#shadows house chapter 194

[sunsetsmakemesad]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[dfroza]

Today’s reading from the ancient books of Proverbs and Psalms

for july 12 of 2024 with Proverbs 12 and Psalm 12, accompanied by Psalm 23 for the 23rd day of Astronomical Summer, and Psalm 44 for day 194 of the year (with the consummate book of 150 Psalms in its 2nd revolution this year)

[Proverbs 12]

Those who love discipline love knowledge,

but fools hate any kind of correction.

The Eternal prefers those who do good,

but He condemns those who plot evil.

Doing what is wrong keeps everyone off balance and insecure,

but those who do right will never be uprooted.

A dignified wife brings honor to her husband,

but a shameful wife is like decay eating away at his bones.

The thoughts of the right-living tend toward justice,

but the guidance of the wicked is trickery and treachery.

The words of the wicked ambush from the shadows, seeking blood,

but the speech of the honest keeps them free.

The wrongdoers are overthrown—no one is left!

But the house of the right-living remains strong.

A person is commended for expressing insight,

but a perverted heart is despised.

It is better to be overlooked and have a servant

than to be pretentious and have nothing to eat.

Those who are righteous treat their animals humanely,

but the compassion of the wicked is really inhumane.

Whoever works the land will have more than enough food,

but whoever follows empty pursuits lacks sense.

The wicked envy what the evil plunder,

but the root of the right-living produces fruit for all.

A wrongdoer is soon boxed in by his deceitful talk,

but the one who does right escapes from trouble unharmed.

Words spoken wisely result in much good,

and working with your hands pays a large reward.

Fools follow their own directions and think they are right,

but wise people listen intently to advice.

A fool’s anger is quickly evident,

but a clever person knows how to hide his flaws.

A faithful witness speaks the truth,

but a false witness utters lies.

Thoughtless words cut deeply like a thrusting sword,

but the speech of the wise is a healing balm.

Truth spoken will stand forever,

but lies survive only briefly.

Deceit darkens the hearts of those who plot evil,

but advocates of peace have joy.

The right-living are not overcome with calamity,

but wrongdoers have their fill of it.

Lying lips disgust the Eternal,

but those who act faithfully delight Him.

A clever man is careful in revealing what he knows,

but a fool betrays his incompetence.

The hand of the hard workers will one day rule,

and slackers will be forced to labor.

The weight of worry drags us down,

but a good word lightens our day.

Those who live right are good guides to those who follow,

but wrongdoers will steer their friends down the wrong path.

Slackers don’t take time to cook their food,

but hard workers prize everything they have.

Life springs up along the path of integrity,

and death has no place along its course.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 12 (The Voice)

A note from The Voice translation:

A person in a positive relationship with God stands in a right relationship with His creation. How we treat animals may mirror our souls—not just the pets in our home, but the pets in our neighborhood and the animals in our food supply. One who is truly right with God considers the needs of His creatures.

[Psalm 12]

For the worship leader. A song of David accompanied by the lyre.

Help me, O Eternal One, for I can’t find anyone who follows You.

The faithful have fallen out of sight.

Everyone tells lies through sweet-talking lips

and speaks from a hollow and deceptive heart.

May the Eternal silence all sweet-talking lips,

stop all boasting tongues,

Of those who say, “With our words we will win;

our lips are our own. Who is the master of our souls?”

“I will rise up,” says the Eternal,

“because the poor are being trampled, and the needy groan for My saving help.

I will lift them up to the safety they long for.”

The promises of the Eternal, they are true, they are pure—

like silver refined in a furnace,

purified seven times, they will be without impurity.

You, O Eternal, will be their protector.

You will keep them safe from those around them forever.

All around, those who are wicked parade—proud and arrogant—and people applaud their emptiness.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 12 (The Voice)

[Psalm 23]

The Lord the Shepherd

A psalm of David.

The Lord is my shepherd;

I have everything I need.

He lets me rest in green pastures.

He leads me to calm water.

He gives me new strength.

He leads me on paths that are right

for the good of his name.

Even if I walk through a very dark valley,

I will not be afraid,

because you are with me.

Your rod and your shepherd’s staff comfort me.

You prepare a meal for me

in front of my enemies.

You pour oil of blessing on my head;

you fill my cup to overflowing.

Surely your goodness and love will be with me

all my life,

and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 23 (New Century Version)

[Psalm 44]

For the worship leader. A contemplative song of the sons of Korah.

With our own ears, O God, we have heard the stories

our ancestors recited of Your deeds in their days, days long past—

how You saved the day.

With a powerful hand, You drove the nations from this land,

but then You planted our parents here.

You fought for us against people of this land;

You set our parents free to enjoy its goodness.

They did not win the land with their swords.

It wasn’t their strength that won them victory.

It was Your strength—Your right hand, Your arm,

and the light of Your presence that gave them success,

for You loved them.

You are my King, my God!

You ordained victories for Jacob and his people!

You are our victory, pushing back the enemy;

at the sound of Your name, we crush the opposition.

I don’t trust in my weapons

or in my strength to win me victory.

But You rescue us from our foes;

You shame our enemies.

We shout Your name all day long;

we will praise Your name forever!

[pause]

But wait, God, where have You gone? Why have You shamed us?

Why do our armies stand alone?

Without Your help we must retreat from our enemy,

and the very ones who despise us pillage us.

You have offered us up to our enemies,

like sheep to the slaughter, meat for their feast,

and You have dispersed us among the nations.

You sold Your people for mere pennies,

and You gained nothing from the deal.

You have made us a joke to our friends and neighbors,

mocked and ridiculed by all those around us.

You have brought us infamy among the nations

and made us an object of scorn and laughter to our neighbors.

Disgrace follows me everywhere I go; I am constantly embarrassed.

Shame is written across my face

Because of the taunting and berating of those who are against me,

because the enemy seeks revenge against me.

All this has happened to us,

yet we have never forgotten You;

we have not broken Your covenant with us.

Our hearts stayed true to You;

we have never left Your path;

we follow on.

Yet You have tested us, left us defeated in a land of jackals,

and shrouded us with the veil of death.

Even if we had forgotten the name of our God

or offered praise to another god,

Would not the True God have known it?

For He can see the hidden places of our hearts.

On Your behalf, our lives are endangered constantly;

we are like sheep awaiting slaughter.

Wake up, Lord! Why do You slumber?

Get up! Do not reject us any longer!

Why are You still hiding from us?

Why are You still ignoring our suffering and trouble?

Look and You will see our souls now dwell in the dust;

our bodies hug the earth.

Rise up and help us;

restore us for the sake of Your boundless love.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 44 (The Voice)

[ladyorlandodream]

Lady Dimitrescu-tag FanFiction List PART 1

Since it has become a case among gamers and non-gamers, I decided to create this post containing the FF dedicated to Alcina Dimitrescu (Lady Dimitrescu / Tall Vampire Lady) that I can find on the Internet This post will be updated as soon I find something new, therefore, feel free to send me links to add to the list and come back anytime, because from the reposts you will lose the updates!!

part 2   part 3   part 4   part 5  part 6   part 7

1) In Vino Sacrificium (Series)

2) Feast Your Eyes (short story)

3) The Woman in the White Dress (Chapters in progress)

4) Lost (short story)

5) Resident Evil Village but Awesome (short story)

6) We Are Marionettes By Strings Animated, Yet Like Lovers Of Strings Liberated (short story)

7) Village (Chapters in progress)

8) The Lady of the House (Series)

9) Intruder (short story)

10) Resident Evil: Lewd Village (short story)

11) The Surprise (short story)

12) Nothing Fucks With My Baby (Except Me) (Chapters in progress)

13) Hers, forever (short story)

14) Lady Dimitrescu and her Good Girl (Stories completed)

15) Be a good pet (short story)

16) The Lapis Inferno (Chapters completed)

17) Our secret love (short story)

18) Bad day (short story)

19) Its a superiority thing (Chapters in progress) 

20) The Lady’s Kitten! (Chapters in progress)

21) her new toy (Chapters in progress)

22) Why Are Humans Like This (short story)

23) The Cold is in Her Bones (Chapters in progress) 

24) Lady of Legend (short story)

25) Sweet Pet (short story)

26) Beloved bound (short story)

27) Fuck You're So Gorgeous, (And I Wanna Touch You). (short story)

28) Dessert (Chapters in progress)

29) Taken from the village (short story)

30) Resident Evil Drabbles (short stories in progress)

31) I'm Here, I'm Safe (short story)

32) For Old Times' Sake (short story)

33) Virgin Dog (short story)

34) Akaibara (Chapters in progress)

35) So This Is Love (short story)

36) Who's The Master Of Tall Now, Huh? (Chapters in progress)

37) The Mistresses New Daughter! (Chapters in progress)

38) A Willing Maiden? (short story)

39) Beloved [SCRIPT OFFER] [F4TF VARIATION] (short story to fill)

40) I trust you (short story)

41) Little Fly (short story)

42) Never Mind That Moaning In The Halls, There's No Such Thing As Ghosts (short story)

43) I know what you’re after (short story)

44) neither pink nor pale (short story)

45) what of the body isn't an unbecoming (Chapters in progress)

46) Blood and Byrrh (Chapters in progress)

47) Beginnings (Chapters in progress)

48) To Live Forever (short story)

49) Skelly Meets His Match (short story)

50) Just a toy (Chapters completed)

51) Stormy Illusions (short story)

52) I'm Falling (Don't Catch Me) (Chapters in progress)

53) Desperate Escape (short story)

54) Ignis (short story)

55) finders keepers (short story)

56) Roses Before Dawn (2 chapters story)

57) Aftertaste (short story)

58) Liar (Chapters in progress)

59) Alcina's Ultimate Form! (short story)

60) Love makes monsters of us all (Chapters in progress)

61) Cursed (Chapters completed)

62) Where It's Warm (Chapters in progress)

63) The Witch, The Werewolf And The Vampire (short story)

64) Death Trap Clad (short story)

65) Plaything (short story)

66) To become something more! (Chapters in progress)

67) Lost, but not forgotten. (Chapters in progress)

68) I Love Human Stupidity (short story)

69) Lady Dimitrescu A-Z NSFW (short list)

70) Danse Macabre (Chapters in progress)

71) Game Over! (short story)

72) A Pet That's Not You (short story)

73) The patterns of your heartbeat (Chapters in progress)

74) Survival (short story)

75) It Was A Wicked Thought (Chapters in progress)

76) Blackbird (Chapters completed)

77) How vampires are born (short story)

78) I Like My Coffee Like I Like My Women: Hot and Venti. (Chapters in progress)

79) Kiss of Blood (Chapters in progress)

80) You're Not What I Asked For (short story)

81) I walk My Days On a Wire (short story)

82) Team Dimitrescu (short story)

83) Daughter's Plaything! (short story)

84) It Starts With a Spilled Cup of Tea (Chapters completed)

85) There You Are (short story)

86) Fanfic of: "I Like My Coffee Like I Like My Women: Hot and Venti" (short story)

87) Lady Dimitrescu's new slave (short story)

88) How The Mighty Have Shrunk? (short story)

89) Lady dimitrescu x oc (Chapters in progress)

90) Novitiate (Chapters in progress)

91) No More Tears Left (short story)

92) Taming One Of the Beasts! (short story)

93) In the Shadows of the Enemy (short story)

94) Rebirth series (short stories)

95) Comfort's Embrace (short story)

96) A Maids Tale! (short story)

97) To Have Tea and Crackers (short story)

98) Me of all People!? (Chapters in progress)

99) The Tall Mistress (short story)

100) A Dance Of Death! (short story)

101) Retourne-toi! (Chapters in progress)

102) Roses, Hearts and Wine (short story)

103) Care to Dance? (Chapters in progress by me!)

104) Happy Valentine's Day (short story)

105) Share The Love? (short story)

106) Vampire (short story)

107) Between monsters (Chapters in progress)

108) Giant Woman (song/rewriting)

109) Steeplechase (short story)

110) In The Shadows (Chapters in progress)

111) What is it Worth? (Chapters in progress)

112) The positives of being a maiden (short story)

113) Young And Beautiful (short story)

114) Queenslayer (Chapters in progress)

115) Life in Castle Dimitrescu (Chapters in progress)

116) A Soak (short story)

117) Child’s Play! (Chapters in progress)

118) Forbidden (Chapters in progress)

119) The Vampire's Groom (short story)

120) Vampires Can Wear Sweaters Too (Chapters in progress)

121) Don't Cry Mercy.... (short story)

122) Hear Me Out (short story)

123) Sanguinis et Mortis (short story)

124) A Warm Bed (short story) 

125) The Bite That Binds The Gift That Gives (Chapters in progress)

126) Two Hearts Beat As One! (Chapters in progress)

127) Cat Got Your Tongue? (Chapters in progress)

128) The Truth Can Make a Rose Dead (short story)

129) The Mistress's Artist (short story)

130) The Art of Submission (short story)

131) Her Name Upon My Soul (short story)

132) Mine only (short story)

133) Don’t leave me (short story)

134) The Morning Sun (short story)

135) What About What I Want? (Chapters in progress)

136) Facing the Leviathan (short story)

137) No Title (from Deviantart) (short story)

138) MILKERS: The big Smoke | Libro 1: Dimitrescu (Chapters in progress in Spanish)

139) Rolling Stone! (short story)

140) Moonlight Reflections (Chapter in progress)

141) In Sanguis Virginis Veritas (Chapters in progress)

142) Video Games? (short story)

143) Fragility (short story)

144) Pet Lessons (short story)

145) Symphony of Destruction (short story)

146) The Protectors (Chapters in progress)

147) Such A Messy Affair (short story)

148) nourishment (short story)

149) Ma Belle Evangeline (short story)

150) Big Tall Vampire Lady (Chapters in progress)

151) Plaything (Alcina Dimitrescu x Male Reader) (short story)

152) Unexpected (short story)

153) All Hallows’ Eve (Chapters in progress...by me!)

