#what do you mean 2004 i thought she was from the late 90s when she said she was 19

[t4tadrienette]

Ruby: says she's 19

Me: oh she's 19, cool

Ruby: says she was born in 2004

Me, turning to my brother: SHE'S WHAT?

My brother: yeah she's my age

[docholligay]

I Saw the TV Glow

I’m essentially always up for a weird horror movie, so when I saw the ads for I Saw the TV Glow, I knew I was in. I don’t generally look up anything about a movie before I go, and in truth, prefer when a trailer doesn’t tell me all that much about what’s going to happen in a movie. This fit the bill!

Non-spoilery: Go in as blind as possible to this movie. There were a lot of things I thought this movie was going to be about, and it was not any of them. What it ended up being about was fantastic. This movie is really really going to resonate with some people my age and the ages around it. I don’t know if it will be as effective for younger people for a variety of reasons. 

Bear in mind I saw this once several months ago, with spoilers below the cut. 

OKAY. We’re in spoiler zone now, so let’s get into this: This movie is about the experience of being gay or trans, specifically in the late 90s to early aughts. We’ll get more into that later, but I want to put it on the table right now. This movie is horror in a Twilight Zone sense. That is in fact my favorite kind of horror! But if you’re seeing it billed as a horror movie, you may not get out of it what you are expecting. 

The Pink Opaque is absolutely Buffy. So much so that Jetty felt called out multiple times: They use the Buffy font, there’s a cameo from a Buffy actress, etc. The movie is not trying to hide this very well. And the Pink Opaque is not a great show! It’s more of a carriage device for these two teenagers that have something in common, something that sparks a realization between them of who they actually are. 

Throughout the show, as Owen gets more and more involved in wanting to watch the show with Maddy, we start seeing quotes in the background that could absolutely be on a high school board, but also…are very much about what is needed inm order to decide to unbury yourself, and live in the Pink Opaque. The one I remember the most, is because it’s one of my favorite quotes. “Without courage, all other virtues are meaningless.” I think about this quote all the time, because I think it is true. You can be kind, you can be intelligent, you can be loyal, but if you are a coward, those virtues mean nothing at the close of business. 

It’s impossible for me to explain to people even 7 to 10 years younger tha  me how different the world was then. I made the choice Maddy made and decided to live in The Pink Opaque as myself, but I love that it isn’t shown as consequence-free either. There are a lot of entanglements and difficulties and fights that came with that decision. You choose to live that way, in 2004, and you get to be the hero, but the hero has to constantly be on guard for the monsters around every corner. And this isn’t even me going, ‘poor pitiful me’--my life was leaps and bounds easier than 10 years before me--but it is a very very different landscape. Fucking no one bats an eye at me being gay now, realistically. 

When Maddy comes back as Tara, and says this is who she always has been, and she had to dig herself out of a fucking grave to be that, I was there, baby! I am not going to get too much into my personal life, but the process of becoming Doc was not a bloodless one. Her coming back and telling him he can have it all, he just has to be willing to die for it--fucking loved that. I have so many memories of having the same conversations with people. We couldn’t have everything. My peers had to decide between having college paid for, having a place to live, and being out, and not everyone had the brass ones to go my way. I made an impulsive, insane decision, and I have never ever regretted it. My parents couldn’t have paid for college anyhow, so fuck it. But it was a choice other people had same as I did, and again, sitting in that dark school ‘planetarium” telling Owen he can live a harder but more real life, fuck. Again, without courage, ALL OTHER VIRTUES ARE MEANINGLESS. I do genuinely feel like this movie might be a miss for a generation whose parents and social circles were simply awkward about it at worst. 

Not scary in the usual sense, but I think a great psychological horror about the costs of doing business, in this life. 

You’re poisoned, you’re buried alive, and that line about, “And you’ll never even know you’re dying.” I mean, sometimes I feel like I was a near miss from living my entire life closeted, as bizarre as that sounds for someone who left home over the matter. I am a person who just makes decisions, and what if I had made the decision to shut that part of myself off, as Owen did? 

My favorite part of this movie is when Owen shuts that part of himself off, and we see him living his life, and he has a family but we NEVER SEE THEM. Because they aren’t a real part of him either, they are all a part of the set dressing of the life he has convinced himself he wants. He is going to be a man, he is going to live as a man and tell himself that’s what he really wants. And then to end up in the bathroom, to end up vomiting all that moon juice and knowing that he has been dying inside the whole time? I thought it was such a beautifully sad ending. 

IF I had a criticism of this movie, there would be a couple handfuls: 

It can be a little on the nose, now and again. I think Maddy-as-Tara’s monologue goes on a little long and loses some of its punch. 

It doesn’t lean quite as hard into the unreliable narrator that is Owen as it could, and so I could see people going, “Oh, Tara was completely right, and Owen made the wrong choice” when even within the narrative, it is telling us that to live in the Pink Opaque is to kill who you are now. That is…not nothing. Owen has, for example, a real relationship with his mother. That’s something that can be lost. Because both me and the author made the same choice, its easy for us to write it as ‘correct’, and honestly it was only on stepping back for a bit that I’m like, “Hm, while this does a better job than 90% of the movies about this I’ve seen, i wish it would have outlaid the cost a little more” but I would want to rewatch it before I made that a HARD criticism instead of a soft one. I was still figuring out everything about the movie, and so didn’t have a chance to really analyze it in this lens. 

I had another criticism, but I actually do want to watch it again before I commit to it, upon reflection. 

[synergysilhouette]

Plotting out "Rumplestiltskin" (Disney movie)

After I finished the Reinvention era, I decided I wanted to do more fleshed-out posts of original films I wish Disney had done during their previous eras. To start, I decided to work on the films suggested for the post-renaissance era, which I did a revision post that you can find here. It's best to read that to understand what I'm about to mention.

Background: By this time, Disney has not greenlit a fairy tale since the 90s, and when John Musker and Ron Clements come to them with an idea for "Rumpelstiltskin," they are open to it--albeit somewhat hesitantly; they've achieved unprecedented success with mostly original ideas, and the thought of going "back to basics" does bother them somewhat, with the fear that they'll be attacked for running out of ideas. Nonetheless, they let the film pass, scrapping their "Home on the Range" film. They enlist Alan Menken and Tim Rice for the music, and the team opts for a darker take than most Disney films (later said to have inspired Guillermo del Toro), and they consider briefly to do a non-European setting, but it's quickly scrapped, and a medieval England is considered, with particular inspiration from the Late Middle Ages to the Tudor period. While the specific setting and historical aspects (including pitches for Scandinavian, Slavic, Brazilian, and Iberian settings) are eventually removed for "magical purposes," Tudor-inspired fashion (eh, more 40% accuracy than 100%) is kept. They realize the unlikeability of having a king who marries a woman he threatens to kill three times over, and it's not a desirable trait for marketing, so they take influence from the king in "Cinderella," King Hubert from "Sleeping Beauty," and King Triton from "The Little Mermaid" to make a well-meaning but stressed and temperamental king who offers his much more benevolent son to the protagonist. They also scrap an early draft featuring a love triangle between the protagonist, the prince, and the antagonist, and the thought of doing 3D is considered, but eventually passed on. They planned on making the protagonist "older" (somewhere in her 30s), but Disney worries that this would alienate their younger audience, and move her to mid-20s--a bit older than they'd like, but not too young to be a mother without upsetting the parental audience.

(Note: This film will have been released in 2004, but several visual aids used are from media post-2004 and are serve to give the audience the idea of how the characters would look/act, rather than the influences Disney would use in the early 2000s.)

Plot

In a faraway land, a kingdom is wrought with misfortune. It is heavily in debt after a war has drained their coffers, and the economy has eroded. They're in debt to other countries, and not repaying them risks another way, and raising taxes could lead to civil war. A noble brags that his daughter will bring all the kingdom's problem to an end by turning straw into gold, and when the ill-tempered king hears of this, he gives her an ultimatum: spin several pounds of straw into gold for three days straight and marry his son, or her father will be executed for his insolence and she will be imprisoned for fraud. She undertakes this task successfully and falls in love with the much more amiable prince, and years later, she gives birth to a child. The day the child is to be christened, a guest bursts in, reminding her of a "deal" they made, revealing they spun straw into gold in exchange for gifts from her, the final of which being her child. When the princess begs to be let out of the deal, the creature humors her with a game: find their child, and discover the creature's name. With that, the fiend and her child disappears, and the princess only has 3 days to save them.

Characters

Aurelia--A quiet young noblewoman who lived a naive and sheltered life due to her upbringing, she was taught to be quiet and demure, and her station gave her a fairy tale look on life until she too was struck by poverty. Her father is an advantageous man whose kindness in these circumstances has been pushed down and seen as a sign of weakness. He had tried to suggest a match between Aurelia and Prince Aldous before, but was unsuccessful until he felt pressure by his contemporaries to brag about why his daughter deserved to marry the prince. When her father is threatened with death should she fail, she makes a deal with a mysterious creature that appears each night to spin gold with her, though they only tell her what they want after they do a day's work. In doing so, she gives up two things her deceased mother gave her that she promised never to give up: a necklace and a ring. But true to her word, she does, and she is horrified to realize a potential child is the price to be paid for a third night. When her son Caspian is kidnapped, she races to the far reaches of the country, following clues to the creature's hideout and their true name.

R--Hint, hint. People are always willing to make deals when they're desperate, yet they don't know what the price will be. No matter. R is quite a vicious fellow (or lady? Their form and associated pronouns change to fit the ocassion) who's all too happy to take advantage of the ocassion. Disney took the opportunity to make the shapeshifter's disguises appear as twisted parodies of iconic Disney characters, along with original designs. R is endlessly imposing and clever, managing to finagle Aurelia out of a necklace that tracks whoever she wants and a ring that can summon creatures to assist her--but since she had no idea about the true nature of these items, the only loss she felt from handing them over was of a sentimental nature. But now that they're in R's possession, they're able to not only track Aurelia's progress, but hinder it as well. Should she fail to find and name R in three days time, Caspian will become corrupted in R's domain and be their "son" forevermore. Tick tock, tick, tock...

Aldous--The crown prince of Sceptimar and the oldest of three brothers, he has to deal with his overbearing father's expectations. After the death of his mother, he sought to get away from home and was educated abroad, and both situations contributed to his father's bitter and controlling attitude. He is sympathetic to Aurelia's situation, though is not pleased that his hand is offered as a prize in exchange for her success. Similar to his bride, he starts off as superficially kind, good at keeping up appearances and saying nice things, but when he joins his wife on retrieving their child, his compassion becomes genuine, and his grief helps him develop sympathy and empathy for others. That said, he hasn't completely lost his sense of haughtiness, but most say his demeanor contributes to his charm, in proper doses. His cleverness compliments Aurelia's, and his physical abilities (fighting, horseback riding, etc.) rubs off on her. To put it simply, what was once a "reward marriage" became a relationship where both parties help them become better people. Before Caspian was kidnapped, Aurelia feared Aldous would become controlling similar to his father.

Songs

Sacrifice--The story of how Sceptimar, once a prosperous kingdom, fell into disrepair thanks to continuous war, and was financially bankrupt, and King Osric hoped to marry his sons off to powerful princesses in exchange for a significant dowries.

Golden Opportunity--Lord Ricard is quick to fold to pressure, but when his contemporaries turn their annoyance at the king considering raising taxes on him, he makes a reckless brag that his daughter has been blessed with the ability to spin straw into gold, and they relay this to the king, not believing him.

Don't You?--In despair, Aurelia prepares to be imprisoned for life, but laments the possible death of her father, and a creature hears her praise, appearing and offering to help her three days in a row. Each day they finish a task, they ask her for something, to which she hesitates, and they remind her that they can expose her at any moment, and it will be her fault at this point if her father is executed.

Something For Me--Aurelia must venture to find Caspian before he is corrupted by R, and prince Aldous joins her to help rescue their child. R scoffs at their urge to make deals, as Aurelia already agreed to the original terms of the deals and they had no reason to bargain further with her. But they do have some magical items that Aurelia so graciously gave them, so it's not like they won't win this game anyway.

Life Without--Aurelia and Aldous lament on their childhood and situations that led them to their current predicament, with each of them blaming the other's father for their situation. That said, they've developed a deep love for each other, and they've gained so much from their union, not least of all a child that they adore above all else.

Who Are You (with "Don't You" reprise)--Based on the hints that they've left behind (and an accidental one), Aurelia is able to deduce R's true identity as well Aldous finding Caspian hidden in the domain. R, despite their rage, is bound to the last deal they made, and relinquishes the child to the prince and princess. But they warn the couple that this isn't goodbye; anytime someone is desperate, anytime someone wants something, Rumpelstiltskin will be there to grant their deepest desire.

Hope you enjoyed this! Lemme know if you have any questions. Technically the next original film from my revision of the post-renaissance era is "The Chronicles of Narnia," but it'd pretty much be the same as the live-action film, just animated and a musical, so IDK if I'll post it. So that probably means I'll just move onto "Tam Lin."

[duhragonball]

Neon Genesis Evangelion 15

Fuckin’ finally.

