#i was just trying to write a therapy scene and then stuff happened afterward and it just got away from me. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

moonlit-imagines · 3 years ago

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Pent Up

Helmut Zemo x reader

warnings: death, slight self inflicted injury to reader, anxiety attack, blood mention, alcohol

a/n: i FINALLY got around to writing this HELLO and sorry it took FOREVER dhshhshsh its 3am as i am starting this lets see where it goes

prompt: anonymous: “Hello, Zemo anon here ! Resending request, hopefully this has more plot details Could I get a one shot please ? Details/Plot stuff/ : This takes place during TFATWS ( the falcon and the winter soldier ). Reader lost some of their family members after some bad guys went after them, Zemo, Sam, and Bucky for revenge. Reader is obviously shaken but they don't have time to grieve properly because they could be in danger. Since reader didn't/doesn't have time to properly grieve for what they lost, they just shove their emotions aside. After the threat is averted, Reader has so much bottled up emotions that they have an anxiety attack/breakdown. They head outside for a walk to try and clear their head but end up punching a wall impulsively. Their hand isn't broken but just swollen and bruised a little. They head back inside ( to zemo's safe house ). Zemo is the only person awake and he immediately can sense that something is wrong. Reader tries to tell them they are fine but he isn't convinced. He, out of pure concern, follows them to their room. He notices they are favoring one of their hand and he goes and gets an ice pack. He comforts them afterwards. Okay, if that's too much, then I'm so sorry omg. My brain can be very weird sometimes. ~ 🖤”

You sat in silence on the jet after hearing the news. “Troubling” was the way you outwardly described it, only because you knew how much was at stake right now. For now, you would only stare down at your feet and wait for the next horrible thing to happen. After a while, Sam had rested his hand on your knee to let you know he was there, but you desperately needed to be kept on track. You couldn’t bare think about it because if you let yourself begin, you’d picture the whole scene, every painstaking moment up until the end. What they saw, what they felt, how you failed them.

You had only been gone from home for a few days, but that was enough for your enemies to know your family was unprotected, completely exposed. Your enemies wanted revenge and they’d gotten it at the worst time. Although, any time would be considered the worst when you lose everything.

You kept trudging along despite the burning pain in your chest from all the emotions you wouldn’t show. Sam, Bucky, Zemo, they could surely imagine your pain. They’d lived through loss, but right now you weren’t interested in any comfort. “Y/N? You wanna talk about it?” Bucky asked you, bringing you back to Earth.

“I don’t need you sharing your therapy tactics, Buck.” You snapped at him and he glanced over at Sam, who just shook his head in an effort to get him to cease. But Zemo wanted to take things into his own hands. This was a pleasant trip for him, he couldn’t let you bring it down.

“You know, y/n,” Zemo turned around and looked at you, who was fighting back tears that would not escape in front of him, “the Avengers murdered my entire family. I know that it hurts, I know you are angry, but you must think clearly and make wise decisions in these next few days, weeks, months, even years.” He explained with some alluding to his own experiences.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure not to frame a war hero for terrorism and murder in order to further my revenge agenda.” You calmly but fiercely replied to the Sokovian and Bucky stifled a laugh, making Sam swat him.

“Alright, enough from you, Zemo. No more talking about murder.” Sam prematurely ended the conversation and just went back to the normal bickering between the three of them to keep the heat off of you. He knew you needed space more than anything. Sam had lost people during his service in the Air Force. It really does sting, and this job doesn’t leave much time for grieving, but this wasn’t the military, you’d get your space and your respect for the time being.

You were quiet for the most part, just letting that blanket of stillness take you over and let you believe that everything would be fine for now. Bucky and Sam kept a good eye on you, making sure that you didn’t lose yourself during this mission.

When you landed in Latvia, you found some solace in the unfamiliarity and calmness of the streets, making private walks your temporary thing and starting immediately. During the walks along the intricately laid stones, you reflected on your mistakes, regretting taking up this mission and feeling guilty for the pain you caused your family.

You made your first round of exploration and went back to Zemo’s safehouse, and upon re-entering you saw Sam and Bucky waiting for you in their usual comforting way.

“Hey! How’re you feeling?” Sam asked you for the tenth time, knowing you wouldn’t answer honestly. He just needed you to know there were people there for you.

“We got you some food.” Bucky handed you a plate of random snacks he’d pulled from the cupboards and walked it over to the table along with a glass of water. “Just sit and eat for a minute. It’ll be good for you.” You sighed and obliged him, sitting down near Zemo and getting crumbs all over his couch.

“You’re—” Zemo nearly commented on said fact, but Sam butt in quickly.

“Ah, ah,” Sam cut him off with a raised finger, “stop talking. Right now.” Zemo rolled his eyes and you continued your snacking for a few minutes, casually asking questions every once in a while.

“Guys, any mission updates yet?” You perked up to ask them and they simply said “no.” They were telling the truth so far, but even if there were, they were a bit hesitant about you joining up. Now, after some things went worse, like the new Captain America finding you four and causing a giant scene in Latvia, you became even more distressed.

You watched a man get executed in front of a crowd. It only reminded you of how your family was hurt and your friends knew it. Sam and Bucky pulled you near as you stared at the scene in shock, clenching onto one of their arms as your pain finally hit you. You had to go and it had to be now. “I’m gonna go take a walk.” You bluntly told them and they both stared at you like you were crazy.

“Right now? Y/N, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Sam tried to protest it but you just walked straight away from the bloody scene and they let you. You could handle yourself, for sure, but they still worried for you and your safety. And they had good cause since you ended up having a massive anxiety attack that you simply insisted on walking off. They tried to contact you several times, but you just turned your comms and tracker off and told them you’d be back when you were ready.

You walked dozens of circles around the area until you had felt stable enough to come back, but on the way, you went from anxious to angry, resisting the urge to scream into the night and instead balling up your fist and launching it into a brick wall. Your judgment was quite clouded and throwing your hand into the wall was anything but a good idea, but for a split second it just felt good. The ache afterwards did not, though, as your knuckles bled slightly and your hand began to pulse in a light swell. You stuffed your one hand into your pocket and marched back to the safehouse in a new mood, not much better than before, but at least you were feeling.

You expected them to all be asleep by now, especially considering the day you all had. But Zemo was still awake, sitting beside a small lamp with a glass of whiskey as he watched you enter the building.

“Huh, I thought we had locked that.” He looked into his glass and rocked the ice in it back and forth. “Would you like a drink?” Zemo offered like a true host.

“No.” You growled and tried to find a room to stay in for the night. He noticed the fresh bloodstain that came through your pocket and deduced what may have happened.

“Are you sure? It may help you feel better.” He suggested and you stopped in your tracks, slowly turning to him.

“I. Am. Fine.” You sternly tried to convince yourself and Zemo sighed, setting his glass on a coaster and standing up, cautiously heading toward you as if you were some feral cat he was trying to catch. You took a deep breath and angrily stared at him as he drew closer. Zemo then gently took your hand from your pocket and inspected the irritation.

“You are not a great liar. I’m surprised you used to be a spy.” Zemo poked fun at you and held your hand up in front of your face as you turned your gaze away. “This is not a good idea. This is self harm. I am sorry it has gotten to this point.” He genuinely offered that apology to you and headed towards the refrigerator to grab an ice pack originally meant for his children. That explained why it was shaped like a princess crown. “This should help the swelling. You know, I understand that there are not always bad guys to punch, but the walls of this nice town are not a great substitute.”

“You’re idea of coping is literally bombing UN meetings, don’t comment on my coping mechanisms.” You snatched the icepack and set it on your beating hand.

“I know. I wasn’t saying it was right.” He agreed with you and took a seat back on the couch, right where he left an indentation. “As I mentioned before, I know what it’s like to lose family like that. Suddenly, violently…without a proper goodbye. I’m sure they knew it wasn’t your fault.”

“It was my fault, I was supposed to keep them safe.” You told him as he poured you an optional glass.

“These were adults, as well, right? Ones capacity of defending themselves and their home?” Zemo tried to reason with you, although it was a bit rough. “I figure a smart person like you had a handful of backup plans, as well, just in case you were ever to leave the home in times of trouble like now.” He pointed out and you looked away from him, assuring him that he was on the right track. “Please, sit.” He tapped the couch seat and waited for you to join him willingly.

“Just because there were backups doesn’t mean I can’t feel responsible. Guilty.” You told him as you took the seat he suggested and grabbed the drink.

“I never said you couldn’t.” He replied.

“You implied it.” You shot back.

“I certainly did not mean to.” Zemo frowned. “I felt guilty when my family passed, even if it wasn’t directly my fault. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It hurts to think that, but I had no power after leaving the house.” He explained his grieving process to you a bit, making him feel more human to you. “Grief is not going to be a linear path, and no one can tell you how to grieve, but people will be there for you. Barnes and Wilson, they are here for you. They have shown that.”

“And you?” You looked him in the eye once more.

“In a way, I suppose. It seems I’m your only option in this hour.” Zemo smiled and refilled both of your glasses. “I’d like to add that just because no one can tell you how to grieve does not mean you cannot do something wrong. I am not proud of my actions in Lagos. Barnes was trying to hide and live a normal life away from what he was forced into. Although I do hate you heroes and would very much love if you all died, I took innocent lives that day and I broke up a family. My grief only caused more pain.”

“Glad you see it that way.” You clinked your glasses together and downed the next supply. “I’ll…I’ll get through it. Without killing any innocent people, thank you very much.”

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red-hood-vigilante · 4 years ago

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more hbo spn rambles, thoughts, drabbles etc. long long post.

part 1 here

there’s some things i’ve omitted here bc others have already posted about those things, certain headcanons and characterizations and stuff. those posts are in my likes somewhere (and i’ll reblog them someday), and there’s some posts i’ve read but not liked, which i now can only vaguely remember, which is why some ideas/thoughts are similar

ALSO most of these follow the model i talked about in part one: how s1-5 will stay more or less how they are but s6-10 is changed (some things are cut out entirely, some things are tweaked and some characters + arcs are more fleshed out. more focus on sam’s trauma and post-cage adaptation to the real world as well as dean letting his rage and control issues consume him and how he’d recover and redeem himself)

as i typed these paragraphs, i realized i really have 10 seasons mapped out and ready to go. hbo hire me!!

alright go:

sam and dean get wearier as the show progresses (second half), and eventually they stop putting so much care and thought in the people they save. like...hm how do i say this, like as long as a victim/victims are saved, they don’t care about how that happens or how those people suffer potential consequences, like if the victims lose a limb or have their homes burned down because of the monster, then sam and dean don’t really care. they saved your life, now they’ll leave you with your life in potential shambles and not care because all that matters is that they saved your life, not how it is afterwards. they still care about saving that one person, but eventually it pales a little in comparison to a war between heaven and hell, being the vessels etc. ---> saving people becomes less about making sure they’re actually alright and healing from horrific events and more about just making sure they have a pulse before they move on

when angels lose their wings they are either burned off in the actual fall or ripped off of them in their vessels, which leaves pretty nasty scars on the vessel

ed and harry are so young and bright eyed about the whole hunting thing; sam and dean as kids, idolizing it, finding it exciting and intriguing when they shouldn’t. sam and dean try to get them out of the business before they too are too traumatized and desensitized to do anything but hunt. neither sam or dean will say it but they are jealous of ed and harry and their freedom to leave, and hate them for choosing this voluntarily instead of being dragged into it by tragedy

hbo spn is a slow burn. there’s a lot more shots of sam and dean in silence just sitting together after a hunt, exhausted and too tired to move yet. they’re covered in blood and guts on the side of the road after killing or covered with dirt in a graveyard after burning bones, sitting next to the fire, just watching it. the times they park the car and watch the stars? we get to see it.

dean wears rings and the amulet all the time in the beginning, for the first five seasons. the rings vary; first they’re some of john’s old ones and stuff he finds in thrift stores. then later on he begins wearing rings from people they’ve saved/haven’t saved as a keepsakes etc. when he begins his descent to the holy murderer in s6-10 he wears less and less rings. they don’t matter anymore -> symbolically shedding who he was and what mattered to him

the only accessories sam has is a rosary/cross around his neck. he has jess’ engagement ring in his pocket/wallet. after the cage he vaguely remembers why the ring was there and who jessica was (more on this further down)

the four horsemen are manifestations of different aspects of human nature at its most grotesque and strongest, can’t be killed as long as humans live. war is conflict, famine is desire, pestilence is physical and mental illnesses.

(the seven sins are like the horsemen, tulpas of human nature instead of demons)

death isn’t a concentration of an existing aspect of humans as much as it is the end of life, the antithesis of life. death the oldest of the horsemen and has existed since the beginning of any life, organism, cell and atom. the opposite of life and light, the other half of god (as i’m typing this i’m confused as to why amara was the opposite of god instead of death). death isn’t evil or good, remains 100% objective. doesn’t care for sam or dean at all, but has a begrudging respect for their stubbornness and entertainment they provide due to their flat out refusal to do as they’re told by celestial bodies when anyone else would crumble

by including death i feel like it very naturally begs questions of who decides when someone dies, when someone lives, why would death follow these guides instead of reaping whomever whenever, what happens if a life isn’t reaped at the right time etc. the reader in me adore the idea of death having a library with books and records of everyone who has ever lived and died and how they died - but then, who writes these books and why? do they decide, and if in that case, how? these questions are above my paygrade but you know what i mean? like there has to be some sort of system right, god created everything, death executes to maintain order, some third party deity writes the laws and the books. the three branches of government. ok but it’s hbo so again, i think we shouldn’t dive this deep into things, like as much as these topics intrigue me i don’t want to stray too much from the dirt road trip aesthetic

shapeshifters are extremely rare because they don’t require any kind of human blood or organs/sacrifice to live

i want more exploration of how magic is like science, like it just needs the right ingredients and right conditions. sam thinks of magic as an obscure branch of science; it just requires research and knowledge and clear intentions because science can be controlled and do a lot of good when used responsibly. dean doesn’t like it. he doesn’t trust the unpredictable elements and he’s seen enough to know it never goes well. magic is a force that can’t be controlled by anyone.

sam and dean have full on fist fights regularly. to practice and keeping each other sharp, but also because they’re siblings. they’re feral, insane and unhinged with each other and they get on each other’s nerves A LOT. it’s petty and childish and sometimes it can get a lil ugly but it becomes their way of family therapy. after a fight the next scene cuts to sam and dean with ruffled clothes, nosebleeds and swollen lips at a diner eating silently after beating each other up. either they sit in silence because they’re tired or both are harping on the other’s openings and weaknesses

sometimes they’ll fight a little dirty but they do so in different ways; dean will pull the old ‘look!’ and point to something and then tackle sam when he turns to look while sam will just cry out in fake pain which makes dean stop dead in his tracks before sam headbutts him or kicks him in the groin

we, the audience get used to these fights, they’re sometimes funny and for comic relief, sometimes for narrative purposes (like tricking a monster they’re fighting each other when they’re really not) BUT. then comes the times when sam and dean are actually fighting without holding back and we see how much they are capable of hurting each other or how heartbreaking and difficult it can be to watch when of them are incapable of fighting back/doesn’t defend himself -> swan song when dean doesn’t fight back against possessed sam, or when dean beats soulless sam unconscious

sam and dean also just verbally bully each other constantly but they do have their odd ways of expressing affection and care. they get the other person their fave snack whenever they go grocery shopping without being asked to and are the only other one they truly trust to have their back in hunts. have a cup of coffee ready before the other asks for one. brothers and each other’s best friend. nightmare duo but in a sweet way. the cooperation of ‘the usual suspects’ when they’re in different interrogation rooms but still has the cover story down to a t. code words and code names and cover stories, they know it all

when sam and dean fight together against a common enemy they’re a damn nightmare - because they know each others weaknesses and habits, they cover each other perfectly and in complete silence. they’ve been at it together since they were kids and read each other’s nonverbal cues like a picture book

to build off of what i said in part 1; the winchesters are pretty hated in the hunter’s community. even the people sam and dean frequently work with (bobby, ellen, jo, ash, rufus, bela, kevin, charlie, castiel etc) roasts them all the time and don’t hesitate with calling them out on their self-pitying crap when it get’s too much (spn was just objectively better when characters weren’t afraid of dragging sam and dean through the mud for being selfish and stupid) and this WILL persist in hbo spn. the only reason people continue working with sam and dean is because they know deep down a lot of the things that happens aren’t sam and dean’s fault - but they still blame them for it. doesn’t make it easier how sam or dean sometimes start crap on purpose to save the other

the winchesters are terrifying and people for sure tell stories about them, but not like ‘they’re heroes’, more like ‘they’re insane and dangerous. stay the fuck away from them’. some stories are true, like how they’ve worked with demons, but some are just game of telephone. (dean has apparently a ghost he is frequently possessed by while sam is actually a mutant vampire). hunters hate and are scared of the winchesters. sam and dean are never invited to hunter stuff (burials, memorials etc) but crash them nonetheless even though the hunters do NOT want them there.

you know what drives me insane when i think about it? how some characters in spn already are their hbo spn counterparts; john. mary. adam. maybe kevin?

other things that already are their hbo spn counterparts: dean throwing away the amulet right in front of sam. eyes burning when angels are seen. how ghosts are just tragedies, stuck in a loop they can’t leave. how a lot of the monsters they meet are just victims or their circumstances or the first victim of a curse. the impala being sam and dean’s home. dean not knowing how to comfort sam when he’s upset other than trying to do things for sam that usually brings dean comfort (driving the impala, listening to rock music etc). the roadhouse. heaven being an eternal version of the memories that made you the happiest even though it’s not real. sam wanting independence and freedom but never fully having it. dean fearing being alone more than anything else and that’s where he always ends up. sam has an eating disorder after the demon blood and dean has an alcohol problem he refuses to see as a problem. dean saying “i’d do it again” without an ounce of regret and pouring himself a drink when sam tells him it was fucked up to lie to him about gadreel

the demon/angel hybrid: THIS could be sooo interesting to explore. an angel and demon hybrid are you kidding me?? not to toot my own horn too much but i’m so clever. i should write this story myself. SO. does this creature have parents who fucked in their vessels or was this an experiment by god (yes i love the ‘mad scientist’ idea, that really should’ve been played up way more) or did a pre-existing creature (human or otherwise) drink demon blood and angel grace at the same time so that it created itself? so much potential for some really intriguing storytelling and character exploration - not only the creature itself and what they would be like, but also for the people around; sam, dean, castiel, jack etc. how would they react to this thing that is the very definition of defying heaven and hell and all the natural laws? does it exist before the show starts or will we see its birth?

the powers of the demon/angel hybrid would be tricky; a mix of holy and defiant, grotesque and beautiful. unconsciously forces people to tell the truth when talking to them. poisons whatever they touch. eyes of a demon, wings of an angel. can smite but skin will burn when touching iron. can do deals but will require a sacrifice in return, not a soul, usually a body part taken then and there (the hybrid eats it. it favours eyeballs and the liver - angels like raw meat). lights always flicker. makes things explode when angry (esp people and cars). can manipulate feelings, thoughts and memories. can travel to both heaven and hell, not welcome in either places. + standard stuff like telekinesis, teleportation, mind reading, super strength etc.

sam and dean’s wardrobe are pretty much the same; whatever’s cheap and not covered in blood. however, they do have stylistic differences. sam thinks graphic tees are funny, dean uses whatever’s black combined with john’s leather jacket. their wardrobe melds as they stop thinking of themselves as individuals and more of “me and my brother,”. their clothes are tattered and torn to shreds all the time. hand me downs, hand me ups. when they stray off their “path” and do things that are the crux of a storyline/character arc, this would reflect in their clothes. when sam is with ruby and becomes more and more “evil” he wears more and more red, a colour he has stated in the past he doesn’t really like. when dean is dead, sam starts to wear his rings and john’s and dean’s leather jacket. when dean decides he’s going to say yes to michael he dresses in white, when sam is dead dean takes off every piece of jewelry except the amulet. he holds it clenched in his fists when he’s whispering what comes close to a prayer

logically the amulet should have a backstory but you know what? i love that it’s hinted to be just a piece of cheap jewelry sam found in a thrift store he decided to give to dean. but narratively it should be explained so... idk. what could be logical solution as to why it would react to GOD himself? maybe god wore it once cuz he thought it was neat but he sold it for three dollars because he wanted coffee and then sam found it a week later

i would prefer it if god didn’t show up at all (absent father number one) but if he DID he’s not all powerful just a true neutral (like death, 100% objective) who created a thing that just took a life of its own, much like a parent and a child - the parent helps the child but can’t control it. the times he did intervene or tried to do something it didn’t really have any real long lasting effect so he gave up on trying a while ago.

