#the amount of times westerners threw a fit when a character turned out to be str8 like with tsurumi is simply annoying at this point

[piduai]

what do you think of western/american fandom in general (esp in comparison with asian/japanese fandom)?

fandom culture is different in japan compared to the west, and there are also differences between japan and the rest of eastern fandom, and the west and russian fandom. i think both japanese and western fandoms can be very cancerous at times, and at times pleasant experiences.

the most striking difference is i guess the attitude towards consumerism. japanese audience pays for everything without batting an eye and is the one to whom the industry is catered. westerners are used to everything being served on a platter for free. i’m not excluding myself from that btw, i love piracy and opt for it whenever i can, and only pay for stuff that i really like as a gesture of supporting the creator (for example i do buy the golden kamuy volumes as they come out since i started reading it, but i won’t go out of my way to buy the previous 22 ones even in a second-hand shop for cheap because they’re available online). western audience doesn’t like spending money on stuff but tends to have the same, or even higher level of entitlement towards the media they consume. they think of it all as art and free expression, not an industry that has its rules and regulations. for example i keep seeing people in gk fandom complaining about the anime, about how it didn’t animate this or that frame and about how the creators “don’t understand the characters”, and this level of entitlement and disrespect is just baffling to me.

western audience can also be extremely culturally insensitive and forget that things don’t exist in a vacuum and everything is both culturally charged AND mandated. it’s not a secret that am*ricans think they’re the center of the world and project their values, history and culture on everyone else, but it would be nice if they learnt to shut the fuck up once in a while. whenever i see discussions about feminism or lgbtqwerty+ in anime and how sailor moon is actually subversive and yuri on ice is actually gay representativity and japan is actually #woke for having BL as a genre my hairs stand on end. these are the most obvious examples but there’s a lot of more subtle things. making fun of weird “engrish”. saying there should be more poc in anime and acting as though more tanned skintones depict other races. being completely oblivious of traditional tropes and how they work. excusing bigoted behavior by saying “oh it’s the culture” when convenient. also western weebs tend to either weirdly idolize or weirdly alienate japanese as a people; countless times i’ve met people who think that the japanese are a supernation incapable of wrongdoings and everything they do is inherently superior, as well as people who think the japanese came from another planet and aren’t fully human and don’t function as literally any other society on earth. both are dehumanizing and frankly, kind of racist.

however while i do like taking jabs at woques because it’s funny and they’re annoying, sometimes they DO have a point. japanese people think that just because they pay for shit they’re allowed to exhibit insane behavior in public without repercussion. my go-to example is this one artist who draws a lot, and i mean A LOT of l*li p*rn as “artistic expression” or whatever while simultaneously having a small child, whose photos they post on twitter regularly. as in they’ll make a tweet advertising their p*rn doujinshi where a 11 years old fictional girl is getting hammered in all holes and 2 hours later they’ll post a picture of their 3 years old, very real human daughter on the same account, to the same audience. call me a prude but i don’t think this kind of shit is normal, and i don’t think these people should be allowed to have children. anime industry in general has a huge problem with pedophilia that nobody likes to address because again they sweep it under either the “it’s their culture” or “they’re all weirdos anyway” excuses. like don’t get me wrong, most people are normal and against depictions of child rape. but sh*ta/l*li/rape artists have way too much freedom because the industry DOES cater to them, and consumers DO bring money. as long as stuff as comic LO is legal there will be no solution to this issue.

also this is something pertaining to gk fandom only but i wish westerners knew better and stopped being comfortable in depicting the rising sun flag in their artwork. personal opinion but this is just not okay. a couple of years ago i went to kamakura with a friend and just by the daibutsu, in an extremely touristy zone, they had it displayed in several gift shops and i’m still shocked at the audacity. history is taught different in different parts of the world depending on national bias and all, being ignorant is not a sin, but it would be nice if westerners used their brains and avoided doing that just because the japanese don’t.

[inviberu]

til death do us part

Shino thought it was easier to say it in his own words instead of the ones that were put into his mouth forcefully by some other wizards.

There wasn’t a day in his life where Shino felt himself become this troubled—save for that one time he had a realization dawn to him which was heavily related to his worry about not being able to stay by Heath’s side if he wasn’t powerful enough—and frankly put it, he hadn’t pushed away the idea of asking his fellow wizards just yet even after many failures. First, he tried asking Heath for help. Though it ended quickly with Heath clutching his stomach, trying to suppress his laughter and Shino walking away out of annoyance.

Second attempt was with Nero and Faust who were enjoying an afternoon together out in the courtyard much to Shino’s surprise. When Shino asked them for help, Faust was surprised beyond belief before letting out a tired sigh and Nero merely looked as if he’s a mom that’s given up with her child’s ridiculous antics—that didn’t mean he didn’t find whatever he was asking for a tiny bit hilarious though. Shino, upset, walked away from the scene as well when he found out that the two old men did nothing to assist him with his quest.

Third attempt was when he bumped into the ancient Northern twins in the hallway when they were on their way to their room from the lobby. He asked them a seemingly simple question and yet they went off on a tangent for an answer, which Shino found extremely boring and unhelpful so he just walked away in the end without hearing the end of it. Snow and White got a bit upset with him for walking away just like that, especially after they switched to their adult form just to answer his unusual question.

Fourth attempt was his most successful one by far, which was with Shylock. Shino looked for him inside his bar and asked him for help, to which Shylock happily indulged him and gave him an answer that sort of satisfied Shino. Although he was still a bit hesitant, he decided to go with Shylock’s answer for the final thing he’s working on—not noticing the underlying tone of deviousness in his smile. Shino ought to remember, Western wizards loved a good show, and Shylock was the epitome of a Western wizard.

Shino felt his nervousness wash away and instead got replaced by an enormous amount of confidence that seemed unfitting for someone of his stature—short and small. His hair was slicked back and he was dressed in formal attire from head to toe in contrast to his everyday look where he was definitely more casual. Shino, himself, did not know what exactly he was doing but he decided to go through with it anyway since it was Shylock’s advice. And he knew that Shylock was way better than him when it came to matters such as this.

A proposal to you—is what he was planning.

He panicked a little bit after realizing he had no expertise in that area and that he just really wanted to marry you, terribly so. When he asked Heath for help, he almost sent the young lord rolling across the stairs out of laughter. Heath found it ridiculous—hilarious, even. Shino took it as a sign to leave Heath alone as he was of no help at all. Nero and Faust just sighed at him when he asked them how to propose to someone, telling him he should just be himself. Which Shino paid little attention to, thinking that it was fruitless advice from a bunch of old geezers. The twins were more than happy to help but they started sputtering out gibberish not long after. Shino concluded that those womanizers would be of no help.

Shylock, though, gave him a bit of solid advice. Which he followed and leads us to where Shino is today. Dolled up and with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, it was out of character for him. Anyone could tell that much but when you caught sight of him waiting for you outside, you decided to give him the benefit of doubt. Though when you approached him, there was a little bit of a problem. He was speaking weirdly, very unlike the Shino you came to know and love. Though it wasn’t necessarily a bad kind of weird, it was leaning more so on the funnier side. He cleared his throat.

“O beloved of mine, won’t you grant me a few minutes of your time? You see… I’ve been thinking—” Before he could finish, you couldn’t let out a chuckle. One that Shino couldn’t let go off easily. A simple chuckle was enough for him to feel the embarrassment rush to his face and wondered if in your eyes, he was just a fool not worthy to be taken seriously.

“Shino, why are you talking that way-?”

“Forget it,” he reverted back to his old self. His usual rudeness surfaced when his mind suddenly started taking a turn for the worse. “It’s nothing important anyways.”

Before you could let out another word, he summoned his broom and quickly fled from your sight, where you may never see the look on his face as he suddenly felt regretful. You couldn’t tell what exactly just happened but you knew this much—you felt as if you’ve done something to make him feel bad.

A figure in the air, riding on a broom, let out a puff of smoke after taking a drag from his pipe. An amused expression settling on his face mixed with a little bit of a troubled one, as if he just saw his favourite show getting cancelled right in front of him.

“Oh dear, will we be seeing the finale tonight? Or will the show simply stop here? Maybe a little push is due to apologize to dear Shino.”

You wondered if you did something to severely upset Shino, it wasn’t as if you’d never gotten into any arguments with him but this time you’ve done little to nothing at all! You considered if he got upset after your chuckle—which you thought was harmless—but the more you think about it, the more plausible it seemed. But why would he get hurt over something like that? It looked as if he was playing a silly prank on you. Unless… That wasn’t a prank at all and he had something serious to say to you.

The longer you realized, the more terrible you felt during the dead hours of the night. You paced back and forth in your room, wondering if Shino is awake or in his room right now because there was nothing more you wanted than to immediately rush to him and apologize. He must’ve felt horrible, and you only realized it now.

Making up your mind, you grabbed your coat and made your way to your door to go to his room until you heard a loud thud near your room window. There was only one person that would knock on your window during this time of the night—Shino! You quickly turned around and expected the Eastern wizard to greet you, and you were right this time. His hair went back to its usual messy look and his formal clothes were replaced with the ones he usually wears everyday.

And there were still a handful of hand picked flowers in his hand—your favourite this time, roses. You immediately rushed towards the window and slid it open, your hands outstretched towards the scenery and the cold yet gentle breeze that caressed your face. Before you knew it, Shino let go of his broom and threw himself into your arms, the strands of his hair brushing against your cheeks and his arms wrapped tightly around your torso with his head placed atop your shoulder to hide his embarrassingly red face. The flowers he was holding almost falling to the floor with how loose his grip suddenly grew.

Without hesitation, you wrapped your arms around him and opened your mouth to apologize before he could say anything: “I’m sorry!”

But as if he couldn’t hear a word you said, he pulled away and looked at you straight in the eyes. For a moment, you wondered if he was mad at you but the long hug and the blush on his cheeks was enough to tell you otherwise. You felt yourself growing more embarrassed as well when he suddenly shoved the flowers towards you. Before you could open your mouth to ask, he suddenly blurted out:

“I want to eat the pie you make for the rest of my life.” Your eyes widened, and you felt yourself wanting to laugh again. You looked away, shoulders trembling.

“... You’re laughing again,” he pouted. You shook your head, tears almost falling from the corner of your eyes.

“No, no. It’s just that I thought saying something like that felt super fitting for someone like you.” You paused to calm down, clutching the flowers he gave you close to your chest. “Will you still want to eat the pie I make even if it’s burnt?”

“Then I’ll just have to make sure you don’t burn it,” Shino shot you a gentle smile. Under the moonlight, you wondered if your eyes were just playing tricks on you and this was all just a sweet spell someone cast over you. Though, there was no use in denying the fact that Shino’s sweet and genuine smile illuminated by the moonlight was something you want to etch into your memories for centuries to come.

“As much as I want to say yes, isn’t it a bit too early for us?”

“I don’t think so, no? I’m not going to wait for your answer for more years when I already know you’re going to say yes to me in the end. So why not just agree now?”

“Wow, you already think that my answer will stay the same for the years to come.”

“I don’t just think so. I know it, I know you the best. You can’t resist my charm now, and you still won’t be able to in the future.” He took hold of your chin and leaned dangerously close, to the point where you could feel his breathing close to you. You closed your eyes, expecting him to kiss you but was met with laughter instead.

“Pfft-! Did you really think I was going to kiss you?” He let out a chuckle, “consider this as revenge for laughing at me earlier.”

“H-Hey! I was not expecting anything at all, and I didn’t laugh at you. I just chuckled, that's all!” You quickly got defensive, not wanting to admit you were expecting him to kiss you.

“Are you sure?” His tone was smug and teasing, something you loved about him no matter how infuriating it is. “You still haven’t answered me, by the way. Will you pledge to spend the rest of your life with me?”

“An eternity seems long… and to think I’m considering spending it with you, of all people.”

“I know you love me.”

“Yes, yes. You already know my answer don’t you, Shino? It’s an eternity I don’t mind spending with you. Though I don’t know if Faust will allow us-!” You could barely finish your sentence when Shino crashed his lips against yours into a passionate kiss. His raw emotions coursing through him and you felt yourself getting lost in it as well, the words you held back from each other suddenly spilling like a waterfall that’s been blocked for decades through kisses. Your fingers tangled in his hair and Shino found it hard to pull back—had it not been for your need of oxygen, he would’ve never let you go.

“Let me finish my sentence first!” You exclaimed, lightly hitting his arm, breathless.

“Sorry, I got a bit excited.” He admitted like a defeated puppy but the smug look on his face made you want to smack his pretty face instead. “I just couldn’t help it when I realized that we’ll be together… til death do us part.”

Shylock took a drag from his pipe, the scent of alcohol still lingering in the air as a gentle expression took over his face, as if he accomplished something great—and he wasn’t the whole reason why a huge mess occurred in the first place.

“All’s well that ends well… Huh? I do hope dear Shino doesn’t bear a grudge against me. Eastern wizards aren’t exactly known for forgetting grudges easily.” He smiled, knowing that Shino would thank him later on. They both got what they wanted, after all. Shino and his quest for true love and Shylock with his desire for something interesting.

[charlieknighte]

a creature born / a fire set

Genfic - Background Samot/Samothes

Character Study - Family Angst - Found Family

3,512 words

A gift for BYZANTIUUM in the Secret Samol fandom exchange

content warnings: the horrors of war™, unhealthy family dynamics

Sometimes, as the son of gods runs with thieves and scoundrels, he thinks that it’s not so bad to have lost everything he once knew.

Sometimes, as Maelgwyn slogs down rows of army tents and lifts his face to his father’s volcano for the hundredth time that week, he feels as if this war is all he’s ever known.

The corner of Marielda that his army is situated in isn’t particularly pleasant, the flaming sea bracketing them in on three sides, the hot, moist air frizzing up Maelgwyn’s curls and bringing a never-ending sweat to his brow. Even at night, the sea never quite lets the city fall into darkness, sitting like a dim red horizon behind the cubes of bright yellow light cast by the army’s temporary lodgings. The sight used to be beautiful before it fell into monotony. 

Tamsen, his second-in-command, follows close at Maelgwyn’s heels, her ever-present and barely concealed anger and contempt not much of a breath of fresh air. She doesn’t generally direct it at him, but he can feel it simmering in her speech as she reports the latest updates from the front-lines. She’s not one to sugarcoat things, not one to pretend the cost of this war is just numbers on a page. Sometimes Maelgwyn wonders if she hates his fathers for all of this. Sometimes he wonders if he can hate his fathers, but he knows that he could never bring himself to.

Do you love him? Samot had asked him the last time they spoke about Samothes, his tone of voice expectant, knowing the answer and only needing to present it to prove his point. When Maelgwyn was younger, he’d often worry that his fathers didn’t love each other anymore as they shook the house with their arguments. Now that he’s older, the truth that you can love someone and still hurt and hurt and hurt them makes him feel sick. Of course he loves him. Of course they both love him, and yet here they are. 

As they grow close to Maelgwyn’s own tent, Tamsen reaches the end of her report and settles into gloomy silence. Maelgwyn tiredly asks, “Anything else, Tamsen?”

She snaps right back to professionalism. “There's been a scuffle between two lieutenants. Not the first time. Their captain wants you to have a word with the instigator.”

Maelgwyn blows his hair out of his face, half purposeful and half out of annoyance. It sticks to his forehead, and he has to swipe it out of the way instead, irritation mounting. He’d have much preferred to be able to continue to his bed in peace. “At what time?” 

“Well, sir...” She stops in front of a tent and gestures. The path she’d taken him on must have been engineered to get this over with. Sometimes he nearly resents her efficiency. He suppresses a sigh and lifts the flap of the tent, stepping inside. It’s small, but not as cramped as a lower ranking officer’s bunk might be. At his intrusion, there’s some shuffling behind a curtain separating the beds from the cluttered, meagre living area. 

“Lieutenant?” Maelgwyn asks, his voice stiff and formal and sounding like it comes from another person entirely.

There’s a groan and more shuffling, like someone turning over in bed. “What d’you want?”

Half-asleep, Maelgwyn guesses. And ill-mannered. “I heard about your run-in with your fellow lieutenant. Your captain sent me to have a word.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then an impassioned thrashing and indignant thump as the lieutenant gets out of bed. “Well, you can tell Thackeray that instead of snitching, next time he can come to me directly," he says vehemently, finally emerging from behind the curtain with a rumpled uniform he clearly only just threw on. "I'll kick his ass—" It takes him a remarkably short amount of time after recognizing Maelgwyn to gain a sense of composure and scramble into a salute. “I mean, I'll deal with him myself. Sir. Sorry.” He grimaces to himself for a moment before settling into a pleasantly blank expression.