I wasn’t looking forward to this one, because the next-episode preview acted like this was going to be all about Kaji and Misato “figuring things out” or some other will-they/won’t-they romantic bullshit.  I mean, if it was a different couple, then I could be down for that, but Kaji sucks, and I hate his oh-so-punchable face.  If Misato gets back together with him, it’ll suck because she could do so much better, and if she doesn’t get back together with him, then a story about it will have wasted my time. 

Fortunately, it looks like Kaji is some sort of double-agent?  We’ll get into the particulars later.

Anyway, Ritsuko, Misato, and Kaji all attend a wedding for some mutual acquaintance, and Kaji shows up late, probably because of some spying he was doing.  Misato drinks too much, and while she’s in the restroom, Kaji gives Ritsuko some kind of object, and Ritsuko warns him not to dig to deep into whatever he’s up to.  Cryptic as always.

Meanwhile, Shinji and Gendo visit the grave of Yui Ikari (1977-2004), Gendo’s wife and Shinji’s mother.  Today is the anniversary of her death.  We don’t know what happened, but Gendo says there’s no corpse, and the gravestone is just a marker. Shinji has no memory of his mother, probably because he was so young when she died, but also because Gendo destroyed any photographs and recordings of her.  I guess it never occurred to him that their son might want to see her someday. 

They came here before in 2012, but Shinji ran away.  This is part of the reason he wasn’t looking forward to returning here.  That, and he didn’t want to face his father, although things seem to go well enough.  Earlier, Misato encouraged him to see this through, because unless he takes the next step, nothing will ever change between him and his dad. Shinji tried asking Rei for advice on talking to his dad, since they seemed to get along so well, but she acts like she doesn’t know anything about Gendo, which sounds fishy.

During that conversation, Shinji mentioned that he saw Rei wringing out a washcloth, and he thought she handled it in a motherly way.  She’s deeply touched by this, I guess, though she doesn’t let on.  Wait... is Rei a clone of Yui Ikari or some nonsense like that?  Is that where this is going?  No... it couldn’t be.

No.  It couldn’t...

No.

Well, at least the Ikari boys part on good terms, even if their conversation is terse.  Rei’s in the aircraft that picks Gendo up, and I guess Shinji has to walk. 

When he gets home, Shinji plays the... cello? I think that’s a cello.  Asuka comes home to find him playing, and she seems genuinely impressed that he can play.  Shinji says his teachers made him practice and no one ever told him to stop, so he just kept at it.  He doesn’t think he’s very good at it, but Asuka seems more impressed with his persistence than his talent.  Can you play Classical Gas on a cello?  Yes you can.

Anyway, one of Asuka’s friends tried to set her up with her brother or something, and she got bored and ditched him in the line for a roller coaster.  Wow, Asuka sucks.  I always got the impression that she’s the most popular character in this thing, but like 90% of her presence in this show is just her being a huge pain in the ass.  I mean, she’s being nice to Shinji at the moment, but that’s only happening because she did something thoughtless to some other poor slob. 

Later, they get a call from Misato that’s she’s staying out late with Kaji. Asuka thinks she won’t return until morning, because it’s Kaji, and Asuka thinks he’s the only worthwhile male specimen on this planet.

Misato ends up getting so drunk that Kaji has to carry her home, at least part of the way.  So drunk, in fact, that Misato finally comes clean with her feelings.  She admits that she dumped Kaji mostly because he reminded her so much of her dead father, whom she loathed in life, but who also sacrificed himself to save her. 

That scared her, so she joined NERV to get revenge on the Angels who killed her father, but then she found out her dad used to work for NERV as well, so no matter where she went and what she did, she kept coming back to her daddy issues.  She thinks she’s a hypocrite for telling Shinji to confront his feelings about his dad, when she can’t seem to do the same.  And she thinks she’s a coward who uses men...

Kaji kisses her to put a stop to all this self-flagellation, and scene.

Meanwhile, Asuka wants to kiss Shinji, mostly because she’s bored.  Shinji’s like “okay” and she holds his nose shut because she doesn’t like him breathing on her. 

This goes on for quite a while.  Shinji finally pulls away, but I give him credit for his perseverance.  When they finally separate, Asuka runs to the bathroom and washes out her mouth, apparently regretting the whole experience.

Finally, Kaji gets Misato home and they put her to bed.  Kaji says his goodbyes, despite Asuka inviting him to hang out for a while.  Ah, that’s why Asuka was looking for ways to pass the time.  She wanted to see Kaji again when he and Misato came home. But it’s late and he needs to change for work tomorrow. 

The next day, Rei’s absent from school... again.  Huh.

That’s probably because Gendo has her bottled up in the Tang Tube here in the Central Dogma.  Well, that’s what the room is called, but I have no idea what any of this is.  They smile at each other, and that seems to be all we’ll get from this.

Even further below the Tang Tube of Destiny, Kaji tries to get into some even deeper, darker secret room, and Misato catches him and puts a gun to his head.  She reveals that she knows his secret.  Kaji works for NERV’s Special Inspection Department, but he’s also on the payroll for the Japanese Department of the Interior, who want him to spy on NERV for them. 

Kaji apologizes for deceiving her, but he wants her to see what’s in this room, which Ikari and Ritsuko have kept hidden from her.

And it’s Adam, the First Angel who exploded, causing the Second Impact fifteen years ago.  I don’t know how any of it survived the explosion, or how they recovered the remains, or why it’s been nailed to a cross, but there’s orange liquid coming out of its body, so maybe this is where they get that LCL fluid they use in the plugsuits.  Kaji says this is the source of everything after Second Impact, and I think that means the Eva’s an all the other research Gendo Ikari is in charge of, it all stemmed from Adam’s body.

And yeah, this is much more like it.  Not only are we revealing a few deep dark secrets behind NERV, but this episode has more character development than the last dozen episodes put together.  Misato gets drunk and confesses her hangups about her dad?  Shinji plays the cello?  Asuka kisses Shinji?  Gendo talks about his dead wife?  Rei blushes?  They could have spread these moments out across multiple episodes and it would have been great!  Instead they just built it up and waited until now to release it all at once.  That seems like a bad idea, but better late than never, I always say. 

And of course, we can’t overlook Adam.  I think a big reveal like this should have waited until Episode 15 or so, so I’ve got no complaints there.  It’s starting to look like I suspected.  They captured Adam in 2000, and they’ve been desecrating his corpse ever since.  The other Angels keep coming to NERV headquarters to recover the body, or to avenge their comrade, or maybe they’re just trying to destroy NERV so none of them suffer Adam’s fate.  In any case, it sure doesn’t look like NERV are the good guys...

Also, next episode apparently involves Shinji learning a “new level of anguish and despair”, so it looks like we’re finally entering the phase where this show goes apeshit.  At last, I finally meet the true Neon Genesis Evangelion. 

[withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus]

So you want to listen to Alice Nine? (prt. 1)

...and you don't know where to start? I feel you. I was overwhelmed when I started with them too. There's a lot to try but, I got you.

So like my previous post on this series, I won't go into details about the band, you can look that part up. All you need to know, imo is that it's they are currently on hiatus. Another thing you might wonder is if the members are still active. Tora, Saga and Nao are mostly active behind the scenes. Tora is making music videos for other creators and helps Shou out too (Diawolf are still active too, their duet band) and Nao has been doing live performances with Hiroto recently and supporting his solo project. As for Saga, I don't remember if it was Nao who said it but someone from them, on Saga's birthday said Saga is preparing a project so, I guess he will go solo as well, soon. As for Shou and Hiroto, they both have solo projects, now, Verde and well, simply Hiroto, accordingly. To the music now.

[side note: Some fans might disagree with my choices or think I should add 1-2 more songs, but this is just an opinion. If you wish to make a list of your own go ahead, every person has different criteria on what feels easier to listen to first, or showcases a band's colors best. Oh and btw, the era separation I've used is my personal take, not a commonly accepted categorization in the fandom so, don't get it twisted, I just thought it'd be easier to explain stuff like that.]

Alice Nine is a band with a huge discography and quite a big history, so I think that, suggestions should be separated in eras. Maybe early Alice Nine might not be your thing, or the opposite, their final version might not be your thing. I will distribute them accordingly though, no worries. And because tumblr limits videos to 10 per post, each era will have its own post. Let's start:

Early Alice Nine years (2004-2007 From "Gradation" to "Alpha")

During this era, Shou's singing style had a characteristic turn to a deeper side, like, I dunno how to describe it but it sounds like making a "belly" to me, a curve inwards and some people liked it, others didn't. Take me and my sister for example. I loved it, she hates it. If you are into more early 00s visual kei sounds, you will probably like this one. There is a certain allure to that era for me, stronger visual, more dramatic melodies, it was fun. :3

I mean Gradation is good and all, but the earliest release of theirs that was grasping enough for my liking was this one. No I didn't meet them with this one, I just think this is one of their strongest songs of that era. It has an anime feeling, a late 90s feeling even, for me. Not 90s visual kei. 90s Japan in general. Even though I became a fan in 2012, this one made me feel like a little girl again, watching anime in my room. Maybe it's just me. But yeah there is something about it. Something from another time. And Tora's solo ugh <3.

Arguably their most chaotic clip ever but ok xD. That aside, the single of Yami ni Chiru Sakura is amazing as a whole, so you can try Byakuya ni Kuroneko as well. But yeah this is a heavier goodie from their early days and one I would definitely recommend from this era.

Ok if you're new to Alice Nine, this song might not mean much to you, but it is easy to listen to and easily one of their best from that era. Jdoramas were peaking and the stories of vkei bands claiming they started either together from school or meeting after school and practised were many so, Alice Nine combined both and the rest is history.

Another harder songs for those of you who like a bit of wildness in your music.

Oh this? This is bias. This is one of my top 10 Alice Nine songs that's why it's here xD. And this is exactly the type of singing my sister hates from Shou, but I love. :D In this song it's clearer than other songs, to me. Maybe it's just me. Maybe my ears are weird. But in my defence, I've had both a professional musician/vocal instructor and a music producer say good things about my ear for music before. =3=

I have this thing that, when in a favorite band of mine, a member who happens not to be the singer tries out singing for the first time and does it well, my heart flatters like a little butterfly. xD This was the first time Saga ever sang with Shou like this and I'm glad that years later this became a more frequent thing. I think it's a very lovely song and easy to hear if you're starting up.

This used to be very popular among foreign fans once, I like it very much too, however I will say this; It took me a while to like it personally. I give it a 50-50 as to whether you will like it now or later. If you don't like it now but you eventually get into Alice Nine, I'd suggest you come back after a few years, cause it's actually very good.

The Alpha album for me was the transitional point from their baby era to PSC's princes era, again if I am to take this vocally and thematicaly. The band had already changed to a less costumy and over the top outfits to just really fashionable or elegant mixes of clothes, and Shou's characteristic vocal curve I mentioned, earlier, turnt from his main style to just one of the many hues in his voice. Why I focus so much on his vocals? Because a) some people might enjoy the following era more than this one I've been showing you thus far cause of it and b) cause if you choose to stay in the fandom, sooner or later you might come across the bullshit from "fans" who kept barking he can't sing. Shou has had some pitfalls in his career but if we are talking skill, he does have it, but some voices just aren't for everyone. Don't confuse personal preference with someone's skill. But we'll talk specifically about that in a specific song of the next era. About 9th revolver now, it is soft, easy to the ear and something that perhaps most people starting out won't find easily, as it has no mv, it's not talked about a lot, you get it. Very much worth a listen imo.

That's all about this post, guys. I'd have loved to do it all in one go, but tumblr limits me. Next era in part 2.

I hope you find sth you like, if not, it's ok, you might enjoy sth from other eras. But well, if you still don't find sth, we all like different things, it's alright, but yeah, this was an attempt to entice more people listen to one of my favorite bands, Alice Nine (their earliest releases at least).

[nattapohntkp]

Rhythms & Blues

        Everyone may have heard of a music genre called R&B (Rhythms & Blues), but many people don't know where R&B came from. With more melodies and rhythms founded, R&B is a music genre that focuses on the lyrics, the genre of love, and playing with the right rhythm. The music is a little brighter, but still not as bright as Pop. The musical instruments are not limited in style but often use a little sound effect. R&B originated in the '40s. It evolved from the Blues that black people sang in churches to release the suffering caused by the abuse and persecution of white people. Blues music has another meaning: sorrow, depression. Therefore, Blues has mostly sad rhymes and melodies, or sounds like a singing of the prayer in a church to seek blessings from the Lord (Gospel) itself. The R&B genre is a mix of African-American music from Pop, Jazz, and Blues. As the times change, more and more R&B music has evolved and mixed with other genres. Since the 90s, R&B music has infiltrated more and more music genres to become another genre. One example is that R&B can go along with Pop music which introduce many R&B stars such as, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion, Beyonce, Brian McKnight, Chris Brown, and more. It can also mix with Hip-hop music as well which appears in Afrobeat’s work. In addition to Pop and Hip-hop, artists like Davido and Wizkid blend R&B and local melodies to the mainstream.

