#that big soaring steel bit in the background

[witchking-jr]

hey beloved gremlins of the web site.

I’m pondering escape and freedom from the psychological torture of fundamentalism this fine evening, and if you too escaped that maze, tell me about it.

Among people who grew up in fundamentalist religious environments and ended up leaving, you hear a lot, and rightfully so, about the trauma and grief and lost experiences of growing up that way.

I could tell you all those tales, but not now.

What about the feeling of the crack in the rigid little box, the realization the horizon is not a boundary but a portal, the sudden expansion of the self, your past self, that had the courage and boldness to say fuck it and walk out?

I had a few such moments, but the most vivid was a day in October of 2009. I had ridden my old mountain bike to a Campus Outreach event near the U of M campus. Campus Outreach was the college ministry of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, the deeply dysfunctional, patriarchal, and white supremacist church I grew up in.

We played Ultimate Frisbee, a game I hated. As I had for almost my entire time in church culture, I stayed on the sidelines, body buzzing with restless energy, which I now recognize as intuition, telling me to leave, that that place held nothing for me.

I finally, fully, listened. I made some excuse, got on my bike, and rode away. It was raining. And do you know what it fucking felt like?

It felt like that part in Pilgrim’s Progress, when Pilgrim loses his big bag of sins. I felt like I’d lost 70lb of dead weight, physically. I felt the restlessness subside, replaced by euphoria. No one could make me go back, and no one had any real leverage, except fear, and that was feeling like a rotten thread instead of the thick rope it used to be.

I rode back to the West Bank through Dinkytown in a haze of happiness. I was free. I’d freed myself. I hung around church with my family for awhile, out of guilt and habit, but that was the beginning of the end, and the birth of every other beginning: being bisexual, being nonbinary, being non-monogamous, leaving Christianity fully, changing almost every single political view I held, allowing myself to be the artist who had been pounding on the walls since I could hold a crayon. Changing myself and being changed so radically that it still makes my head spin, well over a decade later.

Fundie Christians love the narrative that someone who left Christianity was tempted, corrupted, deceived. In reality I’d realized I could fit thru the bars of the cage, the prison guard was a dead scarecrow husk, and the big scary gate was barred with a toothpick.

And since that day, I can tell you from the deepest part of my soul: every part of my life got better. Every single thing.

So tell me, where were you when you realized you were free?

[siena-sevenwits]

🏆, ⛪ , 🦋, 👀, and 💡 for Project Juggler, please?

What is the end goal? What are your characters fighting for?

Both my main characters want to save someone they love from dying at the harsh hands of the law. And at the beginning, it looks like they can use the same plan to save both their respective loved ones. The hitch? Turns out their loved ones are in very different situations, and their plans for saving them diverge and grow more mutually exclusive as the story progresses.

Are there religions? If so, how do they affect the culture?

I often say that this novel is only technically a fantasy story, in that the world is imaginary, but there's no magic or fantastical creatures or other speculative elements. It's fantasy that reads like historical fiction. The setting is partly inspired by Directoire/Napoleonic Paris, and the religious aspect of the world building charts very closely to that. We're looking at a place shaped by the in-world equivalent of Catholicism but currently in the throes of enlightenment-style philosophy. The city's cathedral is an important location in the story, but during the revolution a few years ago one wing of it was burnt and much of it was looted at that time. The government did step in to save it from being utterly ruined, but mainly because it has a wonderful organ. The country people and the royalists tend to hang on to the Church - some sincerely, some for politicized reasons, whereas the city folk and republic-supporters tend more deistic or agnostic. There are exceptions of course. Religion is more in the background than the forefront of this story, but it's present.

Which character has the biggest transformation?

Hm... I'm big on characters having dynamic arc, so it's hard to pick one. Noemie, the protagonist, might have the most difficult change, though it's subtle to those round her (and maybe to the reader.) The most evident transformation is probably in Alain, the secondary MC.

A piece of lore you’ve been waiting for an excuse to share

(This may or may not get into the text) When Noemie was a small child, she once heard her father joking to some fellow travellers that he was a trickster god. She took this very seriously. It didn't come out until something like three months later that she had begun assuming that some of the old myths her dad sometimes told her by the fireside were actually about him. He thought this was hilarious when he found out, but actually had a bit of a hard time getting her to drop the idea. To her it seemed to make a lot of sense, in light of how good her dad was at not being seen when he did care to be seen, how luck seemed to follow him, how nimble his light fingers were, etc.

What inspired the wip? When/how did you first get the idea?

Previously answered, but I'll add some more on. A huge inspiration was seeing art and photographs of old-fashioned but extremely tall city streets. One time I was viewing art of fantastical cities with multiple bridges between buildings, and something clicked. I wanted a city where space was at a premium, and so even though steel framing hadn't been invented yet, they found ways to make their buildings soar. And they dug, of course. Such as place would also extend downward into the depths. Some people would be cave dwellers simply for want of space. (I hate basement suites because they throw my emotional equilibrium off, and I think some of it shows in my story...)

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Do you have any knowledge about jewish people in wales? A history or a blend of culture? Thank you!

Okay so I do, but this is my obligatory “I’m not Jewish, nor do I know anyone directly in the community” disclaimer. I know a few Welsh Jewish people, but none of them are practicing, so this is either from what they’ve observed slightly-from-the-outside-sometimes or from what Welsh Jewish people have written on the subject.

But yes! Jewish people in Wales. So the really big influx came during the Industrial Revolution, when Wales�� population swelled enormously thanks to immigrating mine workers from pretty much everywhere; Wales is rich in high-quality coal, and steel, and a whole bunch of rare earth metals that we’ve never received any money for (thanks, England!), so there was suddenly huge demand for labour. Jewish people were no exception, and the bulk of them first went to Swansea (then-nicknamed “Copperopolis” thanks to its global position as The Place Metals Come From), and then from there to Cardiff and Newport along the coast (the other major trade ports for coal and steel respectively), inland to the Valleys mining towns (Merthyr Tydfil, Tredegar, Brynmawr, Aberdare, Pontypridd), and eventually north to Bangor (for the slate.) Sometimes just a few families, but sometimes big, thriving communities - as I say, the first major community was in Swansea, but by the late 1800s there were (estimated) 6000 Jewish people in Wales and the communities in Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil, Brynmawr, Aberdare and Pontypridd in particular were absolutely thriving.

To the point, in fact, that the high street in Ponty was known at the time as “Jewish Street”, because so many successful businesses there were Jewish-owned. Also multiple synagogues got built, and we still have several even if most are now offices or what have you. My favourite is this one:

This is the Merthyr Synagogue, and it’s such a fascinating architectural mix of Jewish and Welsh Coal Belt elements. Gorgeous.

And weirdly enough - and this is according to Welsh Jewish historians, not hyper-defensive gentiles - for the most part, these communities lived fairly harmoniously with everyone else. The odd incident of background radiation type anti-semitism, but generally, all pretty peaceful.

EXCEPT for in Tredegar, in 1911. The reasons for the riot were quite a bit more complicated than straightforward anti-semitism, and I’ll whack in a quote here:

In the summer and autumn of 1911 a wave of discontent spread like wildfire across south Wales. It was social, economic and political unrest, based around lack of money and poor living conditions, that had a variety of targets – the railway company in Llanelli, Chinese immigrants in Cardiff. And, in Tredegar and several other Monmouthshire towns, that unrest and ill-will was aimed at the Jewish community.

By 1911 Tredegar, an iron town that had flourished in the 19th century, was caught in the grip of economic depression. To begin with there had been a serious and long-running coal strike, miners from the Cambrian group of pits having been out of work for over a year. Wage reductions were implemented in several other industries and that meant money was tight. It was inevitable that, as a consequence, prices for basic food stuffs soared.

There was a fairly large Jewish community in Tredegar, many of the local shops and small businesses being owned and run by Jews. They also owned rental property across the town and large numbers of tenants were finding it difficult to pay their rent. There was simmering anger in the area and, as always when people feel let down or resentful, they began looking for scapegoats and easy targets.

On the night of 19 August 1911 a group of miners, after spending the evening in the pub, decided they had had enough. They had nothing, the Jewish shopkeepers – or so it seemed to these out of work miners – had everything. In a haze of alcohol-induced fury, a Jewish shop was attacked and ransacked.

Mass hysteria quickly took over and when the police arrived on the scene they were met by over 200 screaming rioters. The riot spread. The windows of Jewish shops and homes were smashed and 20 Jewish businesses looted. It was only by luck that nobody was seriously injured.

And it should be noted that the predominant faith of the area at the time was Baptist Christianity, and Baptist leaders refused to condemn the riots. So, I imagine there was a bit more anti-semitism than just anti-rich sentiment. But, as I say, other than that period that was largely it in Wales. There have never been any other anti-Jewish riots, and as I say, according to Jewish historians, for the most part things were basically fine. According to Klavdija Erzen:

"It would be easy to dwell on the stories of anti-Semitism, but I think that would overlook the many hundreds of positive experiences, and the immense Jewish contribution to Welsh culture, sport, enterprise and life in general."

Anyway, things carried along, and then the second wave of migration came in the 1940s. A lot of Jewish workers came to work in the factories to support the war effort; Polish, German and Czech became the predominant languages to hear on the Treforest Industrial Estate. Here is a nice photo of some Jewish women at work in the early 1940s:

My step-father in law was born in Wales, but his mother was a Jewish migrant who fled the Nazis for Wales at this time. She was an immensely intelligent woman, and ended up not just learning Welsh, but becoming an acclaimed Welsh language writer on the subject of peace movements.

And then, between then and now, the Jewish community in Wales has dwindled.

There’s a bunch of reasons for that, actually, and again, the main one is not actually anti-semitism. Like, I won’t pretend Wales is entirely pure of anti-semitism because it’s not, but it’s not, like... an active, vivid force in Welsh society like it is elsewhere. Most Welsh people are actually entirely ignorant of Jewish cultural stereotypes, to be completely honest. I remember as a young teen being floored by the assertion that the Gringotts goblins were anti-semitic, because I’d never encountered any of the stereotypes on display. It’s still the case that the only place I’ve ever actually witnessed someone pulling the “evil moneylender” card was an American online. And I believe I’m fairly typical of my generation for that.

But, numbers have definitely dropped. Reasons:

It’s a success story! As people had kids they wanted better for them, and those kids moved away for university etc. They didn’t move back.

Economic drivers. After Thatcher, Wales became very, very poor in the former Jewish heartlands (the Valleys.) A lot of people moved away, Jewish people included.

The lack of Jewish-owned businesses as people moved meant kosher facilities vanished. Today if you want kosher meat, you either buy from the limited range Sainsbury’s offers, or you order/pick up from London, with deliveries to Cardiff every two weeks. (Side note, after the plague, if anyone wanted to set up a kosher butchers in Cardiff you’d probably be made.)

The numbers might not actually be that low - we get them from the census, where it’s classed as religion only and therefore voluntary. A lot of older Jewish folks in particular will - entirely understandably - refuse to register themselves as Jewish, since y’know, Bad Shit Happened Last Time. But also, two of my Jewish friends don’t tick that box purely because they aren’t practicing. So, they’re invisible in the data.

In any case, the modern Jewish community is, like so many in Wales, centred in Cardiff. There’s two active synagogues there (plus one in Swansea and one in Llandudno), but according to the Rabbi Michoel Rose in the Cardiff United Synagogue, there’s a real family vibe to them all across both shuls because they all know each other, so there’s that.

Uh, this article is fantastic for talking to a bunch of old Jewish people about life in the Valleys during the last century. My fave story is of one guy who would faint EVERY SINGLE TIME they did the 25-hour fast for the Day of Atonement; every year he’d be like “Not this year, lads, I’ve got it in the bag” and every single year he’d faint during the afternoon. They used to keep a chair and a bucket of water ready and waiting to revive the daft bastard.

Also, fun fact: the old synagogue in Swansea on Christina Street is no longer in use, as the modern one is over in Ffynone these days. But GUESS what the old Synagogue is now used for?? 

It’s the premises of the Swansea Menter Iaith - the Welsh language organisation dedicated to preserving and growing Welsh language and culture. It’s therefore still a community centre, still hosts events and gatherings, and is still used to defend minority cultures. I think that’s lovely.

There’s various heritage/restoration projects ongoing to catalogue and preserve Jewish culture in Wales, anyway - Bangor have created an app, map and exhibition of Jewish history in the area that’s very cool, and the Jewish History Association of South Wales has an excellent website, including online exhibitions. They’re also trying to buy the Merthyr Old Synagogue.

Final note, there’s a whole bunch of famous Welsh Jewish people (or people descended from such.) Sacha Baron-Cohen and David Baddiel both have Welsh-Jewish parents. But also Kathe Bosse-Griffiths, Heini Gruffydd, Danny Abse, Bennett Arron, Raymond Garlick, Lucy Owen, Jon Ronson, and many others. Plus, a very funny comedian friend of mine called Josh Elton - he’s patrilineal Jewish, and he told me once that he asked his Jewish granny as a young kid if he therefore counted as Jewish or not. Her response to this small, vulnerable child was “Well, you’re not Jewish enough for the Rabbis, but you’re Jewish enough for Hitler.” He tells that story on stage sometimes and it has me howling every time.

And final relevant story: as I’ve mentioned, my step-father in law is Jewish. He married my MIL about five years ago now, probably (time flies), and was pretty easy going about the wedding and left most of it to his Welsh Non-Comformist Christian wife because he’s not religious; BUT, his Jewish identity is very important to him, so he wanted some sort of representation.

Except the man is very slightly unhinged, so he decided the perfect and entirely appropriate way to achieve this was to play the theme song from Schindler’s List at his wedding. 

So my MIL is like “Uhhhhh... okay, well, I don’t want the theme tune to Schindler’s List at my wedding, so... how do we compromise?”

Well, here’s how - you play it before she arrives while the guests are filing in. Simple, right?

WRONG, because this is a Welsh-language wedding. Before the bride arrives is the time you have a harp-player. And they did: one of FIL’s grandchildren, no less, and she was incredible on that harp as a side note. There were points where she slammed that thing like it was a guitar. She was incredible. Got to have her playing.

So the solution they settled on was that, while the last guests were coming in and FIL is sitting happily in the front row, they pull the harper away and put on Schindler’s List.

Silence.

So much silence.

Every single person in that congregation, apart from FIL, just fucking STARES at each other, like “Is this... what I think...?”

After a minute, I can hear someone a row or so back going “I mean... did whoever picked this know that FIL is Jewish? Should we... should we get it turned off?”

And someone else says, “I think he picked it.”

There’s a beat.