154) Affliction (Chapters in progress)

155) Adapt and Overcome (Chapters in progress)

156) So We Meet Again (short story)

157) Stole (Chapters in progress)

158) Unexpected expectancy (short story)

159) Blood Moon! (short story)

160) Under Your Spell (Chapters in progress)

161) Kitten Likes To Play! (short story)

162) A Good Servant (short story)

163) My Huntress, My Wife (short story)

164) Mother Is God In The Eyes Of A Child! (short story)

165) Memento Mori (Chapters in progress)

166) Hunter Becomes The Hunted! (Chapters in progress)

167) The One She Spared (Chapters in progress)

168) From Eden (Chapters in progress)

169) it takes a village (Chapters in progress)

170) This one time in Romania... (Chapters in progress)

171) One witch dead. One more to go. (short story)

172) Surprise Visit! (short story)

173) Falling into Darkness (Chapters in progress)

174) Finding What's Lost! (Chapters in progress)

175) Call Me Mistress (short story)

176) Burn Witch Burn (Chapters in progress)

177) Scare Tactics (Chapters in progress)

178) a one shot from tumblr (short story)

179) Recon (Chapters in progress)

180) Tea and Ice Lattes (Chapters in progress)

181) Yes, Dear (short story)

182) Use Somebody (Chapters in progress)

183) The Party (short story)

184) Dimitrescu Winter Ball (short story)

185) Learning The Hard Way (short story)

186) The Vamp & The Wolf (Chapters in progress)

187) Trust Is Worth A Thousand Words (Chapters in progress)

188) Family Portrait (short story)

189) The Long Journey Home (Chapters in progress)

190) ~Iubire nemuritoare~ (Chapters in progress)

191) A New Breed (Chapters in progress)

192) Part of the Job (short story)

193) Lingering (short story)

194) Dani’s Mom (shorto story)

195) What Do We Do With A Drunken Vampire? (short story)

196) You're Such A Royal Pain In The Fang! (short story)

197) Woman in White (short story)

198) One shot from tumblr

199) Night Light (short story)

200) The Goddess And The Vampire! (short story)

HOUSE OF DIMITRESCU FF

1) Between Thirst and Affection (short story about Daniela)

2) Series about new character Rosemary Dimitrescu: Part 1 When A Rose Blooms In Winter (Completed); Part 2 Every Rose Has It's Thorns (Completed); Part 3 A Bed of Roses (In progress)

3) Potential Bad Idea (short story about Daniela)

4) Supermarket Flowers (short story about Daniela)

5) Good Girl! (short story about Daniela)

6) Taming one of the beasts! (short story)

7) Into the Unknown (Chapters in progress, multifandom)

8) One Of the Girls (short story)

9) Can't Sleep! Won't Sleep (without you)! (short story)

10) A Mix of the Species! (short story)

[eeraygun]

Top 246 Sonic Releases of 2020

001. Perfume Genius - Set My Heart On Fire Immediately 002. Splash Pattern - Sentinel 003. Pontiac Streator - Triz 004. gayphextwin & Pépe - gayphextwin / Pépe EP 005. Various Artists - SLINK Volume 1 006. Echium - Disruptions of Form 007. Henry Greenleaf - Caught 008. Sega Bodega - Reestablishing Connection 009. Summer Walker - Life on Earth 010. Charli XCX - how i'm feeling now 011. Various Artists - Physically Sick 3 012. Autechre - Sign 013. Off The Meds - Off The Meds 014. Brent Faiyaz - Fuck The World 015. Luis Pestana - Rosa Pano 016. Reinartz - Ravecoil 017. pent - - 018. Mark Leckey - In This Lingering Twilight Sparkle 019. Various Artists - Sharpen, Moving 020. Vanessa Worm - Vanessa 77 021. Aho Ssan - Simulacrum 022. Lyra Pramuk - Fountain 023. PJ Harvey - Dry Demos 024. Felicia Atkinson - Echo 025. Arca - KiCK i 026. Space Afrika - hybtwibt 027. Ambien Baby - Mindkiss 028. The Gasman - Voyage 029. Inigo Kennedy - Arcadian Falls 030. Raft of Trash - Likeness on the Edge of Town 031. OL - Wildlife Processing 032. Fyu-Jon - Furrow 033. Desire Marea - Desire 034. Octo Octa - Love Hypnosis Vol. 1 035. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher 036. Jesse Osborne-Lanthier - Left My Brain @ Can Paixano (La Xampanyeria) OST 037. Various Artists - She's More Wild 038. Various Artists - Days Of Future Past [White Material] 039. Foul Play - Origins 040. Late Night Approach - The Naus Investigation 041. Amazondotcom & Siete Catorce - Vague Currency 042. Davis Galvin - Ntih / Icia 043. Patiño - Actually Laughing Out Loud 044. Various Artists - 2nd Anniversary Compilation [All Centre] 045. St-Antoine, Feu - L'eau Par La Soif 046. Xozgk - skllpt 047. Various Artists - The Sun is Setting on the World 048. DJ Python - Mas Amable 049. Peter Van Hoesen - Chapter for the Agnostic 050. Tracing Xircles - Air Lock 051. Ben & Jerry - Formant Fry 052. still house plants - Fast Edit 053. D-Leria - Still Standing 054. Florian T M Zeisig - Coatcheck 055. Hanne Lippard - Work 056. Shedbug & Rudolf C - Honey Mushrooms II 057. Carl Stone - Stolen Car 058. Ruth Anderson - Here 059. Sid Quirk - Ginnel Talk 060. Various Artists - Fluo I [Kindergarten Records] 061. Pump Media Unlimited - Change 062. VC-118A - Crunch / Plonk 063. Beatriz Ferreyra - Echos+ 064. Bearer - Precincts 065. PARSA - PAƬCHƜȜRKZ 1 066. Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus - Hydrangea 067. Cosmin TRG - Remote 068. Obsequies - Carcass 069. Jake Muir - the hum of your veiled voice 070. No Moon - Set Phasers to Stun 071. Olli Aarni - Mustikoita ja kissankelloja 072. E-Unity - Duo Road EP 073. Benedek - Mr. Goods 074. Extinction Room - Extinction Stories 075. Hodge - Shadows In Blue 076. Various Artists - Tiny Planet Vol. 2 077. Floco Floco - On m'a dit 078. Breather - Ceremonies Of Aporia 079. Unknown Mobile - Leafy Edits Vol. 2 080. Wetman & Sword of Thorns - Apt E Vol 2 081. Borderlandstate_ the Best Kisser in L.A. - Hello Mainframe 082. Kiera Mulhern - De ossibus 20 083. Mads Kjeldgaard - Hold Time 084. Тпсб - Whities 031 EP 085. Network Glass - Twitch 086. a2a - A2A¹ EP 087. Wata Igarashi - Traveling 088. Joey G II - Pub Talk 089. Atom™ - <3 090. Valentina Magaletti & Marlene Ribeiro - Due Matte 091. Ewan Jansen - Island Diary 092. HOOVER1 - HOOVER1-4 093. Nazar - Guerrilla 094. Paradise Cinema - Paradise Cinema 095. Daisies - Daisies in the Studio with DJ Rap Class 096. Alloy Sea - Petrichor 097. Flørist - Intermedia 1 EP 098. Nandele - FF 099. Pro.tone - Zero Day Attack 100. Michael J. Blood - Introducing Michael J Blood 101. Various Artists - RV Trax, Vol. 5 102. DJ Plead - Going for It EP 103. Strategy - The Babbling Brook 104. Various Artists - surf000 105. Deft - Burna 106. Various Artists - WorldWideWindow 107. Lucy Liyou - Welfare 108. O-Wells - Ebecs 109. Special Request - Spectral Frequency EP 110. Anunaku - Stargate 111. Scott Young - Ket City 112. Various Artists - Stir Crazy Vol.1 113. Syz - Bunzunkunzun 114. Oozy Zoo - Sabertooth 115. Vanessa Amara - Poses 116. Carl Finlow - Apparatus 117. Al Wootton - Snake Dance EP 118. Oi Les Ox - Crooner qui coule sous les clous 119. aircode - Effortless 120. Tristan Arp - Slip 121. Andrea - Ritorno 122. Russell Ellington Langston Butler - Emotional Bangers Only 123. The Lone Flanger - The Photon's Path 124. SHelley Parker & Peder Mannerfelt - Decouple ]( Series 125. Esplendor Geometrica - Cinética 126. Casey MQ - babycasey 127. Gacha Bakradze - Western Arrogance 128. Fatherhood - Big Boy 129. Blawan - Make A Goose 130. Roza Terenzi, Roza - Modern Bliss 131. AceMo - SYSTEM OVERRIDE 132. Meitei - Kofū 133. Penelope Trappes - Eel Drip 134. Adult Fantasies - Towers of Silence 135. Plush Managements Inc. - Magic Plush 136. Further Reductions - array 137. Ben Bondy & Exael - Aphelion Lash 138. Pugilist - Blue Planet EP 139. Dylan Henner - The Invention of the Human 140. Cindy - I'm Cindy 141. Ulla - Tumbling Towards a Wall 142. EMMA DJ - PZSÅRIASISZSZ TAPE 143. BufoBufo - Potholing 144. Model Home - Live 5-12-20 145. Low Budget Aliens - Junk DNA 146. Paranoid London - PLEDITS#2 147. Emra Grid - A System A Platform A Voiid 148. J. Albert - Pre Formal Audio 149. Dawl - Break It Down 150. Oall Hates - Tranceporter 151. Mystic Letter K - Cosmic Clearance [MLK4, 2020] 152. Coco Bryce - Lost City Archives Vol 2 153. Hagan - Waves 154. Various Artists - ON+ON+ON 155. INVT - EXTREMA 156. C Powers - Redirections Vol. 1 157. Significant Other - Club Aura 158. Client_03 - Thought disposal 159. Ghost Phone - LOCKDOWN BODY EDITS 160. Two Shell - N35 161. Rhyw - Loom High 162. EAMS - Demode 163. Various Artists - Woozy001 164. Society Of Silence – Réalisme Viscéral 165. HVL - Alignment 166. Alan Johnson - Material World 167. Matthew D Gantt - Diagnostics 168. DJ Detox - RM12009 169. Critical Amnesia - Critical Amnesia 170. Neinzer - Whities 025 EP 171. Despina & Ma Sha Ru - Polychronia 172. Divide - Computer Music 173. URA - Blue [NAFF008, 2020] 174. Forest Drive West - Terminus EP 175. Glacci - Alzarin _ Lavvender Rush 176. Fergus Sweetland - Fergus Sweetland 177. Various Artists - C12 - Social Distancing 1.1 178. A-Sim - The Puppet Master 179. Chlär - Power to the Soul 180. Will Hofbauer - Where Did All The Hay Go 181. Protect-U - In Harmony Of An Interior World 182. Instinct & 0113 - Instinct 11 183. Ribbon Stage - My Favorite Shrine 184. Zenker Brothers - Mad System 185. 2Lanes - Baby's Born To Fish... - Impish Desires 186. Nebulo - Parallaxes 187. Martyn Bootyspoon - Lickety Split 188. Erik Griswold - All's Grist That Comes To The Mill 189. Alex Falk - Movefast 190. DJ SWISHA & Kanyon - Club Simulator EP 191. Happa - Ls14 Battler _ 36Th Chamberlain (Remixes) 192. Svreca - FRUE 193. Anz - Loos In Twos (NRG) 194. James King - rinsed - installed 195. Catartsis & Ōtone - Mechanical Gesture 196. Daniel J. Gregory - Life Is A Bin 197. Desert Sound Colony - Pulled Through The Wormhole EP 198. Floral Resources - TS00000? 199. Alex R - Last Attempt 200. Notzing - The Abuse Of Hypnosis In Dance Environments 201. Brain Rays & Quiet - Butter [SR081A, 2020] 202. Benjamin Damage - Deep Space Transit 203. BROSHUDA - Contemplative Figuration 204. Various Artists - Radiant Love IWD Comp 205. Paradise 3001 - Low Sun Archives 206. 011668 & S280F - Os 207. Kubota, Kazuma - Mind 208. HATENA - HANDZ 209. Leonce - Seconds & Fifths EP 210. Furtive - Sympathies IV 211. French II - Time / Tracker 212. qwizzz - slag ep 213. Gag Reflex - The Fae 214. Luca Lozano & Mr. Ho - Homeboys 215. CONCEPTUAL - Introspective Research 216. Xyla - Ways 217. Minor Science - Second Language 218. Fana - Karantina 219. Current Obsession - XXX 220. K. Frimpong & Super Complex Sounds - Ahyewa 221. Ali Berger - The Stew 222. Sleep D - Smoke Haze 223. Nick León - MAZE 224. DJ Delish - Khadijah Vol. 6 225. Sputnik One - Kerosene 226. OOBE - SFTCR 2 227. Burrell Connection - Breaks That Strung the Camel Back 228. Wayne Phoenix - Soaring Wayne Phoenix Story The Earth 229. D.Dan - Mutant Future 230. Distance Dancer - Distance Dancer 231. Nikki Nair - Number One Slugger 232. Vinicius Honorio - Metamorphosis 233. Tracey - Microdancer EP 234. Ntu - Perfect Blue 235. Bliss Inc. - Hacking The Planet 236. JLTZ - Tools From Another Mother 237. Omnipony - GHOST1 238. WTCHCRFT - ACID EP vol. 2 239. Mike - Weight Of The World 240. Hypnaton - Hypnaton 241. Granary 12 - High 1987 242. Elisa Bee - Orbit EP 243. Stones Taro - Pump EP 244. Alexis - Refractions 245. Ntel - The Dilution Effect 246. X.WILSON - YUK

[prowlingthunder]

WIP Meme 10/20/2020

Tagged by: @mandakatt

Look at what you've done. How dare you. I'm not even sure this is all of them. I think some are hidden in gdocs yet. Argh.