@spneveryseason talked about this, how the storyline of sam being possessed by gadreel would be horrifying if we saw everything from sam’s perspective instead of dean’s (her fic is wonderful). in the ‘dean slowly descends into a righteous murderer to become holy’ idea i have this tracks so damn well because again, if dean believes something is right, it is right, no questions about it. everyone around him is like “that’s really fucked up and you should make amends” but dean doesn’t see any reasons for why - sam is alive isn’t he? and seeing it from sam’s pov would really underline how horrifying, dehumanizing and belittling that experience was

john and mary are adam and eve. sam and dean are cain and abel are michael and lucifer. time is a flat circle. history never stops repeating itself.

sam is the villain of s4. he is manipulated and key information is withheld from him but in the end... would it made a difference? it crossed his mind, that he could be tricked because ruby is a demon after all, but maybe he likes the power, the feeling of freedom, that he wasn’t just the baby, the one who always needs permission to do things. if he has to drain possessed people to get that power... so be it. and it’s for a good purpose, until it isn’t. he’s hungry for more, to be feared and respected. he’s enticed by lucifer’s sweet words, the potential of all that power and the idea of ruling two out of three realms. dean manages to pull him back from the brink because sam decides he doesn’t want to be what john thought he was and fail dean and himself like that.

dean is the villain in s9. he is controlling, the mark of cain without the mark. what he says goes - it’s not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship. he doesn’t see how much pain, doubt and fear he causes the people around him. if some victims or civilians die on his watch that doesn’t matter - just some collateral damage. sam can’t make dean listen to him because dean is the older one, the one who’s always called the shots. dean is the angelic one, heaven’s chosen warrior, he is untouchable and unkillable. he’s is an excellent killer, filling the void with blood and rage which is better than the crippling fear of loneliness carved into his bones. 'i butcher for love, to protect,’ he tells himself. ‘why shouldn’t i exterminate, regardless of the cost? i’ve followed the rules, i’ve always sacrificed. now i call the shots. it’s my right.’

sam’s hell trauma is never magically removed. he’s stuck with the memories and the nightmares and the occasional hallucinations. castiel can’t do anything but offers to wipe his memory completely, but sam says no, he is still doing penance.

after dean comes back from hell he starts calling himself old man and jokes a lot about he’s 40 years older now (after he’s more comfortable about speaking about hell)

when sam comes back he feels ancient (he’s over 900 years old at least but he lost count), weary, tired and so so so out of place in this world. he’s forgotten how to put gas in a car, how to drive, how to use a credit card, all the song lyrics he and dean used to yell together, the faces of people he knew before he fell, the softness of a bed, the schools he went to, most of the hunts he and dean, how john died, who mary is, the initials carved into the impala, the taste of food that isn’t raw meat. it’s so much he’s forgotten that he has to relearn. he prefers figuring things out with castiel instead of dean because castiel doesn’t silently resent him for everything he’s forgotten

sam doesn’t laugh anymore. despite dean’s many and castiel’s few awkward attempts, it’s more like quick smile and a quiet “hmm”. on some days he recoils when he sees blood and guts, on other days he’s so apathetic it’s unnerving

sam sympathizes with the brought back mary and castiel more than ever. dean tries to get sam to remember things he’s forgotten from his childhood but sam can’t connect with it anymore. he stopped being that sam a long time ago. dean doesn’t know what else to do than try to force this connection to be revitalized and he fails. sam isn’t that person anymore and this wedge in their relationship becomes a central factor in dean’s s6-10 desperation and isolation. sam is here and safe but it’s not really sam, not the sam dean grew up with

while sam has forgotten how to make coffee, he now knows everything about angels, effective torture tricks, a bunch of lore + biblical history, how to navigate hell, the most powerful and influential demons, rare and powerful spells as well as perfect enochian (he will speak enochian without realizing and it feels more natural than english). lucifer and michael were surprisingly talkative (raging about the unfairness) when taking their anger and hatred out on sam and adam and each other. sam had access to all of lucifer’s memories and knowledge for the time he was the one in control. walking library and encyclopedia of biblical lore.

he still has some muscle memory from hunting and sparring, but sam is ghostly thin and very rusty. even though he’s an expert on lore, he’s not fit to go on hunts anymore and he knows it.

sam remembers adam and swears he’ll try to get him out, but he can’t. just thinking about the cage makes him vomit. he can’t talk about it, much less go near it. after a while sam thinks it might be better to let adam stay down there than let him come back up and feel this crushing emptiness and loss of direction

sam’s trials take place in s9 instead of 8; coinciding with dean’s villain arc. for sam the trials are a chance to redeem himself again, this time for good by closing hellgates forever. they’re scrubbing him clean of the demon blood and his sins and they give him a sense of purpose again now that he can’t join hunts anymore. it doesn’t matter if he dies because of it. it would be nice with a permanent and peaceful death that did something good. dean is taken aback by sam’s devotion to repent for something that happened years ago and for something sam has already paid for a thousand times over. dean realizes how messed up he himself has become and how he’s helped put sam here, on the cusp of self sacrifice again because of sickening guilt and self hatred. dean begs sam to not complete the trials at the cost of his own life and swears he’ll better himself, be a friend and a brother, not a jailer, dictator or a murderer. ‘if you won’t give yourself or life another chance, please give me one.’ ---> s10 pacifist dean learning to let go of the control, the violent tendencies and the rage

oh wait what if gadreel still possessed sam after the trials to heal him but sam is the one who invites the angel in? he’ll keep his promise to dean about staying alive, as well as heal from the inside and have breaks from the world when he doesn’t want to be present, like he and gadreel will alternate being the one in control. he keeps it a secret from dean and helps gadreel imitate him so dean won’t notice. it’s not so bad, being possessed by this angel - sam can say no anytime and gadreel is a nice guy. since they alternate on who’s present they can access each other’s memories, which is terrifying and embarrassing at first, but since gadreel and sam have been tricked and used by lucifer and been punished for it for far too long, they understand each other. now another creature knows their trauma and terrors without the need for verbal explanation. also having an angel residing in his body makes sam feel like he can hunt properly again because gadreel can heal him and take over in situations sam’s overpowered. this could show how messed up sam has come to view himself and his body.

dean is conflicted when he finds out; sam lied but gadreel does help sam heal, sam’s traumatized and his self-worth is fucked up and dean has contributed to that. dean convinces sam to push gadreel out, that sam is still valuable, loved and a good person who shouldn’t be in a place where he views his body and mind like a property to be occupied. sam’s faith begins to come back bit by bit, not in god, but in himself, his brother, in the good things in life. they build their little family; sam, dean, castiel, the hybrids, whomever of their allies that are alive at this point.

castiel can heal sam and dean’s wounds but they are never completely gone; they leave scars and phantom pains. the brothers have SO many scars over the years. dean flaunts them to impress people because he likes the questions and the fearful admiration, the attention and the nods of approval. sam hides them.

when dean is in a bad mood or needs to get his mind off of things, sam just drops something like ‘i don’t get the deal with led zeppelin. one of the most overrated bands of all time’ and dean will go OFF every single time about the entire led zeppelin history, their discography and how they’ve shaped rock music. this will go on for hours and sam will zone out after 1 minute. but dean rants nonsensically the entire drive and it does get him to think about something else for a little bit. they stop at a motel and dean is STILL ranting while brushing his teeth. stops when going to sleep but without fail picks up where he left off the morning after and is so into it he doesn’t notice sam not paying attention at all. we could see this once in s1 when they’re searching for john, another in s3 when dean is anxious about his deal coming to an end and then again in a later season, when sam doesn’t remember to ask/doesn’t have the patience or mental capability, so they’ll sit there in tense silence, showing how much they’ve changed.

---> i can see this SO clearly in my head, how they’ll get in the car and we, the audience, will recognize the camera angle, the same lines and dean’s grumpy mood, and we’ll anticipate what comes next. but sam isn’t that kid anymore and he’s not peeking at dean to gauge what his mood is and how much of a shit eating grin he should wear when being an annoying little brother to cheer dean up. now he’s looking out the window, leaned back, they’re not looking at each other. this shot is a minute or two long, uninterrupted. dean turns on music but neither are singing along or doing anything to lighten the mood.

s1-5: sam gets hooked on demon blood, dean has an alcohol problem. when sam goes through withdrawals, dean decides to quit drinking and joins him because he wants to be supportive, and he realizes that when he drinks two beers for breakfast there’s a problem

s6-10: sam takes painkillers, anti depressants and anti psyhosis meds to numb himself from the phantom pains and reduce post-cage effects. dean started drinking again after sam jumped and still does, but started smoking in addition because he still drives a lot and doesn’t want to die in something as pathetic as a car crash.

there a scene in an episode in the first half of s8, when sam has decided to stay with dean instead of amelia, and dean has rejected benny in favor of sam, and then the brothers sit in a couch watching tv while drinking beer and neither of them look particularly happy about it - that’s how their relationship is a lot of the time. they know they’re fucked up and neither of them will ever be truly happy when the other’s around, but they owe each other so much and they don’t have to explain themselves to each other the way they do to others. they know each other so well, each other’s traumas and the things they’ve done, it feels fake and exhausting to try to be something other than the veteran hunters they are. misery loves company; they are miserable together but would be far more miserable apart and living a normal life. they do love each other, but neither of them are particularly happy as the show progresses. family is hell and so is the lack of it.

OK OK i mentioned it in part one, how i had my own very specific idea about how jack should come to be and here it is. long winded but (might just write a damn fic):

after lucifer was cast back into the cage, he is stronger than he has been in a long time (being in his true vessel helped him stretched muscles he forgot he had. and fresh air.) sam is pulled out of the cage and it leaves a rift in the magic and chains - the binding is weaker and lucifer must act fast to get out before it heals. the cage is still strong enough to hold two archangels, so lucifer has to become weaker somehow to slip out through the cracks. he can’t get out of the cage, but souls can come in. demons bring themselves and human souls as tools for lucifer to use. there’s not much he can do here - consuming them, eating them, touching them, dissecting them doesn’t give him what he wants

eventually lucifer realizes he must do like azazel and create something new of two halves, like when he created demons. he begins melding his archangel grace with a human soul. he tries with demons, but his archangel grace automatically purifies them and leaves them too weak. he must try with a human soul who is good. he finds the soul of kelly kline, who sold her soul to save a loved one. with her, the merging, works.

he has another self, a twin, a son, who’s half human and half archangel. half lucifer. the old lucifer will die but that’s ok, his desires, presence and self will live on in his new creation. the new lucifer barely makes it out of the cage, only able to due to its human side. on earth it creates a body for itself and takes shape, no longer a form of pure power and energy akin to the sun itself but now a person, reminiscent of kelly kline on earth and lucifer in heaven. they name themselves jack. jack searches for familiarity and finds it in sam, their old self’s perfect tool and another hybrid. jack finds a mentor in castiel, a younger brother and fellow angel with human elements. they do not find anything in dean, the key to his former self’s doom.

jack’s powers: their powers are like and unlike the angels because he is half archangel. jack has wings but sometimes they don’t work, or they’ll end up somewhere else entirely. their body is their own, not a vessel, so jack can’t possess people. doesn’t talk but people “know” what they’re saying or want because jack emits their emotions and thoughts to people they’re talking to like a radio tower. jack can also have this empathic connection and communication with animals. his mood affects the weather. immortal. reads minds. can remove a soul from a body and send it to heaven/hell by touching it, with practice they don’t need to touch a body.

other stuff about jack: the human/archangel nature means jack only need sleep and food once a week or so. eats only nougat and raw meat. because jack is a kid they nap a lot. levitates when sleeping. never blinks, stares intensely at everything. their eye colour changes based on their mood. eyes glow in the dark. normal humans who look at jack for too long experience memory loss, fainting spells or migraines and eye contact for more than 10 seconds give vivid hallucinations of their worst nightmares. always barefoot, often floats like 10 cm off the ground because they find it more enjoyable than walking. wears the wildest clothes they can find, nothing matches and nothing is weather appropriate

i have a very specific image of jack in my mind; they look like delirium from the sandman comics with the hair that looks like it’s underwater and the fishes floating around their head, here and here are examples. in live action this would look not good or maybe even ridiculous for sure but in animation... endless potential for angels and monsters to have super interesting designs sigh

castiel’s arc should end with him going from blind soldier, to the unwilling ruler of heaven, finding a place on earth with sam and dean, becoming closer with humanity and eventually a father of three (the hybrids).

#hbo spn #sam winchester #dean winchester #supernatural #iben spoke #ok i'm tired of looking at this now #i just needed to get these thoughts out of my head to get some peace and quiet #more character centric than part 1 #and it turned into such a long post.... jesus #i should make a separate post for post cage sam headcanons #ana if you see this i'm so sorry to drag you into this mess but i wanted to give credit where credit is due

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bthenoise · 4 years ago

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Q&A: Tyler Posey Talks New Travis Barker-Featured, John Feldmann-Produced Solo Single “Shut Up”

Today officially marks the start of a brand new era for actor and musician Tyler Posey. After years spent in various bands, the outgoing singer/songwriter is officially stepping out on his own to showcase his distinct brand of pop-punk-inspired music.

Front and center for the very first time, Posey is treating listeners to his bold new single “Shut Up” featuring alt-indie artist phem and none other than blink-182′s Travis Barker.

Discussing the new John Feldmann-produced track, Posey said, “From start to finish, this song really did feel like something special. I wrote the verses on a trip in an RV with my dogs and my friend and felt like it was progressing so naturally in a perfect way.”

He added, “I took those bones to John Feldmann and phem and when she went into the vocal booth to record her vocals, I was so stoked. I had been wanting her on a track but was too nervous to ask. It was an emotional session and then finally to get Travis to play drums on it is just literally a dream come true. I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.”

Diving further into the moving new song, the passionate performer spoke with The Noise all about working with an idol like Barker plus what he thinks the future of pop-punk will look like. To see what Posey had to say, be sure to look below. Afterward, make sure to stream “Shut Up” here.

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How hard was it to keep it a secret that you made a song with Travis Barker?

TYLER POSEY: Fuck man, I mean, I've got blink-182 tattoos, they've been my favorite band since I was a kid and I've got posters of them on my wall that I'm looking at right now. It's such a big deal for me. But like, I think in some way, it was easier to keep it private because it's one of those things that you want to keep sacred. But at the same time, I’m super fucking stoked to release it. So it's like, it hasn't been that hard to keep it a secret because I'm just relishing in the fact that I got to play with him before anyone else knew. It's just so fuckin’ cool.

How did the collaboration come together? Guessing John Feldmann had something to do with it?

Yeah, exactly. I've always been piquing his interest in getting like my favorite people to collab with us. You know, I'm like, “Hey? What is Mark Hoppus doing today?’ if I’m ever at the studio with him. So this kind of came about like that. I was like, “What’s the possibility of Travis getting on the track?”

And [Jonh's] like, “Maybe the next album” because for some reason he thought sense this album I'm debuting just my name and kind of going solo, he thought [we should] keep the focus on that. But then, he hit me up one day after we recorded “Shut Up” and he FaceTimed me and he was in the studio with Travis. He's like, “Hey, so you want Travis to play on a song?” I was like “What!? Yeah, of course but I thought you said no.” [laughs]

So Travis was like right there and he's like, “What's up, dude?” And I was like, “Hey man! Yeah, so ‘shut up.’ If you dig that track then please I would love for you to feature on it.” And he loved it so that's how it started, kind of unconventional.

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A post shared by Tyler Posey (@tylerposey58)

Had you met Travis prior to this?

I have, yeah. So Feldy lets me fill in on bass for Goldfinger whenever Mike Herrera can't -- which is like the coolest thing to put on my resume, like I’m the fill-in bassist for Goldfinger. So, [John] has this Christmas party (or he used to before COVID) and he does it at his house and he has this huge fucking Christmas party where Goldfinger and all these other bands usually play and he sets up a stage. And one year, Travis was playing drums [for Goldfinger] and there's this one moment in “Superman” where it's just bass and drums and I like locked eyes with him for as long as I could before he cracked a smile [laughs]. So yeah, we’ve met a couple times before. He was super stoked to be a part of this song and he's just killing it with collabs lately so I was just honored that he wanted to work with me.

Speaking of Travis’ collabs, are you a fan of some of his recent crossover stuff with artists like Machine Gun Kelly and Trippie Redd?

Yeah, absolutely dude. Like, I grew up in the punk scene so, for some reason, when I was a punk kid going to Warped Tour all the time I was really headstrong about maintaining being “punk” and I didn't listen to anything outside of the genre. I was like, “Fuck everything else! I’m punk!” So it kind of took a little while to kind of break that. But that was like years ago so I love what [Travis] is doing with them. I think it's fucking cool too that it's putting -- so like I've been in the punk scene forever and I've always played punk music, no matter what I write, it just comes out punk -- so it's cool that pop-punk is now making a resurgence with Barker and Machine Gun Kelly and Trippie and all these other people. I think it's setting a cool precedence for punk bands that have been really trying to make it for years. So hopefully that happens.