“He can’t have picked it,” hisses the first person. “There is no way he picked Schindler’s List -”

To my left, among the family pews (we knew what was happening thank CHRIST), someone is trying extraordinarily hard not to laugh. I strongly suspect it was @cacen. Not sure. She might have been silently mouthing “What the fuck” at the ceiling instead, like most of the rest of the room.

And then Schindler’s List stops playing, and the harper comes back, and everything carries on like we didn’t just live through the most inappropriate wedding theme in the world.

(Later, we managed to avert a real crisis during the photos when the bridal party started gathering and the minister suddenly realised the sermon board behind them still had “Father forgive them, they know not what they do” emblazoned above the heads of the happy couple. Never seen a woman move so fast to pull letters down.)

Anyway, that’s about as in depth as I, a Random Gentile, can really offer. I hope there was something useful/interesting to you in there!

[o-w-quinlan]

Brief thoughts on every Digimon Adventure 2020 episode

It’s been a while since I wrote a review for Adventure 2020, for lack of time or enthusiasm, so here I’ll go through every episode saying “I like it”, “I don’t like it” or “I’m ambivalent”, along with other brief thoughts.

Breaking it down in short “arcs”, my opinions are as follows:

Character Introductions (1-8): Liked 6, didn’t like 1, was ambivalent about 1.

Perfect evolutions and Nidhoggmon (9-18): Liked 6, didn’t like 3, was ambivalent about 1.

Takeru and Devimon (19-24): Liked 1, didn’t like 1, was ambivalent about 4.

Hikari and DarkKnightmon (25-33): Liked 1, didn’t like 5, was ambivalent about 3.

MoonMillenniummon arc? (34-36 as of now): Didn’t like 1 and was ambivalent about 2.

Overall: I liked 14 episodes, didn’t like 11 episodes and was ambivalent about 11 episodes. The vast, vast majority of the episodes I liked were before the second Omegamon appearence.

Pretty long list below the cut

Tokyo Digital Crisis: I like it. Established Taichi and Koushiro very well, had great fights and ended on a good cliffhanger.

War Game: I like it. Not as much as the first, but the fights were pretty good.

And to the Digital World: I like it. First half was just a remake of Our War Game, but second half was a great showcase of Taichi and Koushiro.

Birdramon Soars: I don’t like it. Sora’s lack of reaction is ridiculous, and the action is terrible.

Holy Digimon: I’m ambivalent. Backstory dump was okay, bond between Koushiro and Tentomon was good, the offscreen escape was ridiculous.

The Targeted Kingdom: I like it. Excelent introduction for Mimi, her personality, background and conflicts, characterization for the rest was great, the situation with the protection against the siege was handled great.

That Boy is Jou Kido: I like it. Not quite as good as Mimi’s episode, but good for basically the same reasons.

The Children’s Attack on the Fortress: I like it. It’s the start of the whole “barrage of attacks that hits nothing” trope for the show, but it’s fun, Yamato’s epiphany was surprisingly well handled.

The Perfect Attacks: I like it. It’s the start of “non-protagonists stand around and do nothing” for this show, but the whole deal with Ogremon and Greymon was great enough for me to not mind it.

The Super Evolution of Steel: I like it. I interpreted it as the synchronicity between Taichi and Agumon being the catalyst for the evolution, and that’s unique enough for the franchise that I enjoyed it. Still had tons of problems though.

The Wolf Standing atop the Desert: I don’t like it. It had Yamato go through the most annoying tropes usually associated with the lone wolf archetype, and the evolution cathalyst was remembering the far more impactful episode 8.

Lilimon Blooms: I like it. As others pointed out, it’s an episode long reference to Castle in the Sky, but I actually liked it better than that movie.

The Crimson Winged Garudamon: I don’t like it. Sora was upstaged by Yamato on her own episode, and Jou was just there to be humiliated.

The Kings of the Insects Clash: I’m ambivalent. There’s enough good stuff here to love it and enough bad stuff to hate it. Pity the lessons Koushiro learned here basically stayed here too.

Zudomon’s Iron Hammer of Lightning: I like it. Jou’s determination to not go back on his word and protect his friends by himself was great, as were his initial attempts at strategy both working and failing because of his lack of experience.

The Jet-Black Shadow Invades Tokyo: I like it. Liked the paranoia this evoked.

The Battle in Tokyo Against Orochimon: I like it. It’s the summation of everything that happened before in terms of every single character.

Countdown to Tokyo’s Annihilation: I don’t like it. It was terrible in terms of plot, character and action.

Roar, Juouken: I’m ambivalent. Tons of good stuff here, and all of it relies on incompetent villains and heroes forgetting their power-ups.

The Seventh One Awakens: I like it. Nay, I love it. Best episode in the series, maybe, the culmination of Yamato’s character up to that moment and the first appearence of the Holy Digimon justifying all the hype for them.

The Tide-turning Update: I’m ambivalent. Agumon and Taichi were good, as was the action, but Yamato doing a 180 on his attitude towards Takeru, and Takeru’s extremely convenient rescue of Eldoradimon, dragged this down.

The Unbeatable Blue Sagittarius: I’m ambivalent. Tons of good stuff, but the emotional core of it was Takeru, and he plain didn’t work here.

Meesenger of Darkness, Devimon: I don’t like it. Lame fight scene extended to full episode length.

The Final Stage, Done Devimon: I’m ambivalent. Flashy, but ultimately meaningless.

Dive to the Next Ocean: I don’t like it. Terrible in almost every regard, with the brief scenes of the B-Team being the highlights.

Break Through the Sea Monster Barricade: I don’t like it. The first scene was good and then it spends the episode reiterating its message.

To the New Continent: I don’t like it. Still repeating the same worldbuilding as the previous episode, though at least now everyone is here (for the last time so far).

The Children’s Fight for Survival: I’m ambivalent. Not a whole lot happens but it’s all directed spectacularly (as in, it’s pure spectacle, and I respect that craft).

Escape the Burning Jungle: I’m ambivalent. Some good moments here, but otherwise still reiterating the same “this is a world where the strong eat the weak” bit from 3 episodes ago.

The Ultimate, WarGreymon: I don’t like it. It’s a worse repeat of episode 10.

The New Darkness, Millenniummon: I don’t like it. Lopmon was cool, but everything else was dull.

Soaring Hope: I like it. It finally made Takeru work as a character, explained what Patamon’s deal was and gave us branching evolution lines.

Hikari of Dawn: I’m ambivalent. There’s some good stuff here, but it’s so underwhelming after so much build-up.

Hikari and Tailmon: I’m ambivalent. Fun set-up, but Hikari’s personality change was immersion breaking and I just couldn’t ignore that once again vastly powerful characters (not just the protagonists, but MarinAngemon and Daipenmon) did nothing just so Tailmon got a moment to shine.

The Glowing Angewomon: I’m ambivalent. It’s pretty terrible that the way they decided to make us care about Tailmon accross is via exposition dump of her emotions and issues, and once again her big conversation with Hikari mid-battle was more than a little ridiculous, but it was a compelling concept for their bond, so I’m willing to overlook it.

Operation Satellite Sniper: I don’t like it. It was going well enough (still with problems, but well enough) until the gratuitious BlitzGreymon evolution and not even Koushiro’s info-dump on his feelings (which will most likely be forgotten after this episode again) could fix it.

[wincestismyguiltypleasure]

As we both know Sam gets wet for Billy Loomis, but what about fem!Sam 👀 Dean's known what turns a girl on far younger than he should, but seeing it on his sister is a whole other beast. At first he tries to ignore it, it's a horror movie after all and being skittish is natural. Then he notices the little things. Her gasp being a little too low, toes curling into the carpet, a bit lip and crossed legs. When fucking Billy Loomis licks blood off his fingers (1/2)

his little sister's smile is a little too flirty and her eyes a little too focused on him. When Billy pushes the knife to Sid's throat, Dean swears he hears her moan. (2/2) Love you beautiful! 💋💕💋💕💋💕 - boykingboytoy (Rewatching Scream always makes me think of you~💋💕)

-------

"Are you scared, Sammy?" Dean asks, tone low and gritty, as he reaches over to squeeze his little sister's trembling thigh. Her soft skin is riddled with goosebumps under Dean's callused fingers, and a very dark, jealous part of him, the dominant part, can't help but wonder if Sam's reaction was because of his touch or a result of watching Billy fucking Loomis go crazy.

"No."

Sam's eyes dare to slide shut when she feels her brother's lips ghost over her throat. Soft kisses trailing up to her ear before a sharp nip of teeth has Sam shivering and leaning into Dean's space.

"Are you wet?"

"Mmhm."

Sam bites her lip and looks up at Dean through a sea of long lashes as she helps guide his hand into her panties. Red-hot sparks of pleasure zinging up her spine like rouge fireworks when she hears him groan her name.

His forehead is pressed lightly against her temple now, Dean using the tip of his index and middle finger to gently rub her cunt until she starts to squirm beneath him.

"Don't stop. Please, don't stop."

Sam's soft, breathy moans urge him to give her more, and call Dean a sucker, but he does just that, sliding his fingers upward slowly until his little sister's eyes roll back from the pleasure. Fingertips soaked and sticky with her arousal when he starts to play with her clit, the light, teasing pressure of his touch making Sam's whole body tremble.

God, she's so fucking desperate, and Dean knows that his sister will do anything for him right now. It wouldn't take much to convince her to give him complete control. Shit. The very thought of owning Sam's pleasure, getting her hot and bothered just like that asshole on TV did, goes straight to Dean's dick.

"Fuck, baby girl," Dean whispers in her ear, sounding a little farther gone than he'd like to admit. "This all for him?"

Sam makes a pained sound, weak and desperate, at the loss of Dean's hand, her thighs automatically squeezing together tight to replace the friction.

"Dean," she mewls, pupils blown wide with lust as she watched her brother slowly spread his fingers open wide and them close them. Each deliberate motion showing Sam just how sticky-wet and filthy she'd made him. It drives her fucking crazy.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," he chuckled darkly, fingertips gently tracing the plump curve of Sam's cherry red lips. "I think your little crush is cute."

It's an outright lie, Sam knows that but she doesn't dare argue. Especially not when Dean's fingers are sliding into her mouth, rubbing little circles against her greedy tongue, hot and rough, and salty-sweet.

"But tell me, Sammy," Dean nearly growls, fingers sliding open easily so that Sam could taste herself on his skin.

Dirty slut.

"Do you like misunderstood, devoted boyfriend Billy-"

Sam lets out a high-pitched whine when Dean pulls his hand away without warning. Pouty bottom lip glossy with spit and pushed out in frustration as she watched her brother slide off the couch to kneel on the floor. Her thighs visibly shaking as he gripped Sam by the knees and pulled her legs apart; a wicked smirk tugging at the end of Dean's lips when he noticed that her shorts were soaked through.

"Or," he continued thoughtfully, pressing a sweet kiss to the inside of Sammy's thigh as he reached in his back pocket for the switchblade that he kept there. "...do you prefer him when he goes all psycho killer?"

Sam nearly jumps out of her skin when Dean flicks open his knife.

"Dean."

It feels like her heart is trying to beat a hole through her chest. A million emotions swarming around in her stomach like fear crazed butterflies, but Samantha doesn't question Dean. She won't.

"Huh, Sammy?"

Sam's at a loss for words, pussy throbbing for attention as she contines to watch Dean closely with those big, trusting eyes. Her manicured nails digging into the ratty couch cushion under her when Dean starts to lightly trial the tip of his blade over his little sister's smooth skin.

"Dean, please."

Samantha can feel the sharp cool tip of Dean's knife teasing her clit, and fuck, if it's all she can do to keep her hips from jerking forward. So desperate and turned on that she swears if he really tried, Dean could make her come just like this.

"Please who?"

In the background, Billy is screaming at Sidney.

I'm gonna rip you up, you bitch!

And Sam can hear the sound of glass breaking, see feathers flying as Dean bites his way down her inner thigh.

God, it hurt so good that she almost forgets that Dean still has his knife pressed flat against her pussy.

"Shit!"

Sam forces her hips to grind to a halt using her last shred of self control. But she can't hold back a surprised gasp when she feels thick, unforgiving steel biting into the soft damp cotton of her shorts. Teasing her mercilessly.

"Say it, sweetheart."

"Please," she whimpers again, carding her shaky fingers through Dean's hair. Heat pooling deep in the pit of her stomach and shooting up through her veins like liquid fire when the older boy looks at her with a predatory smile. One that says I'll give you anything you want, as long as you play by my rules. "Billy."

------

@boykingboytoy

I love you too, my darling!! 💕💋💕💋💕 You make my Billy Loomis lovin' heart soar. 💋💕💋💕💋💕

[in-flagrante]

'I feel sexier as I get older': Back on TV in a compelling new drama, Michelle Dockery tells how her own confidence has soared after playing a succession of strong, sassy women

By GABRIELLE DONNELLY FOR WEEKEND MAGAZINE

22 May 2020

Since she burst onto our screens ten years ago as Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary, all cut-glass vowels and nerves of steel, Michelle Dockery’s kept us in a permanent state of emotional whiplash with the sheer variety of roles she’s taken on.

She was a drug-addicted con artist in the 2016 TV series Good Behavior, a gun-totin’ cowgirl in the acclaimed 2017 drama Godless, and a Cockney gangster’s moll in Guy Ritchie’s crime caper The Gentlemen.

One thing you will not see, she insists, is Michelle Dockery playing a piece of arm candy.

‘I like to play strong women,’ she says when we meet for coffee pre-lockdown in New England, where she’s been shooting her new TV mini-series Defending Jacob.

‘And even if they’re not strong, they have to be interesting. Multi-faceted, complex, complicated, three-dimensional... and flawed too, because people are. Anything but boring!’

That doesn’t mean they can’t be sexy though, and she says the added bonus to playing these characters is that, at 38, she’s finding herself feeling sexier than ever.

‘Sexy is not about having anyone else make you feel sexy, it’s about how you feel inside, and I have certainly felt sexier as I’ve got older.

But I think that’s a confidence thing too. I’ve been lucky enough to play such strong, confident women, and when you do that you definitely take something from them with you into your real life – you sort of get inspiration from them.’

Her latest character in the thriller Defending Jacob is a straightforwardly good woman – although one thrust into bewildering circumstances.

Laurie Barber is happily married to handsome local Assistant District Attorney Andy Barber (Captain America film star Chris Evans), and mother to her wise-cracking 14-year-old son Jacob (Jaeden Martell).

She’s the sort of woman who goes for a run before breakfast, then quizzes her son on vocabulary over coffee before heading to her high-profile job managing a home for abused children.

She’s just so together... until her son is accused of one of the most hideous crimes imaginable – the cold-blooded murder of a classmate – and her entire life and social circle begin to unravel as the police investigate.

‘It’s a really gripping story, because it’s so difficult for this couple to comprehend that their child might commit any sort of crime, let alone a murder,’ says Michelle of the story, based on the 2012 novel by William Landay.

‘They’re both defending their son, and like any parent would, Laurie’s asking at the same time, “Where did I go wrong?”

'There’s conflict between Laurie and Andy because at the start of the story she’s the emotional one and he’s the calm one, but then as the story goes on there’s a need for Andy to be emotional too.

'So they’re always seeing things from a slightly different perspective.

‘It’s a very human, raw story about what something like this can do to a family, and what’s so interesting about Laurie is that as her life is turned completely upside down, she also begins to question things about her family – “How well do you really know your partner? How well do you really know your child?”’

Michelle’s own family background is modest but as stable as anyone could wish for. The youngest of three girls born to Irish-born lorry driver turned surveyor Michael Dockery and his redoubtable wife Lorraine, a former shorthand typist turned social worker, she was brought up in Romford, Essex, working class and proud of it.

‘My mum is loving but she’s also strict,’ says Michelle. ‘When I was about seven I stole some penny sweets from a shop. Mum caught me and made me go back and apologise to the shopkeeper, and I’ve never stolen anything since!’

She was also raised – as were her sisters Louise and Joanne – to speak up for what was right.

‘I was brought up to stand up for myself. To speak up when I felt passionate about something, when I felt the need to make my voice heard about something that mattered.

'I think a lot of that comes from having sisters, because we’ve always supported each other all along.

'If I’ve ever felt bullied or pushed into a corner, I’ve always been able to stand up for myself. And if I see it happening to someone else, especially younger actresses, I’ll stand up for them too.

‘I hate bullying. I have huge admiration for women in Hollywood and elsewhere who have come forward to tell their stories about that, and have stood up against people like Harvey Weinstein.

'It’s horrendous what they experienced and I’m glad something has been done about it.’

It’s safe to say no one has succeeded in taking advantage of Michelle, and she says now that when she first broached the idea of going into acting to her parents they were not in the least bit concerned.

‘They weren’t alarmed by it at all!’ she laughs. ‘They made sure I had a good education so I had something to fall back on.

'Both my parents are wonderful. My mum is the most incredible woman, she inspires me.

'And my dad’s amazing too – even though he spent our growing-up years with a bathroom that was never free! They let me be who I want to be.

'So between them and my two elder sisters, who are still my best friends, I’m very lucky. We call ourselves the Essex Mafia!’

Her career choice can hardly have come as a surprise to the family, as she says she wanted to be an actor ever since she can remember.

When she and her sisters were small they attended a stage school in the evening, and they would put on plays at home to entertain the family.

Michelle apprenticed at the National Youth Theatre when she was a teenager, and as soon as she’d taken her A-levels she enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

‘I feel I learned more at drama school than I did anywhere else,’ she says. ‘Even when I was at regular school I was never out of the drama department, so I didn’t do very well in other subjects.

'I just didn’t want to be taught anything else. But there’s a huge amount you learn in drama school besides acting, like history and literature, and that was where I came into my own.’

It was, of course, Lady Mary who made Michelle famous. ‘It happened overnight,’ she says.

‘Well, I’d been working in the theatre for seven years, so it wasn’t really overnight, but I remember after the first episode of Downton Abbey aired, walking into my newsagent’s where I was living and seeing a picture of myself, Laura Carmichael and Jessica Brown-Findlay, the three Crawley sisters, on the cover of three papers and that was huge.

'Then the first time I was recognised on the street was in New York, and that was even bigger because that’s when it hit me how big the show had become if I was being recognised in America.’

With talk of another feature film in the works after last year’s hit Downton movie, she says playing Mary is as comfortable as slipping into a second skin.

‘I have huge fondness for her, she’s been a big part of my life. That was a very special show, and I hope it’s one that stays with people forever.’

It was through Downton that she met the man she thought she’d be married to now.

In 2013, her co-star Allen Leech, who played chauffeur Branson, introduced her to Irish-born public relations executive John Dineen.

She and John fell in love, became engaged and were in the process of planning their wedding when John was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. He died in December 2015 with Michelle by his side.

At his funeral, the day after her 34th birthday and a day before what would have been his 35th, she told mourners, ‘He was my friend, my hero, my king, my everything.

'We celebrate him, we honour him, and we will miss him.’ She has not spoken out about her grief, but has admitted that it was her friends and family who helped her pull through, saying, ‘They are the ones who see you through the most difficult times.’

She has been dating Jasper Waller-Bridge, brother of Fleabag’s Phoebe, for a year now.

They met through friends and Jasper, who is six years Michelle’s junior and the creative director at a talent agency, accompanied her to red-carpet events before lockdown.

It was also reported that she bought a £1.7 million house in north-east London before Christmas.

Michelle hasn’t commented on the relationship but she does say that a sense of humour – surely a given with any member of the Waller-Bridge family – is vital in a relationship.

‘My parents always taught me to see the funny side of life and never to take myself too seriously.

'I find that more and more as I get older – I’m finding ways to laugh things off much more than I used to be able to.’

Right now, Michelle Dockery would seem to have plenty to smile about.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8336165/I-feel-sexier-older-Downton-Abbeys-Michelle-Dockerty.html

[fnlrndcllctv]

Tekken

In our Soundtrack Sunday series, we take a look at the music of fighting games, track by track!

For the fifth instalment, Shaun Eddleston takes a look at the music of 1994’s Tekken…

(For the purpose of this article, only the Arcade version of the game’s soundtrack is being covered).

In 1994, 3D fighting games were still in their infancy. SEGA’s first fighting game experiment in the form of Dark Edge and the boundary-pushing Virtua Fighter had barely been out for a year, and games such as Battle Arena Toshinden were still just around the corner for the next generation of home consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and SEGA Saturn.

Namco wanted in on the action, so enlisted the talents of Virtua Racing & Virtua Fighter game designer Seiichi Ishii to help develop 3D fighting game of their own, based on a hardware demo that was initially developed to show off some fancy new graphics off to investors. What started off as a game called “RAVE WAR” would eventually go on to become not only one of the most successful and longest-running fighting game franchises, but one of the biggest selling video game series of all time; Tekken.

As the technology was still somewhat limited at the time, Tekken’s stages were a simple affair. A seemingly infinite scrolling plane placed in front of some parallax backgrounds to give the impression of depth, each of these fighting arenas required a little bit more oomph to push forward and create a suitable, varied atmosphere in which players could beat each other up.

That’s where the music comes in. As Tekken was such an early entry in the realm of 3D fighters, the soundtrack played a considerably larger role in establishing how the game felt than in later entries.

So, how does the original soundtrack holdup today?

Let’s find out…

The game’s introduction is fairly non-eventful in its 20-second runtime, but it does make good use of the game’s stereo mix by panning left and right to create a more immersive effect, and reminds me a little bit of elements found in the PlayStation startup jingle.

Tekken’s character select music is a loop of what initially appears to be a fuzzy, overdriven funk bassline over a simple drumbeat, but to me personally, there was always something about this version that didn’t sit right with me. Upon listening closer, I think I’ve figured out what it is.

Behind the upbeat bass that is designed to get players pumped up before a fight, there’s two droning chords being played in the background that elicit a very serious, uneasy tone. Its a strange sensation that’s also present in the PlayStation version of the soundtrack (although it’s not as strong, thanks to better quality remixing!)

“Marine Stadium, Japan” is where the soundtrack has the most fun with the stereo mix, creating a dizzying effect by throwing samples at the listener from all directions in the left and right speaker. Once the track gets moving, there’s a call & response going on between many of the tracks separate elements, running a fine line between being a disjointed mess and a brilliantly cohesive piece.

Luckily the rhythm section and background pads do a great job of keeping things in check.

Definitely one of my favourites in the game.

“Chicago, USA” is probably the grittiest track of the OST, and is probably closer to what a lot of the game’s music sounds like in the modern era than the rest of the tracklist.

The fuzzy bass tone of the character select screen makes yet another appearance here, and immediately starts to make each of the “verse” sections feel incredibly busy and muddies the entire mix straight away.

The chorus, although very brief, saves the song in a big way. The soaring keys, accompanied by some fun percussive claps, make this one of the most enjoyable songs that still holds up really well today.

On a related note, the arrange version found in the PlayStation port is flawless.

The most immediate thing I noticed about this track is just how loud and distracting the bass is. It rumbles throughout the majority of the runtime, and almost ruins the whole experience for me, that is until the bass drops out and allows listeners to focus in a bit more on the tracks other elements.

Once you get past the overpowering synth bass, this is actually a really fun track. Utilising samples of traditional Chinese stringed instruments and gong hits, it’s a high energy track that perks up the players fighting in the mountainous stage.

Imagine a hard-hitting techno remix of Chun-Li from Street Fighter II’s music and you’ve got the right idea.

“Angkor Watt, Cambodia” is probably the closest that the game comes to an industrial sound, and I mean that in a literal sense. The drums and bass is accentuated with what sounds like stylised machinery interspersed with synth leads for the whole track. This robotic selection is an odd choice to use for a stage that’s based on the real life Angkor Watt (i.e. a complex of ancient temples in Cambodia, NOT a factory filled with heavy machinery).

The track also ends before it has the chance to build up into anything really interesting, and remains as a bit of a teaser for me.

“Fiji” is unlike anything else in the Tekken soundtrack, and is arguably one of the series’ most iconic pieces of music (it gets revisited a handful of times throughout the franchise’s long history). The track dials things up into party mode, with steel drums and a catchy salsa beat that really makes you feel like you are on holiday on a tropical island, with a bassline that you’d expect to hear in a bustling nightclub.

A true highlight of the soundtrack, and most definitely the biggest earworm of the whole tracklist.

With “Acropolis, Greece”, we steer into something with a much more dramatic mood.

While the drums and bass for most of the song leave a lot to be desired in terms of differentiating themselves from damn near every other song in the soundtrack, its the the chorus that saves the whole composition. Backed up by some choir keys that remind me of Angel Dust-era Faith No More (the best era, by the way!) and some military-style drumming that’s sprinkled throughout, it builds up to something pleasant, even though it doesn’t quite reach the majesty of the location’s namesake.

“Kyoto, Japan” follows in the footsteps of “Sichuan, China”, in that it utilises samples of traditional instruments from the location’s culture.

This is another track that makes great use of the stereo mix, with the instruments constantly in flux from the left to right speaker (and vice versa). The song does feel a little choppier than the rest of the soundtrack in places though, and the constant “un-tiss-un-tiss-un-tiss” drumbeat mixed together with the percussion samples of blocks being hit makes the song sound like something from the Samurai Shodown games if they were all on ecstasy.

“King George Island, Antarctica” is one of the more interesting items on this fighting game menu, as the song is driven forward by something outside of the simple drumbeat and funk bassline. Instead, it’s powered by an ongoing drone sound hidden in the background. While not quite in Sunn O))) territory, it’s something that makes the track feel unique to its peers, even though it largely contains a lot of the same elements as them.

This one took me by surprise.

Most of the runtime of “Venezia, Italy” sees the music simmering away comfortably, then once the chorus hits, it erupts into a slightly operatic, adventurous display of strings and choirs. Not only that, but for the latter half of the brief chorus, the drum beat instantly shifts into a jazzy offbeat section that definitely threw me off in terms of where I was expecting the music to go.

It’s a gamble that ultimately pays off, and it’s one that results in one of the more underrated tracks in the collection.

“Windermere, U.K.” is where the quality of the game’s music takes a hard hit.

Everything in the song sounds like you’re listening to it through a wall, with the individual instruments being drowned out by the overblown bass and frankly dull drum loops, and even then, the synthetic saxophone sections of the song don’t sound very interesting either. It’s a couple of minutes that holds the entire OST back.

At least the Arrange version in the following year’s PlayStation port was an improvement.

From the game’s weakest track, we head straight into one of the best moments in the entire OST.

“Monument Valley, USA” is one of the most ominous, evil-sounding stage themes that you’re likely to encounter in any fighting game. Just over a minute of harsh windy soundscapes, thunderous gongs, grandiose strings and monk chants that feel more like a summoning of an ancient demon than an actual song. It’s such a deviation from the rest of the music in Tekken, almost to the point where it could be from a totally different game altogether.

The PlayStation version of this song is rightfully in my top 10 favourite fighting game tracks of all time.

Tekken’s final credits music is an absolute pleasure to listen to. In just a couple of minutes, it effectively melds together all of the different vibes of each stage in the game without resorting to just clipping them together as a cheap montage.

Besides, it’s just a relief to have something relatively soothing after dealing with the horrid AI of Heihachi as a final boss.

Overall, the soundtrack to the very first Tekken game is pretty far away from people may be used to from the high intensity of the modern entries in the franchise.

Instead of punishing dubstep and songs you’d expect to hear from a harder-edged Dance Dance Revolution game soundtracks (is that even a thing?), the music selection here is much simpler and way more subdued.

Tasked with trying to represent the various locations from around the world, Namco Sounds did an admirable job getting the vibe right for each stage. From the absolute party of “Fiji” and the sports broadcast jingle of “Marine Stadium, Japan” to the gritty club beats of “Chicago, USA” and the windy soundscapes of “Monument Valley, USA”, the Tekken soundtrack is a varied, interesting mix that not only gives each landmark and setting more personality, but also attempts to set the bar for a series that has since become known for its great music.

Now, time to try and get “Fiji” out of my head until Tekken 2’s edition of Soundtrack Sunday…

The soundtrack is available on vinyl here.

Are you a fan of the original Tekken’s music? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

[chrisgiuliano]

Art & The American City

For whatever reason, Art Deco has been on my mind quite a bit lately, and I decided while in New York recently that I wanted to revisit some of the city’s more famous Art Deco landmarks - the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Met Life Building (the original one on Park Avenue, not the one above Grand Central), as well as the buildings of Rockefeller Center, and one of my all-time personal favorites, One Wall Street. I wanted to experience some of my favorite skyscrapers from the ground, the way they were intended to be experienced, and to circle them looking for new angles to capture them from, taking some shots but also planning more future shots.

One of the earliest and greatest Art Deco buildings, and another personal favorite, is Raymond Hood’s iconic American Radiator Building (pictured above in a Georgia O’Keefe painting). The American Radiator Building is on 40th St next to Bryant Park, occupying a prominent position near the public library, visible all around because of the park in front of it. After looking at the building, I remembered Georgia O’Keefe’s painting of it, and tried to picture it in person as she might have seen it. Her painting of the building is a homage to modernity. It was painted in 1927, and clearly shows how dazzling the new concept of an electrically lit city must have felt. Lights illuminate the middle floors, as well as the crown of the building, which is dramatically lit from below, and spotlights seems to search in the background from the ground. Another thing I get from this painting is the enthusiasm for verticality present in all Art Deco architecture. Raymond Hood was a master of verticality, and the American Radiator Building is one of the more impressive examples of the hopefulness of early skyscraper design, as the spires at the top point upwards into the sky, a theme that would become more and more prevalent, reaching its most exaggerated yet tasteful and handsome conclusion in the oddly under-rated Empire State and Chrysler Buildings.