Tagging: @egodominustuus @thelostknee @linwyrms-lair @gracethescribbler @skywalking-across-the-galaxy @khantoelessar @zpansven

Read the list under the cut.

1: A Child of Blood

2: Eileen - Birds of a Feather

3: BtVS - Lupercalia - Xander - Wolfthreat - WIP

4: BtVS - PT Alexander Harris Auroresbrother - Denguards - LUPERCALIA - WIP

5: Buffy the Witcher

6: SynthSil - Ascendent Ab Inferis (Lux Aeterna AU)

7: Boys in Blue

8: Butterfingers the Deathclaw

9: Piper - (Lupercalia)

10: Sil/Jack

11: CM - Lupercalia WIP - Red

12: CM - Lupercalia WIP -

13: AC/FFXV - Des and Noct swap places - ffxv Halloween bang

14: Trigun x Outlaw Star

15: Gargoyles x Ronin Warriors

16: Power Rangers x Ronin Warriors

17: Ronin Warriors x Outlaw Star

18: Rurouni Kenshin x Yu Yu Hakusho

19: Dragons Breath -- DAO&RW

20: Farcry 5 / What Became of Edith Finch - Eddie

21: Farcry 5 / What Became of Edith Finch - Jake

22: Gundam Wing - With Daemons WIP

23: GW Pacific Rim

24: GW&IA&FFX - Auron - Roulette - Unlikely

25: Hobbit/RW - Bilbo -

26: House Ronin Warriors

27: RK-Xmen = Dragon Teeth

28: RW-PJ

29: RWSG1

30: SG1/JOS - Third - In a God's Bedroom

31: ST/RW

32: SW/GW - Brothers and Sisters [clonefic]

33: Thor-x-Ronin Warriors

34: Noctis (Final Fantasy XV) / Levi (Attack on Titan) - Hunting [Noctis in AoT]

35: Hiei (Yu Yu Hakusho) / Prowls (Exalted) - Stars [Prowls adopts Fire Demon baby]

36: Noctis (Final Fantasy XV) / Ezio (Assassin’s Creed) - Family [Assassins in FFXV]

37: Kuwabara (Yu Yu Hakusho) / Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars) - Honor [Kuwabara unfucks SW]

38: Kuwabara (Yu Yu Hakusho) / Dex-Star - Love [Kuwabara adopts a Red Lantern Cat]

39: Voltron/Escaflowne

40: When the Night Comes/Arcana crossover

41: YYH/Naruto - Kurama - Foxkids

42: CSI NY - Lupercalia WIP -

43: Dark Matter - Hiro - [Lupercalia] - WIP

44: Every Warden Ever - WIP -

45: Nelaros and F!Tabris as wardens

46: Salazar - Crowbar Fic

47: Carslile/Sil - Highschool

48: Joan rambles

49: Junior - (Best laid plans)

50: Junior - Outsider

51: Junior - The G.O.A.T.

52: Junior rambles

53: MacCready - Big Town Blues

54: MacCready - Radstorm

55: Nora - Line-dried Laundry (Lupercalia)

56: Pandora -

57: Pandora - Lupercalia Fic - [Inside Pandora's Box]

58: Pandora rambles

59: Russian Roulette - Silas deathfic

60: Sil/X6 rambles

61: Silas - Demon Summoner AU - A Leaf in the Wind

62: Silas King - Snow Angels (Papawolf!Renigald)

63: Silas King - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Operation: Rescue Quinn kidfic)

64: Silas rambles

65: Winter Animals (papa!Artem)

66: Y7 - All the Things I Didn't Say

67: Ambulo

68: Contritum Coronam

69: to abstain from doing harm

70: A General Gift

71: ABO nicias&caleb/nicola

72: An Army - Prompto & Ignis - Blood and Water

73: Andali misc

74: Ardyn - (Triplets verse)

75: Cathedral of You fanfiction

76: Cor -

77: Cor - Dawnfire - WIP

78: Dave - [Scourgeverse]

79: FFXV Glaive Lupercalia

80: FFXV Prompto Lupercalia

81: Galahdian Noctis au

82: give a brother wings

83: Halloween '19 d2

84: Halloween '19 d3

85: Halloween '19 d4

86: Halloween '19 d5

87: Halloween '19 d7

88: Noct raises Ardyn

89: Nyx -

90: Prompto - Terrible Things

91: Sealions - Cor - The Dance

92: snowchild (Lupercalia wolfProm fic)

93: The Feral Coeurl of Galahd (Galahdian!Cor fic)

94: Transplant Fic Box

95: Vipers Victim

96: what fire burns

97: IA - Kasmir!Oliver Briggs - WIP

98: IA - Nebrija x Arzu - Family - WIP

99: David and kids

100: David and Bridget, Combat Skills

101: David vs Simon Fight

102: Bridget tending David

103: Music *http://youtu.be/G2ZKKXCuaYc?t=9m46s

104: Seduction

105: Wish

106: Destiny

107: xerxes

108: Giayl - Wolflords (Lupercalia)

109: LotRO - Aegliraan - Caran Dagra - WIP

110: Lupercalia - Shepard - Star-light, Star-bright

111: ME - OC - Blood And Water

112: Black Cats and Broken Mirrors Chapter 5

113: Itachi - Step Two

114: The Hardest Part - Chapter One - Alone

115: 100+ Words list

116: Bioshock - Big Daddy - ABO verse

117: Character Roulette 2

118: Life of Redemption

119: A lover's homecoming

120: The Dreaming Cord

121: Logan - (This is what it's like) - WIP

122: Outlander - Kainan - (wolf fur and dragon teeth)

123: SPCH - drabble

124: Thor - All The Little Children [Lupercalia]

125: Thor - Lupercalia WIP - Frigga -

126: WoW - Livieva - Puppy At Heart

127: Haruko - Genji lives path

128: McHanzo Timetravel Shenanigans

129: Overwatch - Yuuma - Nest of Vipers - Big Bang

130: Stan/Haruko

131: Stanfic

132: Taijo Aitai tinyfic

133: Yuuma Op

134: Mia - Lupercalia fic - The Chosen Ones ch2

135: RW - Lupercalia - Arago & Hariel - Blood and Ashes - WIP

136: Ryou - Coal Dust - GIFT - WIP

137: Seiji - Kagome, Kagome

138: Seiji & Cale - Quadrature Pt2 - GIFT - WIP

139: Yulie WIP

140: Dinner

141: Bamboo

142: Travel

143: Sting

144: City

145: Noise

146: Titan

147: Oddyseus

148: Hera

149: Archangel

150: Centaur

151: Gorgon

152: Rainforest

153: Music

154: Groot

155: Plagues

156: Courage

157: Rage

158: Belief

159: Joy

160: Horoscope

161: Family

162: Obligation

163: Friend

164: Loneliness

165: Anakin - - timetravel fic tcw/ep7

166: Anakin / Rey - A Pocket Full of Sand (Reincarnation Fic)

167: Eurynome - Monsters in the Dark

168: Eurynome - Supernova?

169: Jeeri -

170: Shmi Skywalker - Son of Sands [Aniwolf]

171: Snowdrops

172: Star Wars AU Fics

173: StarWars - WIP

174: Trials and Shenanigans (Bits and Pieces)

175: We Shouldn't Be Friends

176: SG1 - Sam - - WIP

177: SG1 - Sam&Jack - - WIP

178: SAO - Yui - SAOFest - Marching Band

179: SAO - Yui - SAOFest - What Big Sisters Are For

180: SAO w Jaegers - Silica - WIP

181: Series: Bad Plan

182: Arrow&RW - Oliver - - WIP

183: Cye - Homecoming (Multiverse)

184: Papa!Cye

185: little shadows far reaching

186: Untitled document

187: Voltron - Keith -

188: Geralt - Witchwolves [Lupercalia]

189: Hell Hath No Fury

190: Chapter 3

191: Adventures of Maiwen Tanet

192: Art of Living

193: Asclepius

194: Bloodlines

195: Bondsiblings

196: Cats Cradle

197: Smoke Song

198: Darkness Watching

199: Desert Sands

200: Dragon's Cross

201: Dragonkin

202: Fractured

203: Hydra

204: Lyric Book

205: Poetry Book

206: Red Moon Kisses

207: Rupert's Drop

208: Feyborn

209: Superheros

210: Wonderland

211: A Mother's Love

212: Harry Potter and the Light of the Moon

213: Minor Troubles

214: Roses In Stained Glass

215: Even God Can't Save You Now

216: Mirrors Edge -

217: Our Secrets

218: Mica Sands

219: SG1/RW

220: They Call Them Ghosts

221: We All Bleed

222: In A House Of Brittle Bones

223: With A Crash of Thunder

224: Digital Shards [YGO/Digimon]

225: God Save The Queen

226: Fractured Light

227: AtlA/RW

228: NatM/YGO

229: SG1/StS

230: Van Helsing/Helsing

231: GW/Avatar

232: GW/JOH

233: Saving You

234: Firefly/Outlaw Star

235: GW/RW Reincarnation Is A Bitch

236: Escaflowne/RW

237: Mending Of Hearts Hope/Noel

238: The engines of iron Cindy/MTProm

239: Weaver's Undoing

240: A Nomad's surprise

241: A Soldier For Sale

242: Heir of Spring

243: The Ghosts of Haven

244: Master's Vengence gladio/prom d/s bdsm

245: The Unfortunate Ice Cream

246: The Perfect Hustle

247: The Adventure of Odie, the One Eyed Sock Puppet

248: Angels in the Attic

249: Mending the Sun

250: Numb to the Stars

251: Traitor of Heaven - ffx/ffvii

252: Isle of Iron

253: Irreverence

254: the empty tower

255: Bravery In Eternity

256: Changeling's Duel

257: Gilded Dispair

258: Wolfwan return of shark

259: Clonewolf O66

260: Time of the Wolf Lupercalia AU

261: Time of the Wolf Lupercalia snippets

262: Going Down (Cpt. America lupercalia)

263: wake up cpt+girls

264: Lokison

265: Uncle of Mine

266: The Things Wolfsisters Do

267: Howling

268: Shield Sisters

269: starhunter lupercalia

[shrimpkardashian]

I have a list of ~900 albums from 2019 that I still want to eventually listen to / review [IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT ALERT]

For this project (already 125+ releases deep), which is just impossibly daunting and makes me head hurt. IDK how to streamline this process or is any “critic” out there really listening to “all” the good music? It’s impossible I guess... BUT needless to say, these have made this list from an even larger pool of music that I either listened to briefly and immediately dismissed or (gasp!) never even came across my radar (radar = many many music blogs I follow via RSS). 

Anyway, because I’ll most likely never get to this (whatever this is, an Xgau parody or something)... Here is the list (please ignore some of my notations/typos):

