#misery and war on planet hell rock

[rubyrockman]

I know I play up an aggressive bit when I talk on the blog but it can't be fucking understated how much I'm fuming on Raz's behalf here.

Watching a fucking minor who, at worst, made a stupid mistake, be stalked and harassed is fucking horseshit. Not even to begin on the part where this shit should not be okay to begin with, can we at very fucking least agree that minors are off-limits for all this bullshit.

On that note, I'll also say that katliente who made the offending video that started this up again is a despicable human being to not only post it without considering the potential ramifications, but to not even take it down when asked - though I'll give benefit of doubt (for now) and say she didn't see the message(s) - is irresponsible at most charitable interpretation.

If anyone here is thinking about harassing Raz, take my advice when I say remember that this is a fucking minor you're doing this to. There is zero justifiable reason for any of this shit.

[catrasredemption-moved]

Catra's season 4 outfit gives me Shadow Weaver vibes - her right arm is covered while the left one is not. Just like SW has her poncho thingy wrapped only around her right arm. I don't know maybe I'm reaching but if she is trying to become some evil tyrant, she is probably emulating The evil she knows. What do you think?

Oh season 4 Catra is all kinds of vibing with Shadow Weaver. I actually have a lot to say about this that plays in with my “Catra isn’t a pretty abuse victim” meta, so buckle up lol.

Let’s start with a quote from Shadow Weaver:

“You remind me of myself. You always have.”

Yes, I know she was trying to manipulate Catra and try to show that they’re similar and Catra should help her, but that doesn’t automatically make it a lie. Catra is a lot like Shadow Weaver from her Light Spinner days - she wanted more power, she wanted to challenge the Horde, and no one would listen to her. Catra’s often in the same position of being overlooked or ignored, partially by Shadow Weaver’s doing, but it’s implied that people in the Horde don’t really think much of Catra until she becomes Force Captain, something she’d resigned herself to because of Adora.

Shadow Weaver seeing herself in Catra would also explain a lot about her treatment of Catra. Because she knows what lengths she went to for power, and Catra is fully capable of doing the same. How do you stop someone from seeking power? You put them down, you force them into situations they can’t win (like competing with Adora), you demean them, you make sure they never think they can accomplish anything. And Shadow Weaver did a damn good job at that until Hordak put the badge in Catra’s hand.

And just like Shadow Weaver, Catra eventually hits rock bottom. The fact that this is also because of Shadow Weaver is being put aside for now. Catra reaches a point where she has nothing left to lose, pushing her into her own position of “do this thing that’s dangerous and literally no one wants you to do” - pulling the lever.

Again, parallels here. Catra was disfigured in the portal, Shadow Weaver was disfigured using the spell of obtainment. Catra’s wasn’t permanent, thankfully, but she still covers up the reminder with the sleeve on her arm, just like Shadow Weaver covers herself to hide what the spell of obtainment did to her. Which is the answer to what you actually asked, but I’m going to keep going, if you don’t mind.

Catra definitely displays some very Shadow Weaver-esque behavior in season four,very much following the example of evil that she’s seen, with the yelling and verbal abuse at someone who sees her as an important figure in her life (Shadow Weaver was a parental figure to Catra, Catra was a best friend to Scorpia, in Scorpia’s mind), but I think the lowest point for Catra is when she literally repeats Shadow Weaver’s behavior, right down to her words, when she’s yelling at Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio 4x12:

“Get out!”

Yes, I know they’re common words, but the context of the scene is what, to me, parallels it with Shadow Weaver yelling at Adora and Catra in Promises. Catra’s backed up into the shadows, literally shrouded in darkness, yelling at people who at the very least used to be her squadmates (I believe Kyle thinks they were friends, but the reality of that statement is debatable), and threatening them. It seems oddly similar to the scene in Promises, doesn’t it? Catra’s finally risen to power, just like Shadow Weaver did. But she’s not happy. Because unlike Shadow Weaver, power was never what she wanted. But Shadow Weaver put the idea in her head, just like she gaslighted Adora in 1x01: “Is this not what you've wanted since you were old enough to want anything?” But Catra’s happiness is a discussion for another time.

Shadow Weaver basically built a perfect cycle of abuse with Catra - she abused Catra, who then went on to emulate her abuser by repeating all her actions and mistakes. Left unchecked, Catra probably would have just spiraled further down that hole of misery.

But Catra breaks the cycle. She makes a conscious choice to do “one good thing” in her life, with every intention of dying on Horde Prime’s ship. And when she doesn’t die, she actively works on being a better person. Which does not go unnoticed by Shadow Weaver, who tries to pull Catra back down to her level:

“At least you admit she’s evil.” “You’re one to talk, aren’t you?”

But Catra has Adora to hold her back now, to keep her grounded. And Shadow Weaver is alone in her little abuse circle. The girls she raised have teamed up and turned on her, there’s no place for her in the Rebellion, no place in the Horde, no place in Etheria.

Which leads us to Shadow Weaver sacrificing herself. Actually, rewind back to her arguing with Catra in the Whispering Woods and basically repeating the Glimmer/Catra scene on Prime’s ship:

“Do something good with [magic] for once and help me save Adora before it’s too late!”

And Shadow Weaver actually listens. Sure, this is her chance to go out as “a hero”, but her presence there at all is because of Catra. If Shadow Weaver had her way, she’d have been getting wine drunk back at the rebellion cave. But Catra dragged her out, Catra backed her into a corner, and Catra made her do something. Catra proved that she could actually rise above Shadow Weaver’s abuse and be a better person.

Which brings me back to another Shadow Weaver quote:

“It's too late for me. But you, this is only the beginning for you.”

Again, probably just her trying to be manipulative one last time, but I think there’s some truth to the words. Shadow Weaver has always been self-serving and thinking about ways to save herself, screw everyone else. But she knows there’s nowhere for her in a post-war world, so what the hell, might as well go out with a bang. Alternatively, she could’ve just left Catra to die (as one might expect), and harness the power of the Heart while she was right there, alone with it, and just run. I’m sure she could’ve found a way to make herself an appealing asset to Horde Prime, at least long enough to get off Etheria and find another planet to terrorize with her newfound powers.

And I know people are going to argue and say she was straight up being manipulative, but to what end? I absolutely believe her final words were a mind fuck - the “you’re welcome” combined with taking off her mask and showing her true face pretty much screamed “this is who she really is, don’t forget that.” It’s the “It’s too late for me” that gets me. She is fully recognizing that she has fucked up beyond repair, and not at all apologetic about it, but she also proceeds to go back on the earlier parallels she drew between herself and Catra. Catra hasn’t fucked up beyond repair yet. Catra broke the cycle. Catra had a chance at a new life, better than the one she had in the Horde, and a chance to be a better person. “This is only the beginning for you” might be the most sincerest words she ever said, to the person she was so sure she had broken.

Wow this got way off track. Anyway, yeah, I think there are some clear parallels between Catra, especially in season four, and Shadow Weaver. And it’s fascinating to think about how that dynamic plays out.

[the-harvester]

The Fated Five

[In order of BIGGEST to SMALLEST]

Created after the dust from the 1000-year war settled, the second batch of Hematites- sordidly referred to as the ‘Fated Five,’ were a nasty batch of beastly gems. They were incubated on a completely different planet than Homeworld.

They were twice as big as they were meant to be. They had the hearts of bloodthirsty creatures, but the minds of cunning gems. These Hematites were fantastic hunters... but at the same time, were everything that they weren’t supposed to be. White intended for Hematites to be intelligent, but discretionary. Passionate, but loyal. Massive, but careful. Predatory, but sensible.

They were not meant to be territorial, murderous gems with the cunning and appearance of a normal service gem, but the instincts of a monster.

Almost all the features found in the current Hematites, if they weren’t found in generation 1, can be found here. Tempers, appearance, instincts, senses, even their ways of speaking.

[Personality breakdowns and further story below the cut]

Hematite 0.1: Easily Agitated, Violent. Biggest. 580 ft. The first of the batch was the largest, and by far the most easily-angered. They had a hair-trigger, and would snap at anyone that invaded their territory. They would throw or smash any gems that came in without warning or permission, after finding out about corruption.

Hematite 0.2: Mysterious, Elusive. 500 ft. The second was the least-seen. They often would seem to completely disappear into the shadows of the Kindergarten, and gems who wandered into their territory would, in turn, disappear. They were hardly ever seen after finding out about corruption, and in turn, were corrupted in the dead of night in a fight with 0.4 and 0.5.

Hematite 0.3: Vicious, Violent, Tricky. 425 ft. The most violent, shatter-happy gem of the group. She would look for any, and NO reason to fight someone. She also couldn’t stand to be in the daylight, as it apparently severely hurt her eyes. She had the best eyesight of the group. She was the first to corrupt in a fight with 0.1.

Hematite 0.4: Snarky, Aggressive, Voracious. 340 ft. Hematite 0.4 was tricky and sneaky, but not nearly as much as her ‘friend,’ 0.5. She was responsible for the most illegal ‘harvestings’ of workers, and anyone within eyesight of her was in danger of being caught and tormented. Sometimes she acted as though she’d be nice, or that she’d changed her ways, but it was always a facade. Together with 0.5, she helped corrupt and eliminate 0.1 and 0.2 before 0.5 turned on her, killing her as well.

Hematite 0.5: Deadly. Smallest. 250 ft. Do not turn your back on her. Hematite 0.5 was the smallest of the batch, less than half the size of 0.1. However, without argument, she was also the smartest, to a dangerous, deadly extent. While all the other Hematites acted wild and violent, she was demure, kind, and spoke softly. She caught on very quickly what got you punished, and what got you a ‘pass’ in situations. This worked to her advantage when she started picking off gems one by one in her territory. Nobody could ever prove anything, because she seemed the least suspicious, and always covered her tracks or had 0.4 cover her with an alibi. Her true colors didn’t show until it was revealed that she and 0.4 were killing off their kin by corrupting them and using that as a cover to harvest other gems as they pleased. She had the second biggest appetite of the group, and towards the end of her life, she did not hide it. Eventually, once it was her and 0.4 left, she stabbed her in the back- quite literally -and wound up leaving her gem somewhere to reform. 0.4 reformed hours later, tried to leave her territory, and was crushed under a rockslide that 0.5 had set up. 0.4 corrupted, and 0.5 tried to use it as a cover to escape the Kindergarten. Yellow Diamond put a stop to it.

Brief History:

All of the second generation of Hematites emerged early. They emerged at the exact same time, more or less, within a few days of each other.

White was away when it all happened. She was off on important diplomatic duties across the galaxy, and could not spare time to go back to monitor her creations, despite her desire and need to. In her place, Yellow monitored the new gems. Everyone was relieved when the Hematites came out normal-looking, and did not corrupt directly out of the ground. However, the relief was short-lived. Before a year had passed, the Hematites were at each other’s throats, and service gems were vanishing now and then, enough for Yellow to notice. When it was brought up over the PA system, Hematites 0.1 and 0.3 started to fight, blaming each other for the vanishing gems. 0.3 was destabilized only twice before a screaming, snarling gem monster was left in their place. The Kindergarten had to be evacuated the best it could be as the creature rampaged through it. Service gems were caught in the deep chasms of the cliffs, workers were lost to the night, and the corrupted gem was eventually put out of its misery by Hematite 0.5.

But the hell didn’t stop there. It had only begun.

Before then, the Hematites were merely territorial and grouchy. But after figuring out that something was wrong with them via an announcement from Yellow Diamond, they all changed. Not one, but all of the Hematites tried to get to her up on the cliff side, despite her being surrounded by guards. They fought them all off, thankfully, as the Kindergarten was far deeper than the one the current generation lives in, but it was enough to shake Yellow to her core.

And if that wasn’t enough, what followed only solidified her distrust and horror towards them. The Hematites split up into their territories, and any service gems that were caught down in the deep chasms after the evacuation were lost to the bloodthirsty gems. One by one, they took each other out with cunning tricks and traps, or just outright attacking each other. Each one corrupted, until the very last one was left standing. The smallest, and the most cunning and murderous: Hematite 0.5. She had to be exterminated by Yellow’s forces, as she tried to make a daring escape from the Kindergarten after the last of her kin corrupted. All of them wound up shattered and taken away to a special room White kept her valuable gems and shards.

Yellow still hasn’t recovered from the ordeal. She wound up seeing first-hand, or through videos, countless atrocities the giant gems committed without remorse. Cries of murdered service gems, muffled screams of those unlucky enough to be shattered on the spot, reports of gems being found half-crushed under rock-slides triggered on purpose by the Hematites. Everything left a scar on her mind, one that was ripped new and fresh when White disclosed centuries later that she was going to ‘try again.’

Yellow couldn’t bear the thought of having fifteen of these monsters back in the wild again. But to make matters worse...

Imagine her horror at hearing White Diamond planned to take one as her guard.

[stydiaeverafter]

Michael’s Home

Malex’s relationship hasn’t been an easy one... but it is cosmic. Their connection is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

We’ve all been wondering what Michael is feeling lately. We’ve been worried about a love triangle, if he’s losing feelings for Michael, and what’s going to happen to everyone involved.

I watched the clip of Malex in the bunker... and it just hit me like a million bricks. It was a look, from Michael, that really explained it all.

So here we go -- starting from the top:

I feel like the first time Alex called it off, “this isn’t going to work out, Guerin,” that’s when we saw in the next episode, Michael be more flirty to Maria.

And then after it seemed like Alex called it off for good in the bar with Michael, that’s when Michael didn’t hold anything back and just went for it with Maria. If the conversation in the bar between them would’ve been different, I don’t think he would have slept with Maria at all. Even if he still went to Texas.

Then Alex walked back into his life, (roller coaster ride is right) and told him he had loved him, wanted to build a friendship and to know everything about who and what he was. But Alex did walk away.

However, this time was different... he was broken-hearted over the fact Michael wants to leave the planet. If it was really about processing the alien stuff or Michael’s upbringing, then he would’ve left long before. It was only then, he left not knowing what to do. I think Michael could sense this. That’s why when he went up the ladder, you can almost see Michael’s confused face... sad, but the wheels turning like, “Omg... Alex wants me to stay. He really wants this.”

So here we have the scene that made me realize what was going on:

Michael immediately stops talking when Alex abruptly puts it all together that he’s building a vehicle...

To leave... the planet.

I don’t think it’s really registered to Michael what’s going on with Alex yet. But he can tell Alex is upset.

Usually when Alex walks away, Michael looks heartbroken. When Alex mentioned the vehicle, Michael is almost frozen because he hasn’t thought about it until this point. What really leaving Alex would feel like. He looks shocked honestly.

But look at this expression in the below pictures. This is the look that made me realize this whole theory and why I wrote this:

Once Alex leaves the bunker, the wheels are turning in Michael’s head...

This is a different expression. Once he himself processes what just happened, he realizes Alex isn’t walking away. The opposite actually. He wants Michael to stay. He wouldn’t have left looking heartbroken and so abruptly after the vehicle comment, if he wasn’t so in love with Michael. And Michael realizes in this moment that not only does Alex want him to stay... he’s also very IN LOVE WITH MICHAEL.

IN LOVE.

Present tense!

In an interview, Vlamis states that all Michael wants is to love, be loved, and feel a sense of community. He doesn’t think people are capable of loving him. Hello, abandonment issues. But even though it hurts when people leave him, it honestly makes him feel SAFE. Because it’s the pattern of his sad life. It’s the one constant—people leaving him. Sad but true. Well, even though he loves Alex, Alex continues to walk away, too. Until now. This time it’s different. And OMG does it make him feel vulnerable, which in turn makes him feel very weak. He doesn’t know how to control these emotions, the ones Alex always seems to make him feel.

Michael doesn’t have to hear this to understand. Malex communicates without words half of the time. That’s how powerful their love is. Seeing the broken-hearted Alex when he realized Michael is trying to leave, made him realize that Alex actually WANTS him to stay on earth and knowing that Alex is IN LOVE WITH HIM RIGHT NOW, well... it makes Michael feel very vulnerable. MORE VULNERABLE THAN HE HAS EVER FELT IN HIS LIFE. Someone is choosing him. HIM. And it just so happens it’s Alex.

Deep down, this is everything he wants, Alex... a relationship, but it also brings up the white elephant in the room: LEAVING. That’s been the constant in their relationship... walking away. Well, now Alex is walking back and wants Michael to stay. But Michael’s plan was always to find a way out, probably more so after Alex left for war, too. I bet he really pushed himself to find more info. But now Alex wants him... wants to stay. UM, that’s a lot to handle. It makes him feel out of control actually and the limiting beliefs of the abandonment comes into play. And what does that mean if someone stays for him? What if he’s not good enough for Alex, he may think.

I think he felt so overwhelmed by wanting both things (Alex and perhaps still leaving), that he falls in his old pattern: drinking. Say what you will, but Michael has an addiction. He drinks A LOT and drinks a lot of ACETONE. It’s a great way to just not think about your current reality.

Luckily, he knows Maria can help with the alcohol (can’t afford it otherwise), and she’s become a good and fun friend. They’ve already established that it was just sex, and not happening again. He doesn’t even want that, now that Alex is back. But then playing with his vulnerability again, Maria brings up Alex. OH FUCK. At first he totally plays it off—almost playing “stupid.” But she presses on about their relationship. Hell, Alex is what he’s struggling with right now... what to do, be with him forever, or have a chance to go home? He feels lost. This wasn’t what he wanted that night. And Maria, this spunky friend (what he needed in that moment to forget his dilemma), brings up his weakness again.

Look at him when she brings up his relationship and past with Alex:

He’s back to feeling weak.

He doesn’t like feeling this way.

This is his vulnerability when truly feeling what he feels for Alex. It rocks him to the core.

THAT is why I think he gets extremely emotional and doesn’t know what in the world to do. Why he gets upset when she pushes him away. He doesn’t have romantic feelings for her, but now he feels even more weak like, SHIT, now I have to face this with Alex and my spaceship.... I just wanted to forget for a while. Not to think about this. He didn’t want her sexually, he wanted to be able to not think and lose himself within the alcohol and a good friend. It seems like he’s staring longingly at her, but I think he’s lost in himself. He wanted the misery to be taken away, and now it’s not. And now, because of Alex, she’s pushing him away. He no longer has an outlet to forget his problems in. He’s stuck actually facing the music. And maybe he does sense that she likes him a bit, and he knows he’s messing with everyone’s emotions. He feels bad for hurting Alex with Maria, for hurting Maria by sleeping with her knowing who her best friend is, but Michael doesn’t always think. He tries and covers up what he’s feeling with questionable behavior. And now he’s left feeling not only guilty, but lost and confused.

He probably feels more alone than ever. And Vlamis says, he’s tired of feeling alone. He wants that community. But maybe he doesn’t know how to do it properly. It’s sad really, and I feel for Michael. His childhood really bites him in the ass every single time. It’s the demons that has kept him and Alex apart, and maybe moving forward in his own life. It’s why he moves to the “criminal tendencies,” versus actually giving a shit and belonging to society. It’s easier to hold up a middle finger and say F*ck you Earth. But the fact that people actually love him, want him around, well.. it’s a bit too much. Catch 22 if you will.

After last episode, yes, I was worried that he was losing feelings for Alex and wanted to find it with Maria. And honestly IT KILLED ME. But that’s not what’s actually happening (In my opinion. Remember this is JUST my opinions and theories here -- don’t kill me). Sure he’s probably very attracted to Maria (who wouldn’t be?), but more so, it’s her spirit, her energy and her strength I think he’s really attracted to. I actually think Maria could help him heal a lot of his demons inside, by accepting himself for who he truly is. But sex sometimes complicates things. I hope eventually they can build a friendship - but first he has to figure out his relationship with Alex before hearts can be repaired.

After seeing Alex leave broken-hearted in the bunker, I think he’s in love with Alex more than ever. And THAT is what’s scaring the hell out of him. It’s almost like he’s trying to push these thoughts out of his mind, and that’s why he was hoping for a distraction with Maria.

But he’ll never be able to push it out of his head? Why? This isn’t your typical kind of love. This love never dies, but continues to grow. True love. Soulmates. Definitely cosmic. They built something healthy in their relationship for the first time in the last 2 episodes and that’s a lot for Michael to handle. Because it’s growth. And he might not know how to handle having Alex want him back.

But Alex does. I mean look, Alex listened to him. REALLY HEARD HIM. No one has even done that...maybe not even Max and Isobel. It goes deeper between he and Alex, than anything romantic or a friendship. It’s connecting your soul to another being. He has never been openly vulnerable with someone—and he’s sharing everything. The pics below you can tell when he’s opening up how hard it is for him, especially when he gets emotional—he plays it off and wants Alex to start talking. I think it’s too much from him. Michael Guerin is not an open book and he doesn’t let people in. But he chooses to let Alex in, even if it destroys him all over again. He trusts him. Not just the alien stuff, but everything. And he knows Alex could destroy his heart completely. He’s so vulnerable in this episode. But he makes a choice to let Alex in. 100%. Even though Alex has hurt him in the past. Which is why I think he shares the spaceship vessel with Alex.

And this was BEFORE Alex left broken-hearted and Michael realized what Alex meant was true: HE IS DONE WALKING AWAY.

Throughout the whole episode, I think he fell EVEN MORE IN LOVE WITH ALEX. BIG TIME. But now he feels more lost than ever and more vulnerable. Because finally Alex is saying everything he’s ever wanted, but it still presents the problem of him not knowing how to go forward. He’s faced with demons all over again. Ironic really.

I have a feeling in episode 12, Alex will confess how he feels, and why he ran away—this time and all the others (I think he’ll bring up the guilt he feels for his hand being destroyed and wanting to protect him from his father), that he was afraid himself to be who he is (his own demons of self acceptance & not caring what others will say), and he’ll show him the missing piece -- which will throw Michael’s world off again, but in a good way. It’ll be a revelation of sorts. Because when Alex truly confesses what he feels for Michael, in present tense, that’s when we see Michael the happiest we’ve ever seen him. He’ll feel it with his whole heart. He doesn’t want the random flings and hook ups. He wants the real deal, the real relationship -- and he wants it with Alex. That’s all he’s wanted and it’ll be more clear than ever. Even if he���s vulnerable and a bit afraid. He’s willing to take that step forward with the love of his life.

I also think hearing that Alex wants him to stay, but gives him the choice to leave by giving him the piece (I think Alex will say he loves him, but he wants Michael to find his home and to be happy), it’ll make him feel stronger than ever, not weak.

