provided a vision of society with Black and white people together. And perhaps to a reason why it’s so hard for so many white people to grasp our racism.

There are many reasons why the election of Richard Nixon and his administration might feel exceptional, per Bateson, for a person my age.  Watergate, the escalation of the war in Indochina, and the fundamental changes to the money system seem good candidates for reasons why. But the story that seems to emerge as I've reflected and sought links for is about media and the shift from the linear world of print to the electric tribalism of TV that NIxon’s election heralded.  It isn't at all clear that Nixon himself grasped the radical implications of media theory, but it's evident that those who sought to advance Nixon certainly did.