1 matana roberts, coin coin chapter four 2 jeffrey lewis 3 negativland 4 camedor 5 the darkness 6 jai paul [leak] 7 shikoswe 8 anatolian weapons 9 cakedog, doggystyle 10 carly rae jepsen (LP, plus single w Gryffin) 11 parsnip 12 the comet is coming 13 girl in red 14 ezra furman 15 the kvb 16 freddie gibbs & madlib 17 say sue me (single) 18 denzel curry 19 fatamorgana 20 vivian girls 21 wobbly, monitress 22 helado negro 23 anamanaguchi 24 paul demarinis 25 comet gain 26 personal best 27 king princess, LP? big little lies single 28 marble arch 29 mini dresses 30 matt christensen 31 jade bird 32 black mountain 33 body meat 34 pat, Love Will Find A Way Home 35 acid arab 36 the 83rd 37 common holly 38 wicca phase 39 mark ronson 40 spirit in the room, single 41 rebe, “pienso en ti a todas horas” [just a single?] 42 a giant dog, neon bible cover LP 43 hey collosus 44 moon king (meh/ or *) 45 vanity productions 46 velvet negroni 47 g perico 48 budokan boys 49 skryptor 50 oscar scheller 51 the muffs 52 larry gus 53 these new puritans *** 54 angel olsen 55 bleu nuit 56 meatraffle 57 josephine wiggs 58 jennifer vanilla 59 big|brave 60 rico nasty 61 friendship, dreamin' 62 mike, tears of joy 63 bellrope 64 gbv 65 machìna, archipelago 66 toy, songs of consumption 67 ayankoko 68 the intelligence 69 drahla 70 corridor, junior 71 urochromes 72 david hasselhoff 73 aMAZONDOTCOM 74 kehlani 75 ne-hi EP (final) 76 avey tare 77 bonnie "prince" billy 78 battles 79 snapped ankles 80 mannequin pussy 81 toro y moi, soul trash 82 twen 83 self discovery for social survival comp 84 bad heaven ltd 85 eric frye 86 the mattson 2 87 duncan park 88 pure bathing culture 89 arthur russell, iowa dream 90 wild pink 91 flaming lips 92 pan amsterdam 93 flaural 94 knife wife 95 hannah peel & will burns 96 klein 97 meat puppets 98 tnght 99 james ferraro 100 royal trux / ariel pink 101 new rain duets 102 black marble 103 sui zhen 104 liam the younger 105 the mountain goats, welcome to passaic 106 frank hurricane and hurricanes of love 107 sebadoh 108 xylouris white 109 lindstrøm 110 franck vigroux 111 joyero 112 dorian electra  113 ride 114 crumb, jinx 115 nonconnah 116 cup, spinning creature 117 brutus 118 bjarki 119 khotin 120 alexander tucker 121 gunna 122 operator music band 123 tony molina 124 nanami ozone 125 sad planets 126 bemydelay 127 laurie anderson et al, songs from the bardo 128 teebs 129 deerhunter, timebends 130 tr/st (2 LPs) 131 dolores catherino 132 liturgy 133 floating points 134 sasami, LP + xmas EP 135 trikorder23 136 moor mother 137 have a nice life 138 la dispute 139 lingua ignota 140 lina tullgren 141 earl sweatshirt 142 entrail 143 alexander noice 144 shock narcotic 145 rakta 146 munya 147 el drugstore 148 buck gooter 149 caribou, single - more? 150 rosenau & sanborn 151 kevin abstract 152 pile 153 e for echo 154 animal collective, new psycho actives vol. 2 + live album 155 harlem 156 sudan archives 157 lil peep, posthumous ep 158 young guv, i and ii 159 orville peck 160 75 dollar bill 161 institute 162 tove lo 163 the chocolate watchband 164 foie gras, holy hell 165 french vanilla 166 chuck cleaver 167 kollaps 168 spirits having fun 169 game 170 badgirl$ 171 medhane 172 alberich 173 show me the body 174 the night watch, an embarrassment of riches 175 inus, western spaghettification 176 pregoblin, singles? 177 ra ra riot 178 de lorians 179 kool keith 180 kaspia & stride 181 glen hansard 182 dpeee 183 berlin taxi 184 foghorn 185 ionnalee 186 american sharks 187 sitcom, dust single 188 pip blom 189 j balvin & bady 190 fenella 191 tanya tagaq 192 sean o'hagan 193 j robbins 194 peter ivers (comp) 195 neon indian, not sure if single is part of larger proj? 196 triad god 197 yeule 198 roland tings 199 schoolboy q 200 ava luna EP 201 fried eggs 202 drugdealer 203 half japanese 204 todd anderson-kunert 205 emily reo 206 christelle bofale 207 brion starr 208 jan jelinek (reissue) 209 peaer 210 devin townsend 211 vik 212 young m.a 213 default genders 214 night lovell 215 rocketship 216 kim gordon 217 ellen arkbro 218 george clanton and nick hexum [single?] 219 the minus 5 220 penguin cage 221 felicia atkinson 222 take offense 223 moon duo 224 chemical brothers 225 nef the pharaoh 226 daniel norgren 227 unkle 228 pup (?) 229 baroness 230 velvet bethany 231 resavoir 232 gruff rhys 233 lana del ray 234 empath 235 burial and the bug, flame 2 236 russian baths 237 quelle chris 238 corpse flower 239 roy montgomery [reissue] 240 clinic 241 a.g. cook, [single] 242 why? 243 beck 244 francis lung 245 thom yorke 246 warmduscher 247 uv-tv 248 aa bondy 249 max richter, ad astra ost 250 younghusband 251 stereo total 252 julie's haircut 253 aa matheson 254 eartheater 255 kelly moran 256 mana (seven steps behind) 257 c.h.e.w. 258 sarah mary chadwick 259 midsommar ost 260 beabadoobee 261 life, a picture of good health 262 dumb, club nites 263 dame dolla 264 endless boogie 265 burna boy 266 lungbutter 267 wand 268 future punx 269 yves jarvis 270 kim petras [LP, halloween EP] 271 bts world 272 pikelet 273 panda bear, single 274 samiyam 275 red river dialect 276 ryan pollie 277 ryuichi sakamot (reissue) 278 jackie mendoza 279 dark blue 280 jay som 281 stephen mallinder 282 neutrals, kebab disco 283 foodman 284 capitol, dream noise 285 new pornographers 286 mark korven, the lighthouse ost 287 gauche 288 the japanese house 289 cave (re-issue) 290 ybn cordae 291 the vacant lots 292 arwen 293 rhucle 294 lil b, @ least 2 releases? 295 tea service 296 chai 297 black pumas 298 program, show me 299 marika hackman 300 sonny and the sunsets 301 lillie mae 302 mean jeans 303 the stroppies 304 poppies 305 twin shadow 306 vanishing twin *** 307 portrayal of guilt [EP + split single] 308 lucki [2 lps] 309 absolutely free 310 girl band 311 black midi 312 torche 313 perfume (best of) 314 white denim 315 clipping 316 the hu 317 big business 318 metro crowd 319 ex-vöid, 7" 320 broken social scene 321 lil pump 322 uranium club 323 doon kanda 324 hesitation wounds 325 sorry girls 326 bibio 327 red mass 328 the shins, single 329 lil keed 330 yeasayer 331 bts / blackpink KPOP 332 galen tipton, fake meat 333 the world, reddish 334 lanark artefax, ep 335 ladytron 336 g.s., schray 337 just mustard [single, more?] 338 mdou moctar 339 rangers, spirited discussion 340 tyson meade 341 dj nate 342 kelly lee owens 343 bambara 344 kilo kish 345 lusine 346 ralph heidel / homo ludens 347 psychic graveyard 348 homeshake 349 wives, so removed 350 proto idiot 351 let’s eat grandma, ost ep 352 foals 353 caroline shaw & attacca quartet 354 juan waters 355 mount eerie with julie doiron 356 mestozi 357 patio 358 oh baby, the art of sleeping alone 359 earth 360 haybaby 361 anna meredith 362 the caretaker (6) 363 rich brian 364 sunn o))), [two LPs] 365 alessandro cortini 366 ty segall 367 injury reserve 368 elucid 369 budos band 370 tim hecker 371 waqwaq kingdom 372 william doyle *** 373 innercity ensemble 374 filthy friends 375 prurient 376 shlohmo 377 bon iver 378 sean henry 379 yeesh 380 faye webster 381 megan thee stallion 382 squid, town centre 383 simulation (hausau mountain) 384 flying lotus 385 horse jumper of love 386 rap, export 387 lansky jones 388 the gonks 389 cate lebon 390 rome fortune 391 chain cult 392 empty set 393 big thief (2 lp's) 394 laura cannell [and polly wright album ?] or is there just a laura c album too ? }} 395 froth 396 thugwidow 397 organ tapes 398 the new pornographers 399 zonal 400 bbg baby joe 401 whitney 402 guards 403 anemone 404 sheer mag 405 nots 406 fujiya & miyag 407 kool aid, family portrait ep 408 frankie cosmos 409 kaputt 410 quelle chris 411 operators 412 marco benevento 413 elvis depressedly 414 school of language, 45 415 rob burger 416 pozi 417 redd kross 418 randy randall 419 yatta 420 hide, hell is here 421 bobby krlic, midsommar ost 422 planet england 423 kev brown 424 robedoor 425 tropical fuck storm 426 haram, 9/11 ep 427 candy, super-stare single 428 sly and the family drone 429 kevin morby 430 porches, rangerover [single] 431 odae 432 pottery 433 saint pepsi 434 slowthai 435 iggy pop 436 swans 437 iLOVEMAKONNEN 438 mukqs 439 feels 440 luke temple 441 oli xl 442 orphan swords 443 post pink 444 deli girls 445 nilüfer yanya 446 idk, is he real? 447 interpol 448 priests 449 galcher lustwerk 450 smokepurpp, various? 451 kindness 452 ex hex 453 sampa the great 454 methyl ethel 455 ellis, the fuzz ep 456 jeanines s/t 457 water from your eyes 458 twin peaks 459 sam cohen 460 fontaines dc 461 spiral stairs 462 the hecks 463 nicola ratti 464 four tet, various (inc. "wingdings" alter ego side proj) 465 holy ghost 466 half stack 467 cherubs 468 juana molina, forfun EP 469 jpegmafia 470 bedouine 471 fury 472 melvins/flipper 473 the curls 474 izambard 475 heart eyes 476 drinking boys and girls choir 477 big search 478 glenn branca 479 rose elinor dougall 480 bat for lashes 481 young knives, [single, more? 482 hot chip 483 alex lahey 484 hemlock ernst & kenny segal 485 dj seinfeld 486 joni void 487 rema rema 488 spencer tweedy 489 trash kit 490 dry cleaning [2 ep's] 491 mega bog *** 492 saudade 493 monster rally 494 wilco 495 chromatics, LP + EP 496 slayyyter 497 maral 498 blarf 499 pernice brothers 500 la neve 501 marie davidson 502 tredici bacci 503 deathprod 504 lowly 505 russian circles 506 angel witch 507 fires were shot 508 amy o 509 q da fool 510 clams casino 511 automelodi 512 paradox 513 dababy (2) 514 david kilgour 515 missy elliot 516 baby smoove 517 boris 518 thanks for coming 519 yves tumor [single w/] 520 ΜΜΜΔ 521 falcon/falkland 522 noel wells 523 ecstatic vision 524 amyl & the sniffers 525 barrie 526 bianca scout 527 katie dey 528 prince rama 529 control top 530 duster, comp + new LP 531 foxes in fiction 532 slowthai x denzel curry [single] 533 the murlocs 534 plaid 535 ela orleans 536 gobby 537 cfm 538 carla del forna 539 pale spring 540 pixx 541 širom 542 lightning bolt 543 cate lebon & deerhunter 544 channel tres 545 sigrid 546 help, s/t 547 shellac, live 548 crack cloud, pain olympics (ongoing) / s/t (2018) 549 notes underground 550 fat white family *** 551 gloop 552 equiknoxx 553 nakhane 554 czarface meets ghostface 555 the rubinoos 556 shannon lay 557 tim heidecker 558 droneflower 559 john vanderslice 560 your old droog 561 bats, alter nature 562 zvi 563 justus proffit 564 lower dens 565 anna of the north 566 yg 567 holly herndon 568 good fuck 569 clark, single 570 charli xcx 571 the nativist 572 low life 573 jonsi & alex somers 574 kazu 575 günter schickert 576 odonis odonis 577 kelsey lu (+ remix EP) 578 young thug 579 thaiboy digital 580 hatchie 581 hiro kone 582 cocorosie 583 sabiwa 584 oh sees 585 rex orange county 586 311 587 erland cooper 588 jtamul 589 the brilliant tabernacle 590 free love, extreme dance anthems 591 jeff lynne's elo 592 dutch courage 593 booji boys 594 giggs 595 ceschi 596 inter arma 597 psychic sounds ensemble 598 eli kezsler EP 599 thelma 600 haiku salut 601 julia jacklin 602 otoboke beaver 603 colin self 604 mark mulcahy 605 rosalia, single "a pale" more? 606 chris lott 607 royal trux 608 weyes blood 609 mikal cronin 610 hissing tiles 611 grace ives 612 vic bang 613 nick cave 614 sugar world [single] 615 herzog 616 offset 617 mike adams at his honest weight 618 real life buildings 619 aldous harding 620 pye corner audio 621 doja cat 622 bleached 623 book of shame 624 kate davis 625 i was a king 626 pendant, through a coil 627 joseph arthur 628 great grandpa, four of arrows 629 modern nature 630 stef chura 631 spaza, s/t great 632 the alchemist 633 pond 634 aiden baker, etc 635 kirin j. Callinan 636 possible humans 637 greys 638 kizuna ai 639 little simz 640 big bend 641 membranes, what nature gives… 642 young nudy 643 car seat headrest (live) 644 seahawks 645 dumbhop's party 646 julien chang 647 pacific yew 648 pharmakon 649 lomelda 650 versing 651 olden yolk 652 mekons 653 the dream syndicate 654 the gotobeds 655 amy klein 656 bABii 657 bill callahan 658 grlwood 659 van dale 660 ziúr 661 delicate steve 662 debby friday 663 dehd 664 south city hardware 665 kesha 666 (sandy) alex g 667 computer slime 668 fka twigs 669 rob halford, celestial 670 dean hurley 671 school of language 672 nicolas godin 673 blue hawaii 674 leggy 675 ceremony 676 his name is alive 677 third eye blind 678 sadgirl 679 ariana grande 680 skepta 681 dylan moon 682 jay mitta 683 the drums 684 kero kero bonito, ep 685 charly bliss 686 lee renaldo etc 687 rina mushonga 688 ulla straus 689 cherushii & maria minerva 690 slaughter beach, dog 691 maps 692 dj shadow 693 tool LOL 694 diiv 695 pixies 696 cuco 697 black peaches 698 subhumans 699 gurr 700 cashmere cat 701 brockhampton 702 fire-toolz 703 lambchop, LP + EP 704 messthetics 705 neuland 706 westkust 707 haelos 708 sturgill simpson 709 maria usbeck 710 king gizzard (2) 711 earthgang 712 paranoid london 713 fet.nat 714 bethlehem steel 715 neil young with crazy horse 716 tengger 717 guerilla toss 718 spelling 719 lizzo 720 wiki 721 dr00p, mkULTRAHD 722 ghost orchard 723 jane weaver 724 usa/mexico 725 carl stone 726 richard dawson *** 727 rafael toral 728 test dept 729 sacred paws 730 big krit 731 mallrat 732 jenn champion 733 moE/Mette Rasmussen, tolerancia picante 734 facs 735 yung lean, single (blue cup) and ep, more? 736 pissgrave 737 moodyman 738 sing sinck, sing 739 tyler the creator 740 sleater-kinney 741 dean blunt, zushi 742 cursive 743 barker, utlity 744 gemma 745 octavian 746 pronoun 747 girl ray 748 julia shapiro 749 nodding god 750 daniel saylor 751 jakob ogawa 752 richard youngs 753 diät 754 w00dy 755 omar souleyman 756 vōx EP 757 topdown dialectic 758 penelope islea 759 gbv 760 glass beach 761 james hoff, hobo ufo 762 euglossine 763 dream ritual 764 terry allen 765 office culture 766 ghostie, devour 767 beat detectives 768 red channel 769 octo octa 770 julien baker [toyko single] 771 shackleton as "tunes of negation" 772 sons of raphael 773 lena raine 774 fitted, first fits 775 velf 776 cvn 777 black country, new road, [2 singles only?] 778 chief keef 779 andrew bird, LP and EP 780 tamaryn 781 vagabon 782 zelooperz 783 brian jonestown massacre 784 angel dust 785 pere ubu 786 vatican shadow, church... 787 spencer radcliffe 788 mr muthafuckin exquire 789 earth to mickey 790 beak> 791 byron westbrook 792 major murphy 793 nicole yun 794 the divine comedy 795 sote, parallel persiao 796 the radio dept. 797 prince daddy & the hyena 798 mudhoney 799 truth club 800 shura 801 underworld, drift 802 lil texas 803 that dog 804 gary wilson / r. stevie moore 805 divino nino 806 spiral heads 807 claire cronin 808 devendra banhart 809 c.y.m. EP 810 dude york 811 sangri 812 vegyn [2 lp's?] 813 brooke candy 814 caroline polachek 815 hurt valley 816 O.L.I.V.I.A, modo avion 817 ziúr 818 pepper mill rondo, it's christmas time 819 ben vida 820 nick hexum/george clanton 821 meara o'reilly 822 tyler holmes, devil 823 blood incantation 824 guenter schlienz 825 gavilán rayna russom 826 loraine james *** 827 lithics, Wendy Kraemer EP 828 navel, ambient 2, in space 829 the proper ornaments 830 jon hopkins & kelly lee owens, single 831 julianna barwick 832 park hye-jin 833 bea1991 834 men i trust 835 erika de casier 836 ducks unlimited 837 lyzza 838 refused 839 jim o'rourke, to magnetize ... 840 analemma, 2 singles on a comp? 841 zack fox, "the bean kicked in" 842 real life rock n roll band 843 prefab sprout 844 daniel lopatin, uncut gems ost 845 kaytranada 846 the voidz, 2 song single + video? 847 grandaddy, single (add scissors icon) 848 dark thoughts, must be nice 849 loose nukes 850 sam mallet 851 very good, adulthood 852 henge, nothing head 853 kaleidobolt 854 nebula, holy shit 855 terminal cheesecake 856 uzeda 857 wet tuna 858 sean mccann 859 black dresses, love and... (2nd LP) 860 nefew 861 taylor swift ??? 862 lala lala, the lamb 863 jenny lewis 864 33EMYBW 865 blood orange, angel's pulse 866 caterina barbieri *** 867 yusu 868 white reaper 869 rozi plain 870 bamboo, daughters of the sky 871 seragina steer 872 clear channel, hot fruit 873 patience, dizzy spells 874 mope grooves, desire 875 current affairs, object & subject 875 comfort, not passing 876 bill orcutt 877 bonnie baxter 878 carl stone 879 thurston moore 880 alameda 5 881 john zorn 882 the membranes, what nature gives... 883 meemo comma 884 ana roxannne 885 whistling arrow, s/t 886 dis fantasy 887 giant swan, s/t 888 buck young, buck ii 889 abdu ali 890 ifriqiyya électrique 891 $hit and $hine, doing drugs, selling drugs 892 ghold 893 theon cross 894 yao bobby & simon grab 895 solange *sure whatever ok 896 the comet is coming 897 the utopia strong, s/t 898 karenn, grapefruit regret 899 brìghde chaimbeul 900 nav, bad habits 901 chance, big day 902 nostalgia critic's the wall 903 uboa, the origin of my depression 904 hobo johnson 905 ana frango elétrico 906 dorian electra