He’ll realize that loving Alex was never a “glitch” in his system. That loving Alex made him stronger than ever. And hearing Alex want him to not only stay, but that he wants to be with him for good -- no more walking away, well, he’ll realize he doesn’t need to go anywhere.

What he’s wanted his whole life has always been standing in front of him.

Alex Manes is his home.

We’re going to see Michael go through a lot internally, both of them I’m sure, but honestly really Michael even more so. And that’s why in the interview, I think Vlamis stated it was his best performance in ep. 12, and it was Tyler and his best work. I think we’ll see a lot of the demons come to the surface, the love, and what his life is all about. 

{{This being said, I don’t know if we’ll see all of this at the end of the season. I hope so though, but I don’t know if Michael makes any choices right now whether to leave or not. Vlamis said maybe in future seasons. So maybe it’s left unsaid, but I think we’ll still get lots of special moments between the two of them with declarations of love, Alex giving Michael the alien piece & saying he just wants him to be happy whatever he decides, sharing their fears/hopes, and just really connecting and helping each other. But I do think we’ll see, whether Michael doesn’t know if he should leave or not, loving Alex has never been a question. It’s a fact. And I’m hopeful about that. I’m just praying we don’t see something bad happen to one of them (caused by 4th alien or Jesse //might be same thing) and then it just ends with a cliffhanger - probably though right?}}

[chalabrun]

we cried power -- ; (furol)

Word Count: 2,943 Pairing: Furol (Nick Fury x Carol) Rating: G Warnings: Endgame spoilers, death mention Summary: When they were alone, two of the strongest were finally allowed to grieve.

They wept the way heroes were supposed to, Carol supposed. On that clear day, some uncertain intermission between spring and summer, hands in her trouser pockets—she didn’t think she’d be this affected. She didn’t know Tony Stark like the others did, and maybe she didn’t have to. Throughout the funeral—a small, intimate affair—it made her question everything. For over thirty years, she’d been away from earth. Closer to forty if you counted the five years spent to and from this planet. Carol was certain she’d seen it all, bottling everything up so no one would doubt the strength, both inwards and outwards, of Captain Marvel.

But, if she looked around, she wasn’t the only one keeping their feelings boarded up, like some bankrupt, abandoned shop on the middle of Main street. Something that tried to hide the collapse, but you knew just by looking at it how much that wasn’t true. She felt it then, overlooking the lake. Mourning not just for someone who had become an ally, but for so much else, too.

They needed sanctuary. As the world was waking up again, people reclaiming what had been lost and finding their lives again, she’d needed to get away. But, not alone.

The clacking of the train tracks was like subdued and steady rainfall. The scenic view of the Swiss Alps as the train had long since departed from Bern was almost unnerving in its beauty, the verdant forests crossing with quaint villages and the occasional castle, through long, dark tunnels, seeming surreal compared to the upheaval and carnage they’d just come from. A sky dotted with occasional clouds in a tapestry of flawless azure was like it’d never been trespassed by Thanos’ coming in the first place.

“So, we just gonna be quiet the whole time, or are we gonna talk about what happened?”

The blonde glanced down at her companion who had been fast asleep just a moment ago, nestled into her side with his cheek to her chest, an arm around her middle as they reclined in the cushy bed in the sleeper car they occupied. Having been embracing him, fingers caressing over his clean-shaven scalp, the corners of Carol’s lips quirked.

“You were snoring and I didn’t want to wake you, Colonel,” she said with a touch of humor in her voice, earning a dry chuckle from Nick.

“Fair enough, Captain,” Nick quipped back, exhaling steadily. A pregnant pause suspended over them they were both aware of, like an elephant in the room. A coil of tension wound tightly in between them, thick enough for only a Vibranium knife to cut.

“If I’d have gotten here sooner—“ came Carol’s sudden confession, a strain beginning in her voice before Fury cut her off.

“You know damn well it’s not your fault, Danvers. It’s not just on you. You know that,” Fury interjected as his gaze flicked towards her, as if they weren’t on the train anymore. The world falling away even further.

It was the explosion during that mission with Dr. Lawson. The Supreme Intelligence forcing her to her knees after capture. The final battle with Thanos and everything in between, the time she’d been there and hadn’t—

“It doesn’t feel like that. Sure, I get it. Captain Marvel is everywhere these days, but—dammit, this is my home! This little blue rock was in danger and I could’ve done something to stop it. If I’d only been here sooner!” So, was this what collapse was like? How much she’d been holding in? Carol’s head bowed and the train continued its seemingly ceaseless roll through the Swiss Alps, no quick reply from Nick, because he understood. He peered further to see the woman’s lower lip worrying, beads of tears rolling down her cheek.

Of everything immeasurable and incredible he’d seen in all his life, Carol Danvers crying wasn’t one of them. But even heroes weren’t immune. Maybe it was Tony Stark’s funeral that popped the cork from the bottle, over thirty years old. Vintage as old as his. Life had been lost, memories scattered, hell—even Nick couldn’t deny the clump in his throat, something about Carol’s own crumbling making it feel like it was okay to finally weep.

These people meant the world to him. The Avengers, the very name the Carol had indirectly inspired all those years ago. Bullheaded on the best of days, he’d be the last person to deny that Romanoff and Stark’s deaths, as well as Cap’s paradoxical but understandable wish to remain in the past, had impacted him. He’d seen innumerable deaths; incalculable. In every trial and tribulation, he’d seen fellow soldiers die alongside citizens, but who he was hadn’t given him the luxury to indulge in grief, or misery. He’d remained strong through it all.

And if the woman who meant the world to him could collapse, so could he.

The world was unfocused, blurry then. When they bothered to look. For now, it was minute shuddering and stilted sobs, Nick’s restrained, but—God, it felt like fire. Carol enveloped him wholly, engulfing him in the vacuum of space itself. The clacking of the tracks, the passage of the Swiss countryside like a film reel; it was like none of that was there. His eyes were wet and misty where they could be, thinking of how he’d have to let the eye-patch dry.

It hit them harder than they thought it would. You couldn’t build without a strong foundation, Carol named the strongest Avenger. So, here they were. A sword and shield, a shield and sword; interchangeable, but that strength remained the same. They had to let go, needed to.

“Thinking about him, made me wonder: maybe I should retire. You know, settle down somewhere real nice. Someplace like this.” Carol emerged from her grief with a sniffle, Nick knowing she was listening. He gaze wandered out the window, her embrace all he needed. “One of those pipe dreams where I open up a bar, kinda a jazzy place. Switzerland ain’t really known for jazz. Bring in some real smooth New York jazz to this place.” He smirked against her breast. “Once a month, we’ll bring in Lang to do his tricks. Something nice and corny.”

“We?” Carol queried out from the blue, swallowing thickly.

“Yeah, we. You used to have a nice place you used to hang out, right? A canteen, same as every soldier. Dogs of war need a watering hole.” His smile broadened despite the wet streaks on his cheeks, skin stinging when he smiled.

“Huh, you make a point there, Fury,” Carol considered with a smile, her own tears remaining unbothered where they lingered. Her toes twitched as if to some invisible beat. “You do realize this means I get to choose the tracks on the jukebox and the name, right?” Despite the puffiness of her eyes,      her smile was more radiant than the cosmic light she was capable of producing. If anything, it was the brightest thing he’d ever damn seen.

“Better be a good one, and with some Motown on that track list, or else we’ll be bringing in Lang on ladies’ night. You really want that hanging over your head, Danvers?” he teased back with a grin that elicited a snort from the blonde.

“I think I can live with that on my conscience. Try again, Fury.”

They both knew, despite the levity buoyed in this sea of grief, that such a dream wasn’t likely to pass. It was nice playing make believe, jostling each other with a pipe dream, because that’s all it was. Tony and Nat’s deaths crystallized a reality every Avenger knew, but was unwilling to say aloud.

There was no stopping. A quiet death somewhere peaceful, after growing old, wasn’t for them. People like them didn’t get peaceful endings, but went out in some blaze of glory, foolhardy or no. Carol knew this in her heart when she’d watched Tony pass on in that blaze of glory, in the blinding penumbra of light that had swallowed everything blindingly. And in the stuttering moments after, seeing Tony transfigured like a pillar of salt, charred from the blaze. In his fire she couldn’t help but see herself, vividly. In a single moment of life and death, and the time between clinging to it for the sake of other people, she saw herself. Burning up as brightly protecting those she loved.

Except, when her time came, she might not be so lucky.

She might not face her demise surrounded by everyone she loved.

“It’s a nice dream, isn’t it? Pretty noble, too—bringing jazz to Switzerland,” Carol ventured through a closing throat, eyes misting over again. It bobbed as she swallowed tightly. “But, I think we both know what’s going to come after this. We’re not going to stop. We’re never going to stop until it kills us. And we won’t need the Infinity Stones to do it.”

It was a long spell of silence after she said that, sinking again into the movement of the train, the film reel landscape passing continuously by, and his ear pressed into her heart. Even though it was heavy, it was the truth. The same the others knew but pushed into the farthest recesses of their minds.

“...Yeah,” Fury conceded after a long spell of silence, shifting some in Carol’s arms, feeling her lips brush the crown of his head, lingering. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have moments like this. Remembering that we’re still human, and all. Think we should enjoy them, don’t you?”

At that, Carol managed a thin but genuine smile. Though she didn’t feel like saying anything more, he was right. Completely and absolutely right.

Until that time came, they were allowed this. Until that happened, she had Fury in her arms and all felt right with the world.

[smolstrawberrychara]

The season 8 deleted scene dreamworks doesn’t want you to see

well not quite. Basically it’s clear day and Hunk has noticed that Keith isn’t okay.

i.e. pining Keith and platonic Heith  

 Clear day was an absolute joke and Keith was done with it yesterday. Why the hell would shrieking creatures in a stupidly dark tunnel be entertaining? It was horrific. And Hunk should not be singing along. Keith’s grip tightened on the bar.

‘Hunk. We are getting off.’

‘Wha-!? Oh, come on Keith, lighten up! It’ll be running again any tick now.’

Keith couldn’t help the eye roll. Sure, it would get running. But what was lying around the corner? Probably even squeakier creepy figurines jumping out at them. Maybe, if he was lucky, they’d be holding pick-axes and he could impale himself on one.

A shudder rumbled through the seat and suddenly they were trudging along again.

‘See! What did I tell ya?’

Keith side eyed Hunk. That smile could almost be smug but coming from Hunk it was soft, sympathetic with a hint of happiness. At least he seemed to be enjoying neo-Disneyland with 60s rides straight out of the 90s when they were already old and dilapidated. Keith let himself relax back into the chair, folding his arms instead of trying to bend metal with his bare hands. This would be fine. Five more minutes at most. And Hunk was having a good time swinging his arms about. They’d laugh about this later.

Then the ride came to a juddering halt.

Fuck it. Keith ripped his Bayard out of his suit and sliced the bar clean in half. He didn’t need to stick around for this.

‘Coming?’ He yelled as he jumped onto the rail, climbing across the fake wooden hills.

Vowels spilled out of Hunk’s mouth behind him before there was a thud and Hunk was marching alongside him.

‘I mean there was really no need to break their equipment.’

‘It was already broken Hunk.’ Keith bit back in exasperation, ‘that’s what got us into this mess.’

Hunk hummed, unconvinced. Keith didn’t let him respond, slicing the curtain open still on a war path. This planet was just the worst. First of all, everyone was slacking off playing games instead of being on guard. Secondly, the aliens were all sarcastic little shits. And lastly, Lance had run off to find something sparkly for Allura. Like come on, none of them had forgotten they were going out. Quit reminding them. Damn him.

‘KEITH! Wait up!’

Keith let out a growl as Hunk hooked a hand around his arm, forcing him to a standstill.

‘Hey man, chill out. What’s got you so mad?’

‘I’m not mad.’

Hunk gave him a look, raising his eye brows. ‘You kinda are.’

‘Just drop it Hunk.’ Keith hissed. Hunk was too damn perceptive. And his brown eyes were so warm Keith knew he’d crack if they kept up with that gooey caring thing they had going on.

Hunk was about to speak when an arm slammed down across Keith’s shoulders, shoving him under a heavy body.

‘Hey guys!’

Oh god no.

‘Guess who won something sparkly for Allura!’

‘Oh, nice one Lance!’ Hunk cheered, slapping their hands into high-five, the impact rocking through Keith. He grunted, rolling Lance’s arm off his shoulder.

‘Well done.’ He forced out, ‘what did you get?’

‘Ta-dah!’

Lance beamed as he presented a blue lion toy in front of them. Their lion. Keith’s stomach twisted uncomfortably, and he hated himself for it.

‘I mean I know it’s not sparkly in like the jewellery sense, but d’you think she’ll like it?’

‘Of course, she will dude!’ Hunk replied easily, smashing Lance’s doubts, ‘it’s your lion, how could she not!?’

Keith nodded along with him, ‘yeah, it’s really sweet.’

Because it was, and Keith wasn’t a liar. And he really did want Lance to be happy. It just hurt a little that it couldn’t be with him.

Lance grinned at the two of them, blinding them with sparkling white teeth. ‘Okay! I’m gonna go see how Pidge is doing!’

And just as quickly as he’d arrived, Lance was galloping away, sweeping through the crowd with an ease Keith could only dream of achieving. Without him even realising, a sigh was brushing across Keith’s lips. Warmth wrapped around his bicep and a firm squeeze finally tore Keith away from his trance.

Hunk was ducked in close, speaking quietly. ‘Is that what it is? You’re jealous of Lance?’

Keith recoiled. ‘God no!’

Jealous of Lance was the exact opposite of his feelings.

‘Okay!’ Hunk yelped with equal volume, offering out placating hands, ‘just kinda seems like you get quiet every time he mentions Allura.’

‘Well you’re reading it wrong.’ Keith assured gruffly. Hunk was a little too close to the truth than was comfortable. Keith turned to leave but Hunk’s grip tightened.

‘Then what is it?’

Hunk’s eyes locked onto his, unwavering. His determination to offer care was something Keith truly admired. But it was also his Achilles heel. Keith swallowed thickly, hoping to contain the truths begging to be set free from his throat.

‘Seriously man. You can talk to me.’

Keith shook his head. He couldn’t do this. He was pathetic. He didn’t need Hunk’s sympathy. He was perfectly fine with how things were.

Hunk leant in further, ‘are you in love with Allura?’

‘Jesus Hunk no!’ Keith yelped, throwing his head back in frustration ‘it’s not Allura!’

Hunk hesitated, and Keith could feel his eyes analysing his every muscle.

‘If it’s not her then…’ Hunk trailed off. Keith couldn’t fight the heat rising through his body like a volcano.

‘You like L-‘

Keith didn’t let him finish the sentence, smothering his lips with his palms. With Hunk’s voice trapped, Keith whipped his gaze around the vicinity. People were giving them funny looks, but no familiar faces so Keith ignored them. Hunk tugged his hand away.

‘You like Lance,’ he whispered, sound barely above the wind.

Keith managed a nod. He felt like he wanted to cry. But also yell. And mostly he wanted to run away and hide back in his room on the Atlas for the rest of the night and never speak of this again. None of this was fair.

‘Keith I’m- I’m so sorry.’

The gooey eyes were back. Melted caramel swirling in chocolate pupils and Keith felt them in the pit of his stomach. Hunk just cared so damn much. It physically hurt Keith to see his own pain mirrored on a face that deserved none of the sort.

‘Don’t be.’ Keith said, stepping back and losing the strength to hold his head up, ‘it’s fine.

‘No, it’s not.’ Hunk cut in, holding Keith’s arms, ‘you don’t have to go through this alone. Talk to me. Don’t suffer in silence.’

Hunk was amazing. Despite wanting to cry Keith couldn’t help but smile at his words. He worked so hard to make people happy – able to protect in a way Keith never could. He was a true asset to Voltron. A true friend. And Keith was almost pulled into his offer. Almost. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about this particular problem.

‘Thanks.’ Keith said sadly, ‘but I’d really just rather not think about it.’

And rather not pull anyone else into his web of misery.

‘Then come bake!’ Hunk countered quickly, ‘we could always do with the spare hands! Plus, I don’t like seeing you all sad and mopey. Let me cheer you up!’

Keith shook his head, unable to fight off a wider smile. Of course, Hunk had a backup plan. He was far too good for this world. And, well, Keith was never as strong as he made out to be.

‘Alright,’ Keith found himself saying, ‘but I’m not exactly known for my expertise in that area.’

‘Well that’s why I’ll be there!’

Keith felt his shoulders relax. Baking really would be a step up from moping around his room and avoiding the new couple like the plague. Plus, Hunk was pretty strong, the burden felt lighter already.

‘Thanks Hunk.’ Keith said quietly, ‘you’re a good friend.’

Hunk glowed pink, ‘well I try.’

They started walking again and Hunk knocked their shoulders together.

‘We’ll get through this.’ He assured, taking away the last of Keith’s anxieties, ‘you deserve to be happy too.’

[ruins-in-rome]

We sit in a round table, a spotlight illuminating the center. A toddler, too young to even know what’s happening, her future on the table. A man bound by dedication, and… devotion (could it be love?), his stability on the table. Me… An adolescent with confusion in her eyes, heart torn apart between two worlds (for what?), my… growth and relationship on the table. I bet a lot of questions, I gave up knowledge, and put it on the table. A woman, tied to her chair, hands held up by strings, her… everything is on the table. An elderly woman, wearing the tragedy and comedy mask on, one of her hands holding the control paddle which I assume is what controls the other woman, the other hand is tied to a bunch of other people at the back. This woman doesn’t have anything on the table. How can that be? Is she a coward to refuse to gamble? There are spectators. Men in black suits, and women in cocktail dresses wear masks to cover their eyes, the same malicious smiles and smug smirks plastered on their lips. Is this some sort of show? There are a handful with scowls imprinted on their faces, teeth grazing lips as if holding back a snarl, eyes narrowed, and jaws clenched. Why are they so angry? At the heart of it all, there’s a revolver, a silent beckoning, “let’s play a game, shall we?”

The first to go is the woman. It’s funny how to puppet gains the will to go. But really, when has the master get on their bare hands and do the dirty work? She takes the gun with no hesitation, as if she has been wanting this – to put an end to everything. She loads the bullet. She spins the cylinder. She points it to her head and pulls the trigger.

She looks up to face me, mouthing the words, ‘I’m sorry.’ I am thrown into more confusion. Why has she said that? What did she do? This is the first time I’ve seen her features: stray grey hairs frame her face, almost too dry lips, cracked cheeks – must be from the dried tears, eyes lined with the color red – she has been crying. Time hasn’t been kind, but so was she. There is her beauty mark in between the hairs of her eyebrows and I knew. It was a normal day in my normal life with my normal family when my mother barged in the room and hugged us tight. She had said some cryptic words that I didn’t know the meaning of. Was she going to die? Where is she going? What happened? But at the thought that she will leave, I let myself cry. Even my sibling, who didn’t know anything, but felt the misery in the air, came to hug us. I didn’t even know the story but I cried. It was a day in my life with my family when we held each other and cried.

Just like waterfalls, the water continues to cascade down, splashing on the rocks with sounds that hurt the ears. In this tiny room, the shouts begin. Shouts of a grown man, insults thrown by the same man, the harsh whispers of the women draped in riches, eyes of jewels, and tongues of snakes – they all feel like a door slammed closed, leaving you in a suffocating room. The woman is silent. She is choking on her sobs. The shouts always fill the house. It makes me think that they are just filling up the space inside. Every other day is like this, and I don’t know what to do anymore. Hidden away in the safety of my own room, I can hear the words coming out of a man’s mouth like bullets. He drops bombs on her like she is a battlefield. What are you fighting for? Why are we going to war? I wonder if she can even feel the eyes on her, or the words directed at her. I want to hold her and tell her that I’m here, she can lean on me when the world seems against her.

The man is the second to go. His eyes rest on me when he pulls the trigger. His eyes are devoid of any emotions, but I want to ask him, why, simply why, why are you doing this, why are you continuing to do this? And yes, I do remember. The story is like an origami crane. It has too many folds and too many sides. But… the first to unfold the story to me is my father.

My room is my safe haven. The white walls paired with bright colors made the whole room come to life. It is filled with my memories, little trinkets to decorate my desks, words painted on the walls, my dreams and my hopes and my ambitions and my achievements all out in the open. There are pieces of me everywhere. There are pieces of everyone in the little things in my room. The little magnet given by a friend, a portrait drawn by my best friend, candies I haven’t eaten because of the words on them, keychains from my previous teachers, a t-shirt as remembrance for either my best or worst years – an origami star. And that day, there was a moment added to the room of mine with every little and big thing that captures a moment in my life. My father went in my room, sat down in the brown chair I’ve sat when I felt I needed to think – maybe this is what we needed: to think. His first words were, “I know that you want to know.” My first words were, “I know.” ‘I’ve put the pieces together, papa’ was left unsaid. And he did tell me everything.

When I was a child, I never believed that money made the world go ‘round. I was taught to be practical, reasonable, logical. I was taught when a mass is trapped in the gravitational field of another body, a set of equations from Johann Kepler tell us that certain stable orbits can result. When this happens, as is the case with our planet, the momentum that the planet had continues until something steels it away. So wasn’t it conservation of angular momentum? But… On that day, at 2 in the afternoon when my curtains were draped, my world suddenly stopped. And on that day, I realized I was wrong. Money made the world go ‘round. Debts mean that your world will be turned upside down – our world is turned upside down. The story almost flew over my head because I chose to hold on to the raw emotions of some of his commentaries.

“I’m trying to fix the broken pieces but she keeps breaking them.” There is a static silence. And silence can only hold so much. The man cries. I don’t know if it’s for relief or for anger.

I look at the people around me. I know the woman and the man’s sides. The people around is another story. Their laughs fill my ears and I can’t help but think that it’s mockery. I stare at a woman, her mouth in a straight line, and her brows furrowed. She is pitying us. I don’t need your sympathy, lady. The lady and her groupie looks at the woman in both pity and anger. They are seeing her as a villain. The women clad in dresses call out her name in reminder. Money, money, money. The men wearing fancy suits places their hands on the man’s shoulder. Some hold their own knives and guns behind their back, a sign of betrayal for the man. The others offer their hand in front of the man, giving him genuine help to get back up to his feet. But just like my father said, when the foundation for a new start is done, someone ends up knocking them over. I don’t know which side I should be on. I stick with holding both of the woman and man’s hands, an unspoken phrase, “I’m here.”