Anyway, the above painting and all of my Art Deco escapades over the weekend got me thinking about originality and inventiveness in American art, and I discovered a few other painters and photographers with interesting and uniquely American works today that I thought were worth sharing. The Precisionists were American artists who made urban images that depicted the unprecedented scale and odd, cinematic beauty of American cities. Charles DeMuth, Charles Sheeler, and Paul Strand were three of the new artists I discovered, along with some of O’Keefe’s other, lesser-known paintings. Some of my favorites of all of these artists are posted below.

The interesting thing to me about all of these paintings is the obsession they have with uniquely American scenery. Scenes like these have been a big influence on the way I have been shooting recently. Above all else, they remind me of a quote in a book review of Jean Baudrillard’s travelogue America where the reviewer sums up Baudrillard’s account of American cities in the 1980′s: "The crowded cities are ‘electrifying’ and ‘cinematic’“. That sentence stuck with me, as I think it is an interesting representation of American urbanism, at least as American cities differ from other world cities. Americans invented the idea of the tall city. The skyscraper originated in Chicago and was perfected in New York. The evolution of the skyscraper was an exercise in engineering, as American cities soared to new heights and made their mark on the world. Unfortunately, our new skyscrapers do little to emphasize their height and have shunned the use of any traces of what makes the skyscraper American, instead opting to look like relatively bland glass boxes with no geographic or regional importance (with a few notable exceptions).

The paintings above draw on the unique sense of bigness and modernity that American cities, especially the large eastern cities, carried with great confidence in the first half of the 20th century when Art Deco was a prominent building style. Light, shadows, smoke, concrete, metal, and occasionally people mingle in an environment that was being pioneered and tested for the first time. In the great Northern cities (particularly New York, Chicago and some of the Rust Belt cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc.), impressive and overwhelming structures became a part of everyday life. Whether in the tall, crowded, and chaotic granite walls of downtown, or the loud, noisy, traffic-clogged and smoke filled industrial districts where immigrants flooded to work in super-structure factories that made ships, steel, textiles, automobiles, or consumer goods, American cities were places of excess, filled with dazzling new architectural innovations. The machine age was in full swing, and American architecture (and art) reflected this bold new era in its flamboyantly optimistic designs.

At the same time, these urban environments created a bizarre sense of loneliness, exaggerated by the constant flow of human beings, transit, consumerism, and general American excessive-ness that has always been our best and worst trademark. These feelings were captured by one of the greatest American painters, Edward Hopper (below), whose works always included a sparse amount of people, often bathed in the glow of artificial light and sulking in their loneliness.

It says something about American attitudes towards urbanism today that Hopper’s urban paintings are much better known than O’Keefe’s or those of the Precisionists. As the 20th century surged forward, urbanism lost its luster. Cities were seen as dirty, grimy, and chaotic places that offered bad lives with polluted air. Anybody who could (though many could not), fled to the suburbs, and so we were left with white flight and urban renewal. The American urban consciousness was forever changed. Gone was art deco with its flashy vertical skyscrapers, exuberant urban designs and the flutter of industrial innovation that inspired it, and in came European Modernism, square glass boxes, American consumerist design, and the suburbs. It’s almost impressive how quickly Americans became disillusioned with what was by far our most impressive invention - the vertical city. 

Even more bizarre is that we hardly even take Hopper seriously, and one of his paintings, Nighthawks, is one of the most parodied pieces of art in American history. On the internet, people have substituted the figures in the painting with all manner of characters from movies and pop culture, or set the diner in an imaginary place. We’re even disillusioned with our disillusionment. How post modern.

I think part of what has made me think so much about this was my recent trip to Asia. I visited Hong Kong, as well as several cities in South Korea, for two weeks. I think the trip revealed two things - first, it reinforced my love for the unfamiliar in cities (and there is not a more foreign, yet exhilarating experience as being a white person in Asian cities, something which Lost in Translation does an excellent job in capturing), and second, it showed me how much Americans are still admired in other parts of the world, despite my thoughts about our increasing irrelevancy and our current cultural and political circus that is on display for the world to see. In Asian cities that have taken and built upon all of the best things about American cities in the early 20th century, we were still met with awed looks when we talked casually about New York, or when people would ask us about the United States, and we would tell them about places like Los Angeles, Detroit, and Chicago. I realized that American cities do still have a strange ability to capture the imagination despite their flaws.

All of this has been informing the recent series that I have been slowly putting together from old and new photos, named Cities & Memory. The title is taken from Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities, and comes from the feelings I got experiencing the cities of the Far East, which reminded me of my initial experiences of American cities. I felt, among other things, a sense of awe and confusion, in addition to being amazed by the architecture, infrastructure and cultural experiences.

I do sincerely wish we could build up our cities more than we do now, and that when we did so, we had something that made them look unique. I think architecture critics seem to think that American architecture is little more than a collection of variations on European architecture, but Art Deco is certainly a very American building style. I would love to see a return of Art Deco styles, like the new 9 DeKalb Ave in Brooklyn by SHoP Architects, SOM’s recently-revealed designs for the Chicago Spire site, or Pelli’s Wells Fargo Center in Minneapolis, which is perhaps one of the only buildings to be built in America in the last 50 years with so much as a nod to what makes American cities distinctly American (with some obvious inspiration from the designs of Raymond Hood). Instead of trying to compete with Dubai and Shanghai for the most oddly-shaped skyscrapers, perhaps we could look to our own history of vertical design for more inspiration. The bizarre experiments of our newest skyscrapers, which are beyond Post-Modernism now (though I still don’t know what to call them), seem to be experiments in what we can do with glass for the sake of experimenting with glass. It would be interesting to see a new crop of neo-decoism flourish and redefine American architecture. We could use something that draws on our unique history and innovations and inspires our imagination, reminding us that we once were, and could again be great city builders.

[cheapjerseys28-blog]

opinion everyday at work

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[cancer-man-speaks]

Cancer Sucks But You Live

My punctuation sucks because I haven’t evolved thumbs.

---------------------------

Sometimes I put things off so long that I feel ashamed and in turn try to bury it even deeper in the pile of things to do. As far as excuses go it’s not the greatest but most fall short of that. A great deal of that lost time is laziness but there is also a part of me that doesn’t want to look back, that doesn’t want to remember what it was like to be where you are at.

    Always obsessed with outward appearance, I cracked a joke when the doctor told me that my PET scan lit up like a Christmas tree on crank. I cried in my sister’s arms when she ran to me across the snow dusted parking lot of the clinic. I smoked a pack of cigarettes on the car ride home, trying to keep my hands busy, to do something other than think about what this all meant. I calmed down before walking in, steeling myself to be as stoic and stone faced for my family as I could. In my head I thought that I couldn’t feel this for the sake of others around me. The moment I walked in the door, I saw the tear streaked faces of my mother and sisters. The dogs milled around their ankles not sure what to make of all their sorrow and their inability to help (or in our beagle’s case, his inability to get fed.) All my bluster, all my hubris fell away when I saw my loved ones, the things I had to lose all in one place. They embraced me one at a time then we came together as a group and I lost it. All motor control lost, my legs felt like jelly. They as a group, as a family supported my weight until I could stand on my own two feet again. The beagle, ever caring, bit me in the ankle for being too far into my mother’s person space.

When I got home from the biopsy, that confirmed the doctor’s suspicion of cool case of type b small cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, I took to sleeping on the floor. I told myself it was to keep my bad back comfortable but the truth was it felt good to have something solid underneath me as everything was changing. The days passed and the face in the mirror grew ever more foreign. The bone under my flab carved itself out in my cheeks and jaw. Hollow pockets formed around my eyes that gave me the look of an upstairs basement dwelling gnurdsferatu. The only thing that didn’t change were the patterns on the pitted hardwood of my floor. I’d take off my glasses, lay my head on the cool floor, and follow the whirls in the grain with my weary eyes until they lead out of blurry site. There was a comfort in knowing that just because I couldn’t see where the rich, brown lines ended it didn’t mean they were done travelling.

Either through pity or not being able to read the signs of chemotherapy I’d occasionally get compliments on my physique. Over a beer or two somebody would ask, “You look really good, man. What’s your secret? You been going to the gym or doing heroin?”

Nothing beats the satisfaction of the anti-joke that is responding with an off handed, casual, “I have cancer. It beats the hell out of doing palates.” After you explain the sitch to people a million times explaining it one more time is mundane and boring. They will stumble a second on their words; not sure if you are telling the truth or a joke in poor taste. It’s the ultimate, “Gotcha,” moment. When your diagnosis becomes blasé your spirits soar.

    From a few days after I was diagnosed letters poured in by the boatload. Friends, family, friends of family, people that had passed me once at the mall and paid a compliment to my shoes all wanted me to know that there was hope and that I was not alone. I’d read them and be dumbfounded by the amount of care people could express for a stranger. I was even more dumbfounded by the amount of care the family could express. No matter how hard I tried to blend into the background, to continue my weird, self-isolation from my family they kept firing salvo after salvo of cards and gifts. They’d send me gum, stickers that said, “Fuck Cancer,” (Because as we know cancer is terrified of strong language.), and all manner of sweet, sweet candy treats. There was no way for me to stay off the radar of the people that loved me.  

    I held it together through my first few rounds of chemo. It really didn’t bother me until my hair fell out. Until my fourth round I was feeling like a million bucks. I was getting skinny, I lost a few stray hairs, and I had an actual license to smoke pot. What 24-year-old wouldn’t love that? I was driving to the store to grab a drink and I ran my hand through my hair and it came back in tufts between my fingers. Pulling off the road into an abandoned store’s parking lot I started neurotically, compulsively picking away at my scalp and beard. Handfuls of the stuff coated the front seat of my 03’ Accord but still I couldn’t stop. I watched in horror as my reflection warped in the rearview mirror. I just couldn’t stop. After a half hour of what scholars refer to as, “Going bananas real manic like,” I regained my composure. I drove myself over to a friend’s house and had her shear my head with the clippers her dad used to shave his back. From that day on I was bald. It wasn’t so bad when I got used to it. Every now and then I would get a weird phantom limb sensation, as though I still had a rugged mane of hair, when the breeze blew on my naked scalp.

    I was in and out of the hospital all the time. My guts exploded one time when a tumor responded to the chemo and disappeared. It was what we wanted with the tumor, not so much what we wanted for my intestines. They cut out ten feet of my goop and stitched me back up. I was locked up in the cancer klink for two weeks after that. They had me on a tube and all of my food and fluids came from an IV, except when family or friends were around. They would sneak me a small cup of ice cubes, a rare sip of water, or even, once, a whole bottle of tangerine Bai over a whole night. Even when I was being a real grumpy cancer boy my friends, family, and everybody else would stick it out just to let me know I wasn’t alone. In that exact same stay, a friend of mine actually saved my life because he was able to understand my garbled speech through my nose/mouth tubes. I’d been trying to explain to my nurse that the bile vacuum they had in my guts was pumping my green-black bile back into me but she may have been one of god’s special people. When my friend confirmed that my gunk was being pumped back into me, he snagged somebody. Without that kind of support, I’d have either been dead or in the hooskow weeks longer. Not every situation is bubbling gut ooze but when it is remember to trust those people around you enough to say, “Hey, my bubbling gut ooze vacuum feels like its acting weird. Can you go look at the container the ooze is collecting in and tell me what it’s doing?”

    You’d think that with all this gut busting and chemo I’d be taking it easy. Wrong. I’m a big idiot so instead of resting I kept smoking, went to the bars regularly, and tried my hand at in the DIY rock n’ roll venue game. My nights before chemo were full of putting anything and everything I could inflict on my body. Jumping through tables, mosh pits, and drinking beer bongs to Jean Claude Van Dame flicks were everyday occurrences. I’d been dumb before cancer. With the ability to live a bohemian, YOLO life I did just that. I’d burn the candle at both ends because I didn’t know if there was going to be a tomorrow. Tomorrow always came; usually with a Jimmy Buffet grade hangover. Dumb. I was dumb. I did seven rounds of chemo then stem cell and not once did I let off the gas petal of stupidity.

    But you know what?

    I survived. Against all odds, against odds that I was actively trying to stack against myself, I survived. Was it a miracle sent down from the heavens? Maybe. Was it aliens? I’d like to think so. Was it the constant support of my friends and loved ones coupled with cutting edge, state of the art technology in the hands of the most competent doctors and nurses in the industry even though I was hellbent on dying young and beautiful because I’m an idiot? That’s a run-on sentence. It’s also a pretty good idea of what kept me alive, what will keep you alive. I was full to the brim with cancer while dancing on the brink of self-immolation. If I did everything in my power to give myself the odds of a three-legged horse at the Kentucky Derby what do you think yours are? I bet you take care of yourself at least slightly better. I’d like to think that if I beat cancer there is an infinite amount of hope for you, who is not an idiot with a death wish, to go into remission.

    There will be moments in the dead of night where you doubt your own survival. There will be bright days that you will sleep away. There will be moments where you lay on the floor in the fetal position bathed in hot tears and cold sweat. You will think of what a life without this hell would be like. You will feel like the cards are stacked against you. The, “What if’s,” will mix a cocktail of fatal fear in your skull eating away at your resolve. You will walk into your kitchen and forget for half an hour that you came in there for soup. You will throw that soup up and lay hunched and miserable over the porcelain for an hour. You will wonder who will carry your name? Who will see your babies walk across the stage at graduation?

The answer is you. This may be the worst moment of your life but it will not be the one that defines you. What defines you will be all that comes after this nightmare. With your two hands you will make great works. Gardens resplendent in their rainbow will call your master. You will see the white sands of far off beaches, will feel the artic chill of the frozen wastelands allegedly known as, “Canadia” far to the North. Mortal peril will be replaced with picking up the kids from karate and a gallon of milk. You will watch your children grow and cover this earth like that brand of paint I can’t mention for copyright reasons. As you watch them cross that stage or walk down the aisle you will have at your sides the same faces that did their best to make you smile from your bedside during your weakest moment. Trust in them as you would have them trust in you. They will be your guide when you cannot find yourself, we will be your guide.