        R&B music is a music genre that can reach audiences with a wide range of rhythm, catchy content, reflecting stories. Therefore, it is the music that no matter how much the times change, R&B is a song that people still listen to.

 The famous artists and their works.

1. Beyonce

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles, also known as Beyonce, became famous in the 1990s as a key member of destiny's child, the all-female R&B band of that era. In June 2003, during the suspension of Destiny's Child, she released her first solo artist with “Dangerously in Love” album. It was one of the most successful albums of that year. The album was a huge success in both sales and criticism, leading to a hit song such as “Crazy in love”. Later, Destiny's Child officially decided to disband. and she continued to work on music as a solo artist.

The examples of famous songs by Beyonce.

1. “Crazy in love” (2003) is a song that truly suitable for lovers because the content of the song says "Got me looking so crazy right now, your loves" which indicates how much you love someone until you are crazy about him and hope that he only calls your name.

2. “Listen” (2007) is a song that wants to convey other person to listen her voice and dream. Since, she has always followed others in the past but it's time for others to listen to her voice, her desire, and her dream.

2. Whitney Houston

Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, and filmmaker. She is named the most awarded female artist of all time by the Guinness World Records.  She is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with approximately 200 million records worldwide.  She is also an influencer for many African American female artists.

The examples of famous songs by Whitney Houston.

1. “I will always love you” (1992) is a song that wants to say goodbye painfully and deeply. The lyrics present a true love that we unable to stop loving even though we are far apart unless we discover later that the person we love is not what we think.

2. “I have nothing” (1993) is a song about deep and confusing love that arises between lovers due to the different feelings of women and men when it comes to their bond with their lover.

3. Mariah Carey

         Mariah Carey is an American singer, songwriter, music producer and actress. She made her debut in 1990 under the direction of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola. She became the first artist to have the first 5 singles hit the 1st chart on the Billboard Hot 100. She has a lot of hit songs, making her the best-selling artist in Columbia. According to Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States.

The examples of famous songs by Mariah Carey.

1. “Hero” (1993) is a song that wants to convey to the audience that loving yourself is the most important thing.

2. “We belong together” (2005) is a song that reminds many couples very well. This song teaches you how powerful words are, no matter how much you do well or be honest with love. Speaking without thinking, it can ruin a relationship.

4. Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American singer-actress. The owner of many famous songs whose past albums have sold more than 80 million copies worldwide and the movies that reach $ 2 billion.

The examples of famous songs by Jennifer Lopez.

1. “If you had my love” (1999), the lyrics are about the beginning of a new relationship with Jennifer Lopez during her confrontation with her crush.

2. “All I have” (2002) is a song that interacts between women and men., In this song, the woman is the one who breaks up and the man does not want to believe that she really leaves him. So, he tries to hold back but it is impossible to be the same. This song is a soothing melody but it expresses the pain of a man.

5. Brian McKnight

Brian McKnight is a talented artist with a wide range of singing and performance and he can play the music that ever nominated for a Grammy.

The examples of famous songs by Brian McKnight.

1. “One last cry (1993)”, the lyrics present to the people who are upset or disappointed about love, feel sorry, and want to cry. It will be the last time and don't let the same person come back to hurt us again. Tomorrow will start over, you have to tell yourself that you will have a new life and new things are waiting for you. When our thoughts and ourselves are good, we are always attracted to the good things, smiling brightly and strongly open for the something good coming in.

2. “Back at one” (1999), the lyrics present the good love that a man has for the woman he loves if he is like a bird perched on a branch and never afraid that the branches will break and fall because he believed in his own wing power.

6. Ne-Yo

Shaffer Chimere Smith, better known as Ne-Yo, is an R&B singer, songwriter, music producer, and American actor. He is famous for composing music when he composed Mario's “Let me love you”. This success leads Ne-Yo to meet with the head of Def Jam and sign a contract.

The examples of famous songs by Ne-Yo.

1. “So sick” (2006), the lyrics present that to forget about the old love are often very hard thing for many people, only time that can heal and that memory will be forgotten someday, but until then, those will always be the things that bother you to think about the past we did with an old lover.

2. “Miss Independent” (2008) is a song that wants to present that if you meet a woman and you are very interested in her, you will be able to observe her personality traits and capture her strengths and compose stories about why you like her.

7. Alicia Keys

Alicia J. Augello-Cook is an American R&B singer which sold more than 20 million copies worldwide from her first album in 2001 until 2007. The first album, “Songs in A Minor”, featured the hit song ‘Fallin’, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide and earn her 5 Grammy Awards. (Including the grand prize: Best New Artist and Best R&B Album).

The examples of famous songs by Alicia Keys.

1. “You don't know my name” (2003) is a song that presents the insanity of love on one side because he did not even know her name. She really liked him and felt that he had possessed her mind.

2. “If I ain't got you” (2004) is a love song that presents an interesting worldview philosophy. Fame, honor, and money, they do not important and are just illusions when compared with to be loved by someone.

8. John Legend

John Legend, real name John Stephens. He is an all-around R&B, soul, hip-hop artist with a wide range of singing, playing, composing, arranging, and producing music. His first album won 3 Grammy Awards 2006, 3 Soul Train Awards 2006, and 1 BET Award 2005. Britney Jean Spears, The Black Eyed Peas, Jay-Z, and more.

The examples of famous songs by John Legend.

1. “Used to love you” (2004) is a sad song that comes from the breakup. She was gone and took all the memories from him but he still remembered the moment when he first met her which make him sad when she left. Although he hates her a lot, he used to love her a lot too.

2. “All of me” (2008), the lyrics represent if you really love someone, you have to give your heart to him wholeheartedly and you need to accept him as he is no matter what it is good or bad. Then, you will be happy and you will never have to regret that later "Why are you like this or Why are you like that? " because you are willing and can accept anything that he can be.

9. Jeff Bernat

Jeff Bernat is an American-Filipino singer, songwriter, and producer. The owner of the super romantic song 'Call You Mine' has been selected to accompany the popular Korean series 'You Are My Destiny' and has a lot of Korean fans. Since he released his first full album, “The Gentleman Approach” in 2012, the 29-year-old Jeff Bernat has been on the constantly watch with subsequent albums such as “Modern Renaissance” (2013), “In the Meantime” (2016), and “Afterwards” (2017).

The examples of famous songs by Jeff Bernat.

1. “Just vibe” (2011) is a song for the fanatic. It represents to someone convey a woman who treats him equally as everyone else. Even if you are higher than him and tell her that he likes what she does, but actually likes everything that is her.

2. “Call you mine” (2019), also known as The Gentlemen approach, means approaching a woman like a gentleman. It is a song that has a good meaning and suitable for giving to someone special. The best sentence of this song is "Can I call you mine?".

10. The Weeknd

Abel Tesfaye, known as The Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and music producer. In late 2010, he uploads the song to YouTube by the unknown name, The Weeknd. he released several mixtapes, and each set contains nine songs throughout 2011, including the highly acclaimed House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence.

The examples of famous songs by The Weeknd.

1. “Heartless” (2019) is a fun song that hides the gloom of a man who blames himself for being heartless to love one another. In which the heart deeply, he wants to have good love but living a fun life, spending money, mingling with other people, is the one that makes life go around like this.

2. “Blinding lights” (2020), a melancholy song of desperate people who leave their ex-lover. The inaction of that ex-lover made the atmosphere worse and helpless. Delivering is the only chance for that person to return, and it is the thing to heal from this despair.

11. Ben Chalatit

Ben Chalatit enjoys music from his passion and attendance at the School of Music. He joins the first music group with friends under the name, Monotone. In the style of self-composed music and become indie music that is very popular at that time. And the famous songwriter, Boyd Kosiyabong, pull him into the work. He has made many famous songs such as the people below, the score of life, ouch ouch, and many more. This is evidenced by the various artist awards that he has received.

The examples of famous songs by Ben Chalatit.

1. “Hold back” (2014) is the theme song for the 2014 TV series Sai-Si Phaeng. It mixes with emotions, squeezing a little talk about the time when you lost your lover and want to hold it as long as possible. A moment of just a second would be invaluable if he would be with us.

2. “All My Heart” (2015) is a theme song, Kao Bodin drama, starring James Mar and Matt Peeranee. It is a slow-fusion-pop-style song with the sound of Thai music and tells of loving someone with all their love. This song also earns him the 30th Golden Television Award for outstanding drama song.

12. Lydia Sarunrat

The princess of the R&B of the Thai music industry. She is a gorgeous singer, Lydia Sarunrat, with a clear and unique voice. It makes her famous since her first release, such as I am free, please call me back. And there are always new songs coming out. Later, she returns to the sumo mask singer show and won “The Mask Singer Season 2”.

The examples of famous songs by Lydia Sarunrat.

1. “I'm free, please call me back” (2005) is a sad song content. Because he calls her lover but he does not answer the phone and does not call back. There is a hint in the song saying, "are you really busy or there are other people”.

2. “Just make eye contact” (2018) is a sweet love song. It composes of a period drama, Buppesanniwat. The content of this song is rather sweet. Because it wants to convey that the eyes are the windows of the heart.

        The examples of artists and their works. The author thinks that the reader may know or listen to some of their songs. The artists illustrated are quite famous for their outstanding works. If you have not listened to their music, I suggest you give it a try and I believe that you will be fascinated by their work.

        In conclusion, R&B (Rhythms and Blues) music is a genre that can listen to over and over. It can make you feel relax. But if you know the content of the song, some songs can also have content that can hurt, bruise or cry. Nowadays, R&B music is mix with a wide variety of other genres. This genre of music is therefore widely known. This has resulted in many emerging artists making R&B music or mixing R&B music as well.

[danwhobrowses]

WWE Royal Rumble 2021 - Initial Thoughts

I know I’m late, but employment is still a thing, and I had to prioritize that over an all-nighter, but it’s time for the Royal Rumble, one of the more exciting shows of WWE’s schedule, so let’s get on with it!

Spoilers for Royal Rumble, you have been Warned

I might not invest too much in kickoff matches but the Women’s Tag Match was not a good time

It was fine before the end, but who the hell decided that Charlotte should control 90% of the champions’ offense and have the hot tag!? Asuka is the RAW WOMEN’S CHAMPION, not Charlotte. After the tag Asuka literally had one spot and she was dead, completely taken out of the match for *checks notes* being thrown over the Announcer’s Table...you know that thing several wrestlers come back from easily.

The finish was just too much too, Ric distraction didn’t work, Lacey distraction didn’t work, Kirufuda Clutch didn’t work but then the brass knuckles did. Too much.

And why TF are we putting titles back on Nia!? We should’ve just given the titles to the Riotts, or the winner of the Women’s Dusty Classic. It also cuts me deep that Asuka and Shayna are treated this way, even as champion Asuka is a side character to Charlotte T_T

Main show though and I don’t like the package and interviews between entrances

Drew vs Goldberg was just...meaningless.

It was cringy enough that Cole had to spout drivel to make 60 year old Goldberg seem strong but to have Drew be ‘injured’ by a barricade spear - something much more tired wrestlers have and will get back up from in less time and continue a longer match - was daft. Also saying that Goldberg’s spear or jackhammer is the best move of all WWE is stupid, it was a WCW thing

Thank God Drew Won, but the post-match does remind you of the meaningless circumstances this feud came about. Suddenly Goldberg is okay with Drew’s same manners of respect

I mean, Carmella’s entrance and gear is cool, but do you think it eats at Corey a little that Carmella’s ‘behind the curtain’ bit is a tad...red light district?

Sasha’s promo didn’t hit for me unfortunately

Reginald didn’t deserve to be ejected for that! He caught Sasha and get beaten up for it

Jesus Carmella! Sasha got barely any of that dive

Screeching and faffing aside, Carmella got a good showing...I do hate quick tap outs in title matches though

Sami cuts a good promo, but his content wasn’t exactly the best. New Day are hardly the management’s faves, it’s taken this long for E to get a singles run, Fans literally had to Yes Movement their way into giving Kofi the world title.

New Day’s Brodie gear was good though

Bad Bunny as the ‘Biggest Latin Artist’? Is Cole for real? I didn’t even know who he was before today

If the song is about Booker T then why is he dancing around GI Bro?

Come on Book, you hang on the Sucka! That’d be like if the Rock just went ‘If ya smell what the Rock is cooking’ without the drags or pauses

Ric’s ‘with a tear in my eye’ promo was after the Rumble though...

It’s actually a sad stat that just over half of the Rumble winners win titles

No Morrison segment for the escape spot!? He did it as much as Kofi dammit!

Sorry Greatest Royal Rumble is not canon for me

This Stat Attack has taken far too long

I’m okay with Mike Rome but couldn’t a woman have announced the Women’s Rumble? Where’s Lillian at!?

NAOOOOOOOMIIIIIIIIIIIIII GIRL WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?