It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for pop-punk music thanks to people like Travis Barker and yourself who have a big platform and use it to help bring pop-punk music to a wider audience.

Yeah, dude. That's kind of how I met and got involved with all these punk bands. I was kind of vocal about them on Twitter like a long time ago, when I used to use Twitter a lot. I would just be listening to punk music and would just post a picture of it 'cause I wanted the kids to know about it so that's kind of how my involvement got started. Like State Champs hit me up and I got in good with them and rode with them on Warped Tour. Then I met Knuckle Puck and Neck Deep and just all these huge punk bands kind of brought me into the world and then it was kind of an easy transition once I started releasing my own shit. So I'm super thankful that they welcomed me with open arms and that I am, you know, part of this like, showing people the way of the punk [laughs].

So going back to “Shut Up,” how would you say this song differs from your previous projects like PVMNTS and Five North?

I think with every album, every artist says “we try to evolve” and for me it's just always been this progression. It hasn't really been anything that I've been trying to have happen, it’s just sort of happened naturally. So I think anything that I put out will always have that element of it sounding a little bit different, a little more mature [and] grown up. So I really like the song, it's polished. I love that phem is a part of it. I think it adds this kind of dynamic that I used to think my music writing was missing lately. I just think that it's more mature. Like I said, I can't really step out of like pop-punk world 'cause it's in my blood, that’s how I write. So it's not too different, it's just a more sort of mature vibe than I guess I was doing before. But like, with my last band Five North with Feldy, we really tried to experiment and kind of push the envelope a little bit. So we had like weird synth sounds but it all kind of worked because we always kept it like this pop-punk melodic sort of drive with driving verses and vocals. So it's kind of like the same vibe but just, you know, more mature. Long story short [laughs].

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Is it nerve wracking for you to to put your name strictly on things now as a solo artist as opposed to having a band?

No, I don't think so. I think I've always sort of viewed myself as a solo songwriter. It's just, like, growing up in the punk scene, you know, you always had a band name and for the longest time I was part of bands that everybody, sort of, had an opinion and we all would song-write. But for what I've been doing lately, it's just been me so it felt right. It's more of like an experiment at this point. You know, I don't know how it's gonna be received, but it kind of frees me up to be a little bit more creative artistically. Whether it's writing, filming something. I just feel like it's the right move.

This song seems to makes sense as a Tyler Posey solo song considering how personal and open it is. Was it challenging for you to be that candid writing these lyrics?

No, no it wasn't. I've always viewed music as a kind of therapy. You know, it's just sort of been my outlet. As much as fuckin’ everybody says that, it holds true. So I've never really held back when it comes to writing music. Like, I've gone through a bunch of shit. My mom died like six years ago so I've written about that a bunch of times. So I've never really been one to struggle being open when it comes to writing lyrics. But this one, this one definitely is a heavy song. Like I got sober during the pandemic because I was just abusing a little bit too much and going too heavy and couldn't seem to get out of this cycle. So I was sober for a while, but like, I was just kind of dealing with an ex and kind of using that to lean on as sort of a new drug. So it's kind of what the song is about. But yeah, it's just coming together at a really vulnerable time in my life but it’s never really been too hard to be that open. I think that people deserve to know that everyone is going through the same shit that they're going through -- even if it's just one person.

For people who can relate to this song, is there any advice you can offer to them? Maybe how you felt when you were writing it?

Fuck [laughs]. My advice for somebody who's listening to this song – I don’t know dude. Life is fucking weird. Sometimes you try to do the things that you think are going to lead you to the right path but it feels like it's not. So I think that everything happens for a reason, as corny as that it. Like, if there’s some bad shit that happens, the reason is [because] you learn from it. So I think that's kind of the model for this song. Whether it's good or bad, you're gonna learn something from it and you're hopefully going to grow. It's just up to you if you want to grow from it.

That’s a great way to put it. So lastly, not giving away too much, should fans be expecting more solo music from you moving forward?

Yeah, absolutely! So this is just a sneak peek. I'm going to be releasing two EPs. We were going to do a full album but we just split the album in half and we're gonna do two EPs. The first one is called DRUGS and is all about my experience becoming sober, why I got sober and the shit that happens during that. Then the next EP, they're both going to be 7 tracks, I'm gonna release it later on in the year. So there's gonna be a bunch of shit coming out. This is kind of like the new course of action for releasing music for me, it's all going to be under my name.

That’s exciting! Guess there really isn’t much else to do during a pandemic so it makes sense to write and release a bunch of music.

Yeah dude, exactly. So I'm going to try and get some visual content out too. Start doing some videos, I’ll be filming the music video for “Shut Up” soon. So just going to keep on that course.

#Tyler Posey #John Feldmann #Travis Barker #Phem #Shut Up #Big Noise #Five North

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meepmorpperaltiago · 5 years ago

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Intertwined, part 2

Aka an extension of the pop star AU that I’ve been way too obsessed with for way too long! You don’t need to have read the other fic set in this ‘verse to understand this fic, it’s a standalone thing. Thanks so much to @397bartonstreet and @jake-and-ames for all your help with this fic!

He sees that she’s shaking a little as she leaves. He takes her hand, runs his fingers over her rings.

He says softly “You don’t have to do this”.

“I know”, she says in response. “But it’ll be good to get everything out there”.

He nods. “Ok, as long as you’re sure”, he says, kissing the top of her head.

“I love you”

“I love you too”

When I meet Amy Santiago in a four-star Brooklyn hotel, she’s a far cry from both the fresh faced, bright eyed 15-year old I first spoke to at the ’98 Popfest and the troubled megastar whose life was crumbling around her around a decade ago. There’s a new wisdom in her eyes, but there’s also a sense of calm and stability that’s clearly come about since her darkest days.

She’s surprisingly humble compared to most people with her level of fame, handing me a coffee before we even sit down and then momentarily panicking when she considers that I might’ve preferred tea.

But she’s also unsurprisingly guarded, responding to my casual question of if she lives close to this area with an almost sarcastic glare. It’s a look that says “come on, you know my life, why would you ask me that?”.

In hindsight it was a pretty stupid thing to say. From the time when she first burst onto the scene to become the biggest selling teenage artist ever in only 2 years, the amount of scrutiny into her life so suddenly and so young must’ve been overwhelming.

“It was a really crazy time and for a while it was incredible”, she says with a hint of nostalgia in her voice, “but it was so so overwhelming and I never had any time to just breathe, y’know?”

When I ask tentatively if that was the real root of her later troubles, she silently nods.

“I have a confession to make”, he says with a smile, as if a joke is forming on his lips. She grins back at him, inviting him to say whatever it is he’s thinking.

“You were my first ever concert”

“No way”, she says, her hand flying to her mouth dramatically as her grin grows to match his.

“Yeah way - don’t tell Gina I told you this but she was obsessed with you, we went to your shows in matching T shirts, we had different ones for each album”

“Awww, babe that’s so cute”

For the next seven years it seemed like the undisputed Princess of Pop could do no wrong as she brought out three more critically lauded and record-breaking albums and sold out corresponding tours within minutes. Rather than dropping off like many of her contemporaries, she also grew as an artist, transitioning from cutesy bubble-gum pop of her debut album Amy and follow up Dulce into the more grown up sounding, R n B infused dance pop of Fascination and then into the pop punk and guitar sounds of My Lullaby and Our Song.

But from what she says, things weren’t so perfect behind the scenes.

“I was lonely; I didn’t get to just be a normal kid, I didn’t have any real friends, I didn’t feel like I could trust or turn to anyone. And my whole life other than my music was controlled by my management and even then every song I wrote had to be vetted. And over time I started to get really depressed”

She sighs then, looking down, as if preparing herself for the next topic of conversation.

“And”, she says slowly, “that’s when the drinking and the drugs started. That was my medicine”

“Ames, are you sure you’re ok?”, he asks as they sit in Shaws.

“Yeah”, she says, looking away from him. But he knows her too well.

“Do you wanna just go home and watch a movie? I’m sure everyone will get it”

She smiles then, takes his hand and they leave together. The warmth of his hand in hers doesn’t take away or fix her demons, but the love she feels for him does drown them out on nights like this.

“I kept it under control for a while and no one knew. But then as it got worse, it started to get to the tabloids. And then Vegas happened”

She was of course referring to the infamous incident that triggered the start of her fall from grace in 2008. The crazy vacation and a drunken fling leading to a marriage that was officially annulled within 24 hours was what turned the previous buzz of press around her constantly into a storm. The man, a failed musician named Constantine Kane, selling his story to every paper he could find for a very tidy sum also didn’t help.

“I guess that was the point where they figured out how lucrative it was when I messed up”, she comments, a sarcastic tone thinly veiling wounds that are clearly still present.

“After that, they were everywhere”

He doesn’t understand why they’ve suddenly stopped. Why Amy is looking around so nervously. Until he sees and hears them. There are 2 cars, both with different photographers speeding up behind them. His heart drops at the fear in Amy’s eyes as they race away.

She brushes it off, but later, when they’re back in his apartment, he can tell there’s something on her mind.

“Ames, are you ok?”, he asks, wanting to make whatever’s upset her better. She sighs and then says:

“I think we need to talk about what happened today. Things like that are scary, but they’re something I’ve gotten used to, I’ve been in that world for a really long time. But being with me… it means you’ll probably have to deal with shit like that too… and that’s not fair on you. Are you sure you want that? Because you could just walk away from all this now and you’d be fine-”

“Amy”, he interrupts, taking her hand. “I’d deal with all of that every day for like 100 years if it means I get to be with you. This is special. And I’m not giving up on us just because of some shitty papparazos.”

She smiles and laughs a little at that and kisses him and he’s never been so sure of anything in his life. He knows in that moment that he’ll be with her no matter what.

After we bring up Vegas and the press intrusion that followed, strangely enough she seems to zone out for a second and smile a little, as if she’s fondly remembering something. Then she comes back from whatever she was thinking of and we move on with the conversation.

Not wanting to upset her too much, I let her drive the conversation on the rest of her breakdown – the increasing stories of her crazy parties, the infamous incident where she hit a photographer with her car after he jumped in front, the lawsuit that followed in spite of the man being completely unscathed, her fines for drink driving and the crazy braids that started to appear in her hair. Then the climax of it all, for want of a more appropriate term: when she barricaded herself in her bedroom for over 24 hours in the lead up to the Grammys, where she was eventually forced to perform after her management broke down the door. She snuck out of the awards show afterwards and eventually collapsed from alcohol poisoning. I can tell that she’s holding back tears when she answers my next question: what happened?

“It just felt like everything was spiralling so far out of control and it just kept getting crazier and crazier and as things got worse, all I did was drink more and do more of whatever substances I could find. And in the end, all I could do was shut myself off, by shutting myself in. And it happened so long ago, I shouldn’t still be crying over it…”

I try to comfort her as best I can and ask her if she wants to continue the interview or scrap the whole thing.

“No, this is a story I need to get out. If I keep it all in and internalise it and never talk about it, it’ll be even worse.”, she responds, wiping the tears off her face. In the face of everything she’s been through, she has a remarkable strength.

What happened after that is something she’s kept pretty under wraps, but she tells me now, after taking a few minutes out.

“After I got out of hospital, I quit everything, I left my record label and went straight to rehab. Then, I wanted a fresh start, so I moved to New York and started therapy, which is where I met my husband.” She smiles as soon as she mentions him, looking down at her wedding and engagement rings. Although not many details of him or their relationship are public knowledge, other than the fact that he’s a cop from Brooklyn, he’s been assumed to be the subject of some of her most well-known love songs since she came back to music.

“So, what are you in for?”, he asks jokingly. “Sorry, I use humour as a defence mechanism, it’s kind of my thing”.

“It’s ok,”, she says with a smile. “For me, it’s a heck of a lot of childhood issues, mostly typical child star stuff”

“Samsies!”, he responds, “Except my childhood issues aren’t to do with being famous and I’m also here ‘cause I got framed and went to jail, I’m a cop, it’s a whole thing – but almost samsies”

They hi five at that and both smile. The therapist calls him in and before he leaves, he turns around.

“Hey, I’ll see you later, right?”

“Sure”, she responds.

“After we met in therapy, we started hanging out a lot and after about a month we started dating and eventually we got married. I honestly don’t know where I’d be without him. When I was at my lowest point, he was there to make everything better, and I’ve never felt happier or safer than I do with him”

“I’d also been writing music the whole time and eventually I set up Brooklyn Records, so I could release new music on my own terms and support new artists. I still have struggles – things like addiction and depression don’t’ just go away. But I’m ok now and as I’ve already said, I have an amazing family to support me now”

When I comment on the success of both her label and the five new albums she’s released since her comeback in 2011, she smiles fondly. It seems clear that in spite of all the bumps in the road and how much time has passed since her debut, I’m talking to a pop star still very much in her prime.

“How was everything?”, he asks when she gets home.

“It was great”, she says as she hugs him.

“Did you mention me?”, he says jokingly.

“Actually, I did”

He looks at her softly, before turning serious with genuine concern. “Aww, babe – but seriously, are you ok?”

“Yeah. I’ve never been better”, she responds. And she truly means it.

#b99 #peraltiago #brooklyn nine nine #brooklyn nine nine fanfic #jake x amy #jake peralta #amy santiago

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dougbeamer · 6 years ago

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Brightburn - Movie Review *Spoilers*

I saw this movie almost a month ago. I tried doing a video review for it several weeks ago and idk...nothing stuck. What I wanted to say just felt like it could be the same as everyone else. I just don’t think I’m gonna add anything new to the consensus.

But then I got thinking about it again for some reason I felt a desire to talk about it again.

So! Let's start with the plot and what this movie is about.

Brightburn is a film that came out in May of 2019 and tells the story of a family Tori and Kyle Breyer trying to have a kid. By a miraculous miracle, a spaceship crashlands on their farm and they adopt the baby boy inside naming him, Brandon. Many years later the family begins experiencing weird things with their now 12-year-old child. He sleepwalks to the barn where the ship he crashed landed in mumbling a strange language and trying to get inside.

Eventually, Brandon Breyer’s powers take effect and he starts using them to kill people rather than saving people. Brandon Breyer’s is on the full path to becoming a supervillain.

With the plot, in a nutshell, I can tell you there isn’t much more to it than that. If there is anything that I don’t like when making my reviews is explaining the plot. I know I need to in order to give everyone a heads up of what I am talking about but I never seem to talk about the plot specifically enough. I never actually describe it well. My store manager had an opportunity to see this film and said it pretty simply. “It’s like Superman meets Annabell”

While I never have seen Annabell it seems like an apt description. Annabell seems like a small film in scale and terrorizes folks who come close to it. The stakes are personal, intense and not much beyond what you are given. Of course, Superman is the spot on the comparison you can give because this film screams, “WE ARE SHOWING WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF SUPERMAN WENT EVIL!” as a concept piece.

Every time I think about this film the less I like about it.

I know there are some people out there that probably L-O-V-E this film and can’t wait to see what is next in this obvious start to a twisted franchise.

This film is basic. Very basic. Nothing more to it than a kid coming to his own with superpowers with his parents in denial of what he is capable of. The father is less in denial than the mother is who refuses to think her child is capable of such things.

At the beginning of this film, I actually loved it. The took just enough time to create the conflict between these two that they wanted a child. Just then their house is rocked by an earthquake and they proceed to check it out. It was mysterious, it was solid.

The rest of the film...not so much.

When I watch a film I lookout for a few things. One of them being dialogue, moments to establish the relationships as true, real and tangible, stakes that make sense no matter how much it derails the people involved, and above all else how the film constructs this. Bring it all together with enough pomp and circumstance to say we are functional.

To me, this movie is barely functional.

Dialogue is stiff. When people talk to one another it's so short and to the point that it feels like there is more than can be said. This may not be a legitimate critique but I do feel like the technique of talking is wasted here.

There was a scene where after Brandon crushed a girl's hand and the following scene the parents were all talking in the principal's office. The mother of the daughter was clearly upset and rightfully so. She was spouting this and that, “he should go to jail” and other justifiable remarks. Until...she talks about Brandon's real mother and calls her an inbred psycho. This obviously crosses a line as Tori simply states that if trash-talking a 12-year-old child helps erica sleep better at night maybe she is the one that needs help. After that, the scene wraps up and it's over. It's not without consequence, of course, but I feel that the scene was stunted with a lot of missed opportunities with dialogue. Instead of Erica overstepping her bounds and Tori putting her in her place within seconds of the scene ending I felt that should have been the biggest conflict in the scene. A longer more emotionally driven scene.

Granted I know the script has been flipped and instead of Brandon being the good guy he's bad. The parents are sticking up for him wrongfully but are on the side of good and Erica is in the middle. The scene conveys mixed emotions that I feel no one is good, no one really knows what to say or do. Brandon is not arrested, he is suspended and will have therapy there afterward and one simple insult closes this off and they move onto the next subject. With the knowledge of the looming fate, Erica will endure. I feel the scene should have been at least a few minutes longer where we are given a chance to really understand where other people are coming from. By this point, we know where Kyle and Teri are coming from but not Erica. She is actually smack dab in the middle of a situation she has to immediately respond to. Before that, she only was apart of Brandon’s birthday and saw him throw a temper-tantrum where the electronics around him went out. No speaking lines and that may be enough for her to call Brandon a psycho but allow me to point out...

There is an entire bit of backstory faded out to the prolonged stare Teri was making with her son Brandon. A lot of dialogue was muffled out do to her zoning out. They only time she snaps out of it is when insults are being thrown out towards Brandon and questions of who his real mother is.

That entire scene should have been insightful! Erica could still stay as the emotional mother who just hears and sees the aftermath of her daughter's hand crushed but we could have known at some point where she stood with the family, what kind of friends they were and some back history. Cause we just found out in that very moment more than just the family knows about Brandon’s adoption. That there in of itself leaves me to believe a lot has to be assumed in order to understand where everyone is coming from.

My mind goes to the phrase Expectations vs Reality. When I think about this movie there were a lot of expectations and when the reality hit we basically see what could have been opposed to what we got. Brightburn had a criticism that its full potential was not realized.

This is where I have to disagree.

Yes, I have to disagree.

We have had over 10 years of great storytelling and bad storytelling at our expense thanks to Marvel, DC, various TV shows throughout the last decade. We know exactly what we want in these types of films. So when we get a what-if concept there are only a few ways we can go with it.

Our expectations are seeing a complex take on the tale of Superman becoming evil and the reality is we see a kid who is being manipulated by a ship speaking an evil language. We don’t really see where the kid is coming from except for getting upset that he is different and was lied to for 12 years.