[gems-of-lirema]

Sweet Love Soiree Freestyle: Steven Stone

Team & Moves Used

Metagross: Meteor Mash, Zen Headbutt, Bullet Punch, Reflect

Archeops: Acrobatics, Crunch, Quick Attack, Head Smash

Cradily: Ancient Power, Sludge Bomb, Ingrain

Aggron: Metal Claw, Solar Beam, Avalanche

Held Items

Steven: Key Stone

Metagross: Metagrossite

Music: Merry Go Round of Life (Howl’s Moving Castle Theme)

Props: Piano (custom made/designed), violin, stage lights, projector screen

After getting dead last among the competitors who moved onto the next round for using a futuristic robot theme and playing the violin off key, you’d think the former Hoenn Champion would learn from his mistakes. Well, he did. Sort of. His Metagross and Cradily were in position onstage instead of coming in last minute, and his Aggron would be in the background instead of tripping over and ripping valentines. Losing was the least of his worries. It was all the risk that made his body tense up. If he was going down again, he might as well do it with a bang. Or a fifty feet drop to his death, in this case. Just the thought of it made his stomach churn, and he’s the freaking Champion for crying out loud. Or, he was. Adding the weight of that title to his last-place streak, it was impossible for him not to tense up. Not to mention the people in the crowd...Especially that exquisite blond Gym Leader from Johto. He hoped his infatuation with him wouldn’t interfere with the performance. Little did he know that the Gym Leader’s Pokemon had something else in mind...

Backstage, his Archeops patted him on the shoulder with a jagged smile and a tiny chirp. Then the Pokemon nuzzled his shoulder in an attempt to remove all the sweat running down his neck. He flinched a bit, desperately reaching for the wire on his back. With a sigh of relief, he rubbed the ancient bird’s head briefly and gestured with his finger to keep quiet.

“Save it for the show,” he whispered, then tapped the shoulder of his Aggron beside him.

His Pokemon nodded at the signal and left backstage through the curtains. As the stage lights slowly faded to black, one spotlight beamed onto Aggron, revealing a large black tailcoat and a red bowtie draped on him. Whether the audience claps or not is of no concern to the Steel Pokemon. He simply stomped toward a piano standing stage right, and bowed with a small wave of his paws, gleaming with the use of METAL CLAW. As the Aggron shuffled his large feet to stand comfortably in front of the piano (for the Aggron was too big to use a chair), it tapped a note to test the piano’s sound quality, and began to play. While using Metal Claw seemed to do nothing, it was actually being used for the piano itself. The keys had hidden magnets in them that lead the Aggron to the right note at the right time. No memorization, no stress. All thanks to Metagross’ ingenious design.

The moment Aggron played, the moment Steven walked onstage in the dark while guiding his Archeops safely by the hand with one hand and wielding his violin in the other. Only seconds during the prelude would a second spotlight spot the duo, when Steven played along and his Archeops watched in amusement. A Key Stone glimmered in his bow as he turned to his Archeops with a smile. Clearly, more money was spent on his outfit (resembling an Armaldo) than the Archeops’ outfit, a shiny silk dress that almost looked as though the dress was ripped in half. As the interlude played, some text on the projector screen above them read:

Ancient as the stars, primal as the universe

A tale of love and betrayal befalls an unlikely duo...

After the prelude, the lights flashed back on. Metagross arised from lying on the floor, like a rock coming to life. His outfit was much more crude than Aggron’s, if you can even consider cufflinks and a giant top hat as an outfit. Although, the Metagrossite on its hat did add a nice touch to its outfit. The Cradily’s outfit was arguably more bland, what with just a silk skirt hanging on its neck. With a nod of their Trainer, his Pokemon all joined him in a circle and danced together with the chorus (except for Aggron, of course). Each and every Pokemon promenade through the circle in sync with their master. When the motif of the chorus repeated, they broke off into groups of two: Steven with Archeops and Metagross with Cradily. Each pranced with their partner to the beat as they circled around the stage counterclockwise.

After the chorus, Archeops and Steven galloped stage left while Cradily seemed to wander throughout the stage. Meanwhile, Metagross stood just a few feet behind the duo in anticipation. The spotlight gleamed on Steven and Archeops again while Aggron closed his eyes, as if he was contemplating on the music he was playing. Or in this case, he was taking in some stagelight. Metagross stomped in tune with METEOR MASH and Cradily dented the floor with ANCIENT POWER. As Steven whistled for Archeops to do various tricks and flips in the air with ACROBATICS, Metagross’ Meteor Mash added some sparkle into the spotlight. Combining the Meteor Mash’s sparkle with Archeops’ Acrobatics added a gleam to its crude outfit which accented the Rock Pokemon’s lofty stunts. In the meantime, Cradily’s Ancient power left some rubble floating high above the stage in the darkness, along with some dents in the floor that matched Steven’s foot size. When Archeops descended from his last spin, he chirped with glee around Steven and rested his head on his neck. Steven kissed Archeops on the head and Archeops chirped with glee, an endearing moment for the audience to either appreciate their cuteness or chuckle at the attempt of it.

Before Steven and his Pokemon gather around again for the chorus, Aggron unleashed SOLAR BEAM to the rubble in the air, bursting them into sparks of dust and returning light to the stage. While it may seem counterintuitive, the Solar Beam was used to temporarily blind Steven, and the dents on the floor were used to guide his steps. However, walking blindly is no obstacle for the former Hoenn Champion. This, to him, was absolutely essential to create the illusion that Steven left the circle in wanderlust and lost his dancing partner, Archeops, to Metagross. As Metagross and Archeops danced and twirled with each other, Cradily circled around them and spewed SLUDGE BOMB into the air, signifying the theme of betrayal to the audience.

Once the chorus ended, the lights dropped. At last, the perfect opportunity for a certain Gym Leader’s Gengar to sneak into the performance. In the darkness, the Gengar rushed into Steven’s shadow, bringing a freezing chill to his spine. Once the lights returned, Aggron played the second intro, and Archeops hid under Metagross’ hat. Normally, Steven would regain his vision by now, but thanks to Morty’s Gengar, the cold weakened his senses. Luckily, his aimless search for Archeops was a part of the act, but he’s not sure how long he can keep this up. He couldn’t even feel his fingers fiddling on his violin. As he trudged about the stage, Metagross grunted for Archeops to come out of his hat. It’s not sure what’s wrong with its master, but the show must go on. The Archeops popped out of its hat, giving a hug to its head and pecking his beak on its head with a kiss before faking a snooze. A brief awkward silence consumed the stage. Looks like this time, their master would miss his own cue. As such, Archeops screeched for its master to come over and tap him on the head, signaling Aggron to start the call and response.

Archeops used CRUNCH at his Trainer’s upper body in sync with each chord of the piano, symbolizing a fight. However, thanks to the Gengar in his shadow, Steven failed to dodge the last attack in time, leaving a nasty bite mark on his shoulder. His Archeops was too focused on the music that he didn’t notice his wound and continued to attack. Although, it appeared Steven was able to resist the pain in his shoulder as he circled around Archeops and whistled with the music. Looks like Gengar had to resort to another victim. As Archeops cooed with his master’s whistling and laid on his back playfully, the lights dimmed a bit for their spotlight once again. This allowed Gengar to sneak into Archeops’ shadow, making the prehistoric bird feel chilly. Not even Steven noticed the Archeops quivering as he knelt down and kissed his head again. Archeops attempted to soar up to Steven’s shoulders for the two to spin around rapidly in the spotlight with QUICK ATTACK. However, thanks to the Gengar in his shadow, his Archeops lost balance and fell to the floor with a comical squawk. Meanwhile, Metagross used Meteor Mash to sparkle the spotlight again. In an instant, Archeops flew away from Steven’s head and onto Metagross’ head seconds before the big crescendo. A close call for Gengar, since the height of Archeops’ ascent greatly diminished his shadow mid flight, almost forcing him to pop out of the shadow. That Archeops was a clever one.

To ensure Steven doesn’t interrupt Archeops and Metagross’ dance, Cradily consumed the stage with INGRAIN, presenting various vines for Steven to weave under or jump over them. Now Gengar had a clear pathway towards anyone onstage in the shadows of the vines as they stretched across the entire stage. He’d hide in the piano for now until he could decide what to do next. As the vines grew, they formed an elevated platform for Metagross to stand on. As Steven struggled to reach the new duo, Metagross and Archeops locked their heads together with ZEN HEADBUTT and HEAD SMASH. Astonishingly, the impact created a great flash of pink light around them as Archeops spun Metagross around with its head, picking up the Steel Pokemon’s velocity just enough for it to spin on one leg. As Metagross’ spin died down, it winded its arm behind Archeops for a sweet embrace. This gave Steven enough time to leap onto Metagross’ platform and taunt him by pointing his bow like a sword. The Key Stone in his bow gradually radiated with light. Finally, the moment of truth had arrived.

Steven puffed out his chest. He and Aggron struck the first three chords to the key change. Aggron used AVALANCHE to reflect the climactic drums and escalate the danger for Steven’s flight. To top it all off, the Metagrossite in Metagross’s hat radiated as Metagross was consumed in a great ball of light. Immediately after the Avalanche, the light was unleashed in rainbow colors, and the Mega Evolved Metagross used BULLET PUNCH to the platform. All within a few seconds, Steven skyrocketed fifty feet into the air. However, thanks to Gengar rolling around inside the piano, the wrong notes and chords were played, ruining the grandiosity of the music. As Steven briskly weaved past every falling icy rubble in the air, Metagross used REFLECT to create a protective umbrella for the rest of Steven’s Pokemon. At last, Meta Metagross and Archeops’ waltz took to the sky. While Archeops’ wingspan was much too small for Meta Metagross, they held hands (or claws/talons) with each grand spin, as if they were in a real ballroom dance. Cradily’s vines swayed like the tide as it spun around and shot more Sludge Bombs in sync with the melody. Through their synchronized combination of Zen Headbutt and Acrobatics on the bombs, each bomb purified and bursted into a petite yet elegant rainbow. Steven would descend close to Archeops in the middle of the musical climax, only to be inevitably hurled again by another Bullet Punch from Mega Metagross.

As Mega Metagross and Archeops waltzed and popped more bubbles with the melody, Cradily’s vines gradually formed into a giant alter that was ten feet tall. He sprouted a grand pillar beneath Aggron and the piano as well for the audience to see him. For the grand finale, Cradily inflated one more massive Sludge Bomb inside the grand altar. Once Steven’s feet touched the floor for the final time, Meta Metagross and Archeops bursted through the massive bubble and held hands in the shower of a colossal rainbow. In that split second, Gengar hid under Steven’s shadow one last time. At the last chord of the music, Steven looks up at the altar alone, only for Gengar to break his sad eyes with a lick to his face. All the perspiration showering Steven’s face was enough to tell…There was no way he could win this now.

[blamebrampton]

Eurovision 2018, Semi Final 2

I’m watching on replay and it’s getting late, so this is going to be as swift as possible. We open with a gorgeous montage and I really do feel like going to Lisboa after this week, were I not broke as a broke thing. The women are back and they look great. The NCIS one has come in an assassin’s cocktail dress, the saintly one is dressed like a tasteful wedding cake, the blonde has come over all black swan and the little one has picked up on last semi final’s sci fi villains theme and is cosplaying Servalan. They are doing nautical allusions again and I will continue to ignore them wherever possible. And also their jokes. They are lovely people, but I am here for the singing. 

1. Norway, Alexander Rybak, That’s How You Write A Song. He’s back! With the air fiddle this time. In fact, a raft of air instruments that are animated in. Look, he’s still cute as a button and charismatic as a puppy, but this song is reminding me of Cliff Richard and that is not something I wish to be reminded of. It’s no Fairytale. ACTUAL violin has just appeared! About bloody time. He nearly transcends the song, but the song is well meh. Watch it win now. Backing dancers exist and are perfectly fine. Let’s move on.

2. Romania, The Humans, Goodbye. White dress, drink. No, it was a fakeout, the lead singer is wearing purple. She’s surrounded by band members in white with creepy white masks. And mannequins in in gimp suits, also with creepy white masks. I’ve got a real Bonnie Tyler vibe here, which is at least a step up from the last song. BIG power chords into the main body of the song. She’s exhorting the mannequins to live their best life and I cannot bear to break it to her. White dress girl is back, she’s the cellist and I respect a band with a cellist. BIG HERO NOTES! ooh, her purple frock has matching shorts. Nice. Song was OK, band was great.

3. Serbia, Sanja Ilic and Balkanika, Nova Deca. Pipes and wailing vocal intro and I am sold already. If I was up this morning, this would have had my vote. Soz, kids. Three girls wailing mystically with a man looming behind Rasputinly. Seriously, his whole outfit is mad monk. Big Taiko style drums with an enthusiastic man beating away — erm, on the drums — and now some dance beats to lift it. I have to say that I would love this on the club floor late at night when you want something a bit slower and trippier. The girls’ outfits are sort of earth goddess meets debutante. I’m not going to lie, I flipping loved this one.

4. San Marino, Jessika, featuring Jenifer Brening, Who We Are. Lead singer in a lacy red frock over undies. Two human girl dancers and a set of robot dancers. Look, Ive seen worse. Jenny B has just stonked out down the walkway rapping determinedly and it’s all … fine. It’s a perfectly fine song and there will be some young folks who love it. A robot is holding up body positivity messages, actually, the poor wee thing just dropped it, but now he’s holding hands with the singer. It’s a bit community centre talent night, but they’re enormously likeable and I wish them well.

5. Denmark, Rasmussen, Higher Ground. Sudden plunge into darkness. Faint mystic chord as of pipes over water. Dry smoke. Backlit bearded man standing on a ramp. Square sails and more bearded men. Yes, we have hit peak Viking for the night and there is chanting and stomping and more beard pomade than is probably safe in an environment with pyro. We’re singing about men laying down their swords and making their mark and it’s all very Scandirevival, but I have to confess I rather like it and they can all bloody well sing. I have a nose full of North Sea wind and my cheeks feel windbitten at the end of this song, Oh, look, a white flag of peace. Sure. Key change! Snorri Sturluson would love these guys. The boy Aussie commentator has just said they remind him of when Durmstrang walked into the Hall in Harry Potter and he is right on the money. Definitely a contender.

6. Russia, Julia Samoylova, I Won’t Break. Set design is from the cousin of whoever did Estonia, so it’s nice to have two iceberg singers in the one contest. Super dancers: ballet this time, with Russian technique, which is always lovely to see. Look, I disagree with her politics and her country, and the song’s another meh one, but I wish her well. Moving on.

7. Moldova, DoReDoS, My Lucky Day. They have brought a whole miniseries in the staging of this song. She’s seeing blue suit, but red suit behind his back. Now she and red suit are official, but blue suit is getting some on the side. Lots of comedy from the dancers in the background, who are working within a white box set. It’s silly, it’s saucy. it’s a lot of fun. It would absolutely be the theme song of a sex comedy from 1959 starring Sophia Loren.