That hair is amazing as well

I know you can’t say it, but we all remember that Benoit won the rumble in the first two as well

Was...Bianca wearing earrings on her entrance, she looked like she was taking them off

Billie actually had the right idea, can’t be in the match until you enter the ring, it’s clever stuff

That tank did not look like it was meant to turn that direction XD

It actually surprises me every time how tall Shotzi is, I always imagine her short

Billie no...not with Shayna

The piped boos are highly unrealistic to boo even a heel Toni Storm

Shotzi eliminated and then horrible singer Jillian comes in? Urrrrgh, Bad Singer Jillian was terrible

Wrestling wise she hasn’t missed a beat though

Billie’s surprisingly being a highlight here with actual narra-OHMYSHITITSVICTORIA

Gear was a bit meh but Victoria definitely can still go

Oh Peyton the purple looks good on you, and her Widow’s Peak was not bad at all

Ah, good for Santana, for a moment I thought it said Santina and got a very bad chill

Damn Liv, Speed Machine!

Ooof, the betrayal is real Billie

THIS IS MY BRUTALITY!

Somehow I’m genuinely upset by every elimination so far, good job!

Aaaaaand then they got rid of Victoria and brought on Charlotte to immediately take out Rhea -_-

That was a clever move from Bayley but damn Ruby landed hard

Are we seeing a Bayley/Peyton team? Or is she just eliminating the Riotts for revenge for Billie, but also Liv Nooooo!

Torrie now, eh okay

Ouch for Dana

Lacey...no, this ain’t working

Poor Peyton, her elimination was a side chapter

And we missed Bayley’s elimination!? For Shame

Mickie! Good to see ya! Aaaaand being beaten by Charlotte...

Nikki Cross is back too! Hopefully they find a good story for her

Alicia Fox? I guess she sobered back into the good gra...R-Truth? No

Oh yeah, Humberto is a thing

Jerry shut the fuck up!

The 24/7 stuff was super unnecessary, we did not need to take focus off this match

Lacey eliminating Mickie, rude.

Dakota should’ve gotten more time, she barely lasted a minute

Reginald again deserves better

See Tamina vs Rhea would be exciting...if Tamina was booked better

Naomi’s chemistry with Bianca is really insane right now

Lana *reminded of her feud with Shayna and Nia* Also Lana *goes for Rhea*

That was a hard tackle on Alexa by Rhea...aaaaand she’s eliminated mid ‘transformation’ a bit worthless for me

Road Warrior Ember Moon! And right into the Eclipse that’s the good shit

Baszler probably shouldn’t have eliminated Lacey story-wise

The Betrayal is real for Tamina as well

What’s with the crazy camera cuts!?

Nia eliminating Baszler? Nah...

Hold on Cole, baiting Nia over the ropes isn’t a ‘tremendous elimination’

The betrayal is real for Lana too, Nattie sure shrugged off that double assault

I get that the narrative is that Charlotte has beaten both Bianca and Rhea before, but to hang against both of them after already being in a match and hanging on from two apron attacks was daft. Stop making her super strong, she’s mega talented yes but giving her the Brock Lesnar energy does her no favours

That close call though with Rhea and Bianca was great, need more spots of two wrestlers about to be eliminated at the same time

The final bit of chain wrestling too was great, that’s what you need at the final part of a rumble, the mini-match

I had Rhea as my win prediction but am more than happy for Bianca, who was my second choice. Winning at No. 3 is great and her emotional promo just gets her more over. Bianca vs Sasha’s gonna be wild too

Overall the Women’s Rumble was good, most of the women got shine and there were a few mini stories too, do wish that more time was given to some women and that Sonya was in the rumble but the returns were good and most of the eliminations got me good

Miz talking about guaranteeing a championship run like he didn’t lose the last cash-in and didn’t have a chance to cash in previously this night when Drew was ‘reeling’ from the barricade spear.

I reiterate that I wish Sonya was in the rumble, but do like her endorsement of Bianca

Again, this 24/7 stuff is wrong place and time right now

Last Man StANDing Match for the UniVERSal Championship

Cole, there is Champion’s Advantage. Triple H vs Michaels Last Man Standing, neither men made the 10 so Trips kept the title, 17 years ago. Royal Rumble 2004.

See, this is where a Finisher Spotfest works, because it’s not about pinfalls it’s about keeping people down

The camera switches are not doing good on this portion of the side of the thunderdome

Yes, attacking the knees, this is the Cerebral ‘rope breaks with his pinkie finger’ Owens I like to see

Ooof the Golf Cart, a la Kane and Stadium Stampede

Why is this training area just like a second arena

Lil’ running ref in the background

Right into that conveniently placed mini-ladder

Not the forklift! Think of Judy Bagwell!

Oh that curtain is the thing Becky took a photo of! I mean she was always gonna be backstage

Corey before the match ‘there must be a winner’, Corey after Owens went through the stage LED ‘The ref should consider stopping the match’

Did the Ciampa move there to stand up

I don’t think you’re allowed to use a Ref Bump that way

Then the Second Ref restarts the count and stops at 5!? If this doesn’t come back next SD it’ll be a misstep

It was a physical match, not the best I think the finish brought it down. The problem is that KO has lost 3 times now and the last time is a botch finish, and we can’t have him lose again - the poor guy needs a win

ON THIS DAY, I SEE CLEARLY!

I will say this immediately, revealing Edge and Orton as 1 and 2 beforehand was a terrible idea, just because you don’t have a live crowd doesn’t mean the people watching from home can’t be surprised

‘Number 3 is the worst number to draw on average’ - Belair just won at No. 3

Ali at 4? Then went after Edge and not Orton?

Sami, just don’t get in Orton’s face

Refs what are you doing? No rules in Rumble, where were you with Nia and Shayna with that logic

‘What does Shin need to do to be more successful?’ - for one not face AJ Styles, he is still a tag, US and IC champ as well as a RR winner, that’s quite successful

Carlito finally shows after the Legends Night tease and yes those are some abs

So...Randy’s just sleeping with this knee injury

Big E enters with some snappy camera angles again

I was hoping for more Ali - especially since Ricochet came immediately after - buy angry E was nice to see

Wait is that Elias’ entrance? Where’s the guitar strum?

Priesty, wonder if this is his main roster call

What DJ leaves his equipment on stage anyway?

‘The biggest star in the world in the music business’ - for real?

‘I’ve heard of flying squirrels but flying bunnies!?’ - Corey you need to watch Tokyo Joshi Pro, they got a flying sugar rabbit

To quote Ross Tweddell, MMMmmm Riddle...does not do it for me

Stop with the camera cuts I beg of you!

Mayor of Knox County!?

Ricochet eliminated by Kane, le sigh

The betrayal is real for DBry

Big Elim for Priesty though

‘Now it’s a Royal Rumble’ - reminder that Edge is a KOTR winner too, and that Nakamura is the King of Strong Sty-oh and Corbin eliminated him :/ what was the gauntlet about if you’re gonna Corbin him?

Otis’ new gear is slick

aaaaand Corbin’d again

Big Dom Fuck im Uhhhhhh Spinebuster’d

Damn he got him though

Dang that bounce sound from DBry

Bobby no why you gotta do Dom like that!?

Hurricane back from his Gangrel crossing and disposing Sammy Guevara’s broken body in Elite Deletion to do another rumble

One of these days, he’ll hit that Chokeslam and shit will go wild

Christian! This time getting the more emphatic reaction

Oh that smile, that hits you in the chest cavity...then Riddle ruins it

Rey comes in and WWE made him an advertisement ¬_¬

Edward James Omos what are you doing? well...I know what he’s doing, IC feud between AJ and E

Edward James Omos fuck you for eliminating Rey

The betrayal is real for Shamu

Cole how did you know it was Seth before his entrance hit?

I don’t think we were supposed to pick up Shamu welcoming Christian back but that was sweet

Then finally BWOAR

And Bwoar eliminates Cesaro, what was the point of his push? (it’s because his contract’s nearly up isn’t it?)

Again with the camera switching

Seth No! And where’s the boos pipe music!? DBry was a heavy favourite, that would’ve caused heat

Can’t believe Mmm Riddle lasted ahead of DBry

I didn’t forget about Orton, but the finish was good, that Orton tease got us good

It was a decent rumble, in hindsight you could tell Edge was winning given how they put express focus on Michaels winning at number on in the stat attack, Edge being face in peril for the first 10 entrants and Cole reminding us how long Edge has been in there

I don’t at all hate the end result, though I do question whether it was the best choice in the long run. Edge had his rumble win returning from injury already and throwing more legends at Drew does imply a heavy lack of depth in the current roster. Edge didn’t really need the win, but I’m not disappointed in him winning

The Men’s Rumble itself wasn’t as good as the women’s I don’t think, a lot of favourites of mine were unceremoniously dumped out quickly, any layered storytelling didn’t get enough time and it did feel a little by the numbers, almost a microcosm of modern WWE booking

Overall it was still a decent PPV, happy with the winners of the rumbles and that’s mostly all we need from a Royal Rumble. The Road to Wrestlemania starts here

[stone-man-warrior]

November 24, 2020: 5:01 pm:

A brief update to the Josephine county courts terror cell Tax Assessor terror scenario:

But first, this just in:

Sorry about the delay, it’s a little late, I was preoccupied for awhile:

https://twitter.com/ReutersUK/status/1331178841918812160

This is huge!

There is talk about availability of feminine hygiene products in public places in UK, on Twitter today, and, Reuters UK used a period of punctuation in that Tweet above! This is enormous, massive detour from the norm at Reuters. not only did they use the period to close out the sentence, but they also started a brand new sentence within the boundaries of a single Tweet text box in an unprecedented display of grameric superiority on Twitter. They even capitalized that extra, bonus sentence.

Some research will show that over the past few days there has been talk of gum on Twitter... sour gum, gum shoe, sore gums, gingivitis, or some other interest in gum.

"Gum shoe" is most likely there as the basis for the gum interest.

Reuters UK demonstrates with their authoritarian prowess that they are nearly at a point where they must both walk, and, chew gum.

They did not close out the second second sentence with a period, yet. If an extra period shows up somewhere, say at a train station, or airport, that is bad news for gum shoes.

All of that is present in the Reuters UK Tweet without even delving into the depths of that thread. It's "Top Drawer" of a Bureau of drawers. Modern drawers are not built the same as the old school ones are... the old ones have Dove Tail Connections on all four corners of the drawers, plus, a drawer front over top of the box drawer frame, w/Decorative handle of choice options, and some are routered around the edge with an O.G. Router Bit.

People who show up for thanksgiving see the old school cabinet craftsmanship with that O.G. detail around the edge, and say:

"Ohhh Geee, those cabinet drawers are soo pretty there, I want some of those." Those cannot be buyded at the IKEA though. They are old school, have to make 'em yourself, or find a good carpenter that you can afford.

There are exceptions.

If the kitchen belongs to say... Martha Stewert, then, Martha is someone who has a lot of guests at her kitchen, so, Martha gets her cabinets for free, while drawing a lot of business to the carpenter craftsman who builds old school cabinets that won't break if they are pulled too far and fall on the floor because that is what Dove Tails are for, and has a lot of selections of a variety of O.G. Router bits for that "Ohh Geee!" holiday vibe. Martha is a Carpenter Cabinet Craftsman's best friend and spokesperson that way. People talk about how pretty and durable the cabinets and drawers are, and how that detail around the edge of the false drawer front really is such a knockout to look at in Martha's kitchen, over wine.

Matha's Vinyard is a DMV in your town. Direct Message Martha, at the Vinyard to learn more. (nsa, seriousely... this is real terror communication that was presented with one single period of punctuation, and one single capital A.

That is all I needed to decode the comm to the extent that I did, and I did a piss poor job of it so I could say it here on this suspended Twitter account. The decode is more than that, but there is no one watching the baby, no one will provide any help or a proper interview to learn more about "The Fleecing of America".) The comm from Reuters is "Open Ended". More to come...

To read the terror comm that is presented on Twitter, scan the news feed of the major networks to start with, find things that guide you, spark some interest, key phrases, out of place verbiage, weird shit, repeating themes, parallel stories that are different subject but same gist, and tuck those ideas away as you scan. By the end of the day, you will have a lot of small ideas in your head. Don't linger in any one single place for too long, and don't click the linked story, stay with the Tweets on Twitter to start with.

There will come a time when a key is presented to you, and to everyone who knows how to do this. Today, a key that leads to Joe Biden's cabinet choices was presented with a period and a capital letter A from Reuters UK. Those two tiny details were put there to glue together the stuff that was scanned as I explained, over about a three day time period. It took more than one year to know that Reuters UK does not use a period, so, when one shows up, it's really fucking big round dot. The new sentence, is the same way... Reuters never says more than one small line of text, so, when they start a new sentence, it really is a big fucking push to start that Big fucking Round DOT to begin rolling, for gain of momentum as soon as possible. Meanwhile as I explain this stuff, I am under physical attack at my home. I still have to deal with the Josephine County Courts Tax Assessor terror event that has been under way since 11-10-2020, leading to a climactic end very soon at my house.

When the county courts, sheriff, state police, tax assessor, voter registration, DMV license renewal, DL renewal, or any other county or state generated correspondence happens at my house, there is very little chance of survival as a result of what those people are able to do to citizens.