The reality is this is probably the best way to convey a what-if piece. Keep it Simple. Keep it just as grounded as it is right now. My biggest gripe is how everyone talks to one another. How the situations play out are almost perfect to convey such an excellent concept.

So sticking up for this film in this regard, it did exactly what it was setting out to do. Become a concept piece that would show the makings of a villain that was based on one of the most powerful superheroes we will ever know. In fictional terms of course.

The fact that it didn’t go in any direction we were really hoping it to is not a bad thing though. Sure maybe we could have seen the makings of a villain rise up and maybe the parents are in on it. Maybe the mother takes Brandon under her wing and teaches him to channel his evil tendencies towards people that deserve it much like dexter. Instead, Patricide and Matricide are inflicted, Uncles and Aunts are killed, and next-door neighbors are terrified in cliche fashion before they are horribly killed.

What really doesn’t make this film work for me is not really buying into the fact that this kid who seems well to do, not a single psychopathic bone in his body is suddenly turned when the spaceship he crashed landed in, activates.

The film does not do a good job giving us anything that could give us a clue into Brandon’s head. Is he being controlled? Is he acting out of rage? Well, the answer to that is yes and yes. But when? When are those moments? Because one scene he is going back to the girl (the one whos wrist was broken) and tells her that she is the ONLY person who knows how special he is.

One scene before it or after it I can’t remember which...shows him going into a rage as soon as he figures out what the alien message is saying to him. So he either had a small influence then took what he could and left the rest. Or he gets small doses of this throughout the time he first encountered it. Its really unclear.

One big thing is how people write off each weird happenstance throughout the story of the film. The father, Kyle believes Brandon got in and killed some chickens late at night. The best excuse Tori has is that a wolf opened up a locked door and killed some chickens.

I mean, the reasonings of what to talk about and what not to talk about is out of this world.

The parents find Brandon's secret stash of naked women that soon turn more grizzly where there are pictures of surgical diagrams and graphic photos of organs. Tori exclaims, “Maybe we should have the talk”

In the next scene, they go on a camping trip and the father and son have an awkward conversation about this. But the only thing mentioned was sexual urges and nothing more. DUDE, you found diagrams and organs! That is much more specific than showing off a desirable swimsuit model! TALK ABOUT THAT! This stuff gets pretty redundant after a while. You get it. Dialogue doesn’t work, the scenes and situations mentioned don’t add up when they need to talk about more important things, the relationship between the mother and father work but not with the kid, sadly.

I feel this movie did deliver upon its potential I just feel it could have been written better. I could care less that it was a cliche horror murder movie. Give me something basic and grow from there. You could have had the characters a lot smarter, capable, flesh out the scenes better and you would have had one solid film on your hands.

Perhaps I don’t have anything better to say than anyone else but this movie came close to frustrating me on how it presented itself.

The ending sparked more curiosity and obvious means to a sequel that I feel should have been introduced in the middle of the film. But, hey, that's just my expectations talking.

I know there are some out there that love the film. One who can justify actions and means of what really could have been going down. But I am a very literal person so if it ain't shown to me I am not going to assume so much happened in-between scenes. I am not a psychic so I don’t know what one is thinking and if you keep a kid quiet I won’t know where he is coming from.

That is exactly what this film did. It alienated me. Me no likey.

**/***** (2 out of 5)

#Brightburn #Brightburn movie review #Brightburn movie #Brandon Breyers #Tori Breyer

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heilewelt · 6 years ago

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“I like anything that’s good for me.” – An Interview with Orville Peck

Orville Peck is a good one. When we sat down in the lobby of his hotel it was easy to forget about the mask he was wearing – instantly I was caught by the glint in his eyes when he talks about his music. I love the idea of creating a new persona and starting fresh without the names of previous bands giving you an expectation of how the music should sound like. The debut album “Pony” is one of a kind – based in Country it opens up to so many more music genres like punk, Rock and even the huge singing style of musical. I’ve been in love with this beautiful dark voice since the first time I heard “Dead of Night” a couple of month ago, before I knew anything about him or the mask. We talked about his voice and that it wasn’t always this beautiful dark. If you want to know more about this and how everything came together, please enjoy our little conversation.

The first thing I thought when I heard your music for the first time – I didn’t see a picture and I didn’t know anything about you – I had to think about Jandek. He makes a little weird music and for 40 years or so no one knew who he was. When I heard your voice, I thought about him and afterwards I learned about the mask and everything.

Orville Peck: That’s funny. I haven’t thought about that for a while.

Would it be something you’d like to accomplish – no one knowing your face for so many decades?

I don’t think it’s a goal of mine. This look is just part of who I am as Orville Peck. That’s not really a conscious decision to conceal anything. It’s just part of my face.

What was first: Having your very personal songs and then hiding or hiding and then say now I can write about myself?

I think it was a bit of both at the same time. Some of the lyrics I’ve been writing for quite a long time now. For example I’ve written the lyrics for “Turn To Hate” about 4 or 5 years ago, before I really knew what I was going to do with it. Growing up with the music I really liked, I was always into the lyrics. I remember when I got the CDs I always loved reading the lyrics in the CD pamphlet and things like that. For me lyrics are very, very important. I’m a big Patti Smith fan and I think her lyrics are so important, maybe even more important than the music. The music just adds to it. I’ve always looked at music like that. I’ve always liked the stories behind songs and I’ve always loved reading tour bios and things like that because I love hearing about what a song is about and who they were written about. That kind of stuff always intrigue me. I just like making music that has a story. I think it was something that was already in me and the mask just gave me the confidence to actually do that finally.

I’ve recently done an interview with William The Conqueror from England. Actually there is no William in the Band. The singer and songwriter Ruarri Joseph said that going away from his own name gave him the freedom to write about his own past and get really personal. It’s quite funny to meet you now.

Maybe something similar I guess. I used to think I’m a really open person with friends and everyone and a very easy person to talk with. Until this project and writing very personal stuff, I realized that the older I gotten that I’m a bit of closed person and it’s actually hard for me to talk about my feelings in a real way which is funny because I never actually thought I was like that. People would always say that to me. So, it’s been an interesting, cathartic thing for me to do this album. When I get to sing these songs on stage, it’s sometimes hard for me. It’s been very good for me as a person because it made a lot more open.

It’s a bit like therapy.

Totally. It’s really special to see other people in the audience getting emotional because relate to it or they know the lyrics for a particular song. That’s very cathartic as well because it definitely feels to me like I’m not alone in it.

I think what always happens to all of us at least once is that we think we are alone with a problem and because of that we don’t want to talk about it because we maybe don’t want to annoy someone with our stupid problem or the stuff we’re scared of.

Exactly. There is a song on the album that is very personal to me. It’s “Nothing Fades Like The Nights” which is actually about a heartbreak but a heartbreak in a different way. It’s not about somebody else, it’s very much about my own heartbreak and disappointment in myself. At the time I didn’t really understand it but now that I’m older I kind of understand it better. I went through a long period where I felt very numb emotionally and I couldn’t cry when I was sad and I didn’t know why. I’ve been in situations where people were feeling all these emotions and I didn’t feel anything. I thought something was really wrong with me. Ironically that was saddest times of my life, when I didn’t know how to feel sad.

I think it’s not always that easy to let sadness take over. It sometimes takes some courage to be just sad, especially when you have people around you who don’t expect you to be sad.

I’ve travelled my whole life. I’ve been living in so many different places, so I’ve formed a lot of quick friendships that are usually quite intense. Some of them were on a superficial level where I felt like we could just exist, travelling, crossing path and I never had to be a 100% real with anyone a lot of the time. It was an easy way for me to remain a little bit closed because I had all these friends all over the place. I could travel and see them all and put the focus on them, their issues and tend to not address my own feelings for a long time. This album is very exposing in some ways because it’s dealing with topics I’ve been struggling with my whole adult life. It’s the first time I’ve put it into any kind of performance or art. The experience is a personal thing.

Was there an initial spark to do this?

Yeah, I played in bands for many years. Then I took about five years off making music after my last band stopped playing and touring. I went to focus on other things. I acted my whole life, was a dancer and many different things. I went and focused on other kinds of performance. I thought I was done making music and touring. I really felt jaded about it all. After a lot of time passed I felt like something was missing from my life. I made music since I was a very little child and realized I missed it so much that couldn’t really be without it. I wanted to do something new and totally different from what I’ve done before. I loved Country music my whole life and loved singing my whole life. I’ve never really been a front man that often. I’ve usually played other instruments in my previous bands. I knew I wanted to do it my way finally. A lot of different factors encouraged me to do this. Up until a few months ago when we started releasing singles, I wasn’t sure how people were going to react to it. I feel very proud of the music. I feel like it’s music I would listen to but I didn’t feel confident that people were gonna respond in the way it has been. It’s been really, really lovely for me as well.

It’s sort of old-school but fresh at the same time and it has sometimes this schmaltz which I love.

I grew up with a very diverse taste in music, art and film. I really genuinely love every type of music. I understand when people are genre purists but to me I just don’t know why I would want to deny myself. Why would you want to do that? I think some music sucks but it’s not by genre. I like anything that’s good for me. I knew I wanted to root this album in Country music. That’s the main influence, especially Outlaw Country from the 60ies and 70ies. I definitely wanted to add a little bit of flavor of different influences of mine – those range from Punk to New Wave to Classical Music to Musicals. There are a lot of things on this album that I purposely referenced and slit in in different places. When I listen to complex artists I really like knowing that there is something in there they’re referencing, something totally different. I love finding those things as a music fan. I love nerding out over that. So I wanted to put that in there for people to find it.

I think if you wouldn’t do that as an artist you would just copy pasting what has been there beforehand.

For me it’s not even necessarily about trying to stay authentic in myself and that…of course it’s that as well. For me, I think, it’s about artists sometimes not giving the listener enough credit and they think they have to spoon feed something or have to do something very one dimensional for someone to buy it, especially nowadays. I think people appreciate complexity a lot more than we give them credit for.

It’s maybe not what you find in the charts but it’s here for the long term.

It’s maybe paves you a way as an artist.

I’ve read that you’ve lived in a lot of places like Africa, US, UK… how did you treat the local scene and the folk scene from those places as it’s different from Country or Americana, especially in Africa.

Although people might not pick it up right away but there’s a lot of African influence in the songs that I make. The kind of African music I really love growing up is penny whistle jive and Miriam Makeba or Brenda Fassie. The thing that I really love from that time period is that it is has a really upbeat sound to it and the rhythms are very specific and the core progressions are very specific but the lyrics are sometimes so somber and so sad but you wouldn’t notice it right away. I think someone like Miriam Makeba was really amazing at that. Essentially she was the South African Nina Simone. All of her songs were very much about Civil Rights and race and oppression but from the sound you couldn’t tell it right away. I actually have a song that didn’t make it on Pony eventually which is specifically about the longest period I’ve been living in Africa. That probably be on the next album.

You recorded your album in British Columbia and then my head started spinning with the mask and everything and all of a sudden you became the lone ranger to me. [we laugh] In the wild west…well, not that wild. I looked it up and the studio is pretty remote on an island.

Definitely. It’s a very rural part of British Columbia, it’s a small island called Gabriola. It has a very small population of people. If you don’t have a car… you can’t walk around at night because it’s just pitch black. There are really incredible beaches there and phosphorescence in the water. It’s a really picturesque place to make an album like this. I spend a good amount of time living in the pacific northwest mountain region and wrote quite a few songs there like “Big Sky”. I think a lot of people associate cowboys with the desert and that very dry atmosphere and a lot of my songs have that setting. The sound I wanted to capture for “Big Sky” is a rainy, dark feel, maybe a campfire in the mountain with a rainy, kind of cold feeling - that pacific north west your socks are always wet kind of feeling.

When I looked at a map, Vancouver is just across the sea - as if you could see it from there and I thought it’s a perfect setting for your music.

I think a lot of the things I sing about on this album were experiences that happened on the west coast of North America – from Vancouver all the way down to Los Angeles and Nevada. A big portions of the event in these songs take place along this coast.

You’ve got a big variety in landscapes just like in your music. My favorite song is “Buffalo Run”. It sounds very angry and aggressive but the words you chose always make me smile, too.

I’m a big fan of bluegrass which is a certain type of country. Bluegrass is famous for being really fast with the banjos and the mandolins with quite steady slow vocals on top of it. It gives the song a dichotomy. The thing I always love in is the key it is played in a lot of the time and the speed the banjo and mandolin are played at. It sound quite frightening to me, even though they are singing about some folky thing. The music sometimes sounds frantic and kind of scary to me. With Buffalo Run I wanted to make a song that brought that and also a little bit of my past of playing in punk bands. I wanted to combine these things and make a scary Orville Peck song. I also wanted it to feel like buffalos charging since it speeds up and has this stampede feel to it. That song is definitely going back to my old days of playing in Punk bands where when we played out every night I was getting to release a little bit of tension. [laughs]

It’s perfect for that. How long did it take you to find your voice? I love the tone of your voice.

I’ve been singing since I was very little. I always loved to sing as a child. I never was able to sing low at all, I used to sing in a high register. I did classical training as a tenor for most of my young adult life. When I moved to London about six years ago, I was doing this very intensive performance training and learned that I have this whole other two octaves to my voice that I never really knew about. For me, who sang very high my whole life, it was very exciting to find out something so drastically new about myself.

It doesn’t happen every day.

As a singer I was really excited to suddenly have a three octave range. I’ve always been such a fan of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and all these Country crooners who sing so low. I always wanted to make music like that and suddenly I was able to. I trained as a kid but this just happened by chance.

It’s so funny especially since you’ve been making music you whole life.

It’s bizarre. It’s like someone told me something like ‘you’re a tenor, you sing high’ and I was just like ‘yeah, ok’ and never even explored that other part of my voice for 20, 25 years or whatever.

To discover something that new that late, has it influenced the way you approach music nowadays?

Definitely. In some respects it has opened a literal range but also an emotional range within me. Maybe it was what I had to do to unlock my feelings. For instance “Winds Change” is a song on the album I go from really, really low in my register to going really high in my register. For me to be able to perform that… it is something really indescribable to perform that song because it just moves through my entire range of emotion. It makes it a lot more fun and it makes it a lot more liberating in the creative sense. I don’t feel like I’m trapped in one part. I feel really grateful that I can do it now.

As far as I read you played most of the instruments yourself.

Yes, for the first three songs that I wrote and recorded for this album, which were “Dead of Night”, “Big Sky” and “Roses Are Falling”…and “Take It Back” actually. On those songs I played probably 95% of the stuff on them. And then the engineer who recorded my album – his name Jordan Koop and he lives on Gabriola Island – plays a couple of instruments in those songs. And then some of the others were a mix of different musicians I worked with on the east coast and on the west coast. There is a really fantastic banjo player named Tina Jones. I play banjo on one of the songs and she plays banjo on a couple of the other songs because I wanted a very particular sound and it’s not my first instrument. I got her to play on the album. It was really nice. It felt very much like I got to choose the right people to fill the roles were I knew I wanted them instead of me.

How do you know you’re not able to do it yourself? Try it first and then figure out that maybe you should take some who can actually play that part?

I think for instance for an instrument like banjo there’s bluegrass, there’s folk banjo, there are just so many different sounds. The way I approach playing banjo is just from the banjo stuff I mostly listen to - bluegrass, faster banjo. For “Big Sky” there is a really beautiful line that Tina wrote that clicks just underneath everything. She is more of a Folk banjo player. I knew I wanted to have someone who has a better ear for that. Even though I can see and hear it in my head I need someone to execute that. Same as my guitarist Duncan Jennings who plays in my live band. He helped me to write a few of the songs and arranged some of the songs because he definitely more of a technical skilled musician. All the instruments I taught myself. I never went to music classes or anything like that. I sometimes feel like I can hear something in my head or visualize it but I don’t know how to execute it because I don’t have the technical skill. It’s good to have someone like Duncan in the studio because then I can be like ‘I want it to sound like it’s 1980’s and it’s slow motion and it’s on the beach in Malibu but it’s raining and that it’s that kind of guitar sound’ - I don’t know how to describe it and he’ll be like ‘like this’ and it’s perfect.

That’s magic!

That’s literally how I described the sound of “Hope To Die”. I approach music from a visual point of view because I’m a visual learner and I don’t have the technic. Luckily I know people who can not only help interpret that crazy explanation but also can execute it. Sometimes it’s a lot of experimentation but we get there in the end. It was a really cool experience working on this album because I had such a clear vision what every song should sound like and what it should look like, what emotion I wanted the people who listen to it will feel. We worked really hard that it will come across. I’m very happy with the outcome.

How did you make sure that people feel what you want them to feel whilst you were writing and recording the songs?

I’m saying this in a way that I hope it does do it. As I said to you earlier – I just used to spend a lot of time taking the focus off my own feelings, listening to all of my friends problems and put the focus on them because I didn’t want to be open. So, I think I’ve learned to be a really good listener and I understand other people very well. I think it’s actually the biggest skill that I have is to understand how to navigate all different types of people. It also comes from the fact that I’ve travelled so much and lived in so many different cultures, societies and class systems. I just understand that among all of us there is a common threat all the time and I know to access that with other people because I think it’s just about telling a story that everyone can relate to even if it has specific differences. It’s about knowing that we all have the same story. I think it has been really special for me with Orville Peck, or with “Pony” rather, that I sing about men a lot on this album, about men relationships.

I think it’s very good. I listen to a lot of music made by men who sing about women, so I usually have to switch the gender in my head.

I think the thing that is really interesting, that is so wonderful to me, is that a lot of people who are coming to my shows or messaging me are older middle age straight men with kids and a wife who say ‘man, that song is so beautiful. My wife and I are listening to it all of the time’. It’s so funny for me because it’s a song about two men and the fact that it doesn’t bother this person and that they connect to it regardless is so comforting for me as well. It’s funny because I feel like a lot of the songs on this album are about me feeling like such an outcast and such a loner in life and the fact that all these people love it so much and relate to it, suddenly I feel like I’ve so many people around me supporting me – it’s almost this ironic full circle where these songs are about my loneliness but now there are all these people around me. It’s a fascinating thing that has been happening to me with this whole album.

Thank you for the interview, Orville!

youtube

“Pony” has been released a couple of month ago and it’s been my favorite album of the year so far! He will be back beginning of November and be fast - the first concert is already sold out.

8.11. Nochtwache, Hamburg 09.11. Badehaus, Berlin - sold out 10.11. Folks! Club, München

Thank you for reading,

Dörte

#orville peck #interview #pony #country #outlaw country #on tour #music #rock #punk

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winstonhcomedy · 6 years ago

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“Dope A-F” - 1/28-1/30- “I Think I’m Going to Lose It”

What’s up baybees!?!? I’ve got a lot of shows to cover in a short amount of time. We’ve got a couple good ones, but for the most part this week has been a struggle. Definitely some super trying times, and I don’t know exactly what to do. I figured it’s time to share with you some of you laydees! So let’s get to it.