The next is the old woman in the mask. She effortlessly points the revolver to her head, like she has done this so many times that it doesn’t affect her anymore, like she just knows she won’t die. She keeps her face straight forward. Her comedy mask taunts me. Is this fun to you, woman? When she eventually fires the gun, it shoots somebody else in the room. Their cries echo out into the room and that’s when I noticed that the gun isn’t directly pointing on her head – it’s angled ever so slightly that it misses her… and ends up taking someone else’s life instead. Her tragedy mask jeer at me. You of all people shouldn’t mourn over the deceased when you yourself were the reason behind it. I glare at her with hardened eyes, fury dancing like fire. That’s when it all clicked. The mastermind of it all. The master, the controller, the one working behind the scenes, manipulating the game in order to work in her favour, is that old hag.

In the many memories of my father and I talking, the blurred visions in my mind, his eyes holding so much pain and sadness, the mechanical cogs in my brain tossing and turning, trying to make sense of everything, the crack in his voice, my silence as an urge for him to continue – to let it all out, his frustrations, his sorrows, his worries, and oh, his defeat, the bitter defeat that came with it all, there is one person that unraveled the threads in our family tapestry. Maybe… maybe this is part of our fate. Maybe in between the threads that hold the tapestry together, there was a person – a termite, a parasite disentangling the threads.

The story starts with her. We all knew of her money problems long before we have been thrown into the mix. She’s always running around, looking for people, asking them for money. With every large sum of money withdrawn, she is slowly digging her own grave, eventually falling into hell. This witch, suffering in her own form of Tartarus, decided it was too lonely and came back into the mortal realm to find someone to accompany her in her eternal damnation. I know how important it is to seek for guidance, for assistance – it’s healthy to know when to ask for help and to accept that help. But I also know that after we are helped, we have to learn. We have to learn to crawl back up to the surface, to finally breathe the fresh air. Now what did she do? She, with her vice-like grip. She, with her pleading eyes. She, with her begging. She, with her convincing act of the victim. And her. When people, innocent people go into the wrong crowds, falling for the false promises those people made, they can’t help but try it. “It’s going to be successful, I promise!” “We’ll be rich in no time!” “I have already planned this out, so there’s no way it’s going to fail!” Sometimes… the lines between obligation and love blur as one, and you think it’s for love, but what you feel is that you’re indebted to others, that you need to do this thing for them in order to repay them for every good thing they have for you. Her, with the shattering resolve. Her, with the same blood as the witch’s that courses through her veins. Her, with the thought of “I love you and love means sacrificing.” Her… with the feeling of “You have raised me and you have given up heart and soul for me, so I will gladly ruin myself for you.”

This crone in front of me, sitting in a chair of both needles and roses – I don’t care if you’re in pain – do you feel sorry for what you did? I know you are hurting as well, but isn’t this your own doing? I couldn’t care less. You have ruined our lives. When they think their children aren’t listening, the shouting starts. The walls hear them; they tell me what the adults are talking about. The days pass with tension in the air. There are unanswered questions hanging in the air, “what happens next? Is someone going to leave? Will you change? Will you forgive me?” I am made the messenger, delivering commands from opposite sides of the war. You have ruined your daughter’s image. Women circle her like predators; your daughter has her head held up high, and her body shaking. Women are throwing arrows at her heart; your daughter becomes merely a shell of what she used to be. Women are angry for the delayed payments; your daughter’s mind is breaking. You have ruined my father. As a lover, he gives and he gives, and he gives and he gives… until there is nothing left for himself. Mother shoots him in his heart. You are behind her, guiding her hands. His blood, his lifeline spills out. He thinks he has made a fool of himself and yet he himself takes out his heart and offers it. ‘It’s not enough,’ is what you think. You have ruined my mother. The world has turned against her. The people she has helped has crossed her, leaving more headaches for her. On the rare occasion that I stare at my mother, I think, “time moves on.” She looks older. There are eye bags under her eyes, a few more gray hairs – why aren’t there any laugh lines? She’s always tired now, too. I know she just wants rest now. I think, everyone needs it. And I guess, you can’t make emotional labour and mental stress disappear.

The gun slides over the table; it stops right in front of me. Oh, it’s my turn now. There is a new bullet in one of the chambers of the revolver. What does all of this mean to me? Why am I somehow connected to this web of lies? I pull the trigger.

Somehow, with my luck, it was like Pluto passing directly behind Jupiter, in relation to the earth. They all lined up and their combined gravitational force exerts a stronger tidal pull, which would temporarily counteract gravity here on earth. And I’m floating. I feel like I’m floating. These planets aligned themselves like how the loaded chamber aligned with the primer percussion mechanism and the barrel – the weapon is discharged. I imagine the bullet to be a beautiful comet, passing through me, and landing into something else – someone else. It was the toddler. What a beautiful tragedy. I meet the eyes of the people inside this room. They are filled with panic in the audience, madness in the man’s, shame in the woman’s, and is that guilt in the old woman’s? She doesn’t have the right to feel guilty.

I know why the chambers didn’t align with the others. It was because of their actions that led to this – the children dying. I know why the toddler has the future bet on the table. My sister is robbed of the future that I had the privilege to experience– the weekend getaways, the overflowing amount of toys, the endless support to try new things, the unstrained relationship with the other side of the family, the absence of worries, and… the atmosphere of true love between partners in a home.

The adults may not feel the direct attack of the actions, only dragging themselves through the battlefield, but we… the future generation, (is there even a future?), can feel the aftereffects of the nuclear bomb that has been dropped on us. The men and women here might have been atlas holding the world on their shoulders, but we are Andromeda, the chained princess, an offered sacrifice for the peace of everyone else.

I know why the shattered pieces of my heart and mind are on the table. On the other side, I’m walking on a tight rope; my back turned from the past, and walking to the unknown future. I hold a pole in my hands, my father’s side on the right, and my mother’s side on the left. Despite being on opposing sides, the outcome is the same: I fall to my doom. Despite going in the direction of what lies ahead, my head is held down, and my legs are wobbling on the thinning rope of my relationships. I – we – are in a dilemma. It is an unstoppable force – the criticism and judgmental thoughts thrown, the pleas of my father to think of us for the first time, the heavy tension carried in the silence versing an immovable object – the stubbornness of my mother, the unrelenting voice of my grandmother, both of their wills to make amends with the victims of their crime. Mother hasn’t stopped helping. Her golden heart will be the death of her. Father hasn’t stopped covering the holes my mother has left. His commitment is the bane of his existence. Mother tries to stitch my thread back into her side of the family. I have to sit through the occasions with the old hag. Perhaps I can make use of the comedy mask here. I have to be the perfect innocent doll, a smile plastered on my face, voice sickening sweet as if nothing is wrong. Mother looks at me with unspoken instructions, “please be nice.” How do you say “thank you” to the person who turned the fire inside my family into dying embers? How do I stay with the person who turned my little peaceful kingdom into ruins only told in legends and myths?

Blood drips down my head – I’m feeling kind of dizzy. My sister is matching the same expression as I have. This is it, this is the aftermath of the war. This is the consequences of their actions. And there is nothing good that happens in war. Only pain. Only sadness. Only guilt. Only regret. What good has come from this game? I learned the bloody truth. But in this game… we are infinitely waiting for our time when the stars align, and everything ends. This is a losing battle, everyone’s guns are at each other, hands around each other, ready to kill. In my dying breaths, I look around the room once more, the light illuminates the darkness that was once ignorance, and for the first time, I see them fully. My sister, her future taken away from her, sits beside me, covered in her own blood. My father, his devotion still drives him to move on, has his head in his hands, questioning where we had gone wrong. I take his hand and tell him, “It’s okay, I’m still here and I thank you.” My mother, the promise that everything will be okay maybe fades away, and I take her hand in mine, “I still love you,” slips out of my mouth in the softest voice. Grandmother, still in the safety of anonymity, lurks in the shadows, still following us. I place a kiss on the crown of my sister’s forehead. Everything is in fast pace, everything is chaos, and I’m left to wonder, is this how we fall apart?

[theliterateape]

If Yogi Bear Were God, I’d Have This Thing Wrapped Up

by Don Hall

From a Letter from Pontus Pilate to Tiberius Caesar:

...from that moment I was convinced that the conquered had declared themselves the enemy of the conquerors; and I would warn the Romans to beware of the high Priests of this country. They would betray their own mother to gain office and a luxurious living. It seems to me that, of conquered cities, Jerusalem is the most difficult to govern. So turbulent are the people that I live in momentary dread of an insurrection.

At first I was apprehensive that his design was to stir up the people against the Romans, but my fears were soon dispelled. Jesus of Nazareth spoke rather as a friend of the Romans than of the Jews. One day in passing by the place of Siloe, where there was a great concourse of people, I observed in the midst of the group a young man who was leaning against a tree, calmly addressing the multitude. I was told it was Jesus. This I could easily have suspected, so great was the difference between him and those listening to him. His golden-colored hair and beard gave him the appearance of a celestial aspect. He appeared to be about thirty years old. Never have I seen a sweeter or more serene countenance. What a Contrast between him and his hearers, with their black beards and tawny completion!

I extended to him my protection, unknown perhaps to himself. He was at liberty to act, to speak, to assemble and address the people, and to choose disciples, unrestrained by any Praetorian mandate. Should it ever happen {May the gods avert the omen!} should it ever happen, I say that the religion of our forefathers will be supplanted by the religion of Jesus, it will be to this noble toleration that Rome shall owe her premature death, while I, miserable wretch, will have been the instrument of what the Jews call Providence, and we call destiny.

Pilate knew that he was witnessing a new religion forming when he saw Jesus speak. He could see the demise of Roman rule at the hands of this new prophet and gave him the freedom to speak publicly about it. People believe in things that inspire them or provide them with a road to dominance because religion is both a way to codify behavior for oneself and to then enforce that behavior from everyone else.

Back in college, I really wanted to date Diane. OK. That was coy. I wanted to jump her bones. There was chemistry but she was Mormon. Like, full-on Mormon. Her father was an elder at her church. She told me before we could date I had to talk to him first. He invited me to meet at the church.

“You want to see my daughter socially?”

“Well, yeah. Uhm. Yes, sir. I would.”

“We don’t allow dating outside of the church. Would you be interested in coming to some classes and workshops before I give permission?”

“I’m a college student. Classes and workshops are all I do right now, so sure.”

For six weeks I’d go to Mormon school. Diane would check in with me at lunch in the commons area to see how it was going. I sat through spiritual exercises, hour-long seminars on the history of the church, and workshops designed to indoctrinate me into this odd belief system. If something they told me was not unintelligible, it was vague. If neither unintelligible or vague, it was unverifiable.

Yet these decent people believed. They believed in the absurd story of Joseph Smith and his magic glasses and disappearing golden tablets. They believed that multiple marriages primed them to live as gods and goddesses in the afterlife (even though officially they denied this, the classes sure made polygamy seem like the path to follow). There was the whole thing about binding underwear.

“Well, Mr. Hall. You’ve passed your classes. Any thoughts about what you learned?”

I wanted to get into Diane’s pants but not enough to stop myself from being honest.

“Sir, no disrespect intended but I’d sooner believe that Yogi Bear was the Divine Creator before putting my faith in this nonsense.”

While leaving me with a six week case of blue balls the time was instructional although not in the manner expected. I wondered what was going through the minds of people who believed Smith when he told them his bullshit story? I’m certain some thought he was a loon, others thought he was maybe an idiot, but enough people believed that it started a new branch of Christianity. That’s big. A new religion in the midst of so many.

Like Scientology, the Branch Davidians, the Aetherius Society, the Gentle Wind Project, and the Reformed Druids of North America, it seems so many are looking for answers in cults so cults are born on the flimsiest of reasons with nonexistent means to verify their connection to truth.

Turns out it isn’t difficult to start a cult and gain followers.

Step 1: Choose a set of grievances and attribute them to an amorphous enemy.

In the odd quirk of being the only truly conscious animal on the planet, each one of us is the hero (or anti-hero) of our own private movie. Each of us, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, believe that our struggle is the Greatest Struggle (often in spite of all evidence to the contrary). The Cult of Personality functions by breaking that quirk down, effectively convincing people that someone else is the real hero and themselves pawns to his or her victory over the Other. The Cult of Personal Anguish exploits this quirk, enforcing that each of us has Greater Pain than anyone else and by attacking the Other, we each receive our due.

So pick one. Pick some slight you feel personally. Anything that makes you feel all the bad feels. You know, because you are misunderstood and treated with less...whatever you think you deserve. Hell, pick a couple that seem related.

Some examples might include:

You feel objectified by _____. You feel unheard by _____. You feel left out by _____. You feel criticized and shamed by _____. Your choices in life have left you with LESS than _____. _____ are happier or more fulfilled than you

Step 2: Use language to pre-emptively invalidate all criticism or questioning.

This is key. The idea is to take an already agreed upon set of words that denote injustice or abuse and gradually expand the meaning until your specific anguish is cloaked in them. That way, when anyone questions your logical conclusions, you can throw out those words and phrases and shut down dissent.

If someone is critical of a war, they are automatically supporting terrorists. If someone tells an off color joke in the office, he is automatically a sex offender. If someone points out the obvious connection of a flag to slavery, she is automatically attacking your cultural heritage.

By expanding the umbrella that words mean, you destroy the nuances of language. Like when the word "rape" — defined as sexual intercourse without consent — is attached to the word "culture" and suddenly paints a broader brush that covers pretty much anything men say or do. Attaching the word "verbal" to the very specific "assault" amps up the calling of names to felony territory. Add "heritage" to a long standing bigoted "culture" and it seems goddamned noble.

More importantly, let these words and phrases completely dominate your discourse. Find ways to attack anything and everything through the prism of your pain. Eventually you and your followers will begin to lose the ability to see the complexities of living on a rock with seven billion fucking people and only see society through that kalaidiscope of personal misery. The mere opening of a door can be construed as sexist. The practice of women's basic health 97% of the time is completely eradicated because of a legal surgical procedure. Everything a white person says or does is automatically racist in intent.

A Cult of Personal Anguish requires a huge degree of fealty to these horse blinders, this narrowing of the world within the tunnel of your personal oppression or it falls apart under scrutiny.

Step 3: Recruit others who either feel that grievance or gain something by identifying.

In the Age of Constant Connectivity, this is a breeze. White Supremacist groups would be pocketed away in small, dark corners if not for the internet. With this tightening of the world via digital communication, being heard by others who hurt the same hurts as you is easier than ever before. 

There are also on the periphery those who, while they don't exactly feel your specific pain, gain a sense of validation by identifying with it. These "allies" to your cause are good for numbers but don't count upon them if things get tough. While they can assist in many ways, these are just groups of seekers who feel that things aren't quite fair enough for them but have no esoteric pain to attach to. Your cause is like a t-shirt they can wear and feel included in something bigger than themselves. 

Speaking of, sell t-shirts. Your "allies" will buy them. That's how you can tell them from your True Believers and you can make a couple of bucks in the process.

Step 4: Create an “Us vs Them” Mentality

Essential. Without an enemy to blame your grief upon, your cult goes nowhere. Focus lots of energy in pointing out the differences rather than similarities. The similarities weaken your cult. The differences are the fucking gas on the fire. Using Step 2 to amp up the discord, be on a constant attack on the Other. Ignore those other groups who, perhaps, have some of the same grievances because YOUR cause is FAR more important than theirs.

Remember the propaganda of WWII that reduced all Germans and all Japanese to evil caricatures. Observe how FOX News demonizes anyone who doesn't fall in line with their narrow worldview. Find your version of Bobby Jindal or Ben Carson to turncoat against those you see as Them. Remember, this is WAR (because if you attach the word "war" to anything else, it automatically becomes a Big Deal).

Become a Single Issue Proponent. Anyone who is not completely loyal to your cult becomes a part of the cause of your hurt. This is a broad strokes, scorched Earth approach that has succeeded for thousands of years.

When called out on this focus, obfuscate the issue by claiming a broader definition of the problem/oppressor:

"I love all sinners but hate the sin." "When I say 'white people are racist' I mean the system is racist." "I'm not saying Mexicans are the problem. All illegal immigrants steal our jobs..." "I'm not attacking the Good Policemen just the 'bad apples' when I say Kill the Cops." "It's not a war on women. It's a war on what's inside of women."

Once you have these four steps nailed down, go organize. Get a non-profit status or a Super PAC to support you (I mean, while you are out there sowing the seeds of revolution, someone has to pay the bills, amiright?) and legitimize your cult as either a political movement, a righteous cause, or a religion. Look around — there are legal organizations surrounding the pain Christians feel about abortions they don't have, the anguish Southerners have when removing their flag, coercing airlines to increase seat capacity for the Differently Weighted, the misery certain people have when their kids read about evolution, and Online Bullying.

A generation of citizens with crushing debt and few genuine job opportunities can feel bereft of transcendence and meaning, and “becoming woke” fills that spiritual hole. “Woke” is religion without God which strips away all the trappings of what we know of religion, simplifies the complexities of things like racism, income inequality, and the environment, and is really easy. Like Christianity, you profess your wickedness, confess your sins, and tithe to the church and you go to heaven.

Like early Catholicism, you wage war on those unbelievers and call it conversion. Create a moral binary that dictates a ‘with us or against us’ scenario and hammer it home. Spin the soft bigotry of yesterday and make it antiracism. No one likes to be called a racist and with no way to demonstrate that one is not racist, the moral binary takes hold.

I’ve read the books and heard the arguments. I believe most in the current cult are decent people who somehow believe in their movement.

Should it ever happen {May the gods avert the omen!} should it ever happen, I say that the religion of our forefathers will be supplanted by the religion of Kendi and DiAngelo, it will be to this noble toleration that America shall owe her premature death.

As for me? I’d sooner believe that Yogi Bear was the Divine Creator before putting my faith in this nonsense.

[metalindex-hu]

Fémjelzés – a hét újdonságai (2020. szeptember 14-20.)

Fémjelzés – a hét újdonságai (2020. szeptember 14-20.) - https://metalindex.hu/2020/09/21/femjelzes-a-het-ujdonsagai-2020-szeptember-14-20/ -

Az elmúlt egy hét újdonságaiból állítottuk össze nektek az alábbi listát, érdemes szétnézni benne.

Absolute Violence – Mythos (deathcore/groove metal) Abstract Dream – A Vision Among the Stars (atmoszferikus black metal) Ancst – Summits of Despondency (black metal/crust/drone/dark ambient) Antichrist – Blurred Stay in Hell (black metal) Antropox – Insurgence (thrash metal) Arcade Messiah – The Host (progresszív/post-metal/rock) Asyllex – Ephemeros (thrash metal) Ataraxis – Black Veil (death metal) Battlefront – Vengeance (heavy/speed metal) Besom – Besom (experimental doom metal) Bestial Possession – Altares Sangrientos (black/thrash metal) Blastheory – Anomalous Revelation (brutális death metal) Bleakwinter Shrine – Fulmination (EP) (post-black/doom metal) Bloodless – Installment III (black metal) Breath of Wind – Sakura (atmoszferikus black metal) Brick – Done Counting My Scars (heavy metal) Carnation – Where Death Lies (death metal) Cathedrals Fall – Harmonic Dissedence (heavy/thrash/speed metal) Chaos Cascade – Creep Aesthetics (black/death metal/grindcore) Chasmdweller – Bacterial Lotus (death/doom metal) Clamor in Tenebris – Leviathan’s Throne (black metal) Consumption – Recursive Definitions of Suppuration (death metal) Contagium – Chronicles of Carnage (death metal) Cropsy Maniac – Cult of Cropsy (death metal/grindcore) Culak – Rounwytha (post-black/doom metal) Daemonlust – Death, The Heart of Satan (black metal) Deadly Sins – Deadly Sins (death metal) Death Bringer – Rawness (EP) (melodikus death metal) Defecto – Duality (progresszív metal) Demonation – Resurreição do Inferno (EP) (black metal) Der Tod und die Landsknechte – Allzeit bereit (EP) (black metal) Derek Sherinian – The Phoenix (progresszív metal/rock) Dodmorke – I (nyers black metal/punk) Doomslang – Pier Della Vigna (EP) (doom/stoner metal) Dragonrider – Scepter of Domination (power metal) Dynfari – Myrkurs er þörf (atmoszferikus black metal) Dzulum – Eternal Years of Melancholy (melodikus black metal) Earthly Form – Crushing the Wheel (EP) (black metal) Eerie – End of an Era (black metal) Ellipsism – False Healers of Misery (EP) (black/death metal) Encephalic – Exalted Perversity (brutális death metal) Ensepulchre – Desolation (black/death metal) Eternal Winter – Archaic Lore Enshrined: Songs of Savage Swords… (epikus power metal) Ettinskjalf – Intramental (black metal) Evoke – Seeds of Death (black/thrash metal) Fawn Limbs – Sleeper Vessels (grindcore/mathcore) Feuermann – Kälte (EP) (black/doom metal) Finntroll – Vredesvävd (blackened folk metal) Fires in the Distance – Echoes from Deep November (melodikus doom/death metal) For Ruin – Elapse (EP) (melodikus black/death metal) Forgotten Tomb – Death Is Just Another Path (death metal) Forod Lad – Chapter Prologue: the Moon and the Silver Lady (folk metal) Funeral Fullmoon – Revelation of Evil (black metal) Gazpacho – Fireworker (progresszív/atmoszferikus rock) Heathen – Empire of the Blind (technikás speed/thrash metal) Hellstorm – Declaration of War from Satan (black/thrash/heavy metal) Hiidenhauta – Riivin (melodikus black metal) Hilotz – Aske (thrash metal) Hostia – Carnivore Carnival (death metal/grindcore) Hovert – Omyt (depresszív/atmoszferikus black metal) Höwler – No More Circus! (heavy/thrash metal) In the Gale – As Sun Fades Out (melodikus/progresszív death metal) Insane – Voices of the Damned (thrash/death metal) Intellect Devourer – Demons of the Skull (technikás death metal) Invading Chapel – Ghostly Rock Season (gótikus/dark metal) Ius – …bis das Leben zerbricht (black metal) Khors – Where the Word Acquires Eternity (black metal) Krosis – Mount of Sacrifice Redux (progresszív death metal/deathcore) Last Resistance – Autopsy of War (death metal) Le Délire des Négations – Seis Estágios (depresszív black metal) Liquid Flesh – Chair Liquide (death metal) Maahes – Reincarnation (black metal) Magnum Itiner Interius – Visitor (ambient/doom metal) Memories of Old – The Zeramin Game (szimfonikus power metal) Mind Enforcer – Brainwashed (black/thrash metal) Misertus – Earthlight (atmoszferikus/post-black metal) Moonscape – Resurgence (EP) (progresszív metal) Mørkt Tre – Земля забута богом і людьми (black metal) Morokh – Serpent’s Nest (EP) (sludge/black metal/hardcore) Naisian – Metal (atmoszferikus sludge metal) Napalm Death – Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (grindcore/death metal) Neblina – Demonios Del Pasado (heavy/thrash metal) Neuronspoiler – Spoiled for Choice (heavy metal) Novae Militiae – Topheth (black metal) Now or Never – III (heavy metal) Omnivoid – Apatanatism (black/doom metal) Overtake the King – Massacre at Its Finest (heavy/thrash metal) Paarthurnax – Twelve Paths (black metal) Panzerballett – Planet Z (progresszív metal/jazz) Panzerwar – Lost in the Confines of Absolute Hatred (black metal) Perversor – Psicomoro (EP) (blackened death/thrash metal) Plague Years – Circle of Darkness (thrash/death metal) Prockq – Mutando la piel (groove metal) Radamanthys – The War Within (death metal) Rageful – Ineptitude (death metal) Ragehammer – Into Certain Death (black/thrash metal) Raven – Metal City (speed metal) Raven Throne – Viartannie (atmoszferikus black metal) Rupskallex – Resistance (melodikus death metal) Sacrifice in Siberia – Revolt (doom/gótikus/post-black metal) Sadistic Embodiment – Blood Spell (death metal) Scabbard – V říši zla (death metal) Sinsid – Enter the Gates (heavy metal) Slavland – Stal biała, krew czerwona (pogány black metal) Somnolences – Brinks of the Past (atmoszferikus black metal) Steel Hammer – Rise of the Dragon (heavy metal) Sunken – Livslede (atmoszferikus black metal) The Black Sanctuary – Groan of Sadness (black metal) The Devil’s Heir – Rex Mortuus (thrash metal) The Infernal Sea – Negotium Crucis (black metal) The Last Reign – Evolution (melodikus death metal) The White Swan – Nocturnal Transmission (EP) (sludge/doom metal) Thorn – The Encompassing Nothing (EP) (death/doom metal) Thrasher Wolf – We Are Revolution (thrash metal) Towards – III (funeral doom metal) Trash – Forbidden Rites (thrash metal) Trinakria – Tiatru ro mali (black metal) Unrelenting Torment – Unrelenting Torment (black metal) Vallhünd – Run with the Pack (EP) (melodikus death metal) Vandrer – Vandrer (doom metal) Varg – Zeichen (melodikus death/black metal/metalcore) Verethragna – Living Hell (thrash/death/groove metal) Vermocracy – Vermocracy (melodikus death metal) Wail – Civilization Maximus (heavy metal/hard rock) Warantvm – Disillusion (black metal)