8. The Netherlands, Waylon, Outlaw in ’Em. Steel string guitar, pulsing lights and wailing vocals. I’m sorry, I’m allergic to wailing dead dog country that uses gun metaphors, They’re very talented, just not my thing. I’m sure he’ll make a fortune in America and good luck to him.

Short presenter is down with the audience and why?

9. Australia, Jessica Mauboy, We’ve Got Love. Cards on the table, I love Jess. She is a super lovely person as well as a great singer. I don’t the song is quite as good as Dami’s Sound of Silence, but she can perform like a goddess. She is bringing her inner Beyonce with the hair and squats, and selling the lyrics, which are basically, ‘don’t give up, we’ve got love’ and look, sure, but this is a country that numbers Sia, Nick Cave and Kate Miller Heidke among its leading lyricists and I just feel we could have done better for our Jess. But she is putting it all out there, and getting the crowd in on side. The drapey bit on her minidress is a bit distracting, but who gives a proverbial, she’s a champ and she should definitely go through to the finals.No matter how absurd it is that we are there.

10. Georgia, Ethno-Jazz Band Iriao, For You. My first question is whether that is actually the group’s name or if they added a little descriptor for the booking agent once and it’s stuck. It matters not. Lovely quiet jazz piano opening, then classical vocals soaring over the top, dry ice already, and a chanting backing vocal that is somewhere between Gregorian monks and Il Divo, but entirely pleasant to listen to. The vocals are very tight and the arrangement intelligently spare and restrained in parts to show off the voices. I approve! There is a lot of eyebrow emoting, but I don’t mind that in a dark Eastern European man, it’s like queueing if you’re British or buying sausage sandwiches at hardware shops on weekends if you’re Australian. That was a good three minutes for me, I hope they get through!

11. Poland, Gromee, featuring Lucas Meijer, Light Me Up. They are wearing ridiculous hats. More Pharrel than Devo, but the sort of hat that will stand in for a personality when you’re young and nervous. Fair enough, some of them look about 14. Good performers, strong backing vocals and the sort of winning stage performance I would have loved the first 250 times I saw it. It’s not your fault I am old and jaded, Gromee, but I am. There is pyro, there is hand dancing, he is dancing with the audience, he is counting. It’s all fine. OK, bye.

12. Malta, Christabelle, Taboo. She is standing inside four big screens and now a heart is glowing against her black dress. People writhe on her screens and the world spins out from her hands. She is singing about the need to respect and support each other in a world that can be hard and cruel. I… I really like her. I’m not sure whether I also like the song or if I just find her so committed to it that I think I like it, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s a real dancer inside the screens now, and Christabelle loves us all. I love you too, Christabelle. I would totally invite you to my barbecue with Jess.

13. Hungary, AWS, Vislát Nyár. Going for the risky Lordi without masks vote, they drum their way in and then launch straight into rich, angry, headbanging lyrics that are upset about something but my knowledge of Finno-Ugric languages begins and ends with a song about little piggies. Another performance with sincerity rather than just polish, though, and that counts. CROWD SURFING GUITARIST! He’s been returned safely, bless you lovely Eurovision crowd. Angry shouting, epic pyro, lots of drumming. There we go.

14. Latvia, Laura Rizzotto, Funny Girl. Another red lace minidress, with a train this time. Actually, it’s more a shorts dress. A playsuit with train. She looks lovely whatever it is. Her song is apparently about a girl who just a wee bit of a stalker. You know you can tell a chap you like him and not just hang around waiting for him to notice you, yes? Some nice bits of tricky tempo and big hair singing. It’s not my cup of tea, but it is well brewed.

15. Sweden, Benjamin Ingrosso, Dance You Off. Brief moment to mention it is bloody freezing in Sydney tonight, for the first time in forever. This is another very polished performance from a skilled performer and it’s doing nothing for me. Might go and find a blanket for my wee toesies.

16. Montenegro, Vanja Radonovic, Inje. Man at piano, women in background, intense man in front, who is Vanja. He is upset. Possibly because some bastard has bedazzled the crap out of his suit. Nice vocals in the ballad, though. The girls are striding, the piano is staying still, which is as it should be. Ooh! The girls are playing statues. Nice. There is a lot of emoting, but the girls’ costumes and facial expressions make it a little unfortunately close to ‘help us, we have been enslaved by vampires and need you to stake us to free our souls’. Lighting and key change, but otherwise much as before. The girls are still suffering. It’s probably a complex retelling of current politics.

17. Slovenia, Lea Sirk, Helva, Nei. She has pink hair so I like her already. Backing dancers are muscular and fast, I like them, too. Do not bother any of these women or they will make you regret it almost immediately. Her frock is another curtain over undies number, but with more plastic than most others. Who can explain it, who can tell you why? Their music cuts out at one point and they get the audience to clap their beat and I am not certain that was real, but it was nicely handled. Confirmation that was a faux error on the music. Whatevs. As no-one says anymore.

18. Ukraine, Melovin, Under the Ladder. Before I hear a word, I learn he likes horses, David Bowie and Verka Serduchka, so we’re basically friends now. He opens the song in a crypt, which opens up in a cheerfully cheesy Hammer Horror way. He’s dressed like an old-school vampire and the crypt is really the inside of a giant piano at the top of a set of stairs. Clearly Dead or Alive were 30 years too early for this chap, but I am glad YouTube will let him experience them. As everyone guessed, he is back up the stairs to play the piano, soulfully. And now the stairs are on fire, and there’s random pyro everywhere. Of course there is. Vampires love fire. At least dress your backing singers as avenging villagers, who have finally arrived to free the girls from Montenegro.

And we are done! Voting is about to open. I am fast forwarding through this bit because life is too short. ESCLOPEDIA IS BACK! Hello bearded man! More clips from past songs, and an allegation that there is a link between Eurovision and fashion. That is A LIE. You know, Portugal, you’re no Sweden and the women are no Petra and Mans, but I respect that you have kept these interval bits short and cool.

I spoke too soon. Presenters are back with costume changes. NCIS is in a short blue cocktail dress, Blondie is in a pink line dancing dress, Saintly is wearing a costume from my Grade Two Tap exam and the little one is cosplaying Severus Snape. They are doing dance moves from Eurovisions past. The Little One is actually pretty funny, but you will have to download it as I am not up to describing that much physical comedy. There is a Riverdance moment. Which I believe is obligatory for every third Eurpovision.

They run through the acts again, and Denmark’s lead singer has brows you could crack nuts on. Walnuts. Not the other kind. Though he looks as though he would be against toxic masculinity, so perhaps that would also be OK.

Votes are closed. We are touring through Portugal. It is very lovely. The acts are ding the bits that have preceded every song and coming out through their doors and visiting locations and generally cocking a lot of it up, bless them. They look as though they are having fun.

Little presenter has just turned up at the Aussie table and is handing out pastéis de nata a la Oprah and Jess looks as though she is in heaven. Custard really is that good.

Saintly presenter is talking about Eurovision’s role in Portuguese politics! 1974, the year Sweden won with Waterloo, was the year that the Portuguese entry was chosen to be the signal for a revolution. It was played on the radio in the early morning as a signal to take to the streets and by the end of the day there were carnations in gun barrels.True story.

Black swan presenter has found British fans and I think they may have been on the drink, but they say lovely things about Portugal (and Jess), so well done, kids!

Bridal cake presenter is introducing the tracks from France, Germany and Italy and Little One is with them. The French performers are cute as, and sing last years’ winning song in French. Suck ups. But lovely voice. Ooh, NCIS has taken over with Germany. who looks a little like Josh Widdicombe. He’s doing a ukulele cover of Fly on the Wings of Love and I confess I liked it. The entry is nice, too. Look forward to the full version in the finals. And now it’s Little One again with Italy, who really look 100% drunk. But they have spectacular hair. And do a chorus of Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu, ‘Volare! Oh-oh. Cantare, oh wo-oh-oh’ They are SO VERY drunk. Or just exhausted after sitting through 17 hours of this.

Jon Ola Sand says the votes are in. Thank Zeus!

The winners are: Serbia! Fair enough. Moldova! Excellent. They were hilarious. Hungary, because all those Norwegian Death Metal fans were there for you. Ukraine, sure. Sweden. Really? Look, you’re a lovely country. Australia! YAY JESS! Norway, meh. Soz Sasha. I love your country. Denmark, which is entirely fair. Slovenia, which is good news. Last spot goes to The Netherlands, which is fine, the country and western people need something. That’s it till Sunday morning, Which will probably be Sunday night, let’s be honest.

[disuvero-declaration]

Article / “Declaration of Spirit: An Interview with Mark di Suvero,” Venice Magazine by William Turner / June 2001 

As you walk toward Venice Beach past the end of Windward Avenue, Mark di Suvero's newly installed sculpture greets you with breathtaking suddenness. Out of the tangled cadence of slightly swaying palms, "Declaration" soars majestically above gentle explosions of fronds. As with much of di Suvero's work, massive steel beams converge in impossibly graceful balance, so that your awareness of staggering weight and size gives way to an exhilarating sense of space and possibility.

Mark di Suvero has installed this piece, in cooperation with LA Louver, to mark the occasion of the Venice Art Walk's 22 nd year in support of the Venice Family Clinic. Di Suvero's work couldn't be a more perfect choice. As long time friend Laddie John Dill said at the commemoration, "Mark has this incredible commitment to peace and the human spirit." That a work of such scale is conceived and implemented by a man with a broken back, who stands with support of twin canes, is remarkable testament to the triumph of that spirit.

Mark di Suvero was born in Shanghai in 1933 and came to San Francisco in 1941. Di Suvero's early work of the late fifties were often fabrications of found objects; tires, cable, rope, lumber and steel which he combined to create unusually graceful and delicate sculptures. A nearly fatal studio accident, in 1960, left di Suvero with a broken back and confined to a wheel chair for several years.   Yet by the mid-sixties, di Suvero's work on large scale steel sculptures had resumed with greater ambition than ever.

It is impossible to stand before di Suvero's powerful, lyrically balanced sculptures without a sense of wonder at how they came into being. When I met di Suvero at the site for "Declaration" , he was wearing his characteristic hard hat and had just finished the installation with his small crew. The cranes and lifts surrounding the 60 foot high piece were no help in imagining how he did it. Yet after spending time with Mark di Suvero, you realize that with passion and energy all things are possible.

Venice: Let's talk about the piece you just installed, "Declaration" .   I went earlier today and it was so big that that I didn't see it at first. I was looking down too low-

Mark di Suvero: Too low huh? Are you sure it wasn't the pollution that made it blend into the background?

Well the trees do have an interesting effect with it.

Peter [Goulds, owner of LA Louver Gallery] promised to paint it fluorescent orange, himself. I like the idea.

Put him to work.

Yes. Do you want to talk about the artists' of Venice that I've known?

Sure. Why don't we start with that.

Okay. There is Guy Dill, and Laddie John Dill. And I like to look at the beautiful pieces of Kenny   Price that are here. Joe Goode, and people like that. They were all working when I was working in the city. It was when we were all awake and alive, some thirty years ago

Yeah, late sixties, early seventies?

Late sixties just up to seventy.

And you lived in the West Hollywood area?

West Hollywood, and then in Pasadena. Pasadena has changed completely. Of course thirty years ago, for Los Angeles, means a couple of generations ago. (Laughs) It is different now.

A lot of those artists- Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, De Wain Valentine, Billy Al Bengston-worked with materials like polyester and resin, pursuing ideas about light and space-

-They were the cutting edge, Finish / Fetish, the whole idea of abstract expressionism, or "A.E.". go on-

Did you have any flirtation with those materials or ideas? How did you see yourself fitting in artistically?

No. They kind of refused me. I was from New York, although we were all friends. They were supposedly of another type, and I didn't quite fit in. The work I was doing was too raw, or seemed raw. It seemed funky. It seemed direct, and that wasn't what they were doing. But they liked me, because there was that sense that we were all working together and had something.

Who were your early influences as an artist?

Early influences...well, how far back do you want me to go?

I'll let you decide.

I had to do a studio class today, for Otis, and I talked to them about the Venus of Willendorf and Brancusi as two different poles. As two different time sets. You look at the Venus of Willendorf and you look at Brancusi as really deep influences. People that I liked, of course were...what... you weren't born in the Fifties-

Fifty-three.

So that's about when I started. I started in about '55. I was in school. The people that I really looked at,   at the time were people like Gonzales and Henry Moore, who was considered modern.   There was Picasso,   there was Brancusi, there were the Americans like, ah help me-

-David Smith -

Yeah, David Smith, those people.

When did you feel your work began to develop its current identity?

After I had my back broken, that's when I really was able to finally start welding, no longer working just with wood.   I looked a lot at the Russian Constructivists, so by the time I came to L.A., I was working with heavy wood, large I-beams. I had already done pieces like "Maryann Moore" ,   which is now in the Mall in Washington D.C. So what they call my signature style, which is actually sculpture that is the right size and scale for working with a truck crane, had already been reached. Although I hadn't reached it to the level of this piece, "Declaration" .

Even your smaller works have a wonderful monumentality to them. If you look at them out of any context of scale, they could be huge.

I talked to Don Judd about that. We were talking about scale as this kind of internal reference. For me, the real struggle for sculpture since the very early sixties has to do with space. The people who really began that spatial exploration were Rodin with his "Burghers of Calais" . Not the one you have here in LA [at the LA County Museum], which is all wrong spatially, but the one where they are spread out and they look like they are lost and in lost directions. Then it goes into Giacometti, with his "Men in a Square" , where everybody looks like they have nothing to do with each other,   they're going all in different ways. There is that sense of space and scale which is really completely different from the previous ideas- the monuments, the monoliths- where the space is enclosing. A lot of the people in L.A. when I was working here, did not have that. They were into Andy Warhol, and that Finish / Fetish stuff, and stuff like that. So I was a little bit out of it, and finally I had to leave. So it wasn't only because of Norton Simon-

What was your run-in with Norton Simon?

When I returned after the Vietnam War, Norton Simon said to me that I had to get my piece out of there, [the Pasadena Museum] and that they would pay for the crane to bring it down but they would not pay for the truck. So I had to pay for the truck back to my studio. The piece ended up back in my studio and later near a Phillip Johnson building.

That was right after Norton Simon took over the Pasadena Museum?

Yes. Then he destroyed it.

I know for a lot of you back then, the Pasadena Museum was a real seminal, supportive environment.

Exactly.

From everyone I've talked to, the Pasadena Museum had a huge impact on the development of an artistic sensibility in Los Angeles. It was really the beginning...