[ayearofpike]

The Grave

Pocket Books, 1999 194 pages, 16 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-55077-2 LOC: CPB Box no. 1856 vol. 22 OCLC: 42262026 Released September 1, 1999 (per B&N)

Keri Weir has a rough life: her boyfriend bores her, her sister is dead of cancer, her dad has abandoned her to start a new family, her mom is addicted to cocaine and is slowly selling everything they own to get a new fix. That doesn’t mean, though, that she wants it to end. But when she meets a mysterious man at her workplace, and feels inexplicably drawn to him, that’s what happens. But the end itself is a new beginning, one that threatens to never end.

And so we come to the end of Christopher Pike’s output under the imprint of Archway Paperbacks, a solid 11-year run whose end was inevitable thanks to the increasing stature and importance of teen and YA literature. If you weren’t there, it’s really hard to understand what the climate was like, how books for young people were seen as less — less important, less prestigious, less work to read and write. Likewise, it’s kind of hard to overstate the importance of Harry Potter, what it did for not just the readers it aimed at but the whole genre of juvenile literature. Prisoner of Azkaban came out one week after this book in the US, which I remember as being the flash point for interest in the boy wizard over here. After that, nobody was going to underestimate the selling power of a kid’s book, and nobody was going to accept an underdeveloped story that stood alone and didn’t (or couldn’t) promise resolution over a series.

It seems like Pike saw the writing on the wall here. He’s talked a little bit about the market changing around him and not being able to catch it. We saw a lot of the crap we were pushed fall off around the same time; a whole bunch of the series I’d mentioned before became too fluffy or lightweight for the new generation of teen book-purchasers. Longer stories became de rigueur, as publishers saw the willingness of kids to push through four hundred pages of the third story out of seven in order to find out how that poor kid with the lightning scar was going to figure himself out and avenge his parents.

It’s not like Pike didn’t have the chops to write a longer book; his four adult novels illustrate how he can dive in more depth into a concept and really flesh it out. (OK, two of them do.) And it’s not like he didn’t have material to expand upon and really explain — if anything, I feel like I’ve been complaining that he doesn’t unpack ENOUGH here at the end. And maybe that’s the real problem. Christopher Pike rose to fame in a climate where it was OK and expected to not give up all your information and secrets, to not explore a thread that didn’t speak to a highly-focused theme, and above all else to keep your page count down. Adapting to the new model of kidlit would take him some time.

This book is no exception. It starts with a strong and promising presence, reaches a conflict point that explains and engages, and then ... just sorta falls off with no real resolution, or at least not a satisfying one, maybe with a mandate to get out of the book before page 200. It opens another door right at the end, one that would have been OK to leave hanging ten years before maybe, but which now is unsatisfying and frustrating to readers who are expecting to know where that door leads. And maybe there are some other problems with construction, but let’s get into the recap before we talk too much about that.

We start not with Keri, but with Ted Lovett, a college freshman who has fallen for a young woman at HIS work site. She is mysteriously charming and bewitching, and when Ted asks to see her again she promises to call. And she does, holy crap. But her calls are scattered and sporadic, and even though Ted isn’t sure whether he wants this kind of a relationship he finds he can’t stay away. The last call leads to a hike into the forest, where suddenly he is beset on all sides by monstrously strong humans and buried alive in what appears to be a Satanic ritual. He feels a prick in the back, pleads with a morose but determined beauty, and then smothers in a shallow grave.

Keri doesn’t know any of this. She doesn’t know Ted, even. All she knows is she’s stuck in a dead-end with no way to turn around or back out of it. That is, until she meets Oscar, a sensitive and quiet man who has some undefinable quality that draws her to him. He’s certainly a lot more interesting than her doofy boyfriend, who comes across as the worst kind of clingy shithead. We understand this through his behavior as much as we do because Keri wants to shake free of him. It helps that the next night after work she sees Oscar again and asks to go to his apartment to see his paintings. Like, leading up to much? Of course they have sex, and of course Keri’s boyfriend is waiting outside her apartment when she gets home, and of course he’s all whiny and shitty about it.

But then they find Keri’s mom inside, barely breathing after an overdose, and they rush her to the hospital. Once in the waiting room, Keri passes out from the exhaustion of not only having to take care of her addict mother but also from doin’ it all night. She has a dream about a beautiful garden full of happy people, and of journeying from it to a cave full of smoke, where a figure shrouded in shadow asks if he should come. This part was super confusing, because it’s literally a page of one-sentence back-and-forth unattributed quotes, and you almost have to mark it with a pencil to keep track of who’s saying what. But ultimately Keri says yes, and then immediately wakes from her dream to learn that her mother is stable and her relationship is over. Well, OK, she and the now-ex talk about it and agree that they need to be done. Which she should have said before, considering how long she’s felt that way, but I get it. (I’ve had my own relationships that dragged on longer than they should have out of obligation, on both our parts.)

So obviously Keri isn’t going to work today, but she does arrange to meet Oscar for a late dinner and maybe some more shpdoinkling. On her way to the car, though, she’s suddenly waylaid by a strong person who chloroforms her and drags her off. She’s aware enough to realize when she gets shot with a syringe in the butt, and fully awake by the time she’s carried from the vehicle she’s in and deposited in a grocery store freezer. She manages to break her bonds, but there’s no fail-safe to escape the freezer — even Pike’s favorite emergency ax has been removed from its hooks. So she feels her body freeze, go numb, and then inexplicably feel warmer as she blacks out for the last time.

And now she’s in her sister’s bedroom, back in the before times, when Sis was alive and Dad was around and Mom was coherent. This part is one of the times when I wish we’d gotten more. We learn that Keri has more or less completely blocked out any memory of her sister’s death, and won’t talk about it to anyone. Her sister tells her that she needs to come to grips with reality, that her death has led to so many of the problems and if Keri will just understand and accept this tragic end it could help her. Only maybe not now, because she’s in a weird place where she’s neither dead nor alive and is going to have to face the coming of the shadowed person. And then Keri wakes up, and we almost never talk about her sister again. Like, what was the purpose of this dream sequence? We just needed someone dead who could explain it to her? Shouldn’t the sister play a bigger part in post-death? I was dissatisfied, much like with the mom, who we’ll get back to.

But yeah, Keri wakes up, and she knows it’s cold but it doesn’t bother her, and she knows it’s dark but she can still see quite well (except suddenly without color), and she knows she’s locked in a freezer but a couple of stiff kicks get her out the door. She also knows she’s hungry, and she eats more food than she would have even been able to look at before she went in the freezer. What’s most disconcerting to her, maybe, is the fact that she doesn’t really FEEL anything about these changes. She accepts that she’s changed, that she should have died and didn’t and is now insatiable and powerful, but she’s not bothered by that — which is the thing that bothers her most.

She leaves the market and, after a run-in with a gang where she totally ruins the leader by kneeing him in the crotch up to his sternum, starts to go to Oscar’s house. Only, wait: Oscar was the only person who could have known she was leaving her place when she did, and he exhibits some of the same things she’s feeling now (colorblind, need to eat, unexpected strength). So maybe don’t seek out the person who made some weird manipulation that cheated your death, but then tried to kill you. Instead she goes home and calls her ex and talks about her concerns about Oscar, staying vague but still ominous and foreboding. She can’t sleep anymore either, so she basically eats all night and into the morning before she goes to see her mom. Mom notices a frightened, frail stance that Keri is taking (trust an addict, I guess), but she also wants to talk about a dream she had where they were all watching Sis pack for some kind of a trip. Keri apologizes for her distance, but then she leaves again right away, after determining that Mom can get home safely after being discharged. And this is the last time we see Mom too. Which I’m kinda OK with, because at least we get a picture of her being on the road to recovery, which allows us to imagine she turns out all right ... but wasn’t it the death of her first daughter that made her spiral to begin with? What’s going to happen now that she never sees her second one again? 

But Keri has suddenly realized why Oscar looks so familiar, never mind that this was not foreshadowed or alluded to ANYWHERE in this novel. He’s a dead kid who disappeared last year, who had his picture in the paper next to a tragic article. A dead kid named Ted Lovett. And like, you saw this coming; we had enough foreshadowing that Ted was dead but back somehow. I’m OK with that. What I’m not sold on is Keri going to talk to Ted’s mom. Like, why? She doesn’t know he’s alive; if she did, wouldn’t that have also made news? But she does it, because I guess Pike just can’t leave the parents of dead kids alone, and then she goes to Oscar’s place because what the fuck else is there to do when you’re colorblind and hungry and strong and out of options?

Oscar’s not alone. There’s a scientist there, who explains that Keri’s condition is a clever manipulation of her DNA to prevent the body from being able to die unless it is completely destroyed. He created the compound to try to save his daughter, who was succumbing to leukemia ... only she went bad. In fact, she swiped the formula and turned a whole bunch of others, including her brother. The secret, it seemed, was to enhance the dying person’s fear, which would then manifest in cold brutality once they awakened from death. It didn’t work on Ted Oscar, for reasons not sufficiently explained, and now he and the scientist are trying to figure out how to stop the monstrosity that is these other monsters. They have help: an inexplicable vision of a shadowed man, who has indicated that they should impregnate a virile young woman and then turn her so that she brings him into the world.

That’s right: Keri is vampire-zombie-monster pregnant. And the baby she carries will determine the fate of the world.

The bad guys want the baby too, of course. All of a sudden they’re at the door, holding Keri’s ex hostage. Seems they followed her from Ted’s mom’s house. No one has to get hurt, the bewitching beauty daughter says, if they willingly go downstairs and get in the van. Obviously Oscar and the scientist aren’t gonna willingly anything, and Keri wants to get her ex out of harm’s way. Too late she dives after BBD, who calmly and effortlessly rips her ex’s arm off. There’s a monster of a shootout, and our good guys manage to escape (not the ex, who bleeds to death in seconds), only to find once they’re out on the ocean in Oscar’s boat that the bad guys have a helicopter and a flamethrower. So they have to bail as the boat goes up, and sure they have super strength and stamina but Keri can’t outswim a power boat, which is what BBD pulls up in, informing her that she has no choice but to be a prisoner.