Something about him stops Maelgwyn cold. He's barely even a teenager, but it’s not that—uncomfortably young troops are far too familiar around here. It’s just that he's so familiar. Brown skin and sharp eyes and curls cut according to Marieldan vogue, but too loose to be local. He looks more like a westerner. And something about his contemptuous self-assurance, even now that he’s being deferential—the shrewdness of his eyes—I'll kick his ass—somehow he jolts Maelgwyn back to his best times as a child, running through the streets of his village after his best friend, stolen pies in their sticky fingers, a similar sly gleam in her eye. Maelgwyn feels like all the wind has been knocked out of him at the intensity of the memory.

“What's your name?” he asks, mouth dry.

“Hitchcock, sir.” Underneath the formal tightness of his voice, he still sounds squirmy, like he’s expecting a punishment to be handed down any moment.

Maelgwyn sighs, rubs at his face. If only there was a way to phrase what he wonders without crossing a dozen lines. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

Hitchcock's carefully blank expression wrinkles a little bit, and he looks at Maelgwyn like he's grown an extra head. “Okay,” he says, clearly caught off-guard by the lack of formality or reprimands. Maelgwyn is still reeling. He wishes he could ask him if he knew a little girl in the plains, but he knows it’s impossible for him to have been alive back then. The unnatural length of his life is starting to catch up to him. The silence between them is beginning to drag on uncomfortably long. Hitchcock stares at him without any regard for etiquette. The intensity of his eyes is suddenly too much.

“As you were,” Maelgwyn says, self-conscious at having been seen in a moment of conflict. He backs up, floundering for the tent flap and stepping out before his grip on himself can start to slip. As he bursts out into the warm, muggy night haphazardly, Tamsen looks at him quizzically. He shakes his head to clear it and squares his shoulders again, as a general should. “Anything else to report?” 

“Nothing, sir.” She cuts her eyes away from him, pretending not to have seen his moment of weakness.

“Then you’re dismissed for the night.”

Some nights, he almost regrets dismissing her. Those are the nights when he’s too heartsick to pretend that it doesn’t hurt when his soldiers’ laughter grows quiet as he passes them, when they keep their expressions stiff and serious around him as if they think that’s what he wants. They’re the nights that he wishes he could sit around a fire and trade war stories with someone without being afraid of revealing too much. 

Maelgwyn quietly imagines that as Tamsen clicks her heels together sharply and salutes. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe her anger towards the gods would make her too bitter towards him if she knew. They turn together in opposite directions, Maelgwyn continuing down the rows of tents as they grow larger and more lavish. Contrarily, his tent is functionally plain and small, and not as cool and inviting as the lieutenant’s had been. Not the tent a son of Samothes would be given, if that was how he was known.

Some nights—those same nights that he wishes for a cup of ale and a warm fire among friends—he yearns for a place in a crowded bunk, hearing the muffled noises of other soldiers as they turn over in their creaky beds or grumble in their sleep. Tonight, he tries to put the thought out of his mind as he gets ready for bed. It’s too hurtful to dwell on. He doesn’t bother lighting a candle—his bedtime routine is so utilitarian he barely needs to do anything but strip off his uniform and fall into bed. Inside this tent, he has nothing, and usually it’s easier than the overwhelming number of fires outside waiting to be put out.

He sees Hitchcock again a few weeks later, in a lineup of officers waiting to be promoted by his hand. As he shook hands, pinned medals to chests and offered congratulations, most soldiers flinched, gazes unable to stay on his face for more than a moment. Their grips were limp and their thank yous rushed, too awed by his holy presence to keep it together. Maelgwyn feels like he should’ve gotten used to this by now.

Captain Hitchcock only looked up at him and grinned.

---

It’s odd, to have stumbled out of a university basement with a gauntlet affixed to his hand and not more than a handful of his memories of life. Most days Maelgwyn frantically spins in a daze of confusion, grasping at what memories he has, trying to cobble them back together into a sense of self and winding up frustrated when the pieces don’t fit as he feels they should. Other days—rarer than they should be, creeping up on him and overwhelming him with blissful surprise that he didn’t see coming—he feels steadier. Not quite good, but okay. He forgets his struggle to try to remember to be himself and just is. Those days feel like a fresh start.

That’s the benefit of forgetting the rest of his life—it feels almost as if this is all he’s ever known. Being dragged along on whirlwind heists, each disastrous and joyful, a spinning dance that at turns nauseates and delights him until he learns how to settle his stomach and feel consistent glee. A nervous thrill running through him as he pockets something that isn’t his and knows he’s gotten away with it. Running down alleyways after the Six—after his friends, his friends—heart thumping a dizzyingly fast tempo, feet aching, whoops rising from his throat unbidden but welcome. They always cut it close, and that’s part of the beauty of it—being crammed into smaller and smaller spaces and always engineering some way out. Always managing to find their way back to a safe place deep under the city, where they can share drinks and congratulatory hugs and sit on the floor sorting through their loot far into the night. On nights like these, Maelgwyn feels at peace.

Tonight’s take was excellent. They shake out their bags and pockets into a huge pile between the haphazardly arranged couches in the Six’s basement, voices still high and boisterous from adrenaline. Aubrey falls upon the pile first, snatching away a book of alchemy that one of the Hitchcocks swiped—specifically for her, undoubtedly. She scampers off to curl up in one of her favorite chairs, nose already buried deep between pages. Sige is next, scooping up a brick-sized tome Maelgwyn doubts anyone else would be able to lift or would care to spend hours poring through. Castille takes a little longer picking through the pile, finding the books on magical theory and Marieldan history and natural sciences that Maelgwyn’s come to know are her favorites. The Hitchcocks take more of an interest in finding drinks than books, which is about what he expected. 

As Maelgwyn settles next to Castille, one of the twins presses a glass into his hand with a grin. It’s white wine. Maelgwyn doesn’t quite know why, but the lightness relieves him. He takes a generous chug, excited to slip into the giddy, warm chaos of the night that his friends always manage to create.

He’s long since settled into an arrangement to share Castille’s books—they have overlapping tastes, and what with their shared amnesia, a similar drive to brush up on the history they’ve forgotten. They settle into a comfortable quiet in their own corner as the rest of the Six shout out their discoveries as they find them, buzzing now from the excitement of getting their hands on knowledge that’s been untouched for what might be years, jealously hidden away by Samothes’s heavy hand. 

Maelgwyn knows, objectively, that he is Samothes and Samot’s son. Castille had told him, pity clear on her face as she realized he didn’t remember. He knows, but it’s funny—he doesn’t feel like the son of a god, no matter how hard he tries. When he tries to think back to his past, he feels a sort of nausea at remembering something he’ll never be again and could never claw his way back to. The vastness of his forgotten past seems so threatening, like it hides horrible secrets he’d be better off not learning. It’s hard to put out of mind. At the very least, it contrasts with the lightness and joy of his life now, even when the spaces between it stretch long. He is happy here, welcome here, at times even able to put his fathers’ war out of mind.

That’s why his heart sinks when he realizes the first book he’s picked up is on exactly that— the war. The things Samothes writes about Samot… Maelgwyn could never imagine writing things like this about someone he loves. They make him ache to read, secondhand pain that’s filtered down from them despite how little he remembers of being their child. In Samothes's furious scripture decrying the boy-prince's rebellion, he can see through the anger to the deep sorrow of betrayal beneath. In even the cruelest of his propaganda against  his husband, there’s reluctance, a sense that he’s holding himself back from showing the worst of Samot’s nature out of some remnant of respect. Maelgwyn knows in the depths of his mind that Samothes could strike much more cutting blows if he wanted, that there’s a cold cruelty in Samot he can’t quite remember the specifics of but used to feel like searing ice.

And yet… Samothes loves him. Even with rebellion. Even in a war.

There’s incredible tenderness to be found in his fathers’ writings, if one goes looking. Love letters, hundreds of them, thousands of them from the millenia they’ve been alive. Collected and annotated, dripping with endearments and genuine adoration. Even after reading about the violence they inflict on each other, their love letters beg the question—how could such a deep love have been lost completely? How could a fraction not have persisted, even after everything?

Do you love him? Samot asks expectantly, a dozen years and a thousand miles away.

Maelgwyn closes the book with a snap, hands clammy. He sits with it for a moment, letting the warm ruckus of his friends’ voices wash back over him and remind him where he is and who he isn’t. He sits until his hands feel more like his own again and then pushes the book back into Castille’s pile, trying to find something more innocuous in its place. He emerges with a guide to edible plants in southern Hieron. He traces his un-gauntleted fingers over its cover, far more pleasant memories sparking in the depths of his mind. 

Some nights his grandfather would come to their house in the woods, and when he would step inside he would begin shouting so suddenly it shocked Maelgwyn. It would sound less like an argument and more like when one of Maelgwyn's fathers would lecture him, one-sided and allowing for little rebuttal. Eventually his grandfather would step back out, fuming. He would stare up at the sky and take a long breath, and when he looked back down at Maelgwyn he would always be smiling kindly. Why don’t we take a walk? he would say. Maelgwyn would be so relieved to get away from the arguing for even a few minutes that he would’ve gone anywhere with him.

His grandfather would walk Maelgwyn and his friends out to the forests and plains and creeks around their mansion, leading them through the terrain in a way that implied familiarity with every inch. He'd spend hours teaching them what berries to eat, what leaves to pick for tea. To remind you that I'm always here to look out for you, he told Maelgwyn cheerfully. It had helped—when Maelgwyn felt lonely, as he often did, he would wander out into the thick yard behind their house and immerse himself in the forest, feeling his grandfather's warm, comforting presence. 

He realizes now that his grandfather is the continent itself, of course, and he had meant for Maelgwyn to seek his presence in a literal sense. It’s hard to feel him now, here, where Maelgwyn’s father has such power. The streets are densely packed with stone and metal and concrete, but still—bits of Samol still manage to peek through. The roots of trees forcing their way into the gaps between cobblestones, flowers determinedly poking up in the tiniest pockets of dirt, moss and lichen lightly dusting the roofs of houses. Nature always finds its way through no matter how hard Marielda works to keep it out, like a nagging parent. That’s one thing from his past Maelgwyn doesn’t mind holding onto. 

It hits him that he’s going to have to give this book away when he’s done, and he’s seized by a creeping sorrow. It wouldn’t be fair for him to keep it—it’s merchandise, and more than that, it’ll likely fall into the hands of someone who could use the knowledge in its pages. But at the same time, he knows he’s the only person in the continent who could appreciate it for more than the simple guide it is. To him, it’s a piece of something—someone—he loves, wood pulp paper and plants distilled into dyes. Its weight in his hands is precious to him.

He sits, frozen and conflicted. Castille, oblivious, erupts in a flurry of laughter and gets up to help Aubrey lift a tome almost as big as her. Maelgwyn can’t move after her, left in a private bubble of confusion and trepidation that even noise can’t burst. One of the Hitchcocks flops down beside him in Castille’s place, already a little too drunk. Maelgwyn doesn’t think much of it until he realizes Hitchcock is looking at him. He feels a pang of fear that he’s being judged until he realizes there’s a sharp sort of curiosity in Hitchcock’s eyes, even as he lazily lets his head loll back against the couch.

Maelgwyn’s attachment to Castille is straightforward, but he doesn’t understand why Hitchcock is familiar to him. Some of the memories that try to surface when he looks at him seem to be from an impossibly long time ago, before Hitchcock was even supposed to be born. He remembers wildly tearing through the roads of his childhood with only mischief on his mind, hands grubby, curls untamed, chasing a girl with a mud-spattered dress who screamed far more wildly than him. Maelgwyn would probe him for possible connections if he wasn’t too nervous to reveal such an intimate memory, and if he trusted Hitchcock not to spin it for his own benefit. Crafty little worm, he thinks, his fondness soothing his anxiety once again. 

Hitchcock suddenly sits forward, nearly tipping over unsteadily but catching his balance. He gestures at the book in Maelgwyn’s hands. “Take it," he says earnestly. Like he could read the hunger in Maelgwyn’s eyes. 

Maelgwyn is taken aback. He stammers, and knows that tips Hitchcock off to the fact that he guessed correctly. “What? It's… it’s merchandise. You need it."

Hitchcock glances back at the rest of the Six, engrossed in cheering Aubrey on as she determinedly drags her gargantuan book up to a table. He leans in conspiratorially. There it is again—that familiar glimmer in his eye, the one that brings back the wild, free times of Maelgwyn’s childhood.  "No, we don't. Not that badly. Take it."

Maelgwyn is breathless at the idea. Of course he’s stolen things before—many, many times during his tenure with the Six—but they were never for himself. It’s been so long since Maelgwyn owned something of his own, something that hadn’t been handed down to him by his parents or their followers, bearing a heavy burden of expectation or responsibility. Maelgwyn imagines dog-earing the book’s pages and writing notes in the margins and pressing flowers between chapters, leaving tangible marks of his existence all his own, and nearly bursts into tears. 

He slips it into his jacket discreetly, the shiver like the one he’s learned to enjoy after a theft running through him. Hitchcock grins with infectious, mischievous glee, and Maelgwyn can’t help but laugh with him.  “C’mon,” Hitchcock says, pulling him up by his hands. “Let’s dance.” 

Maelgwyn lets himself be pulled, stumbling, to the center of the room, trepidation overwhelmed by excitement. The Six cheer for them as they start some partner dance Maelgwyn has no name for, Hitchcock whirling him around in dizzying circles until they’re both breathless with laughter, stumbling against each other as the rest of their friends find their own pairs and fill up the dance floor around them.

If Maelgwyn closes his eyes and lets himself melt into the moment, he can forget he was ever a god’s son, ever chosen to fight a war that wasn’t his, ever a historical figure before he was a person. He can wash those thoughts away with this life he’s built, no matter how temporary. This is all he’s known, and all he ever needs.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

2010s Art: Music, Games, and TV

So I love all forms of art. It may not seem like it since I tend to stick mainly to movies, with the odd cartoon or video game thrown in, but that’s really because movies are more my thing due to not being massive time investments. Like, don’t get me wrong, I gamed, I watched TV, I listened to music, but it was a lot more casual than my deep dive into becoming a major cinephile.

With games and TV, it was mostly issues of money and time respectively. I have a few consoles, mostly Nintendo and Sony ones, and my wife helped me experience Xbox games, but I just don’t have the money needed to experience every good game that comes out. With TV, the time investment is the biggest roadblock, especially when all the best shows have hour-long episodes these days. With movies, I just have to spend 90 minutes to two hours on average; for TV, it’s countless hours I could be watching movies. As for music… well, I listened to a lot, I just don’t feel totally qualified to properly rank and list songs and albums.

So instead of the big decade-spanning list for movies that I’m doing, I’m going to go over some things I enjoyed from the past decade and maybe a few things I didn’t in music, TV, and video games. Here’s a little guide so you know what stuff is something I consider one of my absolute favorites in any given medium - if it’s from this decade, it will be in bold, and if it’s from a previous decade but I experienced it this decade, it will be underlined.

Television

I figured I’d get this out of the way first since it’s the medium I have the least experience with. Let me put it this way: I have seen only one season of Game of Thrones, the first one (and by all accounts I dodged a bullet by dropping that show). I also had the misfortune of jumping in to The Walking Dead right as it was gearing up for its abysmal second season, which turned me off that and led to me only watching an episode here or there. 

I had better luck watching live action shows on streaming. I managed to get through almost all of Pretty Little Liars on Netflix, which was a chore in and of itself; it’s a good show, but boy could it ever get arbitrary and frustrating. Speaking of Netflix, I think it goes without saying that Stranger Things is their best effort; from the likable cast of kids to the awesome soundtrack, even though it never really surpasses season one the show always has something cool going on in one of its plots. My other favorite from Netflix would probably be their take on A Series if Unfortunate Events, which is how you do adaptation expansion right; everything they add feels like it’s in service of fleshing out Lemony Snicket’s dismal world, as well as giving Patrick Warburton an incredible dramatic role as the Lemony narrator himself.

Amazon managed to score two hits in my book. The first is the unbelievably fun and charming Good Omens, a miniseries that somehow got me to love David Tennant and Michael Sheen more than I already did. The second was the gory joyride that is The Boys which while not the smartest or most original superhero satire is definitely the most fun.

While I didn’t watch the whole show and would not consider it one of my favorites, I do want to give props to Hannibal for introducing me to Mads Mikkelsen. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the only person aside from Hopkins worthy of playing everyone’s favorite cannibal. Another show I DO consider a favorite despite slacking on keeping up with it is Ash vs. Evil Dead; I only needed to see a single season of Bruce back with the boomstick to know this show was a masterpiece.