I have survived many of those attacks, but my survival cost the lives of many terror soldiers. When the level of state and

county terror cells takes aim, it is often followed by celebrities, famous people, high level government officials who come into my home with keys that were made by the county sheriff. They come with swords, poison gas, euthanasia, and guns.

Very little chance to survive those. I have to deal with the Tax Assessor's lies that were used as a means to gain access to my home, with information they conjured up on a whim to say that a home I was building years ago but could not complete, has been completed they say, and there is absolutely no basis for the increase in tax or value they created from the blue sky, conjured it all up.

"It's just been so long since you started building the house, we just thought it should have been done by now, so, we went ahead and increased your tax based on completion of that home you started to build back in 2004."

If I survive the mandatory assessment, they will find a way to increase the tax in some other way, with some other value they will claim is present.

I am placed into a situation where I am forced to have a new assessment done in order to put the tax and value back to the way it was before they "Just thought it should have been done by now". The new amount is already applied. The new tax is already due just one month and 5 days after they "just thought it should have been done by now".

It's the "You can pay me now, or pay me later, but your are going to pay no matter what happens" terror scenario.

There will be no protection for the only man who has the answers to the questions that no one is asking about real terrorism. And that is why I am being treated the way I am treated in my county I live in. Because I have the information that would stop all of the terror, globally. 90% of the worlds terror would end forever if the information I have would be applied to global security efforts. The murderous assassins come to kill me from Europe some times. Who will be there to help me when Sheriff John shows up with Fryer Tuck at the tax assessment?

One important and easily overlooked feature of the Sheriff's key making facility at KeyMan at the Big Lots parking lot at the corner of GP Parkway and Agness, is that the Sheriff's key making is cover, for other key making.

If you stop the Sheriff's perpetual key machine and then think you have done a fantastic job of crime fighting and then celebrate with awards and outstanding achievement in the line of duty ceremony, that means you are a moron and took the bait the was given to you at the sheriff's key machine.

There are way more ways the keys are made.

Go try to purchase a lockset for a residential house while undercover, and totally stealth.

You will have great difficulty doing that, unless you told local LE that you are here doing under cover work, if you did that, you are extra moron, are a danger to yourself and those around you.

So totally stealth, go buy a lockset. If you survive the store, your purchase will include a number of ways they get the key. Some of the available locksets at the GP stores are sold in clear plastic package, key is visible in the package to the lockset. The grocery scanner scans the key there or photographs it with iPhone, some one takes that to KeyMan, or to Fran Taylor at 600 Jackpine where there is as key making machine.

Some of the packages are cardboard, can be opened, the cashier will remove the key while distracting you with a hot chick and a puppy, then make a clay impression real quick, and put the key back into teh cardboard. Someone takes that impression to Fran Taylor at 600 Jackpine for a fresh key. Those don't always work the first time, so, it's trial and error, they just see if the one they made works, if not, they now how to tri it to work.

Sometimes the key in the new package can be taken out part way through a hole in the package that is put there so the key can be looked at, for some stupid reason that escapes common sense. There are other way too. But the stores only stock locksets that are packaged in ways that allow a key to be made.

So don't start celebrating just because you found the sheriffs key making scheme.

If you are able to refrain from being a moron, you can also refrain from being dead from attack by local authorities. I am helping you by pissing you off

===========================================

4:47 pm: Chapman courthouse terror cell is deploying a special mixture of airborne gas that makes a victim need to use a restroom right away. Those who are exposed experience a sudden and powerful laxative symptom and are made instantly vulnerable to Ms. Chapman as she is wearing make up and blonde wig to appear more attractive, drawing interest, and wearing bright red to reach a greater range of visual onlookers. ======================================

And now that Courthouse Terror Cell Tax Assessors Update: I am instructed to make appointment with the chief assessor at Josephine County Tax Assessors Office, Jeffrey Marks, or, Jeffrey Marx.

The appointment is not really necessary, is for show, the Assessors Office has Easement and Access rights to all property in the county they serve;

The idea is to make it appear as though I am choosing to have the assessment done, the woman who made the decision to increase the property value and the increase in tax I spoke with said that she would skip the formality of filling out a formal request on paper for assessment so that it also can look as though no assessment appointment time was made, and to look as though there never was a assessment change. They will come, make the kill, finish out what needs to be done on the structure with construction associated with the likes of Cliff Woodruff Construction, a full service terror associate of the county courts terror cell. The new assessment will be based on that conjured up amount ahead of time, in effort to cover some other bullshit associated with either Clyde Baum and property at 315 Jackpine, or, Weseley Crowel and property at 549 Jackpine. One or the other bullshit stories can serve this terror Tax Assessor Courthouse Murder Set-Up that is playing out today, and yesterday physically, and has been underway building up to a climatically orchestrated crescendo of terror.

The whole thing has been done before, I already have survived this identical terror scenario at least once before this, where the Assessor simply conjures up new tax and new value with out any basis.

The basis, is there is a bullshit story that includes Clyde Baum, and property at 315 Jackpine. Possibly at 549 Jackpine with Weseley Crowel as the subject.

So far today, there are courthouse terror members at Monroe’s, and at Chapman’s where the attack is derived, concocted, planned and executed from in league with Christopher Mecca of the Grants Pass Community Church on Russell Road, where he lives in the pastors house, is a prominent attorney in Josephine County, with a office at the Sears shopping center near La Burrita Restaurant.

Mr. Marx of the Assessors Office called at 4:50 pm, I returned the call at 4:55, there was no answer, I left a message.

The most important part of this update, is that I recognize clearly Jeffrey Marx voice as the voice that belonged to a Josephine County Sheriff Deputy who came to my home with two other Deputies this past year at some point, it’s documented here on this account, a time when three deputies brought paper to serve me with, The paper that was used to arrest me on June 15 2020 and was crafted up by Christopher Mecca.

The Deputy that day, who is also Mr. Marx from the assessors office is a white male, about 40 years old, about 5′8″ tall, about 175 pounds, has a short dark beard, and short dark hair, is impostor Sheriff Deputy who serves paper from Christopher Mecca for the Josephine County Courts Terror Cell.

Stay Tuned, this is ongoing and is complicated, mixed in with seemingly unrelated events at my home, and other events that took place last night at the Fred Meyer Gas Station that I did not report with my Dystopia update for reasons that are too complicated to explain.

Events last night included at least two swordsmen, one at the Fred Meyer who was killed in defense there and another at my home who was also killed in defense.

There was also a “Runaway Tractor” terror event at the gas station, is associated with Lance of A-1 Paralegal Services on 6th & D Streets, and also is associated with A-1 Auctioneers, and A-1 Extermination Services of Grants Pass on 7th Street, Jeff Monroe works for A-1 Exterminators at least some of the time and a A-1 Exterminators black nissan van is usually parked at the Monroe’s in the evenings and on weekends, but has not been seen there lately, nor has Jeff Monroe.

The “Runaway Tractor” is a car that leaves the fuel pump at Fred Meyer gas station, and goes slowly over the curb, through and over some shrubberies, then over another curb, then through and across the traffic that is at the Fred Meyer Department store main entrance, and then over some more curbs and out of sight into the adjoining Fred Meyer Parking area.

So, that happened. They do it on purpose. It’s called “Runaway Tractor Terror Play at the Fred Meyer”. Specifically is associated with the Auction parts of the Courthouse terror cell.

“All this for one money” terror at the auction featuring Yodeling by Lance of A-1 Auctioneers.

End courthouse terror update: 5:57 pm.

[lovemesomesurveys]

Is there someone you’d like to hug right now? Not at the moment.

Do you feel like you’re gonna lose someone that means a lot to you? I pray that doesn’t happen for a very long time, but it is a thought that likes to creep to the forefront a lot for some reason to mess with me.

Do you want someone dead? No.

Why aren’t you in bed? I am.

How many hours did you sleep last night? Almost 9 hours, which is extremely unusual. 

Last person you talked to? My brother.

How many different people of the opposite sex have you cried over? Too many.

Do you have any plans for tomorrow? Nope.

Do you like ferris wheels? Nooo.

Anything you’re giving up on? I’ve given up on a lot over the past few years. :/

What is on your mind right now? My mind is jumbled.

Are you waiting for anything to happen? I really wish it’d start cooling down now ughhh. We’re STILL having triple digits and high 90s with no end in sight. D: With the way 2020 is going, I’m honestly scared we’re going to get an even longer summer. In California it doesn’t start to feel like fall until like mid October, but we can see the temps dropping progressively. This year we’re having record highs for this time of year.

Do you like anyone right now? Not in the romantic sense.

Do you like to sleep? I love it.

Do you enjoy late night phone conversations? I don’t have any.

Last movie you saw in theaters? The Invisible Man back in February. I miss going to the movies.

Are you a jealous person? I can be, but I haven’t felt that in years. I feel envy often, though. :/

Do you enjoy Facebook? Sure. I don’t spend a lot of time on there, but there’s interesting stuff. On my feed, anyway.

Do you think someone is thinking about you right now? Nope. Could you go out in public looking like you do now? I’d fix my bun first. I don’t go anywhere nowadays except for my one doctor appointment a month.

Are you a morning person or a night person? Night.

What did you do Saturday night? Same stuff I do every night that I’ve listed many times.

Is your bed comfortable? Yeah, I mean it better be since I spend most of my time in it.

What were you doing at 1 in the morning? Eating ramen and watching YouTube videos.

On a scale from 1 - 10, how much do you like to cuddle? I don’t have much cuddling experience to be honest.

Has anyone ever told you you have pretty eyes? Yeah, only like once or twice.

Get asked anything ridiculous lately? No.

Does it annoy you when people send three more texts while you are trying to respond to the question they asked in the text before that? Not really.

Do you like to read? I love to read.

Have you ever played a Wii? Yeah.

Would you ever become a vegetarian? No.

Who was the first person you talked to today? My brother.

Are you sarcastic? Sometimes.

How is school? I’ve been done with school for awhile now.

What color eyes does the person you like / love have? Are they pretty? I don’t like anyone in that way.

What color is the keyboard you are currently using? The keys are black with white lettering. <<<

When was the last time someone took your picture? My mom did on my birthday.

What color was the last jacket or hoodie you wore? Black.

Can you recite the alphabet backward? I could, but it would take me a little longer.

Do you eat chili when you get a hot dog, or do you like it plain? Was never much of a hot dog person, but on rare occasions I’d have a chili dog or one with just mustard and ketchup.

Would you say it’s easy for people to make you smile or laugh? Usually.

Do you own any dresses? If so, what colors are they? I have one back dress.

Would you say you drink more pop / soda than you should? Nope. I only drink a little bit when I have to take my medicine, otherwise I don’t drink soda. I used to have one can or sometimes one 16oz bottle a day for several years until about 2 years ago.

Would you rather have orange juice or milk with your breakfast? Ew, two disgusting options. Give me coffee.

How many different colors has your bedroom been painted? Just white. I’ve never painted it.

Would you ever tell your mom about the things you’ve done sexually? Even though my mom and I are close, that’s not something I’d want to discuss. 

What was the worst news you’ve heard this entire week? My state is still burning, in fact yet another huge fire started recently because of someone’s gender reveal party gone wrong. That really infuriates me because it’s like, we’re already burning and they decided to literally add more fuel to the fire. It’s fire season and we’re having triple digit temperatures, like wtf were they thinking? AND we’re in a pandemic, why were they having a party anyway??? Ugh. In other bad news, it’s still really hot and there’s no cool down in site. D;

Have you ever been in a car wreck? No, thankfully.

Do you have your ears pierced? If not, what do you have pierced? I do.

Has anyone ever told you that they think you have ADHD? No. I can’t imagine why anyone would think I had that.

Would you say you’re really good at cooking and baking things? Uh, no. I don’t cook or bake.

How is the weather outside right this second? At 5:32AM it’s 73 F. That is way too warm for this early in the morning.

Do you have a lot of trees around your house? What about buildings? Around the neighborhood, yeah. There’s a lot of buildings nearby as well.

Has anyone ever called you a sociopath before? No. I can’t see why anyone would call me that either.

What did you last heat up in the microwave? My eye mask when I was dealing with that awful stye last week.

What is the last thing someone bought you? Food.

Who was the last person you talked to last night in person before bed? I’m still up, but my brother came to say goodnight a few hours ago as he was headed off to bed.

What are you listening to? An ASMR video.

Have you made a mistake this past week? I make a lot of mistakes.

Has anyone ever taken your clothes off of you before? No.

Have you ever stayed up at night waiting for someone to call/text you back? I’ve waited for texts/IMs in the past.

Have you ever touched a dead body? I touched my grandma’s hand at the viewing. I’m surprised I did that, but I was an absolute mess when she passed away and seeing her lying there like that was really hard and for some reason I just did it. I almost wish I hadn’t because I don’t want that image of her in my mind. It also made it harder because touching her was obviously not the same as when she was alive.

Were you anybody’s New Years kiss? Nope.

Laptop or desktop? Laptop. I haven’t had a desktop since like 2004. After that, the only time I used one was at school.