[happymetalgirl]

August 2020

Black Crown Initiate - Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape

Black Crown Initiate are one of those bands who have so much going for them in terms of their potential and so much about them on paper sounds like exactly the kind of thing I could nerd the hell out over, yet neither of the band’s previous two albums really made that connection with me or showed themselves to be anything other than respectful substitutes for albums like Cynic’s Focus, or Rivers of Nihil’s Where Owls Know My Name, or Opeth’s Watershed. Like The Wreckage of Stars and Selves We Cannot Forgive, Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape draws moments of exceptional strength from modern metalcore to produce a few highlights such as “Years in Frigid Light”, “Sun of War”, “Death Comes in Reverse”, and the closing solo of “Holy Silence”, but its awkward balancing of softer passages and smoother clean vocals just serves as a reminder of how easy Mikael Åkerfreldt makes it look. The band again certainly showcase what great talent they have and that they have the chops to hold their own with this sound, but until they take their compositional style beyond Soen-plus-death-metal, they will have a hard time escaping the shadows of the big names in their field.

6/10

Misery Signals - Ultraviolet

Misery Signals’ output has slowed with the NWOAHM it was borne from, but after only gracing the previous decade with a single full-length (2013’s ironically titled Absent Light) with members preoccupied with side projects, the band re-united its original line-up with long-absent vocalist Jesse Zaraska and a reignited commitment to the phased-out version of melodic metalcore that they sported at the movement’s height of cultural relevance. There are some bright spots of greater melodic vocals invigoration like “Some Dreams” and the quick “Through Vales of Blue Fire”, but Ultraviolet sounds as out of place in this decade as it would be obscured into the background fifteen years ago, serving less as a testament to the glory of 2000’s metalcore and more as a reminder of how saturated the movement became with recycled material.

5/10

Year of the Knife - Internal Incarceration

I missed out on it last year, but Year of the Knife put out their debut album, Ultimate Aggression, last February, a half-hour ripper of no-nonsense metalcore that embodies the current movement that has fixated on reinventing metalcore’s grooves while staying in line with its central aggression. While Ultimate Aggression indeed embodied its title thoroughly, I was hoping it would serve as a filling appetizer for the main course of the group’s sophomore album, Internal Incarceration. After such a promising debut, I have to say Internal Incarceration is a bit underwhelming. The band still flex their hardcore muscles to the point of bulging out of their t-shirts and provide plenty of slam-inducing groove, which there are a few especially good highlights of on “Nothing to Nobody” and the title track. Unlike the creative grooves Ultimate Aggression teased an expansion upon, Internal Incarceration is a more generic display of strength, which makes for this longer listen unfortunately much less exciting. It’ll still get the kids in the pit swinging and kicking once that gets re-instituted, but they sound more like your average local hardcore band who heard Knocked Loose than an up-and-coming powerhouse of the genre.

6/10

Mesarthim - Planet Nine & The Degenerate Era

I feel like such a fool for taking this long to catch on to the prolific Australian project Mesarthim, whose expansive catalog has been all over Bandcamp in the five years since the band’s first release, with this year’s The Degenerate Era being their fifth full-length and Planet Nine being their seventh EP! I may be late, but I made it to the party to see what Mesarthim is all about. I’ve seen a few bands on Bandcamp tag their sound with the “void metal” label, and of the bands I’ve heard, I’ve not really found it to mean much beyond atmospheric black metal with a bit of a space-related aesthetic associated with it, but after hearing Mesarthim, I can see now that this migh be a genuine sub-genre branch of ambient black metal, the subtle but fearless incorporation of shimmering, chime-like electronics and synthetic choral elements really does evoke the vastness of space and the divine wonder of the cosmos. And the band’s two-song EP release this year, Planet Nine, definitely captures that with its bright melodic progressions and expansive synthetic whirring. It’s definitely very atmosphere-based, very dependent on the lushness of the sounds, which are unfortunately hampered in a few of the softer spots by some messy production, but the band’s smooth transitions do help them make up for the flaws in production quality (which I’m amazed they haven’t ironed out this many albums in), and the fixation on gorgeous atmospheres and intentional transitions makes me strongly suspect they take some notes from fellow celestially themed black metal ambient innovators Alrakis.

7/10

Clocking in at around 44 minutes, The Degenerate Era isn’t that much longer than its EP co-release this year, nor is it all too disparate in style, although the band do dip into more traditionally heavy black metal territory here and there, but otherwise it’s lots of expansive synthetic orchestral elements, lots of spacy guitar-playing, and a pretty gutsy dose of the kind of electronics that would send any already-squirming black metal purist over the top into a full blown temper tantrum. The greater range of emotional diversity on this LP in comparison to Planet Nine puts it a little bit higher for me, although both have a similar appeal and are indeed definitely worth checking out.

7/10

In the Company of Serpants - LUX

In the Company of Serpants continue their culinary tinkering with the latest melting pot of metallic styles on LUX, stirring various chunks of 90’s New Orleans sludge, modern death metal a la Rivers of Nihil, and even late-80’s thrash into a broth of atmospheric post-metal (which serves as a gratifying climax specifically to the opening track, “The Fool’s Journey”) that may not be the most groundbreaking dish in the planet, but the freshness of whose ingredients and the skill of whose chefs comes through in the good consistency of the project. I liken it to a soup in that it’s based heavily on atmospheric post-metal and that it’s hard to get a bite of this album without it, and that there are various pieces of meatier genres in there usually popping in one spoonful at a time. Personally, it’s a soup I enjoy and one I think anyone who enjoys some dynamic post-metal or likes their atmospheric metal with a spiritual feel would enjoy.

7/10

Terminal Nation - Holocene Extinction

Terminal Nation are a five-piece from Little Rock, Arkansas who make their full-length debut through the excellent upstart curators 20 Buck Spin, and the band’s aptly titled debut meshes death and doom metal in a flurry more angrily condemning than the average record in the field, occasionally unable to keep from spiraling into grinding blasts of fury in their rage against the capitalism whose very design has oppressed so many and ushered in ecological catastrophe and a new wave of fascism. 2020 has made political commentators out of many, and Terminal Nation are not shy about where they stand and where they place the blame for our world’s ills, targeting the military industrial complex on “Death for Profit”, for-profit medicine on “Caskets of the Poor”, and capitalism as a whole on “Master Plan”. Despite the songs being easily stylistically categorized, the band refuse to let one hybrid genre label define them as a whole, exuding old-school grindcore through filthier guitar tones on songs like “Thirst to Burn” and “Leather Envy”, while slower tracks like “Cognitice Dissonance” and “Expired Utopia” opt for a slow roast kind of scorched Earth, borrowing the occasional nasty metalcore breakdown along the way. Covering a relatively wide range of styles and an array of apocalyptic topics, Holocene Extinction is as blunt in its delivery instrumentally as it is lyrically, and it hits as hard as an album of its nature should, setting this band up on a great start. Fight on!

8/10

Krallice - Mass Cathexis

Already the eight LP for New York’s prolific black metal experimentalists, Mass Cathexis finds the ordinarily forward-thinking band at a loss for major ideas beyond doubling down on he technicality of their sound to the point of stepping on a few of the land mines in the techdeath minefield. They still work in plenty their of their usual progressive song structuring and cerebral atmosphere, and I do enjoy it enough, but I know Krallice can do better than this. And I’m sure they will, and it’ll probably be pretty damn soon too.

6/10

Drouth - Excerpts from a Dread Liturgy

On their sophomore effort through Translation Loss Records, Portland-based quartet Drouth dress up their abundant competence with the basics of blackened death metal as a grander artistic statement than it really is with five epic, yet dragging, showy, yet shallow songs of rather generic material for the genre. I respect the band’s commitment and I give them credit for the performative abilities they showcase on their second album, but I can’t pretend to be wildly excited about 40 minutes of run-of-the-mill blackened death metal.

6/10

Faceless Burial - Speciation

This is the second full-length record from Melbourne three-piece Faceless Burial who have kept a pretty steady pace after their first demo release in 2015 and their independent full-length debut in 2017. Released through Dark Descent Records, Speciation is a refinement of the blunt, bellowing death metal that the band presented on their debut. Packed with delicious low-register guitar riffs, rumbly bass lines, and manic blast beats, Speciation is a candid portrait of much of what makes modern death metal what it is, and what makes it so delicious even looking up at its top tiers. I think Faceless Burial could certainly one day reach those top tiers, and Speciation is a strong step in that direction.

7/10

Avatar - Hunter Gatherer

Swedish quintet Avatar are nothing if not creative, and their decision to go all-in on the circus-freak aesthetic seems to have catalyzed the wildness with which they reimagine and remold melodic death metal. And they’ve certainly been actively prolific over the past decade that saw their emergence into the spotlight, releasing consistently every two years, and they’re right on time this year with Hunter Gatherer. Coming off of the bombastic tale of 2018’s Avatar Country and knowing that the band have a penchant for concept albums, I was eager to see what Hunter Gatherer’s might be, and while there’s no connective narrative, the album generally sticks to a theme of gazing into a chaotic future. The sensational Swedes kick off this year’s effort with its most uncharacteristically generic display, the standard melodeath “Silence in the Age of Apes”, but the album doesn’t take long at all to get to Avatar’s usual extravaganza as the second track, “Colossus”, immediately kicks of with a punctuated siren wail and from the get-go you know you’re in for a ride, and the track’s swaggering mid-tempo march is headbanging as fuck. Oh the invigorating melody just keeps coming too; “A Secret Door” balances alternative rock’s soaring triumph with the natural tendencies toward that feeling from melodeath. The song “Child” captures Avatar’s essential traits with its risky stage-production sway, its soaring chorus, and it’s rumbling low-tuned foundation that all serve the band’s grand ambition in spectacular fashion, and the subsequent “Justice” only soars even higher from there with its palm-muted-backed chorus and Johannes Eckerström’s absolutely fist-raising vocal melody. And the Swedes keep the high-stakes moves coming with the grippingly candid piano balladry of “Child”. As with every Avatar release, though, there are some songs that don’t fly over so well, but only two out of the ten. The band’s switch into half-measured seven-stringed eccentricity on “God of Sick Dreams” is just one of the moments that feels like it could have been a bigger display of creativity, while “Scream Until You Wake” is a clumsily cheesy collision of melodic heavy metal and arena butt rock that unfortunately puts the band’s theatricality in a bad light. The album finishes on two powerful notes, though, with the quick thrash of “When All But Force Has Failed” that immediately reminded me of Bullet for My Valentine’s “Waking the Demon”, and the epic eight-stringed cinematic finale of wormhole. While I still may not have been in love with an Avatar album from start to finish, I still look forward to reviewing their music whenever they have a new album out because even if not everything they do on a particular record, the group’s zealous drive to put on a good show always yields an eccentric and exciting track list and the enthusiasm the band has for whatever imagination it is they’re realizing comes through in their performances. So even if there are a few acts during the show that don’t dazzle me personally, I stay for the whole performance because there’s never a dull moment, and there really is nothing else like it, and Hunter Gatherer has proven sticking around to be worthwhile, because the band have struck their most consistent effort yet, and one I can say I really do love as a whole even with its momentary flaws.

8/10

Moloken - Unveilance of Dark Matter

This came out way earlier in the year, but this is the fourth full-length album from Sweden’s version of Ulcerate, Moloken. I totally kid with how reductive I’m being there, but I mean that comparison as a compliment because Ulcerate are one of death metal’s most interesting acts at the moment and their album this year definitely bolsters their already-high reputation for post-death metal alchemy, and I’d say Moloken’s new album this year showcases how they perform similar sonic sorcery with the vile, grungy sounds of old-school sludge metal, transforming the heroin-intoxicated street babblings of depression into a cleaner, progressive form. And while some of that hyper-perceptible mental anguish is suppressed in that evolution, there’s still enough vibrant torment there inthe clangy bass lines and the yowling screams of agony underneath the layers of more complex, heavy, and modernized instrumentation. I think the song “Hollow Caress” probably highlights the span of older and newer sludge elements on this album best out of the tracks here, but really this whole album is an enthralling window into the spasms of the tormented psyche that might look all too familiar.

8/10

Ingested - Where Only Gods May Tread

Ingested cook up nearly 50 minutes of crusty blackened death metal similar to that of Ancst with a punchy deathcore edge a la Despised Icon or Venom Prison on Where Only Gods May Tread, and for as predictable as the results are, they do pack a solid punch that presents the rhythmic battery of deathcore as a worthy tool of death metal aggression rather than a purist-discredited development. And the band have even tapped a few members of the new and old guards to endorse their metallic campaign through collaboration; Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein joins in on the sludgy barn burner “Another Breath”, while hardcore advocates Matt Honeycutt and Vincent Bennett contribute their talents as well. While it’s, again, not the most groundbreaking of releases, Ingested certainly get the job done satisfactorily beyond what any reasonable purist could gripe about.

6/10

Thou - A Primer of Holy Words

After dropping their compilation of Nirvana covers just a few months prior, Thou hit us again with another compilation of cover songs they’ve done over the years that exemplifies their greater aptitude for the cover song when it comes to styles closer to their wheelhouse like the hardcore punk of Minor Threat and Born Against and the doom metal of Black Sabbath as opposed to the lo-fi grunge of Nirvana, though the band still insist on trying their hand at sludgifying a couple of 90’s grunge classics on a misguided cover of Alice in Chains’ “No Excuses” and Soundgarden’s “Fourth of July”. Like Blessings of the Highest Order, A Primer of Holy Words more or less just runs all the songs on it through a Thou processor to churn out a rather homogeneous mush of sludgy cover material out the other end. It’s a more complimentary batch of songs to the machine the band puts the songs through than the Nirvana covers were, but it’s not something that revolutionizes the originals or outshines Thou simply doing their own thing enough to have me itching to return to it.

5/10

Halestorm - Reimagined

Halestorm take all the punch out of their best hits like “I Get Off”, “I Miss the Misery”, and “Mz. Hyde” in this unnecessarily partially stripped back, partially minimally electronic remix/re-recorded EP of their gutsy modern hard rock catalogue, along with a passable cover of Whitney Houston’s classic “I Will Always Love You”. The unplugged mix of these songs spotlights Lzzy Hale’s booming voice even more than usual, but, again, unnecessarily removes her from her most fitting and supportive context. The neutering of the songs’ instrumental rock swagger to back Hale’s attitude-rich vocal delivery has mostly unfavorable results, the still-vibrant swoon of “I Miss the Misery” coming out the most unscathed, but the most butcherd of the bunch has to be the band’s most storied hit, “I Get Off”, which is about as lifeless as re-dos get. Honestly, the only point I can imagine the band attributed to this project would be the center Hale’s already very centralized voice, which is, not to be a broken record here, just unnecessary. I doubt it was her actual motive, but it’s like she didn’t want anyone else around her sounding good too, so she could stand out better. But more likely it was just another poorly conceived misfire of an acoustic EP of many, not the first or last of its kind. Perhaps my sharp distaste for this one is the impressive display Breaking Benjamin showed on their acoustic re-do album earlier this year.

3/10

Batushka - Raskol

Despite being lambasted as frauds by most fans of the original incarnation of the band after the legally-backed and Metal Blade-released Hospodi was embarrassed by the rushed, but clearly more artistically sound, Панихида (Panihida) from Krystov Drabikowski’s unofficial version of the Batushka project, and more or less exposed as such through the side-by-side release of the two albums, Bartłomiej Krysiuk’s version of Batushka still managed to strike a deal with Witching Hour Productions to release more material this year. I reviewed both Batushka projects last year and despite Drabikowski’s album feeling a bit rushed due to the circumstances of its release, it still blew Hospodi out of the water. Whereas Krystov’s album captured the aesthetic and compositional essence of the seminal Batuska debut, Bart’s album sounded like a generic blackgaze imitation of the real thing, which put the debate to rest for me and most of the Batushka fan base as to who was the deserving artist of the Batushka name. Nevertheless, Bart is giving it another go with the Batushka project in an attempt to earn back the trust he squandered amid the feud that boiled over last year. Biting off a smaller piece of material this time with the modest half-hour slab of Raskol, Bart actually does refine his craft to a slightly more respectable level after shamelessly pimping the band’s name out last year. Fans embroiled in the feud on Krystov’s side seem to forget that even if he wasn’t the driving force of the band, Bart was a part of Batushka from the start and for a long time, so it’s not really that outlandish or surprising that he would actually get better at doing the Batushka thing. While it does still lean on standard shoegaze elements to bide time when Bart’s imagination (or whoever he might have brought on to assist him this time around) runs dry, Raskol is a vast improvement on the cheap, inauthentic-sounding Hospodi, feeling like a much more believable part of the Batushka canon. I still understand fans’ skepticism of the validity of Bart’s incarnation of the Batushka project and I myself still don’t feel totally comfortable lending my full support to a man who hasn’t done much to contest the allegations of unethical actions against him. If this is to be the legal version of Batushka, so be it, at least it’s a little more believable now.

6/10

Primitive Man - Immersion

Denver’s Primitive Man have been the poster child for gargantuan, muscular death-sludge-doom for their entire career, whether it be on their various splits and collaborations or on their full-length projects. The band have played around with harsh noise as a supplement to their absolutely merciless core metallic sound, especially on the lengthy demo, P//M, but the hulk-powered trio have largely kept their main projects free of bells and whistles, which has certainly not led them astray. The band’s 2013 debut album, Scorn, was a sweat-inducing warm-up of direct, no-nonsense, hate-filled sludge metal, and the band quite literally doubled down on it on 2017’s 77-minute Caustic, whose undeniably captivating and fearsome ferocity and tapped so simply yet so tangibly into the core ethos of metal music in this day and age made it one of my favorite albums of that year. This year, the band trimmed it back to six songs clocking in at just 36 minutes, and despite its relative shortness, Immersion spends its time savoring the band’s doom at its usual slow-burning pace. Aside from the noisy two-minute interlude, “∞”, Immersion is another unyielding slab of the vibrantly hateful doom metal that made Caustic such a monolithic album. Despite its being built similarly to it predecessor, Immersion’s half-length feels like a half measure, checking all the boxes, but not really giving the band enough time to vary up their very thick but very homogeneous style except for the harsh noise interlude and the anticipatory buildup of “Entity”. The band are definitely powerful enough to doom-slam their way to finishing the mission though, and Immersion is by no means a failure to showcase that raw power.

7/10

Atramentus - Stygian

Donning your funeral doom metal debut album with a Mariusz Lewandowski art piece after 2017 is a pretty gutsy move in at least that it immediately draws comparisons to Bell Witch’s masterful Mirror Reaper, yet that is the first move Atramentus have opted to take (plus it’s not like a hundred other bands haven’t commissioned the Polish surrealist since then), but they were a bet that 20 Buck Spin has had no problem pitching in to for the Québec-based band’s long-awaited emergence onto the scene. The band’s sudden arrival with a sole release deceptively suggests they are a super new act, but the project has been on the shelves of vocalist/guitarist Philippe Tougas since 2012, who composed the album and kept it in the vault until 2018 (perhaps inspired as many of us were by Mirror Reaper) to finally record it. Stygian is a less melancholic doom metal album than a first impression of the cover might suggest given how many bands have adopted much of Mirror Reaper’s aesthetics. Instead, the debut album’s three tracks offer a refreshingly frightful mix of thundering, mega-chambered drums, Halloween-ish organ hums, dark ambient echoes, and deep rumbling growls and augmented throat chants that are similarly hellish, but also divinely ceremonial hums and emotive soloing during the last of the three movements that serve to maintain the vastness the album invokes. Indeed, the third song (which is half of the album’s length) rolls back some of the menace in favor of some more familiar mournfulness. And of course, this is all delivered at an absolutely tortoise-ish pace as is the key feature of the genre (save for the final burst of blast beats three minutes before the album ends), and of course it can very easily be reductively summed up as a condensed version of Four Phantoms or Mirror Reaper but I really do think Stygian will stand out from the largely homogeneous doom metal crop for what it does do differently with its more ominous elements and hopefully inspire Atramentus to stay active.