On the animated side I have much more to talk about. Not since the 90s have we been spoiled with so many genuinely great and varied cartoons. We got Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe… really, Cartoon Network raised the bar this decade and made up for an awful 2000s. They even finally gave Samurai Jack a conclusion, which despite the mixed results, was still a real exciting phenomenon to experience.

Of course, my favorite CN show came from Adult Swim. I am of course referring to Rick & Morty, a fun sci-fi adventure comedy that attracted the most obnoxious fanbase possible in record time. While certainly not a show you need a high IQ to understand and having an atrocious third season, it still manages to be funny and thought provoking in equal amounts. Seriously though. Fuck season 3.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is another great show that I sadly fell off the wagon of around the fifth or sixth season. It never got bad of course but it never really engaged me like the older episodes, though what I’ve heard of the last season makes me wish I’d kept up with it. It was a great show with a lot of heart and character, and I’m not sure we’ll ever see a show like it again.

Netflix did not slack in the animation department; I didn’t catch their most famous show (it’s the one about a certain Horseman) but I did catch their fantastic take on Castlevania, which as a huge fan of the series was a real treat. Where the fuck is Grant though?

My two favorite shows of the decade, however, are what I see as the pinnacle of East and West: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Gravity Falls. 

JJBA is a series I had vague passing knowledge of, only knowing its existence due to seeing Stone Ocean referenced on the Wikipedia page for air rods when I was younger and, of course, the memes that spawned from Heritage for the Future, which were inescapable back in the day. As soon as I got into the series, it became one of my biggest inspirations, teaching me you can be deep, complex, and filled with great character interactions while also being so batshit insane that every new and absurd power is incredibly easy to buy (looking forward to the rainbows that turn people into snails, animators). They managed to get through the first four parts and start up the fifth over the decade; so far my favorite part is four, mainly due to the magnificent bastard that is Yoshikage Kira (played time perfection by D.C. Douglas) and in spite of serial creep Vic Mangina playing the otherwise lovable asshole Rohan Kishibe.

Gravity Falls on the other hand is just a fun and engaging mystery show that manages to excel at being episodic and story-driven all at once. There’s only one or two “bad” episodes across two seasons, and it lasted just as long as it needed to, wrapping things up with a satisfactory ending that still gave fans a few mysteries to chew on. It also gave us Grunkle Stan, perhaps the greatest character in all of animation, the pinnacle of “jerk with a heart of gold” characters who is hilarious, badass, and complex all at once. This is my favorite western animated show…

...but then the last year of the decade threw a curveball and, if I’m being honest, is on par with Gravity Falls: Green Eggs and Ham. Netflix really wanted us to know 2D animation is back in 2019; between this show and Klaus, the future is looking bright for the medium. It’s a fun, funny roadtrip comedy that knows when to be emotional and when to be funny, and it’s all filtered through the wubbulous world of Dr. Seuss. It’s just a wonderfully delightful show.

And on the subject of JoJo, I had a kind of love-hate relationship with anime this decade. The attitudes of anime fans turned me off from anime for a long while. Sure, I checked out stuff like Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online, but neither series really clicked with me. The main anime I loved this decade were ones that started in the 2000s and ended in the 2010s, like Dragon Ball Z Kai and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I suppose I did enjoy My Hero Academia, which is a really fun show with an awesome and varied cast and great voice acting. Love Froppy, best girl for sure.

One of the most unfortunate things about this decade was how many great shows got screwed over by their networks. Sym-Bionic Titan, Thundercats, and The Legend of Korra were all great shows in their own right but were treated like shit by their respective networks. It really makes me upset that stuff like that not only happened, but continues to happen to this day.

But let’s not end on a bad note; let’s talk about the astounding returns old shows got. Invader Zim got a movie as did Hey Arnold, with the latter in particular finally wrapping up the dangling plot threads, but those are actual TV movies so they don’t really fit here; what DOES fit is Static Cling, the triumphant return of Rocko’s Modern Life. A forty minute special, it follows Rocko and his friends as they navigate the modern age, trying to bring back Rocko’s favorite cartoon. Rachel Bighead’s arc in this in particular is pretty groundbreaking and awesome. 

Also awesome was the first few episodes of Samurai Jack’s return, though it did end up petering out halfway through the season and ended on an anticlimactic note. Still, Tom Kenny’s Scaramouche, the sheer amount of continuity, and the awesome final curbstomp battle against Aku are worth giving this a watch. And if nothing else, stuff like this gives me hope for future revivals. What will we see next? Gargoyles comeback? Batman Beyond continuation? KENNY AND THE CHIMP REVIVAL?! Chimpers rise up!

Music

Much like everyone, I listened to a lot of music this decade. There was a lot of shit, and I definitely used to be one of those “wow no one makes good music anymore” morons, but I grew out of that and learned to look in the right places.

Let’s start with the albums I loved the most. Continuing her meteoric rise from the 2000s, Lady Gaga drooped her magnum opus, Born This Way, an album that successfully showcases her skills as she takes on numerous pop styles. No two songs sound the same, and with a couple of exceptions every song slaps. While we’re on the subject of pop stars, Gaga’s contemporary and lesser Katy Perry managed to hit a home run with the fun bit of pop fluff that was Teenage Dream.

Weird Al was sorely missed for most of the decade, but what albums he did drop featured some of his best work. While Alpocalypse doesn’t hold up quite so well, it’s still solid, but even then it is blown out of the water by Mandatory Fun, an album that just refuses to stop being funny from start to finish. And that’s not the only funny albums this decade; aside from artists I’ll get more into later, George Miller AKA Filthy Frank released Pink Season as one of his last great acts as his character of Pink Guy. The album is as raunchy and filthy as you’d expect. And then for unintentional comedy, Corey Feldman dropped Angelic 2 The Core, an album so musically inept that it ends up becoming endearing; it’s The Room of music.

As I gamed a lot this decade I got to experience a lot of great video game soundtracks, but the two I found to be the absolute best were Undertale and Metal Gear Rising’s. I couldn’t tell you which soundtrack is better, and I’ve actually made a playlist on my iPod containing my favorite tracks from both games. Pokemon had solid soundtracks all decade, but they definitely were better in single tracks such as Ultra Necrozma’s theme from USUM and Zinnia’s theme from ORAS.

And speaking of individual songs, there were a lot I really loved. The disco revival in the easel ide half of the decade lead to gems like “Get Lucky,” “Uptown Funk,” and… uh, “Blurred Lines.” The controversy to that one might be overblown, but it sure isn’t anything I really want to revisit.

Corey Feldman may be the king of unintentional comedy, but this decade was seriously ripe with so bad it’s good music. The crown jewel is without a doubt the giddy, goofy “Friday,” but I think the equally stupid but also endlessly more relatable Ark Music production “Chinese Food” is worth some ironic enjoyment as well. 

Meme songs in general were pretty enjoyable, though it came at a price. Remember when everyone tried to be funny by ripping off “Gangnam Style?” Remember when people took that Ylvis song at face value? Irony and satire were lost on the masses. I think the best mene song of the decade, though, is “Crab Rave,” a bouncy instrumental dance track with a fun music video and an absurd yet hilarious meme tacked to it. And then we have “The Internet is for Music,” a gargantuan 30 minute mashup featuring every YTMND, 4chan, Newgrounds, and YouTube meme you could think of (at the time of its release anyway),

Then we get into artists. Comedy music was great this decade, with Steel Panther and The Lonely Island putting out great work all decade, but by far my favorite funny band is Ninja Sex Party. Dan “Danny Sexbang” Avidan and Brian “Ninja Brian” Wecht are pretty much my favorite entertainers at this point, with them easily being able to go from doing goofy yet epic songs where they fuck or party to doing serious and awesome cover albums where Dan flexes his impressive vocals. A big plus is how all of their albums are easily some of my favorites ever, with not a single bad CD, and that’s not even getting into their side project Starbomb. These guys are a treasure.

Then we have Ghost, a Swedish metal band who play up the Satanic panic for all it’s worth. These guys captured my interest when I heard the beautiful “Cirice” on the radio, and despite that song rocking the fuck out, Imagine my surprise when it ended up being only middle of the road awesome for this band! With killer original songs like “Rats,” “Mary in the Cross,” and “Square Hammer” to a awesome covers like “Missionary Man” and “I’m a Marionette,” it’s almost enough to get a guy to hail Satan. I think they appeal to me mainly because they have a style very in line with the 80s, most evident on tracks like “Rats.” 

While I’d hesitate to call him one of my favorite musicians yet (he is really good so far though), one of my favorite people in entertainment is Lil Nas X. From his short but sweet songs that crush genre boundaries to his hilarious Twitter feed, this guy is going places and I can’t wait to see what those places are.

And finally, the guy I think may be one of the greatest creative geniuses alive and who has nearly singlehandedly shaped Internet culture with everything he does… Neil Cicierega. While it’s not like I only discovered him in the 2010s - the guy has been an omnipresent force in my life since Potter Pupper Pals debuted - he definitely became the guy I would unflinchingly call the greatest artist of our time over that period.   Whether he’s releasing the songs under his own name or as Lemon Demon, you can always be sure that the songs are going to burrow into your brain. His Lemon Demon album Spirit Phone, which features songs about urban legends and the horrors of capitalism, is easily my pick for album of the decade. And then under his own name he released three mashup mixtapes: Mouth Sounds, Mouth Silence, and Mouth Moods. All three are stellar albums, but only Mouth Moods has “Wow Wow,” the bouncing track about homoerotic bee-loving Will Smith and outtakes so good they deserve to be on the next album.

Video Games 

Having a PC this decade was great because it let me experience a lot of games I probably wouldn’t have otherwise, like Half-Life, BioShock, Earthnound, Mother 3, and Final Fantasy VI and VII. All of these and more are among my favorite games of all time now, but we’re here to talk about the stuff from this decade I consider great.

It’s hard to talk about this decade in gaming without mentioning Skyrim. Yes, it has flaws and the main storyline is a bit undercooked, but there’s so much fun to be had dicking about in the wilderness it’s hard to be too mad. And if you have mods, there are endless opportunities to expand the game. The same is true for the other game I have sunk countless hours into, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Not only is there a thriving modding community, but it has been supported and encouraged by the creators and some mods have even made the leap into becoming fully canon! It’s always a blast to revisit and see how far I can break the game with item combos.

Surprisingly, Batman managed to get not one, not two, but THREE awesome licensed games this decade! Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and the unfairly maligned Arkham Origins all kick as much ass as the Dark Knight himself. The former two reunite Mark Hamill and Kevin McConroy as Joker and Batman while the latter features numerous stellar boss battles. The combat in these games is so graceful and fluid, you WILL feel like Batman at some point, be it after flawlessly clobbering two dozen mooks or silently eliminating a room of thugs before they even realize you’re there.

Pokémon had a bit of a rocky decade; it started out strong with the fifth generation, the best games in the series with a great story, region, and sidequests and then just went downhill from there. Not incredibly so, of course - the games were always fun at least - but gens VI through VIII were not the most graceful steps into 3D. Still, every gen managed to produce some of my all-time favorite Pokémon. Gen V had Volcarona, Chandelure,  and Meloetta; Gen VI gave us Hoopa, Klefki, the Fairy type in general, and a gorgeous mega evolution for my favorite Pokémon, Absol; Gen VII had the Ultra Beasts and Ultra Necrozma, some of the coolest concepts in the series, as well as Pyukumuku; and Gen VIII gave us Cinderace, Dracovish, Dracozolt, Polteageist, Hatterene, Snom, and Zacian. And those are just samplings mind you, these gens are full of hits.

Bringing back old franchises yielded amazing results. Look no further than the triumphant return of Doom in 2016, which had you ripping and tearing through the forces of Hell with guns, chainsaws, and your bear fucking hands. This game is HARDCORE. Less bloody and gory but no less awesome was the return of not just Crash Bandicoot, but Spyro as well in remakes that are easily the definitive ways to experience the games. And don’t even get me started on the remastered DuckTales!

Platinum games did not fuck around this decade, delivering Bayonetta 2 and Metal Gear Rising. The former is a balls-to-the-wall sequel to the amazing original Bayonetta that, while lacking in bosses quite as impressive as the first game’s, is more polished and has a fun story and a better haircut for Bayonetta; the latter is an action game so insane it makes the rest of the Metal Gear franchise look tame in comparison. The latter in particular is in my top ten games ever, with every boss battle feeling epic, all the music kicking ass, and Raiden truly coming into his own as a badass.

Speaking of Metal Gear, the divisive The Phantom Pain easily earns its place here. While much fuss has been made about the game being “unfinished,” it still has a complete and satisfying ending even if it doesn’t totally wrap up the dangling plot threads the young Liquid Snake leaves behind. The overarching themes as well as Venom and his relationship with characters like Kaz, Paz, and ESPECIALLY Quiet make this game, with his and Quiet’s being particularly beautiful and tragic. The Paz quest, Quiet’s exit, and the mission where Snake has to put down his men after they get infested with parasites are all some of the most heartbreaking moments in the franchise. But it’s not all tears; there’s plenty of fun to be had harassing Russians in Afghanistan while blaring 80s synth pop from your Walkman. Oh yeah, and fuck Huey.

The Ace Attorney series also thrived, with both Spirit of Justice and Dual Destinies transitioning the series into 3D a lot more graceful than some other franchises while still maintaining the with and charm the series is known for. And if that wasn’t enough for my point-and-cluck adventure needs, Telltale had me covered with The Wolf Among Us and the first season of The Walking Dead. The stories and characters of those games are so good, it’s enough to make you sad they never got a timely sequel or sequels that weren’t shit respectively.

This decade is when I really got into fighting game, though I’m not particularly good. I supported Skullgirls (and am even in the credits!), and got into Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle (and I also got into its spiritual predecessor, Heritage for the Future). But by and large my favorite fighting game of the decade and the one I’m actually pretty good at is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the most ridiculously ambitious crossover in video game history. The fact that the game is STILL getting more characters added is a testament of how insanely great the game is because instead of being mad that there’s so much DLC, people are going rabid waiting for news of more. It’s such an awesome, complete game out the door that the DLC feels earned rather than half a game being held hostage. Other devs, take note!

A lot of franchises put their best foot forward for sequels. God of War III was an awesomely bloody finale to the original journey of Kratos, with more epic bosses than ever; now he’s off fighting Norse gods, and I hear that game is even better! Portal 2 is just an absolute blast, and easily surpasses the first game on the merit of having Cave Johnson alone; the fact we get Wheatley and the malfunctioning personality cores honestly feels like overkill. Then we have BioShock… 2. While it’s certainly not as good as the first game, I think it was a lot of fun, and it got way too much flak.

 I think it definitely aged better than Infinite which, while still a good game in its own right (it’s hard to hate a game with a character as endearing as Elizabeth), definitely was not warranting the levels of acclaim it got with such a muddled narrative. “Overrated” and “overhyped” are not words I keep in my vocabulary and I certainly would not describe Infinite as such, but I do feel like people got swept up in the gorgeous visuals and the story bits and characters that are effective and so weren’t nearly as critical of its flaws. It’s still a good, fun game with an interesting world, but it pales in comparison to the other two BioShocks. I feel like The Last of Us is in a similar boat. That being said, I couldn’t tell you why; it has a great story, good characters, plenty of replayability, and fascinating enemy design. But despite all that, I appreciate this game more than love it. It’s the Citizen Kane of video game sin that regard at least.

I’d be remiss to not mention the big indie successes of the decade. Shovel Knight is easily one is the greatest platform era ever made, taking everything great about the platformers on the NES and SNES, removing the bullshit, and delivering numerous bonus campaigns with unique playstyles. Then there was Abobo’s Big Adventure, a marvelous mashup of all sorts of games starring the beloved Double Dragon mook as he goes on a bloody quest to save his son. It’s a blast and there is tons of variety but some sections are definitely as hair-pullingly difficult as the games that inspired them. And then there is Doki Doki Literature Club, the free visual novel that brutally subverts your expectations. Sadly, I do feel the game loses some impact on subsequent playthroughs, but it’s still a great, effective story that skillfully utilizes meta elements.

Still, the greatest indie success of them all is Toby Fox’s masterpiece, Undertale. Charming, funny, emotional, and populated by a cast of some of the most fun and lovable characters ever conceived, this game was an instant smash and is still talked about to this day. Sure, things like Sans have been memed to death, but it’s hard to not just love and cherish the beautiful world Toby Fox managed to create. This game may not be the greatest game of all time, but for what it is I wouldn’t hesitate to name it the game of the decade.