Don’t you hate when radio stations continue to play the same songs? That was always annoying, but it’s been a few years since I’ve listened to the radio, so I no longer have that problem. Although, I listen to the same stuff on my Spotify playlist lol but that’s different okay.

Does your bedroom door have a lock on it? Yes.

Have you ever had a real tea party? Or been to one? I went to a cute tea place with my Nana, aunt, and cousin for high tea on my Nana’s birthday a few years ago. The finger sandwiches and desserts were delicious. I forget what tea I had, but it was good.

Where’s the last place you got Mexican food? This local place.

Have you been called a tease? Yeah, which I never understood. I never led him on, used him, or played him like he did me.

[thefatefandomsuckedmylifeoutofme]

The journey to save humanity with the least qualified person for it

prologue part 2:

‘’We have to hurry, Senpai, if you’re late, you’re going to be on the director’s radar for the rest of the year’’

Just go along with, Maka, once you get what’s going on, then you can raise hell

‘’Yeah, just one question’’

She had several but looks like it’s the only one this girl…. Mash will be able to answer.

‘’Why the h- why are you calling me Senpai?’’ It’s true, she did look younger than her, but it’s not like Maka did anything to get Mash to respect her. Unless falling asleep in the fucking hallway is something that impresses her.

‘’Oh,’’ the girl blushed ‘’It’s just… you are the most human person I ever met, I don’t feel threatened or need to be hostile… Oh, we’re here, Senpai’’

‘’Oh’’ Said Maka and yawned

‘’Looks like the simulation really tired you out’’ Mash smiled ‘’be careful not to fall asleep in front of the director, or else you’ll never hear the end of it’’

‘’You got’’ another yawn ‘’it’’

And guess what the fuck happened literally five minutes into the director’s speech.

Maka was promptly kicked out of the Central command room, where the orientation was taking place, and Mash followed her outside. 

‘’Are you alright, Senpai?’’

‘’I think so?’’ Maka said while rubbing her burning cheek

‘’At least the director’s slap seemed to wake you up completely, thank goodness’’

‘’yay me…’’ Maka said sarcastically

‘’Anyway, looks like you’ve been left out of the first mission, So I’ll take you back to your room, Oh!’’

Fou, the furry squirrel thing, landed on Mash’s face and settled on her shoulders and then glared at Maka.

Mash smiled ‘’looks like he sees you as a rival, Senpai’’

‘’Wh- do I need to jump on your shoulders too?’’

‘’huh? N-no I meant that- Oh, looks like we reached your room, Senpai’’

‘’Oh, thanks’’

‘’I’m on the A team, so I should hurry on back, take care of fou for me, will you?’’ She handed Maka the furball ‘’If we’re lucky, I think we’ll meet again’’

That’s ominous, Maka thought as she opened the door, at least now she has a few hours to relax and try to process what’s going on….

‘’Okay, I’m in here! whhaaaat, who are you?’’

Or not

‘’This is an empty room! it’s where I slack off! Who gave you permission to come in?’’

‘’I was told that this is my room’’

‘’I see, so the last one finally showed up, huh?’’

‘’Well, nice to meet you Maka. Didn;t think I would run into you like this, but let me introduce myself’’

Did I tell him my name?

‘’I’m the head of the medical department, Romani Archaman. But you can call me Roman, that’s how most people call me for some reason. It has a nicer ring to it…’’

‘’Nice to meet you’’

The doctor smiled ‘’Anyway, I think I get what’s going on here. You’re the rookie who just got here and managed to get on the director’s bad side?’’

‘’I seem to have a talent for that, yes’’

‘’Then you and I are alike. Just so you know, I got yelled at by her too! But since the rayshift experiments are about to start and the entire staff was sent there, I have nothing to do, since my job is to take care of people.’’

Why are you telling me this? Thought Maka, but smiled politely

‘’Since we both have nowhere to go, why don’t we deepen our friendship?’’

‘’I mean, this is my room, so…’’ I don’t have anywhere to run

‘’Woo hoo, I made a new friend!’’

Maka spent the next hour questioning the Doctor about the placeThis Chaldea was a place built on a snowy mountain, it was a place where the organization was tasked with preserving humanity, she and 47 other candidates, go on missions in order to try and stop the destruction of humanity.

Maka was still confused but then-

‘’Romani, we’re about to start rayshifting, can you come here in case of an emergency?’’ The leprechaun said over the intercom

‘’It looks like I have to go…. It was fun chatting with you, Maka’’

‘’I mean, it was more of an interrogation, but whatever you say’’ 

Roman laughed ‘’Next time, come to the infirmary, I’ll treat you to some ca-’’

suddenly, all the lights went out

‘’Emergency, Emergency. A fire has broken out on the central power station and the central command room. Central area’s containment wall will activate in 90 seconds. All staff must evacuate from gate 2 at on-’’

Suddenly, a loud bang was heard 

‘’What on earth….’’ Maka heard Romani’s voice ‘’Monitor, show us the command room!’’

the monitor blinked and there was the command room, in flames.

‘’Holy shit…’’ Maka whispered 

‘’Maka, evacuate right now, I’m going to the command room’’

And just run away? fuck that. The leprechaun maybe was creepy, but Mash was sweet, and Fou was practically clawing his way through her hands, trying to get out. Maka Shizumi was never the type of person to run away, anyhow.

‘’I really am a fucking idiot’’ she mumbled to herself as she sprinted after Romani 

‘’Wait, where are you going?’’ asked Romani ‘’gate 2’s over there!’’

‘’I’m coming with you, you can’t evacuate all of them by yourself’’

‘’Bu- There’s no time to argue, just make sure you get back before it’s too late’’

‘’Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing’’

No, I fucking don’t

‘’No survivors….’’ Said Roman in a serious tone ‘’this explosion wasn’t an accident, it was a sabotage…. Hurry up outside and wait for help, you can still make it. I’m going to the underground power station’’

‘’Switching systems to the final phase of rayshift. Coordinates AD 2004, January 30th, Fuyuki, Japan’’

Something cryptic was paying over the intercom but Maka didn’t listen, she looked around the room, looking, maybe someone survived the explosion…

Then she saw her… Mash, under a pile of rocks, crushing her.

She smiled when she saw Maka ‘’Oh’’

‘’Mash! oh my god, I’ll try and get you out of there!’’

‘’It’s all…. right’’ she said, weakly ‘’You can’t…. save… me. Don’t mind me… please… run’’

Suddenly the orb in the center of the command room lit up

‘’Unable to detect the existence of mankind 100 years in the near future on Earth. Unable to confirm human survivors. unable to guarantee mankind’s future’’

What does that mean?

‘’’’No, never mind that’’ Maka looked at Mash again 

‘’Central area, sealed, 180 Seconds until internal containment procedure’’

‘’They,,, shut off the area… now we… can’t get out’’

‘’We’ll figure something out’’

It’s fine, 180 is plenty of time, just need to get Mash out and-

‘’Searching for qualifing master… Found. Candidate no. 48, Maka. Reset as Master. Unsummon program, start, Spiriton conversion, start.

‘’Umm…. Senpai? would you mind… holding my hand?’’

Without much thought, even though Maka was confused as all hell, her body moved, almost on it’s own, And held Mash’s hand. There’s no way she’s gonna say no to something that might be someone’s dying wish.

rayshifting sarting in 3 2  1 All procedures clear. First-order, commencing operation’’

[spaceorphan18]

Marvel Movie Night: Spider-Man 2

Something occurred to me while watching - director Sam Raimi really tapped into something with this first trilogy.  If the first film was an ode to the classic, Silver Age era of the 60s, than Spider-Man 2 is the beloved Bronze Age comics of the 70s and 80s.  Which means that Spider-Man 3 is really indicative of the bloated mess that the 90s brought and this whole metaphor works perfectly. And no, I don’t care if Spider-Man No More, the comic this plot was based on, was still Silver Age.  Let me have it. 

Also, it’s funny to me that this film, again, doesn’t feel like 2004.  Though I’m starting to suspect my memories of what 2004 were actually like.  Everything feels like 80s or 90s, though they do in throw in references to things like eBay, and it does feel a little more modern.  Anyway...

Spider-Man 2 is considered the classically-classic of all the Marvel films.  And, since doing this watch through of the Marvel films prior, I can totally see why.  And while X-Men 2 may be my favorite of these early films, that’s completely based on my preferences towards those characters.  This film is a delight, and not just because it’s coherent story telling.  

Is it the best Superhero film ever that it’s always heralded as?  It’s not as cheesy as the first film, the special effects are much, much better, the script is a lot tighter, the action is pretty decent, and the conflict feels genuine and organic.  And, especially after watching such bad films lately, it’s refreshing that this one does work.   While I understand why it remains beloved, the answer is no.  Though I do think it holds up better than many of the others in this pre-MCU world.

The nice thing about the film is that there’s one central story, about Peter’s dueling life of himself and Spider-Man.  I think the classic nature of being torn between responsibility and wanting something for yourself.  And of course, everything else kind of spirals out from that theme (like a web!), most of the other characters have similar struggles throughout the film, which is nice that it all ties together thematically. 

Funny, though, while I praise the script for having depth and emotion, for me personally, a lot of this film feels like a bogged down in its own seriousness.  And while, yes, there are a few moments of humor stitched within, the heaviness of the plot kind of weighs it all down, so much that, effectively, we’re all feeling the burden of being Spider-Man, too.  While I’ll be the first to note that it is a solidly, good film, it’s not one that I find joy in coming back to.  

So, Tobey Maguire is back as Spider-Man, and I feel the same way about him now as I do the other films in this trilogy.  He remains great at being Peter Parker, and showcasing that inner struggle that Parker always has in the comics.  The Spider-Man aspect.  Meh.  Not that Maguire has much to do while Spider-Man - a lot of that is CGI, but a lot of the fun parts of Spider-Man comics seems to be missing in these films.  

Meanwhile, the supporting cast from the first film are all back.  Kirsten Dunst is Mary Jane again, and she’s... fine.  Don’t get me wrong, the writing of MJ is pretty much spot on to what usually went on in the comics, and I love MJ, I just don’t like Dunst in the role (sorry!) - not that she gets to do more than screaming or angsting, nor do I like the tired trope of ‘rescue the girl’ that these films do all the time.  I’m really ready to move past that.  

James Franco is back as Harry, though has a much smaller role, and boy is Franco hamming it up.  Despite the revenge angle, it’s a pretty boring and somewhat forgotten side plot otherwise.  And Rosemary Harris is back as Aunt May.  Again, she’s fine - I feel about her here the same way I did back in the first film.  Consistency is nice.  

Rounding out the cast is Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock, which is one of the reasons this film is heralded so highly.  I do think he gives a good performance here, he’s got a better script to work with than Willem Dafoe did, and he does remarkably well since you know he’s acting with a bunch of green screen.  I do find it a bit hammed up myself, but it’s intentionally done that way to fit in with the tone of the rest of the film.  

The best part of the film, however, remains J Jonah Jameson, and the outlandish, nonsensical world of the Daily Bugle.  JK Simmons’s comedic timing is amazing, and I can’t say enough good things about it.  The scenes at the Daily Bugle are the one part of the film that doesn’t seem 

Other Thoughts

I don’t think MJ is once called MJ in the film, it’s always Mary Jane.  Which often makes it sound like they’re talking about pot, which is kind of funny to me. 

Speaking of MJ, her play is The Importance of Being Earnest, which endearing since it’s Oscar Wilde’s story about telling the truth. 

Daniel Dae Kim of Lost fame has a cameo in this film! Interestingly, he had a cameo in the Hulk film as well...  Coincidence?  I mean, yeah probably. 

Hey, there’s a Dr. Strange mention! It’s kinda weird when these films mention other Marvel properties.  

Shout out to the random horror film-esque sequence of Doc Ock becoming a thing.  There are some neat shots wrapped up in that sequence. 

Aunt May is paying a kid named Henry Jackson $5 to move all her shit.  I know she’s poor, but damn, that’s pretty nice of a nine-year-old.  

There’s a lady that plays the old 60s Cartoon theme on the violin.  I appreciate that. 

You know, I’ll admit, I like the cheesy ending of this film, with MJ just running from her wedding to Peter.  It’s ridiculous, but it’s the one scene of this romance story I really enjoy.  

Final Thoughts: Still a good film, and yes, best film of the ones I’ve seen so far.  It’s just so dreary though.  I’m getting ready for that classic MCU fun to kick in. 

Next Up: Oh, time to finish up that Blade Trilogy. 

[fandomshatelgbtqpeople]

On JK Rowling, Dumbledore, lycanthropy, and cultural context

I want to address an idea I’ve been seeing pop up a lot recently, which is that JK Rowling added Dumbledore being gay and lycanthropy being a metaphor for AIDS years later in order to seem progressive, and I’ve put a lot of time into thinking about why these claims bother me (since I’m definitely not mad on Jo’s behalf because she’s been dead to me since 2016), and I think it really comes down to this. These claims are based entirely off of how things are today and show a fundamental disregard for the cultural context at the time that’s concerning and feels dismissive to the people who lived through it. Basically, it goes hand in hand with the lack of knowledge and sometimes intentional rewriting of our community’s history that’s so prominent on this site.