They caught Oscar too, and drive the both of them to an abandoned military facility in a mountain somewhere. Their cell is a nice one, as far as cells go, but unescapable: the bars are too strong to break, and the back is raw rock that goes deeper into the mountain. They won’t be able to dig their way out before the baby comes, which thanks to Keri’s enhanced biology should take about a week. After that, the bad guys figure, they’ll just undo Mom and Dad and be able to use this baby for their own nefarious ends.

Of course it’s more complicated than that. BBD still has feelings for Oscar ... it seems that something about the undeath process might make us more susceptible to finding a soulmate or falling in love with a person. At least that’s what I feel like we’re supposed to understand, given Keri’s inexplicable and instantaneous affinity for Oscar; this is one more thing Pike doesn’t go into. Just like the brother, who is a total cocknugget but only really shows up at the birth, so he can menace the couple and torment the doctor before killing him. Seriously: we constantly hear about this dude and what an evil monster he is, but he’s only actually in the book for seven pages. Still, he acknowledges that our other prisoner needs to live, too, as the mother will be critical to feeding the baby while he matures.

And he also does this fast. In twenty days he gains twenty years, reads the entire Internet, and gets crops to grow in their underground cell. Shades of Last Vampire 4, a little bit. BBD tries to get him to explain his goals and doings to her, but he flat-out refuses. In fact, the only person he’ll try to explain anything to is his mom. She asks if he will draw a picture of how he might represent himself before he was born, and it’s ... caprine. Horns, a tail, cloven hooves. And now Keri is all, oh shit, I invited the actual DEVIL into my uterus. But the boy advises her: don’t panic.

So now they’ve been in this facility a month, and all of a sudden there’s sounds of scuffle. It seems that the scientist managed to get away clean, and has given up just enough info to the government that they managed to track these monster fighters to this facility and are now cleaning it out with firebombs. Luckily for our heroes, Oscar has dug up to a boulder that he’s pretty sure is the last blockade between their cell and an underground river. They can’t move it, though, before everyone comes pouring into the holding facility: BBD and Cocknugget with guns, Scientist with an obvious bomb, and then the military. But what if we ask the devil? So he moves the rock without any problem, just behind an explosion and expansion of fire, creating a swirl of water and a gush of ashes and a battering of rocks that leaves Keri unconscious.

She comes to in a beautiful garden, like the one in her dream. Oscar and their son are there too, so obviously they’re dead and in heaven, right? No, idiot, they can’t die, remember? And the son has decided he’s going to say in this nowhere and be one with nature, and that his parents have to go on without him. Keri doesn’t want to, but Oscar thinks they have to, and he has a rationale: he’s pretty sure that their son is not Satan, but instead is Pan, the ancient god of the wild. They both have goat legs and horns, after all, and look at how good this kid has been at making plants grow no matter the lack of water or sunlight. This doesn’t go any farther either, and I need more, specifically: how the shit does tampering with human genes equal giving birth to another fuckin’ Percy Jackson character? We never get to find out. Keri and Oscar leave, they run into BBD (who also somehow made it out alive), they tell her to fuck off, and then they keep walking, and the book ends.

So if you’re keeping count, that’s at least five people whose stories have not been satisfactorily explored in this novel, which pulls up well short of half of the page count that Harry Potter would get to lose a rat. If we’re looking for an inability or unwillingness to expand and explore both the narrative and the changing state of YA, this is it right here. Just like Pike’s career, it fizzles out unresolved and without warning. Couldn’t he have spent just a little more time on some backstory or character building, to explain just why these douche-monsters were so horrible but Oscar was good? Was there no chance at all of explaining the connection between technology and nature that would explore just how and why Pan reincarnated in the womb of a half-dead high school senior? What happened to Keri’s family that it fell apart so hard and was predisposed to forget about a dead sister through running from her? Is it any wonder that The Grave was his last book for four years?

[penname-artist]

Emergency - Chapter Five

Chapter Title: Eye on the Sparrow

Rated M

[Planes fanfic]

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Thunderstorms were rolling in, fast. Flashes of white light set the skies ablaze for merely a second, before darkness again claimed the clouds. Thunder boomed and rolled across the cliffs, chasing after the light spectacles in the sky. A scene as beautiful as it was dangerous. And this perfect storm was about to reign an all-out hell across the park.

Blade had only ever gone this fast once before. He shuddered still to think about it. He was hammering down at 193, 194... the needle all the way to the edge of the red, and he still wished he could go quicker. 195, he wasn’t even cleared to be able to go this fast. But that was what happened when you get hybrids - even with only slightly varied heritage, crosses tended to have random picks with genetics, in a wider range than you’d think. Both of Blade’s parents, who were non-pure themselves, had 193mph maximums. But he just passed 196. He hoped he wouldn’t spontaneously combust. As he neared the cliffs, he was hoping and praying that against all odds, they were alright.

-----

Thunderstorms were just a fraction of the problem; The Grand Fusel Lodge, the big hat of the whole park, called in for a search party from their air attack team. Somebody was missing. A minor. It had been a little over four hours since Madison and Clark had seen their daughter, Amy. Last they had seen, she was with a kids trail group near Anchor Lake. It wasn’t uncommon that while parents went to enjoy the more historical trails, park rangers and summer camp leaders would set up special trails for the young’ns to keep them from getting bored. Usually they included scavenger hunts or other interactive games for the group. What worried the team, however, was the trail that they used for the day. Generally the kids' trails went up around the lake and back, with one part going over a bridge. That meant a high risk for high waters, sure to be with the coming rain. They needed to find her, and fast, before the rapids did. Blade was the best they had - well, more the most capable they had, for an aerial search. Not everyone had the ability to hover and pivot mid-flight like rotorcraft did. He also had a hoist, which came in handy for just such occasions. So with Smokejumpers on the grounds all through that region of the trails already, Blade had to become their eye in the sky for the scouting mission. Amy was only ten, a Mustang GT, described as being burgundy with silver accents, with hazel eyes. Unfortunately, a hard color palette to find in a forest filled with brown pine needles and leaves. But the team was determined to do their best. Panic had begun to make itself known across the Agustawestland’s face as he scoured the hillside for any sign of the child. He was forced to double, and sometimes even triple-check every other rock that protruded from the earth that even resembled the shape of a vehicle. It had been about an hour now that they had been looking, and there was no sign of her. Not even a trace. Being so young, tracks that might have been made in the ground would be so light, barely noticeable under a foot of pine needles and brush. And then, an hour and a half into the search, one of the Smokejumpers radioed out to Blade to check the outskirts of the cliffs, to the far side of the lake. It was a long shot, and a risky one to boot, as it meant the chances of finding her perfectly okay were...slim. But the cliffs were close to one curve of the neighboring trail, so if she got lost on the wrong path she’d have ended up going by it. The helicopter took a deep breath, checking the treeline once more, before turning towards the cliffs. They had wandered to the other side of the valley where the trail started, so the cliffs were quite a ways off. But seeing the clouds rumbling in, Blade knew if he was going to search there, he had to get there now. He closed in on the cliffside at a whopping 197, the needle of his speedometer sticking past the red bar into the tiny region of black. He could feel the burn of his engine, being pushed to its limits. Luckily he didn’t have to go on for much longer. As soon as he could view the cliffside in focus, he came to a halt, engine happy to slow itself down, though still rumbling, boiling hot. For as long as he could, he scoured the rocky landscape, every rock and bush putting him on edge as his mind tried playing tricks on him. He waited for every update from the ground searchers on the other side of the park trail, panic rising still as nothing new was reported. His core beat through his system, hearing muffled with it’s every pulse. It was beginning to drizzle. Then it was sprinkling. In less than a minute, the rain began to fall in earnest, the wind whipping it across in waves of lighter and then heavier rain. Water lashed at the helicopter’s side, but he wasn’t going to give in. Even as lightning began to strike down closer and closer to the park, thunder getting louder and more in sync to every strike, the red and white chopper pressed on. He couldn’t let another down again. Then the unthinkable.

-----

The report came in jagged, both from the heavy static and from the helicopter’s wracked tone as he fought against choking sobs and strained cries. But enough was known for the team to turn their attention to the cliffside. There, at the bottom of the valley, their goal. Taken by the impact of the fall.

-----

Blade didn’t stick around to see the rest, once they had confirmed that it was her, and radioed to the Lodge about their find. It was their worst case scenario, but at least they had found her. At least they knew. The base was told, too. Maru sighed, cutting the radio off. He didn’t know what to expect anymore from the rookie when he returned, which he had just found out would be in the coming minutes. As the sound of the steady beat of rotor blades approached the station, he was already waiting outside of the garage. The first ones were always the hardest.

It was CHoPs all over again. He couldn’t stop himself from the horrific images that bombarded his mind the moment he touched down on the base. The moment his shock and denial was cleared, and he saw the reality of the situation unfold before him. He had broken his own promise to himself. He was too late to save her, too. He wasn’t on the base anymore. He was standing in front of Nick, watching the end. Watching him succumb to the flames, to his dying core. There was nothing he could have done, nothing anyone could have. The realisation burned inside of him worse than the burns against his body, boiling through paint and metal and twisting them into horrid things. Demons lurked in every crevice of the scene, buzzing like a swarm around them both. He’s gone. The form in front of him glitched and reformed into a much smaller being - a Mustang GT, laying broken and dead in the ditch of the canyon. She’s gone. The trails of demons swirled all around, enclosing every concept of light or life from around him. Every shrivel of hope. You were too late. He was losing himself to the darkness. Like drowning, and he couldn’t fight the pain and panic any longer. You couldn’t save them.

Then darkness was all that remained.

-----

His first conscious thought was that he had died. All he knew was surrounding darkness and a numbness in his body he couldn’t rid himself of. And then there was a song, somewhere in the distance, it’s singer somehow familiar, yet still entirely unknown to the chopper. But he knew the words. It was an old song, very old. He remembered every word, every note of that song, because he and his peers all recited it in choir each Sunday morning.

“Why should I feel discouraged, Why should the shadows come, Why should my heart feel lonely, And long for heaven and home…”

He hadn’t heard it in so long. It brought him back thirty years, back in Redding, California. His childhood, his family. Hearing it now brought a bittersweet twinge; He once had a great relationship with his family, until he came out about him and Nick. He and his father had never spoken a word since that fight. The young chopper had torn himself up about it then, practically tried to pretend his co-star and partner didn’t even exist for two weeks straight. When the Hughes finally deigned to ask him what the matter was, he finally caved. And Nick set the record straight for him. “Look, you be what you want to be,” he told him, “and if they only want to see you as shameful and something to be turned away, then they’re hypocrites. We have a saying in our house: Love always. That means we don’t care what you are, what you do, how far into the pit you get, we love everyone. Because that’s what we’re here to do.” “You’re too good for this world.” He always said, whenever Nick had to remind him of those principals. Love. It was the same form of admiration and care that the unknown singer put into every note of his song. The same way Nick did when he sang, usually to get something off his mind.

“I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free…”

Letting his own cares go, Blade lip-synced the last lines of the song, as he had always remembered they were sung;

“For his eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me.”

[anpauen]

Table of Contents

Got is as close as I could to the book itself, since taking photos just wasn’t working for me. Also under a read more because it’s 4 pages in the book and I’m sure no one wants to scroll through that on their dash.

Chapter count: 92 

[ 94 if including prologue and epilogue ]

Interlude count: 8

Photo Count: 20

[ 21 if counting map ] 

[ 22 if counting calendar ] 

[ 29 if counting currencies, exchange paper, and equation paper ]

[ 31 if counting Kvothe’s handwritten monologue on inside cover ]

Extra content count: 4

Letters / Ect count: 6

                                                         . . . . . .

Dedication                                                                                                            ix

Acknowledgements                                                                                              xi

A Letter from the Editor                                                                                       xiii

The Four Corners of Civilization                                                                         xxi

PROLOGUE: A Silence of Three Parts                                  ��                              1

ONE: A Place for Demons                                                                                    3

TWO: A Beautiful Day                                                                                         18

THREE: Wood and Word                                                                                    22

FOUR: Halfway to Newware                                                                               34

    SCRAEL & THE SCRIBE                                                                               39

FIVE: Notes                                                                                                         40

SIX: The Price of Remembering                                                                         43

SEVEN: Of Beginnings and The Names of Things                                             51

EIGHT: Thieves, Heretics, and Whores                                                              56

NINE: Riding in the Wagon With Ben                                                                  67

     THE ARCANIST                                                                                            72

TEN: Alar and Several Stones                                                                            73

ELEVEN: The Binding of Iron                                                                             76

TWELVE: Puzzle Pieces Fitting                                                                          83

     A PARENT’S LOVE                                                                                       93

THIRTEEN: Interlude - Flesh With Blood Beneath                                             94

FOURTEEN: The Name of the Wind                                                                100

FIFTEEN: Distractions and Farewells                                                               110

SIXTEEN: Hope                                                                                                116

     CINDER                                                                                                       122

SEVENTEEN: Interlude - Autumn                                                                     126

EIGHTEEN: Roads of Safe Places                                                                   129

NINETEEN: Fingers and Strings                                                                       133

TWENTY: Bloody Hands Into Stringing Fists                                                    138

     TARBEAN                                                                                                    140

TWENTY-ONE: Basement, Bread, and Bucket                                                147

TWENTY-TWO: A Time for Demons                                                                 151

     MIDWINTER’S DAY                                                                                     157

TWENTY-THREE: The Burning Wheel                                                            162 

TWENTY-FOUR: Shadow Themselves                                                            175

TWENTY-FIVE: Interlude - Eager for Reasons                                                 177

TWENTY-SIX: Lanre Turned                                                                             179

     LANRE CURSED                                                                                        193

TWENTY-SEVEN: His Eyes Unveiled                                                               194