1/28

We had a twofer Monday night. I was super excited about it. For a lot of reasons. I had a spot on the showcase at Bottom’s Up pizza hosted by Patrick Buhse, and then I was going to go do a set at Jkogi’s open mic run by five comics (Brittany Andersen, Mu Cuzzo, Rick Williams, Beau Troxclair, and Kate Carroll).

So the Bottom’s Up showcase is going to be interesting. It will be the first show there in like 6 months. It used to be an open mic every single Monday hosted by a comic who is no longer a part of the scene. He lost the room after some accusations came out about some misconduct. I am not going to comment too much on it because I know there are some court proceedings going on/about to start going on.

Needless to say most people thought comedy would never happen there again. Thankfully Patrick Buhse got the room, and he booked a pretty dope lineup for the first showcase. I invited some people from work, and made sure to share the event info quite a bit. I thought this was going to be a dope show, and people would be excited for comedy to be back.

I get to the show a couple hours early and try to get some writing done. As we get closer to the show there is only two audience members. I am starting to get worried. I always do. Which is dumb, and I need to work on it. I just freak out about attendance for every show I am at. It is a dumb fear, but for right now I can not help it.

Jesse Jarvis shows up and sets up the PA. He and I start to move the tables and get the room set up. Buhse, James Muñoz, Kate Carroll also show up. After a while some people start to filter in. I have about three people from work come out (thankfully they haven’t seen a lot of my comedy so at least it will be new to them). We keep pushing the show back waiting for a crowd. It never happens. We have 8 audience members who aren’t comedians. They are all spread out, and usually this means the show is not going to be fun.

Buhse goes up and has a good hosting set. The people there are actually laughing. I realize they all have good energy and this is actually going to be pretty dope. After his set he brings up Jesse Jarvis who keeps the train rolling with a. strong set. Kate Carroll followed him and we get more of the same. The energy in the room is great for such few people. During her set Francesca Lyn comes in and we have the full lineup there.

It is my turn. I go up and I see a lady in the front row. I ask her name, and after she tells me I say, “ok cool now I officially know everyone in this room.” That gets a good laugh and I go into my material. I do about ten minutes featuring bits I have been working on for a bit. I feel like this chunk is taking longer to get finished than most. I think I’ve been lazy which is on me. Also the topics are a little more sensitive (race, gay conversion therapy, politics) so that also makes them tougher to sell. The set goes really well. Honestly I’d give it a solid B. I felt really good about it.

Afterwards Francesca goes up and has a dope set, and James closes it out with a hot one. He had manic energy while he read off a huge list of jokes. he was like a human Twitter stream. Everybody had a good set, and the show was fun. it was fun enough that I hope Buhse can start to pack it out and turn it into something awesome.

I hop in my car and drive to do a spot at Jkogi. There is a pretty good crowd, but they don’t seem super into it. I walk in and the PA sounds pretty busted. It keeps cutting in and out. I walk in during a dude bombing and see my buddy Alex there. We talk for a bit and then he goes up. He has an amazing set. He caught some lightning in a bottle. All of his riffs on the PA not working killed. His jokes worked as well. It was definitely the best set I saw of the night. He did so well he made it really tough for Jameson who had to follow him. He didn’t have the energy to really follow the type of set Alex had. You really had to grab the dingy and ride the wave.

Jameson bails early and I find out I am on stage next. I don’t even have time to grab my notebook so I just go up and do my set. I don’t even remember what I did. I am a little out of it and that’s to my detriment. Some of my jokes do ok, but I never really capture the audience the way I want to. I get a couple pops but thats about it. It is also distracting because to my left Jameson is just talking about how his set went. It wasn’t loud enough to distract the crowd, but he was close enough to the stage that I could hear it so it just felt like voices in my head. It is also weird when a show has multiple hosts, because most of them are lighting so I have to acknowledge like 3 different lights. I’m like I GET IT I’M BOMBING! I’d give this set a D+ or C-. Idk it was fine, but I didn’t love it.

I go outside and talk to Alex, and Mike Engle for a bit. We get a good riff session in and Alex walks me to my car. We talk about bombing, and how his set went. Alex also tells me that even though he doesn’t read it he is proud I am keeping up with the blog. Which is as nice and honest a compliment you can give someone. It was a good talk. I hop in my car and head home.

1/29

So this is where it starts to get juicy. This is one of those rare nights in Richmond where you have the opportunity to get up not once, not twice, but three times!!!

I pick up Alex Castagne and we go grab a bite to eat before the shows. I take my goPro in and we make a video. I came up with my new video series called the Lunch Boiyz. We went to Golden Corral and Beau Troxclair joins us. We end up shooting a super funny video, and have a really great time.

After this we head back to Alex’s place and meet up with Paige. We all head down to Mojo’s to find out where we are in the lineup. We were going to do Mojos, City Dogs, and then end at Fallout. We talk to Buhse and find out that won’t work so we reassess and head to City Dogs first.

We get there and the host Benjamin Braman is setting up. There is like 4 audience members, and only like 5 comics total on the list. Kenn Edwards and Liz Carr show up, and we make up the 5 comics.

Braman goes up and does a short hosting set before bringing up Paige. Paige is working out a new chunk of trans material and he has ben nervous to. try it in RVA. It goes ok. Not a bad set. I go up next and honestly have a really hot one. All of my stuff is really hitting and the four audience members are super into it. I am able to riff some new lines which feels really good. I’d give this set a B. Honestly I don’t know if I could have done better with my material in that room.

After me Alex goes up and has a good one. He does a bunch of crowd work and works out his new shit as well. They dig it and a few more people walk in during his set. I wish more people did this room. It is a humongous shame that people have a chance to get a lot of stage time and refuse to do it. A lot of people talk about grinding and trying to make it but I think only the three of us ended up doing all three open mics. They also aren’t even that far apart and the timing is perfect to do all three.

Before Kenn goes up I head over with Paige to Fallout. We talk in the car and head inside. Beau is there and so is Kate. Kat Malone is hosting and she gets us a good spot so we can also make Mojos.

Alex goes up after the same comic who did a street joke at Hof Garden two weeks ago. The PA is absolutely garbage for Alex tonight. Every time he moves he gets crazy feedback. Then he riffs on the bad PA and this time unlike Jkogi it doesn’t work. So he gets some laughs but all in all it is a rough set. Paige then goes up and he tries some stuff and gets some laughs. He works on his trans chunk again (I'm proud of him for doing it in RVA). After his set I go up and proceed to eat a fat one. I can’t connect. Some stuff does ok, but most of it falls flat. It’s like idk wtf I'm doing anymore. I’d give this set a D. I needed more energy and needed to sell it more.

We finally head over to Mojos. The hang is fun. I am up in like 8 comics but I really am exhausted so Paige and I switch and I get to go up a few comics earlier. Alex goes up and is getting nothing. We watch a few more comics bomb. The crowd was kind of dead. They were all in the back of the room and either comics or just people that don’t give af about comedy. I tell myself I am just going to do my material.

I go up and bomb harder than I did at Fallout. I did my set and kept working on the wording, but it felt awful. Legit it felt like I was just like staring into the eyes of 30 people who have just started comedy looking at me thinking, “how the hell does this guy get booked on anything.” It sucks. I’d rate this a D or D- as well. Maybe one thing worked, and it wasn’t what I really wanted to work. I mopily walk to my car and drive home.

1/30

I have a solid day of work. I get to go to the Science Museum which was super dope. I am trying to destress after a rough night of comedy. I edit together my Lunch Boiyz video and I am crazy happy about it.

After work I do some relaxing with friends, and then grab dinner with Alex. We go to this Philly Cheesesteak place next to Garden Grove in Cary town. It is pretty good. I show him the LB video and he loves it.

There is two shows tonight. Home Sweet Home hosted by Jacob McFadden and then Nuevo Mexico hosted by Moe Singleton. HSH is a pretty fun hang. Tons of new comics, but also some of my buddies show up. The show starts and I’m going second. Jacob starts us off and there is an ok sized crowd upstairs. So I am anticipating having an ok set. I’ve got about five new minutes on teaching that I want to work on.

Jacob always does a joke intro for people. They’re always funny, and can put you in a weird spot on stage because the audience has no idea that it is a joke. He really got me this night. It was a perfect aligning of the stars. I get brought up to, “this next comic used to do this super offensive character where he pretended to teach autistic kids, but thankfully he stopped Winston Hodges.” So now all my teaching stuff is out the window and I just work out other material.

I BOMB SO HARD HERE. Like according to Alex I did better than I think, but I felt like legit nothing was working. There was a dude there who was doing comedy for the first time as a punishment for fantasy football, and he came up during my set and he is just talking. I can’t shit on him because he brought the crowd, but I truly feel like I am floundering. I feel like nothing is working and I want to bail early. I do my time, but do not feel good about it. I’d give this set an F. Alex goes up and has a hot one. Gets lots of laughs, and everything at least hits a little bit. It is dope to see.

I walk outside with Alex after and I am furious. Like legit am having a breakdown. I feel like all of the newer comics hate me, they think I’m unfunny, and they’re just staring at me because I’m a hack. This kills me. The bombing hurts so bad. I feel like all of my jokes are trash and I legit feel like I can’t remember what a good set feels like or how to do crowd work. I don’t see the point in continuing to work out new material. We have a nice talk. I am in my feels, and am devastated. I decide I am not going to Nuevo Mexico. I can’t do it. I am defeated. Alex says let’s go inside and say bye to Jacob. He goes in and I sit down to talk to Beswick and wait for Alex.

Beswick and I have a good talk. He understands where I am coming from. He gets what is going on, and he knows it is tough. He reaffirms what I already know. That I have to keep doing new, because that is how you get good in the first place. Him and Alex both remind me we don’t need to impress anyone, this is all about working on our acts.

It has been like 15 minutes and I don’t see Alex. I assume he is upstairs. He calls me and then texts me asking where I am. I tell him I’m driving. I figured it’d be a good gag because I’m his ride. He’d rush downstairs and we’d leave.

So like another twenty minutes goes by and I go upstairs to watch Brown Frown the Clown ( a character portrayed by Mike Shea). It is insane. It has ballads about poop, jokes about rimming, and Brown Frown eats shit on stage (literally). It is nuts. Mike does a lot of characters. They are always insane sets that change the energy in a room. I respect what he does a lot. I could never do it. It is so different from what I do on stage it is kind of astounding to watch. Audiences are always trying to figure out what is going on and that is the beauty of it. Super funny and fun set.

I finally text Alex did you leave? He says yes. I go outside and we talk on the phone. Apparently it was a miscommunication. He was outside waiting at my car when he texted and called. He thought me saying I was driving was me telling him to screw off so he got a ride to Nuevo Mexico. I am pretty furious. Not at him but at the situation. I wouldn’t have sat in the room where I bombed so hard I wanted to die in for an additional 40 minutes if I had known he left.

I say screw it. I get in my car and drive to Nuevo. I don’t care if I bomb again. I legit refuse to let comedy beat me. I get to Nuevo and as I walk in Alex told me he was texting me it was good I didn’t come there. Super light and drunk crowd. Super talkative. Alex said he did pretty well with crowd work but you really had to work it.

Ben Oliver, Nathan Carlson, John Marg, Rebecca Hyman and Moe were all there. I get to see John and Ben go up. There are some moments in each set that are dope. Marg had a strong set. First time I’ve ever seen him do crowd work and he weaved his jokes in and out. Definitely a good thing to see. Ben did some as well. He is still working on being comfortable on stage, but I love that he isn’t afraid to do the tough rooms to try to figure that shit out.

The it is my turn. Even more people have left at this point. I look at Alex and we both share a side eye. The look that this might not go well. We start laughing. I see Moe has a shit on that he made that says “embrace the bomb”. So I decide to just go up and do my thing.

I have an incredibly hot set all things considered. I do about fifteen minutes. Most of it is crowd work with some rowdy hecklers. I really go in on this guy and he loves it. I get a few applause breaks (weird with only 7 people) and some super good pops. I feel so good during this set I don’t want to stop. I do about three actual jokes and they both kill. I ended on an applause break. I know this might mean nothing to most people but this was one of the most validating sets I’ve had in a long time. I’d give myself a B+ or A-. It was a reminder of what I can do when I am not in my own head. Bombing is part of the process, and always will be. I just have to keep working on accepting it and accepting that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about my act other than myself/audience.

I stay and watch Rebecca’s set. She closes on her song and I dance and sing every word to the delight of Alex. It is super catchy and I memorized it fast. I had a blast. I give Alex a ride home and then drive back to my place late and pass out. I needed this week. This feels like a big moment for my growth comedically.

So that’s it folks. We are all caught up finally. WOOO HOOOO. Yall’re the kindest laydees who have ever lived and I love you so much. Check out the Lunch Boiyz on Youtube! XOXO love you

#comedy #lunch #vlog #dinner #jokes #standup #improv #richmond #character #hilarious #bomb

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shiobookmark · 4 years ago

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Violet Evergarden Movie

... wow, book fans really don’t like this movie huh? Spoilers below. And a linguistic and cultural question for native Japanese speakers.

It was a good movie. I don’t think I was in the right emotional state to watch it unfortunately, it just didn’t explore Violet’s psychology as deeply as I would have liked. The series really hit the hardest for me when it was exploring Violet’s trauma and survivors guilt. There were hints of that in the beginning of the film what with her insisting she’s no one to be glorified, and that scene with Diedfried returning her hair ribbon. She’s walking past him, away somewhere else and not even conscious of who he is, but when he reaches into his pocket she thinks he’s about to pull a weapon and puts him in an armlock. He forgives her for it instantly, which considering his spitting hatred of her in the TV series is... interesting. Honestly that dropped plot thread is what I find the least forgiveable. Hodgins is understandably leery about letting him anywhere near Violet considering he’s why she was in the army in the first place, but Cattleya points out that maybe their reconcilng is what Violet needs. I’d argue that maybe she needs to stay far the fuck away from her abuser but okay, they both lost Gilbert, I kind of get what she means.

Now the issue fans of the books seem to have is with Gilbert. In the novel my understanding is that he faked his death, and everyone knew he was alive and kept it from Violet. His goal being that she should learn to live without him, because when she blindly follows his orders she can’t ever be free. Which is admirable, but seeing how much Violet suffers and becomes suicidal with grief, the fact her friends apparently keep up this charade in the novel is pretty heinous. Maybe she takes it better in the novel? In the movie, Gilbert was displaced following the war, ending up at an enemy hospital without his ID tags. A reviewer mentioned that they found it hard to believe he’d be displaced, and that his uniform wouldn’t give him away but: 1. Pretty sure that happens to soldiers all the time in real war.

2. From memory both sides of the war wore green uniforms, it’s not hard to think Gilbert’s uniform badges were burned and blown away since he lost an arm and was under fallen rock. Afterwards, he drifted to an island that used to be part of enemy territory but had since become independent. They had lost all their young men to the war*, not a single person had returned and the town was dying as a result. He stayed on as a teacher. And he didn’t want to see Violet because despite claiming to love her, despite wanting her to have a happy childhood, to see things that were beautiful and enjoy cute and pretty things, he made her into a killing machine. We can debate about how much of a choice he had, the implication in the series is that Diedfried demonstrated Violet’s killing prowess in front of the higher ups and if Gilbert hadn’t taken charge of her someone less scrupulous would have. But the fact is he felt he’d ruined her life and wanted to stay out of it. Plus her existence reminded him of his failure to protect her, the cruelty he was forced to commit in war and all that stuff. Perfectly sound motivation in my opinion. Staying on the island was a weird sort of penance, helping former enemy civilians rebuild and educating their children. This particular fan didn’t like this weakness because apparently Gilbert in the book spends his time amassing power and resources to help defend Violet however he can. And this Gilbert is not that. I don’t love what that implies about novel Gilbert, because while yes, he’s paying her back, it does imply he has an awful lot of control over her future and pokes his nose into her business. Even if it’s to keep bad people off her back it’s not exactly hands off, is it? In the movie he’s characterised as a boy who was drafted into the army young, with all the weight of his family legacy on him, never got any freedom and basically had to carry that responsibility alone. And the idea of having broken a fragile and helpless little girl into a tool of war broke him. I liked that, to be frank. It really put to bed any lingering doubts I had about his feelings for Violet because frankly even if it is romantic (which aishiteiru would imply) I can’t believe he’d ever take advantage of or hurt her. He seems to have enough awareness of his effect on other people to be capable of not doing that. Now, the ending. Their future together is left really ambiguous but we know Violet pretty much retired from ghostwriting on the spot and lived on that island with Gilbert for the rest of her days. While people on the mainland are mostly unaware of where she retired to, the people on the island remember her as something of a local hero who helped their people write letters and built their post office into a thriving business that’s still got the highest output (in the country?) even 60 years later. She may have also taught at the school. The same reviewer had issues with the implication she basically abandoned everyone for Gilbert, but I don’t think that’s the case. Rather she had no reason to continue ghost writing. It wasn’t a passion of hers, she began as a method of therapy and healing, to learn to understand love. Once she’d done that there was no reason to continue. Her writing evolved. She found a place to stay and she’s remembered. There’s no mention of Gilbert at all. She’s on the local stamp in her iconic costume, we have no idea if she married Gilbert, if they were simply lifelong friends, or even if either of them are dead. Did she outlive Gilbert? We don’t know! Now the problem I have with this is a problem I was always going to have: The movie sort of implied she needed Gilbert in order to move on, and she did leave behind her friends in some capacity to be with the one she loved. I was hoping for a more nuanced ending where it was far clearer she didn’t need Gilbert to survive, but wanted him. The movie certainly implies that’s the case, as she’s willing to leave the island without seeing him for the sake of the terminally ill boy she made a promise to. Her other relationships take priority. But the ending sort of undermines that with the explanation she stayed on the island with him. Personally I think it’s left ambiguous enough that we can easily interpret it the way we want to. Which leads me to my question. I’m curious as to if there’s any cultural ambiguity to the word ‘aishiteiru’ at all or if Japanese simply lacks an intense expression of love that isn’t romantic.

Is Violet and Gilbert’s relationship one that delightfully transcends traditional labels, defying the audience to pin it exclusively as ‘platonic’ or ‘romantic’? It would certainly seem to be in keeping with the overall series theme of love that’s difficult to express in words, in the emphasis the series places on familial and platonic love over romantic. Or is this a nuance exclusively created by a Western framework? Where an ‘I love you’ is capable of being platonic, no matter how dramatic the circumstances? Is ‘aishiteiru’ only for Romeo and Juliet, or can it be for friends and family too? Is the series trying to transcend the limitations of its native language? If aishiteiru is usually romantic, is this series trying to use it in a broader context? Daisy writes a letter to her parents and the screen cuts to white text on black that reads aishiteiru, with that editing implying it’s what was written in the final lines of her letter, or at least it’s what she’s saying behind the words. Is it the sentiment? Are they using the phrase aishiteiru as a link between Daisy and Violet, as the series catchphrase, while the loves are supposed to be seen as different?

And if aishiteiru is always romantic, how would a Japanese author write about an ambiguous ‘I love you’? When ‘daisuki’ just doesn’t cut it? I doubt Gilbert would say ‘daisuki,’ would it have as much weight? Am I interpreting it as less meaningful than it actually is? Does Japan have a concept of phillia? Deep, long lasting and intense love between friends? Is there even a line between ‘different’ love? And how does this Steven Universe scene read in Japanese?

This is said as aishiteiru in Japanese, I saw it in a random clip on youtube. In English, he’s clearly addressing Connie and the gems, his family, as he leaves them behind. In Japanese, would this simply be a romantic confession to Connie? Do you lose that nuance? In English he could be confessing to Connie, but given his general freedom with his affection it’s far more likely it’s meant for everyone. He’d not likely single Connie out as the only person he says goodbye to. In comparison, here’s a similar scene where he says ‘I love you’ to Peridot, who he’s far less close to. I can’t check, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was ‘daisuki.’

This is driving me nuts please is there ANY ambiguity to this phrase at all? Or is it just normally used romantically? As in a ‘well you could use it platonically. We’d understand from context, but it’d be a bit weird.’

#I can't sleep without knowing the answer to this one #Japanese #Violet Evergarden #Japanese Language #Japanese culture

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coshayphinelove · 8 years ago

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now that the finale afterglow has faded, i’ve been kind of looking back on the series with a more critical eye than a “PLS DONT LEAVE ME” eye.

this is by no means the last time i’ll write some kind of long-winded essay, i’m sure i’ll find other things to overthink about on rewatches and as i write more fic, but it is a direct reaction to the finale and the five years i have spent with this show.

in short, the finale was amazing. it was probably the best finale of any show i have ever seen. it was satisfying and true to the characters that we had grown to love. it was realistic insofar that the problems didn’t end with the evil being defeated. it was bittersweet and made me emotional where i didn’t think the show could anymore.

(although i still haven’t watched the last two episodes of frin/ge so it’s rank may change).

if the rest of the season and the previous two seasons had set it up, it would have been even better. it is, to this day, my firm opinion that season 1 was the tightest, most well thought out season of television i have ever seen. like, if you had asked me in season 3 where i thought the finale would be, i would have had such a different answer. (please do ask me, i have so many thoughts.)

most of my criticisms are on the co-phine/delphine front bc that’s where i’ve curated the most facts, having a few transcripts saved to my computer for ease of access. and the first thing i have to talk about is the plot holes this season, bc wow, so many. like, delphine was only there when it was convenient. that much was clear.

like she only helped siobhan bc there needed to be a good guy survivor to tell the rest about what happened. she was only invited to the big house so cosima could invite herself along. she was only put in the dress so that cosima could be in the suit so that the pr team could tease a wedding.

and she was only in the final clone scene to reinforce that ‘’we can trust her now guys’’. like she and cosima never talked about anything. not the shay snafu in season 3, not the lying, not the spying, not the secrets. which are really big things. and i’m not saying it had to be 45 minutes of therapy jargon but i am saying that they should’ve said... ‘sorry’ or explained what happened and where they were coming from. bc to this day i don’t actually know why delphine did what she did in season 3. what happened in frankfurt? why did she threaten shay like that instead of just asking? why was she suddenly working for topside? none of that ever gets mentioned after it happens.

and as much as the sarah hug helps me with my sarcoshayphine struggles, they hadn’t spoken since ‘piss off delphine.’ how did they get from there to hugging? ‘we’re doing all of this on account of bloody delphine?’ to soft hugs and kind words? like yeah, it fit and it worked and it was touching. but when you think about it, it kind of dissolves. which is kinda fitting for a lot of the plot this season.

and to me, that left this season of c0p/hine feeling kind of empty. we reused the ‘can we trust delphine’ plot. we reused the ‘delphine’s off in a foreign country and therefore unreachable’ plot (eighty times this season, right?). i still stand by my point that in season 4 she could have been in hiding, having driven off into the sunset to do mrs. s’s bidding. like they could’ve had delphine funneling info for all of season 4 through mk/siobhan completely off screen. but she just.. did nothing for all of season 4. right. boss ass bitch corporate delphine just... sat around getting told what to do... sure..

or in 5x09 she could have just been around the corner at the grocery store rather than france. and why even bring that up if you’re never going to do anything with it? she went home right when cosima would’ve needed her and she was free to be there for her? what the hell? and there was no setup for it either. one second they’re ‘on the precipice of doing anything they want’ and the next delphine went home? without cosima before the fight is over? like, season 2 delphine would’ve been doing The Most: cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, chores, snuggles, etc etc. but instead she hears the news and hops on the first plane out of the country?

like you guys do realize they didn’t say ‘i love you’ this season at all, right? delphine is ‘motivated by love’ but she doesn’t say it at every possible opportunity? cosima thought she was dead, but doesn’t blurt it out the first time she sees her after waking up? like fuck a sex scene, normalize wlw couples saying ‘i love you’ to each other first.

idk... i know there were scheduling conflicts and i know they had to keep rewriting as the schedule got rearranged, but come on. i can, right now, change a few key scenes that do something for both cosima and delphine’s character, that keeps them both active and doesn’t just ignore 3 seasons of characterization.

which is another point. there was so much they could have done with delphine’s character. not just this season, but for a while. instead of like.. idk following up on the threads they presented (affair with l**kie, changing sides, the girl who slit her wrists which was implied to be delphine herself, seeming to be worth shooting and kidnapping and nursing to back to health to neolution, what she was doing before cosima got there, what she did in geneva, etc etc) they only brought her back to kiss cosima. like bottom line. like, she didn’t really do anything active that someone else wasn’t doing elsewhere except warn siobhan about kira. which they didn’t even listen to her about.

and several times they referred to her as a lesbian when in 1x08 she clearly and fully called herself bisexual. and they shot her. for being in love with cosima. regardless of what they have recently said about ‘knowing about byg and always intending to bring her back’ they... still did it. and right afterwards said some really gross stuff about fans who were upset about it. i don’t really remember all of it, but i do distinctly remember the word ‘reductive’ used to say that fans were reducing her to her sexuality and that was the real problem. which... see the above several paragraphs. pot, kettle. kettle, pot. (i have separate thoughts on the season 3 debacle..)

which brings me to my main thought. i think they were too hyperaware of the fandom. they tried to roll with the scheduling conflicts and make a nice new shiny ship for us. but when there were complaints (*cough* hate *cough*) thrown at creators/cast over it they waffled and changed their minds. which then led to a shay shaped plot hole. also a shay shaped hole in my heart.

and i think someone around season 1 told them they were being progressive and they just... didn’t try to learn new things? idk how to phrase this. like season 1 was genuinely feminist. and the fact that they saw this story unfolding from a female perspective was incredible. and sarah’s storyline throughout the seasons was incredibly feminist. and the fact that they thought to include characters of genders other than cis and sexualities other than straight was fantastic. but after they got a pat on the back for being progressive, they stopped actively trying to call themselves out. they were like, ‘yes i am progressive and feminist therefore everything i produce is good without a second check.’

but this past season was all about petey and the clones were only used to further reinforce his evilness. and felix was more active than sarah, the protagonist. and tony actually got mentioned but he never actually showed up. and their ‘stand-in for the patriarchy’ got to violently murder two women (of two different underrepresented minorities, ASD and middle aged) while going back and abusing another woman (and praising him and saying he actually loved her!!!!). and their lesbian character centric episode was primarily focused on her romantic entanglements rather than, say, her and her character. (which i’ve been learning is actually kind of a problem in the wlw community, is losing yourself to new relationship energy and they could’ve actually taken a stance on this and said something important, but... anyway..)

and the creators were touting this as the most feminist season ever.

...

like okay. by walking0 de..ad and game- of9 thro///nes standards it is. but what they said in interviews and what they put on the screen did not match up. and i think that’s my main problem. like when i turn on my tv i generally turn off my feminism eyes and my lgbt rep wants. bc i generally know that not every show is going to be perfect and as long as it’s not like last man standing then i can tolerate it. but season 1 and their interview presence just got my hopes up. and they just didn’t deliver on their promises, imo.

and that wouldn’t be so bad, but they were so close, like this close!! you can’t see my fingers rn, but they’re almost touching... like they had the perfect setup, a meatball straight down the plate, just begging to be a home run, but they shanked it to right field and got stopped at second base.

like implying in interviews that some characters are nonbinary or confirming characters sexualities is really cool!!! i used to be a r//izzl//es fan, i know how awful it is when cast/creators genuinely don’t want you in their fandom. getting a confirmation is super cool.... but technically it’s not canon, it’s not In The Show. like it’s not untrue either, it’s not not canon. but being Progressive and Feminist and Positive LGBT Rep would’ve been.. idk saying it on the show, in the character’s own words? bc i can go anywhere and get coded representation, i can go back to the fifties and watch stuff with thinly veiled metaphors and small little nudges in the confirmation direction. it’s not something you get to pat yourself on the back for.

like, imo 1x08 was probably the best handled lgbt scene. like delphine stated her identity. and cosima just went along with it. and they got to talk candidly about it. they said ‘gay’ and ‘bisexual’ in the same scene. like??!!?!??!?! that was amazing. but for some reason they couldn’t do that for sarah, or felix. or let tony talk about being trans rather than having it be a hushed whispered conversation between two (then believed to be) cis people without him.

and it was just so frustrating to me, as a viewer, knowing what they meant and seeing what they put out there.

bc they are two different things. i can say whatever i want about this post, but at the end of the day it is just a grammatically incorrect, rambling, walk-about way of saying i have insomnia and was thinking about this enough to try and organize my thoughts. the creators can say whatever they want about the show, but eventually those interviews and those panels will get buried in the internet and all that will stand is their product. which doesn’t have confirmations of those themes within it.

like i’m forever going to love the show and i’m always going to go back and rewatch. it’s always going to be an influence on my writing. it’s just not... me trying to replicate and be like this show it’s trying not to make the same mistakes. which is kinda sad, bc it used to be the other way.

and at the end of the day it is feminist. like it’s about women told from a women’s perspective about allegories for womens’ issues. it’s just not by women so it missed the mark. same goes for the lgbt stuff. it is progressive that they thought to include it, but the stories they ended up telling were closer to the older stuff than what they thought.

i just wish they had brought in a third showrunner that was a woman and had lgbt writers come in to tell the lgbt stories. that doesn’t mean that it would’ve automatically been 100% Unproblematic™ but i think it would have been a lot closer to what they had promised.

anyway, i miss it already.

#thinky thoughts #this has been stewing for the better part of 5 years

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notesandcoffee · 8 years ago

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Opinions 4.19

Psychotherapy is hard to write well, Gale continues to provide more entertainment than any TK plotline, and I try my hand at figuring out how to forget things.

There was so much going on this episode that it was actually hard for me to start somewhere. Everything is just such a good idea. The execution ranges from questionable to excellent, but there's nothing I would consider irrevocably "bad", as we've seen in some previous episodes. Definitely stuff I feel could be improved, so I guess we'll start there.

The "therapy" that's the centerpiece of this episode, where Dr. Krilov stages an abduction and then implants memories in Ressler's memory is okay, given what comes afterwards is both absorbing and entertaining. The payoff is worth the suspension of belief for this part, but I feel like the therapy could have been done better and closer to, you know, actual science. In the scene in question, Krilov goes from narrating Panabaker's language in Ressler's "dream", for lack of a better term, immediately to explaining to his colleagues what exactly he's doing.

I feel like this was done for time purposes, rather than believability, but that doesn't really make it better. Combined with the cut idea that Ressler's memory was supposed to be triggered by Sriracha scent rather than auditory input. There's no real way to do that on-screen without losing at least part of the audience or taking up a lot of time, so I understand why it was cut. But immediately going against a rule that was just made doesn't really seem cool either. It would have kept the audience enrapt if Krilov had only voiced Panabaker in the "dream", and maybe if the colleagues had spoken to themselves, quietly, off to the side. It would give the impression that Ressler is completely hypnotized to the sound of Krilov's voice and is inputting memory rapidly (which he would have been, according to the scene).

That's my strongest real criticism, though. I wasn't really feeling the tension at the beginning, but I also didn't realize quite what the plan was for Ressler and to have him go directly against Panabaker by himself, but it ultimately brought about something that I hadn't expected. Again, there's a bewilderment and a payoff that was more than worth it for me.

Ressler, while trying to talk Gale out of pursuing Reddington through the bodies on the ice rink, receives a call from a detective in Philadelphia about the Reven Wright case, which of course he pursues. Jailing Panabaker for Wright's murder has been a longtime goal of Ressler, one that we've seen him struggle with numerous times in the show after Wright's demise. There, he meets Linda McFadden, who saw Hitchin carrying a body out of Wright's house, presumably her body. Shortly after, the area is SWATted, and everything goes dark. Ressler is picked up by a flip Panabaker shortly after, and pushes her for answers on Wright and McFadden. The two go back and forth for a while, before Panabaker excuses Ressler and instead calls in a threat against McFadden from her own cell phone.

The cell phone Ressler drops doesn't ever payoff, though. I don't think that's really worth pursuing, in this case.

Gale continues to impress with his relentless pursuit of the truth, and he finally meets Liz, after trying to reach her by phone numerous times. He wants her to see the body-filled ice rink to guilt her into telling him where Reddington is and the story. He's already got a great grasp of what happened, complete with memorized dates. He's made a timeline with dates and evidence, all of it through records and without the characters we've known and fallen deeply in love with. He's an acknowledgement that Reddington is still a criminal, in addition to all of the other things we know him to be. He's not a direct threat to Liz, but presents a threat to Reddington, which puts Liz in yet another conflicting position.

However, unlike previous scenarios with TK, the conflict isn't based on Liz's romantic feelings for anyone., something that the audience cannot share. It's about Liz's loyalty, and what she wants to find meaning in. She either protects Reddington and values him as more than an informant, or she finds justice for the victims on the ice rink and turns him in properly. For the first time in years, the audience is asked questions that aren't centered on "what is abuse?" but rather, what's morally more meaningful. Murciano is great at speaking quickly and not allowing Liz or Ressler enough time to think about a reaction before his next statement, even if it caused problems for me personally when I tried to watch the episode sped up.

There isn't enough Aram in this episode. Aram and rest of the P.O. sans Ressler take a backseat, though they're next in line as Gale continues to rip through the task force in order to get to Reddington. With Ressler sidelined, it's anyone's guess as to who Gale targets next. Cooper would be an interesting choice to go after next, as he could use the task force as a shield or insist on taking on Gale himself.

We did get a peek at how Saram is doing, with Aram's line: "... and these days, [Navabi and I] don’t really agree on anything so, you know, it’s gotta be good advice." They've been fighting about a lot, and as colleagues, that's not particularly good for the P.O. as a whole. But because they can come to at least this agreement without much of a conflict, they both care about Liz (and by extension, Reddington) enough to want her to stay away from Gale.

Based on what we know from the Katai Fellowship ordeal and Janet's appearance in the P.O., Navabi has had issues addressing Aram plainly, something Aram isn't comfortable with at all, stuttering and peppering his speech with more fillers than usual in this particular line. I'm still a bit unclear as to why Navabi has such a distaste for her colleague, but it's nice to know that something that trivial will not break up the team... yet. With the pressure Gale is using as a weapon in this arc, it'll be interesting to see how that affects Saram, which it ultimately will.

Red mentions how Kaplan's personality has changed, something longtime fans have noted since the beginning of the arc. It's an acknowledgement that it's not quite the same Kaplan we've seen in previous episodes of the show, for better or worse. Now that it's a noted adjustment of Kaplan's personality, we can start looking as to why her personality changed drastically so quickly, and what changes can be retroactively made to the flashback episode, if any. Last Opinions I theorized that the new personality was the result of an untreated TBI, but because we're working slow closely with memory, I thought it was worth a second look.

But we see something new here -- Krilov mentions that he saw Liz two years ago, not twenty-five. And he doesn't seem to be lying about it either. @eaglechica19 has a great thesis on Caul hiring Krilov and how it intertwines with Red's relationship with Liz, and if you haven't read it yet, open a tab for it here.

And because I was curious, I wondered if Kaplan remembered things differently than how they actually occurred, inspiring her change in personality and autobiographical memories being disjointed. If that were the case, it would be similar to how Krilov's implanted memories in Liz and Ressler worked. Except, as I mentioned previously, Kaplan's access to medical attention, be it nefarious or not, was incredibly limited. If Kaplan's fake memories weren't implanted by Krilov or Orchard, how did she get them? And could we use that to learn about Liz's memories?

Disclaimer: I am not a neuroscientist. I'm a fucking nerd with an internet connection. Please consult actual fucking medical attention if any of these things might apply to you.

This is on the Mayo Clinic's website for amnesia:

Another rare type of amnesia, called dissociative (psychogenic) amnesia, stems from emotional shock or trauma, such as being the victim of a violent crime. In this disorder, a person may lose personal memories and autobiographical information, but usually only briefly.

Reading this looks like a terrible plot device, I'm aware, but this is a real thing that happens to real people. It's worth reading up on, in my opinion, for that reason alone.

But in our world of fiction, we've been exploring two different people's memories. Both of whom have survived traumatic incidents -- plot-dependent incidents -- that we've only seen in that autobiographical memory. Liz's memory was toyed with intentionally, at least once by Red. If those memories are wrong, then we’re not viewing the story completely. So where can we find that story?

From WebMD, emphasis mine:

Dissociative amnesia is not the same as simple amnesia, which involves a loss of information from memory, usually as the result of disease or injury to the brain. With dissociative amnesia, the memories still exist but are deeply buried within the person's mind and cannot be recalled. However, the memories might resurface on their own or after being triggered by something in the person's surroundings.

This fits with what we've seen so far from Liz, in her shooting Connolly. We also see this in how Kaplan recalls her past, with bits floating in and out as she goes on her grotesque road trip to dig up bodies. The memories themselves are shattered, and while certain parts of the memory are intact, some of the most crucial bits are fuzzy. As @eaglechica pointed out, we don't know for sure who is fighting in Liz's memory. Certain parts of Kaplan's memory are missing as well, such as the long time gaps that were barely covered by a cut on-screen.

As noted, Krilov's psychotherapy is a bit of a farce on Ressler, easily broken by Liz, which leaves me to wonder what exactly he did to Liz to make her forget... whatever he was told to. When successful, how does his psychotherapy actually work, and can we learn anything from it? Is there any way for someone to completely forget something happened?

It's tempting to say "repression" in the same way Freud imagined it -- that is, traumatic experiences were sealed off but left behind a specific behavior associated with it, like depression, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, etc. This concept has largely been disproven by the scientific community. Long story short: victims telling someone they forgot what happened was more beneficial than coming out with the truth for a incredible amount of time. Likewise, I wasn't able to find a psychotherapist who specialized in making people forget experiences, but an incredible amount of hypnotherapists who specialized in dealing with the effects of trauma.

As far as I can tell, there hasn't been a documented experiment where a person was able to successfully completely forget an experience. However, it's well-documented that every feeling you have, every thought, is a result of a series of neurons firing off at the right time with the right signal. Mess with the timing, mess with the signal or how its carried, mess with the part firing off in the first place, and the results can be vastly different. The closest to having someone intentionally forget an experience that I was able to find in academia was an experiment in 2010, where a drug was able to block "fear" signals when mice encountered a loud noise. Because our communication with mice is limited, we don't know if they "forgot" what a loud sound means in the same way that humans might forget a phone number or a grocery list. We do know that when we drug mice, they don't have the same chemical reaction that would cause them to feel fear or anxiety after they've had a bad experience. For our purposes, they know what happened previously when there was a loud noise, but they excuse it and continue with their day, while on drugs.

If Kaplan's working with a traumatic brain injury that's fucking with her memory, Liz needs to be on drugs consistently to wholly forget hers. We haven't been with Liz 24/7, but I'm going to go ahead and say she hasn't been on memory-altering drugs for most of that time. Instead, Krilov has used a combination of hypnotherapy and drugs (as seen in Ressler's "dream") to make the emotions associated with that memory less traumatic and harder for her to recall.

If Kaplan is suffering from dissociative amnesia, we might be able to get the whole story soon, similar to how Liz is revealing her memories. If Liz happens to hit the right trigger, we'll get the memories that we desperately want to see.

#the blacklist #opinions #gale needs a nickname so bad #cinnamon roll hacker supreme

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yumekuimono · 8 years ago

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[Avengers] In the Aftermath

A/N: I had to come out of my Civil War denial to write this. I hope you’re happy.

“You did what?”

Tony stops at the voice. He knows he shouldn’t technically be in this part of the compound, shouldn’t know that T’challa is harboring Barnes and the rest of the—not the Avengers, not any more. The…whatever they are. But he couldn’t face trying to sleep, not with his nightmares coming back with a vengeance, only this time it’s not just dust and dirty water, the portal and the sucking void, it’s falling and when he finally opens his eyes on the ground it’s to Steve’s face and the shield coming down, over and over. He knows it’s a problem—he needs to sleep, especially with Ross on his back and himself running all over the globe trying to wrestle the Accords into something acceptable—but the last time this happened, the whole PTSD-nightmares-and-panic-attacks thing, well, that had just gone so well, hadn’t it? So since he doesn’t have a workshop here to hide in, he’s wandering the compound of the royal family of Wakanda. He is technically their guest.

“Jesus, Mary Mother of God.” Barnes sounds weary, and Tony can imagine him pinching at the bridge of his nose.

“Buck—” Steve cuts off with a yelp, and Tony edges forwards. Through the open door he can see Barnes, evidently having just smacked Steve upside the head, now pinching his ear, hard enough that Steve is leaning over slightly to try to alleviate the pain.

“Steven Grant Rogers, you mighta been born about a hundred years ago but you are obviously still a child. You never did know when to stay out of a fight, but this ain’t back alley scuffles anymore. You think just because you have a museum exhibit and a fancy uniform, you can take on a hundred and seventeen countries? You went to art school. We’re not fighting the war anymore, Steve. There is no great enemy that’ll give you the license to waltz into any country you like and do as you please just because you think you’re right. That’s over with, and you gotta get that through your thick head. God knows I’ve been tryna do the same. So if you want me to stay outta cryo and go to therapy, then you’re going too.”

“Ow, Bucky. You didn’t see, though, some of the things that were in there. They weren’t treating us like humans—”

“I know that. Which is why you are going to sit down like a civilized adult with those politicians and fix them. You can’t solve every problem by hitting it with a goddamn shield.”

Tony’s jaw is hanging open.

“I couldn’t let them kill you,” Steve pleads.

Barnes looks away from him, the expression on his face painfully familiar. “That’s not the point. And anyway, I can take care of myself.”

Then he sees Tony hanging around by the door, and Tony has a moment of blind panic. “You are also going to apologize to Stark,” he says, loud enough that Tony knows he means right now. He stays frozen to the spot as Barnes drags Steve over to the door before letting go of his ear.

Steve straightens, rubbing at the side of his head, and blinks at him. “Tony,” he says, as if he’s surprised Tony is here, like he didn’t think Tony would actually go through with working to change the Accords like he’d said they should right at the beginning. A bitter taste rises at the back of his throat, but his heart is also pounding fast enough to run right out of his chest, and he tries not to remember Steve slamming the shield down right over it.

“Steve,” he chokes out.

Barnes has his one hand on his hip, face set and staring Steve down. There’s no getting out of this for him, and Tony’s feet are still stuck to the floor.

Steve scrubs his hand through the back of his hair. “Look, I… I’m sorry. About what happened. I wish it hadn’t had to end like that. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your parents. I thought I was sparing you, but I guess I was really sparing myself. I hope you—”

Barnes smacks him. “Don’t finish that.” Then he turns to Tony. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have let it go as far as it did. I understand if you don’t want to have anything to do with me after this.”

It takes a moment for Tony to get his throat to form sound again, and when it does it’s pathetically bare, without any of his usual brash confidence. “I guess I should also apologize—”

“I don’t accept,” Barnes says loudly, talking over him.

Tony nearly flinches. He’s exhausted, and suddenly on the verge of tears.

“I don’t accept because you’ve got nothing to apologize for. Not to us, anyway. Maybe to that spider kid for getting him involved in a fight with trained professionals twice his age.” He smacks Steve again.

“Ow, hey, what was that for?”

“That’s for dropping a jetway on said kid.”

Bizarrely, hysterically, Tony wants to laugh.

Steve really does start coming to Tony’s meetings in Wakanda about the Accords. They agree on a lot of what needs to be changed, if not always how and to what degree. Tony leaves it to T’challa and the others to argue Steve down as to how much global political leaders are willing to allow. He tries not to talk much to Steve at all, keeps himself on the opposite side of the room, avoids him before and after the meetings. He doesn’t think he could handle being in a room alone with him. The worst part about it is that they actually get things done. Sometimes it takes a day or two before Steve grudgingly backs down to a compromise, and Tony thinks that that’s probably thanks to Barnes’ influence behind the scenes or else the therapy, but they do make progress politically. Personally, Tony is still scared of Steve, spends the meetings struggling through the signs of an impending panic attack and the time afterward actually panicking. He can hear Howard’s voice sneering at him about it. Stop crying. Stark men are made of iron.

He doesn’t see Barnes at all. But after a couple of weeks, he musters up the effort to contact the Royal Science Institute of Wakanda to make sure the electricals in his arm had been capped off properly so that they weren’t sending bad data to his brain. He’d picked up the rest of the metal appendage along with the shield when he’d finally been rescued from Siberia. The virtuosic engineering and some morbid desire to have both of the things that had nearly killed him made him keep it. Now, slowly, when he’s in the right sort of sleeplessly fatalistic mood, he starts to pick it apart, reverse engineer it. It really is an incredible piece of biotech, although Tony doesn’t want to think about the procedures that must have gone into attaching it. He doesn’t want to sympathize with Barnes. And anyway it’s easier not to think about the arm as a once-living piece of a person, to just view it as a piece of technology. When he gets the electrical hookups to fire in the right pattern to close the hand into a fist, he has to rush into the bathroom to throw up.

Once he’s completely disassembled and reassembled the arm, once he has an intimate and exact understanding of how it works, the natural next step is to build his own. That’s always been what he’s done. Take stuff apart and then improve it, make a better version because he can. It remains an academic exercise until he has a completed prosthetic sitting on his worktable, made with lightweight titanium alloy plating and carbon fiber microelectrodes. Then he’s not sure what he’s going to do with it. Scrapping it completely is out of the question. To put off having to deal with it, he asks Pepper why Stark Industries doesn’t already have a line of prosthetics. When she informs him that they do, actually, he sends his notes off to the relevant department with the demand that they use them to revolutionize the field. Then he scrapes together what information he can get from the HYDRA info-dump and the Wakandan scientists about the implants in Barnes’ shoulder, and goes about adding on parts to the arm he’s got so that it could be installed as a functional replacement. Purely hypothetically, of course. If he also happens to find out that Barnes has so far declined other prosthetics, that’s his own business. It’s not like he has a reason to be in Wakanda anymore anyway, now that the Accords meetings there have finished up.

And then, all of a sudden, he does. The Accords have been finalized and ratified, and all the trials have gone through, and the Wakandan fugitives can go home. Tony wonders if they’ll appreciate how much work and money both he and T’challa had put in to make sure they could, or if all they’ll see is the conditions. In the end he doesn’t go to Wakanda, lets them find out the news another way. He keeps track of them anyway. Lang and Clint have their families, but Sam also goes home. Wanda goes to live with the Bartons. Tony hadn’t lived in the New Avengers Facility except in the weeks after the whole…thing so he could help Rhodey, but the empty buildings where they used to be had made him miserable, so Rhodey had eventually moved himself into the Tower for Tony. Which was still not great with the Avengers and the guilt and the hurt in his mind, but it was better. With nowhere else to go Vision had accompanied them, but now he moves out to join Wanda. That leaves Steve and Barnes, who rent an apartment in Brooklyn. Sometimes Tony thinks it would be easier if he could just let them all go. At least maybe he wouldn’t be reminded of how alone he is.

When he does finally contact Barnes, it’s in a fit of pique. That arm’s been sitting in his workshopp for months, and he’s tired of seeing it. He leaves a voicemail, only slightly drunk, late at night. To his surprise, Barnes texts back. He arrives in person three days later. Tony hadn’t been sure what he was going to do when Barnes got there until he saw the feed from the security camera at the front desk. He’s dressed in a battered jacket and jeans, with a Cubs hat pulled low on his head. With the missing arm he looks like any scruffy veteran who could have walked in from the street. He’d even come in from the entrance to Grand Central underneath the Tower, probably took the subway. Tony gives the go-ahead to send him up to the lab.

They stand in awkward, uncomfortable silence while Barnes stares at his old arm, a complicated mix of emotions on his face. He reaches several times as if to touch it, but never does. Finally, he turns to Tony’s model.

“You made this?”

“Yeah. Uh, it’s titanium alloy, light enough not to strain your shoulder and back like the other one. I improved the inner mechanisms too, not that you’re probably interested in all the details. There’s also a covering, synthetic, that’ll make it look like a regular arm and not, you know, metal. That’s optional.”

“Why are you showing this to me?”

“I told you it’s been sitting around and I’m tired of it. It’s yours if you want it.”

Barnes looks directly at him then for the first time, deeply conflicted. He looks like he wants to say yes, but what he actually says is, “I don’t do so well with doctors these days.”

Tony will never know why he let the words slip out of his mouth, it’s not like he needs more self-flagellation, but he offers, “I could install it for you. Just promise me you won’t try to kill me with it.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. The air between them is suddenly thick and heavy, viscous in his throat and heavy in his lungs. Barnes’ eyes cut away.

“I don’t… I don’t do that anymore. I’m trying…not to do that anymore.”

The words are bitter on his tongue, but he can’t stop. “Yeah, how’s that working out for you.”

Surprisingly, Barnes’ voice is also bitter when he mutters, “It’d be better if I wasn’t living with Steve.”

Tony blinks. “Wait, what?”

Barnes rolls his eyes, glancing back at him before he goes back to staring at the corner of a workbench. “Steve wouldn’t be Steve if he wasn’t a stubborn asshole who doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. The day he passes up a fight is the day he dies. Me, I haven’t been okay since I was captured in fucking 1943. I just want it all to stop.”

Tony’s hand goes up to tap at his sternum, a habit he hasn’t had for years now. “Yeah, I get that.”

Silence descends again as Tony attaches the new prosthetic. There’s nothing he can do about the socket or the plating in the shoulder, so those stay as they are. They’d require surgery anyway, and Tony doesn’t think Barnes would go for that any time soon. Barnes watches him intently the entire time, and Tony tries to go as quickly and painlessly as possible. He can’t help glancing up repeatedly, though. From this distance, he finds himself resenting Barnes’ stupid pretty face.

“What do you want me to do with the old one?” he asks when he’s done as Barnes is carefully rolling his shoulder, flexing the fingers on his new left hand.

“Scrap it.”

“Alright.” Tony stands, intending to take the old prosthetic to the junk pile, but doesn’t make it farther than that.

Barnes is looking steadily up at him, face inscrutable. Just when Tony’s about to say something because it’s starting to get uncomfortable, he asks, “Do you ever wish things had been different?”

“All the time.”

“Bad question. Do you ever wish we had met differently?”

Tony looks back at the stupid pretty face of the stupid broken man sitting in his workshop wearing a ridiculous piece of his technology. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

#fanfic #Avengers #post-cacw #tony stark #Bucky Barnes #Steve Rogers #winteriron #sorta #possibly?#ptsd #no one is okay

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notwritinganyflufftoday · 5 years ago

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OC tober writing challenge: Day 15-18

I missed a couple of days, because I felt unwell, but I think I’m better now and I’ve used today to sort of catch up and use this opportunity to link the different words together to make a longer piece (it’s still just 1.3K) But I hope it’s nice (even tho it’s completely unedited)

@oc-growth-and-development

Scream | Wild | Safety | Childhood || OC: Oliver Wickham & Storm Wickham || 1341 words

Scream

A scream coming from his son's room woke up Oliver in the middle of the night. Next to him in their bed, Emma, Oliver's wife, was stirring and mumbled something as she groggily woke up. Oliver pecked her cheek and whispered, "Go back to sleep, Em, I'll check up on Storm." With a sleepy nod, Emma dozed off again and curled herself up in the sheets, rolling over to the middle of their bed.

Oliver swiftly crossed the hallway to the bedroom of his son and cracked the door open. The room was shrouded in darkness and only a sliver of light entered the room. Oliver softly passed the threshold and made his way to Storm's bedside. After switching the cloud-shaped nightlight, which shone a pale blue, he crouched down next to the shivering lump on the bed. It was undoubtedly his five-year-old son hiding underneath his blanket. Oliver's heart clenched in his chest when he heard his son squeak as he placed his hand on top of where he assumed his head would be.

"Storm, it's daddy. Everything's fine." Oliver's voice was rough from sleeping, but he tried to soften it as much as he could for Storm.

The tremors continued, but less noticeably and a mop of blonde hair poked out from under the blanket. Oliver found his hands gently carding through the strands to calm the young boy. It was something his own mom had done with him and he knew it worked like a charm every single time.

Storm lowered the blanket some more and his wide blue eyes met Oliver's grey ones and he had his little arms thrown around Oliver's neck the next second. Oliver took the blanket to wrap it around Storm and let the boy rest his head in the crook of his neck. Oliver didn't stop his hands from caressing Storm's hair and asked, "Did you have a nightmare?"

Storm nodded, face still pressed against his chest.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The boy shook his head vehemently and buried himself deeper into his dad's warm, comfortable embrace.

Wild

Of course having his parents break up wasn't easy, but it had been five years and Oliver had really expected Storm to be less... fierce and reckless by now.

"What's this?" Oliver asked sternly. He hated having to be stern, but he felt like he had to do it more and more with the fifteen-year-old in his house.

The blonde teenager just shrugged and made to walk off. Oliver grabbed him by the wrist, causing Storm to glare at him and try to force himself out of his dad's grasp like he was a wild animal and Oliver wanted to cage him.

"Just, let go!" Storm scowled.

For a moment Oliver contemplated letting it go, but he knew he'd regret not saying anything about it more. "I get the alcohol, but... drugs?" Oliver's voice automatically lowered, not out of shame or anger, but out of concern.

"It was just a bit of harmless fun." And as usual, Storm had to turn it on his dad. "You used to smoke." He even raised his eyebrows, as if to challenge his dad to argue against him.

"You're fifteen! And I'm worried about you."

Storm gulped and looked down at the floor guiltily, "Well, you don't have to be, because I stopped taking them." He added, "I didn't really like it at that much."

Something definitely happened and Oliver wanted to know, he needed to know, he was Storm's dad for god's sake. But if he pushed, he would just push his son further away and their relationship was already strained and ready to snap.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

“Like hell.” Storm shook his head, eyes still locked to the floor and pulled his arm out of his dad's grip.

Safety

At age 25 Storm had lost a lot of his edge and teenage angst, which instead was replaced with an anxiety disorder and terrible coping strategies he was trying to unlearn in therapy. Oliver was just thankful his son had finally accepted the help offered to him and he was proud his son had made so many friends in recent years who he could count and rely on.

One of which was Storm's very close friend. He usually picked Storm up after his therapy sessions and they would drive around and hang out, before the man dropped Storm off at Oliver's place. Sometimes Storm would stay over at his friend's place, which was alright because he took very good care of Storm and his son always seemed happier afterwards.

It was a mystery how Oliver never noticed it before. He didn't think of himself as oblivious, and maybe he already knew about it unconsciously, but he still felt a bit surprised when he saw Storm kissing his best friend boyfriend on the front porch. It had been the day after Storm stayed over at his friend's place... and suddenly Storm's happier mood after staying over made a lot more sense too. Oliver hadn't meant to walk in on them, as he had only opened the door to grab the newspaper.

After a while the two men separated, but they stayed in the safety of their own little bubble, oblivious to anything happening outside of it. Eventually the other man had to leave for work and Storm very reluctantly pulled himself away. With a small peck planted on his cheek, which obviously meant "see you later", Storm turned around to walk to the front door and froze when he saw his dad, but then seemed to steel himself and walked towards him.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Oliver asked as Storm passed him in the hall.

"Nope." Storm replied with the smallest hint of a smile.

Childhood

"What's wrong?" Asked Storm, looking up at his dad, while he was on the ground making a puzzle with a seven-year-old girl, his niece.

Oliver sat down on the couch and didn't know what to say. He knew his now 35-year-old son didn't want to have children, but by god, he was a natural, as was his husband.

It was like Storm could sense what his dad was thinking and he groaned, "Dad, please." He even threw him a pointed look.

"You're a natural."