There was a lot of great art in the 2010s, and while I couldn’t get around to all of it, I’m so happy with what I got to experience. Here’s hoping that the 2020s can be just as amazing!

[secretradiobrooklyn]

New York State Tax Edition | 3.20 & 3.27.21

Secret Radio | 3.20 & 3.27.21 | Hear it here.

Liner notes by Evan (except * for Paige), Art by Paige

1. Antoine Dougbé - “Towe Nin” 

There was a while during which I tried to listen to every single T.P. Orchestre song that could be heard via discogs.com. They’ve released dozens of albums, probably close to a hundred if you count all of the albums attributed to various members, so that was a very daunting task… though really what it highlighted was the sheer volume of songs that just are not available to be heard in digital form. Those songs take on a sort of mythic quality as we listen to the huge variety of styles and periods that this band passed through in their prolific and very obscure career. But the ones that loom in the imagination the largest, for Paige and me, are the songs attributed to Antoine Dougbé. He writes for the band but doesn’t record with them, and in most cases Melomé Clement arranges the songs — and these are some of Melomé’s finest arrangements, in my opinion. “Towe Nin” isn’t a propulsive powerhouse like the Dougbé tracks on “Legends of Benin,” but it does have tons of style, and the band sounds extremely confident. My favorite detail of many — like, listen to the shaker solo in the middle! — on this track is the final passage, where three voices suddenly meld into an extremely Western, Beatle-y harmonic finale (with an unresolved final chord). Where did that come from?! It blows my mind to think about how these guys were hearing music and writing music in Benin in the ’70s…

2. Hürel - “Ve Ölüm” - “Tip Top” soundtrack

The other night we watched a DVD that was part of our Non-Classic French Cinema Program that Paige has been drafting for us, featuring movies she figures French people would know but that didn’t get exposed to American audiences. This one was… baffling — the problems were French cultural ones that we really didn’t grok at all. Which was kind of cool. An odd detail was that this song featured prominently throughout the trailer and the film, though we couldn’t figure out, like, why. But we knew immediately that it was awesome.

And… this track sent us down the rabbit hole of Anatolian rock, which turns out to be Turkish psych music from the ’60s & ’70s. We’ve played Erkin Koray’s “Cemalim” and thought that was cool, but had no idea it was a burgeoning scene with tons of creative writers and amazing songs. We’ve spent a lot of time checking out Anatolian music since, and I can tell we’re just getting started. So: thank you to a giant French crowdpleaser movie for the Anatolian clue-in!

3. They Might Be Giants - “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Clothes” 

I was not expecting to experience a They Might Be Giants renaissance at this point in my life, but this is just further proof that time has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. This song tells me a lot about what I like now by re-presenting what I liked then, showing off completely new facets I hadn’t yet appreciated. This song is lousy with insights… including that super Slanted Malkmus-y scream at the very end!)

4. Jacqueline Taïeb - “La fac de lettres”

Jacqueline Taïeb is probably my single favorite French pop artist, even though her body of work is way smaller than most of the runners-up. (I would say the closest contender is Jacque Dutronc.) She’s so full of irrepressible character, it just bubbles up out of the vocal performances. Her biggest hit was “7 heures du matin,” in the character of a bored, rock-obsessed teenager trying to figure out what to wear to school that morning, and “La fac du lettres” kind of picks up the thread: now she’s in the auditorium at school, learning about British history — the invasion of Normandy, the Hundred Years’ War — and pining to get back to the recording studio. 

5. La Card - “Jedno zbogom za tebe”

I didn’t know what circumstance would call for Yugoslavian synth pop warped by endless cassette plays, but it turns out that driving a thousand miles west in one fell swoop requires a certain amount of ’80s vibes. Turns out Yugoslavia had a pretty rich punk/new wave scene in the ’80s, and even though the songs were often critical of the Communist government, they were not only allowed to be played but, to a certain extent, supported by the government, and there were also several magazines covering punk, new wave, ska (!), and rock music in Yugoslavia.

6. Suicide - “Shadazz” 

Maybe it’s the band name, but I was never able to find a place for myself in the music of Suicide, despite how many bands I dig who cite them. But Paige pulled this track, and now I’m starting to get it. I also really like how the kick drum fits against the cymbal-ish sound loop that leads the percussion. 

7. Girma Beyene - “Ene Negn Bay Manesh”

Man, Ethiopia was swingin so hard in the ’60s and ’70s! This track combines the organ-driven band dynamic with a smooth Western vocal croon that I’ve never quite heard before. 

8. Os Mutantes - “Trem Fantasma” 

I still can’t believe that I haven’t been listening to this album my whole life — it’s so freaking amazing from beginning to end. Every song feels like its own complete cinematic experience, with narrative twists and turns, a high-drama dynamic, and each voice taking on a host of characters, independently and together. “Trem Fantasma” is an entire album contained in a single song — and that’s what it’s like with every song on their debut album. PLUS it’s got the coolest possible cover. Truly, I’m still in awe at this album. It makes me wonder: what did the Beatles think of this record?! 

9. The Beatles - “Think for Yourself” 

This is one of those songs that I feel like established whole new harmony relationships in Western pop… and this likely isn’t even one of their top 50 songs for most Beatles fans. Apparently, they had the main tracks recorded already — this is one of George’s first songs, it’s just 1965 — and they threw the harmonies on in “a light-hearted session” between two other things they were in the middle of, because they were under pressure to get this album finished. That’s amazing! Also, this song is the first one to use a fuzzbox on a bass: Paul played one (excellent) part on clean bass, and another one one all fuzzed out, which became the lead guitar — in fact, John had a guitar part but scrapped it to play an organ instead. What a righteous song to kick off the concept of lead bass guitar! That was Harvey Danger’s big compositional secret: Aaron wrote and played most of the lead guitar parts on bass, and had a fantastic sense of what he could do with the tone of his instrument. 

10. Erkin Koray - “Öksürük” 

Anatolian rock! It has its own note scale, that gives it this Eastern tonality while working in Western rock shapes and with what feels like a very relatably wry sense of humor. Erkin Koray is right up there in the firmament for us — the whole genre is full of welcome discoveries, but Koray is a really unique guitarist and composer beyond any particular genre. This track plays up his lead guitar passages while maintaining a pretty undeniable disco downbeat, and his vocal delivery strikes me as more French than anything. And yet the whole thing is so deeply and fully Turkish.

11. Vaudou Game - “Pas Contente”

We’ve been so head-over-heels for Beninese funk and rock from the ’60s and ’70s that our fantasies about that music are completely separated from any music happening today. But Vaudou Game is led by Peter Solo, a Togolese musician who grew up on the sound of T.P. Orchestre and decided to work with it himself. His band is handpicked and mostly I think French — the sound is I think a really impressive take on classic Beninese style but with very modern feel. This track is from 2014. I’m looking forward to digging in some more, because it’s a thrill to find a live wire in this music style. 

12. Cut Off Your Hands - “Higher Lows and Lower Highs”

This is one of my favorite tracks from the last 5 years. I get so absorbed in the way the bass part relates to all of the other pieces. The bass is absolutely the reason this song works — just tune into it and check out how the whole world of the song bends to accommodate it.

The Gang of Roesli - “Don’t Talk about Freedom”

Years ago, when I took over Eleven magazine, there was a giant stack of mailed-in CDs in the editor’s office. I didn’t hang onto many of them, but there was a set from Now-Again Records that just looked like something we should spend more time with. Turns out that one of them was “Those Shocking Shaking Days,” a collection of trippy, heavy Indonesian rock. I didn’t get it at the time, but lately I’ve certainly been picking up what they were laying down. The baroque keys, the vocal la’s, the hitched-up bass and guitar, that little bass lick, the harmonica… I would love to have been around for the session this came from. 

13. Warm Gun - “Broken Windows” - “PAINK”

More paink from France, in the mode of Richard Hell, short sweet and rowdy.

14. Duo Kribo - “Uang” - “Those Shocking Shaking Days”

This is another amazing Indonesian track — amazing for a completely different reason than The Gang of Roesli. Such a note-perfect rendition of chart-topping American (and German — what’s up, Scorps?) rock, but their own song nonetheless! This song attracts me, repels me, attracts me, repels me, on and on in equal measure. To me the kicker is the outro section, which sounds like something Eko Roosevelt came up with… thousands of miles and many genres away from Duo Kribo.

15. The Real Kids - “All Kindsa Girls”

Even as the theoretical pleasures of Facebook overall continue to recede, I find myself glad of a FB group somebody let me in on: Now Playing. The only stipulation about posts is that you have to include a photo of the actual record that you are actually playing — beyond that, it could be any genre, any period, whatever. People post interesting albums all the time, and will often write up their thoughts or memories about the band when they do. Boston’s The Real Kids just sounded like something I should know about, so I hunted it down and man, they were not wrong. Not everything on the album was for us, but right from the African-sounding guitar intro, “All Kindsa Girls” certainly was. Lead guitar/vocal guy John Felice was an early member of the Modern Lovers and a fellow VU devotee with his neighbor Jonathan Richman — he also spent time as a Ramones roadie. I’m tickled by how much the penultimate guitar riff sounds like something off the first Vampire Weekend album, and the final riff was destined to become a punk classic.

16. De Frank Professionals - “Afe Ato Yen Bio” 

We broadcast the first part of this episode from the cockpit of the van rocketing between New York and Illinois. Not long after we got here to the woods, a package showed up from Analog Africa with our new “Afro-Beat Airways” reissue, as well as their first indispensable T.P. Orchestre collection, “The Skeletal Essences of Afro-Funk 1969-1980.” We’re celebrating that record with this absolutely killer song by De Frank Professionals, a band about whom very little is known. I am in love with every part of this song, from the sixth-beat hi-hat accent to those tandem vocal parts and that beautiful guitar tone. This track has quickly risen to being one of our all-time faves. Bless Samy Ben Redjeb and everyone at AA for doing the work to find these amazing recordings, track down the musicians, pay them for rights to release, and making these miraculous finds available!

17. Ros Serey Sothea - “Shave Your Beard” 

Concurrent to our African fascination has been the gorgeous and thoroughly tragic revelation of Cambodia’s richly talented and expressive rock scene that was utterly destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. There were so many amazing musicians in the scene, but certainly the most flat-out amazing voice was Ros Serey Sothea’s, as this track makes clear. I also love just how sophsticated and innovative these Cambodian song arrangements are — they really take Western ’60s pop into a new world, with intricate guitar parts and really solidly satisfying instrumental structures.

18. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - “O.N.E.”

This is a hard band to keep up with, for a variety of reasons — they can be so intense, and their guitar-rock prog virtuosity can get a bit off-putting if you’re not ready for it. This track, though, reminds me of a host of favorite reference points from the last twenty years of rock. This recording makes me wish that they could have played with Bailiff in Chicago in 2012 — I think everyone would have gained a lot from that connection.

Also, the video is so beautiful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkZd2lBQb2c

19. Ettika - “Ettika” - “Chebran: French Boogie Vol. 2”

French culture is shot through with African references. Ettika was an early ’80s hit with musicians besotted by synths and American rap styles. This band was produced by a noted French composer who was married to a Cameroonian and very much into African groove. This “French Boogie” collection is full of African-style gems heavily refracted through the decade’s new technology.

20. Spice Girls - “Wannabe”

I yield the floor.

*As I mention in the “broadcast” it just felt right. That confident opening line. What are guilty pleasures? How do you feel listening to this song? And y’all already have our phone numbers, so that’s no surprise!

- The Gang of Roesli - “Don’t Talk about Freedom”

21. Steely Dan - “Reelin’ in the Years”

Gut reaction: do you actually love this song? Do you actually hate this song? Do you find that your reaction changes moment by moment within the experience of listening to the song, where your personal experience clashes with your cultural memory associations? Me too.

22. Zia - “Kofriom” - “Helel Yos”

I don’t remember how I got to this track, but holy smokes am I glad we did! It’s pretty freakin hard to find out anything about Zia. The cover of this album portrays an older man with dyed hair and a white blazer over a black collar… but I did actually find a video of Zia performing this song on Iranian public television, and he looks considerably younger and less flash than that. In fact, he’s sporting a tan three-piece suit with a wide tie, all alone on a heavily mirrored stage, and he kind of looks like he might be running for a senate seat in his spare time. It’s a very weird effect. But meanwhile: this whole album is super cool, very expressive of an emotional state I definitely don’t understand. The handclaps are absolutely top notch in the rhythm — they remind me of Ayalew Mesfin’s awesome “Gedawo.”

23. Jo LeMaire & Flouze - “Je Suis Venue te Dire Que je M’en Vais”

Doesn’t this sound like something you could have had intense adolescent feelings to? 

*I first heard this song in the trailer for Boy Meets Girl  and then later in the film. (Not my personal favorite Carax but definitely great, and the music and sound design is top notch.) Then my French teacher suggested I check out a song, and it was this song. So that’s neat!

24. Rung Petchburi - “Pai Joi” - “Thai? Dai!: The Heavier Side of the Lukthung Underground”

We’re still just getting to know Lukthung music, but for the last couple weeks we’ve been getting deeper and deeper into Thai rock, psych, surf and funk. It’s a rich vein, and it shares some really interesting characteristics with seemingly unrelated regions, like Turkey and Ethiopia.

Black Brothers - “Saman Doye”

I’m telling you, “Those Shocking Shaking Days” will improve your life immediately.

25. Nahid Akhtar - “Dil de Guitar” - from “Good Listener Vol 1,” 

This collection just came out this month, which was a surprise because we just stumbled across this track by reading about Nahid Akhtar elsewhere. What an AMAZING track! This was recorded and released in Pakistan in 1977, and I can’t even imagine how they wrote it, much less recorded it. The drum loops seem like they hadn’t been invented yet… but there they are, cranked up to their highest speed. It’s a collage of ideas and hooks, all just crammed together into a single song. the main hook reminds me a bit of “Jogi Jogi,” our favorite Pakistani song on WBFF thus far. I feel like I could listen to this song a hundred times and hear something new each time. Akhtar’s voice is so expressive and confident in those long held notes — and who is that ogre doing call and response with her? So weird. So cool.

[renaroo]

The Hottest City

Disclaimer: Atomic Blonde/The Coldest City and associated characters are the creative property of Antony Johnston & Sam Hart. Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content Pairing: LorrainexDelphine Rating: M Synopsis: [Ending Divergence AU] Lorraine’s last mission’s package is only delivered to the CIA with terms. But first, she has a meeting in Paris.

A/N: I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, an alternate ending where these two beautiful women are safe and alive and happy together, but you know what, there’s not enough lady love out in the world to justify sitting on this fic any longer. So spies and sex are on the way ~

She was on her eighth cigarette. The cramped interrogation room was heavy with the smoke, the smell of it nearly as pungent as was on the tips of her fingers. She fought the quiver of nerves under her bruised and bandaged knuckles in a battle of willpower, of control, as she stared straight into the face of Mister Gray.

His steady eyes were nothing less than what would have been expected of a senior staff at MI6. They were not telling of anything, or at lest did their best to seem as much.

Lorraine had read his file before and knew full well that Agent Eric Gray had spent more years behind a desk than in the field by that point. He was getting rusty at the spy work and was too telling as a handler.

The idea that she could ever reach such a point herself was enough to give Lorraine heartburn. She preemptively ended her cigarette, digging it into the ashtray.

“What the French operative gave you were not just evidence of Percival working against you to retrieve the watch from Bremovych,” Mister Gray finally announced, turning the manilla file over from his side of the table and sliding its contents out in front of Lorraine for her to see. “It seems that they even predate your arrival to Berlin, let alone the quest for any agency to even be aware of Spyglass’ turn for the West.”

“Yes, well, it’s my understanding that the Western Allies weren’t all located in Berlin to the amount of force they could have been,” Lorraine replied, a meaningful glance toward the CIA’s representative, Kurzfeld, playing so close and friendly with MI6 in some attempt to save face in it all. She did not get a reaction and instead turned back toward Mister Gray. Another glance toward the oneway mirror where she was certain of Chief’s location, and she continued. “So if Percival was making contact with the Soviets prior to my arrival, what are we supposed to take from that?” she asked.

“What do you take from that, Miss Broughton?” Kurzfeld asked meaningfully.

“Apparently not as much as I should,” she answered.

“Percival was a good agent, but went native in the East, went rogue on MI6, and was operating Comrade Satchel behind Gasciogne’s back, as well as behind all of United Kingdom,” Gray surmised. “You knew that, of course, when you made the decision to kill him in Berlin.”

“Of course,” Lorraine answered. “And because the cost we paid was too high for my tastes.”

“You mean the death of Gasciogne,” Kurzfeld interjected.

Lorraine’s piercing gaze shifted to the CIA agent, her finger tapping against the edge of the ashtray. “Among others,” she said simply.

“Well, without the watch and without Spyglass, we hardly have anything more to speak on,” Gray sighed, reaching for the recorder.

“I suppose we don’t,” Lorraine replied, continuing to watch with bloodshot eyes and bruised lips.

“Thank you for your time, Miss Broughton,” Gray said, clicking off the recorder. “That was an intensive session. Take some time off, recover. We will contact you.”

She watched as the room of men all left, chairs scooting, the door opening for the first time in hours. Fresh air entered and stifled her, she bit the inside of her cheek, hoping it would give her that coppery taste in her mouth that it felt strange without after the last week of chaos.

She was numb, getting to her feet and gathering her coat and purse. She began to walk toward the door with only one concern — seeing to it that her time off was extended far longer than anyone heading MI6 could be aware of.

The start of Lorraine’s recovery began where the end of her Berlin excursion had left her — the bottom of a a bottle of vodka. The passenger flight to Paris was filled with smoke and wondering eyes, especially toward a single brunette wearing all red.

Beneath her furs and layers, Lorraine’s bruises and scars burned as vividly as her throat as she threw back another shot. The plane ride was going to be short regardless, but every moment building up to the moment made her filled with nerves and concern that were quite unbecoming of her.

Quite unbecoming.

Despite her looks, Lorraine didn’t really intend on drawing attention to her parting with her native country. Quite the opposite, really, she did not go through the trouble of an all new disguise for nothing after all. But as she leaned back into her seat and looked out into the dark night’s sky she began to question her decisions.

Was Kurzfeld trustworthy? Were any Americans, really? Was she actually walking into a trap or into a new life the moment she reached Paris. She had no way of knowing.

Which, itself, was not entirely true. She had gotten Merkel’s message before she dared to leave her flat and continued on with the plans. And she trusted Merkel more than Kurzfeld or Mister Gray, or especially C.

But a wise spy had once said that telling the truth would get someone killed. And Lorraine believed that with all of her heart and mind. It was a certainty she couldn’t deny. In the circumstances, though, precarious as they were, she had to have faith in the truth to survive, for the first time in her life.

So she landed in Paris, went through customs under the alias she had built and made only for her eyes to see before then, completely unknown to any others than her at that moment. And she went on her way to an agreed upon hotel, giving the staff under Merkel’s careful watch the number of the room she needed a key to without further explanation or payment.

They did not lead her to the room, did not ask about her lack of bags, and Lorraine attempted to keep to the plan. Believe against her jaded cynicism that she could continue forward and that she lived in a world crafted by poets and rockstars. Not one molded by the icy and inhuman conduct she so often took part in herself.

Reaching her floor, reaching the room, Lorraine hesitated for maybe the first time in her life since becoming a spy, her fingers, cut and bandaged as they were, tracing the doorknob’s touch with a delicacy very much unlike her.

There were several options for what lied behind the door. Only one of them was what she wanted, and it was the least likely.

Head lowered, hair still stiff and unnatural from its fresh dye job reluctantly cresting around her brow. There was an agonizing pain in the moment for Lorraine.

What little humanity she still grasped, she was putting on the line first. Her last shield to be broken if she opened that door and found anything other than what Kurzfeld promised her back in Berlin. And the idea of it being anything other than what Kurzfeld promised…

Well, the truth was the deadliest weapon for a spy.

Taking a breath, Lorraine used her key, unlocked the door, and watched as it swung open to the suite.

It was large, a presidential suite, fit for the Queen herself should she desire it. Gold, ornate, overly extravagant. Something to be expected from the French. And that view — it was the most difficult part to take in at all.

Not the Parisian cityscape, still glowing and full of lights well past midnight. Cities held no treasures for Lorraine anymore. She’d seen nearly them all west of the Wall. Not even the city of love held her captivated anymore.

The view that truly took Lorraine’s breath away was who was standing in front of the view, arms wrapped around herself, black shear nightgown draped over a body too soft and too gentle for their line of work. Cuts and bruises still discoloring and misusing her beautiful skin in ways that would have enraged Lorraine if she wasn’t simply just floored at the moment before her. The truth, as it turned out, was the possibility that Lorraine was least prepared for.

Even if Lorraine had wanted to preserve that moment eternally, freeze it like in one of her pictures, she didn’t get to. Reality caught up with her.

Delphine swirled around, a gun that had been kept close by her garter, aimed for Lorraine and the door. She had learned some things since Berlin.

Normally, Lorraine would have already met Delphine’s action with a gun draw of her own, would have made her from the second she touched the door knob, or at the very least have brought her hands up over her head to show Delphine that there was nothing to be worried about. Normally.

Nothing, even for the world of spies and monsters clothed in the skins of men, was normal anymore, though.

They were in the world of poem, a romantic ballad. And Lorraine’s hurting, bloodshot eyes swelled more with water, glazing over her vision, wandering up and down Delphine’s body for some sign that the truth wasn’t what it seemed after all. That she was misled, that it was a dream.

Instead, Delphine lowered her gun and let out some shuttering breaths of her own.

“Lorraine,” Delphine whispered in a rasp, a throaty painful sound came out with the roll of her r’s. And, given the bruising and lacerations around her neck, it was no wonder. The fact that she was breathing was nothing short of a miracle itself.

And yet, even with the ugliness of their field and their recent encounters in Berlin laid before them so nakedly, Lorraine felt like she had never heard a word said so beautifully in her life.

She stepped inside, cautiously, disbelieving.

Lorraine was walking carefully through a fever dream, one she wouldn’t turn back after she shut the door behind her.

Which she did.

There were still no words forming in Lorraine’s mouth as she attempted to process what was happening. That things were real.

Mechanically, she locked the door behind her, swallowing back the emotion that was tainting her rational thought at the moment. Then she looked back at Delphine, the living and breathing. The magnificently real Delphine.

Just like Kurzfeld promised.

“I have the watch,” Lorraine said, brain still fuzzy. She wasn’t sure if it was what she needed to say, if it was going to change the dynamics of the moment. Probably. Maybe. She didn’t know.

Delphine looked at her, a little disbelieving herself before she shook her head and let out a huff of air. Her gun dropped down to her side as she shook her head. “Mon dieu," she said, raspy and breathless. “I don’t care about de watch.”

Despite herself, despite the obscuring of her vision, Lorraine laughed and shook her head. “I don’t either,” she admitted.

After that, it happened so quickly, so passionately, that Lorraine could hardly retrace her memories of the moment.

Once the space between them was lost, they surged together, arms locked at each other’s faces, lips openly exploring the other’s mouth, bodies flushed together until ones bruised skin only ended where the other’s bloodied flesh began.

There was more passion in those first seconds, those moments frozen in time, than Lorraine had felt in decades of life.

Their breaths were hot, mixing in the short gasps between kisses. Everything was mixing, everything was coming together, clicking along, steady and uniform as clockwork.

Lorraine took control, her hands splaying across Delphine’s body, reaching through fabric, searching for purchase against supple curves and landing on the small of her back. When she had a hold of her love, she spun them around, changing position to protectively turn her own back to the window overlooking Paris. It was a gesture without words. And Delphine understood it.

The moment took the Frenchwoman by surprise, her flushed lips gapped slightly, still wet from the recent attack. Her eyes shined, so dark Lorraine lost herself in them. Which almost made the touch of Delphine reaching up, taking hold of Lorraine’s furs and layers, and slowly dropping them from their position over Lorraine’s shoulders surprising.

Not too surprising however, because Lorraine followed, tearing the shear gown away from Delphine and keeping as steady of a control over her breath as she could while her heart raced so quickly it could almost stop.

“You look horrible,” Lorraine commented, delicately running her fingers over Delphine’s blued and purpled flesh.

“And you?” Delphine questioned almost sarcastically. Her throat, it was so bad that Lorraine almost didn’t want to reach for it. But she did. And Delphine caught her hand, slowly dragging it up along the curve of her own jaw and pressing Lorraine’s palm against Delphine’s cheek, letting her nuzzle into the guided caress. “Does your body have a place to accept my bruises? My, what is it? Suçon?”

“Not today,” Lorraine said. “Another day.”

Slowly, Delphine’s eyes shifted to look directly back into Lorraine’s. Still so wide and brown and beautiful. It was the first time either of them had spoke of another day. The first time they spoke of having it together. And the enormity of it was not lost on Lorraine.

But she couldn’t force herself to obsess on it for long, she pushed against Delphine’s shoulders, gently sending her back until her knees buckled over the love seat behind her and she was collapsed into the chair.

Not letting up, Lorraine straddled Delphine and passionately kissed her, mindful to not tilt her neck back too far, not to cut off her air for long. Then, just as Delphine was pressing for more, she lifted back and slowly slid down Delphine’s body.

She kissed Delphine’s collarbone gingerly, then kissed the exposed flesh just above her corset. Lorraine’s hands held to the sides of Delphine’s body, thumbs strumming the fabric over her beautiful breasts, feeling the nipples through it growing cautiously hard beneath the motion.

But Lorraine, as always, was a woman of action, and she did not waste so much time on the foreplay as she did dropping over the edge of the love seat , between the curves of Delphine’s thighs, and spread her open.

“Over eager, mon amour,” Delphine tried to  laugh, but Lorraine didn’t give her enough time.

Lorraine was already beneath the satan fabric of Delphine’s underwear, her middle finger guiding along the lips of Delphine’s secret mouth. Slow, stringing along casually as Delphine’s breath hitched and her legs squirmed outward, opening further, opening more to Lorraine so that she could find that growing moisture and glide it along just the brushing surface of Delphine’s throbbing and welcoming skin.

When Delphine’s breath hitched more, when toes on the floor curled, Lorraine sunk her hand in deeper, middle finger easily reaching through Delphine’s welcoming vagina, allowing the pulse and pull of muscles to guide her inside as Delphine withered beneath her touch.

Without wasting words between them, Lorraine wanted to share her own truth with Delphine. That the night — their night — was all about Delphine. All about the joy and passion and new lease Lorraine felt with Delphine being alive and there. That they were together. It wasn’t about Lorraine, as much as her own muscles between her thighs grew tight, clenching achingly as she saw her love moan and gasp beneath her.

In control of herself, Lorraine used her second hand to join her first, stretching Delphine’s underwear further to the side rather than touching herself. She stretched Delphine before the ring finger of her first hand joined her middle, slipping into Delphine’s vagina and picking up the pace that Delphine’s body was already beating to.

Looking over Delphine’s wet and puckered skin, Lorraine took the thumb of her second hand, pressed against the pubis Lorraine’s body and followed the line of its crest down into the pinkish flesh. Delphine moaned a long, musky sound as Lorraine’s thumb pressed against the hardened bead of flesh that was her clit. If the sound had caused her injured throat any pain, she didn’t let it on.

Still, Lorraine was cautious as ever, even as her fingers quickened, slick with Delphine’s own wetness, they surged into her and out, into her and out, until the fleshy sound of it was a small whisper compared to the grains and stiffened gasps coming from Delphine.

And then, as Lorraine watched her perfect face, Delphine’s cheeks began to grow as rosy as her labia. She was so close. Brought all the way by Lorraine’s steady strokes.

Like with Delphine’s nipples, Lorraine used her thumb to strum the bone hard clitoris over and over, watching the jerk of Delphine’s body with each motion. Then she pressed into the flesh with her thumb and kept her fingers purchased deep inside of Delphine, lazily scratching and massaging the muscle within as her second hand quickened the pace on Delphine’s throbbing clit. She swirled around it with her thumb, watching Delphine’s head roll back and her shoulders jerk as her hands found themselves in Lorraine’s hair.

“I love you,” Lorraine said, hiding the confession beneath the cries of Delphine’s orgasm as it came. As her body tightened around Lorraine’s hands, as her knees trembled against the sides of Lorraine’s shoulders.

She tried to hide the truth, but the truth was in the change of her eyes.

And as Delphine came down from her high, slumped into the love seat with the stars still shining in her eyes, Lorraine could already tell.

Delphine could see the truth in Lorraine’s eyes, whether she heard it in her ecstasy or not.

And Lorraine was more than happy with that.

They spend hours together, but they’re not enough to make up for the pain of the weeks spent separated during the chaos of Berlin and the destruction of the Wall. No contact. Only a promise from a man who was supposed to make everything work out in the end.

For a price.

For Lorraine’s honor. For her country. For her only chance at redemption.

Neither of them have bags, only disguises and new clothes Merkel had delivered to their room before they were on their way out. No one notices them as they walk, arm in arm, through the streets of Paris and on to airport, then to the private airfield. A lone United States plane is marked in it, pristine and well guarded.

“I prefer blondes,” Delphine jokes about Lorraine’s hair, affectionately curling the fingers of her free hand into Lorraine’s stringy locks.

She wondered a bit idly how the water pressure would be in the States.

“Maybe I’ll go back some day,” Lorraine said dryly, showing her credentials to the men in black suits at the stairs of the plane while Delphine offered hers.

There was a scarf wrapped around Delphine’s neck that she worried at a bit timidly while the CIA operatives patted them down. But if they noticed anything off about her neck they didn’t say it.

Really, the agents didn’t say much of anything. It didn’t help Delphine’s nerves, but Lorraine preferred it.

Once cleared, Lorraine led the way up the stairs and into Kurzfeld’s private jet, the man himself sitting at the back, looking like he had a full night’s rest since helping Mister Gray give Lorraine the longest, most hard fought interrogations of her life. It would have impressed Lorraine if it didn’t annoy her so much.

“Miss Broughton…” Kurzfeld acknowledged her as they took the seats in front of him. He offered a smile that was too gentle for a man of his position and with the dirt that his hands so clearly had and took Delphine’s hands into his, patting them. “Mademoiselle Lasalle.”

Delphine offered her own too sweet smile back before settling in a seat beside Lorraine, shoulders touching, given a certain ease around the man that Lorraine could not dare have.

Kurzfeld leaned forward, chewing over his words for a moment before nodding to Delphine’s scarf. “How is it?”

Still raspy — perhaps more raspy in thanks to the night Lorraine had given her — Delphine offered a small, “Better.” But when Kurzfeld didn’t drop his gaze, she got the intention and pulled down the scarf, revealing the scars of her encounter with Percival.

Leaning back in his chair with a deep breath, Kurzfeld shook his head. “What a son of a bitch,” he said, glancing toward Lorraine. “I’m sure those extra shots had nothing to do with this, though, of course.”

Lorraine stared evenly back at him. “What extra shots?” she played dumb, watching in the periphery as an attendant came by with glasses of ice and bourbon.

“If that’s how you want to play it, sure,” Kurzfeld said, nodding his thanks to the attendant as he took his glass. “The watch?” he asked.

For a moment, Lorraine didn’t react. She stared back at Kurzfeld and thought about all of her life before that point. She thought of herself, of England, of her life’s work, of the sacrifices she had made and the friends she had buried, sometimes with her own hands, along the way. It was a long, twisted path of misdeeds and misguided aggression that made it hard to look at a flag she once loved without feeling a dull hate settling into her bones. And it all was for what? The moment where she passed it all away by putting the most powerful artifact in the world in the hands of someone other than the Crown itself?

No, it wasn’t for that.

When she glanced to her side, she saw Delphine looking at her, a bit worriedly. As if she wasn’t certain either. But that uncertainty was a subset of emotion that shined through those ever deep eyes. Eyes of a poet, of a rockstar. She was uncertain about everything but Lorraine herself.

And that made Lorraine certain about the only thing that mattered anymore after a crooked, broken life.

Delphine. And the home they made with each other going forward.

Not hesitating any more, Lorraine reached into her brassiere and began to pull out the watch in question. It was a tacky thing, she was glad to be rid of it. The thing had caused enough misery. Maybe, for once, it would do something good.

“And that will be it?” she asked, holding the watch just out of Kurzfeld’s reach. “For this we will get a home? A new life? A little piece of America?”

Kurzfeld’s eyebrow raised. “And each other. I’m making that happen behind both of your agencies’ backs. Don’t forget that,” he reminded her. “A deal, after all, is a deal.”

Lorraine glanced toward Delphine, Delphine was already glancing her way.

She dropped the watch into Kurzfeld’s awaiting hand.

“You’ll be relocated to San Francisco. We have a house for you and two jobs lined up. San Francisco’s a loose city, full of liberal values, whatever that means anymore these days,” he said, looking over the watch. “We’ll brainstorm ideas for your covers and names on the flight over. It’ll be fun. Until we get to the paperwork part. But I shouldn’t have to explain that to you two, professional women. You’ve been around this block before.”

With the watch gone from her possession, Lorraine turned her full gaze and full attention squarely on to Delphine. Her love coyly smiled and gently reached to put a hand over Lorraine’s hand in between them.

“No, I don’t think either of us have been around this block before,” she said with a smile. “That makes it exciting.”

Kurzfeld wasn’t looking their way, concerned with the watch. “If that’s how you want to roll it, sure.” He then looked up over the rims of his glasses and shook his head at Lorraine. “By the way…. cocksucker? Really?”

Lorraine smirked. “Made it believable, didn’t I?”

And, for the first time in her life, believable was the only part that mattered.

[otapleonehalf]

Noragami: A Crash Course in Shintoism

This post is an adaptation of my panel "Noragami: A Crash Course in Shintoism" which covers the aspects of Shinto seen in the anime Noragami. (It’s a very long post.) (Also Tumblr’s formatting is a little weird so if you want a prettier version click here to read on Wordpress instead.)

This post is only going to be covering Noragami's anime adaptations. I won't be covering the manga or discussing major spoilers (like Yato's identity). I don't think reading this will ruin the series for anyone who hasn't seen it but just to be safe...

Spoiler Warning for Noragami, Noragami Aragoto and various Japanese myths!

What is Shinto?

A basic rundown.

Shinto is Japan's native religion. It's the amalgamation of local folk religions that eventually came to share uniform practices over time. Archaeological evidence of Shinto dates back as far as 300 B.C.E. The religion has no known founder and no single text as it's basis. This means there is no equivalent to Jesus or the Bible in Shinto.

However, there are texts about Shinto that are used as references to Shinto's mythology and practices. The oldest surviving being the Kojiki from 712 C.E. and the Nihon Shoki from 720 C.E. These texts are not scriptures, but record books about history and important people of the time. They recount myths (as history) and describe Shinto practices.

One reason Shinto is a particularly unique religion is because it has remained contained within Japan. Many neighboring religions have traveled to Japan and influenced Shinto including Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism and most notably, Buddhism. In fact many Shinto gods are borrowed from Buddhism. Yet, Shinto has never really spread outside of Japan.

Almost everyone in Japan takes part in Shinto rituals. Even if a person is not religious they likely still visit shrines (in particular on New Year's) and take part in Shinto festivals. (Almost everyone in Japan also takes part in Buddhist rituals but due to the scope of this post I won't be covering Buddhism.)

So Shinto is easier to think of as a set of nationwide traditions rather than a religion in the western sense, as it lacks monotheistic worship as well as a system of specific morals.

It's also important to note State Shinto. From the Meiji Era to WWII, Shinto became Japan's official religion and at this time many practices, such as how to pray at shrines, became standardized across the country. State Shinto was used to rally nationalism and even after its fall, Shinto is still somewhat associated with Japan's right wing politics.

Kami (Gods/Spirits)

A very important part of Shinto is kami. According to the Kojiki a kami is "any being whatsoever that possesses some eminent quality out of the ordinary and is awe-inspiring".

Kami are gods or spirits that usually rule over local geographic formations (like mountains or rivers). They can also take the form of ancestral ghosts. But effectively anything can have a kami. The chair I'm sitting in can have a kami. The computer I'm typing on can have a kami. The anime conventions I've presented this at can have their own kami. And so kami can add up after a while and this is why the Shinto gods collectively are refereed to as "Yaoyorozu no Kami" or the eight million gods, which is meant to imply that are an infinite amount of gods.

And with so many gods it is no wonder that some are forgotten. This is what brings us to the premise of Noragami, which means stray god.

But despite Shinto having so many gods, it does have a primary mythology and primary gods.

Shinto Gods and their myths

Izanagi and Izanami

Izanagi (male) and Izanami (female) were given a jeweled spear with which they stirred the ocean with. When the spear was pulled out of the water and the drops off the tip splashed in the water, the main island of Japan was created. The two then went to the island, got married and had lots of children. Izanami would give birth to many gods as well as the other islands of Japan.

This is essentially Japan's creation myth. This myth was taught as history until WWII.

The myth continues on to describe Izanami eventually giving birth to the fire god, Kagutsuchi. She suffered horrible burns during childbirth and died from the injuries. She then went to reside in a place called Yomi. Yomi is underground, it's dark and lots of monsters live there. Izanagi misses his wife and decides to get her back from Yomi. He goes and finds her in the dark depths but she says she can't leave because she's already eaten the food of Yomi. (Those are the rules, if you eat the food then you can't leave.) Izanami says she'll talk to who's in charge and see if she can work something out, but on the one condition that Izanagi will not look at her. So what does Izanagi do? He lights a fire, and looks to see that his wife is a rotting corpse. And so he high tails it out of there. Izanami gives chase after him, but he beats her to the entrance of Yomi and seals it with a giant boulder. Furious, Izanami proclaims from behind the boulder that because of Izanagi's actions she will kill 1,000 people a day. Izanagi retorts that he will have 1,500 people born a day.

This myth is meant to explain the cycle of life and death, but it also establishes that Kami are not perfect, glorious, ethereal beings. They are instead very human-like. They have emotions and react to things the way humans do. They can also be injured and even die.

Yomi, or at least its entrance is a real place in Japan that you can visit a see the boulder that Izanagi supposedly placed.

In Noragami, the characters visit Yomi and the real life location was used as reference for the version in the anime.

The characters also get to meet Izanami while in Yomi. She is very lonely and wants her guests to eat the food she offers them so that they will be stuck down there the way she is.

She also commands an army of shikome (hags of the underworld). In some versions of the myth she sent shikome to chase after Izanagi (but he still outran them).

Noragami's Izanami also has long black hair that moves around and tries to grab things. This is not an ability associated with Izanami herself, but supernatural hair is closely affiliated with female ghosts in Japan. So Izanami's hair has special abilities, effectively because she is a dead woman.

Amateratsu and the Cave

After leaving Yomi, Izanagi had to cleanse himself. During his ablution, when he cleansed his left eye, Amateratsu the sun goddess was born. When he cleansed his right, Tsukiyomi the moon god was born. And when he cleansed his nose, Susanoo the storm god was born.

Amateratsu and Susanoo had an intense sibling rivalry. And when Susanoo would throw fits, being a storm god, things would get messy. So after Susanoo had finished throwing one of his fits and messed up a bunch of Amateratsu's stuff, she had had it. She decided to go into a cave, take the sun with her and that she wasn't coming back out, thus leaving the world in darkness. The other gods realized that having a world with no sun wasn't great, so they devised a plan to lure Amateratsu out of the cave. They threw a loud party and made it sound like they were having a lot of fun. Amateratsu heard the noise and got curious. When she peaked out of the cave to see what all the commotion was about, a mirror was placed in front of her face. Amateratsu, being a beautiful sun goddess, was entranced by her own beauty and was lured out of the cave using her own reflection. The other gods then sealed the cave so she couldn't go back in and thus ensuring sunlight to the world.

Amateratsu would go on to become the highest ranking deity in Shinto. Her shrines are some of the largest and best maintained in Japan. And when she says someone is going to be emperor, that person becomes emperor. She was believed to be the ultimate ancestress of the Imperial line until Emperor Hirohito renounced his divinity in 1946.

Amateratsu herself is not portrayed in Noragami, but the place she resides is. Takamagahara, is the realm of the gods. It is up in the sky and is connected to earth by a bridge (which some interpret to be a rainbow). Takamagahara is where the gods live and gather for meetings.

In the anime, Takamagahara is the location of Bishomon's giant estate as well as Yato's tiny piece of land.

Takamagahara is usually portrayed as a place with golden clouds and traditional Japanese architecture. Noragami's version carries on these motifs in its own capacity.

The Three Talismans of Sovereignty

After Amateratsu choose the first emperor of Japan, he was given three talismans by the gods in order to prove his sovereignty over the land: the sacred mirror used to lure Amateratsu out of the cave, a magic sword Susanoo found after slaying a giant serpent, and a fertility jewel called magatama that Susanoo used in a baby making contest against Amateratsu. (Remember, it was an intense sibling rivalry.)

The real life items are referred to as the Imperial Regalia.

Above is not a picture of the Imperial Regalia. Above is an artist's rendition of what they might look like. There are no photos of these items. There are no drawings of these items. The only people allowed to see them are the emperor and his top ranked Shinto priests. So many artists have created their own version of what they think they look like. The most popular hands down being the version from Sailor Moon.

But as for Noragami, regalia are the dead souls of humans that have the ability to turn into a tool (usually a weapon) for a God’s use. The word for regalia in the Japanese version of the anime is "shinki" which is a word that can mean treasure, a newly crafted item, or it can be used to refer to the Imperial Regalia. So regalia in Noragami is basically a pun off the idea of items that are important to the gods but also give dead souls a newly crafted life.

Many of the Shinto gods wield regalia in Noragami.

Ebisu

Ebisu is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. He is the only one derived from Japanese mythology. The rest are derived from Buddhism and Hinduism.

Originally named Hiruko, he was first child of Izanami and Izanagi but was born without bones so he was cast away. He grew his bones back (as one does) and became the kami of fishermen and merchants and was renamed Ebisu. Noragami's version of Ebisu doesn't share many visual traits with traditional portrayals, but his personality matches. He is clumsy, honest and difficult to anger. His regalia are his coat and gloves and they help him with his mobility because of the whole not having bones thing.

Bishamonten

Bishamonten (or in Noragami, Bishamon for short) is another one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. He is the kami of warriors and is derived from Vaisravana, one of Buddhism's Four Heavenly Kings. The biggest change Noragami made to its version is that Bishamon is a woman. In traditional versions Bishamonten is a man.

But the two are still similar in personality. Bishamon is a fierce fighter in addition to being dignified and holding herself to the high standard of always triumphing over evil (to the point of it causes problems when she decides that Yato is evil). And much like the traditional version of Bishamonten who has a hoard of treasures from his various adventures, Bishamon also has a huge supply of regalia to use at her will.

I'm not entirely sure why she's dress like a sexy cop. But if you look at the picture above you may notice Bishamonten is stepping on his enemies. I think the creator took that idea of stepping on people and just ran with it when they were designing Noragami's version.

The Seven Gods of Fortune

Besides Ebisu and Bishamonten, the other Gods of Fortune only make small cameos in Noragami's anime.

(from left to right)

Daikokuten – god of commerce

Ebisu – god of fishing and merchants

Benten – goddess of music and art

Bishamonten – god of warriors

Fukurokuju – god of wisdom and wealth

Hotei –  god of health and happiness (Known in the west as the “Laughing Buddha”.)

Jurojin – god of longevity

Noragami's version of Daikokuten kind of looks like your shady uncle who's running a festival booth.

I'm not sure why. Maybe because those booths are associated with making money? But more notably he's seen holding a rabbit. This is because Daikokuten is also known as Okuninushi. There's a myth about Okuninushi helping a rabbit and in exchange the rabbit gave him some good fortune. So Noragami's version of Daikokuten really likes rabbits.

As for the rest of the gang, they look pretty similar to their traditional portrayals. (Benten has a treble clef tattoo, Hotei has hair but that's about it.) Except for Fukurokuju, who is dressed in a fancy suit since he's a god of wealth. But do not be fooled by his big fancy top hat. It is not there to show off how wealthy he is. It's there to cover up his giant forehead. His giant forehead is so giant that it is how you recognize him in traditional artwork.

So there you have the Seven Gods of Fortune. And as the story goes they all get together around New Year's time in a big flying boat and hand out presents to all the good little children.

I have no idea how this works because kids in Japan don't get presents for New Year's, they get cold hard cash from their family but that's the story. Whatever, floats your flying boat I guess?

Binbougami

Next up is Kofuku. She is not a specific mythological figure. She is a binbougami, (an unspecific) god of poverty. Binbougami are not worshiped. They posses people and houses and bring bad luck. They are traditionally depicted as a dirty old man with nothing to his name except an old hand fan. This is why Kofuku's regalia is a fan.

In Noragami, Kofuku goes by the name Kofuku (little fortune) Ebisu (the same as the previously mentioned god of fortune) so that people might mistake her for a god of fortune instead of misfortune and won't try to run her off.

Tenjin

Tejin's traditional depiction and Noragami's look very similar because Tenjin was an actual historical figure. He was named Sugawara no Michizane (845-903 C.E.). He was scholar, poet and politician. After he fell victim to some dirty politics he was fired, exiled and then died in exiled. Soon after his death a huge storm devastated the capital, destroying the homes of and even killing some of his political rivals. In order to placate his spirit the Imperial court restored the offices of his family, burned his order of exile and deified him. His name was changed to Tenjin and now he is the kami of learning. He is one of the most popular gods in Japan. Students frequent his shrines in order to pray for good grades. In Noragami, he's very wise but isn't the least bit humble about his importance and popularity.

Tenjin's Flying Plum Tree

When Michizane was exiled he composed a poem about how much he would miss a beloved plum tree growing at his home in Kyoto. Legend says that the tree also missed its master, so much that it uprooted itself and flew to be with Michizane again. And of course, you can go and visit the tree designated as the Flying Plum Tree.

In Noragami, the character Tsuyu might dress as a miko and stand among Tenjin's regalia but she's actually the spirit of said plum tree and has her own powers different from that of a regalia. She has a mark in the shape of plum blossom in the middle of her forehead to designate her from the rest of Tenjin's company.

Death and the Afterlife

So Tenjin got off pretty awesome in the afterlife. But what happens to everyone else according to Shinto? Descriptions of the afterlife are very vague if even present in texts about the religion.  In Shinto, since anything awe-inspiring can be considered a kami, when you die, your soul is effectively a kami and the thing you are the kami of is your descendants. Shinto has ancestor worship. Many homes in Japan have a kamidana, which is a small shrine on a high self near the ceiling.

A kamidana is a shrine to the kami of your home and your ancestors and small offerings are placed on it.

Shinto also has funeral rites, however, they weren't properly documented until the 1800s and considering how long Shinto's been around for it goes to show how little emphasis the religion places on death.

Something common to most Japanese funerals is that the dead are dressed in a white robe with the right side over the left. To wear traditional Japanese clothing (like a kimono or yukata) you should always have the left side over the right, because right over left is reserved for the dead. From this we know that characters in Noragami like Yukine and Nora are dead as soon as they appear on screen because of how they are dressed.

Nora also has a triangle shaped headband. No one is actually sure what this is for. There are theories that it was placed on the dead to ward off evil spirits but all we really know is that they were popular in the Heian period and in particular showed up in a lot of art of ghosts from that time. So Nora's character design not only tells us that she's dead but also that she's probably been dead for a very long time.

Tokoyo

"Tokoyo" literally means eternalness. It's the name of a distant land across the sea where the dead reside. The English version of Noragami refers to it as "The Far Shore". This is where corrupted souls dwell and become phantoms.

Masks and Phantoms

In addition to a plethora of gods, Noragami also features supernatural beings called phantoms. In the Japanese version phantoms are called "ayakashi" which is a word with three different meanings. Ayakashi refers to a type of ghostly monster (yokai). It can also be used to refer to any kind of supernatural phenomena related to the sea. And it is also a type of mask from Noh, a traditional type of Japanese theater where actors wear masks while performing. An ayakashi is specifically the mask used to represent a male ghost or wrathful god. Masks in general are frequently used in Shinto rituals and celebrations. So the concept of ayakashi in Noragami is playing with all these ideas. Phantoms in Noragami are wrathful spirits from the far shore (so they're related to the sea) and they can be controlled by masks.

Rituals and Practices

Shrines

Shrines are where you can go to pray for good luck and ask for wishes to be granted.

But before you can go up to a shrine you will first have to pass through a torii.

Torii are arches meant to be sacred gateways into the terrain of kami. They come in many shapes and sizes. Some are big and bright red, others are small and natural colored. Yato, of course wants a great big one.

Sometimes you will see white zigzag shaped pieces of paper hanging off a torii.

These are called shide, and they are meant to mark the presence of a kami.

So once you've passed through the torii, you still cannot yet approach the shrine. Before you can approach a shrine you must first cleanse yourself. Every shrine has some sort of fountain or tough with wooden ladles that you are suppose to use to wash your hands and mouth.

Cleansing with water is a common step in many Shinto rituals. In Noragami, we see Yato cleanse his blight with water from a shrine.

Once you are cleansed you can finally approach the shrine. But before praying at the shrine, its suitable to give an offering. Kami are thought to be responsible for the forces of nature and fate of people, so they’re placated with offerings and bribed to grant wishes. Offerings are usually food, alcohol or money. The traditional offering is a 5 yen coin. 5 yen is about 5 cents. It's a very small amount of money. But 5 yen in Japanese, "go yen" is a homophone of the word for fate "go en". So when you offer a kami a 5 yen coin, it means you are trusting them with your fate. This is why receiving 5 yen coins makes Yato so happy.

It symbolizes that people are willing to trust him with their fate so what Yato's actually happy about is not receiving the coin, but receiving the respect it represents.

So after you have thrown your offering into the offering box, it's time to pray.

There's usually a bell with a rope hanging by the offering box. First you ring it to get the kami's attention. Then you bow twice, clap twice, pray and then bow again. This procedure of prayer was standardized during State Shinto but it can still vary depending on local customs.

It's important to note that shrines are not just big buildings. For instance the kamidana as described earlier. There is also the mikoshi, which is a portable shrine used during festivals.

Shrines can come in many shapes and sizes.

There are also many things you might see at a shrine. You would probably see a shimenawa, which is a rope used to enclose sacred spaces and protect them. These are usually wrapped around trees. In Noragami, there is a shimenawa wrapped around Robos's tree.

When visiting a shrine you could also see miko, shrine maidens.

Miko help to keep the shrine clean, help out with odd jobs and help perform certain rituals like the kagura dance.

But Miko are not actually in charge of the shrine. The Kannushi, Shinto priests, are the ones running the shrine and leading the rituals.

They very rarely show up in anime, presumably because they are not cute girls.

Lucky Charms, Talismans, and Fortunes

Before leaving a shrine you might want to buy a omamori, lucky charm. An omamori is a small pouch you purchase from the shrine and keep with you for good luck. Many omamori are specialized for things like work, health or love.

Another way to boost the chances of your wishes coming true is to write them on an ema, talisman. An ema is a wooden block that you hang at the shrine so the kami will hopefully see your wish and grant it. You can basically write or draw whatever you want.

There are also shrines that can provide you with official anime ema.

You can also get a fortune, especially if it's New Year's. If you pull a bad fortune you can tie it to a tree or wire fence so that you don't take the bad luck with you.

More Shinto in Anime and Japanese Media

My recommendations for if you want to see more things that have a focus on Shintoism:

My Neighbor Totoro

Kamisama Kiss

Persona 4 (The game! Not the anime.)

Inari Kon Kon

Matoi the Sacred Slayer

Further Readings

Shinto by C. Scott Littleton (book)

Saninstory.wordpress.com (shinto myths as comics)

Thanks for reading!

[exosmuttytalk]

Run Away -  (FINAL) Chapter 18

Characters: OC/Oh Sehun/Exo

Genre: Romance, Angst, Fluff

Summary: An aspiring western model and a tired of stardom kpop star find their ways clashing in Seoul.

PART 1

PART 17

The changes in Sehun's appearance weren't all that apparent to anyone who hadn't spent as much time as I had looking at him and getting to know him, but were definitely there. His body had always been fibrous, as he spent most of his days dancing and exercising. But the dark circles under his eyes were a new addition to his features. His hair was tousled around in a much more messy way than usual. His lips were chapped, probably because, just as he was doing at that moment, he licked them in a nervous gesture more than what he used to.

He followed me silently into my apartment and just stood there as I tried to put some order in the disastrous state of my living room and my own mind. I rumbled through the room until I felt Sehun's body next to me and his hands taking the stuff I was holding away from mine to throw it carelessly on the floor

His hands came up to cup my face so I was directly looking at his face for the first time; his thumb stroking along my jawline. He was so close I could hear his breathing coming from his mouth, his lips moist where he had licked before. His eyes were teary and roamed all over me.

''I really miss you,'' he said in a low voice.

I did for sure see it coming, but I didn't want to stop, nor did I want him to stop. His lips crashed against mine and I received them gladly. We kissed forcefully and I felt his hands already starting to roam my body, yearning and desperate, traveling down my body to cup my butt so he picked me up and laid down me over the table. Although his lips had never left mine, his hands were already unbuttoning the front of my shirt. I didn't pull him away.

********

I was awoken by the strident tone of a phone. Sehun quickly got up to answer it and went out of the room.

I rolled on bed. It was dark outside, probably the middle of the night. I recalled pulling from Sehun's hand to go to bed even though it was just the middle of the evening. We both dozed off to a light sleep and woke up some time later to kiss again, without even speaking. I still felt the kisses he had left all over my back printed on my skin and the stiffness of my limbs from having to fit next to him in a bed that was not that big.

His voice came hushed from outside the room, as if he was trying not to wake me up, but I could hear all his conversation. He was clearly arguing with some of his mates. I kept my gaze fixed at the portion of the sky I was able to see from my position, but there were no stars in the sky.

I could hear him hang up and come back quietly to the room, but I pretended to be startled when he touched my naked hip.

''Hey,'' he whispered.

''Where were you?''

''I got a phone call I had to answer.''

''Anything important?''

''Just my mom. Nothing more important than you.''

He laid down next to me and pulled me close between his arms.

''I've really missed you.''

''That's what you said some time ago.''

''That's because I mean it.''

''I never heard from you. Not even a message.'' I turned around in the bed to face him and pulled from the sheets to cover myself. ''I left the house then and you didn't even look at me. How am I supposed to believe that you've missed me?''

''To be fair, Grace, in that moment you could've well ended my carreer. You almost did.''

That took me aback and I went silent for a bit.

''I'm really sorry about that. I really don't know what went through my mind at that moment. I hated myself for it.''

''I know you are.''

His arm was still surrounding my body and caressing up and down my back, sending shivers down my spine.

''Was it bad?''

''What thing?''

''People at the company. Did they get really angry?''

''Oh!'' He was staring at the ceiling. ''It was better than I expected, to be honest. They did tell me off and gave me more hours a day to practice, but nothing outrageous.''

''Are you sure you're being honest?''

''Why do you say that?''

''Would your mother call you in the middle of the night if it wasn't to tell you something important?''

He remained silent with his eyes fixes on the ceiling.

''I talked to Rhee. I know you're not fine. And I've heard your conversation with whoever it was.''

''Sorry about that. Now the guys are forces to call me every night before they go to sleep to make sure I'm at home, so they take turns. It was Yixing. I obviously didn't pick up at home so he wanted to make sure I was okay before freaking out.''

''Will he say something?''

''No. He's being really supportive on this. He's told me off because that's what he has to do for the sake of the group, but he pities us.''

"Has anyone else also been supportive?"

"Chanyeol is sad, he was starting to like you. I think all of them feel sorry for us, even Junmyeon. But there's not much else they can do."

I laid on my back and stared at the same spot Sehun had been staring at the whole time. I always sleep on my side, so I never noticed that my ceiling somehow reflected the movements of the of the night life down in the street, creating light effects all over the room that were strangely mesmerizing.  I was pondering the decreasing amount of possibilities we had when he spoke again.

"What did Rhee tell you?"

"That you're not okay."

His soft laugh sounded sarcastic.

"That's one way to put it."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"There's no point," he answered shaking his head. "It's not going to fix it and it's only going to make you feel worse."

I turned around in the bed once again to put my head on his chest. His hand was stroking the ends of my hair in a very soothing movement.

"I'd rather just stay here with you, not talking about stuff that doesn't matter."

We spent the rest of the night reconnecting and trying to recover the time we had lost, but we only ever talked about the good moments we had missed in each other lives and ignored the elephant in the room, until we both fell asleep a few hours away from dawn.

******

For the second time in the night, I woke up to the very noisy ringtone from a phone that wasn't mine, but in this occasion, it wasn't dark outside. In fact, very bright lights were coming in from the windows. That was what made me jump from the bed, rather than the phone still ringing. I shook Sehun's still sleeping body and threw his phone at him before I started to get dress at my fullest speed. Poor Sehun didn't even have time to shake his sleepiness off; in the moment he answered the call, I could hear the not very pleasant voice tone of a man at the other side and his immediate apologies.

I ran to the bathroom and brushed my teeth as I tried to brush my hair at the same time, which made me end up with even messier hair than before. When I came out, Sehun was already fully dressed and was gathering all his stuff to leave.

"I can't believe I forgot to set the alarm again!"

"Are you in trouble?"

"Yixing's been covering up for me, he's told them he hung out with me last night at my apartment, that we went to bed late and that I'd probably overslept, but I don't know how much of that they've fallen for..." He grabbed his bag and turned around to face me. "I'm really sorry I have to leave this way, I wish we had more time."

"Don't be. I'm running late too."

He walked up to me and pulled me in a very tight embrace which raised my body a few inches off the floor.

"Sehun," I called in a quiet voice.

"Yeah?" He answered without letting go of me.

"Drop out. Just leave it and come with me. Please."

He stepped back and stared at me.

"What?"

"You're not happy doing what you do anymore. They are forcing you to do things that aren't what you want. Please, just leave it."

He was still looking at me with wide eyes, but he didn't say a word.

"I'm sure you have a lot of money to support yourself for some time, but it doesn't matter. We'll move somewhere else and make a life out of whatever we can find." I was receiving nothing more than blank stares. "I know it sounds crazy and it probably is, but please, consider it. I love you and I know you love me. We can make each other happy. We don't need any of this!"

"I love you too," he answered hesitantly.

"There's nothing I want more than waking up every day and seeing you face next to me. I know I am being selfish, but that's not going to happen if we stay here, like this. I need you in my life." His eyes were slowly filling up with tears in response to my own. "You...you don't really have to give me an answer right now. But please, promise me you'll think about it.  I will be waiting for you."

Looking back in time, my relationship with Sehun was quite redundant for the whole time it lasted. Communication was actually never our forte, and depending on the particular circumstances of the moment, there was never such communication at all. That's why I grabbed on for dear life to the littlest piece of information I got from him, especially towards the end.

That's why when I opened my mailbox one night after coming back from the café and found a rather thick cream envelope with his hand writing on the front I got my hopes up and that's why the I fell much harder than I should've. With the perspective time brings, I know now I should've seen it coming.

"Dear Grace,

I bet you're wondering what the hell am I doing sending you a letter instead of calling or texting. Or even asking you to meet. Truth be told, I feel comfortable when I write rather than talk. But the main reason is that writing allows me to shield myself and to have a moment of bravery among all the cowardice that usually drives my life.

I can't do it, Grace. There's several reasons why, but the main one is that I'm not alone. My life is not completely dependent on me and my choices, and what I decide to do with it affects other people as well. Over the last few years I've become part of a group of people that is as well interconnected and synchronized as a family should be, and that's how we truly feel about each other. This isn't just about it, it's about my brothers as well, and what's best to keep the family as close as possible. Some time ago, we lost three of our members and it was way too soon for us. Even if on the outside we seemed to be fine, the truth is we were broken inside. I don't want anyone else to go through that again and I would be selfish to inflict such pain.

I could also talk about the legal repercussions our company could take on me and the group as a whole, but I think that's quite irrelevant compared to what I've already told you.

I'm really sorry, Grace. These few months have been the happiest I've had in quite a long time; you've made me feel just so much better about my life and myself. It really has been a pleasure for me to get to know you and to discover things with you I never knew before. I've really grown to love you and I know you have as well. I guess that's another reason why I'm writing this; I just don't have what it takes to say this to your face and then carry on with my life.

To be honest, there was a time I thought you and I were the one for each other. That we could make it, together, that we would be able to stand through whatever. I still think that now, had the circumstances been different. It probably wasn't the right time for us.

I believe in you, Grace. You're a truly wonderful person, so wholesome and true to yourself among all the falseness there's in the world I live in. You're beautiful, you're incredibly strong and smart, so I know you'll do well wherever you decide to lead your life next. And that's precisely what you have to do, if you want any advice from the man who cannot even face his own problems. You are completely free to be whoever you want, wherever you want and however you want, and for that I envy you. I can only hope the decisions you make along the way somehow lead you back into my life in a better moment for us both.

If I have to be honest with you, I've been avoiding this moment the whole time I've been writing, but I need to address the subject before the letter is over. In case you haven't seen it yet, there are a couple rolls of money inside the envelope. I don't want you to take it as bribery of any sort. I'm not buying your silence, nor do I expect you not to be angry with me by paying you. I'm also well aware you're more than able to support yourself and you are not looking for anyone's charity. I'm not really sure why I've included that and it was a last minute decision, but please take it. I'm not able to be there to see you being happy, so I guess I just wanted to provide whatever I could to make you find your own happiness. If you want to go on modelling, do it, you're really awesome at it. If you're happy being a waitress, so be it. If you want to move to Australia, invest in a kangaroo farm and that makes you happy, so be it. I don't care what you do with the money, but please, use it to be happier than you are now.

There's not much left for me to say. I just hope you know I truly love you and want you to be the happiest you can. Also, I hope you are able to forgive me some day and not hate me for a very long time.

Please, be happy. Please, take care of yourself. I love you and I'm going to miss you every day, Gracie.

Sehun"

A/N: This is the end. Now’s the time you want to kill me.

PART 1

PART 17

MASTERLIST!?

[elizabethrobertajones]

Yesterday I finally caught up with probably half of Tumblr and finished watching Sense8 (*hugs my new Netflix account*)... 

I really enjoyed it and I guess it lives up to the hype, though waiting forever to watch it kind of took the edge off, since I was curious enough to examine every gifset on my dash for the last... couple of years? since it appeared. I really like how everyone’s so in love with the characters and their dynamics that despite learning a great deal about almost every character and their relationships, I 1: didn’t even know Naveen Andrews was in it and 2: had no idea what the main plot was and assumed it was mostly just a great big action/romance romp with random soulmate dynamics thrown in to spice it up. :P 

And it’s brilliant as a soap opera ignoring the main plot, as several characters have pretty much nothing to do with it (yet? I started off trying to analyse the plot and linked up Capheus, Kala and Sun as the most important players in an epic biomedical scandal involving the businesses and such they’re tied up in that must surely link further back to all the sinister stuff with the real bad guys, and then of course nothing’s come of that yet in a season + Christmas special...) and definitely one of its main strengths is the characters and their relationships and interactions, especially as with so many ways to sort them, and some plots with a lot of one on one cross over, characters you’d come to know and love were still meeting each other for the first time fairly late on. 

Anyway, Daryl Hannah floating around being the fridged woman with a remarkable resemblance to Mary Winchester aside (I feel so sorry for actresses whose entire role is wearing a dirty/bloodstained nightgown while making spooky appearances for the sake of the main characters :P) the actual plot seems like Orphan Black in many respects, and the more I think about it the more connections I make, aside from the obvious of Weird Science bothering a group of seemingly normal people who then discover they’re actually clones/soulmates with a whole bunch of other people they have uncanny connections to. By the end of the current season of Orphan Black, our protagonist clone is even having sustained visions of the clone who started the series with the suicide of one of their own who, like Daryl Hannah, kicked off the entire plot for the main characters, and her daughter seems to be psychically connecting to the other clones through the same Weird Science as Sense8. There’s a strong focus on life and death and altogether too much childbirth stuff on screen :P

I think Sense8′s advantage is that it’s much less confined by the format not just that it can be absolutely openly as diverse as it wants to be, but because without having to be somewhat procedural or else fitting the regular format of TV shows, you can get the really long, weird sequences which aren’t really doing anything except quiet, meaningful stretches of character stuff. There are story arcs per episode, but the entire thing moves incredibly slowly. I swear Orphan Black made the same progress through the plot in a handful of episodes as Sense8 has done so far in its entire run. 

Obviously neither show is finished yet, and in several important respects Sense8 blows Orphan Black out of the water, with OB being included in the great Onscreen Queer Women Massacre of the start of the year it only just bought my interest but not my trust back by backpeddaling that... and even if they always intended to bring said murdered queer woman back, they’ve not allowed the couple in question to just exist happily and unapologetically, and inflicted that trope on us in the first place... they also DID apologise while at the same time doing it, admitted they were aware they should use a trans actor to play a trans character but because of the clone thing, still used Tatiana to play a surprise brother clone they threw in for one episode basically, I guess, to show something about variation etc, and at this point I don’t know if it’s for the best he’s not in a ton of episodes, although weird they never mention him again after that. 

Sense8 has a much clearer sense of these issues, though its attempt to portray a broad stroke of human existence world wide has netted it a lot of criticism for stereotyping & racist tropes in those portrayals, which I’m not equipped to comment on, but as someone who wearily watches a lot of media, certainly none of the non-western, white, stories felt particularly unexpected or not like something I could see elsewhere... Orphan Black has mostly stayed clear of those issues by just not going near them; the actual cast when you narrow it down away from the character list is still very white. Throw in the dozens of versions of Tatiana and the other clone guy and they’ve got endless room to add in as many more characters as they like, obviously all versions of the same white actors dressed up differently.

... in any case, Sense8′s plot gave me a fair amount of deja vu to the show I’d already watched, but because OB put me off several times (and yet I kept coming back to it :P) I don’t have a very clear memory of the first season’s plot to make a stronger side by side comparison. I’m mostly intrigued by the sense of the huge terrifying rich biotech and medical corporations, doing Weird Science juuust beyond the range of what we can understand now, or with a slight science-fantasy element to it, relying on real world conspiracies or Fortean Times level suspicions of what might possibly be real if you wanted to believe tales of precognition, telepathy, etc. In Sense8 there’s a few mentions of ~real~ stories of such things, but I can’t remember if OB went over it yet. 

Certainly in both there’s a sense of unity and impossible but unbreakable family bonds, and a lot of exploration of who the Self is vs these huge faceless corporations. OB cycles through several villains or weird cults and such as the bad guys, each one in turn unknowable but powerful or embedded in a way with science or military or religious connections that make them dangerous to go up against. It’s hard to tell exactly what message Sense8 has about it because so much less plot involving it has unfurled but it’s obviously not good news with the big corporations, definitions of humanity, and secret conspiracy to police what is human and what is not. It even sets the entire viewing audience against the Sensates as part of a mass of non-sensate people who lack the emotional connection and empathy to feel like they do, implying the whole lot of us are murderous and cold as a result... In this way the evil scientists out to get them are only the very personal version of ALL the struggles they face, represented by that moment in the Xmas special where they all see the writing on the wall at Lito’s house transform into the worst things they have been called. 

It takes a much colder view of humanity, making it us or them, and for us, switching which of those groups we identify with by way of sympathy to the main characters. OB is less personal in that way but focuses on the dangers of science trying to create a better human, and while the clones are supposedly all “improved” humans, they have enough flaws, physically and emotionally (although yikes, Krystal makes me sure they have latent super soldier genes none of the others have properly unlocked except maybe the unkillable Helena :P) that they don’t come across as totally othered for more than the unfortunate circumstances of their births they obviously didn’t ask for. Rachel as the only one raised in the know ends up the most dangerous of them all, perhaps for having her sense of humanity denied to her and knowing for most of her life that she was only an experiment and property of the company. What makes the rest of humans human isn’t in question so much as how much the clones might belong with humanity, and that they could grow up oblivious and fit in emotionally, and still have human values even when they discover they’re “only” property and experimental prototypes who’ve been living almost Truman show lives. In that respect, Sarah as the narrator is the most free and human because she was raised outside of the program with no influence from it whatsoever - narratively it’s not coincidental that she and Helena are also the only clones who are fertile and can have children.

... I’ve been making connections all day but this post is really long now so I’m going to stop here. I want to rewatch Orphan Black now, since I noticed it on the Netflix menu and I’m having a bit of a cackling wildly, world at my fingertips moment here. :P 

[giancarlonicoli]

The armistice finally brought the conflagration to an end exactly one century ago on Sunday at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The car in which the Archduke was assassinated can still be seen in Vienna. Its registration number is: 11-11-18.

The US mid-term elections: Trump bumped but still pumped                                 By Victor Hill

09 November 2018                                                                                             14 mins. to read                                                                                                                                                                                        

On Tuesday President Trump’s Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives but retained the Senate with an increased majority. Will this make the President nicer? Probably not, writes Victor Hill.

It’s not the economy, stupid!

In case you’ve been on a two-year mediation retreat, the US economy is doing rather well. Unemployment, at 3.7 percent, is at a 40-year low, even amongst black workers; growth this year is hovering at around a pugnacious 3.7 percent too (Japan’s is 1.3 percent); wages are rising and US corporations are repatriating offshore cash further to Mr Trump’s fiscal reforms. Not only is there a widespread feel-good factor but millions of Americans attribute the healthy economy to the President.

Yet the 2018 US mid-term elections, with their outbursts of inflammatory invective, were not really about the economy at all. They were much more about culture – what sort of society America wants to be. For Mr Trump himself they were a referendum on his controversial 22 months’ presidency which has already changed the way many Americans think about themselves (for the good and the bad). For Mr Trump’s opponents, his strident language and the occurrence of appalling crimes like the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh are supposedly connected. (Even though Mr Trump is a staunch supporter of Israel and indeed has Jewish grandchildren).

The fact that voter turnout rose to 47.1 percent – the highest since 1970 – tells us that Americans considered these elections more than averagely important. The campaign has the character of a titanic clash from Game of Thrones, not least because the President threw himself into it as if his very survival was at stake. In the event, the votes of 113 million American citizens have made a difference.

Let’s recall that the elections embraced the whole of the 435-seat House of Representatives and 35 seats within the 100-seat Senate. Both chambers were controlled by the Republican in 2016. In addition, there were 36 gubernatorial elections (out of 50 states), three territorial governorships and the majority of state legislatures were up for grabs.

Immigration: the Mexican wave

The dominant issue of the mid-terms was immigration.

With extraordinary timing, a migrant caravan of refugees set out from Guatemala, heading north, in early October. As this ragged medley of down-and-outs crossed into Mexico, America’s media squared up. For the Fox News-watching right, this spectacle exemplified everything that Mr Trump and his supporters fear most about mass immigration through America’s soft underbelly.

Some commentators have even suggested that it is beyond coincidence that this cavalcade of the dispossessed could have manifested themselves with such exquisite timing. But I fail to see how Mr Trump could have possibly stage managed this exodus. He suggested that George Soros might be funding the caravans – a week after the billionaire financier received a bomb in the post. To be sure, Mr Trump milked the issue shamelessly for every drop of anti-immigrant sentiment, even accusing the Democrats of plotting to allow immigrant murderers to enter America.

The Republican’s campaign even sponsored a TV commercial which featured Luis Bracamontes – the illegal immigrant from Mexico who was deported twice but who managed to sneak back into California only to kill two police officers in 2014. In the video the murderer grins at the camera, saying “I’m going to kill more cops soon”. Mr Trump re-tweeted this video. He also used the words “invasion” and “national emergency” – which were picked up angrily by Mr Obama.

He announced that up to 15,000 US troops could be deployed to the border – that is more than are deployed in Afghanistan. On 02 November he suggested that these troops could open fire on stone-throwers. There are already over 5,000 troops along the 2,000 mile-long US-Mexican border –providing support for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

To be fair to Fox News et al, there is not in fact one caravan, but many – each of 1,000-4,000 people. On 31 October Mr Trump threatened to halt US foreign aid to Central America if they failed to stop them. He also suggested that there are 25-30 million undocumented migrants in America – a figure well beyond official estimates of around 12 million.

Mr Trump then used the mid-term elections to announce his desire to revoke the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution (1868) whereby all children born on US soil automatically become US citizens. He claimed that this could be done by executive order, but in fact amendments to the US constitution require a lengthy congressional process.

Asked if he was creating a violent atmosphere, Mr Trump told a reporter: “You’re creating violence by your question. The fake news is creating violence.”

Other election issues

The other main issues of the campaign, apart from immigration, were predictable. This was the first set of US elections since the disgrace of Harvey Weinstein and, therefore, the first in which the #MeToo movement was active. The undignified scenes in Congress surrounding the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh’s appointment only played into a heightened debate about the new feminist orthodoxy (namely that all men are potential predators and that nearly all women have been their silent victims). This conversation will surely continue for some time.

It is of interest that there were some female Republican candidates who tried to distance themselves from their president. Barbara Comstock, the Republican incumbent for Virginia’s 10th Congressional District – one with a high proportion of professional college-educated women – went out of her way to stress her anti-Trump credentials. In the event she was comprehensively defeated by Democratic challenger Jennifer Wexton.

Then there is healthcare. When Americans tell you that healthcare is in crisis, they do not mean – as their British counterparts do – that the healthcare system is not fit for purpose. They mean that their health insurance premiums have become intolerably expensive. They became more expensive because Obamacare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 2010) effectively required the middle classes to subsidise the health insurance premiums of the poor. Observing from this side of the pond, I do not see that Democrats can consistently both laud Obamacare and complain about its cost.

Then there is the endless debate around gun control – which is so hard for non-Americans to understand: so I won’t go there.

Renewed sanctions against Iran

There was one hugely important foreign policy initiative during the election campaign.

On 05 November the administration formally reversed the decision of the Obama presidency and re-imposed a comprehensive sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This had been on the cards since Mr Trump tore up the Iran Treaty of 2015 back in May. Under the new sanctions regime the US will grant waivers to eight western countries (including India, Japan, Italy and South Korea) to continue to buy oil from the Iranians temporarily. As I write, it’s not clear whether China will be included in that list – if so it would ramp up the temperature of the existing trade war.

Iran’s President Rouhani described the measures as amounting to economic warfare – and, for once, that is an accurate summation on his part. Mr Trump said that the goal of the sanctions was to deprive the Iranian government of the revenues that it uses “to spread death and destruction around the world”. But it is also part of America’s grand strategy in the Middle East.

Britain, France and Germany issued a joint statement to the effect that they deeply regretted President Trump’s decision. Many Western firms have already fled Iran for fear of being put on a US blacklist. I shall explain soon why this issue could quite literally explode in 2019 – and how it could cause a serious rift between America and her European allies.

The Outcome

On the morning of the poll, CNN had the Democrats on 55 percent and the Republicans on 42 percent. That turned out to be (slightly) too optimistic for the Democrats. Party-based opinion polls should be treated with scepticism in America since many American voters will vote for a Senator of one party and a Representative of another, in accordance with the standing of individual candidates. But the outcome was a fundamental shift of power towards the Democrats who have convincingly taken the House.

In terms of governorships, seven states “flipped” from Republican to Democrat governors. These were: Nevada, New Mexico, Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Maine. These states will be of critical importance in the 2020 presidential campaign.

Table (1): Comparison of US elections in 2016 and 2018

DemocratsRepublicansOther/Vacant/Undeclared

House of Representatives 20161932357 House of Representatives 201822519713 Senate 20164752 Senate 201844515 State Governors 201616331 State Governors 201823261

American politics is now more diverse than ever. There are a record number of women in the House, of which two Muslim and two Native American congresswomen (of which one a lesbian). Jared Polis (D) of Colorado (cowboy country) is the first openly gay man to be elected governor – and he is also the first Jewish governor of the Centennial State. Andrew Gillum failed by a whisper to become the first black governor of Florida, losing to Republican Ron DeSantis. Stacey Abrams (Democrat, Georgia) failed to become the first black female state governor.

A Nevada brothel-owner and reality TV star who campaigned on a pro-Trump Republican ticket won Nevada’s 36th Assembly District, which includes rural desert communities. It then turned out that he was dead.

Likely consequences

Mr Trump has much more than survived. The Senate, ultimately, is more important that the House. It is the Senate that confirms the appointment of secretaries of state, Supreme Court Judges, ambassadors and so forth. It is ultimately the Senate which can impeach a President given a two thirds majority – and that is not going to happen any time soon. Mr Trump can continue to sleep soundly – for now.

The House of Representatives, however, can make big trouble for a US President. As well as being able to initiate primary legislation, it has the power to subpoena government officials (and documents) and to haul them up before Congress. The media agenda is more influenced by what happens in the House than what passes in the Senate: Senators are generally older and more conservative than members of the House, anyway.

Mr Trump’s foreign policy agenda – the containment of China by means of the prosecution of a trade war, the isolation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the hot peace with Russia, the down-grading of NATO – will not be deflected by a Democratic House. His domestic agenda may well be challenged. But arguably, the main domestic measure of his first term – the package of fiscal reforms – has already been delivered. Mr Trump’s focus will now be towards 2020 and his re-election.

Some commentators have suggested that what is most likely to change is the tone of politics. Many Democrats talk about uniting America rather than dividing it – as the President supposedly does. But the rise and rise of identity politics is itself divisive: women against men; blacks against whites; transsexuals contra mundum. Traditionally, it is the right which seeks to unite the nation – though of course Mr Trump is not traditional. The culture war (Bismarck’s Kulturkampf) will continue. The New Yorker thinks the Democratic House will only intensify the state of siege and crisis that has engulfed Washington. Overall, the new political dispensation will not impact policy directly. The markets reacted positively. The Dow and S&P 500 jumped by 2.1 percent, while the NASDAQ climbed by 2.6 percent.

Note that the 115th US Congress will continue to sit until 03 January 2019. Only thereafter will the 116th take over and will Ms Pelosi be appointed Speaker. Mr Trump will only have to navigate legislation through a Democratic House for 22 months before he stands for re-election.

As a taste of things to come, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is already out on his ear. Fearing that the Russia probe conducted by Robert Mueller will intensify under a Democratic House, Mr Trump has removed a jurist who has been scrupulously neutral. In his place he has appointed a human shield in the form of Mathew Whittaker – a man who has expressed doubt about the bona fides of the Mueller inquiry and who has criticised Mr Sessions on Twitter. This inquiry is Mr Trump’s Achilles heel – and he knows it.

A few commentators have speculated that the President will try to be nicer – though he wasn’t very nice to CNN’s Jim Acosta at the press conference on 07 Novemberi. Perhaps he will experiment with conciliation – before attempting to annihilate the Democrats once again in 2020. So long as Wall Street holds up (my working hypothesis), he should be in with a very good chance.

What is really wrong with America?

These elections have induced much hand-wringing on the part of America’s liberal media. Has America changed fundamentally?

It was therefore interesting that a diagnosis of America’s ills was released during the campaign, not by a despairing liberal but by a guru of American capitalism. Alan Greenspan (Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1987-2006), still going strong at 92, has published Capitalism in America: A History. Greenspan writes: “America is looking less like an exceptional nation and more like a mature economy”. According to Mr Greenspan, America is mired in regulation, cursed by slow growth (despite the recent spate) and fearful about the future.

For Mr Greenspan, the contrast with dynamic China could not be starker. A third of jobs in the US require official authorisation; barbers, manicurists, even interior designers must be licensed. (He makes America sound like France). For Mr Greenspan, the rot set in with FD Roosevelt’s New Deal (1933-36), when dynamic capitalism was undermined by state planning. Things have only got worse since then.

Since 1973 manufacturing wages in real terms in America have dropped by 15 percent. Productivity growth has collapsed since the financial crisis of 2008-09. (That will sound familiar to British readers). Furthermore, Mr Greenspan thinks that Washington drew entirely the wrong lessons from the crisis. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010), he thinks, was a moralistic reaction to the collapse of Lehman Bros., which has stymied investment. Meanwhile a growing proportion of the total economy is being dedicated to healthcare.

For Mr Greenspan and his co-writer, the economist Adrian Wooldridge, Mr Trump is not the solution but rather part of the problem. His administration favours the incumbents, the billionaires who will benefit most from his tax reforms. Meanwhile, American democracy risks becoming more ill-tempered and fractious – which goes against the cultural grain of a people who are unfailingly gracious and well-mannered in everyday life.

For most Democrats, especially the millennials, capitalism has gone too far. For Mr Greenspan, as for Mr Trump, America is not capitalist enough. The fear is that America, on the back foot against China, mass immigration and mindless globalisation has moved from its founders’ focus on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the post-Bismarckian imperatives of blood and soil.

Afterword – unintended consequences…

This Sunday we shall commemorate the armistice that finally brought to an end the bloodiest war in human history. Mr Trump will be in Paris – a guest of his younger friend President Macron. (Macron intends to honour, amongst others, Marshal Pétain. Pétain is probably the Frenchman most culpable for the rounding-up of French Jews for transportation to the Nazi death camps in WWII).

It is sobering to reflect that, at this milestone, the President of the United States sings the praises of barbed wire. That atrocious war, most historians now think, was “a mistake” in so far as the political leaders of the day had no idea what would be the unintended consequences of their actions in 1914.

What is so concerning about Mr Trump for this British America-loving observer is that, for all our understanding of why ordinary Americans love him, we just don’t know how he would respond to a major geopolitical crisis. What would he do if Russia invaded Ukraine or if the Chinese closed the South China Sea to foreign shipping? (By the way, I’ll be writing about the main geopolitical themes for 2019 in next month’s Master Investor magazine – not very Christmassy, I know).

When Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian throne, and his morganatic wife were gunned down as their motorcade turned a corner in the city of Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, no one could have imagined that this isolated act of terrorism would precipitate the clash of empires and the greatest carnage in the history of the world. States that had existed for more than 500 years would dissolve; illustrious ruling houses would tumble and America would emerge as the pre-eminent nation. Now, it is America’s pre-eminence that is itself in play.

The armistice finally brought the conflagration to an end exactly one century ago on Sunday at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The car in which the Archduke was assassinated can still be seen in Vienna. Its registration number is: 11-11-18.

I’ll wager Mr Trump doesn’t know that.