TWENTY-EIGHT: Tehlu’s Watchful eye                                                             197

TWENTY-NINE: The Doors of My Mind                                                            203

THIRTY: The Broken Binding                                                                            206

THIRTY-ONE: The Nature of Nobility                                                                209

THIRTY-TWO: Coppers, Cobblers, and Crowds                                              215

THIRTY-THREE: A Sea of Stars                                                                       223

     A SEA OF STARS                                                                                       228

THIRTY-FOUR: Yet to Learn                                                                             229

THIRTY-FIVE: A Parting of Ways                                                                      233

THIRTY-SIX: Less Talents                                                                                236

     ADMISSIONS                                                                                              241

THIRTY-SEVEN: Bright-Eyed                                                                           250

THIRTY-EIGHT: Sympathy in the Mains                                                           261

THIRTY-NINE: Enough Rope                                                                            269

FORTY: On the Horns                                                                                       274

FORTY-ONE: Friend’s Blood                                                                            285

FORTY-TWO: Bloodless                                                                                   291

     THE ARCHIVES                                                                                          297

FORTY-THREE: The Flickering Way                                                                298

FORTY-FOUR: The Burning Glass                                                                   311

FORTY-FIVE: Interlude - Some Tavern Tale                                                     319

FORTY-SIX: The Ever-Changing Wind                                                             321

     AND THE STONE BROKE                                                                          330

FORTY-SEVEN: Barbs                                                                                     333

FORTY-EIGHT: Interlude - A Silence of a Different Kind                                  336

FORTY-NINE: The Nature of Wild Things                                                         339

FIFTY: Negotiations                                                                                          342

FIFTY-ONE: Tar and Tin                                                                                    351

FIFTY-TWO: Burning                                                                                        356

FIFTY-THREE: Slow Circles                                                                             367

FIFTY-FOUR: A Place to Burn                                                                          373

     PLAYING FOR HIS PIPES                                                                          387

FIFTY-FIVE: Flame and Thunder                                                                      388

FIFTY-SIX: Patrons, Maids and Metheglin                                                        389

FIFTY-SEVEN: Interlude - The Parts That Form Us                                         399

FIFTY-EIGHT: Names for Beginning                                                                 403

FIFTY-NINE: All This Knowing                                                                          412

SIXTY: Fortune                                                                                                 413

SIXTY-ONE: Jackass, Jackass                                                                         426

SIXTY-TWO: Leaves                                                                                         436

     DENNA                                                                                                        446

SIXTY-THREE: Walking and Talking                                                                 447

SIXTY-FOUR: Nine in the Flame                                                                      451

SIXTY-FIVE: Spark                                                                                           457

SIXTY-SIX: Volatile                                                                                           465

     FELA IN FLAMES                                                                                       470

SIXTY-SEVEN: A Matter of Hands                                                                    474

SIXTY-EIGHT: Through the Fire                                                                        479

SIXTY-NINE: Wind or Woman’s Fancy                                                             490

     HAIRS UPON THE WIND                                                                            501

SEVENTY: Signs                                                                                              506

SEVENTY-ONE: Strange Attractions                                                                516

SEVENTY-TWO: Borrorill                                                                                  531

     BETWEEN BITES                                                                                       551

SEVENTY-THREE: Pegs                                                                                  552

SEVENTY-FOUR: Waystone                                                                            564

     THE DRACCUS                                                                                           571

SEVENTY-FIVE: Interlude - Obedience                                                            572

SEVENTY-SIX: The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus                            573

SEVENTY-SEVEN: Bluffs                                                                                 576

SEVENTY-EIGHT: Poison                                                                                 594

SEVENTY-NINE: Sweet Talk                                                                            598

EIGHTY: Touching Iron                                                                                     607

     A DEMON DISPATCHED                                                                            616

EIGHT-ONE: Pride                                                                                            617

EIGHTY-TWO: Ash and Elm...                                                                          618

EIGHTY-THREE: Return                                                                                   628

EIGHTY-FOUR: A Sudden Storm                                                                     630

     CALLING THE WIND                                                                                  636

EIGHTY-FIVE: Hands Against Me                                                                    639

EIGHTY-SIX: The Fire Itself                                                                              644

EIGHTY-SEVEN: Winter                                                                                   649

     THE UNDERTHINGS                                                                                  653

EIGHTY-EIGHT: Interlude - Looking                                                                 655

EIGHTY-NINE: A Pleasant Afternoon                                                               673

NINETY: Half-built Houses                                                                                674

NINETY-ONE: Worthy of Pursuit                                                                       682

NINETY-TWO: The Music That Plays                                                               686

EPILOGUE: A Silence of Three Parts                                                               695

     ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS                                                                    696

Afterword by Jo Walton                                                                                     697

Author’s note                                                                                                     699

The Seeds of Empire                                                                                        707

The Aturan Calendar                                                                                         711

The Currencies of Temerant                                                                             714

Pronunciations                                                                                                  725

[womens-studies-degree-blog]

“All the better to see you with…”- An Analysis of “The Company of Wolves”

July 2008

           In his 1984 film adaptation of Angela Carter’s short story “The Company of Wolves” Neil Jordan paints the archetypal landscape of Western folklore upon the subconscious of the film’s protagonist, a young girl named Rosaleen. Sweating beneath the red lipstick and blush painted on her face, Rosaleen tosses in her bed one afternoon as a nap becomes a nightmarish tale. Her nightmare occurs in a kitschy mockery of a medieval world, a cobwebby forest village like an antiquated set invoking fairy tale imagery; emblems, like gingerbread cookies, toads, apples, serpents and dove-splattered wells, appear throughout the film. Rosaleen stands in for the well-known Little Red Riding Hood with her red cloak, wise granny and wide-eyed fear of wolves.

           Jordan’s allusion to the classic fairy tale toys with various versions of the wolf and introduces a complex female protagonist who destroys the story’s optative certainty by ultimately becoming a wolf herself. The Company of Wolves becomes a garbled manipulation of archetypes—hero, beast, bride, mother, witch—reflective of the collective unconscious that informs the “real” Rosaleen in her subjective experience as a pubescent girl. Marina Warner explains that Carter’s writing reveals “the imagination’s own capacity for protean metamorphosis, which allows it to leap barriers of difference, or at least play with them till they seem to totter and fall” (Granny Bonnets 194). It is this “mercurial slipperiness of identity” (Warner, Granny Bonnets 194) that Rosaleen explores in her nightmare, confronting gender, specifically, and its role in her identity formation. In The Company of Wolves Jordan tampers with various archetypes to convey that, no matter what she does, Rosaleen will be punished for being a woman—either preyed upon, blamed or confined—and must therefore disavow her femaleness; in so doing, however, she inevitably accepts the patriarchal codes that determine the limited ways in which one can be female and thus betrays herself.          

           The first archetype Jordan recreates in his film is that of the big, bad wolf. In its classic form, the wolf “represents male predatoriness” (Hourihan 198). As with the original fairy tale, Carter’s story warns its readers: “If you stray from the path for one instant, the wolves will eat you” (111). In other words, this wolf symbolizes the unrepressed, savage, sexual urges of men (Warner, Beautiful Beasts 52) that little girls are taught to understand and fear. Though not visible in Jordan’s film, Carter tells us that the predator’s “genitals are a wolf’s” (113), illustrating the rapist implications of this archetype. The film’s primary werewolf, the “huntsman”, embodies it in some ways. With his trusty needle pointed north, he takes Rosaleen’s basket and mirror and replaces them with his hat, like a seal of ownership in exchange for her maidenhood. In a dramatic—and therefore pivotal—shot, the huntsman tells Rosaleen that he desires “a kiss,” proclaiming the wolf’s predatory intent; when Granny later asks what he has done with her granddaughter, the huntsman replies, “Nothing she didn’t want.” Thus, the wolf here represents the inescapability of male sexual predation.

           The omnipresence of wolves in The Company of Wolves effectively symbolizes the pervasive sense of danger in Rosaleen’s world and subconscious. Indeed her caregivers naturalize the notion; her father speaks of “losing” his daughter to a boy, suggesting that she is property for the taking, and her granny unquestioningly interprets a young boy’s actions in a childish game as sexual assault. Her mother preaches that they “won’t live quiet” until “the beast is dead.” Older and presumably wiser characters convey these attitudes with conviction, and the many wolves of Rosaleen’s nightmare reveal her growing awareness of perpetually-lurking predators threatening her safety.  

           Complicating the stock character of the big, bad wolf, both Jordan and Carter occasionally construct the wolves of their stories as tragic; evading the stigma of pure evil attached to the predator, here the beasts become victims. In “The Company of Wolves” Carter describes the wolves’ sadness and how they cry “as if the beasts would love to be less beastly if only they knew how” (112). At times, her narrator tells, “the beast will look as if he half welcomes the knife that despatches him” (112). Jordan’s climactic scene between Rosaleen and the werewolf includes a dramatic shift when the supposed victim calls the beasts “poor creatures.” The wolves of The Company of Wolves thus invoke sympathy as well as fear.

           In her chapter “Beautiful Beasts: The Call of the Wild,” Warner argues that this newfound softness for the predator reflects a shift in the values that we as a society accord nature and humanity (63). She explains that whereas nature once symbolized the savage and the evil (58), today it ironically becomes a sinless sanctuary (51) with its wild inhabitants as “healing figure[s]” (55) appeasing the “threat of entropy in nature, brought about by human achievements” (55). Coinciding with this increasing wariness of modern civilization, Warner notes, Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood” casts the wolf not as wild beast but as the embodiment of the “deceptions of the city and the men who wield authority in it” (Granny Bonnets 183). Employing the legend of King Kong as example, Warner argues that beast becomes victim when woman is enemy for stunting his libido and domesticating him (Beautiful Beasts 61). The beast then represents the “true” male repressed in a modern consumer culture—another feminized scapegoat—hence the contemporary ambivalence toward the beast evident in The Company of Wolves.

           Jordan’s film explores this contemporary disdain for consumer culture, constructed as feminine, through the misogynistic story of the witch. In a suddenly Victorian setting, powdered men and women in wigs and elaborate costumes feast on a lavish wedding meal in a pink banquet tent. Comically made-up and overindulgent, the drunken aristocrats consume their meal in a grotesque manner, conveyed by the absurdist style of the scene. When the witch surveys the event and turns its members into wolves, circus music accompanies the equally grotesque, absurd and comical transformation yielding wolves in pretty, pink dresses. The farcical scene represents the “feminine” aspects of consumer culture in a most unflattering light; silly, frilly and maddening, the grotesquely ornate Victorians stand for that which has stopped the beast in his tracks. Because Rosaleen dreams that this tent sits before her “real” house, the viewer sees that she somehow belongs to this feminine world, or, at least, has played at it like a game removed from whatever her reality may be.  

           It follows then that Jordan’s wolf occasionally becomes “poor creature,” or what Warner calls “a figure of man, a desiring, aspiring, frustrated, tragic male” (Beautiful Beasts 61) in the face of domesticating, frivolous women. Rosaleen asks the werewolf, “Are you our kind or their kind?” His pathetic response—“My home is nowhere,”—posits him as an abject Other to be pitied in his beastliness. Against a romantic score, Rosaleen calls the werewolf a “gentleman” and succumbs to sympathy for her predator. As Beauty chooses the Beast, so Rosaleen may desire the wolf sexually, if only for a moment (Jordan visually conveys Carter’s sensual imagery as the werewolf strips: his “vellum” [116] skin, his “ripe and dark” [116] nipples). Ultimately, she tames the werewolf, turning him into a whimpering puppy to take under her wing. As Margery Hourihan explains in her discussion of archetypes, all females eventually serve as mothers in the fairy tale (166). Jordan’s climactic scene thus reflects the ambivalent terrain of the wolf archetype that allows the predator pleas for understanding.

           Jordan further examines this ambivalence through the boy who becomes a werewolf. Perhaps a short tale of male puberty, this scene depicts a hairless, forest-dwelling boy who encounters a fancy car driven by a sly Rosaleen. Accepting and applying an ointment from a man inside the car, the boy suddenly grows hair and screams in horror as the forest swallows him whole. The “real” Rosaleen wakes to find this image in her bedroom mirror, as though she feels responsibility for this attack of the “voracious vagina” (Hourihan 191). As products of Rosaleen’s subconscious, these characters demonstrate her internalization of the knowledge that patriarchal society loathes femininity. Furthermore, because she places herself in the Little Red Riding Hood role, the viewer sees that she has begun associating herself with the elusive concept.

           More concretely, The Company of Wolves explores female archetypes that Rosaleen might embody. Firstly, Rosaleen consistently represents the “barely pubescent” (Hourihan 196) virginal bride. In Carter’s words:

Her breasts have just begun to swell; her hair is like lint, so fair it hardly makes a shadow on her pale forehead; her cheeks are an emblematic scarlet and white and she has just started her woman’s bleeding, the clock inside her that will strike, henceforward, once a month. (113)

In his film, Jordan places Rosaleen’s menses, and what we are to therefore understand as her coming-of-age, at the centre of the story. The entire film is her nightmare and in it she assumes the role of a naïve girl at the cusp of her “sexualization.” She innocently questions female passivity when her granny laments her sister’s death, asking, “Why couldn’t she save herself?” Granny scoffs at Rosaleen’s ignorance, telling her that she is but a child; in other words, girls in this society will grow to learn of their place. When Rosaleen proudly states, “I’d never let a man strike me,” Granny, again, “knowingly” explains that men are “nice as pie until they’ve had their way with you, but once the bloom is gone, oh, the beast comes out.” Granny and others around her naturalize the idea that, shortly, Rosaleen will make a good, virgin bride.