Note that I am not arguing that Dumbledore is good rep or that the lycanthropy-HIV metaphor was well executed (or even a good idea in the first place). I just wish people would stop treating these things like JK Rowling said them yesterday as opposed to 12 years ago.

1. Dumbledore being gay 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out in July 2007 and Jo first publicly said Dumbledore was gay and in love with Grindelwald in October 2007, so the idea that she added it years later is just factually untrue. It came out three months after the release of the final book. 

Let’s take a look at public attitude towards queer people in 2007. I’ll preface this by saying that I’m American, so I’ve done my best to find data on the UK, but most of my info is from the US.

In 2007, in the US, Gallup reported that only 59% of adults surveyed believed consensual sex between two people of the same gender should be legal, that 46% of adults believed that same-sex marriage should be legal and come with all the same rights are marriage between a man and a woman, and that 50% of adults favored a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Despite all that, only 22% of surveyed adults answered that they thought gays and lesbians (the language in the poll) should be more accepted in the US and 27% of adults thought gays and lesbians should be less accepted. Jumping back to 2005, 43% of respondents didn’t think gay people should be hired as elementary school teachers and 36% didn’t think we should be hired as high school teachers. I mention these numbers specifically because they’re relevant to Dumbledore. 

On the legal side of things, there were enforceable sodomy laws on the books in 13 states until 2003, four years before Deathly Hallows came out and Jo announced that Dumbledore was gay. In 2004, the fact that Kerry was in favor of same-sex marriage was considered a significant liability in his presidential campaign because even a lot of democrats still didn’t support it. In October, 2007 when Jo did that interview, same-sex marriage was legal only in Massachusetts, civil unions were legal in four states, and domestic partnerships were legal in three states. Meanwhile, twenty-five states had constitutional bans on same-sex marriage and twelve of those states also had constitutional bans on other rights, such as civil unions and domestic partnerships or extensions of employment benefits to same-sex partners.  

In the UK in 2007, just under 40% of adults believed that same-sex relationships were morally okay, 17% strongly agreed that same-sex marriage should be legal, and just under 45% believed that a same-sex couple could raise a child as well as a man and a woman. A 2005 Gallup poll found that, 38% of Brits believed homosexuality should be more widely accepted, 15% thought it should be less widely accepted, and 44% thought the currently level of acceptance was about right. 

On a more personal note, my high school hired its first openly gay teacher in 2008, and the fact that he was gay was considered pretty scandalous among the student body. We had a gay band instructor, but he only ever referred to his partner as his roommate. When we did debates in social studies classes, same-sex marriage was always one of the issues we had to debate over. Of the eleven people I went to high school with whom I now know are queer, only three of them were out in high school. That’s how uncommon it was at the time to come out before you were relatively independent. 

So this idea that announcing that a prominent character who was a headmaster at a school and had a close relationship to the teenage boy main character in a wildly popular children’s book series was gay would have been a popular move in 2007 is pretty laughable to anyone old enough to remember what 2007 was actually like. No one was using support for queer people just to bolster their public image unless their product was specifically marketed towards queer people, because the general wisdom at the time was that it would hurt them too badly with straight audiences. In fact, if memory serves, the queer fandom’s reaction to Dumbledore was initially pretty positive because it was more than we ever thought we were going to get. I didn’t start seeing people talk about how it wasn’t enough or about how the entire plot line was homophobic until maybe 2012.

You can’t use today’s context to interpret why someone made a decision in 2007 because it’s difficult to overstate how different things are now. The only reason to want to look pro-gay in 2007 was if you genuinely thought it was the right thing to do.

2. Lycanthropy and HIV

I was genuinely surprised when this caused a stir when JK Rowling tweeted (?) about it in 2016 because I was pretty sure she’d talked about lycanthropy being a metaphor for HIV years ago. It turns out I was right. She discussed it during the copyright trial she was involved in in 2008 (you can find it here, on pages 72-73). So it didn’t come out until nine years after Prisoner of Azkaban and three years after Half-Blood Prince (when Fenrir Greyback was introduced), but it’s not something she first mentioned on twitter in between tweets about how she meant for Nagini to be a Korean woman in 1989. It was before she was shooting off her mouth about ridiculous stuff every other day.

Regardless, I can understand why that would feel like her pulling something out of left field today because HIV doesn’t get talked about as much, but you have to remember that these books were written in the 90s at the height of the AIDS crisis. It’s difficult to imagine how much that permeated our culture if you didn’t experience it, even for someone like me who was in elementary school in a white suburban area and, as far as I’m aware, didn’t know anyone who was HIV+. My school had a how-not-to-get-AIDS assembly every year.  They probably showed us every movie in existence about kids with HIV. After-school TV shows did special episodes about how you shouldn’t be “blood brothers” with your friends because of AIDS. 

So when my friends and I were reading Prisoner of Azkaban as middle schoolers in the early 2000s, those memories were still fresh in our heads. We didn’t need to be told lycanthropy was supposed to be a metaphor for HIV because it had just been a huge issue five years ago and we knew enough about HIV and how the people who had it were treated to see the parallels. I imagine it was even clearer to the people who read PoA right when it first came out in 1999. It didn’t even occur to me that the metaphor is less obvious to people who are younger until I started seeing claims about this was just something she made up years after the fact and was like, "What do you mean this wasn’t clear to you when you read the book?” It fits perfectly with the general public’s preoccupation with and faulty understanding of AIDS in the late 90s. You just have to acknowledge that things have changed in the past twenty years.

I know that this comparison calls on a lot of stereotypes that are homophobic and otherwise bigoted against people who are HIV+, but those aren’t arguments against the metaphor existing and being intentional, they’re arguments about why that’s not a good thing. Fenrir Greyback is straight out of a 90s detective show. The “person with AIDS who wants to infect other people because they’re bitter about it” was such a common trope that almost every crime drama in the 90s and early 2000s did an episode about it. The “adult man gives a young boy HIV” thing grew out of the “gay men are pedophiles” and “queer people want to recruit your kids” stereotypes. These were prejudices Jo had that misinformed her writing.

I don’t have a whole lot to say on this one other than that given when it was written and how close it fits, including how much it draws on negative 90s-era stereotypes about people who are HIV+, I would honestly have a harder time believing it wasn’t intentional than believing it was.

Anyway, really my point is that it wasn’t always 2019 and if you’re using only today’s culture to inform your opinions about why someone made a certain decision a decade or two ago, not only is your understanding of the situation going to be incomplete, but the fact that it’s incomplete is going to be obvious to anyone who remembers what things were like during the time period you’re trying to talk about.

[1863-project]

Big Fat Summary of Everything

I’ve been rewatching all the Big Fat Quiz episodes for...well, no reason, really, other than that I felt like it. So without further ado, here’s the important stuff I’ve taken from each episode.

BFQOTY 2004:

The first-ever episode. It takes a little bit for the series to hit its stride, and it’s probably most visible here.

Simon Pegg is here, though, which is always a nice plus.

BFQOTY 2005:

Another quieter year, although major celebrities appear alongside the comedians - namely Sharon Osbourne and Gordon Ramsey.

Jon Snow appears reading songs as news stories for the first time. He doesn’t start dancing to them until much later, though.

First appearance of panel show master David Mitchell on BFQ.

BFQOTY 2006:

This is where it goes off the rails, because 2006 is the first of the three appearances of the team that becomes known as the Goth Detectives, Russell Brand and Noel Fielding. Teams gave deliberately weird and funny answers to things they didn’t know before this, but they took it to another level.

Ironically, despite this they end up winning as a joke, which is hilarious.

Big Fat Anniversary Quiz (2007):

First appearance of Richard Ayoade on the show. He and David Mitchell are a team, to boot (and go by the name “Speccy Nerdy Fucknuts,” at that, after their plan to be seated in the middle yet call themselves “Team Three” is thwarted). 

BFQOTY 2007:

Noel and Russell return to defend their title, the only time the winning team has returned so far intact for the next year’s episode. Jimmy Carr isn’t as lenient with them and their bullshitting this time around.

This is the first time regular Rob Brydon is on the winning team even though he’s been in every episode up to this point with the exception of the anniversary episode.

BFQOTY 2008:

Jonathan Ross is glaringly absent this year, but it’s because he and Russell Brand had gotten themselves into some pretty serious trouble over the course of the year. Rob Brydon is also absent, meaning that the Bipedal Seal is now the only constant on the show.

First appearance of Claudia Winkleman.

First appearance of two for James Corden, and he flawlessly sings a verse of That’s Not My Name from memory, foreshadowing his future career as Carpool Karaoke maestro.

Davina McCall and Claudia Winkleman talk about wanting to double-team Jon Snow.

BFQOTY 2009:

Despite what had happened the year before (not on the show), Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand are allowed to be a team.

David Mitchell refuses to dance. It’s very funny.

Rob Brydon does the man in a box voice.

BFQOTY 2010:

First teaming of absolute dynamo surreal dream team Noel and Richard, clearly the best idea this show has ever had. They set a then-record with a score of 12. Team name this year is The Electric Moccasins (although as a joke Robson and Jerome comes up as an alternative).

“How can you throw a live wasp?”

“Why do you think it’s weirder throwing a live wasp than a nightmare?”

BFQOTY 2011:

David Walliams and Miranda Hart set the all-time low score record with a measly 4. Which is impressive because Noel and Richard have been a team eight times over the course of the show’s run as of early 2019.

BFQ of the 80s (September 16, 2012):

Not the most notable of episodes, but still worth it. At least go watch the Mitchell Brook kids act out Live Aid.

BFQ of the 90s (September 23, 2012):

Two words: Mr. Blobby. Jack Whitehall is traumatized for life now.

BFQ of the 00s (September 30, 2012):

Noel and Richard’s second appearance as a team, and most notably, the episode where they make their legendary “your mom” joke at Jimmy’s expense. (Team name: The Indoor Kites aka Hot Shame.)

BFQOTY 2012:

Jack Whitehall’s first non-special appearance on the show. He and James Corden proceed to behave like a couple of giggling schoolboys the entire time, even ordering pizza and white wine and having it delivered to them. Oh, and they’re in tuxedos.

Richard Ayoade’s first win on the show. He’s teamed with Gabby Logan.

Russell and Jonathan are a team again. Apparently this is working out for them.

Charles Dance reads 50 Shades of Grey.

BFQ of the 80s (September 22, 2013):

Again, a quieter special by comparison to some of the episodes of the show, but David Mitchell and Phill Jupitus are a team, so if you’re a fan of panel show team captains appearing on other panel shows, it’s worth it.

BFQ of the 90s (September 29, 2013):

Jimmy Carr gets gunged (slimed for the Americans who grew up with Nickelodeon).

BFQOTY 2013:

Dream team Noel and Richard return as a team for the third time and are actually joint winners, marking their first victory as a duo on the show. Sadly, there’s no team name.

Jonathan Ross brings a turkey and makes sandwiches for everyone else.

BFQOTY 2014:

This is the notorious Mel B episode, but it’s also the first appearance of Sarah Millican, who is wonderful.

Richard and David Mitchell are a team again.

Jon Snow’s dancing career begins in this episode, if I recall correctly.

Big Fat Anniversary Quiz (2015):

Third and as of now final appearance of the Goth Detectives. Russell hands out his phone number to audience members and gets them to text him the answers, which isn’t caught until fairly late in the show.

Jack Whitehall does some texting of his own and interacts with Chico, and it’s honestly one of the funniest things that’s ever been on the show. Claudia hugs him as if she’s his mom when he gets a response for the first time.

BFQOTY 2015:

BAD DONG. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t need to be elaborated on, but if you’ve never seen Bad Dong, you need to see Bad Dong. The episode is worth watching for Bad Dong alone.

Of course, if you like Taskmaster, Greg Davies is here, so that’s a good reason to watch too.

BFQOE January 5, 2016:

First-ever Quiz of Everything. Chelsea Peretti of B99 fame is here, if you’re a fan of Nine-Nine.

Richard and Noel (under the team name The Ladder Collars, named after Jonathan Ross’s giant shirt collar) almost win, but Richard insists on making a joke on the last question and they end up in second. Noel of all people calls him out on it.

Mel Giedroyc takes her shoes off to get more comfortable at one point. Noel notices and proceeds to compliment her shoes (high praise coming from him), then says he’d like to drink Bailey’s out of them (which is a reference to probably the one Boosh thing everyone on the internet has seen at some point in time).

BFQOE 2016 Series Episode 1:

Worth it alone to see Jon Snow doing YMCA.

Jonathan Ross and Bob Mortimer’s team name is One And A Half Condoms.

Two dancers from Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing With the Stars in the US) perform a series of dances for the teams to identify. Somehow, despite hosting the show, Claudia doesn’t get most of them right.

BFQOE 2016 Series Episode 2:

Noel and Richard have the team name “The Sultans of Bhunai.” Also, by some bizarre set of circumstances they actually win outright. 