Yup! John Coplans was there and Barbara Haskell. Then Norton Simon came in, it had to do with their budget, and they lost it.

A big loss at the time, for LA artists.

What is there now, LACMA, right? There's the Contemporary [Museum of Contemporary Art] right? Then there's the Temporary Contemporary [Geffen Contemporary] -which has done so much, I think.

One of the Geffen's most impressive recent shows was the one for Richard Serra-

I didn't see it, but it also went to Bilbao and it was a big success in there.

You and Serra both work with massively large scale steel sculptures. Although they are clearly quite different in style, are you pursuing similar sculptural and spatial concerns?

There's a great deal of difference, although we grew up together. Same area, we had only one house between us. We grew up in the same neighborhood. No, I think Richard has had terrific influence, and although we work in the same material there are strong differences. I asked Dick Bellamy to show Nancy Graves, that's when they were together, but he showed Richard Serra. I think that Nancy Graves is in some ways so wild and explorative and Richard has a different psychological zone to him.

Let's talk about this piece for a minute. It has a feeling of celebration of life. But there's also something quite sexual about it-

Sensual or Sexual?

Well, perhaps sensual with a sexual twist?

Well, when I suggested bungie cords with a bed at the bottom, there were people who said that it wouldn't work in Venice, it would get worn out! (laughs).

In conceiving of "Declaration", was there any thought in terms of the theme of that particular piece? Did that have anything to do with commemorating the Venice Family Clinic?

No it didn't. I had built the piece and had already finished it. It was already in position when Peter [Goulds] first saw it. It's a heavy piece, for me but I think that it has that thing I aimed for.

What do you aim for?

I've been writing a book for the last thirty years and it has to do with the human perception of structure. The idea of symbolic structures in language, math, and art. Maybe it's going to get published. It has in it photos of a hundred pieces of sculptures that are more than five meters tall. The photos will say something about the sculpture and my choice of poetry will say something about my vision of structure in poetry, which is what I think is necessary to make a work glow.

So you see a parallel between the structural form of sculpture and the structural form of language and poetry?

I had to jam the book together to say it to you, but there's a dimension in there that you are correct in, but I wouldn't quite say it that way.

In terms of the massive scale of this piece, relative to the scale of the viewer, there is a sensation that is quite humbling. When you walk up to it, the piece becomes almost overwhelming in its size.

I would like to think not that it's humbling but that it expands your sense of possibility of spirit. After all, I realize that for the last 40 years that I've been handicapped, I'd like kids to feel, "Wow, if someone handicapped can do that, I sure can!". I like there to be a certain level of participation. Whether its in small pieces where there's touch and you have that sense of feel or with pieces with swinging beds, which work on your sense of balance. I've done these pieces where people walk right through the sculpture-

Which "Declaration" invites you to do.

Yes. That goes back some thirty odd years.

Upon seeing "Declaration", my first reaction was that I wished that there weren't palm trees behind it so that I could really see the stark contrast of the structure against the vast expanse of the ocean. But on further reflection, I like how something of that scale is initially lost in the trees and then suddenly erupts from the landscape behind it and towers against the sky.

You know there's an ecstatic poet named Rumey. Do you know his work?

I don't.

I dedicated a work to him years ago. It was shown in New York and at the Guggenheim in Venezia. It's in Kansas City now. He talks about ecstacy. Its a joining of the world with the world in a way that is, and should be, joyous and brilliant and colorful and all of it, all at once. Which is why I want Peter to paint that piece fluorescent orange. He should start from the top. He suggested a sable brush!

I heard him and I hope that he does because that will mean that it will be here for a lot longer than the four months that is planned.

I'm afraid it will get tagged more often - but that's OK too.

In spite of the fact that you say "Declaration" was not specifically created for the Venice Family Clinic, it seems like a great choice because it feels like such a life affirming piece.

Well, I would like it to be that. You know I told Peter when they demanded a building permit two days before it went up, that if he didn't get the permit then there was no show. I would not deliver the piece, although it was half loaded onto the trucks. But I still felt positive about it because of doing the lithographs (for the Venice Family Clinic), doing the posters and T-shirts, which I don't normally do. But I felt it was all going for a really righteous type of thinking. That Family Clinic is terrific. I think that Liz Forer and the people that work there and volunteer are the best part of America.  

[havesomereviews]

Doctor Who 1x12 - 1x13: Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways

Writer: Russell T Davies Director: Joe Ahearne Main Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, John Barrowman, Noel Clarke, Camille Coduri, Jo Joyner, Jo Stone-Fewings, Nisha Nayar, Nicholas Briggs

Synopsis: The TARDIS team each wake up to find themselves as contestants in three separate game shows. But these games are deadly. But who brought them here? And who is hiding behind the scenes?

Monster of the Week: Daleks. Lots and lots of Daleks.

Quote of the Episode: “Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I.”

Standout Moment: The Coward or Killer scene is by far the most powerful. The Doctor has finished the Delta Wave just in time and Daleks are coming at him from all sides. He has his hands on the plunger that will end them all into oblivion... but he doesn’t do it. He can’t press that button again. He is no longer a killer.

Cringeworthy Moment: “I think you need a Doctor.” My God, that was cheesy and ruined what was otherwise a brilliant scene

Main Review: The first season of the new series of Doctor Who draws to a close and we say goodbye to the Ninth Doctor, so straight away you know this episode is going to be spectacular. And it is. Not in the complicated flashy way of later seasons but just by being an epic storyline with so many touching moments. 

The whole series had led up to this moment and these two episodes tie it all together. but not in a way that means you have to have been there from the start to enjoy it. I myself had only started watching from The Empty Child (I was reluctant to give the new series a chance after being such a big fan of the old one, something that still remains one of my biggest undersights) and I still absolutely loved this episode. I was quite happy to watch it multiple times while waiting for the next one that was not due til Christmas. It wraps of the arc of the season while still being a captivating story on its own and that is why, eleven years on, it is still my favourite season finale of the show.

But it’s not just the words Bad Wolf that have served as a lead up to this moment. During my review for The Long Game I mentioned foreshadowing and these two episodes are where it comes into play. The Doctor even mentions the title. “Some one has been playing avery long game.” Not only is the finale set in the same place, the situation is a direct result of the Doctor’s interference in The Long Game and we can’t help but think that if he had stuck around afterwards, maybe he would have been able to prevent it. 

But enough about foreshadowing (although there is a seemingly unimportant line in Bad Wolf that actually starts the arc for the next series), lets talk about all the amazing scenes that this episode has to offer. It has so many that I had an extremely difficult time deciding on a standout moment. It had many contenders and I would like to go through all of them (yes it is going to be a long review).

Contender number one: Jack’s time on What Not to Wear. He’s funny and flirty and just pure Jack, but he’s not an idiot. He has a - shall we say - strategically placed weapon and is ready to use it when the game turns deadly. And the cameos of Trinny and Susannah were a nice addition.

All the cameos helped add to the realism of the situation, but none more so than Anne Robinson as the Anne-droid when Rose gets trapped on the futuristic version of The Weakest Link. It was absolutely the right decision to put Rose in this situation and not the Doctor or Jack. Being a high school dropout, she would probably have a bit of trouble with the show in her own time let alone over 100,000 years into her future, and as such, the stakes are higher and the tension is real. Rose is not one to shy away from a challenge though and she is going to fight for her survival. She not only makes it to the last round, she also works out that her being there is no accident.

The Doctor is placed in an episode of Big Brother and does get some funny lines and a sweet moment with Lynda but it’s not until he gets to floor 500 that we really get to see him shine. His anger at Rose’s apparent death is fierce and yet still not willing to shoot anyone in revenge. He has come a long way from that moment in Henry Van Statten’s museum where he was ready to commit genocide (more on that later).

And that bring us to contender number two. The real villains of the story have been revealed and the Daleks are back. But this time it is not just one, it’s a whole fleet. There thousand of them... and they have Rose. The Daleks order the Doctor to surrender or they will shoot his friend. But in this stunning scene, the Doctor turns the hostage situation on its head with one word: no. One awesome speech later, he and Jack are sending the TARDIS soaring towards the Dalek ship and are saving Rose. Christopher Eccleston delivers this speech perfectly and you gotta hand it to Billie, she absolutely captures Rose’s pride for the Doctor. The only thing that ruins this scene is the shot of everyone in the room turning their heads to the Doctor at once. I know it’s expected that this would happen but it really does look like they have done it on a stage assistant’s cue rather than because of the Doctor’s words.

So, anyway, back to the plot. They have saved Rose, met the Emperor of the Daleks, and discovered his long game. Now back on Game Station with a fleet of Daleks on their way, it’s up to the Doctor to save the day. But he doesn’t have much time. He has only one option: a Delta Wave that will destroy the Daleks once and for all. The only problem is there is no chance of refining it - it will kill everything in its path, including the people of Earth. Jack knows this and in a touching goodbye scene, we see the true depth of his character. No longer is he a con artist/walking innuendo, now he is a selfless hero... /walking innuendo.

But Rose doesn’t realise the full implications of the Delta Wave, her faith in the Doctor is too great, which brings us to contender number three. In a brilliant scene we see her bravery and faith shine through. The Doctor suggests that they could take the TARDIS and leave the Earth to it’s fate but Rose knows that the Doctor would never do such a thing and she never even considered asking. She could never do such a thing either. She’s just too good.

Which is why the Doctor has to trick her. He sends her and the TARDIS back to the Powell Estate and back to Jackie. His goodbye is given in the form of a hologram message he prepared for just an occasion such as this. He promised to keep Rose safe and he made sure he could keep that promise. 

Although his goodbye speech to Rose is emotional on its own, it was the way he spoke of the TARDIS that brought me to tears. The thought of the iconic blue box being left to die was just too much to bear.

But Rose does what she will always do, she finds a way back to the Doctor. She saves him. Her speech about the Doctor showing her a better way of life is a brilliant one. Because it’s not about the space ships and the time travel, it’s about doing the right thing even when it seems hopeless. And that’s exactly what Doctor Who is all about.

Contender number four for the title of “Standout Moment” is a grim one. While Rose is discovering the Bad Wolf message and working to get back to the action, it’s war on Satellite 5. The Daleks are not only killing the people on the game station, they are devastating the planet below. So many people die but the most chilling death scene easily goes to Lynda. She has the safest job of the lot of them, monitoring the Daleks’ movements while hidden in a locked room with steel doors. But the Daleks find her and begin to cut through. 

While she is worryingly watching the door, she realises that there is another way in: the window. She slowly turns and sees three Daleks outside floating up to her level and she knows it’s over. What makes this scene so well done is the way we experience it the way Lynda would. Her death scene is entirely made up of shots from within the room she is trapped in. We see the Daleks through the glass as she would and we only hear the sounds that she would be able to hear. Which is why we don’t hear the Dalek speak, we just see the lights on its top flash. And even though we can’t hear it, we know exactly what it is being said. Ex-ter-min-ate. We don’t even see the glass shatter, we only hear it as the Dalek’s laser shoots through it and Lynda screams. The end result makes a chilling scene.

Contender number five is obvious. Back on Earth Rose, with the help of Mickey and Jackie, opens the Heart of the TARDIS and becomes the Bad Wolf, virtually making herself a God. She destroys the Daleks and brings Jack back to life. But the power is too great. She can see all of time and space and it’s killing her. The Doctor knows what he must do, and he is all too willing to do it. He will die but he has more than one life and it is a small price to pay to save Rose’s. Sealing the deal with a kiss (and the crowd cheers), he takes the power from Rose and gives it back to the TARDIS. All of this happens with Murray Gold’s haunting piece of music playing in the background. Seriously, The Doctor’s Theme is absolutely brilliant and has not been matched since.

There was one more contender for my favourite scene but I will talk about that one later. Right now, I want to talk about the the scene that won. It’s not the scene where Rose shows up and saves the day, it’s the scene before it. The scene where the Doctor loses. 

All throughout the episode, the Emperor has been baiting the Doctor, comparing him to the destroyer of worlds (“If I am God, the creator of all things, then what does that make you, Doctor?”). But the Doctor carries on, determined to wipe out the last Daleks in existence. He finishes the Delta Wave and is ready to push that button that will destroy Daleks and humans alike, paralleling what he had to do to end the Time War. But he can’t do it again. The Emperor continues to bait him, almost daring him to do it, to be a Dalek, an exterminator. He asks the question, what are you? Coward or Killer? and you can see the struggle raging on in the Doctor’s mind. Credit where credit’s due, Christopher Eccleston owned this scene. Ultimately, the Doctor steps away from the button and utters, in my opinion, what is the most insightful line into the Ninth Doctor’s character. “Coward, any day”.

The Ninth Doctor has had such amazing character development over his one and only season and it is done so well that you don’t even notice how much his character has changed until the end. And then you realise that the Doctor we saw in Rose, and even the one was saw in Dalek, would have pushed that button, but the man he has become since then would never. He is no longer just a guilt-ridden soldier, haunted by his past, he is the Doctor, in every way possible.

And the overall reason for his healing of past wounds is Rose. She keeps him centered and is there to catch him when falls. Her compassion and bravery make it easy to believe that this is the sort of girl that the Doctor would fall in love with. Because despite the Doctor’s flirting with Lynda, this episode shows without a doubt that the Doctor and Rose are madly in love.

The supporting cast all have their moments too. Mickey helps Rose even though it’s breaking his heart. Although his continued pining for Rose sort of diminishes their scenes in the previous story where it looked like the end of their relationship, it does show that he still cares about her as a friend more than anything.

Jackie also finally gets chance to be brilliant. She understandably doesn’t want to see her only daughter go back to her death and emotions run high, leading to an argument. But Rose gets through to her. To convince Jackie of how good the Doctor is, she doesn’t use an example of him saving a planet or civilisation, she tells the story of how he saved one man. Not by saving his life, but by giving him comfort in death. That man: Peter Tyler, Jackie’s husband.

Jackie initially runs out in anger and hurt at the mention of her lost love but after calming down, she knows that Rose is right. She calls in a favour (she tells us not to ask and we agree that we probably don’t want to know) and helps Rose get back to the Doctor.

Okay, now we can talk about the regeneration scene. Having abandoned Jack (leaving us with questions that unfortunately don’t get answered for almost two years), the Doctor and Rose leave Satellite 5. Rose wakes up with no memory of taking in the vortex or how she saved the Doctor or how he saved her. So she is a little taken aback when she discovers that the Doctor is dying. 

The Doctor does his best to explain what is going to happen but he doesn’t have much time to say goodbye. In true Ninth Doctor fashion, he leaves us with a joke and by telling Rose just how fantastic she was. The last thing the Ninth Doctor ever sees is Rose smiling at him and I think that’s exactly how he would want to go.

Overall Rating: 10/10. The Ninth Doctor is easily my favourite of the new series of Doctor Who. He was fantastic. Not only did he bring back the show and ensure it’s success, he made every one of his episodes enjoyable. Christopher Eccleston nailed it. So it was devastating to see him leave so soon. But, in saying that, I am glad that he got the send off he deserved. When you see me make a review as long as this one, you know that either; the episode really pissed me off, or I loved it to death. This story, thankfully, is the latter.

[ryttu3k]

Onwards with the Nuzlocke! Sootopolis Gym, then Victory Road!

The current team:

Chickweed the Blaziken | level 52 | male | Blaze | Serious, takes plenty of siestas | Flame Charge, Blaze Kick, Double Kick, Cut | starter

Snowdrop the Mightyena | level 50 | female | Intimidate | Lonely, loves to eat | Ice Fang, Crunch, Odor Sleuth, Rock Smash | found route 101

Sage the Claydol | level 47 | no thank you | Levitate | Bold, sturdy body | Earth Power, Extrasensory, Ancient Power, Dazzling Gleam | found route 111

Oleracea the Manectric | level 46 | female | Static | Brave, capable of taking hits | Discharge, Volt Switch, Thunder Wave, Strength | found route 118

Sequoia the Gyarados | level 44 | female | Intimidate | Bashful, nods off a lot | Surf, Ice Fang, Crunch, Dive | found route 106

Edelweiss the Skarmory | level 43 | male | Sturdy | Gentle, very finicky | Assurance, Steel Wing, Fly, Swift | found route 113

So, looking ahead, Oli should be able to take it now (Wallace’s Milotic is the same level as her, 46). Might encounter problems with Whiscash, I still don’t have any Grass moves, best bet at this point would be to send Snowdrop in and have her Crunch away.

Onwards! Gonna clear out the trainers, THEN tackle the puzzle!

Beauty Tiffany leads with a Golduck, level 41, then a Wailord, level 41. How does it even fit in the gym... Oli takes out both.

Beauty Bridget has a Gorebyss, level 43. Discharge handles it! (And gets Oli to level 47.)

Next up, Beauty Connie has a Huntail, level 43. They match!

Beauty Olivia has a Starmie, level 43, and right beside her, Lady Brianna leads with Clamperl, level 41, then Corsola, level 41 too. Discharge OHKOs the first two, but Corsola uses Endure and survives it. It gets healed up, next one OHKOs and gets Oli to level 48!

Okay I think that’s all the trainers - oh no, Lass Andrea near the stairs. Ludicolo, level 42. Fake Out, you pest. Discharge gets it to the yellows, it Rain Dances, and another Discharge finishes it off.

Okay, NOW to nip back to the Centre to restore PP, haha. (Discharge only has 15 PP, I went through a lot.)

Puzzle time! ...Yeah I sucked at that haha. Walkthrough time XD;; Oh this one has trainers, okay. Poke Fan Marissa has Azumarill, level 43. Discharge OHKOs it. Lass Crissy leads with Lucdisc, level 39, then Seadra, level 41. Couple of Discharges makes short work of them.

And ready to face Wallace! THE FUCKIN’ POSING... WALLACE IS DEFINITELY NOT WEARING UNDERWEAR...

Anyway. Leads with Luvdisc, level 44. Discharge OHKO! Next is Whiscash, level 44. Let’s get Snowdrop in! Crunch gets it down to half, it uses Earthquake, another Crunch finishes it. Good job, Snowdrop! Huh, Milotic already. Back to Oli! Discharge down to half, OOF that Hydro Pump did a lot of damage. Gonna heal up, no doubt Wallace will do the same. Nope, another Hydro Pump. Next Discharge takes it out! (And Oli hits level 49.) Next is Sealeo, it gets in an Aurora Beam while I heal Oli up, thankfully doesn’t do too much damage, Discharge OHKOs it. Last up, Seaking, and Discharge OHKO!

Gyms COMPLETE!

Alright! Now we can go back to Littleroot and get the National Dex.

God I love soaring. Please bring back for Ultra SM.

Oooh. Mirage spots. You know what, gonna count these as catchable locations!

Mirage Cave encounter - Tynamo! Okay, not going to be helpful, they take SO LONG to level... okay nvm this one is already on level 37! I shall name her Vallisneria. Eel grass!! Actually that’s really good, only two levels to Eelektrik should anything happen to Oli.

And I need more Quick Balls. Back to Fallarbor! Off to Lilycove, got to delete Sequoia’s Dive in favour of Waterfall. PRETTY sure I don’t need Dive in Victory Road... And then to... let’s say Mossdeep, that’ll be a good point.

Ayyy new Pokemon. My route 127 get is Alomomola! Male, level 30. I shall name you Buddleja.

Nothing for route 128, on to Evergrande. NYOOM. AND IN TO VICTORY ROAD.

First trainer - Ace Trainer Albert. He leads with - Sigilyph! I love those :D Level 45, so actually the same as Edel, my lowest-levelled. Let’s go with Oli. It uses Gravity, we’re good. Let’s use... Volt Switch. A bit into the reds, that’s okay, I’ll now bring out Snowdrop to finish it! Air Slash does a bit of damage, but a Crunch finishes it off. Next is Rhyperior, level 45, that’s Sequoia’s! She’s only a level above, much closer. Waterfall down to low yellows. Oh shit Stone Edge - she survived!! A second Waterfall finishes it!

First encounter - Sableye. Dupes clause!

You know what, before I get too far in, I’m gonna go stock up on healing items XD;; And uh. And repels, once I get my catch.

Oh there we go. It’s a Loudred. Hmm... yeah, okay. Onion’s new big sister is called Leek. ...Just go with it XD

Next trainer! Ace Trainer Hope has a single Froslass, level 47. Edel’s already out, but still only level 45... still gets in a good Steel Wing! Confuse Ray, augh. Yeah okay I hate confusion damage RIP Daisy I’m gonna get Chickweed to finish it XD Captivate, then Confuse Ray, ugh. DAMMIT CHICKWEED. Snowdrop? Shadow Ball does very little, CONFUSE RAY AGAIN, but gets out a Crunch and it’s down!

Man, Victory Road is hardcore.

Oof it’s dark in here.

Expert Bryn leads with Hitmontop, level 45. It uses Agility, then Feint - which misses because Edel was about to DESTROY it with Fly :’) Next is Throh, level 45. It uses Endure, Edel flies, uses Bulk Up, ANOTHER ENDURE, Steel Wing does some damage, and then another to finish it.

Back up we go, to face Ace Trainer Edgar. He has a single Mawile, level 47. This one is Chickweed’s! It uses Stockpile, Chickie uses a Mega-boosted Blaze Kick! RIP Mawile!

Street Thug Regan has a Houndoom, level 43. Time for Sequoia! Next is Shiftry, level 43. All Chickie’s!

Hooboy, an Ace Trainer double. Ace Duo Jude and Rory have Armaldo, level 47, and Cradily, ditto. I think this calls for a Surf!  Edel takes a little damage but is otherwise fine. Take a couple of hits, Steel Wing works very nicely. Another Surf, another Steel Wing, the Cradily is down and the Armaldo almost is. Sequoia’s Ice Fang finishes it off!

Next up, Expert Theodore. He has a Sawk, level 47. Edel flies! NYOOM. It keeps using Bulk Up - whoops, and now an Endure while Edel flies up again. Never mind it’s down ;D

FLAMETHROWER TM. You know what, I’m gonna give this to Oli! Not doing much catching any more, Thunder Wave can go!

Ohh, here’s the other Winstrate! Ace Trainer Vito leads with Electrode, level 44. Let’s get Sage in to Earth Power it into submission. It Light Screens, got it down to yellow. ...And then it explodes, of course. WIMP. Next is Darmanitan, Sage actually can take this but I want to save PP, so let’s go for Sequoia! It uses Taunt, and Sequoia destroys it with Waterfall. Bye! Last up, Swalot, level 44. Back to Sage! Extrasensory OHKO!

Dragon Tamer Egon has a Kingdra, level 47. Oof, challenging, I don’t have any Dragon moves, and my only Fairy move is on a Ground type. PRAYER CIRCLE FOR SAGE. It uses Focus Energy, Dazzling Gleam gets it down to reds, it uses Agility then Dragon Pulse, Sage tanks it even though it’s a crit! Next Dazzling Gleam takes it down! Nice.

Brain and Brawn pair, let’s put Sequoia in second, she has Crunch for the Psychic-type. Aden and Finn send out Primeape and Musharna, both level 47. Primeape uses Swagger, oof. Sequoia crunches the Musharna down to yellows, Edel manages to Fly despite the confusion, good birb! Primeape uses Rage and it does fuck all. Musharna takes another Crunch, and Fly takes out the Primeape. Psybeam on Sequoia doesn’t do much, and her Crunch finishes it off!

Oh hey, never knew that X-Scissor was there. Nice. Edel can learn it, gonna replace Assurance!

TIME FOR WALLY. He leads with Altaria - gonna put Snowdrop in! ...This room is so gorgeous. THE MUSIC CHANGE. THE BACKGROUND. BEAUTIFUL. I’ll give it my all, Wally! Leads with Altaria, level 46. Ice Fang from Snowdrop OHKOs it! Next is Roselia, level 46. Chickie OHKOs it with Flame Charge. Magneton, level 46, another Flame Charge takes it down to 1HP, it uses Tri Attack, which does negligible damage, another Flame Charge finishes it. Next is Delcatty, we’re still with Chickie, Double Kick OHKO this time. Last is his ace, level 48 Mega Gallade. Gonna go to Edel for this. It uses Swords Dance then Psycho Cut, and then Fly OHKOs it.

...I feel so bad.

Got a Dawn Stone, and a promise that he’ll get stronger. He will, too!

Up to the League, and finishing up here for now!

Current Team

Chickweed the Blaziken | level 56 | male | Blaze | Serious, takes plenty of siestas | Flame Charge, Blaze Kick, Double Kick, Cut | starter

Snowdrop the Mightyena | level 54 | female | Intimidate | Lonely, loves to eat | Ice Fang, Crunch, Odor Sleuth, Rock Smash | found route 101

Sage the Claydol | level 51 | no thank you | Levitate | Bold, sturdy body | Earth Power, Extrasensory, Ancient Power, Dazzling Gleam | found route 111

Oleracea the Manectric | level 51 | female | Static | Brave, capable of taking hits | Discharge, Volt Switch, Flamethrower, Strength | found route 118

Sequoia the Gyarados | level 49 | female | Intimidate | Bashful, nods off a lot | Surf, Ice Fang, Crunch, Waterfall | found route 106

Edelweiss the Skarmory | level 49 | male | Sturdy | Gentle, very finicky | X-Scissor, Steel Wing, Fly, Swift | found route 113

Reserves

Wattle the Taillow | level 9 | female | Guts | Quirky, alert to sounds | Peck, Growl, Focus Energy, Quick Attack | found Petalburg Woods

Bristlecone the Zigzagoon | level 14 | female | Gluttony | Lonely, good endurance | Tackle, Headbutt, Baby-Doll Eyes, Odor Sleuth | found route 103

Onion the Whismur | level 16 | female | Soundproof | Adamant, likes to relax | Pound, Echoed Voice, Astonish, Howl | found Rusturf Tunnel

Poison Ivy the Tentacool | level 5 | male | Liquid Ooze | Sassy, capable of taking hits | Poison Sting, Supersonic | found Dewford Town

Euphorbia the Makuhita | level 12 | male | Thick Fat | Hardy, capable of taking hits | Focus Energy, Sand Attack, Arm Thrust, Fake Out | found Granite Cave

Lithops the Numel | level 14 | female | Simple | Quiet, likes to run | Tackle, Ember, Focus Energy, Magnitude | found route 112

Rauvolfia the Seviper | level 19 | male | Shed Skin | Careful, impetuous and silly | Poison Tail, Screech, Venoshock, Glare | found route 114

Moraea the Spoink | level 23 | female | Own Tempo |  Quirky, quick tempered | Psybeam, Psych Up, Confuse Ray, Magic Coat | found Jagged Pass

Agapanthus the Pelipper | level 33 | male | Keen Eye | Modest, a little quick-tempered | Water Pulse, Wing Attack, Steel Wing, Quick Attack | found route 104

Rosemary the Latias | level 30 | female | Levitate | Sassy, somewhat vain | Heal Pulse, Dragon Breath, Mist Ball, Psycho Shift | found Southern Island

Milkweed the Beautifly | level 26 | female | Swarm | Lax, somewhat stubborn | Air Cutter, Mega Drain, Silver Wind, Morning Sun | found route 102

Hydrangea the Kecleon | level 25 | male | Color Change | Lonely, often lost in thought | Feint Attack, Psybeam, Ancient Power, Slash | found route 119

Sunflower the Castform | level 30 | female | Forecast | Lax, mischievous Rain Dance, Sunny Day, Hail, Weather Ball | found Weather Institute

Banana the Tropius | level 27 | male | Solar Power | Brave, a little quick tempered | Stomp, Magical Leaf, Whirlwind, Leaf Tornado | found route 120

Uniflora the Shuppet | level 28 | female | Insomnia | Mild, alert to sounds | Will-O-Wisp, Feint Attack, Hex, Curse | found route 121

Monotropa the Duskull | level 28 | female | Levitate | Naughty, loves to eat | Foresight, Shadow Sneak, Pursuit, Will-O-Wisp | found Mt Pyre

Tacca the Golbat | level 33 | female | Inner Focus | Hardy, strong-willed | Air Cutter, Switft, Poison Fang, Mean Look | found Seafloor Cavern

Ebony the Sableye | level 35 | male | Keen Eye | Calm, highly curious | Knock Off, Shadow Claw, Confuse Ray, Zen Headbutt | found Cave of Origin

Wakame the Kyogre | level 45 | no thank you | Drizzle | Sassy, mischievous | Body Slam, Aqua Ring, Ice Beam, Origin Pulse | found Cave of Origin

Vallisneria the Tynamo | level 37 | female | Levitate | Mild, highly curious | Tackle, Thunder Wave, Spark, Charge Beam | found Mirage Cave

Buddleja the Alolomola | level 30 | male | Healer | Quirky, mischievous | Heal Pulse, Protect, Water Pulse, Wake-Up Slap | found route 127

Leek the Loudred  | level 37 | female | Soundproof | Sassy, hates to lose | Stomp, Uproar, Roar, Rest | found Victory Road

Dead

Catnip the Skitty, found route 116, killed by Lass Janice’s Marill in route 116

Daisy the Pikachu, found Slateport City, killed by Archie’s Sharpedo at Mount Chimney