           Hourihan argues that the bride archetype serves the ubiquitous hero as his subordinate (196) and ultimately teaches girls that “all will be well when the prince appears” (198). Passive, submissive and void of agency, brides then serve the aforementioned predator as mere prey. Jordan illustrates this archetypal relationship through the tale of the newlyweds. Here the virginal ingénue in white soon learns that hiding beneath the hairless skin of men lurks a beast poised to attack her as a bride, a mother or a whore. Her first husband tears off his skin to reveal a werewolf, while her second simply beats her for no apparent reason. This scene thus conveys the idea that women should meet men’s needs but remain peripheral lest they overstep their boundaries.

           Slowly internalizing the role of virgin bride, Rosaleen experiences her coming-of-age as shame and self-objectification. Jordan employs recurring images of contamination to highlight the dirtiness that Rosaleen feels for menstruating: spiders on her bible, mice in her dollhouse and maggots in her apple. Here, rodents infest symbols of chastity and childhood. The motif of red blood staining things draws a further parallel between Rosaleen and dirty animals with contamination to be ashamed of.

           As Rosaleen’s shame grows, so does her awareness of herself as a sexual object. The character of the gangly, sniveling “amorous boy” exemplifies the absurdity of male privilege, that a boy like him can pursue the fair Rosaleen and make her feel watched, objectified and consequently aware of her burgeoning “sexuality” before she even understands it on her own terms. Although Rosaleen still mostly rejects the boy, her ambivalent coyness when dealing with him reveals that she has already begun rehearsing this female role; indeed, she goes on to employ it with the werewolf. Jordan thus creates a girl’s nightmare rife with anxiety about “becoming a woman” as seen through the eyes of others—namely, men.

           The second female archetype Jordan examines in The Company of Wolves is that of the mother, who, for Hourihan, represents the inevitable fate of all women in the hero’s realm (166). Mothers in Western folklore serve to nurture the male hero through an oedipal bond (Hourihan 159). Fittingly, fairy tales commonly feature fatherless boys and motherless girls. Hourihan thus concludes that “the relationship most crucial to disrupt and destroy in patriarchy is that between mother and daughter” (202), as this relationship harbors the most potential for female solidarity. In The Company of Wolves, Rosaleen fares better than the archetypal maiden: not only is her mother alive, but the two communicate, enjoy one another’s company, and it is her mother’s instinct that saves her from getting shot by her own father following her transition to she-wolf.

           However, these maternal strides may only mirror our contemporary patriarchy in which women enjoy a modest increase in female solidarity. While Rosaleen’s mother loves and supports her daughter, she also models for her the picture of ideal motherhood: confined to the private sphere in submission to the beast’s domination, as it were. As if to justify her position, she tells her daughter that, “if there’s a beast in men, it meets its match in women, too.” Seemingly content in the private sphere, Rosaleen’s mother guides the viewer through Rosaleen’s domain. Notably, The Company of Wolves takes place either in the domestic space or in the wild, but never in the public sphere. As Hourihan explains, the home, for the hero, is the space between public culture and the chaos of nature (199). Upholding this private space, Rosaleen’s mother states, “Thank god we’re safe indoors.”

           Ultimately, she teaches Rosaleen to expect the same fate. Rosaleen also discovers this independently when, clamoring up a tree, seemingly in an act of freedom, she finds herself more like a kitten trapped in a dead end. Atop the tree she finds a mirror, red lipstick and babies hatching from eggs in a nest. As with the witch rocking her baby’s cradle on a treetop, this image symbolizes the final marker of appropriate femininity and the inevitable destiny of the virgin bride: motherhood.      

           Jordan toys with fairy tale archetypes such as wolf, bride and mother only subtly until the end of the film, when Rosaleen first tells the story of a she-wolf—reminiscent of Carter’s “Wolf-Alice”—then transforms into a wolf herself. This transformation serves as Rosaleen’s catharsis and self-betrayal, or the crux of her nightmare. Throughout The Company of Wolves, Rosaleen encounters various opportunities to identify with the wolf. Unafraid of the forest—the darkness—she first identifies with the wolf following her discovery of the dead-end treetop that is motherhood. The lip-stained Rosaleen does not fear the wolf when he crosses her path; rather, she sees an alternative in him, something to potentially identify with, as symbolized by his similarly blood-stained mouth. Hence, when seeking escape from her fate as wolf’s prey in the climactic scene in granny’s cottage, Rosaleen disavows her femaleness and becomes a wolf.

           Within the nightmare, her new identification temporarily provides Rosaleen relief and release. Using melancholic music and Rosaleen’s soft narration, Jordan constructs the tale of Wolf-Alice as placid and cathartic. Rosaleen strokes the wolf and becomes one with him in what Carter describes as a “savage marriage ceremony” (118). Thus, Rosaleen briefly succumbs to the cathartic irreversibility of her lost virginity. Even the “real life” Rosaleen reveals tiny fangs in the film’s closing shot, baring the immutable wolf within.

           Despite the brief release of sexual “maturity,” Rosaleen’s new identification as wolf necessarily involves a devaluation of self as, in the archetypal universe of her nightmare, the wolf ultimately represents the bad. As Warner argues, the wolf serves as the male counterpart to the witch (Granny Bonnets 181), who personifies the evils of female sexuality. The witch represents castration and chaos, the Pandora’s box to the story of Genesis (Hourihan 177). Although she becomes a wolf, Rosaleen cannot escape her origin as female—Wolf-Alice is still gendered. Thus, her transformation echoes the historical signification by which “metamorphosis out of human shape into another, beastly form, used to express a fall from human grace” (Warner, Beautiful Beasts 56). Indeed, Rosaleen describes Wolf-Alice as “wounded.” “Just a girl…who’d strayed from the path and remembered what she’d found there,” Wolf-Alice comes from the “world below,” a world of sexuality and sin that causes her to stain a white rose red with her tears. Wolf-Alice thus epitomizes shameful, female sexuality by virtue of her very femaleness inhabiting the male territory of the wolf.

           Having merged with the predator, the wolf Rosaleen runs from her parents and follows the pack, at which point the sleeping Rosaleen’s terror builds. Suddenly, the irreversibility of her transformation becomes a tragic loss, unbearably horrific and inescapably real; the wolves pummel across the passageway between the gnarly wild and Rosaleen’s real, domestic childhood space, represented by her scattered toys, through her now-cobwebby house and then penetrate her real bedroom. Marking the height of her terror, this moment entails Rosaleen’s realization that she has become her own enemy and thus betrayed herself.    

           Warner writes that Carter’s “crucial insight is that women…produce themselves as ‘women,’ and that this is often the result of…using what you have to get by. The fairytale transformations of Cinders into princess represent what a girl has to do to stay alive” (Granny Bonnets 195). Navigating the various archetypes woven into The Company of Wolves, Rosaleen undertakes this production of gender until she finds that, as a woman, she will be alive but perpetually punished. Faced with this dilemma, she effectively “dies;” that is, she sheds her efemmeral skin and transforms into a wolf. Unfortunately, in the folkloric world of her dream, this transformation signifies her ultimate surrender to the patriarchal symbolic order in which, for women, no path leads to freedom.

Works Cited

Carter, Angela. “The Company of Wolves.” The Bloody Chamber. Penguin Books, 1979. 110-118.

---. “Wolf-Alice.” The Bloody Chamber. Penguin Books, 1979. 119-126.

The Company of Wolves. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner, and Tusse Silberg. DVD Incorporated Television Company, 1984.

Hourihan, Margery. “The Women.” Deconstructing the Hero: Literary theory and children’s literature. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. 156-202.

Warner, Marina. “Beautiful Beasts: The Call of the Wild.” Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Times. London: Vintage, 1994. 49-63.

---. “Granny Bonnets, Wolves’ Cover.” From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. London: Vintage, 1995. 180-197.

[dfroza]

the conclusion of an ancient Letter

in Today’s reading for Saturday, the 13th of July with the 4th chapter of Colossians that is paired with Isaiah 52:

And masters, treat your servants considerately. Be fair with them. Don’t forget for a minute that you, too, serve a Master—God in heaven.

[Pray for Open Doors]

Pray diligently. Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude. Don’t forget to pray for us, that God will open doors for telling the mystery of Christ, even while I’m locked up in this jail. Pray that every time I open my mouth I’ll be able to make Christ plain as day to them.

Use your heads as you live and work among outsiders. Don’t miss a trick. Make the most of every opportunity. Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out.

My good friend Tychicus will tell you all about me. He’s a trusted minister and companion in the service of the Master. I’ve sent him to you so that you would know how things are with us, and so he could encourage you in your faith. And I’ve sent Onesimus with him. Onesimus is one of you, and has become such a trusted and dear brother! Together they’ll bring you up-to-date on everything that has been going on here.

Aristarchus, who is in jail here with me, sends greetings; also Mark, cousin of Barnabas (you received a letter regarding him; if he shows up, welcome him); and also Jesus, the one they call Justus. These are the only ones left from the old crowd who have stuck with me in working for God’s kingdom. Don’t think they haven’t been a big help!

Epaphras, who is one of you, says hello. What a trooper he has been! He’s been tireless in his prayers for you, praying that you’ll stand firm, mature and confident in everything God wants you to do. I’ve watched him closely, and can report on how hard he has worked for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

Luke, good friend and physician, and Demas both send greetings.

Say hello to our friends in Laodicea; also to Nympha and the church that meets in her house.

After this letter has been read to you, make sure it gets read also in Laodicea. And get the letter that went to Laodicea and have it read to you.

And, oh, yes, tell Archippus, “Do your best in the job you received from the Master. Do your very best.”

I’m signing off in my own handwriting—Paul. Remember to pray for me in this jail. Grace be with you.

The Letter of Colossians, Chapter 4 (The Message)

and the writing of Isaiah where we see a picture of the Son (an act of grace) revealed and the spreading of the Message as a seed of rebirth for the heart & body, for the heavens and beautiful earth:

[God Is Leading You Out of Here]

Wake up, wake up! Pull on your boots, Zion!

Dress up in your Sunday best, Jerusalem, holy city!

Those who want no part of God have been culled out.

They won’t be coming along.

Brush off the dust and get to your feet, captive Jerusalem!

Throw off your chains, captive daughter of Zion!

God says, “You were sold for nothing. You’re being bought back for nothing.”

Again, the Master, God, says, “Early on, my people went to Egypt and lived, strangers in the land. At the other end, Assyria oppressed them. And now, what have I here?” God’s Decree. “My people are hauled off again for no reason at all. Tyrants on the warpath, whooping it up, and day after day, incessantly, my reputation blackened. Now it’s time that my people know who I am, what I’m made of—yes, that I have something to say. Here I am!”

How beautiful on the mountains

are the feet of the messenger bringing good news,

Breaking the news that all’s well,

proclaiming good times, announcing salvation,

telling Zion, “Your God reigns!”

Voices! Listen! Your scouts are shouting, thunderclap shouts,

shouting in joyful unison.

They see with their own eyes

God coming back to Zion.

Break into song! Boom it out, ruins of Jerusalem:

“God has comforted his people!

He’s redeemed Jerusalem!”

God has rolled up his sleeves.

All the nations can see his holy, muscled arm.

Everyone, from one end of the earth to the other,

sees him at work, doing his salvation work.

Out of here! Out of here! Leave this place!

Don’t look back. Don’t contaminate yourselves with plunder.

Just leave, but leave clean. Purify yourselves

in the process of worship, carrying the holy vessels of God.

But you don’t have to be in a hurry.

You’re not running from anybody!

God is leading you out of here,

and the God of Israel is also your rear guard.

[It Was Our Pains He Carried]

“Just watch my servant blossom!

Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd!

But he didn’t begin that way.

At first everyone was appalled.

He didn’t even look human—

a ruined face, disfigured past recognition.

Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback,

kings shocked into silence when they see him.

For what was unheard of they’ll see with their own eyes,

what was unthinkable they’ll have right before them.”

The Scroll of Isaiah, Chapter 52 (The Message)

to be concluded by the poetic lines of Psalm 23 for day 23 of Summer:

The Good Shepherd

David’s poetic praise to God

The Lord is my best friend and my shepherd.

I always have more than enough.

He offers a resting place for me in his luxurious love.

His tracks take me to an oasis of peace, the quiet brook of bliss.

That’s where he restores and revives my life.

He opens before me pathways to God’s pleasure

and leads me along in his footsteps of righteousness

so that I can bring honor to his name.

Lord, even when your path takes me through

the valley of deepest darkness,

fear will never conquer me, for you already have!

You remain close to me and lead me through it all the way.

Your authority is my strength and my peace.

The comfort of your love takes away my fear.

I’ll never be lonely, for you are near.

You become my delicious feast

even when my enemies dare to fight.

You anoint me with the fragrance of your Holy Spirit;

you give me all I can drink of you until my heart overflows.

So why would I fear the future?

For your goodness and love pursue me all the days of my life.

Then afterward, when my life is through,

I’ll return to your glorious presence to be forever with you!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 23 (The Passion Translation)

and the same lines in The Voice:

A song of David.

The Eternal is my shepherd, He cares for me always.

He provides me rest in rich, green fields

beside streams of refreshing water.

He soothes my fears;

He makes me whole again,

steering me off worn, hard paths

to roads where truth and righteousness echo His name.

Even in the unending shadows of death’s darkness,

I am not overcome by fear.

Because You are with me in those dark moments,

near with Your protection and guidance,

I am comforted.

You spread out a table before me,

provisions in the midst of attack from my enemies;

You care for all my needs, anointing my head with soothing, fragrant oil,

filling my cup again and again with Your grace.

Certainly Your faithful protection and loving provision will pursue me

where I go, always, everywhere.

I will always be with the Eternal,

in Your house forever.

my reading in the Scriptures for july 13, day 23 of Summer and day 194 of the year: