#like i know there were only 3 channels in the 70s. you’ve told me a thousand times
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Why do parents flip through channels by pressing the button one time and staring blankly at whatever comes up for 2+ minutes until you say ‘okay this is clearly not what we’re looking for, maybe it’s on ITV’ and then switch to ITV and then stare at it until you say ‘okay maybe it’s on Channel 4’ like girl you have had this TV for several years and you are too young to be going senile, what is this
#yes i’m spending new year’s with my mum yes i got another offer (go to the pub where my friend bartends and use her staff discount#to get drunk) but i turned it down because… actually i can’t remember right now#look i’m in my pyjamas and i’m not getting out of them#MY POINT IS my mother is a 57 year old woman of sound mind#and yet still seems to need coaching on like.. how to find a show#we’re sat watching no time to die because i don’t want to sit here going ‘press the button. press the- press the button’#she just acts like we’re stuck with whatever bullshit is on whatever channel she’s landed on#like i know there were only 3 channels in the 70s. you’ve told me a thousand times#but we don’t have to live like that anymore#she will stare vacantly until the sky menu disappears with a look on her face like she’s experiencing the five stages of grief. why#yes the holidays have been taxing to my patience thank you for asking#personal
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FEEDBACK LOOP #11: Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals' "Sambo's Last Words"
But do we got to play Sambo? —dälek, “Abandoned Language” (2007)
Unfortunately, I will not be alive to see my name cleared. That’s what this is about, my name. —Chris Dorner, from the “Last Resort” Manifesto (2013)
They were black and loud. And not detainable. And not discreet. —Gwendolyn Brooks, from “RIOT” (1969)
1.
Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals are not detainable or discreet. You can’t dis- them in any manner—they won’t be disallowed to do anything. No hyperbole, harangues, or holds barred: that’s their daily operation. Allow them to introduce, and reintroduce, and reintroduce themselves. They do so repeatedly on King Cobra: “I’m Brian Ennals, and the funny-looking dude behind me is Infinity Knives.” Ennals dares his employer to do something, punking him with his chest puffed out. We know how the New York Post tried to do Ka—a mild-mannered church mouse on the mic when put beside what Ennals is spitting: the phlegm of plague rats. “I’m just waiting for the meeting at work,” Ennals has said, expressing only the slightest concern at the prospect of a boss googling his name. On the other hand, the statement sounds more like a veiled threat of workplace violence.
Infinity Knives knows the ledge—so don’t push him to the point of going postal either. His papers say Tariq Ravelomanana, but his p.k.a. is drawn from The Blade Itself, a post-millennium fantasy novel by Joe Abercrombie. But me, I’m visualizing the Cutlery Corner infomercials I watched as a kid, and I’m hearing the clang of swords that precede the RZA challenging us to bring da motherfucking ruckus. You can never have too many names or blades, but Brian Ennals is out here with his government written across his forehead. “The E-R-I-C-K is my name, I spell,” Erick Sermon raps on EPMD’s “You Gots to Chill.” He later told Brian Coleman: “It was like taboo to say your name in a rhyme back then—you just didn’t do that in rap! But that’s how real we were.” The B-R-I-A-N Ennals, for his part, keeps it realer than Real Deal Baudrillard (that would be hyperreal, for all you hookers, hoes, and semioticians keeping score at home).
Chris Dorner’s manifesto to Amerika begins with a meditation on the value of one’s name, asking, What would you do to clear your name? He writes that it’s more than just a “noun, verb, or adjective.” “Don’t let anybody tarnish it,” he writes, “when you know you’ve live[d] up to your own set of ethics and personal ethos.” Me and Knives used to be humble, Ennals says before the serrated horn frenzy on “Coke Jaw,” but now we fuckin’ shit up!
2. I’m in Chipotle with a robe on.
Ennals channels his inner Fatboi Sharif, rocking a robe with the same bravado that the Savage Skulls rocked swastika-stitched denim jackets in the Bronx in the ’70s. Some real Flyin’ Cut Sleeves swagger. He approaches the Chipotle counter like the Dude saunters through the supermarket, sniffing a carton of half-and-half in the opening scene of The Big Lebowski. “Sometimes there’s a man, uhm, he’s the man for his time and place….” Yeah, uhm, Ennals is the man for this time [100 seconds to midnight] and this place [amerikkka]. He’s a man for all seasons—for all robbin’ seasons, Baltimore-style.
On “A Melancholy Boogie,” he warns of a “swastika on your door,” so his bathrobe is a sort of Robe of Nessus—a garment soaked in centaur blood and hydra venom—eager to tell Nazi Punks to Fuck Off, to smother their faces in the lethal fabric. Call it his own Valkyrie plot, a regular Henning von Tresckow looking to lick shots at Hitler. A negro assassin, in Cube’s parlance. Even when the plan is foiled, he’ll go out gloriously—pridefully and suicidally—falling on a grenade like von Tresckow, who, before pulling the pin, said: “None of us can complain about dying, for whoever joined our circle put on the Robe of Nessus.” Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.
3. Alas, poor Yorick!
Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives are diggity-dead serious, but they’ll just as soon die laughing. Lots of id in the mix, and the idiot box on, because the revolution will most certainly be televised, brother. Ennals might house a burrito bowl at Chipotle, but he’s also Billy Mays, hawking Chipotlaway on South Park: “You love to eat Chipotle, but you hate all those terrible bloodstains in your underwear!” Ennals “wear[s] boat shoes to shoot dice.” He’s ashy-classy: B.I.G. sweating through a Coogi sweater with labored breaths, or LL with the inscrutable single pant-leg rolled up. Despite his partner having the lemniscate appellation [∞], Ennals is the fellow of infinite jest. A rictus grin behind the mic device; a Killing Joke Joker. Hamlet remarked, “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know / not how oft,” but Ennals holds Yorick’s skull aloft and skull-fucks it. That’s where his gibes, his gambols, his songs, his flashes of merriment are—a ruckus brought forth. Like erasing Rawkus from the historical record by traveling back in time and letter bombing Rupert Murdoch’s son at Horace Mann prep school.
Hamlet was in the churchyard, but Ennals and Knives are “in the sandlot, scared of the beast.” Fretting over the mark of the beast, maybe. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six (Revelations 13:18 KJV). RFID microchips implanted in their foreheads that hiss like basilisks when they cross the threshold of the anti-theft antennae at Wawa. They can’t stanch the brain bleed. In beast mode for the smash-and-grab. On a murderers’ row boat down the River Styx—not whistling Dixie but whistling 666. Ennals can be our “most poetic of poets and [our] leader into hell,” to crib one from Frederick Seidel.
Or maybe it’s obvious, just the beast of The Sandlot (1993), a slobbery mastiff named Hercules. On King Cobra, high and low art collapse in on each other like Building 7. A folksy implosion of images that combines barbarism and grace as well as the aforementioned sex-and-hex-crazed senex Frederick Seidel, like when the poet audaciously claims:
I’m Mussolini, And the woman spread out on my enormous Duce desk looks teeny. The desk becomes an altar, sacred The woman’s naked.
Ennals’ rhymes are as unadorned and brusque as Seidel’s, too—point-blank: he doesn’t have time for multisyllabic antics. He’s too busy juxtaposing PF Flyers and prophetic visions from Patmos. He’s like Dorner gushing at the conclusion of his manifesto about The Hangover Part III, which he knows he won’t live to see. “What an awesome trilogy,” he writes. “Damn, gonna miss shark week.”
4.
…when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them.
—Isaiah 31:4 KJV
On Brand Nubian’s “Dance to My Ministry,” Lord Jamar took the lead for others to follow: “The shepherd is here to protect the flock, / With my staff I walk through the wilderness.” But, then again, Lord Jamar is a homophobe and Holocaust denier. So Ennals abases him—smashes his phallocentric staff and passes him a staph infection; Ennals is a Debaser. “If you strike the shepherd,” though, you’ve still got to compete with the sheep—the leaderless flock, the lemmings, the true believers. You’ve got to be ruthless, murderous, a killer of sheep.
In Killer of Sheep, Charles Burnett’s 1978 film, kids from Watts—Black boys—go to war, hurling stones and dirtbombs at each other. Richard Wright wrote about a similar episode in his autobiographical sketch “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow.” Wright’s house was behind some railroad tracks, and his yard was “paved with black cinders.” Like clods of earth to the Watts kids, those cinders provided warzone entertainment—a joyful adolescent understanding that life is strife:
…cinders were fine weapons. You could always have a nice hot war with huge black cinders. All you had to do was crouch behind the brick pillars of a house with your hands full of gritty ammunition. And the first woolly black head you saw pop out from behind another row of pillars was your target. You tried your very best to knock it off. It was great fun.
But Wright’s fun ends when trouble arrives with a gang of whiteboys from the other side of the tracks (literally) that deliver ���a steady bombardment of broken bottles.” Broken glass everywhere. One of the bottles catches Wright “behind the ear, opening a deep gash which [bleeds] profusely.” Bad to worse, though, when Wright’s mother gets a look at him: “She grabbed a barrel stave, dragged me home, stripped me naked, and beat me till I had a fever of one hundred and two…. impart[ing] to me gems of Jim Crow wisdom…. I was never, never, under any conditions, to fight white folks again.” Wright’s comeuppance is confusing and sets the tone for the remainder of his adolescence in the era of Jim Crow.
Brian Ennals is exasperated too, and tired, like Killer of Sheep’s Stan standing in the slaughterhouse with knives chained to his butcher belt. (I’ll give you one guess as to how many knives he’s got.) But where Ennals differs is his willingness to turn a rudimentary work tool into a weapon of mass destruction.
5. BURN A CROSS ON YOUR LAWN
Birmingham, AL. 1963. The Klan bombs the 16th Street Baptist Church. Louisiana. 2019. Three Black churches burned down in a 10-day span in St. Landry Parish. St. Mary Baptist Church; Greater Union Baptist Church; Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. Baptism by fire? Must be next time. Or it always has been. “They been burning churches forever, man—that shit ain’t new,” is how Ennals tells it. The 2019 arson attacks were by one Yacubian juvenile named Holden Matthews, the son of a cop (ho hum). Not a hate crime, the authorities said. He had a predilection for Norwegian-style black metal, they said. Burzum be proud. Though they neglected to acknowledge how an adoration of Odin often coincides with Völkish beliefs—that’s Nazis all the way down, stupid. They been burning churches forever, man. Forever, man—like a sanctuary candle on the altar of one of those very churches.
“Niggas’ll look you in the face and say the sky ain’t blue.” Well, I suppose it’s not exactly blue when you consider the billowing black smoke that little Holden’s two-gallon gasoline cans have wrought. So much particulate matter it’s got asthmatics gagging. Ennals says, “A lie’s only a lie if you know it ain’t true.” What a conundrum. The post-truth line is a Gordian knot undone. Like some Wallace Stevens stanza: “...the nicer knowledge of / Belief, that what it believes in is not true.”
How did propagandist peckerwood Joey Goebbels put it? “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Seek your truth, and speak the truth like Lateef. The white ones with the power—who manipulate the knowns into unknowns—they want to smuggle that lie into belief, but you Ain’t Gotta Lie ta Kick It. Ennals, like Cube, is in the business of exposing White lies. He seems to have historically been less concerned with telling white lies, more concerned with arranging white lines—despite Melle Mel’s warnings to the contrary. (That coke jaw might mean Ennals took Mel’s parenthetical double-negative [“Don’t Don’t Do It”] as a canceling of the apparent get clean command.) “Lie all the fuck you want,” Ennals summarizes, “just know who you lying to.” Be forthright. Enough with the smoke and mirrors.
6. Smoke circles the room…
Ennals gawks at the same “mystic moon” that Edgar Allan Poe does in “The Sleeper”: “An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, / Exhales from out her golden rim.” But when you’re gazing up, beware as “the pale sheeted ghosts go by.” Ennals’ “sheeted ghosts” are different from Poe's—one ghastly, the other ghostly. When we hear Poe, in his poem, wish that “Soft may the worms about her creep,” we know—in a Nasean twist—the titular “sleeper” is actually ding-dong-dead. Ennals knew it all along. “Taking walks through the cemetery,” he shared on “A Melancholy Boogie,” so that he could “talk to the graves.”
But that smoke-circled moon can function as less bomb-scary, less fright fest, too. Look to Lloyd Addison’s “Umbra,” where he warms to a better vision:
My sun has gone down in drum suite penumbra The mood of this rhythm my body is umbra
That’s a more suitable mood for “roll[ing] joints that look like caterpillar cocoons.” This is an example of Ennals waxing lyrical, poeticizing his most potent pot, but his prototype is blunt. Blunt like I hope Joel Osteen dies tomorrow (“Bluffin’”); or, Fuck Ted Cruz forever—I hope he gets stabbed (“A Melancholy Boogie”); or, The Catholic Church is a pedophile ring that rapes kids (“Bluffin’”). Put a better way, Ennals is Blunted on Reality. King Cobra, in toto, is the sound of renewed focus. “Sambo’s Last Words,” in particular, is a Philly blunt like a chrysalis split with a scalpel. Ennals and Knives surgically remove shredded tobacco leaves from the cavity of the blunt. They cut open a Death’s-head moth cocoon with an X-acto knife. They stare with wonder at all that flutters in Rawlings Conservatory and serenade butterflies: We know we got cha opin.
7. FLYBOY IN THE BUTTERMILK
“Fuck being fly,” Ennals raps, “when my momma turned sixty-five, / It hit me—son, she’s really gonna die.” Fuck being fly; Ennals is grounded in the grittiest of realities, as real as a plot of worm dirt and no souls are ascending the sediment. He addresses himself as son—dropping the illest illeism—just like his momma would. Her voice; his head. She’s one of the faithful. “She believes in heaven,” but Ennals “could give forty fucks” about forty days and forty nights. Even if Ennals did find his way to heaven, he wouldn’t sit down—he’s not looking to settle for any sacramental offerings. He won’t sign on for the lunch counter sit-in. He won’t let himself be pummeled by white-knuckled firsts and conked with vanilla malts. He’ll be sitting out Gandhi’s satyagraha.
In 1992, Paris dropped “Bush Killa” and took a similar stance: “So don’t be telling me to get the nonviolent spirit, / ’Cause when I’m violent is the only time the devils hear it.” Loud and clear, man: these are assassination raps. Ennals and Knives, yeah, they’ve got the “libs mad ’cause [they] shot Joe Biden.” In the spirit and style of Metallica, of Aes Rock, Kill one, kill a few, kill ’em all. Fill ’em all with guilt. Ennals and Knives are out for dead presidents to represent them.
8. HERE TO PREACH THE GREAT AMERICAN FUCK-YOU
Chris Dorner is a motherfucking legend. On NEGRO, Pink Siifu did his darnedest to immortalize the man, but, with this declaration, Ennals clinches the win. On “Headclean,” Ennals raps, “Religion ain’t the answer, / White Jesus is cancer.” In that, he’s kin with Dorner, whose manifesto includes an anecdote from his school daze: “[The principal] stated as good Christians we are to turn the other cheek as Jesus did. Problem is, I’m not a fucking Christian and that old book, made of fiction and limited non-fiction, called the bible, never once stated Jesus was called a nigger.”
“My man robbed 7-Eleven,” Ennals confides in us, only to disappointedly confess, “he got forty bucks.” Ennals' mom may believe in Heaven, but by rhyming her paradise with 7-Eleven, he debases the promised land to that of a multinational convenience store. “I go a level down,” he raps. Bounding down the eight steps of imperfection toward Dante’s concentric rings. “Turning up” and/or getting turnt doesn’t suit his death-drive. He’s asleep at the wheel, channeling Dante’s arrival at the Ninth Circle of the Inferno:
If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous, As were appropriate to the dismal hole Down upon which thrust all the other rocks, I would press out the juice of my conception More fully…
The journey of the soul seems to detour through a Pornhub directory (“dismal hole,” “thrust,” “press out the juice of my conception”) before we receive Ennals’ message. He, too, offers an apostate’s erotic poem: “Satan’s in a blue dress? I’m lifting the Devil’s gown.” For all the Tony Robbins “level up” talk amongst rappers nowadays, Ennals keeps it gully. He flips the script on Michelle Obama’s when they go low, we go high bunkum. Ennals subscribes to the Monstars’ approach: hit ’em high and hit ’em low both.
So it’s no wonder he’s sticking it to the Devil. On “Bluffin’,” he informed us “the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was making Jesus white.” Tricknology, straight out the cave. Black Francis of the Pixies says this “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” but the racists are intent on sending Black folk to hell. Ennals and Knives load up on drugs to counter the effects of the Yacubian experiments. Simian drugs, simian drugs. Everybody’s in love with our simian drugs.
Meanwhile, Black Francis calculates his own supreme mathematics:
If man is five, then the devil is six, and if the devil is six, then God is seven.
Ennals answers with Seven Eyes and Seven Horns. He’s not strictly anti-Christian, though—he’s irreligious en masse. Ennals and Knives strive for that mass appeal. Even if Cube said he “met Farrakhan and had dinner” on “When Will They Shoot?,” Ennals, again, boils the bullshit down to methane fumes. “Fuck bitches, get money like Elijah Muhammad,” he slanders on “The Not So Tired Sounds of Brian Ennals,” and he all-but-screams “Nation of Islam is Feds” on “Don’t Let the Smooth Taste Fool You.” Ennals establishes a No Hoodwinking Zone, cordoned off with his spine alone—stiff as a bollard. He’s simply intolerant of what Chuck D called “evangelical hustler[s]” on PE’s “War at 33⅓.”
9. NEVA DIE ALONE
…We hafta die. That is our ’pointed task. Love & die. —John Berryman, “Dream Song 26”
“Lost my fucks, I got no more to give,” Ennals raps, breathlessly approaching a last breath. “Sambo’s Last Words,” though—by my count—has six fucks total. But if these are to be his last six (...six, six in the morning, police at my door…), then these objectified obscenities are bundled in a burlap sack and stashed in a trap house for safekeeping, for a rainy day.
When the bullets rain down, Dorner promises to wage guerrilla and asymmetrical warfare. His manifesto is his War Report. He “embrace[s] death as it is a way of life.” Practical, tactical. “I simply don’t fear it,” he writes, “I am the walking exigent circumstance you created.”
“Sambo’s Last Words” is a last will and testament at one turn, a farewell address at the next. Before your hours go missing, let me tell you how to live. In the same way Ennals objectifies fucks, he also objectifies time—“hours” as a metonym for Time (straight from the slums of Synecdoche, Maryland). Ennals rocks a Flavor Flav corpus clock ’round his neck. You know what time it is, or at least you’re familiar with the expiration date on the bottom of your package. The swing of the pendulum grazes the pit of your stomach. But, “shit really ain’t that deep,” Ennals says—organs not being endless, of course, despite your brags of intestinal length. (Despite my musings making the case these depths are, in fact, fathomless. “Stay awake to the ways of the world, ’cause shit is deep,” Inspectah Deck raps, backing me.)
LIVING: A HOW-TO GUIDE by Brian Ennals: “Fuck as much as you can, love your kids, and pray you die in your sleep.” Fuck, love, die. (Picking up where the final issue of Life Sucks Die left off.) Like an Eat, Pray, Love for blasphemers. Edgar Allan Poe died at the tender age of 40 in Baltimore (of all places), childless from his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin. “I’ll sleep when you’re dead,” it was rumored she told him. Fuck as much as you can renders the love-making harsh, impersonal, but Lloyd Addison again restores the balance: “And the silence neuter feminine night / is sighing verb-breaths of love.” Dorner put it less gently: “I thank the unnamed woman I dated over my lifetime for the great and sometimes not-so-great sex.”
10. My mind is right next to where the sun sit…
The proximity of sun and sense—in all their astral fury and incandescence—takes me back to Roque Dalton’s “On Headaches” poem. The Salvadoran revolutionary counterbalances how “great” it is to be a communist with the fact “it gives you many headaches.” His reasoning, though sound, reads like a riddle:
Because communists’ headaches are historical, that is they won’t go away with painkillers only with the realization of Paradise on Earth. That’s how it is.
Plainspoken, but persuasive. Dalton’s closing stanza reveals how communism will be “among other things, / an aspirin the size of the sun.” Pass Brian Ennals the bottle of Bayer then, because “everywhere [he] goes [he] keep[s] hearing this dumb shit….” He’s exhausted. (Dorner: “I have exhausted all available means at obtaining my name back.”) Still, Ennals tells us the specifics of this so-called dumb shit:
Too many niggas, not enough kings. Too many bitches, not enough queens.
Ennals affects the Ludacris voice only to dismiss the sentiment—call it Incognegro, he spits a spiteful chant. He’s got no time for half-steppin’ or hoteppin’ (Ennals is decidedly more Kane than Dr. Umar). Undoing whatever oaths might’ve been made: Fuck that! My niggas, my bitches: go get cheddar. And somewhere Puff Daddy’s affluence raps bounce off satellites in the outer reaches of the solar system, residual space debris from corporate radio: I’m the macaroni and the cheese. But Ennals won’t settle for crumbs; he’ll dine divinely: God’s good. Pussy’s better. This is Brian Ennals kneeling in prayer, reciting a Hail Mary: “I ain’t a killer but don’t push me, / Revenge is like the sweetest joy next to getting pussy.”
In a 1991 episode of KRON-TV’s Home Turf, 2Pac appears as an audience member and responds to host Dominique di Prima’s question about a favorite rap song. Pac, facetiously, answers “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer. He elaborates that Hammer is “diluting rap…playing that Sambo role, and the reason everybody’s buying his record is because he’s no threat, and everybody wanna see Sambo dance.”
11.
The narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) searches for Brother Clifton, only to find him selling Sambo dolls on the street. The sight is devastating:
I saw a square piece of cardboard upon which something was moving with furious action. It was some kind of toy and I glanced at the crowd’s fascinated eyes and down again, seeing it clearly this time…. A grinning doll of orange-and-black tissue paper with thin flat cardboard disks forming its head and feet and which some mysterious mechanism was causing to move up and down in a loose-jointed, shoulder-shaking, infuriatingly sensuous motion, a dance that was completely detached from the black, mask-like face. It’s no jumping-jack, but what, I thought, seeing the doll throwing itself about with the fierce defiance of someone performing a degrading act in public, dancing as though it received a perverse pleasure from its motions.
Clifton, having clearly betrayed his membership in the Brotherhood organization, continues with his sales pitch—now sensationally, rhythmically, spitting entrepreneurial raps like a young Percy Miller:
Shake it up! Shake it up! He’s Sambo, the dancing doll, ladies and gentlemen. Shake him, stretch him by the neck and set him down, —He’ll do the rest. Yes!
He’ll make you laugh, he’ll make you sigh, si-igh. He’ll keep you entertained. He’ll make you weep sweet—
For he’s Sambo, the dancing, Sambo, the prancing, Sambo, the entrancing, Sambo Boogie Woogie paper doll.
This Sambo, this jambo, this high-stepping joy boy? He’s more than a toy, ladies and gentlemen, he’s Sambo, the dancing doll, the twentieth-century miracle.
Sambo-Woogie, you don’t have to feed him, he sleeps collapsed, he’ll kill your depression And your dispossession…
At first, the narrator is “held by the inanimate, boneless bouncing of the grinning doll,” but he eventually looks upon the doll and feels his “throat constrict.” “The rage,” he says, “welled behind the phlegm.” Brother Clifton runs off, pursued by police for his unpermitted hustling, and the narrator walks in the opposite direction, wondering “[h]ow on earth could [Clifton] drop from Brotherhood to this in so short a time?” But he comes upon the pursuit again, and this time Brother Clifton and the cop become entangled, with Clifton delivering an “uppercut that sent the cop’s cap sailing into the street and his feet flying.” The cop regains his footing and fires his weapon at Clifton. For the narrator, “[t]he sun seemed to scream an inch above [his] head.” My mind is right next to where the sun sit…
12.
Infinity Knives has proven himself to be more a composer than yet another (...another) Madlib poser pressing buttons on the SP-404, another Dilla dilettante. “Sambo’s Last Words” is carried by a seething synth line that sounds like Stevie Wonder’s clavinet on “Superstition” if Little Stevie had not been blind since birth but instead gouged out his peepers in a meth-induced psychotic episode, à la Kaylee Muthart.
King Cobra’s opening prelude, “’Neath the Willow’s Leaves,” communes with the music of “Sambo’s Last Words.” Both equally forlorn but in different registers, a fabrication of salix alba and Saxo Grammaticus. Knives has cited his sources, but I refuse to believe he’s not corresponding across time and consciousness with the ballad “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” (#410 in the Roud Folk Song Index, you suckers!). The willows weep in the wind, overdriven and distorting. Ophelia’s body, drowned, floats downstream: “There is a willow grows aslant the brook, / That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. / Therewith fantastic garlands did she make.”
“Sambo’s Last Words” is nearly a minute in when we hear a haunting banshee wail—a windy ghoul vocal. No denying it: this is the spirit rising from beneath the willow leaves. Her keening over the ever-steady synths mantle the track like hoarfrost.
But with Knives’ compositions, sometimes the willows wither away in wattage—he goes full electro[cution]. He’ll arrange decade-spanning sounds with soulsonic force, an Arthur Baker writing scores for any night of the living baseheads. He summons ghost-in-the-machine spirits. Neve console! Prophet-5! Micromoog! Lexicon PCM 41 Digital Delay Processor! His studio shouts and susurrations stimulate the central nervous system. Like something out of Shakespeare, Knives “buzz[es] these conjurations in [our] brain” (2 Henry VI, 1.2.102). His beats fluctuate from nerve-racking to numbing agent—they’re a helluva drug. The post-apocalyptic Run-DMC need their mutant Rick Rubin—the same cowl of hair, but less plunderphonics; more polyphonic. Less barefooted guru; more blister-footed Orc. Max Richter bumping uglies with E Double’s “Richter Scale.”
13.
I wanna be a stupid and shallow motherfucker now. I wanna be a tough-skinned bitch, but I don’t know how. —Sparklehorse, “Pig” (1998)
Brian Ennals incites the crowd like an Intelligent Hoodlum. He possesses the ravenous raps of a young Canibus freestyling on a DJ Clue or Tony Touch mixtape, but only if Canibus stopped studying his own alien deoxyribonucleic acid and, instead, took a class with Fred Moten and studied the Undercommons. Ennals, you see, raps for the people. He’s got no time to do a tap-dance, a shoeshine, or a soft-shoe. There are more pressing concerns.
We can’t define, precisely, how Ennals’ be dropping these mockeries of Socrates’ philosophies and hypotheses, but the impact is felt like a bludgeoning. “They worship pedophiles like Socrates,” he exclaims on “Don’t Let the Smooth Taste Fool You.” For Ennals, Western education is forbidden. He flexes with boko haram inked on his biceps.
On “The Badger,” Ennals settles his outstanding rent payments the best way he knows: “I’mma kill my landlord, so I got a heater, / Specifically, a nigga got a 9 millimeter.” Killing landlords…glorifying outlaws…it’s nothing new. Peep Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth:
For example, the gangster who holds up the police set on to track him down for days on end, or who dies in single combat after having killed four or five policemen, or who commits suicide in order not to give away his accomplices—these types light the way for the people, form the blueprints for action and become heroes. Obviously, it's a waste of breath to say that such-and-such a hero is a thief, a scoundrel, or a reprobate. If the act for which he is prosecuted by the colonial authorities is an act exclusively directed against a colonialist person or colonialist property, the demarcation line is definite and manifest. The process of identification is automatic.
Same as Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” who knew what to do when “a deputy sheriff approached him”: he “grabbed a log chain [and] laid that deputy down.” Or Dylan's “John Wesley Harding,” another folk hero who “trav’led with a gun in ev’ry hand.” This is why Ennals calls Chris Dorner a motherfucking legend. Because he knows we’ll be telling tales of him for years to come, and he does his part to make it certain. Ennals dons a Chris Dorner costume—his cindered LAPD uniform—and Dorner is the Sambo-no-more. These are his last words. Ennals is the medium for Dorner. Together, they come to understand “the American flag [is] the same colors as cop lights.” Ennals is the medium, and the medium is the massacre. BLACK COP! BLACK COP! KRS-One shouts on “Black Cop” from Return of the Boom Bap (Roy Christopher has noted the seated and spitting similarities between KRS’s album cover from 1993 and King Cobra’s). “Stop shootin’ Black people, we all gonna drop!” When you look for a motive, look no further than that.
14.
Admittedly Sambo, but a man’s gots to eat… Gladly buck dance and show teeth. For that kind of paper? You crazy? —billy woods, “DMCA”
In ’98, Boots Riley wasn’t seeing it woods’ way. On the Coup’s “Busterismology,” he had this to say: “If you ain’t talkin’ ’bout ending exploitation, / Then you just another Sambo in syndication.” Pam the Funkstress cuts crazily while Boots paraphrases Nas for the chorus: When we start the revolution all they probably do is snitch. Ennals allies himself with this Bay Area camp, this armed cell. But his focus is on revenge plots for the time being. On “The Badger,” Ennals is joined by Jim—his Iraq War vet companion, his accomplice—who’s schizophrenic. Ennals himself is a 21st century schizoid man, but it’s Jim who sees crimson and starts spraying during the home invasion. Let me remind you of Roque Dalton, my guy—these headaches are historical. And history keeps happening.
On 2007’s “Runaway Sambo,” Hell Razah emerges from the shadows of the Black Market Militia to set the record straight to hell. “They try to tell me I can’t blow ’cause I ain’t tap-dancing like Sambo,” he raps. He refuses the syndication trap that Boots spoke of: “We not no Buckwheats or Little Rascals, / Or Diff’rent Strokes, or whatever-have-you.”
In “Angel Puss,” a Looney Tunes cartoon from 1944, “Li’l Sambo” is paid “four bits” to drown a black cat in a lake, though he’s too daft to notice the cat sneaking out of his sack. The cat paints himself pure white, disguising himself as an angel. He haunts and hunts Li’l Sambo down, enticing him with the sound of a set of dice shaking in his paws. Li’l Sambo, though, eventually figures it out and stalks the cat into an armoire before unloading his blunderbuss.
Li’l Sambo needs to turn the blunderbuss on himself, though—that would be a merrie melody. Travel back with me to Yorick’s skull—that stark symbol of inevitable death. Li’l Sambo needs to kill the buffoon in his head with a hollow-point bullet that can penetrate the Stahlhelms that sit atop the craniums, just as they’re depicted in the embroidered patches of the Savage Skulls. Li’l Sambo needs to break into his own mind, get all “Conscious Rap” sick wid it and trespass on his subconscious. In Larry Cohen’s 1972 black comedy Bone, the titular character, played by Yaphet Kotto, busts in on the Beverly Hills property of Bernadette and Bill. Bone holds the couple captive, forces them to empty their bank account, and threatens to rape Bernadette (don’t worry: when it comes down to it, he can’t maintain his erection—his, erm, boner—and the white lady of the house seduces him instead). Through all these funny games, Bone’s blue shirt is bleach-stained from the original poolside tussle with Bill, the husband—a Big Bang of chlorine chaos, a clever mark of Cain inversion.
In his career-spanning sequence of poems, The Dream Songs, John Berryman also attempted an inversion of the Sambo caricature. Berryman’s subject voice is in constant flux, always switching, in the poems. One “Henry”—who is “sometimes in blackface,” according to Berryman himself—goes by “Mr. Bones” when he rubs on the burnt cork. “Dream Song 273” reads like Ennals bars:
Survive—exist—who is at others’ will optionless; may gelded be, be put to stud, and were sweating sold; was sold. —Mr Bones, dat slavey still is of our former coast. —When they make me, Bud, I show my genitals, cold.
………………………………….. Come closer, Sambo. I planting in your face ilex. Your face. You jus like a flex where the bulb failed. Flail
…at one hundred-odd degrees at four in the morning, where the ofays’ cameras were dutyless.— Muscle my whack. We gotta trickle. Seize them Moslem testicles, and pull. Please hurt my owner, twice.
“The Sambo stereotype,” William Tynes Cowan explains, “served two social functions on the plantation: it helped the individual slave to survive, to hide true feelings and true intentions from the slaveholder; and it allowed the slaveholding class to maintain its belief that the institution of slavery was not only benevolent but was a necessary shelter for their innocent, enslaved ‘children.’” On King Cobra, Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives make their true feelings known. There’s zero chance of misinterpretation. They’re not children—that much is obvious. And for any white folks who feel them charming enough to put on a shelf as novelty knick-knacks, they are here to disillusion such crackers, to disabuse them of that belief. They finish what KMD started on the cover of BL_CK B_ST_RDS: they tighten the noose on that Sambo hanging from the gallows.
Images:
Chicago Seed advertisement page, c. 1970s (detail) | The Big Lebowski, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998 (screenshot) | The Number of the Beast is 666, William Blake (1805-1810) | Killer of Sheep, dir. Charles Burnett, 1978 (screenshot) | Killer of Sheep, dir. Charles Burnett, 1978 (screenshot) | Anne Moody “Sit-in at the downtown Woolworth’s in Jackson, Mississippi,” Anne Moody, May 28, 1963 (detail) | Gustave Doré, Satan in the Inferno is trapped in the frozen central zone in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Canto XXXIV (1861-1868) | Bone, dir. Larry Cohen, 1979 (screenshot) | Kerry James Marshall, A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980) | The Conjuration, John Opie (1792) | “Angel Puss,” Looney Tunes, dir. Chuck Jones, 1944 (screenshot) | KMD, Black Bastards, album cover, the EMEF (1993) | “New York City street gang the Savage Skulls,” Jean-Pierre Laffont, c. 1970s (detail) | Chicago Seed advertisement page, c. 1970s (detail)
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CHOOSE YOUR YANDERE ●_● HAIKYUU BOYS EDITION (Part 3) ✧
PART 1 ✧ PART 2
Here’s your new round of yandere selection featuring some of our hq boys! Reminder: This is just for fun!
Rating: T+ Warning: Mild psychological triggers (mentions of kinks and stuff) Selected characters only ~(⊕⌢⊕)~
OIKAWA TORU aka THE GREAT KING
From the very first day he saw you, he just knew it’s love at first sight, it’s destiny and you two were fated to each other
Wanted to marry you even if he didn’t know your name yet
Damn! He knew how to flirt so well that all you could think about was him 24/7. Toru just knew what to say to get you all wrapped around his fingers
The more you resisted the more excited he got
It wasn’t long before you’re all lost in his arms
Would provide you with everything you wanted and his only condition was you’re all his because he’s all yours
Your 100% should only belong to him — other things or people that threatened his belongingness of your affection would get what they deserve
No wonder why your male classmates even your gym teacher now gave you a frightened look. Just who knew what your boyfriend told them?
Heck, you didn’t even notice it because you’re all wrapped up in this thing he called ‘love’
You’d be his queen as long as he’d be your king any defiance would turn you into a slave real quick
No, he won’t hurt you physically. But he’s so good at bringing out your worst fears just as good he was on bringing put the best in you
Oh! He’s good at giving out emotional trauma, btw
Would emotionally deprive you by treating you like you meant nothing
Until, you lowered yourself before him
Above it all, even though you knew in your head that you want out, you can’t escape
Because you loved him and you’ll end up begging for him and giving him all that he wanted just like how he wanted you to
“Toru…what’s wrong?” You asked your boyfriend whom you’ve seen sobbing.
“How can you leave me…” anguish evident in his voice, “when I told you to stay?”
Seeing him so distraught over your lack of respect and utter disobedience broke your heart so much. You knelt before him asking for forgiveness tears running down your face.
He lifted your face holding you by your cheek—his eyes boring into you. “You only belong to me, Y/N. You are mine and no one else’s and you’ll stay here with me forever. I will never ever let you go leave.”
Danger level: 70% Pet peeve: Not being given enough attention and sharing you with others
MIYA ATSUMU aka THE FOXY SADIST
If Tsumu didn’t channel enough Sang Woo vibe with his look then idk anymore baby…I’M WARNING YOU NOW
Regardless, we all know you’re going to be caught in his crazy
He’s attractive, confident and such a foxy bastard, it’s very easy for you to become prey
Yes, a he’s a little bit rude but it made him even sexier for you
It didn’t take it long before you got lost in his words not minding the danger that lied underneath them
He said he wanted you all for himself. He said he couldn’t wait to do all the things he’d been wanting to do to you.
You thought it was hot…but srsly, run for your life
However, you can’t anymore because you were finally locked up in his lair hidden in the world
And you wished you could’ve listened and paid more attention to the red flags
For him, there’s just something so satisfying in seeing you so desperate
In your eyes, were fear and helplessness. In his, was lust.
Don’t even dare to escape. I’m sure you don’t want to mingle with one of his knives.
The pain turned into a manic pleasure for you too
You lose touch of reality as your world becomes him
You could feel Atsumu’s breathing against your bruised cheek. It felt very chilling that it crept under your skin. His tricky chuckle gave you tremors. Was it out of fear or excitement? You didn’t know anymore—your arousal completely misattributed.
You felt him smile as he gently pressed his lips on your previously bleeding wound. “I was thinking…maybe I should add another one so I could kiss you even more?“
Danger level: 100% Pet peeve: idk???? rUn juSt RUN!
KITA SHINSUKE aka CAPTAIN TAMER
Makes sure things are in order including you
Super OC with his stuff and super OC with you
100% control freak
It irked him whenever you neglect yourself, your health, your safety, etc.
Equally disliked it whenever he sensed that you might be keeping something from him
Knew everything about you--by everything it meant the nook and cranny
And when he found out, his mind went haywire wanting nothing but to straighten out the mess, your mess
Then he saw you talking to one of those skewed boys
The world sure messed you up real bad
There, he realized that to keep you in order—in order to make you right he had to cleanse every part of your being
Even if that cleansing meant wiping your entirety in this universe and the ideal perfect you finally existed
In his mind O_O
Morning came and Shinsuke passed by the ladies’ washroom where a commotion seemed to be happening. They were murmuring and wondering about your disappearance with your bag and other personal belongings left inside the washroom.
However, no one—not one will even see even a single trace at all as Shinsuke wiped it you clean.
Danger level: 90% Pet peeve: lack of order
REBLOGS ARE DEEPLY APPRECIATED ♡ Please help me reach other viewers as tumblr tags often don’t work on me. Thank you so so much!
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#sang woo atsumu#why is shinsuke's so creepy????#haikyuu x reader#yandere oikawa#yandere oikawa tooru#yandere shinsuke#yandere kita shinsuke#yandere atsumu#yandere miya atsumu#oikawa tooru headcanons#oikawa tooru x reader#kita shinsuke x reader#kita shinsuke headcanons#miya atsumu headcanons#miya atsumu x reader#quirrrky shinsuke#quirrrky oikawa#quirrrky tsumu
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My name is James kim.
This Is How I Came To Know What I Now Know, That I Am helping patients all over the world. Am putting this down now because I have had allot of patients asked how I do came about this protocol.
feel grateful to be able to tell my story that will make you aware of my background and how I arrived here.
Like so many people, I was scared, tearful and very distraught after my mother received her cancer diagnosis. Over the next 6-12 months the medical establishment tried, but nothing the doctors had to offer appeared to stop the metastasized cancer from taking over her entire body. She did what research she could about terms like; how to get rid of cancer naturally, holistic treatments and cures for metastasized cancer, and alternative cancer treatments that work.
Sadly, she never found anything that she thought would work for her.
My Father also had a real scare with a cancerous left kidney. His cancer hadn’t metastasized so his Doctors removed the kidney and he has been fine ever since. Then a day that I hoped would never come, came.
My mother said she did not think she was going to survive her cancer, the thought of which left me terrified and petrified thinking I was going to lose my mother to cancer.
Worse yet, the thought of her spending her last days in a hospice bed paralyzed me with fear and left me wanting to do nothing more than to curl up in a corner somewhere.
But instead of feeling sorry for myself and wanting to do what I could to save my mother, I chose to spend my time Googling terms like; how to cure stage 4 cancer naturally, natural lung cancer cures, natural treatment for lung cancer, natural cure for lung cancer, natural remedies for lung cancer and a whole bunch more.
My wife saw me doing these online searches, and she and the kids pleaded with me to accept the inevitable and to start preparing myself for the worse.
I was a useless wreck!
My Only Options :
(1)Pray, hope and plead while waiting for cancer to kill her
(2)Try to figure out how to slow down or stop her cancer long enough for her to die from old age instead.
As you might have guessed, I chose option 2 and then I aggressively launched a mission to save her life. Fear and desperation are probably two of the greatest motivators there are.
Available on the web were tons of books and hundreds of websites offering anywhere from a single product that cures every disease mankind has ever known, including those trying to tell you how to get rid of cancer naturally. To even more websites offering “2-299 guaranteed surefire alternative lung cancer treatments using the root from some plant that is only found in the Amazon Rain Forest or on a mountain top somewhere in India.
Common sense and research told me that all of these were a waste of time.
Common Sense and Research
Let me be brutally honest with you. I found no magic pill or secret drug out there that could cure cancer or keep her alive.
Especially after you’ve done multiple rounds of chemo and/or radiation. Odds are it’s over! Close the shades, update your will, finalize your funeral arrangements, and kiss your family and friends goodbye. I was seeing this first hand with my mother, and the saddest part is that the only certain thing is WHEN and not IF she would succumb to the cancer metastasis.
Many times I wanted to give up on finding a solution. I had almost come to terms with the reality that she’d be dead in 6 Months. I went through a gamut of emotions like fear, anxiety, dread and anger. But I channeled those emotions and went about the work of saving her.
Please allow me the pleasure of sharing with you the ” Eureka” moment when everything all came together. What I found is:
I quickly concluded that after many decades of waging war on cancer there had to be legitimate, valid and credible studies that revealed an effective alternative cancer treatment protocol.
After hundreds, if not thousands of hours of searching the web and reading hundreds of these research studies, my hard work and relentless efforts were rewarded.
I found several studies that had been rigorously peer-reviewed and which were supported by hundreds more rigorously reviewed university studies. What all of these studies did was to put together for me a genuine, scientifically validated treatment program that was virtually certain, at a minimum, to stop her cancer metastasis in its tracks, if not outright cure it!
The researchers declared this treatment as, likely to be “more successful than current approaches because it is based on the principles of evolutionary biology and metabolic control analysis” and that it could truly be an alternative cancer treatment and cure.
So if you needed an:
-alternative breast cancer treatment
-alternative prostate cancer treatment
-alternative pancreatic cancer treatment
-alternative liver cancer treatment
Then this is your ticket to a real chance to treat and beat your disease!
However, I like to be as close to 100% sure as I can get. So I looked at how The American Cancer Society (ACS) evaluates mainstream and alternative cancer treatments.
They do this by asking three questions:
1) Has the method been objectively demonstrated in the peer-reviewed scientific literature to be effective?
2) Has the method shown potential for benefit that exceeds the potential for harm?
3) Have objective studies been correctly conducted under appropriate peer review to answer these questions?
Fortunately, I was able to answer all those questions with a resounding YES! Every single piece of knowledge reinforced my belief that this truly would give me a great chance at keeping her alive especially since current mainstream protocols like surgery, chemo, and radiation had failed her.
The Well-Known Secret is Finally Available
It’s not a secret that Big Pharma makes some very vicious business decisions. So it should be fairly easy to see there is not a Big Pharma business person that would spend millions to educate MDs or the General Public about a cheap and effective treatment protocol. Even if it has been scientifically validated by elite research scientists time and time again. Just because it has zero potential to add to Big Pharma’s already massive net profits.
But what I learnt earn is the findings scientists have known about for decades.
That you stand an outstanding chance of defeating cancer if not outright curing it, IF the right protocol is used.
What your cancer cells need to kill you, are the nutrients (glucose and secondarily glutamine) that the blood vessels bring to them so that they can continue to grow and metastasize. Because cancer in and of itself won’t kill you. It is the ongoing and uncontrolled growth of cancer that eventually overwhelms your body and kills you.
So the key to not dying from cancer is to be able to slow down or kill enough cancer cells so that they don’t overrun your body.
Research scientists have known and proven this over and over again for decades. This protocol teaches you the specific details of what to do so that you can effectively starve cancer and then eradicate it while ensuring that your normal cells remain very healthy. And the best part is, this protocol does it very quickly, cheaply and most importantly very EFFECTIVELY!
The 70+years of clinical science that supports it, is overwhelming.
If you have cancer of any origin, no matter how aggressive it is, or even if it has metastasized, YOU DON’T have to be DEAD too soon.
Quite the contrary, you will have a plan, that is a whole body and systemic protocol that will suffocate, starve, poison and kill cancer anywhere in the body. It matters not if it has been declared untreatable cancer. Metastasized or still localized. It doesn’t matter the origin (lung, breast, liver, pancreas, etc).
You Won’t Have to Worry to Death Anymore
#science#medicine#cancer#regenerative medicine#stem cells#leukemia#lymphoma#bone marrow transplant#gene therapy#molecular biology#cell biology#aging#academic medicine#ucsd#good news
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UNASKED FOR MAGNUS THEORY #4: THE SILENT
This week’s theory is one of my more self-indulgent. It’s also probably being proven wrong as I type. So if you see this and you’ve listened to MAG 181 already, try not to laugh at me too badly. I just want to get it down before I have to refile this Google Doc under “dead wrong” tomorrow. What is this crazy, semi-coherent theory you ask? Well? Basically I think Adelard Dekker, Mikaele Salesa, Gertrude Robinson(?), Gerard Keay, Christopher Meyer (and maybe the coroner’s uncle from MAG 36 and Alard Dupont) might have been part of an underground society that figured out how to weaponize the powers by fragmenting/channeling multiple entities at the same time - evading attention while manipulating things to their own end.
Read on for my decent into madness.
EXHIBIT A: The Key of Solomon. Acquired by Gertrude Robinson in 2007, The Key of Solomon caught my eye with the following passage - found on a torn scrap of paper found by The Archivist in his exploration of the tunnels under The Magnus Institute (MAG 70): “They have for adversaries the Satariel, or concealers, the Demons of absurdity, of intellectual inertia, and of Mystery”. While I don’t think actual demons will come into play this late in the game, this is a very interesting quote taken from a book that we later learn was “one of the few volumes that contained elements from several powers” (MAG 80). In that same episode Leitner confirms the book was destroyed after proving itself to be too volatile, but could it be Gertrude learned a few tricks before disposing of the thing? The person who told Jurgen Leitner about the books called them “coded spell books”, and while Leitner seemed dismissive of this description, I wonder if there’s a kernel of truth in the simplification.
EXHIBIT B: We know that opposing powers can cancel each other out. Gertrude used a man touched by The Vast to stop The Buried���s ‘Sunken Sky’ ritual. Heck, she contemplated using Gerry to stop The Unknowing because of his affiliation with The Eye. The Ceaseless Watcher has trouble seeing anything to do with The Dark, etc., etc., but what happens when you combine three or more powers? Answer: silence. Like Smirke’s buildings, and Breekon & Hope’s depot after it’s been cleared out - places where multiple powers interact are described as empty. Silent. Almost as if they can’t exist in one space without creating some sort of self-destructive feedback loop. Is it so impossible to think someone with enough canny could channel that? Use it for their own purposes? EXHIBIT C: Adelard Dekker. In MAG 63 whilst trapping the Not-Them in a table, the statement-giver observes that Dekker’s lips were “moving rapidly though no sound came out of them”. In other words, he was silent. Somehow managing to wield a power strong enough to actively contain the creature. It’s potentially a stretch, but Jon also notices Not!Sasha has torn strips of paper when he goes rifling in her desk (MAG 57). We know that Not!Sasha went poking about the tunnels as well. Is it possible she also took interest in the remains of The Key of Solomon? Was she trying to understand or gird herself against whatever had left her vulnerable when she was bound?
[Archivist’s Note: Dekker is also described as wearing an outfit similar to the one Gerry Keay is found in when he arrives at St. Thomas’ with Diego Molina. It might be a bit on the nose to assume there’s a uniform if these folks are as organized as I’m making them out to be (they could be completely free agents who stumbled on the same hack), but I’m also not saying there isn’t.] EXHIBIT D: Gerry Keay’s poster. One of the first times we see our collective dead gay goth son (MAG 4) the statement giver comments on a poster supposedly painted by Mr. Keay bearing the caption: “Grant us the sight that we may not know. Grant us the scent that we may not catch. Grant us the sound that we may not call”. Tacked onto the bottom of a giant eye, the painting seems to only lend itself to one entity, but we know Gerry never fully gave himself to The Eye and the caption seems to speak to concealment. To silence. Even mysterious scents seem to be a reoccurring phenomena in the Magnus universe in places touched by more than one power. Did he know more than he let on when he met Gertrude? Do I maybe just want his last thoughts to be more resonant? “[His mother] would not claim his last moment. He was silent” (MAG 63).
EXHIBIT E: When Gerry wakes up in St. Thomas he’s missing both a red-leather bound book, and a brass amulet (I need to make a separate post about how I think brass is used to trap/contain the entities at some point), but for now I’m mostly interested in the fact that he tells the nurse ‘Yes. For you, better beholding than the lightless flame” as if he has a choice. As if he has any modicum of control on what happens next.
CONCLUSION: This tinfoil hat really is tight. I might have to have it surgically removed. I know I didn’t really get into how Salesa is involved (really, it’s mostly because Annabelle Cane has taken an interest), or how I think he was meeting Alard Dupont in 1982 when Trevor Herbert killed him, or that I suspect if Gertrude was part of the gang, she went rogue and Salesa (and maybe Adelard?) faked his own death when they realized she was more of a threat than an ally. As always, I am very much aware that I’m probably over-complicating things and just need to go take a nap. SUPPLEMENTAL: I lied. I’m going to give a quick and dirty version of why I think brass is a method of containing the entities here:
1. Gerry’s brass pendant (MAG 12). 2. Brass grate covering the entrance to the Serapeum of Alexandria (MAG 53) 3. Brass boxes in Christopher Meyer’s house, holding assorted artifacts touched by the entities (MAG 60) 4. Brass urn requested by John Amherst (MAG 36) - this one’s odd because it’s requested by John Amherst, but if the coroner’s uncle who seems to know more than he’s letting on is a part of this same secret society here, Amherst might just be taunting him. Rubbing his face in it, as it were. 5. The Sarcophagus wrapped in copper bands (MAG 64). Copper, yes, but brass is an alloy made from combining copper & zinc, so this might just be an early attempt. 6. A brass handle is on the door containing the first victim from MAG 86, Tucked in. It is worth noting that the statement giver here, was convinced someone else had been in the house before he called the police. A belief that is ignored/dismissed. Could it have been someone we know trying to trap the beast? SUPPLEMENTAL TO THE SUPPLEMENTAL: In MAG 95, Basira is seen reading “Introduction to Alchemy” - talking about Venus and the various properties of copper. If there is something here, is she hip to the trade secret? She’s certainly extremely good at being silent/popping up without people noticing her, but I have no idea if it’s intentional, or if she’s just stumbled across something. Seriously, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for listening to my TED talk. You’re awesome. I’m insane, and I don’t know how the eff you pulled something sensible from that cesspool of text. but it’s fun not to be in this alone! Cheers
#the silent#tma#tma theories#the magnus archives#jon sims#jonathin sims#gerry keay#mikaele salesa#adelard dekker#gertrude robinson#basira hussain#the key of solomon#getting down to brass tacks#no?#that pun was awful?#alrighty#i'll be seeing myself out
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Frank Hudson, Greta, Margaret, & Mary
(PSA: If you’ve been tagged in this post, it’s because I’m crediting you or linking to a meta you wrote! I particularly linked a lot of things at the end I think could be tangentially related. No pressure to read all of this!)
Please allow me to take you on a journey in which I present a theory:
Mary is Frank Hudson’s daughter from a relationship with another woman, and part of her motivation (as a villain, as Moriarty’s agent/possible successor) is to get revenge on Sherlock for having killed her father all those years ago and ruining the drug cartel empire.
I was calling this a crack theory, but uh, given that I’ve now written thousands of words connecting weird dots, I’m gonna say maybe this is potentially not as far-fetched as I initially thought.
Before Sherlock series 4 came out, we were given this delightful niche little “clue” in a Youtube video on the official channel:
It’s always struck me as odd that this was specifically shown in a video advertising / leading up to series 4... when it seemingly never connected to anything. Why this, of all things?
Let’s review what we know about Mr. Frank Hudson.
• He was sentenced to death in Florida; Sherlock ensured his execution. (ASiP)
• He was executed for double murder and the execution was via lethal injection. He was arrested for “blowing someone’s head off.” (TSoT)
• According to Mrs. Hudson, about their relationship: “It was just a whirlwind thing for us. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I just got sort of swept along. And then we moved to Florida. We had a fantastic time, but of course I didn’t know what he was up to” and “It was purely physical between me and Frank. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” What Frank was “up to” included a drug cartel and “all the other women.” (TSoT)
• Mrs. Hudson was a typist in Frank’s drug cartel (and an exotic dancer, which is in YouTube videos in-universe). This is also the scene where she’s present to hear enough to figure out that Mary shot Sherlock; in the original script, it’s made obvious that she was eavesdropping even after walking out. (HLV)
• We’re also given repeated reminders in TLD that Mrs. Hudson was/is somewhat of a badass. She tells Sherlock “you’re not my first smackhead, Sherlock Holmes,” and whether or not any of that (the revolver, the kidnapping of Sherlock, the car) is actually literally real, I take it mostly as a blatant reminder that Mrs. Hudson has a past filled with “not good” people.
A lot of this info is given in more comedic moments... but I think because it is repeatedly mentioned with consistent detail, especially largely in season 3 when Mary arrives (partially to mirror John/Mary’s doomed relationship), it shouldn’t be swept aside.
Speaking of Mary, let’s get into it.
In ACD’s The Sign of Four, Mary Morstan’s story centers heavily around the loss of her father. That’s also the story that involves the Agra treasure, and Mary notably receives 6 pearls in the mail as part of the mystery. Keep all of this in mind because it’s going to be relevant as we go.
First, let’s roll all the way back to The Abominable Bride.
(All transcripts I will be quoting are from the inimitable Ariane DeVere.)
Giles, & Morse Hudson
The abominable bride herself–who I trust we all know mirrors Mary at this point lol–stands on the balcony and aims her guns at people on the street while saying “You?” / “You, or me?” One of the people she aims at is this man, who is listed in the credits as Giles. I always found it odd that he was named, so I decided to look him up in relation to Sherlock Holmes.
“Giles” connects to Giles Conover, the criminal in the 1944 Sherlock Holmes movie The Pearl of Death. That movie is loosely based on ACD’s The Adventure of the Six Napoleans. In the movie, Giles (who is not in the ACD story) stole the Borgia Pearl and hid it in a bust of Napoleon. In case there’s any doubt, we can know for a fact that Moffat and Gatiss are familiar with this movie because they referenced it in TGG previously; the Golem assassin is a nod to The Creeper.
So I was like, why that movie specifically? What’s significant, and how would that connect to the bride?
And as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now... they later referenced that movie again in TST. The writers called back to both the ACD story and the 1944 movie, very specifically.
Referenced movie details I noticed in TST include the following: Sherlock calls Lestrade “Giles.” The Borgia Pearl (movie phrasing, as opposed to “the black pearl of the Borgias”) is mentioned multiple times; we’ll go back to that. We are also pointedly told by Ajay that one of the members of AGRA was killed via a broken back, which is how a murder happens in the 1944 movie.
As for TST’s references to the original Napoleon story by ACD... there are many, but there’s one thing they pointedly didn’t reference (unless I missed it) that I find interesting: in the ACD story, 3 of the 6 busts were at the shop of a Morse Hudson. Beppo, the criminal in the story, worked at Morse Hudson’s shop to have access to the locations of those 3 busts. Even in The Six Thatchers version on John’s blog, Beppo is the criminal but Morse Hudson was not mentioned.
So I thought... alright, Morse? What morse code have we seen in the show? Well, there’s UMQRA, from The Hounds of Baskerville.
I poked around and some genius anon on @inevitably-johnlocked‘s blog once said that if you encode UMQRA with HOUND using a vigenere cypher, you get BAKED. Mary bakes her own bread, according to Sherlock’s deductions in TEH. The abominable bride, in the above scene, shoots at/into a bakery.
Edit: @rosie_ww on Twitter aka @silverybees pointed me to this, from THoB:
SHERLOCK: You’ve been to see Mr Chatterjee again.
MRS HUDSON: Pardon?
SHERLOCK: Sandwich shop. That’s a new dress, but there’s flour on the sleeve. You wouldn’t dress like that for baking.
(Friendly reminder that shortly thereafter we find out that Mr. Chatterjee has other women)
Does this morse code / BAKED business necessarily mean anything by itself? No, and of anything in this post, it’s the biggest stretch. But it’s still kind of wild, because let’s recap so far:
• We have Morse Hudson in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, a story which is heavily referenced in TST
• TST heavily connects to Mary / AGRA (we’ll get to how specifically)
• TST also heavily connects to The Pearl of Death, which connects to TAB
• And not only that, but The Pearl of Death connects to the exact scene in TAB where the bride shoots @ Giles and the bread shop. The bread shop could connect to the UMQRA morse code in the show... meaning “Morse” (code, and therefore Hudson) could then connect to Mary.
Morse Hudson -> The Six Napoleons -> TST -> The Pearl of Death (“Giles” etc.) -> TAB (“Giles”) -> Mary, the bride
Oh what a tangled web we weave. That’s a Hudson to Mary.
But let’s keep going. Better stuff to come.
The Black Pearl of the Borgias In TST
Let’s play the game of following the trail of the Black Pearl. Shout out to @miadifferent and @impossibleleaf, because their combo post here I came across was very helpful for showing me the best way to write this out to make it easily understandable. I will be quoting / paraphrasing them below!
The first time we hear about the Pearl, it’s from Mycroft, who connects it to Moriarty’s final activities:
MYCROFT: In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations over 70 assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in North Korea and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl of the Borgias, which is still missing by the way, in case you feel like applying yourself to something practical.
We also learn that the Pearl is somehow connected to London.
HOPKINS: Interpol think, the case of the Borgia Pearl trail leads back to London, so..
So we have Moriarty -> Black Pearl -> London...
And next up, there’s Sherlock’s “fake” deduction about Greta Bengtsdotter (who has always very obviously made us all think about Mary.)
SHERLOCK: Your wife is a spy. That’s right. Her real name is Greta Bengtsdotter. Swedish by birth and probably the most dangerous spy in the world. She’s been operating deep undercover for the past four years now as your wife for one reason only: to get near the American embassy which is across the road from your flat. Tomorrow the U.S. president will be at the embassy as part of an official state visit. As the president greets members of staff, Greta Bengtsdotter, disguised as a twenty-two stone cleaner, will inject the president in the back of the neck with a dangerous new drug hidden inside a secret compartment insider her padded armpit. This drug will then render the president entirely susceptible to the will of their new master, none other than James Moriarty. Moriarty will then use the president as a pawn to destabilize the United Nations General Assembly which is due to vote on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty tipping the balance in favour of a first strike policy against Russia. This chain of events will then prove unstoppable thus precipitating World War 3.
The name “Greta” is derived from the name Margareta, which comes from the Greek word margarites. It means pearl. Further versions of this name are Margarita / Margaret / Maggie.
Thus, we add her in: Moriarty -> Greta -> Black Pearl -> London
So when Sherlock finds the AGRA stick in the busts of Margaret Thatcher, he says to Mary...
SHERLOCK: I was so convinced it was Moriarty, I couldn’t see what was right under my nose. I expected a pearl.
Sherlock expected to find a pearl (Greta / a spy), but instead he found AGRA/Mary’s identity. He actually found what he was looking for, but he just didn’t recognize it.
And it actually still makes sense:
Margaret Thatcher’s bust -> Black Pearl -> Greta (“pearl”, spy) -> Mary (spy) -> AGRA memory stick
That’s how it went in the plot. It’s a subconscious connection.
So what’s ACD have to say about all that then?
This is the point where I remind you...
In ACD’s The Sign of Four, Mary Morstan’s story centers heavily around the loss of her father. That’s also the story that involves the Agra treasure, and Mary notably receives 6 pearls in the mail as part of the mystery.
So all of this does have connections back to ACD canon; who is surprised?
But what do we know about Mary’s past from the show’s canon in His Last Vow? Let’s look at some other reminders.
SHERLOCK: By your skill set, you are – or were – an intelligence agent. Your accent is currently English but I suspect you are not. You’re on the run from something; you’ve used your skills to disappear; Magnussen knows your secret, which is why you were going to kill him; and I assume you befriended Janine in order to get close to him.
+
MAGNUSSEN: All those wet jobs for the CIA. Ooh! She’s gone a bit... freelance now. Bad girl.
Mary’s not English; she could be Swedish, she could be American, but regardless–Sherlock deduced she’s a linguist in TEH. And either way, she’s worked for America.
Americans crop up a weird amount in BBC Sherlock (and ACD canon too really), and usually in negative contexts. I just want to highlight one American connection from The Abominable Bride, about Emilia Ricoletti:
SHERLOCK: So she decided to make her death count. She was already familiar with the secret societies of America and was able to draw on their methods of fear and intimidation to publicly – very publicly – confront Sir Eustace Carmichael with the sins of his past.
HOOPER: He knew her out in the States. Promised her everything... marriage, position – and then he had his way with her and threw her over, left her abandoned and penniless.
Also, where was it that Mr. Hudson had his drug cartel? Oh yeah. Florida.
We’ll go back to that.
More Margarets In BBC Sherlock
So we’ve officially got one connection where Margaret relates to Mary. TST makes that pretty clear.
Now, where else have we encountered the name Margaret in the show?
Three places (at least, that I’ve caught):
1. A Study In Pink.
The first victim of Jeff Hope the serial killer is Sir Jeffrey Patterson. He was having an affair with his personal assistant Helen, despite being married to his wife Margaret Patterson.
It’s a well-known fact in this fandom that the victims in ASiP are considered mirrors for John Watson, highlighting things that would lead to his own unhappiness/death–possibly even by suicide. (TJLCE video) So, let’s say Jeffrey Patterson is a mirror for John.
Helen the personal assistant (who says “I love you”) is, perhaps, a mirror for Sherlock. She’s wearing a deep purple shirt.
Does that connect Margaret Patterson, who insists her husband was happy, to Mary?
MARGARET PATTERSON: My husband was a happy man who lived life to the full. He loved his family and his work – and that he should have taken his own life in this way is a mystery and a shock to all who knew him.
[looks at John’s unhappiness in HLV after a month of marriage, looks at series 4 theories about John faking his suicide / trying to commit suicide, laughs nervously]
Well. Moving on.
2. The Hounds of Baskerville.
Project HOUND was a CIA Classified / American project that Major Barrymore was involved in. The Major is apparently a fan of Margaret Thatcher, and the password to his laptop is Maggie. Sherlock types “Margare” then hesitantly backtracks and writes Maggie and it works. It’s worth noting that in the script it was drafted to just be Margaret.
3. The Sign of Three.
MRS. HUDSON: My best friend, Margaret – she was my chief bridesmaid. We were going to be best friends forever, we always said that; but I hardly saw her after that. [...] She cried the whole day, saying, “Ooh, it’s the end of an era.” She was probably right, really. I remember she left early. I mean, who leaves a wedding early?
So in BBC Sherlock, the name Margaret is connected to...
• The Margaret Thatcher busts in The Six Thatchers, which connects to Mary/AGRA/pearls/Greta the Swedish spy
• Margaret Patterson, the wife of a mirror for John who was the victim of murder that masqueraded as suicide. This Margaret insists that the John mirror was happy in their marriage, but the John mirror was having an affair with a Sherlock mirror
• Project HOUND, of the CIA. I find this exceedingly interesting because the name "Margaret” has connections to Moriarty/Mary, and this could mean it’s safe to guess that this case is/was connected to the wider Moriarty web. We see Sherlock hallucinate Moriarty when drugged by the fog, sure, but otherwise Moriarty’s handiwork supposedly isn’t involved in this case... but maybe it was indirectly, by Mary in the CIA. Just ruminating.
• Margaret was Mrs. Hudson’s best friend, who left the wedding early when Mrs. Hudson and Frank got married
Re: that last bullet point, here is what I am suggesting as a possibility: Margaret was one of Mr. Hudson’s “other women.” Margaret left the wedding early because she was sad about the marriage, obviously, but maybe she wasn’t in love with Mrs. H like we would naturally assume (per Sherlock leaving the wedding early because he loves John). Maybe Margaret was in love with Mr. Hudson.
Maybe Mary is the daughter of Margaret and Mr. Hudson, and (as previously stated) she’s motivated to get revenge on Sherlock for killing her father and ruining the drug cartel empire. Who knows what would’ve happened to her mother Margaret, in that case, too.
This is speculation, of course, yes. Yet [waves to all the ridiculous web of connections I’ve delved deeply into, and the Frank Hudson hangman] can you blame me?
But, maybe you’re wondering... why would I think she’s the daughter of a Hudson specifically, even aside from all this Margaret stuff?
Well.
Hudsons In ACD Canon
Where is the name “Hudson” used in ACD canon, other than for Mrs. Hudson?
Three places (that I’ve caught; my ACD canon knowledge is limited):
• Morse Hudson in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, as discussed above; not mentioned in BBC Sherlock canon for some reason, yet strongly tied to the story that inspired TST.
• A name drop of “Hudson” in The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips.
Quick run-down of some aspects of this case: the client, John Openshaw, asks Holmes for help because a series of mysterious letters seems to be connected with the recent suspicious deaths of his uncle Elias and his father Joseph. The letters included 5 orange pips, and KKK on the envelope. When his uncle received his letter, he burnt a bunch of secret personal papers. One paper survived; it’s on that paper that we see Hudson’s name, associated with the KKK, and otherwise oddly unrelated to the case.
Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book. It was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath were the following enigmatical notices:
“4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.
“7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain of St. Augustine.
“9th. McCauley cleared.
“10th. John Swain cleared.
“12th. Visited Paramore. All well.”
Here are other ~features of interest~ in this case to me: Openshaw’s uncle Elias was a planter in Florida for many years. Florida is mentioned by Holmes as a “notable” state where the KKK formed a branch; the others are Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, and Georgia (hello to Tbilisi, Georgia being in TST seemingly at random). It is also mentioned that the fear of someone or something is what drove Elias from America to England. There’s also a very random name drop of “Mary” in this story that doesn’t relate to the case, told as part of Openshaw’s story, in which I can only assume Mary was a maid?
OPENSHAW, QUOTING UNCLE ELIAS: “They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he with an oath. ‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’
The fact that the name Mary manages to be in this cracks me up.
The orange pips / secret societies in America / etc. all heavily tie into The Abominable Bride, and the women’s hoods were visually reminiscent of the KKK. Sir Eustace’s line in TAB of “Death” (when he receives the pips) is a direct quote from Elias in this story when he receives his pips–and a quote that Mary echoes in TST when she completes Vivian Norbury’s sentence in the aquarium.
VIVIAN NORBURY: I’m just like the merchant in the story. I thought I could outrun the inevitable. I’ve always been looking over my shoulder; always expecting to see the grim figure of...
MARY: Death.
So, in summary we have: a name drop of Hudson in a story that factors in Florida, Georgia, pips, secret societies, the KKK, and even a name drop of Mary.
• Hudson is the criminal in The Adventure of the Gloria Scott.
This case is the one Holmes credits as his first case, and it inspired his future profession. He’s telling Watson the story. It happened in his university days and centers on his friend Victor Trevor (TFP says hi, lmao). More specifically, it centers on Victor Trevor’s father. I won’t go into all the details, and the plot summary on Wikipedia is good if you’re curious, but–
A quick run-down of some ~features of interest~ in this case: Mr. Trevor the elder is being blackmailed by the criminal Hudson because of their old criminal past together with others. Hudson is threatening him with exposure / public shame, and Mr. Trevor is forced to employ him. Victor gets pissed about it and eventually upsets Hudson enough that Hudson leaves in a very “this isn’t over” kind of way. Later, Mr. Trevor dies from a stroke after receiving a letter that threatened him via a skip code. It is a skip code of specifically every third word, beginning with the first.
Full skip code message: "The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."
Decoded message: "The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life."
(It’s not a game anymore...)
Who do we have in show canon who recognizes a skip code on sight of specifically every third word, beginning with the first?
All together now: Mary.
(Bonus points for “Save John Watson” being the phrase Mary says in her creepy posthumous DVDs. Bonus points x2 for the fact that this text was sent by Magnussen, the “Napoleon of blackmail,” to Mary when he was supposedly trying to find Sherlock’s pressure point. But anyway!)
Another feature of interest about the Gloria Scott case: Holmes deduces that Mr. Trevor was once connected to someone with the initials J.A. whom he wanted to forget, guessing it was an old lover. Mr. Trevor momentarily faints in shock. Holmes guessed this based on an old arm tattoo that Mr. Trevor had tried to get rid of, where the initials are blurry. This later turns out to be wrong, because Mr. Trevor’s previous name was James Armitage–J.A.–when he was a criminal, and that is the reason behind the tattoo. (JA? AJ / Ajay? Much to think about)
The J.A. tattoo deduction was referenced in The Six Thatchers, when Sherlock deduces that the client had a Japanese girlfriend he is now indifferent about.
SHERLOCK: You’ve got a Japanese tattoo in the crook of your elbow in the name ‘Akako.’ It’s obvious you’ve tried to have it removed.
KINGSLEY: But surely that means I wanna forget her, not that I’m indifferent.
SHERLOCK: If she’d really hurt your feelings, you would have had the word obliterated, but the first attempt wasn’t successful and you haven’t tried again, so it seems you can live with the slightly blurred memory of Akako, hence the indifference.
I’m bothering to highlight this in TST because after Sherlock explains it, the client remarks upon it being “simple”... and that’s when Sherlock immediately launches into his ~fake~ long-winded deduction about his wife being Greta the spy, as I already talked about above. Wild.
One last fascinating thing about the Gloria Scott: this case is referenced in 2 other ACD stories–The Sussex Vampire (John texting in TST), and The Musgrave Ritual (TFP). Gotta love that.
So, uh, what if Mrs. Hudson’s “case” (getting her husband executed) was one of Sherlock’s “firsts” that inspires him to become a consultive detective full-time? We’re told in ASiP that he ensured Frank Hudson’s execution “a few years back.” The inexactness of that year amount drives me bonkers, but I think it’s potentially plausible.
Short Coda: Ghost Stories...
In Mr. Trevor’s reply to Holmes’ (incorrect) J.A. tattoo deduction, he includes the following line:
“Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”
Mark Gatiss talked a lot about ghost stories. In the Sherlock Chronicles book (which I own) teasing series 4, he said, “I can certainly give you one word. Ghosts...” and in this interview he said “There’s a conspiracy theory about everything and they’re almost the modern equivalent of ghost stories. And the great thing is, you can have all the tropes of a ghost story. . . There are lots of people in happy marriages who turn out to have terrible secrets or to have done some awful deed in the past that must be paid for in the present. In Doyle’s stories, those are the ghosts you need to worry about.”
And here are the lines we get from Holmes in The Abominable Bride about ghosts (that aren’t literal):
You may, however, rest assured there are no ghosts in this world... Save those we make for ourselves.
+
We all have a past, Watson. Ghosts – they are the shadows that define our every sunny day. Sir Eustace knows he’s a marked man.
+
The avenging ghost – a legend to strike terror into the heart of any man with malicious intent; a spectre to stalk those unpunished brutes whose reckoning is long overdue.
While typing, I’ve now galaxy-brained my way to the realization that Mrs. H was canonically an “abominable bride” to Frank Hudson and literally murdered him (with Sherlock’s help), just like the women in the special. She’s also shown as one of the women ignored/disparaged in the special (”I’m your landlady, not a plot device”) but just isn’t shown in the crypt/society. So that’s, uh... interesting.
In (Semi-)Conclusion: A Summary
We have the following significant points at minimum:
• A Frank Hudson clue in a series 4 video
• One reference where Mary is undeniably connected to a Hudson who was a criminal in ACD canon (skip code)
• One ACD Hudson who was heavily connected to The Six Napoleons story, aka The Six Thatchers
• One ACD Hudson name-dropped in a story that heavily connects to The Abominable Bride, and Florida
• A bizarre pile of evidence that all Margaret mentions in the show could relate back to Mary the ex-CIA spy, in some way or another
• A Margaret connected to Mrs. Hudson who could’ve been in love with Frank Hudson (in Florida)
• The overall theme of s4 being ghosts from past deeds and un(happy) marriages coming to haunt people. And lest we forget, “ghost” Mary literally haunts Sherlock and John after her “death.”
Does that cover it? I feel like that covers it.
Of course, I absolutely could be reading into a ton of things that are unrelated, but... Who is to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Random Related Stuff
Not required reading, but while poking around, I’ve found other things that could or could not connect to the above theory. I’m just gonna... info dump it right here. It could all be meaningless, it could all connect, it could be unrelated! You decide! Lots of meta links involved below, so credit where credit is due.
• I knew I wasn’t the first to come up with this concept/possibility of Mary being a Hudson. While building this post, I ran a search and came across this old one by @the-7-percent-solution, who posited there’s a letter game at play of AEIOU involving Mary’s monstrous regiment of various characters and connects Amo/Love to Mary. I love this concept, and while I do think there are other elements/aspects in play for the plot besides just this, that post still has pieces that can work nicely; doesn’t matter that it was written before TFP aired.
• Frequently thinking about how Sherlock said “Mrs. Hudson? Leave Baker Street? England would fall,” because what does Mrs. Hudson do in TLD? She leaves Baker Street.
• All of the above cursed elements haunt me. (Arwel’s Instagram post was April of this year.) Note: there’s another tweet Arwel jokingly posted of this photo years ago, but that tweet’s caption was connected to Brexit based on dates / my memory (i.e. “England has fallen”), so I’m not including it lol.
• In TFP, when Mrs. Hudson is vacuuming, she’s listening to Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast.” The lyrics we get are “666, the Number of the Beast. Hell and fire was spawned to be released.” The other time 666 is mentioned was by Mary in TST, in reference to Rosie.
• Mrs. Hudson is in the center of the 221B promo pic for series 4, as noticed by @sherlocks-salty-blog.
• This cursed pic of Mary’s "ring from her past” on top of a series 4, episode 3 script (??) that Amanda took has haunted me since she tweeted it. Mary wears this ring on-screen in TEH, and you can see it when Sherlock deduces her.
• The Gabrielle Ashdown passport (in TST) is from America.
• Janine (who many of us notice is likely involved with Mary / Moriarty of course) often wears pearls, as @sherlockmeta noticed. Mary also wears pearl earrings in series 4 promo shots but never in s4 episodes (that I can find/remember). I also always think that Mary and Mrs. Hudson are dressed very similarly in s4 promo images (see all promos here).
• @raggedyblue discussed how Sherlock’s window deduction in TLD sounds a lot like Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen in 221A, and how a sheet of paper being pinned/folded is an opposite element in ACD’s The Sign of Four. The re-folded paper was a map leading to the AGRA treasure, and Mary found it in her father’s desk. Brilliant catch. Of course, in the show, the paper says Miss Me which is also heavily connected to Mary.
• The mystery of the little girls with blond and braided hair, as compiled by @ebaeschnbliah, is also going to haunt me. I suggest reading the post, but minor summary: during s4 setlock, there was filming with Ben and Mark at Ogmore Castle with a little girl "wearing a skirt or dress, and her hair was blonde and in pigtails,” and she was running circles around Sherlock. There are two separate reports from people who saw this and mentioned it had to do with Mary; at first glance it bears similarities to Eurus scenes we got in TFP, but seems different in description. This also brings to mind the little girl with blonde braided hair in TEH at the bonfire, who notably wears a bright red jacket just like Mary. And there’s also a doll with blond braided pigtails in Magnussen’s mind palace.
• @gosherlocked has posts about��“The Children of Sherlock” (part 1)(part 2) that highlight how children are frequently victims in this show. Metaphorically, I find this interesting if Mary plays a role of a “wronged child” avenging her father, regardless of age.
• Let’s talk music in TLD–or at least, one piece of it. When Mrs. Hudson drops the teacup, Mozart’s “Andante From Piano Concerto #21” plays. That specific second movement was used in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan. Sweden, of course, immediately reminded me of Greta the spy (aka Mary) being Swedish. After I realized this info, I ran a search to see if anyone else had mentioned this movie and I found this post, where @tjlcisthenewsexy and @possiblyimbiassed discussed how it’s a story of 2 doomed lovers who die via suicide-by-revolver. This is significant because Sherlock drops a revolver to catch the tea; death replaced by (gay) love?
• Speaking of Sweden: in The Game Is Now, Sherlock is abroad in Sweden. This is mentioned more than once: first, in this audio message between Sherlock and Mycroft (“Sweden sends its regards.” “It does?” “No, not really.”). This audio message also includes “This is not an international game of sardines.” Fish reference? Aquarium?
The second Sweden mention is visually, in this video. See below. (Also, in both, the characters say “real people,” which I can’t help but feel is a fourth wall break of them being fictional?)
I hate this Sweden stuff specifically. Thank you.
This post is so much longer than I expected it would be, thank you for reading all of this if you did, Johnlock is real, Mary is a villain, etc.
Come yell at me on Twitter @CharCubed!
Also, I made a secret sideblog @frankhudson to just reblog meta or info I might want to be able to find later lmao. Feel free to poke around if you want.
#sherlock meta#mary morstan#frank hudson#mrs hudson#the six thatchers#TST#margaret#the abominable bride#TAB#Greta Bengtsdotter#the borgia pearl#ghost stories#mark gatiss#ACD canon#Arthur Conan Doyle#what the fuck else did I talk about?#sherlock holmes#sjkdfjsfnksjdnfkjdbf#meta#sherlock#bbc sherlock#the sign of four#the gloria scott#the six napoleons
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5e Yasuo, the Unforgiven build (League of Legends)
(Artwork by Riot Games)
Yone is back; only fair that I do his brother. There’s about a thousand different jokes I could make here but they’d all be extremely low-bar... just like the average K/D/A of a Yasuo player.
GOALS
Death is like the wind; always by my side - The most important thing for the master of the legendary wind technique will be wind magic, obviously.
One blade; one purpose - Even without the wind technique Yasuo is still an expert swordsman.
Way of the Wanderer - We’ll need a guaranteed way to strike hard and true while also shielding ourselves. Because I don’t see why Yasuo shouldn’t get double crit chance and a shield just for walking around.
RACE
Yasuo is a human, and since he didn’t get a demon attached to his face I can’t justify much else like I could with his brother. But Variant Human still smells so how about more dragonmarks to spice it up? As a Mark of Passage Human you get +2 to Dexterity and +1 to another stat of your choice: pick Charisma to play the flute better and get more Mastery 7s. You also know Common along with one other language of your choice: I’d argue that Elvish would be common in Ionia? But pick whatever you think will be useful.
You have Courier's Speed for an extra 5 feet of movement, and Intuitive Motion to add a d4 to Acrobatics checks or checks to operate land vehicles. Finally Magical Passage will allow you to cast Misty Step once per Long Rest, for some Flash plays.
If Eberron races aren’t allowed Variant Human still works fine. There’s plenty of good feats to choose from: the new UA weapon feats, Mobile, Defensive Duelist, Alert, Magic Initiate, or just some generally useful feats like Tough or Lucky.
ABILITY SCORES
15; CHARISMA - You have all the makings of an anime protagonist from the land of anime protagonists.
14; DEXTERITY - To master the sword you need to strike as swift as the wind.
13; CONSTITUTION - You need a bit of health to dive into a 1v5, even after your team told you not to over ten times.
12; STRENGTH - Yas’ got abs. Probably because Rito wants to make the girls thirsty, but still: Yas’ got abs.
10; WISDOM - You were always the hotheaded brother, but you had to survive somehow. Even if you’re too stupid to identify a demon disguised as an old man.
8; INTELLIGENCE - Joke about Yasuo mains goes here, but put simply we don’t need Intelligence for much. Even if the wind technique takes skill you did always kinda wing it.
BACKGROUND
Yasuo has many backgrounds, but while there’s no “Unforgiven” background the Outlander background literally gives us Way of the Wanderer, allowing you to remember the general layout of the land around you and also find food and water for your party. You also gain proficiency in Athletics and Survival, an instrument of your choice (Flute, obviously), and a language of your choice. (I’d choose Sylvan for the ancient Ionian dialect.)
(Artwork by Riot Games)
THE BUILD
LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1
While you may not have started out as a Rogue in life we’ll be starting this build off with Rogue levels to get more skills. Skills like Acrobatics and Slight of Hand to aid with using the Wind Technique, Deception to keep people from killing you for ruining their promos, and Performance to play that flute of yours. You also get Expertise in two skills that you know and since again they are important for using the Wind Technique choose Acrobatics and Slight of Hand. You also learn Thieves’ Cant, which is a code language that only Rogues know, because it takes a bit to learn what “hasagi” means.
The main appeal of Rogues is of course the ability to Sneak Attack. If you have Advantage on your attack or the enemy is within 5 feet of an ally you can do an extra d6 of damage with your sword. You can only sneak attack if you’re using a Finesse weapon, and you can’t sneak attack if you have Disadvantage. By the way now would be a good time to mention that even though Yasuo uses a katana (of sorts) in League there’s no good analogy for a katana in D&D, but Yas does a lot of stabbing with his sword so a rapier would be your best option for a big damage die for piercing damage.
LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2
Second level Rogues get Cunning Action for some Sweeping Blades, allowing you to Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a bonus action. Remember that as a Mark of Passage human your base movement speed is 35, so you can dash up to 70 feet. Zoom through the minion wave to cut down your foes! Or just dash around like an idiot before getting taunted by the enemy Galio. (Trust me as a Galio player I love playing against Yasuos.)
LEVEL 3 - ROGUE 3
At third level you can choose your Roguish archetype and to guarantee that your ego gets you into fights go for Swashbuckler. Swashbucklers get two abilities at level 3 but honestly it’s more like they get three: Rakish Audacity lets you add your Charisma modifier to your Initiative rolls, so you can initiate even if you shouldn’t. It also lets you Sneak Attack work on enemies in melee range who don’t have an ally near them. (As long as you don’t have Disadvantage.) Additionally Fancy Footwork will let you move away from anyone you’ve attacked without provoking Attacks of Opportunity, even if you missed with your Sweeping Blades.
Basically you get the Mobile feat, you can Sneak Attack anyone who’s out in the open, and you add your Charisma to your initiative. Got it? Good. Oh and your Sneak Attack increases to 2d6.
LEVEL 4 - FIGHTER 1
Feel free to take the Fighter levels later as I’m mostly taking it for flavor reasons (god this build seems really familiar so far), but an early level in Fighter does give you a Fighting Style. Despite what you may think would make the most sense we’ll actually be taking the Defense fighting style for +1 AC thanks to the wind by our side. Put simply we have plans for the future.
At least you can have a flask of “Refillable Potion” to give you some Second Wind, allowing you to heal for a d10 plus your Fighter level as a bonus action once per short or long rest.
(Artwork by Riot Games)
Hey guys I’m multiclassing into a Charisma class! It’s time for levels in...
LEVEL 5 - BARD 1
SURPRISE! Funny how two brothers who started out so similar could go down such different paths... Anyways: multiclassing into Bard gives you one skill proficiency and one instrument proficiency. For skill you can choose just about anything but I opted for Insight to tell if the old man is serious about his secret Spirit Blossom temple. Your choice of instrument isn’t too important: learn more flutes (Pan Flutes to be exact) or borrow your dead brother’s Viol?
The main skill of Bards is their Bardic Inspiration: you can use your Bonus Action to give an ally within 60 feet to add to ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws. You have a number of these dice equal to your Charisma modifier because there’s only a number of times you can flash your Mastery 7 per match before people get sick of it.
You also get access to spellcasting! You get two cantrips from the Bard list: Mage Hand will allow you to bend the wind to grab things from a distance, and Message will let you talk in team chat regardless of if your allies muted you.
For a not-quite-tornado Earth Tremor forces all nearby enemies to make a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone. To keep up with the Way of the Wanderer grab Longstrider and Feather Fall to keep you and your allies swift and safe, and because there isn’t much else to grab at first level take Detect Magic to... detect magic.
LEVEL 6 - BARD 2
Second level Bards get Jack of All Trades, letting them add half their proficiency bonus to any skill check they’re not already proficient in. They also get Song of Rest, letting allies heal an extra d6 when taking a short rest. And you can add another spell but since again none of these really interest me you may as well grab Identify.
LEVEL 7 - BARD 3
What we’re really here for is the third level of Bard for our Bardic College. To study the way of the sword of course you’ll have to attend the College of Swords! As a Swords Bard you can channel the wind with your sword, and you get an additional Fighting Style: this is why we took Defense earlier because now we can grab Dueling for +2 damage with our Rapier!
The main appeal of Swords Bards however is their Blade Flourishes. When you attack an enemy your movement speed increases by 10 feet (adding up to 45 feet total, since you have 5 feet of additional movement speed), and if you hit you can choose to use a Bardic Inspiration die to perform a Blade Flourish:
Defensive Flourish will let you add your Bardic Inspiration to attack damage to and add the number rolled to your AC.
Slashing Flourish will let you add your Bardic Inspiration to attack damage and do damage equal to your Bardic Inspiration to anyone you choose within 5 feet of you.
Mobile Flourish will let you add your Bardic Inspiration to attack damage and push the target a number of feet equal to 5 plus your Bardic Inspiration roll. Additionally you can then use your reaction to move within 5 feet of them to continue chasing them down!
You can only use one Blade Flourish per turn, and they are obviously restricted by your Bardic Inspiration, so use them wisely!
You also get Expertise in two more skills and access to second level spells! Choose Athletics to guarantee success in a fight, and Deception to guarantee that no one who’s looking for you finds you. For your spell Warding Wind will let you bend the wind to protect you, doing a bunch of stuff detailed in the spell’s description but mostly keeping projectiles from hitting you.
LEVEL 8 - BARD 4
4th level Bards finally get our first Ability Score Improvement: Attack Speed increases the effectiveness of all our abilities so increase your Dexterity for more of that.
You can also add another cantrip to your spell list, as well as another leveled spell. For cantrips you can blow some paper lanterns though the air with Dancing Lights. As for your leveled spell there are plenty of great options but I suggest knocking an enemy up to cut them down with Last Breath thanks to Hold Person. Hold Person inflicts Paralyzed, which grants all attacks against the target Advantage. Advantage means that you can sneak attack, though you could already sneak attack if they were singled out. But reliability isn’t a bad thing!
LEVEL 9 - BARD 5
5th level Bards get Font of Inspiration, allowing their Bardic Inspiration to come back on a short rest. Which is good, because their Bardic Inspiration (IE Blade Flourish) die also increase to a d8!
You can also learn another spell, and now have access to third level slots! If you need a safe place to rest then Leomund’s Tiny Hut can give you a moment’s peace.
LEVEL 10 - BARD 6
As a Swords Bard you finally get an Extra Attack at 6th level. Only took 10 levels in the build to get our second attack, huhn? Regardless you can also learn another spell such as Hypnotic Pattern, allowing you to stun a room full of enemies so you can focus on the main big bad! Oh and you get Countercharm, which sucks.
(Artwork by Riot Games)
LEVEL 11 - BARD 7
7th level Bards get 4th level spells like Dimension Door to teleport into a fight when needed. Or you can keep farming.
LEVEL 12 - BARD 8
At 8th level you get another Ability Score Improvement: cap off your Dexterity score to give your enemies a death by a thousand cuts.
You can also learn another spell like Freedom of Movement for a Quicksilver Sash against a CC-heavy team.
LEVEL 13 - BARD 9
9th level Bards see their Song of Rest increase to a d8 for some more sake breaks with the party. You also get access to 5th level spells such as Hold Monster, just in case Shyvana or Rek’Sai are carrying.
LEVEL 14 - BARD 10
Hey shouldn’t we get more wind magic as the wind swordsman? Well 10th level Bards get their first batch of Magical Secrets: for Wind Wall get the spell literally called Wind Wall. Wind Wall creates a wall of wind (no really?) that will deflect missiles. And the best part? This wind wall actually does damage!
To cast Last Breath without the knock up look no further than Steel Wind Strike. Choose up to five creatures you can see within range and make a melee spell attack against each target. On a hit, a target takes 6d10 force damage. You can then teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 5 feet of one of the targets you hit or missed after casting the spell.
You also get Expertise in two more skills, and can learn another cantrip! By this point the only skills you really have to get Expertise in are Insight and Survival. (I mean if you want to get Expertise in Performance go ahead?) And for your cantrip you may as well finally grab Vicious Mockery. Flash that Mastery 7 to intimidate your enemies! (Feel free to grab Vicious Mockery earlier in the build if you want, I’m just taking it in an order that fits the character.)
LEVEL 15 - FIGHTER 2
Feel free to take your Fighter levels earlier but I figured that Wind Wall and Last Breath were more important to the build. Regardless second level Fighters get Action Surge, letting them take one additional action their turn. This means that you can attack four times in a round, or cast multiple spells!
LEVEL 16 - FIGHTER 3
Third level Fighters can choose their Martial Archetype, and Samurai can attack precisely and shield themselves with Fighting Spirit. When you activate Fighting Spirit as a Bonus Action you get advantage on all attacks for the turn, meaning free Sneak Attack and more chances to crit! You also get 5 temporary hitpoints to shrug off some incoming damage. You get three uses of Fighting Spirit per Long Rest but honestly talk to your DM if Fighting Spirit can come back on a Short Rest; if Battle Masters get their Maneuver Dice back on a Short Rest why can’t you get Advantage on a Short Rest?
And you know what we don’t have enough of? Skill proficiencies! You can choose to either learn a language or a skill from the Samurai list: take Persuasion to fully round out your roguish charm.
(Artwork by SIXMOREVODKA STUDIO. Created for Legends of Runeterra by Riot Games.)
LEVEL 17 - BARD 11
11th level Bards can learn 6th level spells but unfortunately none of these are really that impressive, so you may as well mute the chat and incoming pings with Blindness / Deafness at second level.
LEVEL 18 - BARD 12
At 12th level you get another Ability Score Improvement: if you want more Bardic Inspiration and better spells go for 2 points in Charisma, but if you want to keep your Concentration up the Resilient feat for Constitution is also a very good option. Of course if you rolled for stats the choice is easier, but I personally opted for better Charisma so that Steel Wind Strike is more likely to hit.
LEVEL 19 - BARD 13
13th level Bards see their Song of Rest increase to a d10, which is almost completely irrelevant at this point. You do get a 7th level spell slot though, and while there are many options to choose from how about you bring your brother back? Resurrection will let you bring a target to life if they have been dead for less than a century, though it comes with a lot of costs that are detailed in the spell. So maybe just let demons bring your brother back to life instead.
LEVEL 20 - BARD 14
With the 14th level of Bard being our capstone there’s a lot to be gained: firstly you get your final Bardic College ability of Master’s Flourish, letting you roll a d6 to use for a Blade Flourish and not spend a Bardic Inspiration die. But more importantly you get two more Magical Secrets: Investiture of Stone is a spell I gave to Yasuo’s brother because of its ability to knock enemies down, but I figure the master of the wind technique may as well get Investiture of Wind as well. Yasuo doesn’t fly in League but there’s nothing saying he can’t fly?
FINAL BUILD
PROS
Kill me? You can try - How about some sword math? You can attack twice with your Rapier for a d8 + 7 damage, are pretty much guaranteed Sneak Attack as a Swashbuckler for an additional 2d6 damage, and can pop a Master’s Flourish for an extra d6 of damage, or a regular Bardic Inspiration die for an extra d10. That means that you’ll be doing a total of 2d8 + 3d6 + 14 damage per turn on average. Add in a high AC (17 with Leather, 18 with Studded, 20 if you grab a shield (no reason not to!) and even higher with Defensive Flourish) and generally high mobility you can guarantee that you won’t be hit, and those that do hit you will be dead.
Honor is in the heart, not the name - You also have a lot of utility with your spells. Turns out Wind Magic translates into a lot of ranged attacks being negated, and a lot of enemies being too dazed to fight back.
Don't start what I'll finish - Even outside of combat you are insanely useful. You are proficient in 8 out of the 18 available skills, have Expertise in 6 of them, and can still be useful in the skills you’re not proficient in thanks to Jack of All Trades.
CONS
Follow the wind, but watch your back - Your AC may be great but your saving throws are not, and your health leaves something to be desired too. A few Strength or Wisdom saves can easily put you out of commission, and Power Word Kill can easily put an end to you screaming “Hasag!” and “Aseryo!”
Is a leaf's only purpose to fall? - You’ll be chewing through resources quick if you want to fight like Yasuo. Limited spell slots and limited Fighting Spirit, both of which come back on a long rest. Sure you’ve got Bardic Inspiration (Blade Flourishes) and Second Wind comes back on a short rest but they’re also still limited.
A wanderer isn't always lost - A three-way multiclass results in some missed ASIs, and truth be told the Samurai levels really aren’t providing much. You’d be much better off getting some more levels in Bard for a d12 Inspiration die and access to 8th (or even 9th!) level spells.
But while your body may be weak your mastery over the wind is strong! Dance around the battlefield like a leaf in the wind, cut down your foes, and blast away any incoming attacks before slicing through your foes like a swift breeze! And be sure not to abandon your post: we don’t need more revenants roaming around.
(Artwork by Riot Games)
#DnD 5e#dnd#dnd build#dnd guide#dnd bard#League of Legends#League of Legends Yasuo#dnd fighter#dnd rogue#hasagi
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Reacting to David Hurwitz
Some weeks ago I came across the recently opened Youtube channel of David Hurwitz, a music critic who wrote reviews for High Fidelity and Amazon, and the founder and executive editor of the website Classics Today. I agree with some of his opinions, though I do disagree with him a good deal. But the straw that broke the camel's back was one of his early videos, which is titled: Classical Music's 10 Dirtiest Secrets. I was so alarmed by it, that I decided at once to stop watching his videos and to omit him from my YouTube recommendations. Today I've decided to finally face Mr. Hurwitz and express my reactions to his "secrets". Now, more than my opinions being lauded, I actually want people to congratulate me for copying the entire script, unabridged, because it was painful for me to do so, since I disagree with practically every "secret". And in response to some of the comments, Mr. Hurwitz said something to the effect of "some people here don't have a sense of humor!" Well, I do have a sense of humor (you can blame my parents for that), but if you, dear Herr Prof. Hurwitz, say you're joking, you've got to make that more clear in your arguments. Well, here is, without further ado, Classical Music's 10 Dirtiest Secrets by Mr. David Hurwitz.
[This is] the antidote to all of that PR we hear these days, that tells us that just because something is "classical", it must all be equally fabulous and we just can't get enough. Well, here's a news flash: it's not. Witness the following:
1. Mozart really does all sound the same. Yes, he was a genius. Yes, he wrote 620-some-odd pieces in 35 years, but let's face it. How different can they be? Even Toscanini thought they all sounded the same.
2. Beethoven's Grosse Fuge is just plain ugly. I mean, if you ever listen to that thing recently, it sounds like four dying cattle. I know we're supposed to be amazed at its contrapuntal mastery, and it's transcendental what-not whatever. It's ugly, let's not kid ourselves.
3. Wagner's operas are much better with cuts. I mean nothing, nothing has the right to be 4 or 5 hours long at a stretch. I mean, you go to the Met at 6 in the evening, and you don't leave till after midnight? You got to be crazy. The shorter it is, the better it is.
4. No one cares about the first 3 movements of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. I mean, nobody. We all want to hear The March to the Scaffold and then The Dream of the Witches' Sabbath. That's the hot stuff, that's were the music gets really juicy and exciting. The first 3 movements are more than a half hour [long], they're just preludial. I mean you sit through them politely, but then you wait to get your pulse racing, right? When the guy's head gets chopped off and the witches start hopping around. I mean, you know, he really should have just written the last 2 [movements] and left off the first 3, I think.
5. Schoenberg's music never sounds more attractive, no matter how many times you listen to it. Of course we're told that, you know, it's only a question of getting accustomed to its particular unique sound world and all that, and the more attention you give to it, the more rewarding it will be. Wrong, it's never more rewarding, it never sounds better. He was just a difficult truculant kind of guy, and he wrote difficult truculant music. Even his tonal music is hard to listen to. It's just difficult, period. Accept it, live with it, and love it, or don't.
6. Schumann's orchestration is really bad, and needs improvement. Once in a while a conductor will show up who says: "Well, you know I'm playing the original orchestration, it's better than everybody thought". No, it's not. It's thick, it's muddy, it doesn't do the music justice, and everybody tinkers with it. Even people who don't physically rescore it mess with the balances or whatever, just to make it listenable. Otherwise it's simply impossible.
7. Bruckner couldn't write a symphonic allegro to save his life. I mean, he calls some movements allegro, but who is he kidding. Even his early school symphony (you know, the one we call [Symphony No.] 00) has a first movement that's Allegro molto vivace. I mean, who is he kidding? It's not allegro, it's not molto, it's not vivace, it's all just slow. It's the way the man was, and we have to accept it as it is.
8. Liszt is trash. Enough said.
9. The so-called "happy ending" of Shostakovich's Fifth is actually perfectly sincere. Now, recent scholarship has revealed that this happy ending with the trumpets going nuts, and cymbals and timpani pounding away, crashing and bashing, is supposed to be a hidden signal for the misery and suffering of the Russian people. So while the music itself is going nuts with joy, we're supposed to be secretly sympathizing with their unhappiness and with the composer's personal misery. Well, I don't know. Freud said sometimes a happy ending is just a happy ending. And you know, it's okay to be happy. Finally:
10. It's a good thing that only about 200 Bach cantatas survive. I mean really, folks, have you listened to all 200 of them? Do you just like come home from work and say, "Heck! I really need to hear a 25-minute Lutheran penitential cantata about suffering and misery"? I mean, how many of them can we stand? Supposedly about a third of them are missing, I mean more than a hundred of them. And if you're really really that concerned about it, if you really think it's a loss to humanity, I have a suggestion of where you might want to look for them. You see, when Bach died his estate got divided up between his wife and kids, and the oldest one Wilhelm Friedemann (who was supposedly a drunk organist or something like that) had a daughter. And his daughter got married to a business man, and sometime around the 1760s or so (or '70s, I don't know somewhere around then) they moved to Oklahoma. So, if you happen to have nothing to do, and you're really desperate for a new Bach cantata, start looking in barns at Oklahoma, because they started a farm there, and so somewhere, maybe, you know, near Oklahoma City or somewhere out there in the Texas Panhandle, you may find a hundred or so Bach cantatas!
And with that, let me just suggest that you should use your own judgement, listen fearlessly, judge mercilessly, enjoy what you want, love what you love and don't worry about the rest.
Well, now it's my time to respond (wow, it was difficult copying all of that).
1. I have to admit that I'm not so hot on Mozart. I get the feeling that I must worship him because he was a colossal genius, in a sense he's an encylopedia figure (and it's weird that I don't feel the same way about Bach, Beethoven or Haydn who are usually considered as encylopedic figures, and Mr. Hurwitz has himself admitted that although he respects Bach, he doesn't like a lot of his music specifically for this reason). However, I do think that there's a very noticeable difference between Mozart's 1st symphony and his 40th (I haven't heard the Jupiter, so the analogy is not perfect, but at least I'm honest about it). Besides, I personally do not really like Toscanini, but even without that, just because Toscanini said something doesn't mean it needs to apply to everything and everyone.
2. Well, Beethoven's Grosse Fuge is an acquired taste. I mean yes, it's difficult, it's hard to get through, it's angry, and it might even be "ugly", but that's because Beethoven wanted to be ugly. If you don't like it, just go and leave.
3. This one touches a sick nerve because I am a Wagnerian. Yes, some people are crazy in order to go and be in the theater for 6 hours for a Wagner opera. I do get that sometimes it's difficult to be attentive throughout such a long performance (especially if it's a bad one), but Wagner knew what he was doing when he was composing such long operas (and mind you, I don't always agree with his megalomaniac ideas). It is Wagner's right to have Meistersinger run for 5 hours, just as it is Puccini's right to have La Bohème run for 2 hours. Once again, if you don't want to be in an opera house for 6 hours, don't go. But don't tell me that everything is better when it's short.
4. Once again, this one also touches a sick nerve as I'm a deep fan Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. I should remark that aside from its programmatic function, I don't get the fourth movement, but I would be the first to admit that the finale is the X-Factor of the symphony. That said however, there is a place for the first 3 movements. If they're preludial, they're supposed to be so! And they're much more than a prelude! The first movement has lots of moments of teenage anxiety, depression and hallucination and one of the criteria for a good performance would be for me how much it gets the madness and extremness in this movement. In short, how "teenagery" it is. The second movement also seems to be just nice, and not having any service apart from its programmatic function, but it's sometimes good not to be going full tilt in the epicness department. Likewise, the third movement is also there for the need of what William Berger called (in a different context) "the lowering of the collective blood-pressure". And yet despite what might seem from a movement titled Scene in the Countryside, this movement actually has some manic terrifying moments. Once again, if you don't like the first 3 movements, just listen to the last 2, but again, Berlioz knew what he was doing in adding these first 3 movements.
5. Like the Grosse Fuge, Schoenberg's music is also an acquired taste. I disagree with Mr. Hurwitz's opinion that "it never gets more attractive", but I also disagree with those who say that "the more attention you give to it, the more it will reward you". Circumstances vary with every single person from one millisecond to the next. I am a Schoenberg fan, but I don't persuade people to join the Schoenberg fan club (but that's because I'm not a kind of a persudaing guy). And I'm not alone in that. Alexander Goehr, who is likewise a deep Schoenberg fan, seems to agree with me on this point (that is, I agree with him):
I don't think it is likely that it is possible to convince people who find the music [of Schoenberg] extremely difficult, that hidden beneath the surface is a heart of gold, and it's really all like Puccini if you only knew how to listen to it. It isn't like that. This was a fractious and difficult personality, with a striking and fast mind, and a feeling of responsibility towards music, musicians, students, all through his life.
Once again, if you don't like it, don't listen to it, just go and leave.
6. I haven't listened to Schumann's music so I can't say whether his orchestration is bad or not. However, I can say that people don't tinker only with Schumann's dynamics, and for some reason they get criticized for that in a way which would not happen if they would do the same to Schumann. So in a sense, having a conductor tinkering with Schumann's dynamics should not be something all that special, so stop making so much of a deal out of it.
7. Likewise, I haven't listened to much Bruckner, but I would agree that if it is indeed slow, that is the way Bruckner was and we can't do anything about it. Maybe what for him was fast, is slow for Mr. Hurwitz. And not only is the perception of tempo different from one person to another, it's different within the same person from one millisecond to the next.
8. Ok, I'm barely handling myself together when I'm writing this, and things are especially confusing when Mr. Hurwitz doesn't dare detail. If you think that Liszt is only virtuoso opera transcriptions, the Transcendental Etudes and the Hungarian Rhapsodies, you are damn wrong! Just look at his symphonic poems, and the Faust and Dante Symphonies and you'll see he was much more than just a flashy romantic pyrotechnic of the piano. You still think this is kitschy and wearing on the sleeve? Ok, fine. How about the late piano pieces?! I just keep going mad when I see how many people don't know, let alone appreciate Liszt's late works (which I'm not even going to write a blog post on, because it speaks by itself. Here's a playlist.) These pieces tell you, more even than Tristan, the Ring and Parsifal, how Debussy and early Schoenberg came into being. If you're not convinced by that, I really have no other idea to dissuade you from believing that "Liszt is trash".
9. I have to say before I begin the discussion of Mr. Hurwitz's argument, that trying to figure out the meaning of Shostakovich's music is just pure mayhem, for reasons I hope I don't need to tell you. That being said, we are really actually told that the conflict between musicologists is whether he composed the Fifth Symphony in order to save his skin, or is the music braced with sarcasm. As I understand, there is no reason why the ending should be understood as "sincerely happy" when one goes deeper. Once again, what Freud says doesn't necessarily apply to every situation. So yes, I wouldn't necessarily go as far as to say that we're supposed to be thinking of misery, but we should think of hypocrisy.
10. Once again, I have barely listened to Bach cantatas, but just from looking at the titles, I'm pretty sure that not all of those cantatas are about "suffering and misery" (small unimportant sidenote: You really needed to use the same two words you just used for Shostakovich?). I don't know how much this is likely, but go figure that the hundred or so lost cantatas happen to be the best cantatas Bach ever wrote, and what we've known till now is, forgive the expression, the rotten bottom of the barrel? But trying to go around Oklahoma farms to find them is almost hopeless, for a number of reasons. Most likely, the manuscripts could have been deemed worthless, so they were used for other purposes. The farm could have been destroyed or dismantled or whatever. So maybe we're lucky that some Bach cantatas are missing, maybe not, I have no idea what to say about this.
I saved the most important issue for the end. I have no problem with all the opinions that Mr. Hurwitz has expressed - as long as he was meaning only to express his own opinion. I obviously disagree with him, but I have no serious problem with Mr. Hurwitz suggesting that Wagner's operas are better when cut, that Mozart sounds all the same, and (though with some difficulty, if only because Liszt is widely misunderstood) that Liszt is trash. The problem I have is with him saying that these are the "official dirtiest-secret facts of the classical music industry". And once again, if he's joking, he should make that clearer.
P.S. As I was writing this, I discovered that it's apparently also available online as an editorial, so if you want to make me suffer twice, you can do that.
(Originally posted: 9 August 2020)
#david hurwitz#classicstoday#mozart#arturo toscanini#beethoven#wagner#berlioz#symphonie fantastique#arnold schoenberg#schumann#anton bruckner#franz liszt#shostakovich 5#johann sebastian bach#cantata#alexander goehr#dmitri shostakovich
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This Photo of Us Part 1: Lips Like Strawberry Wine
To literally no one’s surprise it’s more Micoverse. Let’s just say I listened to Blake Robin’s Unhealthy Obsession one too many times.
Warnings: none for this chapter
Part 2 / Part 3
**********************************
On a wet, rainy autumn afternoon, Jacob Pierly disappeared.
----
Months before, just as spring was nudging aside the last, clingy vestiges of winter and stubbornly sprouting flowers against the still chilly mornings, Jacob Pierly met a girl. He’d ducked a coffee shop, eager to warm fingers cold from poor circulation and a breeze that had been biting since the early afternoon. Instead he got a shirt soaked with piping hot coco and a frantic, scrambling apology from the young woman who’d spilled her drink on him.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention--it was a total accident--I’ll pay for the cleaning! I’ll--I’ll buy you a new shirt! I’m so, so sorry!”
“I, uh, n-no, it’s f-fine, it’s just--it’ll come right out. It’s not a big deal,” Jake stepped back, awkwardly raising his hands to fend off the woman’s frantic cascade of paper napkins, “It was my fault, I was distracted. Let--let me buy you another one.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t--”
“Please?”
The young woman bit her lip, dirty blonde hair in disarray, twenty or so napkins clutched in her grasp, “I...okay.” She smiled, shy and relenting, straightening up and trying to compose herself.
Jake’s heart skipped a beat for reasons entirely unrelated to preexisting medical conditions.
----
Her name was Rosanna Pearl and she was studying for a medical degree at a nearby college.
“With a minor in chemistry,” She added as they sat at a table in the cafe, each anxiously clutching at their drinks and avoiding direct eye contact, “And you can call me Rosie. Everyone else does.”
“Jake Pierly,” He said, the corner of his mouth twitching in an awkward smile, “Stay at home editor.”
Rosie giggled, “Pierly. Sounds like Pearl. Our last names kind of match. That’s a little funny. Maybe it’s fate we ran into each other.”
“Ah, maybe,” Jake could feel his ears burning as he chuckled, “But next time fate intervenes, I hope it involves less spilled hot chocolate.”
Rosie laughed, a real, resonating laugh that made her cheeks turn pink. It was such a sweet laugh that Jake found himself laughing too.
“What do you edit, if you don’t mind me asking?” Rosie asked when they had settled down.
Jake swallowed a mouthful of decaf, shrugged one shoulder and looked out the window so he didn’t have to face his problems, “Nothing special. Usually whatever anyone throws my way. Creative writing, mostly. Sometimes academic papers but there’s a lot of jargon I don’t get in those so I have to decline a lot of them. I can’t tell you how many awful books get handed off to me by these wanna-be novelists that think they’re going to be the next Stephen King or something.” He rolled his eyes, caught Rosie’s glance, and flushed, “D-don’t tell them I said that, I mean, I do the work. P-pays the bills, you know. Heh.”
“Oh no, don’t apologize, I’m pretty sure I know the type,” Rosie raised her eyebrows, “I used to work at a salon and you would not believe the bitches--the kinds of people who came through there! Awful people. Just. Terrible.”
Jake hid a smile behind the lid of his coffee cup, “Sounds like you’ve got some horror stories.”
Rosie smirked, “I’ll regale you with them sometime.” She glanced at her phone sitting on the table next to her, “But right now I really have to head out. Tell you what, coffee’s on me next time and I’ll spill all the dirty client secrets. Deal?”
Jake hummed, “Deal. What’s your number?”
----
“DAD! DAD! JAKE HAS A DATE! JAKE HAS A DATE!”
Dan looked up from the stove so fast he banged his head on the cabinet. Head smarting and eyes watering, he turned to face the teenager spilling head over heels into the kitchen, “Ow! What!? Milo, stop shouting! What did you say?”
“He didn’t say anything!” Jake shouted, spilling into the kitchen and nearly wiping out on the tile as his socks slid underneath him.
“JAKE’S GOING ON A DATE!”
Dan stared at Milo and then looked at Jake who appeared as though he’d like nothing better than to vanish through the floor, never to show himself again. His face was bright red and he was twisting his shirt into knots between his fingers, gaze darting across the room, shoulders hunched to his ears as he curled in on himself. In contrast, Milo was bouncing up and down, a wide grin on his face, snickering madly at having shared a piece of juicy gossip.
“Jake?” And even though Dan said it carefully he could still hear the eggshells popping under his feet.
“Ih-it’s not a date!” Jake said to the floor, “It’s just a coffee…meetup. Thing. To talk about work. Strictly--strictly platonic. M-maybe even business related. We only just met today and barely know each other but sh-she seems nice and stuff and we were joking around and so we’re just--just going to meet for coffee next week. It’s not a date! It’s nothing!”
Dan winked at him, “Of course, Jake. Not a date. Strictly professional. Got it.”
“You both are the worst.” Jake groaned and Milo cackled with glee.
-----
Dan and Milo left him alone about it for the time preceding the coffee meetup (though Jake suspected Milo only did so with much bribing and pleading from Dan). Jake was grateful for that much because he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten out of the house with friends apart from Dan and...well, these days it was just Dan. So this would be a nice change of pace from the usual fanfare.
Still, that didn’t stop him from fretting the morning of and changing his shirt three times. He couldn’t help it, he wanted to be presentable. That’s just who he was. He only settled down when Milo caught him trying to match ties and asked him what “his date’s favorite color was”. Dan had to stop Jake from chasing the teenager around the house with a dress shoe and threatening to smack the smile right off his face.
“When do you think you’ll be home?” Dan asked as he ushered Milo away to find something more productive to do with his time.
“Um, no later than 5?” Jake hazard, pulling on a jacket, “I’ve got a video call with a client I don’t want to look like roadkill for tomorrow, so I’ll be home in time for dinner and a decent night’s sleep.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
“Yes, dear,” Jake chided gently, “I’ll keep my phone on and I promise not to sleep with any strangers.”
“Jake…”
“Whoa! Dad’s cheating on dad!”
“Milo, go to your room!”
“This house is a nightmare!”
Jake could only laugh as he stepped outside and pulled the door shut.
The drive to the cafe was short but enough for Jake to work himself back up into a nervous frenzy all over again. He nearly shut his leg in the car door and tripped over his own feet as he stepped into the cafe.
A glance around and he met Rosie’s pretty brown eyes at a seat near the back, private and away from the crowd, sheltered mostly by a bakery display. She smiled and waved and he made his way over, slinging his jacket over the back of the chair as he sat down.
“Hi, um, hello Rosie, sorry. I hope you haven’t been waiting long. You haven’t, have you? It’s just I had to wrangle Milo and--”
“No, no, you’re fine, I’ve only been here a couple of minutes,” She assured him with a smile, “Who’s Milo? Your cat?”
Jake choked on his own breath of air and struggled not to laugh, “Oh my g--no, if he heard you call him that--good lord. No, no, Milo’s my son. Adopted son. My roommate Dan and I are looking after him since his dad, our friend, um…” He swallowed, the lies tasting foul in his mouth.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I’m sorry I asked.” Rosie said quietly. She shifted in her seat, glancing away from him, “Wow, what a way to start the day. Good job, Rosie.”
“Ah, it’s not...a big deal. It’s been ten years.” Jake pushed his finger across the linoleum tabletop in an absent manner, “Anyway, weren’t you going to--what was it?--regale me with epic tales of your worst clients?”
Rosie smirked, “I don’t think I said it quite like that. But why don’t I get us our drinks and tell you about this lady who wanted every shade of pink in her hair.”
----
It carried on, as these things tended to.
Every few weeks, Jake and Rosie would meet up at a cafe or a restaurant, and share drinks, a meal, and stories of their lives. Jake told her about college, about the red head father of his adopted son, something he hadn’t talked about to anyone for ages. In response, Rosie admitted her crippling fear of academic failure and disappointing the legacy of her dead parents. They got along incredibly well for a pair of mostly introverts, enthusiastically discussing music almost every time they met up. It made Jake light up in a way that even Dan couldn’t remember seeing before.
So of course, it had to end and end badly. Because life just couldn’t be fair to Jacob Pierly.
Dan came home from his shift one evening to find Jake slumped bonelessly on the couch in the sitting room, his expression tired and forlorn, his shirt unbuttoned and rumpled, and an empty package of Oreos open beside him. The television was stuck on the retro channel, playing old reruns of shows from the 70’s and 80’s, audio muffled by age and then cleaned up by modern tech.
“Jake…?” Dan asked tentatively, setting his coat down on the back of the couch, “Hey, buddy, you okay? Is Milo sick again?”
“Huh?” Jake blinked, coming back to himself with a small jolt and looking around as if unsure of where he was, “Oh, no, he’s over at Cody’s right now. He’s fine.”
“But...you’re not.” Dan said, easing onto the couch as if afraid he would startle his friend away, “Wanna talk about it?”
“Mm...I dunno…” Jake sighed, letting his head roll back onto the couch cushions, “Not really, but…” He sighed again, “I screwed up, Dan.”
“How’s that?”
“I...I asked Rosie out.”
Dan brightened but then immediately sobered, “Ah, that was, um, real brave of you.”
“Tch,” Jake snorted and his lip curled and for a second, Dan saw a flash of forgotten bitterness and old anger bubble to the surface, “Yeah, sure. Would have been great except she...she said no.” He deflated all over again, staring at his fingers curled loosely in his lap, looking more drawn and tired than ever, “Said I must’ve gotten the wrong impression, that she never wanted to be more than just friends. Said...we should probably...not see each other for a while.”
“Aw, Jake,” Dan murmured, “Jake, buddy, I’m sorry.”
Jake shrugged and sniffed as if he could dismiss the dreary atmosphere hanging in a cloud over his head, “‘S whatever.”
“Nooooo, no it’s noooottt,” Dan cooed, scooting closer to his friend on the couch, “Come here, Jake, let Dan hug all your sorrow away. Hug Machine Dan is here for you.”
“No, no, no Hug Machine Dan!” Jake backed up, but Dan pinned him against the arm rest and crushed him into a hug, “DAN! DAN LEGGO!”
“Are you done being sad?”
“YES!”
“Lies. I’m gonna keep hugging you!”
“I’m going to tell Milo to eat your cookie stash.”
----
Jake’s funk lasted for weeks.
But, eventually, as summer tumbled awkwardly into autumn, apologized, and politely stepped out of the way, he got over it. Jake tended to hang onto things and hang onto them hard and it took work for him to let them go. But he was trying and Dan could see he was trying and told him he was proud and Jake shoved him and they laughed and tried to pretend they didn’t miss the echo of a third laugh that should have been there but wasn’t.
Things were getting better. Things were looking up.
And then, on a wet, rainy autumn afternoon, Jacob Pierly disappeared.
#should i post this on my gore blog? yes. will i? no.#why? the formatting's all bugged up and i can't fix it and i'm lazy deal with it#micoverse#jake pierly
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Survey #183
“clothes trailing from the back door to the bedroom, and i don’t even know your name.”
Would you ever become a fan of a team you hate to please your spouse? Lol no. Can you handle scary movies? Easily. How often do you get a new purse…and for guys a new wallet? Not often at all. What is the most money that you have ever spent on getting your nails done? This doesn't apply to me, I don't get them done. Once a cheater, always a cheater? No, but I wouldn't date someone who ever did. What word describes your last relationship? Verification, I suppose? I learned I love him just platonically. Do you sneak into movie theaters? No. You can make one person fall eternally in love with you, who do you choose? I don't want to *make* anyone do that. Is there ever a happily ever after? Yeah, but sadly not for everyone. Did you believe there were monsters in your closet or under your bed? Not terribly, but the closet could make me nervous. Do you like guys with beards? It depends on the guy. What annoys you most of the same sex? This isn't generalizing, I think we can all agree girls have a greater tendency to be short in arguments or if we're just in a bad mood. Do you have a fake I.D.? No. Would you ever travel to Africa? I already wanna go. Would you date someone 5 years older than you? Yeah. Does it bother you when girls make duck faces? It doesn't bother me, I just think it looks dumb. Have you ever been fingered? Yeah. Have you ever been to California? Did you like it? Never gone. What do you do the most when you are online? Watch YT, RP, browse dA, surveys... Do you like to dance? If so, what is your favorite move? I do, but there's no way I could survive dance classes in my current shape. Fave move, idk. When was the last time you got a haircut? Few days before going to Sara's in October. I need another. Does it matter to you if your boyfriend/girlfriend drinks? YUP. I won't date you if it's any more than very rarely. Honestly, if you wanted to get laid right now, could you? No. what is your favorite font? Of the "normal" ones, Garamond. Would you make a good movie critic? Noooo. I'm not very criticizing of movies, honestly. Do you like deviled eggs? Omfg NO. I fucking abhor egg yolk in any form. What is your favorite Horror movie? Either of the Blair Witch Project movies. What career are you most interested in? Paleontologist. Have you ever seen a rooster? Welcome to the South, buckaroo. What’s your favorite sweetheart name (baby, honey, angel, dumpling) "Love" or "sweetheart." Has a little kid ever fallen asleep on your lap before? Yes. Have you ever thrown a grenade? No. Have you ever owned a rocking horse? Maybe? Who was the last person you took a picture with? Sara. What’s your favorite kind of float? (coke, root beer) Coke. Have you ever seriously mourned the death of a pet? Like extremely seriously, not really, I think? Shadow was hard, but I don't believe it was too serious. I saw him dying days before it happened. Can you surf/boogie board? No. Medals, ribbons, or trophies? (or just plain cash?) I'll take the money. If any of your friends had really bad body odor, would you tell them? No. Would you ever try anal? If you have, were you always keen to try it? NO NO NO IT GROSSES ME OUT SO MUCH. What age do you want to live until? Maybe like, at least 70. If all jobs paid the same, what would you be doing? Photography. If you heard your best friend’s significant other was cheating on them, would you tell them? Even if you couldn’t prove it? No shit, but I'd be sure to include I only heard it. What is the story behind your pet’s name? Teddy: reminded us of a teddy bear. Bentley: idk. Roman: thought it sounded regal, like cats. Venus: beautiful, her color is similar to the planet. Mitsu: I gave all my rats "m" names. Kaiju: I'd wanted an iguana named after a huge lizard creature forever. What’s something that you once liked, but now hate? Country music. If you were to get engaged, what’s your dream engagement ring? Rose gold something. If you discovered you were pregnant at this point in time, would you keep it or abort it? Why? If out of my own carelessness, I'd keep it but adopt it out. If in any other way, idk. If my life was at risk, yes, and I'd really have to consider if it'd be too traumatic for me with how I feel about pregnancy. What is the last thing you googled? I forgot. Throughout your life, what was your favorite birthday and why? Idk. If everyone was required to make a YouTube channel, what would your content be like? Um... I suppose chill let's plays, no camera? I'd want to hide my identity 'cuz I ain't even risking popularity. How far away do you live from the closest mall? 15-ish minutes? Why do you dislike/hate the person you most dislike/hate? I don't hate anyone I personally know, but I most dislike Colleen for a novel of reason. Are you disrespectful to a lot of people? Definitely not. Do you like the color pink? Pink is everything. On Facebook, do you have people listed as your siblings who aren’t really your siblings? Haven't in a long time. Doesn’t it annoy you when couples post things to each other’s wall on Facebook that are all mushy and gross and NO ONE CARES? No, fuck off. Let people express love of each other. You SHOULD care to some degree that a couple lives in love. What was the last song you had on repeat? "Black Wedding" by In This Moment ft. Rob Halford. Are you drifting away from your best friend? Absolutely not. Would you feel hurt if your last ex was in a relationship? No, I'd be super happy for him. Are you currently wanting any piercings? Always. Do you have trouble sleeping when it’s storming? Nooo, bring it on. What language do you want to learn how to speak? German. Have you ever jumped off a high dive into a pool? No. Did you ever watch Lilo & Stitch as a child? I was obsessed. Have you ever been to one of the great lakes? No, flew past one to Sara's, though. Do you have light posts on your street? No. How about sidewalks? No. What is one food combination you enjoy that others might think is weird? Waffles/pancakes with peanut butter. How do you tend to feel when the year is ending? Hopeful for new beginnings, dreading the ending, etc? I don't feel anything about it. There's nothing truly special about it. What bad habit have you had the longest? What about a good habit? Picking at my nails; manners. Is there anything you do that you are ashamed of? What about proud? Download music; treat animals with the respect they deserve. What is one compliment you find particularly meaningful? What about an insult you find particularly devastating? Calling me kind; calling me weak or that I'll go nowhere. Have you ever had a lucid dream? Share it, if you wish? No. Do you find sleep paralysis to be scary or not so much? Never experienced it, but it sounds absolutely horrifying. Do you have any truly unpopular opinions? If so, share one? Sure. Hormone treatment is an awful idea. What would you say is your biggest accomplishment from the past year? Uhhhhh. I suppose making big progress stretching past my comfort zone. When was the last time you went through a major life change/event? I think me coming out last year was a pretty big event, especially as it led to an incredible relationship. How many places have you lived throughout your life, and which one was your favorite? Four, and as far as location, #3. Overall happiness in the home, #2. Without saying names, what is something you wish you could say to someone? "Look who was wrong." Do you have any typing quirks, or do you prefer to type ‘properly’? I think I use the wrong shift key for a certain letter... but idk off the top of my head. Who do you judge more harshly - others or yourself? Myself. What is the most difficult thing you have ever had to accept? Jason no longer loved me. What is something you do to help yourself feel better on a bad day? Watch some of my fave YT vids. Who or what in life has taught you the most about love? The breakup. Other than in a plane, what’s the highest elevation you’ve experienced? Have you ever had altitude sickness? Driving on a mountain, and no. If you had all the artistic ability you needed, what kinds of things would you most like to draw? MY OCS. Or just meerkats in general, but with macabre scenes. What’s a song that you’re ashamed to say you like? "Bitches" by Hollywood Undead, for one. Ever had sex in a public place? No. Do you do something about it when your stomach hurts, or just let it be? I take medicine. I handle stomachaches very poorly. Do you ever have binges that last for hours, watching YouTube videos? Um?????? Every day????????????????? Do you believe sex should be mandatory in an ongoing dating relationship? No. How do you feel about smoking weed? I've gotten more and more "whatever" about it, but I'm still not a huge fan of the idea. We already complain about cigs and cancer, why legalize something with more carcinogens? Medicinally tho, I'm for it. What foods can you absolutely not eat? Beans are a big 'ole fuck no. Kisses on the cheek or the neck? Depends on the mood. List four things about your facial appearance: I have a real obvious dimple on my left cheek. I have two prominent scars on my chin from when I fainted directly onto it. My eyes are gray/greenish blue. I've been told a lot I have long eyelashes but I don't wanna get up and go to a mirror to verify. List four things about your general appearance: I have dry skin, mY LEG HAIR IS FUCKING PITCH BLACK AND I HATE IT, the nail on my left ring finger is slightly deformed, and I have really thick hair. It’s getting pretty cold now, isn’t it? Do you have the heating on? Yes. Do you like hot, cold, or lukewarm showers? Kinda hot, normally. What are you favorite color eyes? Sapphire or light blue. Do you have long arm hair? Not really. Does your family put up Christmas lights? Yes. Favorite holiday? Halloween. Any bands you used to like and are now embarrassing to you? Not off the top of my head... but there's probs some. Have you ever taken part in a threesome? No. Have you told your parents all of your secrets from when you were a teen? No. When was the last time you built a sandcastle? Forever ago. Do you care about gun laws? Yes. How does alcohol affect you? I become more talkative and outgoing, and I get a warm sensation in my stomach. I don't know if my face still flushes. What color is your toothpaste? Blue. Have you ever inhaled helium? Shit, have I? What is your favorite kind of pasta? Normal noodles. Do you keep up-to-date with current news and events? Noooot at all. Did the one person who hurt you the most in your life apologize? Yes, but I don't really feel he meant it. Who is the worst driver you know? How about the best driver? Jason; Mom, easily. Honestly, have you ever said a racist joke? I actually don't believe so. Are you comfortable hanging out with your friend’s boyfriends/girlfriends? I can't really relate to this, but it wouldn't bother me. Where were you when you got your first period? I'd just gotten home from school. Are you more attracted to men or women? Ohhhh that's hard. Romantically, easily women, but sexually, uh... idrk. If you had to choose a stripper name, what would it be? huh True or False: Everything happens for a reason. False. Who was the last person to really hurt you? Mom. What was the main subject of your last telephone conversation? I was locked outside of my house and needed Mom to come home to help. When drinking hard alcohol do you take shots more or make mixed drinks? I can't handle hard alcohol period. What is one song you listen to that you’re sure not many people do? Off the top of my head, I love "Abenteuerland" by Pur. Have you ever woken up next to someone after a night of drinking? No. Does your mail go to a P.O Box or to a mailbox at your house? A mailbox. Who was the last person from your high school graduating class you saw? Uhhh most likely Colleen. Do you enjoy kissing? Ye. What about making out? Yeah. Where are you most ticklish? DON'T FUCKIN TOUCH MY FEET. Have you ever been to an arena concert? No. Do you plan on having both your parents at your wedding? Yes. Has a friend ever really hurt you and you never told them? Maybe? Have you ever stayed on a ride at a theme park to ride it again? No. Where do you want to raise your children? I'm not having kids, but hypothetically, in nature. Are you afraid that if you do have children they will turn out like you? No. Have you ever slow danced to a song you didn’t know? No. Has someone ever dedicated a song to you? Yes. Do you like to have your hair pulled? I'm indifferent. Definitely don't do it hard. Do you work any holidays? N/A What is a quality someone might not assume you have? Apparently from being told, when I'm forced into talking, I don't seem shy??? I don't see it. When you are in a group that is overwhelmingly male, how noticeable is it to you? Does it make you feel any differently than being in a group that is mixed or predominantly female? It's noticeable to me, and I'm likely to be more anxious. Especially if I'm not with someone else. I'd feel safer with females. Do you have a makeup item or style trick that you feel improves your look significantly and that you feel like you couldn’t go without now that you have it? I feel eyeliner makes me look far better above anything else, but I like, never wear makeup period. Did you have to “unlearn” any expectations or wrong ideas, particularly about romance, that you gained as a child either from media you consumed or from people around you (e.g., fairy tale endings, or that dramatic relationships are healthy, etc.)? Happy endings, that if you tried hard enough, love always prevailed. Are there any bands or artists that you were really into at one point but that you never listen to anymore, not even to reminisce? Ummm not that I recall? What are some wedding trends that you really dislike? If you can’t think of anything, have you ever seen something at a wedding that made you cringe? Ummm idk. Is there something that happened in high school that you’re still salty about (e.g., a bully getting credit for your work)? Nah, not that I can think of. When someone hurts your feelings or offends you are you more likely to lash out at them, quietly withdraw, or something else? Withdraw, but become pretty short and/or sarcastic. Do you read reddit? If so, how often and what subreddits do you like? No. Do you listen to any podcasts? How do you listen to them? No. Does your skin bruise easily? Do you have any bruises right now? What from? Yes, and no. What’s your boss’s first name? Do you call him/her by that name? N/A Who was the last person you played a video game with? I played Pokemon with my niece and nephew. :') They loved it and I was a V PROUD aunt. Last game you played at an arcade? Who even knows. Last funeral you attended? Uhhhh. I don't remember. I want to say for my old babysitter, but that doesn't sound accurate... I swear I've been to one after. What was your favorite nursery rhyme as a child? Does the little piggy one count cuz I LOVED THAT SHIT with my mom. Who was your childhood hero? Steve Irwin. He's still a hero to me. What is your favorite cousin’s first name? I don't have a fave. What was the name of your first stuffed animal? Oh BOY, I couldn't tell you. It was a little bunny holding a polka-dot blanket. What was your least favorite food as a child? Idk. Where did your mother and father meet for the first time? At work. What is your oldest sibling’s middle name? I've no clue. What was your favorite place to visit as a child? THE ZOO BITCH TAKE ME AWAY Have you ever stayed in a cheap motel? No, I'm too much of a paranoid germaphobe to. What about a 5 star hotel? I highly doubt it. Have you ever gotten a massage? Not professionally. Have you ever given a massage? Yeah. Have you ever been to Disneyland or Disney World? The latter. What is the last gift you received and from who? A snake keychain Sara made. :') What are you currently dressed in? Skull pj pants with an Umbreon tank. Are you listening to any music right now? If so, what are you listening to? "Not The American Average" by Asking Alexandria slaps.
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Prompts
Some of these are original, some are from things I’ve seen in life. Feel free to use and repost!
These are in no particular order just how I came up with them and wrote them down.
Some of these contain swears
There are 167 of these just be warned. Sorry not sorry. Ignore the weird spacing, my computer is being weird.
1) “I don’t exactly hate you but if you were on fire and I had a cup of water, I would drink it”
2) (in response to getting injured) “You wound me. Literally. You just actually wounded me”
3) “Oops?”
4) “Shock me - say something intelligent”
5) “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone who gives a fuck”
6) “I’m sorry for hurting your feelings, but I thought you already knew you were stupid”
7) “What is this? Let’s get away with murder club”
8) “Fight me!”
9) “Isn’t your arm broken?” “Possibly”
10) “Want to see what kind of trouble we can get into?”
11) “It’s a Tuesday, I know how to restrain myself”
12) “Are you clinically insane or just incredibly annoying?”
13) “I feel like I got hit by a car”
14) “So, why did I have to punch that guy?”
15) “I hope you know my name is actually ...”
16) “So, what if I broke my arm, I’m still doing it”
17) “Ignore him, he’s just lonely”
18) “I’m not cute and adorable, I’m terrifying and ferocious”
19) “I warned you, I’m an asshole”
20) “I am a five-foot one-inch ball of pure rage!”
21) “Do the thing!”
22) “Imma do the thing!” “Don’t do the thing” “I’m gonna do the thing”
23) “Did you forget your line?”
24) *sighs dramatically* “Line!”
25) “Are you sure you want to do this?” “No, not really, But I never am and I’m not gonna start now.”
26) “I have a plan” “A successful plan that won’t end in embarrassment and/or detention?” “I have no plan”
27) “Hi, uh sorry, this is awkward but, that’s my seat?”
28) “You are a crazy ball of contradictions, aren’t you?”
29) “It's a beautiful day to give me money”
30) “Don’t touch anything”
31) “Hang on, let me out in some pants”
32) “Sometimes it physically pains me to hold back my sarcastic comments”
33) “Okay old man”
34) “I’d rather face death”
35) “Did I stutter?”
36) “Get on with it already”
37) “It’s not funny”
38) “Hey. Hey, you’re okay. I’m okay. We are all okay”
39) “That is a terrible, horrible, incredibly foolish idea. Let’s do it and see what happens”
40) “I hate you” “Why? I’m lovely”
41) “Weren’t you trying to kill me three minutes ago?”
42) “Bite me”
43) “Shh... Let me wear your shirt in peace”
44) “Who are you? And is that my shirt?”
45) “What? Sorry, I do my best to block out the stupid around me’”
46) “What would you do if I kissed you right now?”
47) “What would you do if I punched you right now?”
48) “We aren’t dating but I’m going to randomly kiss you”
49) “Are you- are you flirting with me?”
50) “Is that what you call flirting?”
51) “I never imagined myself in a dress”
52) “That’s not a good sign”
53) “I’m channeling my inner white girl”
54) “What are you so afraid of?”
55) “Do you trust me?” “No” “Smart”
56) “Why are your hands (color)?” “That is a very good question”
57) “This is hard”
58) “Respect existence or expect resistance”
59) “you’re a psychopath” “I prefer creative”
60) “Well, you can’t plan a murder out loud”
61) “Why are you so quiet?”
62) “Why are you so loud?’
63) “Wha- what, what is this?”
64) “Are you sure you two aren’t married?”
65) “Why can’t they see they’re meant to be?”
66) “We are dating now. You have no choice in the matter”
67) “So... wanna make out?”
68) “Your lips taste like coffee”
69) “It’s an experiment!”
70) “For science!”
71) “Oh! That was why you were laughing. I thought there was a donkey hidden somewhere”
72) “You might be an idiot, but you’re my idiot”
73) “Let’s cuddle”
74) “You lied to my face”
75) “Just shut up already”
76) “Right now, I don’t know if I want to kiss you, or shove you off a cliff”
77) “Growing up is overrated”
78) “On a scale of one to ten how likely are you to date me?”
79) “You are necessary. I need you”
80) “Do you really need all that candy?”
81) “Do you really need to ask?”
82) “Are you sure I can’t punch them in the face? Not even just a little?”
83) “Have you ever loved someone so much it actually hurt?”
84) “I trusted you” “Well then you can’t really blame me, can you? It was your mistake”
85) “Their crying what do I do” “Comfort them” “How do I do that?”
86) “So, I kind of think that there is a 327% chance that I’m in love with you”
87) “No?”
88) “Hi? Hi?!? All you can say is Hi?!?”
89) “I am not wearing enough clothes for this”
90) “Fuck it”
91) “Could you possibly be any stupider?”
92) “Is there any chance you could, I don’t know, not?”
93) “How about no?”
94) “Finally!”
95) “Why won’t they/you just kiss already?”
96) I’m going to make them realize their feelings for each other if it’s the last thing I do”
97) “Is this one of those times you want me to lie to protect your delicate emotions?”
98) “Remove you hand or I will rip your arm off and beat you to death with it”
99) “Your hair is so soft”
100) “Come here, you can sit in my lap until I’m done working”
101) “Look, I know we don’t know each other that well, but I’m worried about you. No one deserves to be alone”
102) “you’re so cute when you’re half asleep like this”
103) “I’ve had a rough day and all I want right now is someone to cuddle with me”
104) “Have I ever told you how much I love you?”
105) “It’s too early for this?”
106) “But then I’d have to put pants on”
107) “You are bleeding all over my carpet”
108) “You broke it didn’t you?”
109) “I miss(ed) you”
110) “I’ve missed this”
111) “Is that/this really necessary?”
112) Are you my parent or my s/o?”
113) “Don’t make me come over there”
114) “No seriously, I do not want to get up”
115) “I think I might be pregnant”
116) “Guess what, there’s a baby in me!” *Jazz hands*
117) “I want to marry you”
118) “Let’s do something crazy”
119) “Really is that the best you could do?”
120) “Is that really the best you could come up with?”
121) “What even are we?”
122) “I give up”
123) “Leave me alone”
124) ” I’m not in the mood right now”
125) “If you want to talk, talk”
126) “I may not look it, but I am listening”
127) “Just because I act like I don’t care, doesn’t mean I don’t care”
128) “Why are you always so grouchy?” “Allergies” What are you allergic to?” “Positivity”
129) “I’m getting real tired of having to pretend to care”
130) “With this smile, I can get away with everything”
131) “Sometimes memories are the worst form of torture”
132) “Judge if you want, we’re all going to die. I just intend to deserve it”
133) “Excuse me, I have to go a scene”
134) “Y’know, that’s not what an apology sounds like”
135) “Don’t mind me, I’ll just be having an existential crisis in the corner”
136) “This is my life now. I have climbed this hill and now I shall die upon it” “Shut up, we’ve only been hiking for twenty minutes”
137) “You are an insult away from starting a war”
138) “Literally everything about this is illegal”
139) “I had a thought” “Oh no”
140) “Oh boy”
141) “Your imperfections are perfect to me”
142) “You are necessary. I need you”
143) “You seem so nice, but you are so evil. How?” “People are willing to do things for you if you’re polite’
144) “Oh my gosh that would look so cute on you”
145) “Oh, my profanity is offensive? So is your sensitive fucking nature, so we’re even”
146) “You are currently crushing my spleen” “You don’t even know where your spleen is”
147) “Why are you hiding behind me? What did you do?”
148) “You scared me!” “Well I am naturally terrifying”
149) “You scared me, I thought I lost you”
150) “Don’t you ever don’t that again”
151) “Put some pants on, we’re going on”
152) “I’d take a bullet for you, you know that” “You’re immortal, and I’m going to kill you if you keep saying that”
153) “That has got to be the worst pick-up line in existence” “Don’t worry. That’s just plan A” “What’s plan B?” “To take you hostage”
154) “Keep your morals away from me”
155) “Lie!” “I – what?” “Lie, what you just said, it isn’t true”
156) “You are the worst human being on the face of the planet” “Thanks. Anyway...”
157) “Are you ... crying?”
158) “Stop glaring it was just a suggestion”
159) “Have I ever thanked you for being my friend?” “Uh, no, but tha- ““Good”
160) “Are you even listening to me?”
161) “I have never been so in love before”
162) “My god I love you/them”
163) “Fuck!” “What’s wrong?”
164) “I’m pretty sure I’m in love. Dammit!”
165) “I’m sick, therefore I don’t have to deal with you bullshit today”
166) “Go bother someone else today”
167) “I’m just going to walk away now”
#Prompt#Prompts#writing#writing prompts#prompt list#writing prompt list#writing list#ideas#writing ideas#have fun
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Get to know me tag! I was tagged by @thesimparrot (thank you so much bb! ✨💖) and I tag everyone who wants to do this! (because idk who’s been tagged and who hasn’t lol)
RULES: Post a pic of your simself with your traits and answer the questions.
I gave myself the following traits: creative, perfectionist & loner.
Questions are under the cut!
1. what is your full name: tamara (adriana is actually my middle name but I’ve always identified with that name more)
2. what’s your nickname: adri, tammy
3. birthday: november 20th
4. what is your favorite book series? the infernal devices probably
5. do you believe in aliens or ghosts? I think I do!
6. who is your favorite author? I don’t have one tbh
7. what is your favorite radio station? anything that plays christmas songs atm! this is the only time of year I listen to the radio lol
8. what is your favorite flavor of anything? vanilla
9. what word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? nice
10. what is your current favorite song? this one!
11. what is your favorite word? damn
12. what was the last song you listened to? I WILL LOVE YOUUUU UNTIL MY DYING DAAAY
13. what TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? timeless, cable girls, the good place, friends
14. what is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? mamma mia (both the first and second one)
15. do you play video games? yup!
16. what is your biggest fear? the people I love dying or leaving me
17. what is your best quality, in your opinion? I’m a good listener
18. what is your worst quality, in your opinion? I always want to please people too much
19. do you like cats or dogs better? both! but right now I’m leaning more towards cats because I have my own cat
20. what is your favorite season? autumn
21. are you in a relationship? nope
22. what is something you miss from your childhood? not having to worry all the time
23. who is your best friend? I don’t have a best friend, just a couple of good ones
24. what is your eye color? brown
25. what is your hair color? brown
26. who is someone you love? my family
27. who is someone you trust? my mom
28. who is someone you think about often? my dad
29. are you currently excited about/for something? christmas!!!
30. what is your biggest obsession? chocolate
31. what was your favorite TV show as a child? anything disney channel and nickelodeon!
32. who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? no one comes to mind
33. are you superstitious? a little
34. do you have any unusual phobias? I have a phobia of people in suits and mascots... which sounds weird but it’s a very real phobia ;-;
35. do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? behind
36. what is your favorite hobby? reading and playing video games
37. what was the last book you read? shatter me
38. what was the last movie you watched? bohemian rhapsody
39. what musical instruments do you play, if any? I play the flute, piccolo and a lil’ bit of piano
40. what is your favorite animal? my kitty
41. what are your top 5 favorite tumblr blogs that you follow? I can’t choose, I love everyone I follow tbh!
42. what superpower do you wish you had? the power to teleport away from people’s bullshit
43. when and where do you feel most at peace? when it’s rainy outside and I’m at home
44. what makes you smile? memes
45. what sports do you play, if any? I cycle to work every day, does that count?
46. what is your favorite drink? chocolate milk
47. when was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? last week, it was for work though
48. are you afraid of heights? a little
49. what is your biggest pet peeve? two-faced people
50. have you ever been to a concert? twice! both were all time low concerts <3
51. are you vegan/vegetarian? no
52. when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? a stewardess lol but that was before I found out I’m terrified to fly
53. what fictional world would you like to live in? the harry potter universe
54. what is something you worry about? everything lol
55. are you scared of the dark? yeah
56. do you like to sing? I do!
57. have you ever skipped school? occasionally
58. what is your favorite place on the planet? london
59. where would you like to live? anywhere close to a theater
60. do you have any pets? a kitty!
61. are you more of an early bird or a night owl? night owl
62. do you like sunrises or sunsets better? sunsets
63. do you know how to drive? no, I’m terrified ;-;
64. do you prefer earbuds or headphones? headphones
65. have you ever had braces? yes
66. what is your favorite genre of music? I love a lot of genres tbh
67. who is your hero? my mom
68. do you read comic books? I used to read donald duck when I was younger
69. what makes you the most angry? the world is going to shit atm and people are ignorant as hell about it
70. do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? a real book
71. what is your favorite subject in school? history and english
72. do you have any siblings? I have an older brother and sister
73. what was the last thing you bought? a cappuccino in a coffee shop haha
74. how tall are you? 170 centimeters
75. can you cook? a little
76. what are three things that you love? chocolate, books, musicals
77. what are three things that you hate? ignorance, two-faced people and heat
78. do you have more female friends or more male friends? female friends
79. what is your sexual orientation? straight
80. where do you currently live? the netherlands
81. who was the last person you texted? a friend
82. when was the last time you cried? a few days ago
83. who is your favorite YouTuber? carrie hope fletcher
84. do you like to take selfies? barely tbh
85. what is your favorite app? youtube
86. what is your relationship with your parent(s) like? greater than it ever was tbh
87. what is your favorite foreign accent? Irish
88. what is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? paris, madrid, tokyo... and a lot more
89. what is your favorite number? any even number
90. can you juggle? no
91. are you religious? I’m not sure tbh... it’s complicated
92. do you find outer space or the deep ocean to be more interesting? both are fascinating and terrifying at the same time!
93. do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? sometimes
94. are you allergic to anything? yeah, I’m allergic to pollen
95. can you curl your tongue? yes
96. can you wiggle your ears? no
97. how often do you admit that you were wrong about something? almost always
98. do you prefer the forest or the beach? I live near the beach so I’m used to it so forests!
99. what is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? don’t give your attention to people who don’t deserve it
100. are you a good liar? nope, not at all
101. what is your hogwarts house? hufflepuff!
102. do you talk to yourself? never tbh
103. are you an introvert or an extrovert? introvert
104. do you keep a journal/diary? I used to but not anymore
105. do you believe in second chances? rarely
106. if you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? make sure it gets returned to its owner
107. do you believe that people are capable of change? it depends...
108. are you ticklish? yeah
109. have you ever been on a plane? yeah I have several times
110. do you have any piercings? nope, zero
111. what fictional character do you wish was real? I don’t know tbh
112. do you have any tattoos? no I don’t
113. what is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? dropping out of high school (which sounds bad but it worked out in the end)
114. do you believe in karma? kinda
115. do you wear glasses or contacts? I wear reading glasses
116. do you want children? maybe? idk
117. who is the smartest person you know? my dad
118. what is your most embarrassing memory? one time a security person at the airport told me to have a good flight and I replied “thanks, you too” asjksjfhd
119. have you ever pulled an all-nighter? yeah, I used to do that in college quite a lot
120. what color are most of you clothes? white, black and blue
121. do you like adventures? sure
122. have you ever been on TV? I was on local tv once because I sang in a choir when I was little lol
123. how old are you? 22
124. what is your favorite quote? “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
125. do you prefer sweet or savory foods? sweet!!
#this tag finally gave me an excuse to give my simself a makeover lol#now she looks a bit more like me!#tag#simself
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These senior citizen YouTubers are better than anyone else on this hellscape internet
The typical YouTuber is young, obnoxious, and speaks at an above-average decibel level. They love pranks. They love covertly selling you *products.* Even though they're your age or vastly younger, they have more money in their bank account than you ever will.
Thankfully, not all YouTubers like that. This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for the dedicated community of senior citizen YouTubers, here to make homemade pasta, deconstruct mechanical toys, play lullabies on their guitars, knit, apply make-up, and show you how to properly take a dip in the public pool.
SEE ALSO: Logan Paul isn't the only problem. YouTube is broken — here's how to fix it.
If you're going to be an influencer, at least use your power to show Xennials like me how to make proper tagliatelle.
For all their wisdom and *actual content knowledge,* senior citizen YouTube celebrities are nonetheless a rarity. The demographic data tells the story: 96% of youth aged 13 to 17 have used YouTube, compared to just 51% of those 75 and older. Just 67% of seniors aged 65 and over use the internet, and only 4 in 10 own smartphones.
So we shouldn't be shocked that of the biggest names in YouTube — Fernanfloo, PewDewPie, Germán Garmendia, Rubén Doblas Gundersen i.e. El RubiosOMG, VanossGaming, and so on — all are male, and none, absolutely none, are above the age of 30.
That doesn't mean senior citizens are absent from the platform, or that younger generations don't love to watch older folks on screen. I know that I, for one, am not alone in not wanting to hear this guy opine about suicide prevention:
You just have to look a little harder to find the elders of the community, which we kindly did for you. Here are some of the leading senior personalities on the platform:
1. Tricia Cusden, Look Fabulous for Older Women
youtube
70-year-old Tricia Cusden formally kicked off her YouTube account and her personal make-up business, Look Fabulous Forever, five years ago. Cusden specializes in make-up made specifically for older women.
Cusden remembers when her manufacturer told her to put videos of her products on Twitter:
"I thought, that's a really stupid idea," Cusden told Mashable. "Millions of videos are uploaded to YouTube, people just won't see them."
Pretty quickly, however, Cusden's videos started picking up real traffic: 1,000 views one day, 1,500 views on another. It was clear that Cusden had tapped into a real need — and that older women were (gulp!) using YouTube.
Cusden believes she was able to access this demographic because her product line was written up in print publications, which have older followers. These women presumably then followed her to YouTube.
youtube
In comparison to other brands that market token "anti-aging skincare" to older women, Cusden hopes to create a positive, stigma-free YouTube space:
"The beauty industry disdains and marginalizes this age group ... [but] we won't disparage you here," Cusden says. "We won't be negative."
Cusden's channel currently has 28,340 subscribers.
2. Judy Graham, Knitting Tips by Judy
In recent years, knitting has had something of a comeback among the millennial Etsy set. But why learn from some dumb book when you can learn from *THE* Judy Graham?
youtube
Graham is a knitting legend. She's now in her 80s, and she's still producing videos nearly every week. In 2015, Graham complained to her son that it was a myth that all seniors hated technology.
"Seniors do know about tech, and they do use it," Graham told her son, who later published her comments in USA Today.
Not everyone who watches "Knitting Tips by Judy" is older. She has plenty of younger fans (points at self).
youtube
If there's anything that Judy proves, it's that you don't have to be a young, terrible California bro in order to be successful on this nightmare platform.
3. Tim Rowett, Grand Illusions
youtube
For all the optical illusion and unusual toy fans out there (I'm assuming that's everyone on this list), Tim Rowett is your man.
Rowett's YouTube channel, Grand Illusions, collects and reviews dozens of random toys. It's whimsical and strange and exceedingly, unexpectedly popular: The channel currently has over 881,000 subscribers.
In 2015, the Telegraph named Rowett one of the best YouTubers over 50 years old.
The award was well-deserved. Is there anything more soothing than hearing a handsome older British gentleman with a BBC accent examine the mechanics of a bubble blower?
youtube
4. Pasta Grannies
youtube
There's no such thing as a dream job, except for Vicky Bennison's. Bennison is the founder of Pasta Grannies, a YouTube channel featuring Italian grandmas making their best homemade pasta.
Bennison, who is 60, literally travels all around Italy hunting for the country's most talented grandmas. Every episode, she highlights a particular grandma and their specialty pasta.
youtube
Pasta and Italian grandmas are universally beloved, which is why Bennison's show has such a diverse, cross-generational audience. These women aren't trained chefs, but they're exceptionally talented and they know what a good pasta serving size is: one gallon per person.
"What you see on television requires armies of food stylists ... These are things all people can do," Bennison told Mashable. "[It's why] I do have a broad audience ... My demographics for Pasta Grannies is 25 to 65 years old."
Some of these grannies are in their late 90s. Yet with more 341,913 subscribers, Bennison has nonetheless been able to build a digital fan base for these women.
youtube
Pasta Grannies, you are welcome in my home anytime.
5. Bossa Nakane
youtube
Though he probably wouldn't classify it this way, Bossa Nakane makes lullabies for stressed-out adults. This man is a nightingale. His music is delightfully tender: Think Nick Drake, but sung by a human robin.
Why would you ever sing "Happy Birthday" yourself when you can have the Bossa Nakane version instead? He's better.
youtube
He currently only has 3,174 subscribers. Everyone, please follow now.
6. ElderGym
youtube
ElderGym is the only YouTube fitness series on the web I'm capable of completing. A 4-minute session on how to get off the floor? This I can do. March in place for 1 minute? Hell freaking yeah. ElderGym isn't just for seniors, it's for everyone.
youtube
Squeeze your shoulders for 1 minute. Congratulations! You've exercised.
youtube
7. Grandma Shirley
youtube
Anyone who's anyone in the senior YouTuber world knows Grandma Shirley, an 82-year-old gamer who records herself playing games for YouTube, among other places. She's best known for playing Skyrim and currently has over 410,000 subscribers.
youtube
I've never understood the appeal of watching other people play games (why watch strangers play Grand Theft Auto when you can watch ... anything else) but if I'm going to watch anyone, it will be Grandma Shirley.
8. Grandpa Kitchen
Grandpa Kitchen operates a YouTube channel where he cooks enormous amounts of Indian food and feeds if to local orphans. The channel currently operates a Patreon page in order to fund their operations; however, I was unable to independently verify how that money is spent.
That being said, Grandpa Kitchen runs an excellent show. Look at all those potatoes. How can they not make you happy?
youtube
9. Gramma and Ginga
Gramma and Ginga are two sisters, one 104 years old, the other 99. They live a few blocks from one another in Clarksburg, West Virginia. If you're the type of person who loves to see two charming older women bicker non-stop about nothing, this is for you.
Think Seinfeld, but with Grandmas.
youtube
Imagine a comedy podcast but the podcast were ... actually funny. That's Gramma and Ginga.
youtube
These women currently have 325,684 subscribers. In 2016, they made it to Jimmy Kimmel Live.
10. Kevin and Lill
I tend to be skeptical of anyone on YouTube who has more than 500,000 subscribers and says they create "comedy." Historically, YouTube comedy is an art form lower than improv.
Kevin and his objectively charismatic grandma Lill are an exception to the rule. We talk a lot about YouTube personalities but Grandma Lill actually has one.
As the kids say, she destroys me.
Look at her make chocolate chip brownies with her grandson Kevin, then try to pick yourself up off the floor.
youtube
Perhaps my favorite part of the series is when she introduces the episode, saying, "Hi fellas and girls."
Just listen to it instead of reading my far inferior copy.
youtube
Grandma Lill says she didn't really know much about YouTube before her grandson turned on his camera one day in the car:
"I was surprised, but I said, 'Hey that's good!'" Lill told Mashable.
You'd think that Grandma Lill would be an inspiration to her friends, many of whom are in the same age bracket.
Grandma Lill doesn't think so.
"My girlfriends if they don’t have grandchildren [with access to technology] — they could care less about what I do! They don't care where I'm going. They don't have YouTube, Instagram."
She also doesn't particularly care how they feel. If there's someone out there she can inspire — even if it's not her best girlfriends, even if it's just herself — she's happy these videos exist.
"It keeps me younger," Lill told Mashable. "I feel like 65 instead of 88 now. Nobody can believe I'm 88 ... We're just so good."
A heartfelt thanks to *65*-year-old Grandma Lill and all the YouTubers like her.
WATCH: 3Doodler Create Plus is the perfect pen for creative techies — Power Up
#_uuid:37dff8ed-df14-32fc-abcb-63eefe1d0ec5#_author:Heather Dockray#_category:yct:001000002#_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL#_revsp:news.mashable
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remember when tik tok was a song?
A lot has changed in my short time on this planet. I grew up to the sound of the ole dial-up and now I can watch someone talk about why the Earth is flat for an hour from anywhere on the disc!
The way we create, consume and criticize media is one of the things whose recent evolution is probably what piques my interest the most. Not necessarily the content of the media, which is always changing, but trends in the structure behind it.
Tech has obviously improved exponentially. Health, science, education - all significantly changed in the past few decades. But same goes for the past few centuries.
Media has, necessarily, been slower to evolve. Can't have TV shows without a TV. It basically went from book to newspaper to radio to TV to Internet. There's at least a few decades between all those things, if not longer. However, from TV to today is what I'm most interested in.
For decades, for generations, TV was channel-surfing via an antenna or a satellite dish served by your cable provider. A lot of those words mean nothing to a teenager now.
I'm 26. I started with cable (10 channels), then we got satellite (500 channels), then by the time I was 16 or 17, Netflix the streaming service came out. So I'm in a very small window of people who were young enough for all of these things to happen in my childhood. 5 years older than me and you didn't get Netflix as a teen. 5 years younger and you didn't have cable as a teen. Maybe 10 years. You see the point.
Then realize that the 16 year-old of today hasn't grown up without Netflix being a household word. If the 16 year-old of today wanted to watch Peter Pan, he would boot up Disney+. I would've gone to Blockbuster and rented it for $3. If he wanted to see a kitten falling down stairs and then doing a backflip, that's probably somewhere on Youtube. If I wanted to see that as a kid, well, I'd better start looking for a very gymnastic cat with all its lives.
So to sum up so far, a lot has changed very quickly - about how we consume media. What about how it's formatted?
And how we consume it always necessarily comes before what it is we're consuming changes. Remember when "Netflix Originals" didn't exist? The platform was built, the people came, and then new media came from it.
We've seen TV shows go from the binary of "22 minutes or 44 minutes" to "however long we fucking want". The disintegration of the binary of "comedy or drama". When I was a kid, sitcoms had seasons of 22 episodes, once a week, in the fall. Drama shows usually had 16 episodes. Now Netflix puts out "Mike Tyson Mysteries", with any number of episodes in a season, with each only 11-13 minutes long, pretty much at random. Letterkenny puts out 6-episode seasons once a year on Christmas. Back in my day, we never knew if this season would be the last. Even if the last episode was a cliffhanger, there was no promise of a resolution. Sitcoms kissed the rings of the networks every year hoping to be renewed. The other day South Park announced it was making 6 more seasons and a bunch of movies.
There are a few TV formats that I consider "evolution proof" - game shows (not reality, game), soap operas, late night and standup. All of these date back to radio times and have rarely if ever changed format. I'm personally hoping that, within my lifetime, I'm able to see a change in the way standup is done. We've seen very few attempts to break the mold, and the only example I can think of right now is Mulaney's Sack Lunch Bunch, and to be honest I think it left a lot to be desired. But that's to be expected if media itself is going to change formats - it'll take a lot of trial-and-error.
Quick tangent: I'm not talking about comedy itself. Comedy is constantly changing formats. Vine made absolute stars out of SIX SECOND-LONG content creators. I mean standup. I'd like to see its definition change from "70 minutes of uncut, unedited, scripted jokes told in story form on a stage in front of an audience with a microphone and maybe a few props done by one person, with pauses for laughter and applause, sometimes with audience interaction" to "long-format comedic content delivered by one person to an audience", taking away the mic, the stage, the very structured format. With the exception of maybe Bo Burnham, even if you've never seen a specific comedian, you know what to expect and when to expect it. You can Just Tell when the last joke is about to begin. You're not going to be surprised when the guy picks someone out of the crowd to make a few jokes with. You probably even know the definition of a call-back by name because they're so common. I don't know how it would necessarily change, but I don't think it's impossible.
Back to the main post for one more point: fandom. We've talked about the evolution of the consumption of media and what format we're watching it in. We know the content has evolved. But I think one of the most interesting changes in this category is the way we interact with shows now.
I'm currently sitting in my Simpsons-character-covered tracksuit I bought for $15 on Wish, next to my closet which contains about 15-20 t-shirts. At least 8 of them are Simpsons-themed. When I started building this collection, it started about 5 years ago when I saw my very first Simpsons shirt in a Bluenotes, and it was the only one I had for a few years. I would buy any Simpsons shirt I saw for a while. Today I went to the mall, and if I still had that policy I'd have blown through my savings in one trip.
I actually consider myself lucky; The Simpsons isn't as popular on merch you'd find at the mall as say Rick and Morty, Adventure Time, or Spongebob. I've seen giant stuffed Pickle Ricks, but never an oversized Homer.
My point being, I'm a superfan, but of a slightly older show that isn't nearly as popular as it used to be. If you walk into a Hot Topic, you can probably find any pop culture property on a t-shirt, mug, keychain and temporary face tattoo. This was not the case 10 years ago.
And that's just fandom with regard to the physical world. Did you know that John Mulaney, who did 3 Netflix specials 4 years ago, has THREE subreddits? Every time I get into something new it used to cross my mind, "Hey, I wonder if there's a subreddit for this yet". Now it's "I wonder which of the several subreddits that surely exist for this show/movie/vague concept is best".
A lot of the time when I see the concept of fandom discussed in mainstream media, it's still a severely outdated depiction. Even documentaries tend to stop at "and then Comic-con was invented. The End". I hate to praise it for anything, but if it did anything good, The Big Bang Theory did properly define "fandom" for the world.
I remember when 99% of people polled would not have heard of "fan fiction". I started writing it at 12 when the category for Harry Potter fan fiction on fanfiction.net had but a few thousand entries. My show of choice, Death Note, had a few hundred. I got in on the ground floor and built my way to the top. I abandoned that account 6 years ago and I still get 10-20 story comments or favorites per week.
Now try finding someone who hasn't heard of fan fiction. Find someone who's too old to have written on AO3.
Finally, and I know it's been a long ramble but bear with me, I want to address the homicidal, drunk-driving, pregnant-wife-killing elephant in the room: stans.
If you don't get the reference I just made, please google "origin of the term stan". Caught up? Good, so now answer me this: how did we take a term that refers so very, very obviously to a very, very negative situation and turn it into something someone says casually or even proudly of themselves?
Obviously when I say I stan Green Day that doesn't mean I'm going to write Billie Joe threatening letters and kill my girlfriend, it means I consider myself one of their biggest fans. I think in all of English vocabulary, there's only one other word that's taken such a 180 in definition and it's one I can't say.
Anyway, that's me done. Now that there's more streaming platforms than people who've fucked your mom, I'm interested to see where we go from here.
Stay Greater, Flamingos.
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You’re Special p.6 {b. Hargrove}
Hi! So, if you’re wondering where I’m going with this, it’s coming to an end soon. I’m thinking it’ll be another five or four parts. Comments are encouraged and appreciated :)
Masterlist // P. 1// P.2 // P.3 // P.4// P.5
Summary: Ellen was invisible to most, but when Billy almost runs her over with his car he finds it hard to forget her.
Warning: Language.
Note: There’s a little reference to That 70′s show if you squint. Requests are open, and tags are at the bottom :)
“You’ve taught me a lesson, it’s time you taught them one too.”
Billy’s voice rang in Max’s head, echoing with a tone of passion. He often made an appearance in her thoughts, but for the first time the sound of his voice didn’t want to make her throw up in disgust. Instead, this time it gave her a sense of confidence. One that, she suspected, Billy had all the time. She hoped it wouldn’t stick, but was thankful for the advice he gave her.
She barged her way through the hallway, eyes sharp and narrowed in search of her friends. Max was never a shy girl to begin with, so she wasn’t afraid to shove a few kids out of her way as she marched to Will’s locker, where she knew they all went to in the morning, because she did that too.
Max heard the group before she saw them. Dustin was laughing, and Lucas was talking over him, and Max could imagine Lucas shoving Dustin. Then when the crowds parted, she could see that the whole gang was exactly where she expected them to be. She shook off the glares of other students, forcing herself to channel her step brother’s attitude.
“Hey!” said Max. Mike saw her first, turning to Will, who gestured to Dustin, who hit Lucas on the arm. “I need to talk to you,” she said, addressing the group. None of the boys thought Max would approach them first. At least, that was what Steve had said the other night. The only one who never underestimated Max was El, who learned about the incident from Mike.
“Hey, what’s up Max?” said Lucas.
Teach them a lesson.
“Don’t ‘hey, what’s up Max’ me. I’m going to cut to the point-I know that you know what happened was stupid.”
Dustin moved forward, standing slightly in front of the rest. He could sense Max was gearing up to yell at them. Her anger always got the best of her once it got to a certain point. “Yeah, but-”
“Don’t interrupt me. I’m waiting for an apology, from all of you. And I never want something like this to happen again. I never ever want to feel pressured by any of you again. Are we clear?” The boys nodded, silent, and mystified. Max was glowing a fiery red, and the flame was so bright, they couldn’t look away. If they did, they’d go blind. “I need an answer.” A loud chorus of ‘yes’ erupted, breaking their trance.
Will looked at Max with wide eyes. He knew that her step brother was an evil, vile person, and he knew Max and Billy weren’t blood related, but there was something that was ignited in both of them. The commanding voice, the purposeful gaze, the brutal honesty-it was the same. And Will was starting to wonder why it was such a bad thing.
Ellen stood with Nancy at her locker, and for once, she wasn’t alone and she wasn’t people watching. Instead, Nancy was animatedly telling a story that involved Jonathan, a date night, and an oven on fire.
Ellen enjoyed her time with Nancy, and she was welcomed with open arms. Steve and Jonathan included her without a second thought and gave her a seat at their lunch table. She was automatically invited to hang outs, and Ellen couldn’t remember a time when her life was like that. It was the first time Ellen felt like she belonged.
“What’s Billy doing looking over here?” said Nancy, who stopped talking abruptly. She was looking somewhere over Ellen’s right shoulder. “Don’t turn around but-”
Ellen turned, not thinking much of it. Billy must be looking somewhere else. After talking to her during detention, Ellen figured he must of have gotten whatever was in his system out.
Nancy made a sound of protest just as Ellen found Billy across the hall, leaning against the wall, and locked eyes with him. Nancy took hold of Ellen’s shoulders and turned her back around. Ellen suddenly felt flustered, but tried to put it in the back of her mind. But, if Billy was going to talk to them, she had to tell Nancy was happened at detention. She needed back up.
“Remember when I told you I’m monitoring detentions? Well, last time I did that, Billy-”
“Yes?”
Billy’s stance was too close. He looked down at Ellen, completely ignoring Nancy’s glare. Ellen kept her eyes locked on Nancy ahead of her. But Nancy wasn’t a solid thing to focus on, because she kept looking back and forth, seemingly tied between punching or answering Billy.
Ellen couldn’t look at Billy, no matter what. No matter what-she wouldn’t give Billy the attention he craved.
Why did he crave it so much?
But Billy was waiting for answer; he wouldn’t back up until he got one. But her mind was strangely muddled, and all she could think was her being in Billy’s car again, imagining him as a Hollywood bad boy. Because now, she was sure his eyes were blue, and she could smell him, and the leather jacket was right there, the lapels invitingly poped up, a great thing to grip onto-
“Fuck off, Hargrove.” said Nancy. Billy still ignored her, and Ellen could tell Nancy was beginning to become frazzled. “I said, get out of here.” Now she was in Billy’s space, and people were staring. Billy had to turn slightly to see Nancy, but he did, his face completely blank.
“Only if Ellen says so.” So many people were staring.
“You’re such a pig.” Why can’t they look away?
“Relax, Wheeler.” said Billy dismissively. Billy’s rudeness towards Nancy seemed to give Ellen enough courage to look at Billy. She snapped out of her day dreaming enough to manage the blush on her cheeks. Which, reasoned Ellen, was a total normal reaction. He was a good looking guy, but that was all. Ellen had to control herself.
“Billy,” said Ellen. He smirked, his first expression on his face during the whole encounter. It was a lazy smile, one that showed a sliver of teeth. “Go away.”
Then he took a step back, giving her breath back. He stood an arms distance away and shook his head slightly, giving Ellen a look that she had never seen before.
“All you had to do was ask, sweetheart.”
Nancy looked at Ellen in horror. “Ellen, what the fuck was that?”
Tags: @themoonandherstuff, @eleventhebassass, @sadlyaduck, @cosettewinchester (if you want to be tagged, just send me a message!)
Thank you for reading :)
#billy hargrove#billy x reader#billy hargrove headcanons#billy hargrove x oc#billy hargrove x reader#steve harrington#nancy wheeler#jonathan byers#jonathan x nancy#max mayfield#stranger things#stranger things 2
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EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CAREERS
Some kinds of innovations happen a company at a time will obviously happen faster if the rate of technological change seems to be regarded as the rule rather than the topic, it's a sign they've lost the real battle, for users. And more specifically, is it possible to reverse some of the fragmentation we've seen? The average founder is eager to do it anywhere. In math you don't choose abstractions because they're easy for humans to understand; you choose whichever make the proof shorter. Basically, Apple bumped IBM and then Microsoft stole its wallet. And so they can try him out—and then a month later as employee #1. Math, for example; they're already pariahs. Few legal documents are created from scratch. And yet also in a way encouraging. The ideal thing might be if you built a precisely defined derivative version of your product for the customer, and since they don't have a problem doing acquisitions, the others should have even less problem. I knew it would be suggested that executive salaries are at a maximum. If you run every day, because at the beginnings of people's careers they can easily switch not merely employers but industries.
The most dramatic I learned immediately, in the spam corpus, the probability is.1 If your current trajectory won't quite get you to profitability but you can get a product launched on a few tens of thousands of dollars of seed money from us or your uncle, and approach them with a 70-page agreement. You could try to cold-call angel groups near you, but angels, like VCs, will pay more attention to deals recommended by someone they respect.2 C, Lisp, and Smalltalk were created for their own designers to use.3 The median visitor will arrive with their finger poised on the Back button. Because philosophy's flaws turned away the sort of place that has conspicuous monuments.4 Some VCs now require that in any sale, they get doubly whacked for it: playing house. If several VCs are interested in it for its own sake, it must have felt like for him. Like a lot of startups worry what if Google builds something like us? There may be nothing founders are so prone to delude themselves about as how interested investors will be in giving them additional funding.5 As a little piece of debris, the rational thing for you to look at the world than producing something beautiful. Do we have free will?
One reason we tend to think of them. You have to be just a pair of 22 year old guys.6 It happened to one industry after another. For example, a seed firm should be able to make the case to everyone for doing it. 8 option pool 200 16.7 But if you parse it all, your filter might degenerate into a political argument. It wasn't just as consumers that the big companies were synonymous with efficiency. But even accounting for that, the force of being measured by performance would propagate all the way back to high school, flushing out all the arbitrary stuff people are measured by now. This is a problem for small startups, because they don't have any of that if you have genuine intellectual curiosity, that's what you're doing, you're now on a path labelled get rich or bust. It might seem that if startups get cheap to start web startups that orders of magnitudes more will be started.8 But designed is not really the word; discovered is more like it.9
If the spammers are careful about the headers and use a fresh url, there is no limit to the number of points on the curve decreases. I am, I'll come running. After two years, the un-rapacious that you only extract half as much from users as you could.10 Founders and investors have different attitudes to risk. Competitors punch you in the details later. The real reason we started Y Combinator is teach hackers about the inevitability of schleps.11 And eventually I'd forget that Hilbert had confirmed it too. Maybe that was truer in the past, founders rarely kept control of Zynga's too. Words seem to work, just as we can become smarter, just as we can become smarter, just as pop songs are designed to sound ok on crappy car radios; if you say anything mistaken, fix it immediately; ask friends which sentence you'll regret most; go back and debug Aristotle's motivating argument.
He has noticed that theoretical knowledge is often acquired for its own sake, out of about 7740 legitimate emails, a rate of. I'd made enough to solve the problem once and for all. They're hard to filter based just on the content because the headers are innocent and they're careful about the words they use. It is also palpably short. The asterisk could be any character you don't allow as a constituent.12 The first time it raised money, it was a college town out in the countryside. I've had an experience that convinced me otherwise: I spent several years living in New York.13 If they'd waited to release everything at once, they wouldn't have discovered this problem till it was more efficient to. Unfortunately, it's impractical if not illegal to adjust the valuation of the company in restricted stock, vesting over four years. This varies from field to field in the arts, things are very different.
It is. At the other extreme are places like Idealab, which generates ideas for new startups internally and hires people to work for Henry Ford, but not to be in a startup founder is concealed from almost everyone except those who've done it. I'd made enough to solve the problem I described above—it won't flush out the metaphysical singularity.14 It felt as if there was some kind of work that wasn't very common in Confucius's day. Chasing down all the implications. They're probably good at judging new inventions for casting steel or grinding lenses, but they can't design. He can do other things most people can't, like charter jets to fly him to foreign countries.
Notes
If I paint someone's house, though, because a unless your last round just happened, the transistor it is to let yourself feel it mid-game. Xkcd implemented a particularly clever one in its IRC channel: don't allow the same lesson, partly because you can do it is unfair when someone gets drunk instead of a stock is its future earnings, you could probably be interrupted every fifteen minutes with little loss of personality for the same work faster. Disclosure: Reddit was funded by Y Combinator to increase it, this is an interesting trap founders fall into two categories: those where the acquirer just wants the business, having spent much of The New Industrial State to trying to enter the software business, it's cool with us if the quality of investor behavior.
Com in order to make the kind of people. Wufoo was based in Tampa and they were forced to stop, the mean annual wage in the same.
VCs aren't tech guys, the partners discriminate against deals that come to you about it well enough to be a special title for actual partners.
People who value their peace, or it would have. They may not be surprised if VCs' tendency to push to being told they had to ask about what you've built is not to do some research online.
It will seem dumb in 100 years ago. Start by investing in a time machine. Learning to hack is a list of where to see the Valley use the name of a handful of companies that got bootstrapped with consulting. So 80 years sounds to him like 2400 years would to us.
Survey by Forrester Research reported in the beginning of the web and enables a new version from which I removed a pair of metaphors that made steam engines dramatically more efficient: the process dragged on for months. Hypothesis: A company will be coordinating efforts among partners. In Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work.
Aristotle looked at the time.
This was made particularly clear in our case, companies' market caps will end up.
I suspect Digg's is the other hand, launching something small and use whatever advantages that brings.
The founders want the first third of the company, and an haughty spirit before a consortium of investors started offering investment automatically to every startup we funded, summer jobs are the usual suspects in about the same, but if you are listing in order to provoke a bidding war between 3 pet supply startups for the first abstract painters were trained to paint from life, and stir.
And I've never heard of many startups from Philadelphia. The two are not very far along that trend yet. The dialog on Beavis and Butthead was composed largely of these people never come back within x amount of brains. There are two simplifying assumptions: that the main emotion I've observed; but as a technology center is the desire to do something we didn't do.
Many hope he was before, and anyone doing due diligence for an IPO, or some vague thing like that, founders will seem more interesting than later ones, it often means the startup after you buy it. But it isn't a quid pro quo. Loosely speaking. To be fair, curators are in a reorganization.
Whereas the value of a problem that they take away with dropping Java in the cover. 99, and that you end up with much greater inconveniences than that. This would add a further level of protection against abuse and accidents. But it is.
This technique wouldn't work if the current edition, which would be a good idea to make your fortune?
#automatically generated text#Markov chains#Paul Graham#Python#Patrick Mooney#companies#half#years#Y#business#Survey#kind#content#reason#tendency#option#deals#character#reorganization#Basically#order#pair#Disclosure#curiosity#legitimate#finger#version#Apple#startups
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