8/10

Innumerable Forms - Despotic Rule

The Boston five-piece are back with a two-track demo after a smashing debut in 2018 that captured the vile sludgy doom of Primitive Man and the adrenaline of brutal death metal. The first song on this year’s short offering, “Philosophical Collapse”, explodes out of the gate with deathly quick pace and fury until like a fatigued distance runner after a minute-long burst of speed, it succumbs to doomed sluggishness for the bulk of its runtime. The second and titular track is based on a slower Iommi-esque doom riff that slowly takes the modernized sounds of Sabbath into thrashy territory over the course of its nearly five-minute runtime. Both songs capture the aggressive doom at the heart of Innumerable Forms’ sound that made me love Punishment in Flesh so much, and I hope these songs are at least a sign of what is to come from the band.

Innumerable/10

Unleash the Archers - Abyss

I feel like for power metal especially, putting out a boring record can be worse than an incompitent or poorly executed album, and Unleash the Archers definitely provide strong support that with Abyss, whose moments of mild euphoria (which is an extremely generous description) are much too few and far between the slog of totally formulaic and under-delivered melodic autofill. Vocalist Brittany Hayes showcases her capacity for power metal drama on the epic “The Wind That Shapes the Land”, which only makes her utterly bland, zero-effort delivery across the rest of album that much more offensive. Yeah, I’ll keep it short and keep myself from going too in on this album, because, yeah it’s just boring, which is a massive and avoidable mistake to fulfill an easy baseline requirement for power metal, which, to me, is grounds for failure.

3/10

Incantation - Sect of Vile Divinities

Good ol’ Incantation are back with another 45 minutes of doomy death metal, the likes of Ossuarium, for example, have harped on, which, to give a ratio for clarity, is like 80/20 death/doom. Definitely more death metal gusto than doom metal void-gazing to avoid that pitfall of lethargy, the trade-off for this clearly minimally ambitious album being the numerous pitfalls of death metal. Sect of Vile Divinities definitely gets the job done and it’s sometimes pretty savory along the way, but it’s definitely not an above-average slab of meat from this particular slaughterhouse.

5/10

Kolossus - The Line of the Border

Kolossus is the one-man atmospheric black metal project of Genoa-based creator “Helliminator”, who released this debut LP back in March to relative silence. And with how saturated bedroom ambient black metal is, I get how easy it is for things to get lost in the weeds, but for anyone who stumbles upon this one, it’s definitely a good few leagues above your typical atmospheric black metal release, and Satanath Records did well to catch wind of Kolossus after the independent split release with Manon in 2018. The Line of the Border is a confidently dynamic record whose fluidity in its shifts from acoustic melancholy to post-metal sludge and somber, yet seething, black metal agony showcases Helliminator’s and his collaborators’ compositional ability. It’s a hard album to sum up, and that’s a good thing for an album in a field so easy to reductively describe.

7/10

Humavoid - Lidless

Lidless is the patiently-awaited sophomore album from Finnish four-piece Humavoid, who’s 2014 independent debut album caught the attention of up-and-coming German label Noble Demon through its bold, progressive approach to experimental death metal that, when even just competently executed, gives off such a naturally heady vibe. But Humavoid are not about taking the path of least resistance and not about just creating the appearance of innovation with metal music, and their second record’s thrilling firestorm of Meshuggah-influenced djenty jaggedness that puts Veil of Maya and Jinjer to shame and jazzy eccentricity that fires a warning shot past Imperial Triumphant in the larger-than-life swirl of sounds that would make Devin Townsend cream his britches make for quite the decisive statement. Lidless may be comprised of very familiar ingredients, but the compositonal ingenuity the band wield and the constant headlong drive into the unknown make the combination of sounds on this album. The frightful, falling-stalactite-feeling piano-playing and synth work especially keep the mood of the album ever-shifting and the rest of the band excitedly on their toes, along with anyone hearing their overachieving madness. This is definitely one of the year’s best, and I am so eager to see what lies ahead for Humavoid.

9/10

Expander - Neuropunk Boostergang

Of the bands partaking in this past decade’s thrash metal revival Austin, Texas’ Expander are one of the less hokey, more serious-sounding bands to emerge recently, but of the handful of (2) EPs the band have released and the debut they put out in 2017, nothing the band has done has really sounded any alarms in my ears that they might be one of the bigger movers of the genre in the coming, now-current decade. Reliable underground curators Profound Lore and little-guy-supporter producer Kurt Ballou, though, disagree with my doubt in the band’s potential and have backed their sophomore release here, Neuropunk Boostergang. Harnessing some industrial elements and aggressive shouting that hearkens to American Head Charge and labelmates Lord Mantis and angular riffing reminiscent of both nasty sludge metal and crossover thrash with a more futuristic technicality, Neuropunk Boostergang is definitely a significant step up from Endless Computer, and an album that finds the band zeroed in on an attractive sonic identity. Not many thrash albums beckon the descriptor of atmospheric, and if so it’s certainly more of a generous way of saying it’s boring and blends into the background. Yet Neuropunk Boostergang manages to touch on meditative chords with its immersive and fascinating take on thrash metal, forward-thinking and avant-garde with an early version of the genre that most bands think simplistically to nostalgia-trip over. I wouldn’t have backed Expander to put out anything of major value based on their entire back catalog, and I wouldn’t have guessed that they would actually carve out a little niche for themselves to really blossom in. But the gnarly Texans (and Profound Lore) have proven me wrong in my favorite way with my favorite thrash release of the year.

8/10

Seether -  Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

Seether have not been doing so well, at least creatively, for the past several years, their last album before this one, Poison the Parish, being a completely unmemorable late-career display of the creative dryness within the band and the expiry of the post-grunge they capitalized in the early 2000’s. Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum is not a full return to form, but it is a step in the right direction that the band desperately needed, which just comes from more meticulous songwriting this time around. The opening track “Dead and Done” is an energetic and vibrant start to the album and “Beg” revisits that “Fuck It” type of energy that the band need to embrace more frequently, while the silky “Wasteland” adds a scoop of Deftones’ shoegazy guitar work and captures the emotive potency that makes post-grunge so appealing when it’s at its best. The swinging “Bruised and Bloodied” offers a taste of the wackier side of Seether, while the more traditionally grungy “Pride Before the Fall” shows just how much the band appreciate Alice in Chains, and they actually help diversify the largely dragging energy of the album. Indeed, the bulk of the album is still unfortunately rut-entrenched filler that could have been better trimmed. It’s passable filler, but it just means that this album is still one that I’ll only be partially returning to to visit its best tracks.

6/10

Powerman 5000 - The Noble Rot

I have never been too big on electro industrialist project Powerman 5000, which wouldn’t even make a B-team picked by frontman Spider One’s own big brother Rob Zombie. My introduction to them was through their 2009 album, Somewhere in the Other Side of Nowhere, an astonishingly character-less and generic caricature of the industrial metal Zombie so exuberantly champions. The band have their better projects like Tonight the Stars Revolt!, but nothing they’ve put out so far has really ever convinced me that I should be paying them more attention. This year’s The Noble Rot is a pretty non-offensive outing, but also typically devoid of imagination. Not to stoke sibling rivalry that’s not there or anything, but it’s like if Rob Zombie were trying really hard not to upset suburban parents from the 90’s. It’s a lot less butt-rocking than the band have shown they can be at their worst, and it’s overall passably listenable. The metropolitan swagger of “Black Lipstick” is a notable highlight where Spider One’s sultry delivery actually works in the track’s favor. But unfortunately there really aren’t any other significant positives to speak of, and listenable is about as kind of a thing as I can say about this album.

4/10

Gulch - Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress

San Jose’s Gulch definitely get points for their all-out work ethic and for leaving everything on the stage or studio, but the band’s sophomore effort this year simply echoes the same need for continued growth that their debut did. The group’s exaggerated but still-maturing take on hardcore punk is thrilling in the short moment it occupies, but entirely forgettable.

5/10

Venomous Concept - Politics Versus the Erection

Like Gulch, Venomous Concept definitely get points for the effort they pour into their very similar brand of aggressive, off-the-wall hardcore punk, but theirs turns out to be another similar case of too little of that effort directed toward really arranging their outlash in an efficient way. It works for the stages and getting kids kicking in the pits that aren’t around anymore for the time being, but only at that baseline level that all good punk music in this vein does. Unfortunately, there’s simply not enough creativity in this project, or traditional punk ethos done exceptionally well for me to be all too enthused about it.

5/10

John Petrucci - Terminal Velocity

Show-off.

7/10

Pain of Salvation - Panther

A lack of ambition has never been a weakness for Swedish prog zealots Pain of Salvation, who love biting off sometimes a bit more than they can chew with their consistently lengthy and overly galaxy-brained concept albums. I definitely respect the massive inspiration the band always seem to tap into and I find them quite capable of fulfilling their creative mission more often than being too heady for their own good. The band do insist on integrating a perplexing degree of early 2000’s nu metal into their sound, and including some rapped verses that seem like a quota they just have to check for some reason. And Panther is, for the most part, another solid display of talents from Pain of Salvation, whose impressive compositional prog chops do more than enough to obscure the odder choices that pop up here and there.

8/10

Ulver - Flowers of Evil

I don’t know why but for some reason I thought Ulver’s venture into synthwave was a one-day stop before they moved on to whatever was next for them. I wasn’t expecting the genre-polyamorous visionaries to make another album in the same synth-y new wave vein as 2017’s The Assassination of Julius Caesar, yet Flowers of Evil is an unexpected and welcome sequel to an album that opened up a whole new avenue of sultry smoothness for the band, and it’s just as cool as it’s predecessor. Are Ulver the new Depesche Mode? I don’t know, if they are, I’m okay with that.

8/10

Necrot - Mortal

Necrot are a recently established trio from Oakland, California who have certainly generated a lot of buzz around their sophomore LP release here since their announcing it a few months ago. I mean I saw memes about the cover relating to coming home and taking off your pants or bra after a long day back in July. The band’s straightforwardly deathly 2017 debut, Blood Offerings, certainly didn’t seem to drum up too much hype around the time of its release, but the band are certainly releasing Mortal this time around to quite a captive audience, and after all the anticipation for their second album, Necrot show the world that can definitely play some death metal. Honestly, I went into this with a pretty open mind and eager to see what Mortal would be al about for the new group with the spotlight on them, but apart from a more old-school approach to riff-writing that does indeed come as a breath of fresh air in today’s death metal landscape, I don’t really see what else about it is such a big deal. I’m not saying there aren’t some tasty grooves or even a good few attention-grabbing solos on here, but I really don’t get what the death metal world is getting all hot and bothered about for this album beyond its checking off all the usual boxes and maybe doing a little smoke and mirrors to present themselves like a modern incarnation of Death or Morbid Angel. I mean I like it as much as, if not a little bit more than, any other average death metal project and I really do like what they band are doing with vintage riffs in this context, but I just don’t see what it’s doing with the very typical elements of the genre that it employs so much better than their average contemporaries that’s ramped up such astronomical hype.

7/10

Pig Destroyer - The Octagonal Stairway

Probably the EP I have been the most pumped for, it’s nice to hear some new Pig Destroyer not so long after their 2018 release, Head Cage, which took some getting used to for me, but I can say I regard it pretty highly as a step toward a more full-bodied sound for the band. I mean they’ve never been short on the shrapnel-spraying volatility needed to wholly carry a project, their groundbreaking creativity with the building blocks of grindcore setting them at the top of their field to look down at the grindcore masses far far below, and J. R. Hayes’ impressive poetic lyricism being a hefty bonus, and Head Cage wasn’t really that big of a stylistic departure for them apart from adopting the sound pallet of their contemporaries. The Octagonal Stairway is definitely more of an interim project for the time being, the first three tracks continuing the band’s mass-building with their sound; they’re as hard-hitting and representative of Pig Destroyer as any song off Head Cage, the title track in particular. I can grant to the pickiest Pig Destroyer Fan that there still isn’t as much slasher-film gore being invoked through samples of such, overtly grotesque lyricism, or scraping guitar tones that mimic the sharping of rusty bone saws. The last 14 minutes of the 25-minute EP are consumed by sample-driven ambient industrial music that the group have definitely had more creative and immersive experiments with. The 11-minute closer, “Sound Walker”, has its flashes of cool industrial manipulation, but given how high Pig Destroyer have set the bar for their ventures into this kind of territory with the cinematic horror of Natasha and even Mass & Volume, this massive track, while a respectable slab of industrial noise ambiance that flows as well as the aforementioned projects, lacks that narrative immersion and grandeur the band have shown to harness so well to bolster their music. For what handful of their talent the band offer here, it’s just enough to remind us of their immense prowess and that they’re still there, watching, waiting.

7/10

[mlleedom]

White Frights - The Villains and the Fall Guys

White Frights - The Villains and the Fall Guys

February 2002

I don't know what it is, but every time I see a white guy walking towards me, I tense up. My heart starts racing, and I immediately begin to look for an escape route and a means to defend myself. I kick myself for even being in this part of town after dark. Didn't I notice the suspicious gangs of white people lurking on every street corner, drinking Starbucks and wearing their gang colors of Gap turquoise or J Crew mauve? What an idiot! Now the white person is coming closer, closer - and then - whew! He walks by without harming me, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

White people scare the crap out of me. This may be hard for you to understand - considering that I am white - but then again, my colour gives me a certain insight. For instance, I find myself pretty scary a lot of the time, so I know what I'm talking about. You can take my word for it: if you find yourself suddenly surrounded by white people, you better watch out. Anything can happen. As white people, we've been lulled into thinking it's safe to be around other white people. We've been taught since birth that it's the people of that other colour we need to fear. They're the ones who'll slit your throat!

Yet as I look back on my life, a strange but unmistakable pattern seems to emerge. Every person who has ever harmed me in my lifetime - the boss who fired me, the teacher who flunked me, the principal who punished me, the kid who hit me in the eye with a rock, the executive who didn't renew TV Nation, the guy who was stalking me for three years, the accountant who double-paid my taxes, the drunk who smashed into me, the burglar who stole my stereo, the contractor who overcharged me, the girlfriend who left me, the next girlfriend who left even sooner, the person in the office who stole cheques from my chequebook and wrote them out to himself for a total of $16,000 - every one of these individuals has been a white person. Coincidence? I think not.

I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord, never had a black landlord, never had a meeting at a Hollywood studio with a black executive in charge, never had a black person deny my child the college of her choice, never been puked on by a black teenager at a Mötley Crüe concert, never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black person deny me a bank loan, and I've never heard a black person say, "We're going to eliminate 10,000 jobs here - have a nice day!"

I don't think that I'm the only white guy who can make these claims. Every mean word, every cruel act, every bit of pain and suffering in my life has had a Caucasian face attached to it.

So, um, why is it exactly that I should be afraid of black people?

I look around at the world I live in - and, I hate to tell tales out of school, but it's not the African-Americans who have made this planet such a pitiful, scary place. Recently, a headline on the front of the Science section of the New York Times asked Who Built The H-Bomb? The article went on to discuss a dispute between the men who claim credit for making the first bomb. Frankly, I could have cared less - because I already know the only pertinent answer: "It was a white guy!" No black guy ever built or used a bomb designed to wipe out hordes of innocent people, whether in Oklahoma City, Columbine or Hiroshima. No, friends, it's always the white guy. Let's go to the tote board:

· Who gave us the black plague? A white guy.

· Who invented PBC, PVC, PBB, and a host of chemicals that are killing us? White guys.

· Who has started every war America has been in? White men.

· Who invented the punchcard ballot? A white man.

· Whose idea was it to pollute the world with the internal combustion engine? Whitey, that's who.

· The Holocaust? That guy really gave white people a bad name.

· The genocide of Native Americans? White man.

· Slavery? Whitey!

· US companies laid off more than 700,000 people in 2001. Who ordered the lay-offs? White CEOs.

You name the problem, the disease, the human suffering, or the abject misery visited upon millions, and I'll bet you 10 bucks I can put a white face on it faster than you can name the members of 'NSync.

And yet, when I turn on the news each night, what do I see again and again? Black men alleged to be killing, raping, mugging, stabbing, gang banging, looting, rioting, selling drugs, pimping, ho-ing, having too many babies, fatherless, motherless, Godless, penniless. "The suspect is described as a black male... the suspect is described as a black male... THE SUSPECT IS DESCRIBED AS A BLACK MALE..." No matter what city I'm in, the news is always the same, the suspect always the same unidentified black male. I'm in Atlanta tonight, and I swear the police sketch of the black male suspect on TV looks just like the black male suspect I saw on the news last night in Denver and the night before in LA. In every sketch he's frowning, he's menacing - and he's wearing the same knit cap! Is it possible that it's the same black guy committing every crime in America?

I believe we've become so used to this image of the black man as predator that we are forever ruined by this brainwashing. In my first film, Roger & Me, a white woman on social security clubs a rabbit to death so that she can sell him as "meat" instead of as a pet. I wish I had a nickel for every time in the past 10 years that someone has come up to me and told me how "horrified" they were when they saw that "poor little cute bunny" bonked on the head. The scene, they say, made them physically sick. The Motion Picture Association of America gave Roger & Me an R [18] rating in response to that rabbit killing. Teachers write to me and say they have to edit that part out of the film, if they want to show it to their students.

But less than two minutes after the bunny lady does her deed, I included footage of a scene in which police in Flint, Michigan, shot a black man who was wearing a Superman cape and holding a plastic toy gun. Not once - not ever - has anyone said to me, "I can't believe you showed a black man being shot in your movie! How horrible! How disgusting! I couldn't sleep for weeks." After all, he was just a black man, not a cute, cuddly bunny. The ratings board saw absolutely nothing wrong with that scene. Why? Because it's normal, natural. We've become so accustomed to seeing black men killed - in the movies and on the evening news - that we now accept it as standard operating procedure. No big deal! That's what blacks do - kill and die. Ho-hum. Pass the butter.

It's odd that, despite the fact that most crimes are committed by whites, black faces are usually attached to what we think of as "crime". Ask any white person who they fear might break into their home or harm them on the street and, if they're honest, they'll admit that the person they have in mind doesn't look much like them. The imaginary criminal in their heads looks like Mookie or Hakim or Kareem, not little freckle-faced Jimmy.

No matter how many times their fellow whites make it clear that the white man is the one to fear, it simply fails to register. Every time you turn on the TV to news of another school shooting, it's always a white kid who's conducting the massacre. Every time they catch a serial killer, it's a crazy white guy. Every time a terrorist blows up a federal building, or a madman gets 400 people to drink Kool-Aid, or a Beach Boys songwriter casts a spell causing half a dozen nymphets to murder "all the piggies" in the Hollywood Hills, you know it's a member of the white race up to his old tricks.

So why don't we run like hell when we see whitey coming toward us? Why don't we ever greet the Caucasian job applicant with, "Gee, uh, I'm sorry, there aren't any positions available right now"? Why aren't we worried sick about our daughters marrying white guys? And why isn't Congress trying to ban the scary and offensive lyrics of Johnny Cash ("I shot a man in Reno/just to watch him die"), the Dixie Chicks ("Earl had to die"), or Bruce Springsteen ("I killed everything in my path/I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done").

Why the focus on rap lyrics? Why doesn't the media print lyrics such as the following, and tell the truth? "I sold bottles of sorrow, then chose poems and novels" (Wu-Tang Clan); "People use yo' brain to gain" (Ice Cube); "A poor single mother on welfare... tell me how ya did it" (Tupac Shakur); "I'm trying to change my life, see I don't wanna die a sinner" (Master P).

African-Americans have been on the lowest rung of the economic ladder since the day they were dragged here in chains. Every other immigrant group has been able to advance from the bottom to the higher levels of our society. Even Native Americans, who are among the poorest of the poor, have fewer children living in poverty than African-Americans.

You probably thought things had got better for blacks in this country. After all, considering the advances we've made eliminating racism in our society, one would think our black citizens might have seen their standard of living rise. A survey published in the Washington Post in July 2001 showed that 40%-60% of white people thought the average black person had it as good or better than the average white person.

Think again. According to a study conducted by the economists Richard Vedder, Lowell Gallaway and David C Clingaman, the average income for a black American is 61% less per year than the average white income. That is the same percentage difference as it was in 1880. Not a damned thing has changed in more than 120 years.

Want more proof? Consider the following:

· Black heart attack patients are far less likely than whites to undergo cardiac catheterisation, regardless of the race of their doctors.

· Whites are five times more likely than blacks to receive emergency clot-busting treatment after suffering a stroke.

· Black women are four times more likely than white women to die while giving birth.

· Black levels of unemployment have been roughly twice those of whites since 1954.

So how have we white people been able to get away with this? Caucasian ingenuity! You see, we used to be real dumb. Like idiots, we wore our racism on our sleeve. We did really obvious things, like putting up signs on rest-room doors that said WHITES ONLY. We made black people sit at the back of the bus. We prevented them from attending our schools or living in our neighbourhoods. They got the crappiest jobs (those advertised for NEGROES ONLY), and we made it clear that, if you weren't white, you were going to be paid a lower wage.

Well, this overt, over-the-top segregation got us into a heap of trouble. A bunch of uppity lawyers went to court. They pointed out that the 14th Amendment doesn't allow for anyone to be treated differently because of their race. Eventually, after a long procession of court losses, demonstrations and riots, we got the message: if you're going to be a successful racist, better find a way to do it with a smile on your face.

We even got magnanimous enough to say, "Sure, you can live here in our neighborhood; your kids can go to our kids' school. Why the hell not? We were just leaving, anyway." We smiled, gave black America a pat on the back - and then ran like the devil to the suburbs.

At work, we whites still get the plum jobs, double the pay, and a seat in the front of the bus to happiness and success. We've rigged the system from birth, guaranteeing that black people will go to the worst schools, thus preventing them from admission to the best colleges, and paving their way to a fulfilling life making our caffe lattes, servicing our BMWs, and picking up our trash. Oh, sure, a few slip by - but they pay an extra tariff for the privilege: the black doctor driving his BMW gets pulled over continually by the cops; the black Broadway actress can't get a cab after the standing ovation; the black broker is the first to be laid off because of "seniority".

We whites really deserve some kind of genius award for this. We talk the talk of inclusion, we celebrate the birthday of Dr King, we frown upon racist jokes. We never fail to drop a mention of "my friend - he's black..." We make sure we put our lone black employee up at the front reception desk so we can say, "See - we don't discriminate. We hire black people."

Yes, we are a very crafty, cagey race - and damn if we haven't got away with it!

I wonder how long we will have to live with the legacy of slavery. That's right. I brought it up. SLAVERY. You can almost hear the groans of white America whenever you bring up the fact that we still suffer from the impact of the slave system. Well, I'm sorry, but the roots of most of our social ills can be traced straight back to this sick chapter of our history. African-Americans never got a chance to have the same fair start that the rest of us got. Their families were willfully destroyed, their language and culture and religion stripped from them. Their poverty was institutionalized so that our cotton could get picked, our wars could be fought, our convenience stores could remain open all night. The America we've come to know would never have come to pass if not for the millions of slaves who built it and created its booming economy - and for the millions of their descendants who do the same dirty work for whites today.

It's not as if we're talking ancient Rome here. My grandfather was born just three years after the Civil War. That's right, my grandfather. My great-uncle was born before the Civil War. And I'm only in my 40s. Sure, people in my family seem to marry late, but the truth remains: I'm just two generations from slave times. That, my friends, is not a "long time ago". In the vast breadth of human history, it was only yesterday. Until we realize that, and accept that we do have a responsibility to correct an immoral act that still has repercussions today, we will never remove the single greatest stain on the soul of our country

© Michael Moore, 2002.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/30/features.weekend

I read this excerpt from Moore’s book at an open mic night at a coffee shop shortly after the book release in 2002. Moore has been labeled contentious and divisive. He was at the cutting edge in helping those impacted by the water crisis in Flint, MI. I can relate to this piece as I have never been harmed by a black person and what I have seen in the media throughout my 4+ decades has been a complete disconnect. 

[ratherhavetheblues]

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘SAWDUST AND TINSEL’ “We’re both stuck, Anne–stuck like hell”

© 2019 by James Clark

     Back in 2011, when (at Wonders in the Dark) I foolishly assumed that Ingmar Bergman was one of a small horde of filmmakers (including, Billy Wilder) after something very new, I was years away from comprehending what he had in store. Over the past year or so, I’ve wakened up a bit, to appreciate the momentousness of the range of his concerns, a range, despite good-will, leaving no impact where it really matters.

A constellation of conundrums of intent began to dawn upon me; and putting in place their dynamic has been quite a ride. But the elusiveness of the innovation has proven to be only slightly recognizable. Therefore, it’s time again to return to Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), which provides remarkable immediacy to those staying the course.

   Whereas oracular figures—in Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Winter Light(1963) and The Magician (1958)—would afford the thrill of seeing fit to trip up facile enforcement, the balance of power in the narratives remains so weighted against extreme change that understanding would almost absolutely trickle away. Similarly, the mea culpa, in Fanny and Alexander (1982), being brought to bear in terms of “the little world” (and its nagging spoiler, “the big world”), tends to be submerged by the Niagara of sturdy foibles. Then there is the perhaps too vague volcano of acrobatics and juggling, stemming from, The Seventh Seal (1957), and flashing over many subsequent entanglements the dark potency of which being lost on most viewers. The recherche dialogue between Eva and her muse, in Autumn Sonata (1978)—though a crucial clearing—becomes a victim of that protagonist’s hysterical self-importance. The action of silence (most salient in Persona [1966] but also on the move in, The Silence[1963] and Cries and Whispers [1972]), tends to be upstaged by the strong suit of survival. A mystical consummation, like that seen in, Wild Strawberries (1957), tends to maintain the status quo even more rigorously. Therefore, our second attention to this visceral production must be intent upon illuminating, as never before, the sensual structures and energies of players who live or die upon a cosmic scale.

One major expository  response to that singular involvement is to spotlight two minor figures to lead the charge—the two stars of the show being brought to light as auxiliary weight for the previous marvels of poetic intensity. There is, of course, a saga, in this case pertaining to a slipping itinerant circus impresario and his slipping love life; but that’s not where the magic and the lift-off inheres. Careers and romantic complications are a dime a dozen; and they don’t tend to generate game-breakers.

Near the outset, a long-term carnie regales the rather recent owner, Albert, about an event of some rarity which happened 7 years before, involving a husband and wife team of clowns, still in the company. The troupe was set to entertain at a place along the seaboard, where an artillery regiment was engaged in training maneuvers. The flashback covering this crucial action has been given a medium of saturated sunlight in which to carry us on an even longer way from the mundane than killing fields and wandering sensationalism. “Tell the story if you want,” the boss allows (sitting on the driver’s bench of one of his caravans plodding along, early in the morning, drinking beer with the storyteller, and soon falling asleep, missing [as always] a remarkable revelation). “It was a hot summer day… The officers lay on the grass, hot and sweating, drinking out of boredom… Then along came Alma, an imposing woman… Carried herself like a queen, if a bit past her prime.” We see her, alone, on a ridge near the sea, bearing down upon the mere military, and carrying a basket for what might come along. Her dress of straight lines implies a mood not for curving away from her sterling desires. In fact, she is a vision of the goddess or medium, Aphrodite, she of coherent passion. As she approaches the fighting force, their cannonade becomes an imaginary orgy. Then, by way of an officer with cat whiskers in close-up yelling something where there is not a sound, except the cannon blasts, the recent workaday becomes even stranger. Cut to the brain-trust playing cards on the flat rocks. Advantage in the air. Cut to more of those silent mouthings, which disappear with a wave of sharp white space, soon displaying a division by way of the black uniforms. Alma merrily walks right over the improv poker table, spins around and produces an ironic smile and bow to her subjects. (The troopers on the ragged ground are not alert to their being overrun by a sworn enemy, as well as a congenial visitation to a lesser world. A soldier ridicules her, and she ridicules back.) Alma then begins to pull up her dress and challenge the power clique to live up to her powers. (In a cut, her advantageous mis-en-scene has been momentarily rescinded, to convey the human, often failing, interplay with the works of primary creativity.) The innuendo of coitus is taken up by the troopers and their shooting. Back on the topspin, Alma takes off her dress and tosses away her sun hat for the sake of a sunniness very seldom reached. (Such steps of hers like that will be repeated, somewhat, by that sleeping slug, unprepared for a crisis of cosmic proportions.)

Another stretch of fiery sky graces the beach; but disgrace looms, even during her ascendance to the ways of Aphrodite. Breaking the stalemate of mob ridicule and her wielding a secret weapon, an officer orders a cadet to go to her husband whereby more mundane resources would tip the scale and force a retreat. The apparition’s beloved clown and alcoholic, with infrequent rallies, lacks her ambition; and therewith we are to keep an eye on her miseries nearly buried by the ordinary two protagonists. And that Frost (where to start with that?—with Death, in the wings) rallies handsomely, though unevenly, that day. Never without his deathly white, cosmetic coloration (in glaring light he nearly disappears), his first appearance doesn’t seem much of anything. Brought out of the tent to meet the cadet, he mutters, “I once had the opportunity to perform for his Majesty…” [Frost being an exponent of trivial nostalgia in lieu of demanding traction]. (This is a gambit soon to re-emerge, in The Magician. As we work along here, we are impressed by how prepared this sojourn traces back to this film.) Only half-comprehending the dilemma, Frost misses the mark (as Albert will repeatedly miss the mark in the second part of that war-couplet which moves apace with great distinction): “The captain pays homage to me…” The cadet, who had conveyed that, “The captain sends his greetings,” sharpens up the message, to, “Your Alma is swimming naked with the regiment!” This causes his more realistic colleagues to laugh maliciously. A woman angrily confronts that drifter with, “Show you’re a real man! We’ll help you give her hell!” Someone else adds, “We’ll help you tar that saucy hide of hers!” With this, Frost pushes the sort of well-wishers away and rushes to the shore in a frenzy. Adding to his presence, are the pantaloons he always wears, trussed up in such a way that his physical proportions resemble an ostrich or a prehistoric bird. Frost being, in his eccentric and erratic way, also a primordial force, of questionable efficacy. With this crisis in the making, at a strategic point, we have our opportunity to regard this drama being very unlike others in its priorities. These presumed, by convention, also rans, are actually nearly the whole story. Their coming a cropper of the military devolves from the widespread war intrinsically bearing down upon creatures like our two clowns—too strange to readily stomach its stand in canniness; and too frail to mount a viable stand of uncanniness, going somewhere very few of humankind want to touch. Though cast as a problematic item of the preponderant in choices—a “circus and romantic saga”—in fact the action is devoted to a striking disclosure, beyond theatre and almost musical in its dynamic. The putative protagonists, Albert, and Anne, “lovers,” are the true also ran. They are trammeled with being not nearly crazy enough to be creatively balanced. And, therewith, the motif of  the “little world” and the “big world” (explicit in Fanny and Alexander) hits the bricks to make of this entire Bergman filmic campaign, not a setting in relief of domestic exigencies but how the hell one might carve out a rhythm of sanity on a grotesque planet. As such, the entire (independent) corpus of Bergman’s endeavor must be seen as wall-to-wall war movies.

   Frost, with the whole carnie nation delighting in his plight and racing close to his heels, encounters the mob of jeering heroes as he beholds Alma splashing offshore with an amphibian group. His shock, in close-up, is accompanied by a moment of all-out silence and stillness—as if the precinct of primal destruction clamps down for a moment. The white-out of the sun once again endows the chaos with pristine dignity. (Each of such stations emanating singular resources as to the massively ignored and dangerously beloved ways of life.) Then Frost calls out to her (no sound, no subtitles; but the cheesy, calliope circus theme). What was a regal bid to really live now begins to collapse. Jeering (now with the added non-strangers) recommences. Taking off his outer gear and struggling over jagged rocks provides another spew of black laughter. He does reach her, and those groping her drift away. In the capacity of a small but memorable rally, to consign to filmic archives, there is a close-up of him holding her and, as they behold the sea and the sky, they constitute an army of two. As that was transpiring, the cadet gathers up their clothes and hides them in a cravass.  A girl from the circus laughs about that. Frost brings Alma to shore by having her on his back. The visual atmosphere is a slate sea and dark grey sky; and Frost, losing the energy to savor this austere beauty, begins to succumb to unsteadiness in negotiating the rocks while carrying her. Another silence obtrudes, as the couple resemble dying beasts. (The protagonists will prove to be all too human—predictable and presumptuous, leaving us more alerted to the fringes than the center.) The underestimated “clowns” are seen at a distance. The crowd closes in. Alma becomes stiff in his arms, her body like a cardboard sign. A deep drum roll sounds. The captain orders the heroes back to training. Frosts feet, shown in  close-up, become very unsteady. That blazing outburst stages another fanfare to kindred spirits. A close-up finds them strangely glamorous at a watershed. Frost falls, and nearly faints. Another blinding brightness, another drum roll. They’re seen at a distance, on a ridge. (After such effort, this being a premonition of surrender, four years hence, in The Seventh Seal.) A feathery cloud formation becomes a confirmation that much had been well done. Then he falls, seen from afar. One more effort to proceed, and he’s flat on his face. He tries to crawl. (We’ll see Albert in a somewhat formally similar sequence, but with very little concern on the part of the cosmos.) Alma, no longer Aphrodite, fears for Frost’s life. Carnies and the cadet carry him home to the circus tent. Alma angrily (and silenced) reproves the wayward. She begins to cry out (silently covered).

Back to the seat at the caravan emanating this strange event, with Albert, as always, missing in action. He and the driver jounce, due to the bad roads; they look like rather identical puppets. The driver concludes, “Alma began to shriek that we’d done her old man in. We got angry and told her it was her own fault. But we picked him up and carried him back anyway…”

  The last sight of the two who rocked Sweden for a few hours, was Frost being carried by several men of the art of the body, as if he were a white caribou. His head is thrown back and the pan shot moves backwards, as if he’s the subject of a hunt already dead. Seven years beyond this oddity/ odyssey, the driver has rounded out his harangue with, “That’s a woman and love for you!” It is, of course, nothing of the sort, the eyewitness not having a clue of what had really taken place. Here’s the moment to introduce the virtually sterile protagonists, now running the show, very badly—by way of their phony business names: “Alberti” (as in, “Alberti Cirkus”); and, “a fiery Spanish rider astride an Andalusian thoroughbred,” being hopefully antidotes to mask their lack of lyricism, their lack of poetry, their lack of courage. The day we first see them together, they’re entering the town where Albert dragged his wife and two children (from a modest retail business) into showbiz as being, at last, his supposed reality. This venue, in contrast with the puppets and cold and fatigue on the first occasion, musters cinematography of beauty, in the form of a close-up of a wagon wheel moving over a bridge showing its reflection in the water, and an imposing windmill. A rooster crows. A dog barks a welcome. Forward motion in the air. But who’s up for what it takes?

   The mid-20th century “fairground,” a scene of desolation itself, becomes the scene of the staff, many having seen far better days from far better management, announcing to the boss their displeasure in not having been paid for quite a while, with an outbreak of fleas in all the caravans, and lacking viable costumes. (During the hubbub Alma is aghast in hearing that one of her colleagues wants to have her pet bear [and vignette for her work] killed and eaten.)  In response, we receive some idea of the details of Albert’s being unfit for bringing off viable imaginative work. He muses that in America there is a healthy market for circus activity. “In America, circus folk ride through town, while bands play and the elephants trumpet. Everyone puts on their biggest smile and people line the streets cheering. A booming voice announces the show for that evening…” The goofiness of that razzmatazz premise transplanting to rural Sweden, is part and parcel of the goofy business plan in Jacque Tati’s film, Jour de Fete (1949), where a French farm town mailman attempts to wow the citizenry with big-market, American systematics.

On the spot to at least seem to be a businessman, he proposes one of those effervescent, Jimmy Durante circus parades for the permafrost customers, only to be busted, the horses impounded on the grounds of failing to secure a permit. Albert’s other excellent idea—on stronger grounds, in view of the Swedish government lavishing tons of cash for the arts (the theatre building in this tank-town having been designed upon the model of the royal palace)—was to borrow some of the costumes of the rich store, in order to put on a memorable spectacle. But there is a significant more, bearing down upon this disarray, whereby Albert was to pay a visit to his former spouse and (formerly unhappy) former circus partner (now the successful lone tobacconist of the present scene). Sleepy Alberti’s career of running the show into near collapse has inadvertently alerted Anne, the non-Spaniard, at this window of opportunity, that he’ll be returning to retail and she’ll be needing to make very different plans than she had bargained for.

   Albert and Anne constitute, however, not mere perverse dullards and fools, but rather facile, effete revolutionaries lacking the nerve to prepare for what their excitement involves. Each releases a mission statement in face of discouraging mainstream forces. Albert’s ex declares, “I’m happy now. It was always a time of frenzy and fear.” He counters with, “It’s always the same, summer and winter. For me, it’s emptiness.” Encountering rather feminine and arrogant Frans (an actor she meets during negotiations for the costumes; and perhaps her best bet if Albert bolts), she maintains that an earthy matier like the circus is the place to be. “I’ll bet you apply cosmetics. You have beautiful hands… You’re a weakling… You can’t [as he did] treat me like that or speak of my husband that way…” Frans pushes back, “If we were alone, I’d crush you. I’d crush your resistance like a piece of dirty paper.” She quickly attacks, “What play does that come from? Save it for your pale, flat-chested actresses…” Stirring declarations; but hollow. Anne does go in for “dirty paper.” And Albert proposes returning to the good old days. His wife had prefaced the little  reunion with, “All I can offer is pancakes.”

The theatre personnel arrive late. And Frans, having been roundly insulted by Anne en route to a pancake tryst, feels entitled to trip up an inelegant entertainment. Although this very intense incident could be imagined to be (as with the battle on the shore could seem) a simple display of dispatching, by the powers that be, foolish, obsolete eccentricity—road kill—the membrane on tap copiously speaks otherwise, to the horror of so many who don’t care enough, and where that leaves those who do show audacity of sensibility reaching an astounding threshold. That the figures being tracked do not handle their audacity well, is beside the point of this reflection per se. Sawdust and Tinsel offers to us a conveyance inviting the viewer to behold emotion so raw that normal dimensions become shattered and thereby become an intimate challenge. By the time the caravan comes to the little town playing it safe, we notice Alma and Frost having abandoned the realm of Aphrodite in favor of variations of Aphrodite-Lite, the specialty of Albert and Anne. Frost and Albert clearly spend a lot of time getting drunk. Alma has her low-key bear; Anne has her Tarot cards. By the end of the saga, Albert is heard to lament, “We’re both stuck, Anne—stuck like hell…”

Whereas the insulting regiment, at the (double) beginning, never gets to be heard, Frans, showing off to a pretty actress in the troupe (where affluent, educated elites would have honed a range of useful skills), and with Anne astride her horse circling the sawdust stage, he calls out, “Feel alright after our adventure, Sweetheart?” This elicits from Albert, the ringmaster’s, whipping off of the show-offs straw hat. In one of those grand, dramatic ironies Bergman excels in, Albert’s shock and fury at that moment had landed him in depths of pain whereby he had put in his place the smooth cynic. Frans, not expecting lightning from such a source, experiences, almost uniquely, disarray. As he puts his hat on, the girl he brung laughs in his face. The supercilious small-town sensation had, remarkably, retreated. Were Albert truly conversant with squelching vain nobodies, his evening might have included modest rewards from which to invent circus theatre to surpass the sclerosis of the local artistes. But Albert, on a high and afraid of heights, repeats the fun—flashing his whip as if the smattering of Americana Conestoga covered wagons in the convoy endows automatic magic—and Frans, feeding on hate, smashes the pretender to a pulp.

Much about this bloody gore reminds us of Alma’s sunny day at the beach. Frans’ fighting skills (the Artistic Director of the big/ little theatre mired in lostness organizes the bad feelings in terms of a duel, which is to say, a stupid way to die and a stupid way to live) are a reprise of the artillery  display which punctuated the ridicule of Alma. Albert’s baby-peal crying in pain, from a dirty trick directed at his balls, is a reprise of the fake crying of a clown in the first scene of the show, where Frost is now merely ordinary, wielding a ladder (going nowhere—not even funny) and squabbling with the crybaby. The townsfolks (including the ex), recalling the civilian population witnessing Alma’s abortive ascent, present a variation of the universal amusement—most enjoying the massacre, while a few being sickened by it. On the other hand—as with the conscripts to the nation—the theatre employees show 100% satisfaction, in their prissy way. Distributed about this maelstrom, we have Anne thrown from her horse, due to a guy in the last row throwing a missile hitting the thoroughbred; Alma’s gig with her bear totally washed out by the late-comers from civilization wandering across the ring (and, to worsen her latter days lot, yelling to hapless Albert, “That’s it, Albert!”); and the ringmaster both humiliated and on a roll of visceral courage, hopelessly misplaced.

   At the end of the fight, Frost becomes a voice of the status quo: “Ladies and gentlemen, the show is over. Thank you for coming this evening…” Albert’s nightmare finds him in the role of an abused bear, in a bearpit. On gaining what he’d call consciousness, he grabs his pistol and shoots Alma’s bear. You could say, that was the last bit of integrity this company would see. But, for what it’s worth, the tug of creativity is hard to entirely kill.

The circus caravan is on the move later that night. Frost and Albert are walking along in crepuscular light and crepuscular mood. Albert maintains a depressive glare, never looking, nor, once again, listening to the outer limits of life itself. Frost, an artist to Albert’s merchandising, speaks up, with, “Yesterday afternoon I had a dream while I slept off the booze. I dreamt that Alma came to me and said, ‘Poor Frost, you look tired and sad. Wouldn’t you like to rest a while?’ Yes, I said. ‘I’ll make you small [smallness virulently in effect already] as a little unborn child. You can climb into my womb and sleep in peace.’ So I did as she said, and crept into her womb, and I slept there so soundly and peacefully, rocked to sleep as if in a cradle. Then I got smaller, until, at last, I was just a tiny seed, and then I was gone.” Frost had not gone much further than hysteria in that initial struggle. But his dream carried him to the frontiers of creativity, which is to say, a fresh start upon getting real, the precinct Alma inhabited when an instance of Aphrodite (which failed to find traction). Alma, from the cozy confines of their caravan bed, interrupts, “Stop trudging along out there! Come inside and sleep!” Frost, the alcoholic Everyman, explains to the bemusing navigator, “You see? She can’t sleep without me beside her!”

Here we come to an unexpected minefield. Do the fidelities, at this stage of the careers of the once-briefly brave, still reach the point of magic? Or do those gentle moves conceal a crime? The dream of starting again seems to tell us, “Yes.” Bergman, being one very, very tough dude, is not one to settle for sort of. Does his investigation (and that of a host of other investigators) leave room for leveraging the daily juggle where the daily acrobatics have startled? Sort of. But the film wants us to consider hostile armies that aren’t going away.

After Frost, the unfocused family man, goes to bed, Albert comes to a halt, and Anne (not needing to go to bed) has her moment of truth, which is something else from a moment of vision. (Along a trajectory of job-shopping with Frans in his dressing room and beyond, in the light of Albert bidding for a less American Dream, she doubles back, in memory, to catch Frans rehearsing a drama that could only avail as a purgative. “I am but a poor jester in this farce of dark shadows. Her deceitful heart, her frailty, even her taunting indifference, turn my world upside down every day and every hour…Art that Count Badrincourt of Chamballe, or the most miserable of wretches? Farewell, O world…May my tears water my poor grave…” The intruder that is Anne is positioned behind a damaged backdrop, and we see only part of her face breaking through the musty garbage in knowing to be something better. [Far from Aphrodite; but a physical key still in play].) There they are (Anne and Albert), in the dull light, now apprehensive. (While Albert was carried out of his sawdust bailiwick—a position repeating Frost’s unconsciousness after breaking down in aid of Alma—Anne was busy gauging Frans’ cheek. A few years later, in Hour of the Wolf  [1968], a woman at a party gauges the cheek of an effete rebel, whose confused bid to manage there being no heaven costs his life.) Each manages a wan smile. And they walk along that pregnant roadway and its links coming close to the dance of death, about to be fully unveiled in The Seventh Seal. Our guide’s dramatic genius presents a disaster without recourse, while, on a wider front, things could improve.

[rockscanfly]

Concept: the little eel faces on Kaldur's hands change their expression depending on his mood

Being a good archer means having a good eye for detail, and Artemis has never been anything but excellent.

So it’s understandably galling when she realizes, three years into their friendship, that Kaldur’s tattoos are more than they seem.