Storm rolled his eyes, but didn't reply. He didn't want to start a scene, especially not with his niece in the room. Fortunately his dad dropped the subject as well and resigned to watching Storm play with his niece. Storm and Luna finished the puzzle and she did a little celebratory dance, while Storm cheered her on.

Moments like these made Oliver think if he had done similar stuff with Storm and if Storm even remembered any of it. If he remembered how he used to ask his dad for hugs without needing words, how he used to beg his parents for a dog and how he clung to his dad's neck after a nightmare.

"What are you thinking about now?" Storm questioned with an ever-present frown on his face.

"Your childhood... you-" What was he about to ask, you loved me, right? Before everything got mucked up and you had to grow up. He couldn't ask that.

"I was perfectly happy as a child." Storm replied. He sat cross-legged with Luna in front of him, braiding her hair. He then grinned up at his dad, looking about ten years younger. "I did want to have a younger sibling." He confessed.

"It's a bit late for that." Oliver said matter-of-factly, smiling as his son cracked up.

"I know. I should've talked to you sooner." And with the sudden serious tone Storm took, Oliver knew it was about so much more than Storm's childhood wish for a little brother or sister.

"I would've waited, as long as you needed. You know that."

"Dammit dad, I have a reputation to uphold, I'm Luna's cool uncle, not her blubbering mess of an uncle." Storm complained, but shot a teary smile at his dad regardless.

#oc tober #oc #creative writing #writing #storm wickham

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cristinajourdanqp · 7 years ago

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The (Maybe Not So) Definitive Guide to Cold Therapy

Cold is really catching these days. Aubrey Marcus, whom I recently filmed a nice podcast with, was asked about his winning daily behaviors on another show. The very first thing he mentioned was “exposure to cold.” His practice is finishing his morning shower with a three-minute stint at full cold setting. He mentioned the hormonal benefits but also the mental edge he gets from psyching up and accepting the challenge instead of wimping out. He also cited research that people who engage in therapeutic cold exposure catch fewer upper respiratory infections. Hence, like many other elements of conventional wisdom, the old wives tale is backwards. Of course, we are talking about acute and optimal duration cold exposure, not prolonged exposure to elements that weaken your resistance and contribute to immune disturbances.

As with keto, there’s much more to be learned in this burgeoning field before we can operate in definitive (hence today’s title). Today, however, I’ll expose you (the first of more double entendrés to be on the lookout for) to important concepts and best practices so that you may enjoy the vaunted benefits and avoid some of the negative effects of going about cold exposure wrong.

Cold therapy has been around forever as in the athletic world—a central element of injury treatment and post-workout recovery. Ice packs wrapped on aching joints are a staple of every high school, college and professional team locker room. The iconic stainless steel cold whirlpool has been a post-workout destination of professional ballers for decades, and Olympic distance runners have inspired millions of recreational runners to dutifully wade into a cold stream, lake or pool after long runs to soothe and revitalize inflamed muscles. In recent years, whole body cryotherapy clinics have exploded in popularity, making grand promises in return for $45-$90 (the latter in NYC) for a three-minute session in a chamber blowing air at 190-255 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. I haven’t tried cryo, but let’s just say I’ve heard it stings.

In writing Primal Endurance, my co-author Brad Kearns and I studied the cold therapy subject extensively to convey some best practices in the recovery chapter of the book. For this article, we also consulted with Dr. Kelly “K-Starr” Starrett—thought leader on all things mobility, rehab, prevention, and performance (check MobilityWOD.com or Becoming A Supple Leopard for cutting edge strategies that will keep you moving optimally and avoiding breakdown and injury) and reviewed numerous articles, which you will find linked or at the end of the post.

It appears that while cold therapy can offer some proven benefits for inflammation control, enhanced cellular, immune, and cognitive function, and recovery from exercise, numerous elements of cold therapy claims seem to be hype, notably the expensive cryochambers (cold water is better) and the potential of cold exposure to reduce body fat (cut grains and sugars instead!) Worse, the prominent cold therapy practice of post-exercise immersion into cold water or application of ice appears to be counterproductive, compromising potential fitness gains generated by hard workouts.

What NOT To Do…

The most emphatic suggestion made by K-Starr is that cold exposure should happen far away from the stimulus of workouts. While it feels soothing to wade into the icy river right after a run or to relax with an ice pack on your back after a pickup basketball game or CrossFit session, blunting post-exercise inflammation can compromise the adaptive response to workouts, of which inflammation is a critical component. Your muscles becoming inflamed during exercise—and remaining that way for hours afterward are part of how they become stronger and more resilient for future performances. In the hours after workouts, your muscles and other body systems are challenged to naturally repair exercise-induced damage, recalibrate to homeostasis, and replenish depleted cellular energy. Cold exposure also inhibits the function of the lymphatic system in clearing inflammatory toxins from the bloodstream. The takeaway: while cold feels great after workouts, don’t do it.

Furthering this concept about letting inflammation run its course, I know world ranked pro triathletes are experimenting with a complete avoidance of not just cold therapy, but also stretching, massage, and myofascial release (foam rolling.) The thinking here is that when those lower back muscles stiffen after 80 miles of hilly cycling, or hamstrings tighten up after a set of 800s on the track, loosening them up with massage strokes or foam rolling will weaken them and counteract the training stimulus. Again, these unwinding therapies might feel great, but you are teaching the central nervous system to relax the muscles that you just asked to contract with great force and duration for the workout. Andrew MacNaughton, former elite pro triathlete and current coach of both top professionals and recreational endurance athletes, says succinctly: “Don’t help your body, otherwise you lose some of the adaptation you’re seeking through your challenging workouts.”

The stuff is so counterintuitive that it becomes intuitive. Are you with me? Consider how it’s now widely understood that static stretching weakens muscles for up to 30 minutes and that you should not static stretch before workouts. This seems like a related principle applied to post workout. Keep in mind that we are isolating this “leave it be” concept to the topic of fitness adaptation. If you are trying to recover from (or prevent) injuries, massage, stretching, and foam rolling can make a valuable contribution—even in and around workouts as directed by an expert. Good old ice is still a recommended treatment in the immediate aftermath of an acute injury to help contain the swelling to the injured ankle (e.g., pickup basketball game) or eye (e.g., parking lot fight after pickup basketball game.)

However, the now dated RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) protocol for injury healing after the ~24-hour acute phase has been replaced by ECM (Elevate, Compress, and Move). Starrett is a leading advocate for ECM, with the emphasis on Move as the top priority for those sprained ankles or stiff calves. Look at some of K-Starr’s stuff on YouTube (like the amazing Voodoo Floss treatment), or read Becoming a Supple Leopard, and you’ll realize that many of today’s soothing therapies and gadgets can be bested by flexibility/mobility drills to help you move with more efficiency and less injury risk in the first place.

Back to cold therapy—it appears the greatest benefits accrue to the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, and immune system rather than the muscles. It’s difficult if not impossible for cold exposure to speed the healing of muscle damage incurred during training. Patience and increased general everyday movement are the big ticket items here.

In recent years, I’ve made a concerted effort to take frequent short walks or perform very light calisthenics or mobility sequences in the hours after a high intensity sprint workout or Ultimate Frisbee match, and it really seems to help me wake up the following day with less stiffness. My Primal Collagen Fuel regimen deserves tons of credit here too; it’s been an absolute game changer, particularly as I continue to insist on doing explosive jumps, burst and lateral movement against fit 20- and 30-somethings on the Ultimate field (yes, I’ve discovered that there are some big time gamers in Miami too!)

So, Should I Shell Out Like Cristiano Ronaldo For Cyrotherapy?

I was suspicious of the cryotherapy craze from the start, and Starrett concurs. Research is building that cryotherapy doesn’t deliver the same level of benefit that water exposure does. Starrett even observes that folks following a devoted cryo regimen don’t seem to tolerate cold water very well! Instead, for the price of only a handful of cryo sessions, I suggest you instead go to the cutting edge of cold therapy with an inexpensive and easily-accessible chest freezer regimen—details shortly.

When Is The Best Time For Cold Therapy?

Allow for a minimum of a couple hours, preferably more, after workouts before introducing cold exposure. Perhaps the best time for cold exposure is first thing in the morning for a cellular and central nervous system energizer, and also right before bed in order to help lower body temperature—a key element of transitioning into a good night’s sleep.

Chest Freezers: Not Just For Grass-Fed Beef Anymore

If you’re in Finland or in the Colorado rockies and have a year-round cold lake or river nearby (shout out to body hacking guru Ben Greenfield, author of Beyond Training and host of Ben Greenfield Podcast, who indeed has a cold river running through his property outside Spokane, WA), hey—you’re good to go! For the rest of us who don’t have a readily available natural source of cold water that’s reliably under 60 degrees (a good upper limit to observe for therapeutic practices, down to a lower limit of just above freezing), it’s time to talk about the wonder world of the chest freezer. Yep, the same item previously recommended on MDA for storing big orders of Internet-sourced grass-fed beef and other bulk-order treasures.

The idea here is to repurpose a chest freezer into a readily available, any time, any place cold plunge (even Miami, although I don’t think my high rise would allow me to sneak one into the first floor fitness center.). My Primal Endurance and Keto Reset Diet co-author Brad Kearns has plunged deep into the cold therapy scene (that’s #3 double-e if you’re keeping score) with a deluxe chest freezer setup and twice-a-day regimen of brief immersion into near-freezing water.

What you do here is take a 12-15 cubic foot, top opening chest freezer, fill it with water, and then run the motor on a timer for only around 1.5-4 hours per day—depending on the power of your unit, your ambient temperatures, and your desired exposure temperature. For a moderate investment of perhaps $200 on Craigslist or $400 for an ample-sized new unit (Brad grabbed this one with free home delivery), you are in the cold therapy business.

Brad’s preferred water temperature is 33 ºF (icicle alert!), maintained through continual tweaking of the 24-hour timer. Other enthusiasts like to keep water anywhere from 45-60 degrees, with exposure times ranging from 4 minutes at 44 degrees (easy to remember, per Dave Kobrine in Newport Coast, CA—Brad’s initial inspiration for cold therapy) to nearly 10 minutes at 60 degrees. Starrett, who keeps his water in the forties and has twice-weekly gatherings of friends for what he calls “church services” consisting of contrast therapy between chest freezer and hot sauna, confirms that there are no strict protocols to tout as superior to others, and surely significant individual variation in cold tolerance. “Get out before you start shivering!,” Starrett exclaims. “Never stay in to the extent that you suffer or experience pain or burning. Gabby and Laird suggest that if you’re in there long enough to shiver, you’re just showing off.”

Brad describes how he used to set a timer for three minutes at 33 ºF and tried to last that long but then realized that this could compromise the intended purpose of enjoying a Zenlike, mood-elevating start to the day. Instead, he prefers to start with a full submerging, then move hands and head out of water to complete a cycle of 20 slow, deep, diaphragmatic breaths while otherwise fully immersed—which ends up taking around three minutes. As cold water master Wim Hof has popularized lately, pairing a breathing regimen with your cold water immersion will enhance the circulation and oxygen delivery benefits.

Check out Brad’s video (completed in only one take), in which he describes (coherently, while sitting in freezing water) the benefits and setup logistics—everything you need to get started:

youtube

Benefits of Cold Exposure

The shock of cold exposure stimulates assorted fight or flight hormonal processes, which deliver an adaptive benefit because the stressor is brief. Contrast the prolonged fight or flight stimulation of hectic modern life (or exposing yourself to cold for too long and catching a cold—duh), which leads to breakdown and burnout.

Optimally brief cold exposure is a hormetic stressor—a natural stressor that delivers a net positive effect. Your heart rate and respiration increase as a way to try and keep warm, increasing blood flow and oxygen delivery throughout the body. Norepinephrine floods your brain, boosting vigilance, focus, attention and mood, and reducing pain and inflammation. The norepinephrine spike from cold exposure delivers what we often call an endorphin rush—natural pain relief and an enhanced sense of well-being.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick, one of the absolute best communicators of cutting edge health and longevity science anywhere, cites research that norepinephrine can rise 200-300 percent with just a 20-second immersion into freezing water a couple times a week (imagine going three minutes, twice a day like Brad—no wonder he was such a big help with this article). Patrick explains that norepinephrine also helps reduce inflammation by inhibiting inflammatory cytokines like the noted bad guy TNF-alpha, a known accomplice in many modern disease patterns.

Quelling inflammatory cytokines is also believed to help battle anxiety and depression. A researcher named Nikolai Shevchuk was quoted in a Fast Company article by Chris Gayomali, speculating about the mechanisms by which cold exposure can boost mood: “probably the stimulation of the dopaminergic transmission in the mesocorticolimbic and nigrostriatal pathway. These dopaminergic pathways are known to be involved in the regulation of emotions. There is a lot of research linking these brain areas to depression.” Indeed, it’s been chronicled that VanGogh was treated in an asylum for depression with two-hour cold baths, twice a week, to combat his well-known condition of depression.

Further tidbits were offered in the Fast Company article from Australian cold water researcher Ned Brophy-Williams on the anti-inflammatory benefits of cold water immersion: “It moves blood from the peripheral to deep blood vessels, thereby limiting inflammation and swelling and improving venous return. Metabolites and waste products built up during exercise can be efficiently removed by the body and nutrients quickly replenished to fatigued muscles.”

Carrying on if you’re still not convinced… Your lymphatic system is activated by cold exposure, helping speed the clearance of toxins from tissues throughout the body. You also elicit an enhanced anti-oxidative defense with increased T cell activity to improve your immune function.

Finally, you may have heard Dr. Patrick promoting the hot topic of heat shock proteins, and how sauna/heat exposure can deliver assorted health benefits. Patrick also informs us that cold exposure releases so-called cold shock proteins such as RNA binding motif 3 (RBM3) that are linked to the regeneration of synapses in the same manner as heat shock proteins. As the Finns have known for centuries, it seems like temperature alterations—deliberate exposure to both cold and hot—deliver phenomenal health benefits.

Cold Exposure—The Right Way—To Boost Recovery

For fitness enthusiasts looking to speed recovery with cold therapy, it’s now clear that the immediate post-exercise inflammation reduction is potentially harmful, and that implementing a simple daily regimen of morning and/or evening exposure can deliver the aforementioned benefits without compromising fitness adaptations. In recent years during the winter months in Malibu, Carrie and I would end our evenings with some 104F spa time, interspersed by quick visits to the sub-60F pool and back to the spa. I’d always end with a few minutes in the pool, leaving me wonderfully relaxed, cool, and ready for sleep. Brad’s morning chest freezer ritual looks as good or better than a morning caffeine blast to get going on a busy, productive day.

Beyond the exciting emerging science, anecdotal evidence from enthusiasts also suggests that toughing out a cold shower or committing to a focused cold therapy regimen has profound mood elevating effects. Primal Blueprint’s own Brian McAndrew (yeah, check out what our guy behind the camera looks like!), who produces our podcasts and fabulous videos on both our YouTube Channel and our comprehensive online multimedia educational courses, has dabbled in cold exposure, using contrast therapy at his health club (going back and forth between the ~50F cold plunge and the sauna at his Portland, OR health club), or just lingering up to his torso in a wintertime cold swimming pool. Brian relates, “All I know is that the worse I made myself feel in the moment [by staying longer in the cold], the better I felt afterwards in regards to mood. This was true for both cold and hot. Having the cold plunge and sauna together lets you go to further extremes, because you know you can get immediate relief at any moment with contrasting cold or warmth.”

Cold Exposure Gives Meaning And Richness To Life—Really!

I believe there are other profound cold therapy benefits that are hard-to-quantify. Starrett contends that your cold exposure practice can serve as a good barometer for your state of recovery and desire to train. He asserts that sore, stiff, or poorly functioning muscles seem to be more sensitive to cold exposure, and that if you’re in a fatigue/overtraining rut, your tolerance to cold diminishes accordingly. K-Starr notices that when he’s fried from big workouts or stressful travel, the cold water stings and he wants out quickly. When he’s less stressed and more rested, he has no problem relaxing in there for up to eight minutes. Remember, he’s jumping right into a dry sauna. As Brian described, your exposure times can increase when you have access to a sweet contrast setup.

Starrett’s “desire to train” concept deserves further appreciation. In his set of exclusive video interviews in the Primal Endurance Mastery Course and the Keto Reset Mastery Course, he references studies with athletes suggesting that a subjective “desire to train” score is a more accurate indicator than any of the modern high tech biofeedback metrics like Heart Rate Variability, pulse oximeters, blood lactate meters, sleep cycle apps and all the rest. As an old timer whose endurance exploits predate even heart rate monitors, I strongly agree that your intuition, mood and motivation level should take center stage for making workout decisions, especially when it’s time to downsize grand ambitions. I know that when I take a few moments to sit quietly and reflect on my planned workout, sometimes profound insights occur, and I roll over and go back to sleep. Ditto for when I hesitate to jump into a routine cold shower or pool plunge (or get out earlier than usual)—it’s a reliable indicator that I’m overstressed or overtired.

Furthering Brian’s comments about the mood elevating effects of cold therapy, I’d also suggest that cold exposure helps improve your focus, confidence, and mental resilience—particularly since you will improve your tolerance and appreciation over time—and that these benefits will carry over into all other areas of life. Lift heavy things, sprint once in a while, get adequate sun exposure, plunge into cold water—these are all hormetic stressors that help you bring your A-game to everything you do. I’m not saying sitting in a chest freezer every morning will help you muster the courage to ask for a promotion, commit to enter an adventure race, or ask for a date with that certain person in the office, but it might help….

If you’re content to spend almost all 24 daily hours in a climate controlled home, car, and office, enjoy the wholly modern luxury of a hot shower a couple times a day, and never voluntarily subject yourself to the beautiful moments of discomfort like a cold plunge, the final few reps of a tough set in the gym, or the final few miles of a tough session on the roads, that’s fine. We can still be friends. But as many of us living Primally can attest, there are benefits to challenging the perceived limits of mind and body in order to stimulate peak performance and happiness. Sir Roger Bannister, the legendary first sub-four minute miler who passed in March at age 88, offered up a memorable quote in his 1954 biography, The Four Minute Mile: “Struggle gives meaning and richness to life.” One thing’s for sure after you try it out:..

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watsonrodriquezie · 7 years ago

Text

The (Maybe Not So) Definitive Guide to Cold Therapy

What NOT To Do…

So, Should I Shell Out Like Cristiano Ronaldo For Cyrotherapy?

When Is The Best Time For Cold Therapy?

Chest Freezers: Not Just For Grass-Fed Beef Anymore

Check out Brad’s video (completed in only one take), in which he describes (coherently, while sitting in freezing water) the benefits and setup logistics—everything you need to get started:

youtube

Benefits of Cold Exposure

Cold Exposure—The Right Way—To Boost Recovery

Cold Exposure Gives Meaning And Richness To Life—Really!

0 notes