They’re at the annual League Winter Solstice Party when she first notices, snatching his wrist as he’s about to hand Harper (on a short break from his fruitless quest to find whoever-the-fuck, Speedy, the first Roy Harper) a glass of mulled wine.

“Why are your tattoos happy,” she slurs, squinting through the pleasant buzz of alcohol. The Watchtower falls under international rules when it comes to alcohol–everyone eighteen and over is legal, and like any self-respecting American teen, she’s taking advantage while she can.

“Can they be happy? Harper, hey, Roy,” she says, and shoves Kaldur’s hand in Roy’s face. She gestures to the smiling eels that adorn Kaldur’s hands. “Am I drunk? Why are his hand snakes so, so smiley?”

Roy hmm’s, faking intrigue while shooting Kaldur an amused look. He probably thought Artemis didn’t see it, which she totally did, because detail, but she chooses not to mention it. Because, well, answers.

“No clue what you’re talking about, Blondie,” Roy says, smirking. “Does someone need a glass of water, kiddo?”

“Fuck your water,” Artemis murmurs, dropping Kaldur’s wrist. She steals the mulled wine first, downing it in one gulp to prove a point.

Roy throws his hands up in mock defeat. “Careful, Kal,” he jokes, “Looks like we got a badass over here.”

Kaldur smiles, warm with amusement at their antics. “A badass who I sincerely hope doesn’t think that a hangover will be getting her out of training tomorrow,” he teases gently, eyes dancing.

It’s a look that she doesn’t get to see on him often, Artemis realizes with a pang. Suddenly nostalgic, she throws her arms around the both of them, drawing them together.

“We should dance,” she asserts firmly, gesturing drunkenly with one heel-clad foot at the impromptu dance floor. Zattanna and Rocket are already up there, swaying drunkenly to Nat King Cole. “C’mon.”

She manages to pull the two of them to the floor, all three rocking gently in awkward tandem before Wally comes and pulls her away for a dance of their own–Kaldur I can understand, but don’t tell me you’re leaving me for Harper of all people, babe–and as she’s pulled away she sees Roy throw Kaldur’s arms over his shoulders as he leads the other man in a drunken waltz.

As Wally spins her around the room–he’s had three times the number of drinks as her, at least, but speedster metabolisms and so on–she catches a glimpse of Kaldur’s face tucked over Roy’s shoulder, blush flushing his high cheeks bones. She can see the little eels, too, grinning, where they rest on the strong muscles of Roy’s neck.

Well I’ll be damned, she thinks, and resolves to tease the two of them with this story when they finally get their shit together.

Its two years and a hundred leagues under the ocean later, and no one’s shit is together, least of all Kaldur’s.

Then again, Artemis thinks ruefully, exhausted, watching helplessly while he trembles apart next to her on their shared bed, caught in yet another nightmare, what could you expect?

Gritting her teeth, Artemis grabs her own wrist, restraining herself from touching him. The last time she tried that, tried shaking him awake by the shoulder, it didn’t go well.

The bruises from being flung against the wall hurt, yeah, but not as much as his face did when he woke up and realized what he’d done, or the way he shied from contact with her for a whole week afterward. She’s touch-starved enough as it is, down here, away from Wally and his fever-hot body, his Speedster warm hands. She doesn’t need Kaldur’s guilt driving him even further away than the distance he already kept.

Sighing, Artemis forces herself up, out of the bed, and pads around to Kaldur’s front. Kneeling, she tries calling his name, hoping that will wake him from sleep. “Kaldur,” she says softly, voice too rough and too gravelly in her own ears. “Kaldur, wake up, it’s okay, you’re here.”

He twitches wildly, hands coming up to cover his mouth, muffling a hoarse scream. She thinks, exasperated, that it’s just like him to silence his own pain, even in dreams.

Her eyes flick to his hands, and she notices the eels are snarling, twisting and writhing in agony. Small shocks of electricity leap from finger to finger, and she backs further away.

“Kaldur, Kaldur, wake up,” she hisses, desperate. His face is a snarl of misery, brow drawn tight. “Kaldur—” she yells, and his eyes snap open, wide and terrified.

He sits up instantly, chest heaving, gills flapping in dry air. “Tula, Tula–epanélthei, na epanélthei, parakaloúme na érthei píso–Artemis–”

“–Is dead,” Artemis says quickly. She’s too familiar with the shadow’s to believe that there aren’t at least seven bugs hidden in this room of their quarters alone. “You killed her, you avenged Tula. Its okay, Kaldur, I’m here. You’re home.”

Kaldur looks up at her, shaking his head, clearing the clouds. He straightens, shoulders going firm and tight in a way she hates. “Of course,” he says, breathe slowing. “Thank you, Tigress.”

She grabs one of his hands in hers, pulling him in for an embrace. This, the need to comfort him, is one of the only things she doesn’t have to fake down here, and she treasures the cool press of his skin to her own. “Anytime, Kaldur’ahm,” she says, and it’s one of the only things she’s said in a month that wasn’t a lie.

—-

By the time the Invasion is over Artemis considers herself an expert in Kaldur speak. The secret, she will later divulge to Zattanna, who drunkenly asks her just how the hell she always seems to know what’s really going on in their stoic friend’s head, is to look at his hands.

Two weeks after Wally’s death and the expulsion of those bastards from her planet, it’s this little known fact–that the faces of his eels will always reveal the emotions that Kaldur himself buries under ten metric tons of emotionally repressive rock–that tips her off to the fact that Kaldur is not okay.

They–meaning herself, M’gann, and Conner, who are at the moment the only members of the original team who are really coping with what’s happened–have gathered the original team together for a beach day. Like old times, M’gann says, as she lays a plate of snicker doodles–Wally’s favorite, Artemis remembers with a hollow pang–on the picnic table.

As therapy days go, it isn’t bad, but it’s also isn’t great.

“Come on, fishsticks,” Artemis shouts across the net to Kaldur. It’s him and M’gann against herself and Conner. Dick sits on the side, ostensibly playing ref but in reality brooding over a strawberry margarita. “Spike it! I dare ya!”

Kaldur smiles at her, challenging, and does exactly that. Conner, as expected, manages to dive low, catching the ball with a fist. It goes soaring, high, high, before an invisible force catches it and drives it back into the sand on their side of the net.

“Hey!” Artemis shouts, pointing at M’gann. “Blatant cheating!”

M’gann grins, eyes fading to their normal color from their tell-tale glow. She turns to Dick. “What does the ref say?”

Dick, the brooding idiot, looks up from trying to find the meaning of life in his margarita. “Umm. No foul?” He says uncertainly, guilt written across his face.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Artemis mutters, and trudges through the thick sand to Dick’s spot underneath the umbrella. “Okay, break time. Let’s get in the water, bird boy,” she says, pulling him out into the sun.

Dick hisses, pulling non-committaly against her grip. “I thought cats hated water,” he gripes, and she can’t help but grin. It’s a stupid joke, yeah, but it’s also the first one he’s made all day.

“Tigers actually love water,” Connor interjects, pulling his shirt over his head. Casually, he wrests Dick from Artemis’s grasp, holding him over his head and walking calmly over to the sea. M’gann floats sedately after them, shifting her cloths from a shirt and shorts to a one piece.

“Traitors!” Dick yells, laughing despite himself, wriggling pointlessly. “Ruffians! Kaldur, help!”

“This is a battle you must fight alone, my friend,” Kaldur says solemnly, sitting down in the sand to watch the chaos.

Artemis settles beside him, watching as M’gann and Connor pull their struggling friend into the water. The scene quickly devolves into a splash fight–a fight in which Dick, who lacks both super strength and the ability to psychically create walls of water, is hilariously outmatched in.

“Why don’t you join them?” Artemis questions, not unkindly. “You’d kick all of our asses in a water war.”

Kaldur sighs, crossing his hands over his chest. Her eyes flick down to the eels, noting with a sinking stomach that, despite his relaxed demeanor, their expressions are twisted in anxiety and, she thinks, sorrow.

She looks back up as he prepares to speak, something sour building in her throat as she sees that none of these feelings are portrayed on his own face.

“I feel that would be unfair,” he says with a gentle smile.

Artemis frowns. The smile manages to reach his eyes. Anyone who didn’t know about the eels would buy this, hook line and sinker, and she hates how good he has gotten at acting.

“They would love to have you,” she prods, gesturing. “I’m sure Dick would appreciate the backup.”

Kaldur’s smile tightens, but doesn’t drop. “I am sure he will be fine,” he says, evasive.

Artemis frowns. “The point of this whole thing is for us to have fun together,” she says, standing. She leans down, reaching for his hand. The eel’s expression twists tighter, though Kaldur’s smile remains the same. “C’mon,” she wheedles. “Join us.”

Kaldur flinches away, finally allowing the smile to drop. He goes blank, showing nothing. “It would not be a good idea,” he says, firm. “But thank you.”

It’s not until later, when she overhears an argument between Black Canary and Aquaman, that she learns that Kaldur has been exiled from Atlantis and is no longer welcome in any ocean.

—

“You’re an idiot,” she tells Roy Harper, while they sit on a roof top and watch the sunset behind Star City’s horizon.

“What’s new,” he grumbles, throwing back the last slug of his beer. It’s the only one he’ll have tonight, responsible adult that he is now. She thanks the universe every day that Lian has him as a father.

Now if only he’d be as good a boyfriend to her best friend as he’s been a father to her neice, she could rest easily.

“Seriously though,” Artemis gripes, poking him in the side with her own beer. It’s her third, because she doesn’t have a kid to look after, and it is a Friday. She dodges his half-hearted swipe at her head, grinning. “Why don’t you go for it? He’s been in love with you for years.”

Roy sighs, lying back on the warm concrete, legs kicking in the open air. “It’s not that simple.”

Artemis kicks his shin. “Yeah, it is.”

Roy props himself up on his elbows, squinting at her in the fading sunlight. Small lines crinkle in the corner of his eyes, signs of age brought on early from a life hard lived, and she kicks him harder. “Fucking ow,” he gripes. “Look, it’s not–It’s not about what Kaldur feels. He doesn’t want it.”

Artemis scoffs. “The fuck gave you that idea?”

“Do you know anything about Atlantis?” Roy snaps. “Like, at all?”

“I know his tattoos smile whenever you’re around,” she snaps back. “That doesn’t happen for just anyone, asshole.”

“Not about Kaldur, you doof, about Atlantis. In general.”

“Not really,” Artemis shrugs. “I know they exiled him for a while, like, a couple years ago. And that Garth got the exile repealed. I know about Purists. What else is there?”

Roy sighs, curling his body back up to look her in the eyes. His gaze is tired, and she suddenly feels a little bad for disrupting what was probably one of the only relaxing moments he’s had in days, at least.

“Atlantis isn’t the greatest, when it comes to people like you and me,” Roy says, blunt. “We both know Kaldur’s as queer as a three dollar bill, same as, like, half the fucking team. Atlantean culture? Not so cool with that. Kaldur’s gotten better, but he still has issues.”

“Atlantis is homophobic?” Artemis repeats, honestly shocked. “But Garth, and Tula, and La’gann—“

“—Don’t know,” Roy finishes for her. “He’s not exactly vocal about it. How do you even know?”

“From the way he looks at you,” Artemis replies, something cold settling in her stomach. “And back in twenty-fourteen, at that Solstice party. His tattoos gave it away, more than anything, the way they grinned while you were dancing with him.”

“You’re annoyingly observant, you know that?” Roy grumbles, thumbing the label off his beer bottle. “Look, you’re probably one of the only people in the whole League who has noticed either of those things. And Kaldur—he’s gotten a lot better, than he used to be. He doesn’t hate himself like he used too. Can’t, considering who his friends are. But I don’t know if he’ll ever be in a place where he wants to act on this…thing, we’ve got.”

“What about you?” Artemis presses, nudging her foot gently against Roy’s own. She looks over her shoulder, eyes widening briefly. Carefully, she raises her voice ever-so-slightly. “How about you, Roy? Do you want a relationship with Kaldur?”

Roy scoffs, eyes fixed on the horizon, the setting sun. He doesn’t notice Artemis’s distraction, and raises his volume automatically to match her own. “Of course I do. I’ve been in love with him for years. If I thought for a second he’d go for it—“ Roy finishes with a shrug. “You’d never get me off of him.”

Artemis grins over her shoulder, feet kicking against the roof’s ledge in glee. “That’s great,” she says, cat’s grin curling her lips, smug. “Kaldur? What do you think?”

Roy curses, twisting.

Kaldur stands on the roof, six-pack clenched in one webbed hand, the other covering his gaping mouth. He’s blushing furiously, and the eels on his hands have half-moon grins.

“I—“ he stammers, and Artemis jumps up, taking the six pack easily from his shocked grip.

“It looks like the two of you have a lot to talk about,” she says smugly, and saunters back down the fire escape.

The next day, during the weekly League Council meeting, she can’t help but notice, detail oriented as she is, that the eels are still grinning.

[wand3r3r]

Pure Comedy - An Essay by Father John Misty (aka Josh Tillman)

“What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.



Is there a thing of which it is said,
‘See, this is new?’
It has been already
in the ages before us.



There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.”
- Ecclesiastes



Pure Comedy is the story of a species born with a half-formed brain. The species’ only hope for survival, finding itself on a cruel, unpredictable rock surrounded by other species who seem far more adept at this whole thing (and to whom they are delicious), is the reliance on other, slightly older, half-formed brains. This reliance takes on a few different names as their story unfolds, like “love,” “culture,” “family,” etc. Over time, and as their brains prove to be remarkably good at inventing meaning where there is none, the species becomes the purveyor of increasingly bizarre and sophisticated ironies. These ironies are designed to help cope with the species’ loathsome vulnerability and to try and reconcile how disproportionate their imagination is to the monotony of their existence.



Now all of a sudden they expect light in the dark, warmth in the cold, and to make something out of nothing. Cooperation among the species to achieve these goals eventually yields a worldview wherein some among the species believe that there are individuals for whom this type of work is maybe ill-suited. The contribution of the ill-suited is of a more abstract, inspirational nature. The ill-suited begin to make subtle distinctions among themselves that extend beyond “eaten by a bear/not eaten by a bear”. These distinctions involve do-it-ness, cool-face-and-body-ness, craftiness, etc. – an arrangement emerges where these traits can be traded in for better-than-ness. This better-than-ness really starts to run rampant, and the species begins to wonder if there isn’t a Sky-Man in the sky who is perhaps the source of all better-than-ness. It seems like a pretty good explanation for why the species is so important.



Sky-Man pretty much runs the show for a really, really long time, and his inner-circle of better-thans gets increasingly smaller and smaller, even though by the end of his reign everyone in the species considers themselves one. Unfortunately there are some better-thans who get together and decide that one way of better-than-ness is better than other betters-thans’ better-than-ness and teach their little half-formed-brain babies as much (most who interpret this distinction as “me’s” vs. “not-me’s”). “Not-me’s” eventually come to encapsulate everyone that is not a single “me” at any given time, and this paves the way for incredibly distasteful behavior until the species arrives at a place of such alienation and fear there is really nothing so horrible that one of them wouldn’t do to the other. To deal with this less than ideal state of affairs, which seems suspiciously incompatible with how progressive and evolved they are by this point, they set about to entertain themselves into an oblivion with politics, sex, finance, philosophy, and other games of war. This they do until they are so numb, and the idea of any “not-me” so untenable, that they are blissfully incapable of noticing they’re all dead. This happens more or less on an infinite loop until the end of time.



Something like that.



Imagine if you will, as the album starts, that you’re way out in space looking at the earth and, though it’s impossible to “fall” through space, you start a free fall anyway in the direction of the bright blue marble. For the next 75 minutes you plummet toward the earth, losing more and more perspective on what an abstract and impermanent place our planet is, how predictably we step on the same rakes, slip on the same banana peels over and over again through the ages, quickly becoming more and more immersed in the very messy business of being a human – the dubious privilege of being here, the elusiveness of meaning, true love and its habitual absence, random euphoria and the inexplicable misery of others, truth and its more alluring counterfeits, the sophistication of answers that don’t make any sense, the barbarism of our appetites, lucky breaks and injustice, faith and ignorance, crippling, mind-numbing boredom, and the terror of it all ending too soon. Before you know it, you’ve delicately crash-landed and find yourself lying on your back looking up at the stars. If you’re lucky, with someone you love; even if just for a day, a year, a lifetime. Though just an hour has passed you have no recollection of what the earth looked like from the far-flung reaches of space, nor how simple it all seemed a matter of minutes ago.



I know everyone doesn’t feel the same about what’s going on right now. What for some is clearly garden-variety violent white nationalism serving as a catch-all for any number of paranoia-induced anti-fantasies foisted upon the poor and uneducated precisely by the ideologues bent on manufacturing voters who can be manipulated into voting against their own interests by making good and sure they remain poor and uneducated before cravenly blaming their problems largely on people bearing distinctions like race, gender, and sexuality so people forget everything that’s good about the American experiment, is to others an opportunity to wrench the country back from the influence of hypocritical corporate tyrants bent on enslaving our minds with spineless liberal rhetoric in order to justify wiping out the jobs of decent people so they can fulfill their fey utopian dream of an impossible global community designed to profit only its architects (probably Banking Consortiums, pedophile rings, and definitely The Illuminati).


This album does not espouse either of those views.



Both of those views take for granted a certain degree of sophistication, or at least a knack for cooperation, that I’m absolutely convinced humans do not possess; not to mention some kind of innate logic to the proceedings here on Earth – which make a much better case for being some kind of demented joke than anything else.



The terrifying reality concerning the dilemma above is everything is chaos and no one is really in control of anyone or anything.



But what about the well-documented history of humans making life a living hell for other humans since time began?



There is no intellectual, political, or spiritual explanation that will ever satisfy anyone for longer than a moment, least of all this, the only explanation with any dignity. The explanation that appeases both our instincts for compassion and liberation. The explanation that we can either accept and move forward together or keep screaming to our respective heavens, “Why, God, why?”



Things are the way they are because this is how we, the human race, want them.



This is how we want it.



Hold the motherfucking phone. Josh Tillman, you have said and done some stupid fucking things since we’ve known you, but this is too much.



Now the liberals and the conservatives are both outraged because that is a sentiment that is so profoundly insensitive to the ways in which the other side is clearly wrong in objective ways regarding basic decency, but what’s the alternative? We’re either all complicit in this purest comedy, or the people who aren’t to blame are at war with the people who are to blame until everyone is dead. Simple as that.



Is progress possible? What does it look like? The conversion of everyone to our respective beliefs? Well, we’ve seen how that typically goes. The destruction of everyone who fails to conform? That’s not it. The erection of institutions with the power and infrastructure to enforce a rule of law with the good of as many as possible at heart? Not much evidence for that panning out.



What I recommend is this: we return to the Vedic cycle and submit ourselves to the likelihood that many of us will end up getting eaten by bears. It’s only natural. What if instead of imbuing our expectations for the quality of our lives to include perpetual happiness, dream fulfillment, excessive painlessness, existential certitude, material wealth, and all variety of romantic stimulation, we were just grateful for every day that didn’t involve getting eaten by a bear? What if progress only meant literally progressing from one day to the next without getting violently dismembered by a 9-foot tall, 500-pound grizzly?



The irony here of course is that many more humans than we’d like to think, most of whom are not reading the interminable liner notes to a folk rock album, do live in daily, perpetual fear of getting killed by a mammal far more terrifying than a bear, and I think you know the one to which I refer. This form of mammal attack is made all the more nightmarish by virtue of the fact that the mammal in question kills purely ideologically. Bears kill because they’re hungry; they’re very reasonable in that way. So maybe we should submit ourselves to their authority. Bears we can trust.



Bottom line is that as long as we expect to live in such a way – immune to the natural laws of this godless rock that govern everything else here – human existence will continue to be a cruel joke. I fear, however, that it is too late for us to go back into the natural order. We have no desire to return to our primal scene. We like the way things are. We’ve got sandwiches when we’re hungry! Airplanes for when we want to go somewhere! Social media when we want our voices to be heard by all God’s creation! We know that these magical conveniences come at a staggering price, and that excess for the few is based on the scarcity of the many, but that’s why we invented the business of globalization! We’ve already built the wall! It’s a great, great wall that goes up to the heavens and is as transparent as museum glass. It’s a beautiful wall that winds surgically through nations, cities, neighborhoods, and sometimes even homes. It is a globe within a globe, and those who live within its interior are as clueless as to what’s happening on the other side as we are to what’s happening right now on the far side of Mars.


There’s only one creature that can penetrate that wall, friends, and it is bears. Bears can smash through that glass like a pitcher of sugar water through a brick wall. The equalizing revolution of bear justice is coming too. Sooner than you think. As it gets hotter and hotter, they’re coming. They’re coming into our neighborhoods, they’re coming into our schools, into our churches, into our banks, into our places of business, into our governments, into our beds.



The joke is that the best we can do is keep on keeping on, which we’ve proven ourselves pathologically adept at. We’re going to save the planet alright, and it will be a glorious sacrifice just like the Sky-Man we invented showed us how.

Bears, man.

[thisisheavynews]

Why Black Sabbath Are Heavy Metal’s Greatest Band – Rolling Stone

When Black Sabbath first attempted to tour America in 1970, they had a Hell of a time. “We had to face the mayor of [every] town,” drummer Bill Ward once recalled. “We were banned all the time. They were afraid of us. They thought we were going to put a spell on you.”

Although Mick Jagger and Sammy Davis, Jr. had already publicly flirted with satanism, Black Sabbath — whose members all wore crosses to ward off evil — were much too scary for the United States. Their self-titled debut album sported a witchy woman on its cover, their eponymous song detailed an ill-fated dalliance with a demon (“Please God help me!”), and, in the U.K., their label took things one hooved step further by printing an inverted cross on the inside sleeve with a passage about a dead, black swan floating upside down in a lake as a preamble for what was inside. The group had nicked its name from a 1963 Boris Karloff horror movie, and both its name and fright-flick lyrics sparked confusion and new mythologies nearly everywhere they went.

Over the years, rumors have abounded that Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey hosted a parade in their honor in San Francisco that year (not true, the Church’s High Priest, Magus Peter H. Gilmore tells Rolling Stone — though there was a Sabbath float in a gay pride parade in the Golden Gate City that year), and then there were whisperings that the Manson Family were fans of the band, which makes no sense since the Tate-LaBianca murders were a year earlier. And then there were the misunderstandings that had nothing to do with black magic: Ozzy Osbourne recalled in his autobiography how when the band played Philadelphia, a group of African American concertgoers were disappointed the band didn’t live up to their expectations. “You guys ain’t black,” one of them told Osbourne. Black Sabbath were a mystery, and it was the mythology of Black Sabbath that built heavy metal.

Many bands can claim responsibility for the genre’s bludgeoning guitar lines and intensely intense vocals (Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin are obvious go-to’s, and critic Lester Bangs once curiously cited the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat as a starting point), but the group most responsible for metal as the world knows it today is Black Sabbath. The song “Black Sabbath,” the first track on their first album, begins with eerie sound effects of rain and church bells (a brilliantly gothic detail that foreshadowed the darkness to come) before exploding with guitarist Tony Iommi’s lumbering, Godzilla stomp of a riff and Osbourne pleading to heaven to deliver him from Satan — lyrics he based on a nightmare bassist Geezer Butler had had. They wanted to feel scared and they wanted you to feel scared. Over the next eight years, they used that song as a prototype for new sounds — speeding it up, funking it up, stretching it out, wringing the blues out of it, inverting it into lucious folk music — essentially creating the Rosetta Stone for metal with their early discography.

The band’s first eight albums, the ones made by Osbourne, Iommi, Butler, and Ward, are still vital, enigmatic, and inspiring. On an album like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the band transitions from the blunt-force riff pugilism of the frightening title cut (dig that almost Black Flaggy breakdown, “Nowhere to run to … “) to the intricate, contemplative “Sabbra Cadabra” within a few minutes — and it makes perfect sense.

Those albums, compiled into Rhino’s new limited-edition LP box set, The Vinyl Collection: 1970 – 1978, represent the multifaceted essence of not just Black Sabbath but metal and hard rock as a whole, proving why they weren’t just the first but also the greatest metal band. And vinyl is the best way to experience the music since you can ponder the quixotic artwork (who is the witch on the cover of Black Sabbath? why are there airmen on Never Say Die? what was Bill Ward smoking when he wore see-through red tights for the cover of Sabotage?) and feel the pacing and admire the grooves of the music as the LP spins on the turntable. (And to sweeten people’s appreciation, the box set also includes replica tour programs from the Seventies, which oddly include Osbourne and Iommi sniping at each other in the interviews within — it shows how the prickly pair made the band’s chemistry work.)

But it’s the music that remains most powerful. You can hear the breakneck thrashing of Metallica and Slayer in “Children of the Grave” and “Symptom of the Universe,” the manic riffs of the Sex Pistols and Ramones are steeped in “Paranoid,” and the downer-rock groundwork of grunge reverberates through songs like “War Pigs” and “Into the Void.” Although Black Sabbath went on to record brilliant albums with Ronnie James Dio and Ian Gillan in the Eighties, the group’s original lineup sowed the seeds for a whole musical culture in the previous decade on their first eight LPs.

The reason the music was so game-changing — and so excellent — was because it was a reflection of who these four men were offstage. The band members have each made much of their working-class backgrounds, growing up in post-War Birmingham, England. Iommi accidentally lopped off the fingertips of his fretting hand, forcing him to relearn the guitar and draw inspiration from Gypsy-jazz virtuoso Django Reinhardt. Osbourne came from a big family and worked as a car-horn tuner and in a slaughterhouse before spending time in jail for burglary; eventually his dad bought him a PA, setting him on the road to music making. Butler grew up in an Irish-Catholic household but suffered from undiagnosed depression causing him to feel like an outcast. And Ward had a humble upbringing where his parents encouraged his drumming. When they formed Black Sabbath (né Earth, smartly né the Polka Tulk Blues Band) in 1968, they all were avowed fans of the blues and heavy rock like Jimi Hendrix and Cream but as Butler once said, “We just took it one step heavier.”

The secret to Black Sabbath’s sound in the beginning was that they wanted to be big. The first original song they they remember writing was “Wicked World,” a skittery blues number about what an abomination the planet was in 1969 with poor people dying in the gutter. But it’s on the second song they wrote, “Black Sabbath,” where they consecrated their approach. Iommi and Butler (formerly a guitar player) colluded to make the riff sound massive, like more than the two of them playing at once, and Ward approached his instrument not so much like Ginger Baker but like an expressionist painter, adding drama to each of Osbourne’s pleas for salvation. The first single they put out, included in the box set as a bonus cut on its mono-only Monomania compilation, was a cover of American hard rockers Crow’s “Evil Woman,” a chunky blues number advising cruel-hearted ladies to steer clear of the band members. It was two years after Fleetwood Mac’s “Black Magic Woman” (and the same year as Santana’s) and two years before Eagles’ “Witchy Woman” — and none of this means anything since Black Sabbath courted every kind of women throughout the Seventies, regardless of their evil affiliations.

But beyond the cover versions, each band member found his groove. Iommi was the riffmaster general, capable of whipping out a song like “Paranoid” in an afternoon; to this day, Osbourne says that while he and Iommi have had their personal differences, nobody writes riffs like Iommi. The guitarists once said that he would sometimes put himself in a grim mood on purpose in order to write riffs, but his impish personality and love of pranks suggests they just come naturally to him. Osbourne was the king of melodies, sometimes copying the riff, sometimes going way out. Butler was the wordsmith, the “Irish poet” as Ward has dubbed him (even though Butler unapologetically rhymed “masses” with “masses” in “War Pigs”), writing about his general malaise with the world. He and Ward together were the band’s glue, creating a heavy groove that no other band has matched. Together, they concocted a curious mix of footslogging blues and ornately gothic melodies that paradoxically both paid tribute to and showed a great fear of death and the underworld.

And then there was their look. If the peace and love generation dressed themselves like an acid trip, Black Sabbath were like a PCP nightmare with their garish clothes, Osbourne’s fringe jacket, and their mid-Seventies wizard garb. They looked as scary as they sounded. You knew that their racket was unwittingly born of a beautiful dysfunction, a natural urge that came out of the four of them together.

Music critic Lester Bangs infamously closed his Rolling Stone review of the album Black Sabbath (which was incidentally released in the U.K. on a Friday the 13th) with the punchline that Sabbath were “just like Cream! But worse.” He eventually became a fan as the group became more nuanced, but he missed out on the directness that separated them from Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce. Where Cream had a song like “Sunshine of Your Love,” Sabbath used a similar riff for Black Sabbath’s “N.I.B.” and infused it with dark psychedelia and a thicker wallop. Their music was much more barebones and much more like a slap in the face; Cream were genteel London noblemen by comparison.

Butler wrote lyrics about H.P. Lovecraft–inspired trippiness (“Behind the Wall of Sleep”), astral projection and love (“Planet Caravan”), war (“War Pigs,” “Hand of Doom,” “Children of the Grave”), and feeling like an outcast (“Paranoid”). He avowed the band’s love of Jesus Christ in the wake of a British sorcerer allegedly hexing them (“After Forever”) and his love of drugs (“Sweet Leaf”). “Into the Void,” one of the band’s heaviest early songs, was an elegy for a dying planet: “Back on earth the flame of life burns low/Everywhere is misery and woe/Pollution kills the air, the land, the sea/Man prepares to meet his destiny.” It was the opposite of megahits in 1971 like Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” and the Bee Gees’ “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.”

“Sabbath was everything the Sixties weren’t,” Metallica frontman James Hetfield once beamed. “Their music was so cool because it was completely anti-hippie.”

In their defiance, Sabbath embraced nuance. Just look at the grooves of 1970’s Paranoid or 1971’s Master of Reality, and the folky ballads are immediately noticeable next to ragers like “Lord of This World,” as are effects like the gurgly voiced “I am Iron Man” that opens one of their most famous songs or the choking weed cough of “Sweet Leaf.” It’s a paradox of detail and dudeliness. A mono version of the Master track “Into the Void” on Monomania is even thicker and heavier than the one on the record, and you can feel the power they were starting to tap into with their music on the way the verse riff on “After Forever” returns with an extra dimension of bass-guitar smackdown. They were masters of their own reality.

On 1972’s unimaginatively titled Vol. 4, the group broke new ground and recorded some of their most creative sounds. It was the band’s proud cocaine moment (“We wish to thank the great COKE-Cola Company of Los Angeles,” read the liner notes) and they paid tribute to their powdery muse on “Snowblind.” But there was a new depth of sound on the weighty “Wheels of Confusion” and thumping “Supernaut.” The ballad “Changes” featured a piano and a mellotron with an orchestral string sound, and it was disarmingly fragile. The record closes with “Under the Sun,” a tune that grinds slower and slower and slower as it ends until you’re looking up from the dirt. “Life is one long overdose,” Osbourne sings.

The group had leveled up, and its music would grow more and more complex on 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and their last masterpiece, 1975’s Sabotage (which sports a deceptively corny album cover despite the impossibly hard-hitting riff on “The Thrill of It All”). Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’s “Killing Yourself to Live” is like a Black Sabbath glossary that finds Osbourne screeching, “I’m telling you, believe in me” — and you want to with all the blues riffs, Sgt. Pepper psychedelia and surprising a breakdown. In the middle of it he whispers “smoke it” in one speaker, and “get high” in the other, and you don’t know if it’s peer pressure or an admonition. That album’s “Who Are You?” is a buoyant synth track Osbourne dreamt up, complete with a proto-industrial rattle, and the record as a whole variously features Iommi playing synth, flute, organ, bagpipes, and piano, while Ward expanded his repertoire to bongos and timpani.

And on Sabotage, they invert the folky, Latin jazz jam at the end of “Symptom of the Universe” by pairing one of their heaviest-ever songs, “Hole in the Sky,” with a quirky acoustic jam called “Don’t Start Too Late.” And once again, you can see in the grooves how complicated a song like the gloomy “Megalomania” on Sabotage is by the way the rungs contort. “Symptom,” too, contains some of Butler’s trippiest lyrics, in which he asks you to “take [him] through the centuries to supersonic years” and “swim the magic ocean I’ve been crying all these years,” making it one of the band’s biggest headfucks. The megagothic “Supertzar” is an instrumental piece Iommi dreamt up, complete with a 55-voice choir, and it was majestic enough for the band to use it to open their shows on the tours that followed.

Drink, drugs, and too many years on the road got the better of them on their two final releases of their initial run, 1976’s Technical Ecstasy, and 1978’s ironically titled swan song for Osbourne, Never Say Die!, and the music is noticeably less inspired but still rocks as hard (if not a little harder) than Led Zeppelin’s two final albums. Oddly, the Never Say Die! single “A Hard Road,” with its slick swagger got them back on Top of the Pops, eight years after they played “Paranoid” on the U.K. music show, making them pop stars. But the intra-band bacchanalia proved too much for the group and they oustered Osbourne for his herculean drug use (even though they were all using), ultimately giving him the opportunity to defy all odds and become a bigger solo star than the band in the Eighties all while they started over with Ronnie James Dio and inspired a new wave of heavy metal fans with their Heaven and Hell album.

At their peak — whether that’s their first trilogy of heavy-hitting albums or the technical ecstasy of their work in the mid-Seventies — Black Sabbath were the touchstone for everything that followed. Although the band members have each scoffed at the metal tag over the years, they’ve never denied their influence on the genre and the bands whom they have inspired.

In the five decades since they formed, Black Sabbath’s music has been interpreted in many different ways. Metallica reveled in the complexity of their mid-Seventies recordings. Megadeth zeroed in on the hits (“Paranoid” and “Never Say Die”) and thrashed them up. Pantera surprisingly tackled the ballad “Planet Caravan.” Van Halen, who went out on their first big tour supporting Sabbath, once flirted with calling themselves Rat Salad after an instrumental on Paranoid. Cypress Hill, Ice-T and Busta Rhymes all sampled Sabbath. And the band Sleep is basically a Sabbath tribute band, formed at a time when the band was less fashionable. Moreover, Weezer, Green Day, Charles Bradley, Blondie, Foo Fighters, Replacements, the Roots, Beastie Boys and Courtney Love, among dozens of others, have covered their songs. Without these eight records, music would sound drastically different.

Weirdly, some of the band members don’t fully appreciate the work they put into their records. “I was always disappointed with our albums because of the fact that we were a fucking great live band,” drummer Bill Ward said in the liner notes to the 1998 live album Reunion. “I felt we always lost something by trying to record what we did.” But long after the original lineup fell apart, it’s what they put on their LPs that cemented their legend.

Since 1979, the original members of Black Sabbath have reunited and broken up and carried on with solo records. Everything finally came full circle in 2013, when they released 13 (sadly without Ward and not included in the box set) showing they still had it in them to conjure their dark spirits for tracks like “Damaged Soul” and “God Is Dead?” that could have come out anytime in the Seventies. The album was a worldwide smash, notching the Number One positions in the U.S. and U.K. The determination, and the willingness to work through their differences, harks back to a lyric on Vol. 4’s “Under the Sun,” and one that captures the spirit of the band:

“Just believe in yourself you know you really shouldn’t have to pretend/ “Don’t let those empty people try to interfere with your mind/ Just live your life and leave them all behind”

Long may this message echo through centuries into supersonic years. Hail Black Sabbath, Lords of This World!

from Heavy News https://thisisheavynews.com/why-black-sabbath-are-heavy-metals-greatest-band-rolling-stone/

[sarahburness]

A 7-Step Plan for Finding Love After a Devastating Breakup

“Resilience in love means finding strength from within that you can share with others.” ~Sheryl Sandberg

It took me a couple months to start repairing my broken heart after the toughest breakup of my life. I thought we were going to spend our lives together, but the gods of love had other plans.

After I’d grieved in healthy (and not-so-healthy ways) I knew I could take two paths: stay stuck in my misery or pick myself up, dust off my sadness, and make a plan to move on.

And now it’s time for you to move on and find love again, too.

I know it’s not easy. For years I believed my ex was “the one” and the thought of finding someone new after our breakup was terrifying.

But I got back on my horse and kept riding. I felt the fear of rejection, putting myself out there again, playing the “dating game,” trusting someone new, and wasting my time with people I didn’t connect with.

But finding love doesn’t have to be complicated and scary if you follow a plan, just like anything else in life.

You want to start your own business, take a vacation, or get out of debt? Make a plan.

You want to find love? You’ve got to make a plan for that, too.

If you don’t have a plan you’ll continue stumbling around in the dark hoping you’ll miraculously find true love. So if you’re struggling to find love and tired of the same old patterns leading you into the arms of the wrong people, then listen up…

Step 1: Let go of your ex.

Have you really let go of your ex and moved on from your breakup?

If you haven’t let go, you’re not going to find love. Period.

On the first date I went on after my breakup I talked about my ex. A lot. I knew I was breaking the sacred rules of first dates, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to hide my true feelings. Because the fact was I was still sad about it. It was clear to me that I wasn’t yet over the breakup.

But I also understood that if I had my ex and my breakup on my mind there was never going to be room for new love to enter.

Do you still have negative feelings around your breakup? Are you holding onto anger, shame, or resentment?

If you want to find a new partner and true love, you’ve got to let that stuff go.

Whether you’re getting over a recent breakup or a breakup that happened months or even years ago, you have to let go.

How?

First, stop avoiding and suppressing your negative feelings. We avoid dealing with our feelings in all sorts of ways: binge-watching television, eating, sex, alcohol, drugs, and telling people, “Everything is fine,” when we’re actually a hot mess.

Instead of avoiding and suppressing, let your feelings flow through you and get comfortable with the discomfort. Don’t chastise yourself for the feelings. Ask yourself, “Where is this coming from?” and, “Why is this coming up NOW?” Getting curious is always healthier than suppression.

Second, get back to doing things you love. Sometimes when we’re in a long-term relationship, we lose ourselves. Go do things that light you up inside and bring you joy. Go take that hip-hop dance class, join a new gym, or write the book you’ve been putting off.

And finally, make sure you have someone who listens to you without judgment and will let you vent when you need to. You think you don’t have someone to talk to? Think harder. You might be surprised of how willing people are to help and listen when you tell them how much you’re hurting. Exploring solutions is always easier when we have someone who listens instead of feeding us useless clichés like, “Time will heal.”

Other solutions to exploring our feelings are support groups in your community, online forums, or starting a journaling practice. Get the stuff out and you’ll be surprised how much easier it becomes to let it go.

Step 2: Believe that you have more than one soul mate.

“But Eric,” you say, “I already found my soul mate and now they’re gone!”

It’s okay. All is not lost.

Because there’s no such thing as having only one soul mate on this planet. If you’ve already found one, good for you! But guess what? There are more out there!

How do I know that for sure? I don’t. But if you want to go on staying stuck in your breakup and feeling sad about losing your soul mate, I can guarantee you won’t find a new person who brings out the light inside of you, who makes you feel special, wanted, and supported.

Believing you have only one soul mate is nothing more than a limiting belief—and limiting beliefs are meant to be overcome.

If you haven’t yet found a soul mate, this is still an important point to understand. If you convince yourself there’s only one soul mate for you out there, you’re going to put too much pressure on every new relationship you enter into.Remember, there are multiple soul mates out there for you. But I promise, if you’re lying on the couch watching Netflix, you’re not going to find them.

Step 3: Don’t date people just because they’re the exact opposite of your ex.

When you go through a devastating breakup you convince yourself that you’ll never date someone like your ex ever again! “That’s it!” you scream, “I’m going for someone totally different than my ex!”

Your ex hated spontaneity and adventure? You’re going after a rock-climbing, world-traveling, adrenaline-seeker.

Your ex had blonde hair? Only brunettes from now on!

Your ex didn’t like reading, cats, Star Wars, trying new restaurants, the opera, camping, people-watching, or road trips? You get the idea.

But the problem with this approach is that it’s a knee-jerk reaction. Instead of thinking about what you really, truly want in a relationship, you jump in blindly. Dating someone just because they’re not like your ex probably won’t end well.

The solution?

Go to Step 4.

Step 4: Get clear on your values.

Our values are the guiding lights in our lives.

If you’re not clear on what you value, how can you find someone who shares your values? Because if you’re dating people who don’t share the same values as you, it’ll never work.

Think about your past relationships. Remember those times when you first started dating someone and you discovered something that didn’t jive with your values? And remember how you brushed it to the side and said, “It’s probably not that big of a deal. Maybe I’ll change….or maybe they’ll change.”

Sound familiar?

Fast-forward to your breakup. I’ll bet some of those old clashes in values came up throughout the breakup process, didn’t they?

Get clear on your values and don’t negotiate, undermine, or reduce them. Stay true to them and find a partner who shares your values. If you do this, you’ll be taking a huge step towards finding love again.

Step 5: Say “no” to relationships that are a waste of your time.

It’s hard to say “no.” We don’t like hurting people’s feelings, so we say “yes” to things we shouldn’t. Then we kick ourselves for not having had the guts to say “no.”

When we delay our “nos” we’re wasting our time and the other person’s time. We go on third, fourth, and fifth dates with people who we’re really not interested in, but we just can’t tell them the words, “I’m sorry, I just don’t want to be with you.” Instead, we draw it out into a painful process of indecision, stress, and fear.

How do you say “no” to someone you’re not interested in continuing dating?

You say, “I’m sorry, but I know what I’m looking for in a partner and you’re not that person.”

Sounds harsh?

Get used to it. Because if you’re clear on your values after Step 4, there’s no reason to waste your time with people who don’t align with what you’re looking for.

And really, what’s so bad about saying, “You’re not the partner for me?” Shouldn’t people appreciate honesty?

Yes, they should. But people aren’t like that and they might feel hurt. But that’s their problem, not yours. Ultimately, that honesty is going to help both of you move forward in a more healthy way.

Stay true and honest to yourself and be as compassionate as possible when you say “no.” After that, it’s up to the other person to accept it.

Step 6: Improve yourself.

No matter how many self-help books and articles on Tiny Buddha that you’ve read, we all have blind spots and weaknesses.

After my latest breakup, I realized I needed to work on some things. I reflected on my fear of commitment. I got clear on my core values. I worked on my ability to communicate my feelings around tough subjects like sex, money, and having children.

I read new books, worked with a coach, and traveled by myself. I met new people and shared life experiences with them in a vulnerable way.

It’s really hard to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “Where have I been going wrong? What can I do to make myself better?” It’s so much easier to point a finger and say, “It’s your fault! Not mine!”

But true growth can only happen when we look inside ourselves. When you grow and become a better version of yourself you’ll develop more confidence—and we all know confident people are a lot more likely to find true love.

Step 7: Work it!

If you’re ready to find someone new, you have to go out and find them.

It drives me a tad crazy when people say, “I want to find love, but if it happens it happens. I’m not going to go out looking for it! I’ll let the universe do its thing.”

Are you kidding me? When is the last time something that made your life better came to you while you were sitting around doing nothing?

If you want to find love, go out there and look for it!

When we put ourselves out there, get out of our comfort zones, and face our fears, amazing things start to happen.

Go to social gatherings with new people. Find common interest groups in your community. Talk to a stranger on the bus or metro. Hell, give online dating a try!

If you want to find love, you have to get out there and meet new people. Sure, each time isn’t going to be a fruitful experience, but that’s what it’s about. When good things start to happen (which they will) you’ll look back and understand all the effort was worth it.

Now, this seventh step isn’t about obsessing over finding love to the point that it’s unhealthy. If you’ve followed the steps above this shouldn’t be a concern because you’re now feeling more confident in your own skin. If you get better at saying “no,” get clear on your values, and improve yourself, then you’re ready to find love.

But if you’re afraid of being alone for the rest of your life and desperate to find a partner no matter how wrong they are for you, you’re not ready for Step 7. Go back and work through Steps 1 to 6 until you’re ready to find love for the right reasons.

Don’t forget…

Finding love isn’t easy. This plan can take a long time to master.

But when you find that special person you’ll know that all the effort, struggle, rejection, failure, and time-investment was worth it.

True love is a beautiful thing. It shouldn’t be degraded to a pipe dream for the lonely-hearts-club. True love is something that everyone should strive for because life is a lot more fun when we can share it with a person who brings out the light inside of us.

If you haven’t found love yet, please don’t give up. It’s out there. And if you follow the right plan, I know you’re going to find it.

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About Eric Ibey

Eric Ibey is a Breakup Coach and member of the International Coach Federation. He's on a mission to help people move on from tough breakups and find more confidence, happiness, and peace faster than they imagined possible. Join his Free 3-Week Breakup Challenge TODAY and start reframing your breakup into an opportunity for self-growth.

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The post A 7-Step Plan for Finding Love After a Devastating Breakup appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/a-7-step-plan-for-finding-love-after-a-devastating-breakup/