Richard goes on an absolutely legendary rant after Rob Beckett steals his tray of candy, which amongst other things leads to him renaming Jonathan Ross and Adam Buxton’s team “The Ancient Fucks.”

Personal highlight for me besides Richard’s candy rage: Noel drawing himself and Richard on the bottom of the screen at one point. Cute as hell.

BFQOE 2016 Series Episode 3:

The only time Noel has won two episodes in a row. Here he’s teamed with Eddie Izzard, which is honestly inspired.

Alan Carr and Romesh Ranganathan call themselves “The Twins.”

BFQOTY 2016:

Romesh’s father has been dead for three years and Jimmy didn’t bother to find that out before asking him what his father thought about his tour of America with his mother, which led to the show breaking down before it even got started this time.

Mel Giedroyc is obsessed with Crossrail. It’s great, trust me.

BFQOE 2017:

Noel and Richard’s team name this time is Humanity’s Last Hope:

Katherine Ryan and Aisling Bea bring puppies on. Real puppies. And it’s wonderful. Everyone takes turns holding them.

When the panelists wonder who owns the moon, Noel just flat-out raises his hand. Because, you know, he IS the moon.

Noel draws an eel in a top hat, which I suspect is a Hitcher reference.

BFQOTY 2017:

First appearance of Big Narstie, who ends up fitting in surprisingly well on the show.

Noel and Richard’s team name is Cakes in the Maze.

Oh, and Noel is dressed as the podium.

BFQOE 2018:

Vic and Bob are a team! An actual double act is a team for the first time! (Their name is Strike Force One.)

Personal highlight of this one for me is the Mitchell Brook kids acting out Kasparov’s loss to IBM’s Deep Blue.

BFQOTY 2018:

Noel and Richard’s team name is Discount Fireworks.

Mo Gilligan flosses to Baby Shark.

On that note, upon learning Baby Shark was the biggest hit of 2018, Noel throws a tea mug and shatters it...then immediately goes to pick the shards up so that nobody gets hurt.

“That’s right! I’m on Bake-Off, motherfuckers!”

BFQOE 2019:

Sandi Toksvig and Big Narstie are becoming friends and it’s the cutest thing.

On that note, Sandy (a lesbian) and Joe Lycett (bi/pan) answer a question asking what three songs have in common with “Gay. They’re all gay.”

Also, Sandy knows weird facts about everything, in case you were wondering if QI is in good hands. It definitely is.

Jon Snow brings all the boys to the yard.

[shockfemme]

THE MOVIES MADE ME DO IT By Lorry Kikta

Those Richard Linklater Before movies ruined me forever. All this unlikely romance tied up in a handsome Ethan Hawke bow. It led me to believe that all things are never finished. I hold onto so many people, holographic distorted totems of a past that was painful, yet somehow transformed to endearing and wonderful with the glow of nostalgia...

In real life, has anyone ever really objected at the “speak now or forever hold your peace” part of the wedding ceremony? I haven’t even been to a wedding where that sentence was said, maybe to save everyone from an expensive stupid disaster. I have to admit that I have often times wished something like that would happen at a wedding I attended because weddings can sometimes be really damn boring and too long. If you know me and you’re reading this, of course I’m not talking about YOUR wedding.

Ultimately I wish that my stubborn memories would only highlight the negative aspects of certain people so I wouldn’t constantly wonder what this one person I kind of dated in 2004 is doing and whether or not he still “can't stop thinking of me” like he said on the phone six years ago. Or if the guy who got married is now divorced and if he is, what happened? Why do I care? I can only point to one source, a brain that was molded from a very early age by movies and television. I’m not attempting to be the Tipper Gore of the motion picture industry and blame movies for anything. I enjoy believing in fairy tales, until I get reminded continuously that they’re not reality.

Honestly, who cares? I love my boyfriend and we are in a solid relationship, but I have never been in a solid relationship prior to this one. I’ve always fallen in love with musicians that suffer from “emotional problems”. I’ve waited years for overgrown teenagers to come to the conclusion we were meant to be together forever.

It took me a very long time to realize that three types of movies exist for one sole purpose. There could absolutely be more but mostly these three. The teen movie or TV show where everyone is extremely mature and witty and everyone gets together with the unlikely objects of their affections (Pretty in Pink, Gossip Girl, etc. forever). Then there’s the romantic comedy where “the one who got away” returns and it’s all happy ever after (There’s Something About Mary, Reality Bites <Damn it Ethan Hawke>, etc.), or the one where the protagonist falls in love with someone who’s with someone else, and it never fails that this “someone else” is HORRIBLE (Titanic, Wedding Crashers, etc.)  

The sole purpose is (except in rare cases where these people actually lived these fantastic lives, in which case they can go fuck themselves, because really, ugh) the writer of the script regrets the way they handled a situation in their actual life. Well, this is my theory, but I think it’s pretty legit. I had this idea the other day when I started watching The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I mean, there is a lot of fantasy involved in that show, but what I picked up on is how intelligent and well put together these kids in the show are. There is a part where they’re all seated at Dr. Cerberus’ Bookstore and they’re debating whether or not David Cronenberg’s The Fly is about body dysmorphia or STD’s. I 100% can’t imagine having that conversation at 16. I was too busy trying to be the punkest person on Earth at that time and all I talked about was boys and which musical guest was going to be on Late Night With Conan O’Brien.  Did I just lead a different life than these people, or am I onto something here?

Now, let’s talk about “the one who got away.” I’ve had plenty of ones that got away and it’s probably a damn good thing that they ended up leaving and staying gone, and yet I still harken back to basically any Ethan Hawke movie from the 90’s and think, well, I should see what ole so and so is up to just so I can fulfill my cat-like curiosity and then dwell on it for one-hundred-thousand hours.

When I was growing up, my parents got divorced twice. Well once for real, and then the second time it was a common-law divorce. Additionally, my mom would often take back men she had previously written off because she wanted to give them a second chance. At some point in my teen years, I vowed I would “never” do that because I saw how it never ended up working out for my mom and seemed to be a waste of time.

However, I gave many people who probably didn’t deserve it multiple chances, maybe because it’s true we all turn into our parents, or because I believed that just like in Reality Bites, some Troy Dyer would come stand at the foot of my driveway and tell me he loves me after doing some gloriously fucked up thing that drove me to do something that is the equivalent of running up a huge phone bill with a psychic hotline. I never had the advent of a seemingly perfect Ben Stiller as Michael in my life, until recently.

It’s weird when you go through a certain amount of hoops to get into a relationship with someone. The beginnings of any romantic entanglement are so cinematic and lyrical, but I was never told how to stay in a relationship once you get into one. I grew up where all relationships ended abruptly or seemed alien and weird grown-up things that I didn’t care about. I thought that living with someone and being in love was the end-all-be-all of existence but guess what, that’s dumb. I was over 30 when I figured out this was not the case…. arrested development is not just the name of a band and a TV show, y’all. Relationships take work, and they don’t make problems disappear. They make them easier to deal with, but it’s not all wine and roses. There are some movies that touch on this reality, but not enough.

Instead of telling us how to stay in a long-term relationship, movies often teach us that if our partner has some quality that doesn’t live up to our expectations, some perfect hero is going to appear out of nowhere to rescue us from the bad choice we made. Hello, Billy Zane in Titanic!

The thing is, that in reality, Rose would’ve concocted this entire fantasy of Jack in her head, while staying right by Cal Hockley’s side and trying to remember how awesome it is to have a rich, handsome fiancé, even though he’s an asshole. Jack would have lived because he would’ve found the floating door. Rose and Cal would’ve got on the first lifeboats and they all would’ve lived miserably ever after. This story doesn’t win Academy Awards however. Also to touch on Wedding Crashers, in what world except for the fictional one set before us in this film would Owen Wilson get the girl over Bradley Cooper? Anyway….

Basically, movies are not typically touchstones on how to live your life, which I wish I could’ve figured out before I had so many failed relationships. There are some that are incredibly inspiring and have great messages, but more often than not, they’re fantasy scenarios that people wrote because that’s what they wish they could’ve done. If my theory is correct, I guess I have plenty of my own extremely unrealistic screenplays to write, so I’m going to go ahead and get to it.

[lechevaliermalfet]

Rise, and Escape – A Long Look at Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter

Quick note: This deep dive write-up was originally posted elsewhere in May of 2015.  I’m polishing it for reposting here.  In addition, for those interested, a while back I recorded a podcast-type thing for a project called Pause Menu Monologues, which was being done by an acquaintance of mine.  Said monologue was derived from a cut-down version of this effortpost.  For those interested, you can listen to that here. Now, on to the main event.

As I prepare to leave my current job for another with far better opportunities, it feels tremendously appropriate to talk yet again about a game premised almost entirely on the idea of escape.

I’ve written about Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter before, but it was requested that I write about it again.  It was @squeemcsquee making the request, so I listened more than usual.  I’m sure I’ll probably wind up saying a lot of the same things I said on the first go-‘round, but who knows?

Well, here’s something I didn’t say before this writing: When I first introduced her to Dragon Quarter, she got into it.  Really into it.  Given her relative inexperience with Japanese role-playing games, this was surprising to me; it’s so different from the usual run of JRPGs, especially as the genre stood in about 2003 or so when the game first came out.  Contrarian that I am (at times), that’s part of what endeared it to me.  But as she pointed out, the things that made it seem out of the ordinary to me meant very little to her.  She didn’t have much “ordinary” to compare it against.

Unfortunately, watching her play it made me want to play it also.  Part of this is the natural (and deeply unfortunate) backseat-driving instinct I have whenever I’m watching someone do something that I’m familiar with, but feel they could be doing better, and in fact, if they’d just let me have the controller for a few minutes, I could show them exactly how… But part of it was also just that seeing the game played really made me want to be playing it myself.  This presented a problem, what with us having only the one copy.  It led to arguments.  Not, like, real arguments, but not exactly cutesy fun arguments, either.  We did, at the time, have both a working PlayStation 2 and a backward-compatible PlaySation 3, so it was only owning just the one copy of the game that was really a problem.  So the solution was pretty simple.

That’s how good it is. Dragon Quarter: The game so nice, we bought it twice.

Technically, we only bought the game once.  I bought it when it first came out, back in early 2003.  I played it for a while, and while it was pretty to look at, and it had good music, and the setting was interesting, it just didn’t come together for me.  Despite this, I had no desire to trade it in.  I had the feeling I was onto something good, though I couldn’t quite grasp it at the time.

I hadn’t had much experience with the Breath of Fire series then. I owned a copy of Breath of Fire IV, which was really the first game in the series that I even tried to tackle seriously.  Having unwillingly skipped over the 16-bit generation (owning a TurboGrafx-16 and five games hardly counts), my impression of the series at that time could basically be described as “like Final Fantasy, only not quite as inventive”.  It perhaps wasn’t a fair assessment, but I was basing this on the opinions of friends and acquaintances; I was unable to draw my own conclusions.  Still, I liked Breath of Fire IV well enough, even outside of some positive personal associations, so I hung on to Dragon Quarter, feeling relatively certain that one day, I would get the itch to try it again.

As it happened, I did, a couple years down the line.  The story and the characters were calling to me, and this time, everything finally clicked.

It probably helped that, around that time, I was beginning to become aware that JRPGs as a genre were becoming (or more likely, always had been) deeply conservative in terms of design, as well as character and story archetypes.  Realistically, this has probably been the case since the days of the original Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Phantasy Star.  But I got into these types of games in late 1998 with Final Fantasy VII; I was new to the genre in those days, so even things that were rote and by-the-numbers were fresh and new to me then. And in fairness, I’ve enjoyed a number of these types of games.  But by this time, I found myself wanting games in the genre to branch out and do something new.  So many of the mechanical mainstays of the genre, the “traditions” of JRPG design, began life as frankly clunky workarounds for technology that wasn’t really up to giving us a less abstract simulation of the expected features of a fantasy adventure: travel, exploration, fighting monsters, finding treasure, getting new and more powerful gear, and saving the world and any number of princesses.  If you wanted to simulate all of these things on older hardware, you had to have a certain amount of abstraction.  So you had your turn-based battles, your random encounters, and so on, and so forth.

By the PS2 era, the technology was rapidly growing beyond the need to adhere to these ancient abstractions for any reason other than nostalgia’s sake.  It had been doing this for some time – Chrono Trigger jettisoned random encounters back in the mid-90s, but despite the universal acclaim that game received, no one seemed terribly interested in implementing any of its innovations elsewhere.  Developers were, by and large, unwilling to grow out of those old ways.  In part this might be down to the reluctance of their audience (or at least a very vocal portion of it) to part ways with those same traditions.  But whatever the reason, the result was the same: stagnation. Or so it felt to me.

I wanted something that was different from the JRPGs I’d played before.  Something that still offered the thought and planning that went into playing an RPG of any kind, something with a good story and interesting characters, but which went off the beaten path and did something different.

And so, in late 2004 or maybe early 2005, two years after I originally bought it, tried it, and hung it up for the foreseeable future, I started playing Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter again.

It’s an odd beast, this game, even when you look at it in the context of its own series.  All the more so, really.  The earliest Breath of Fire games got compared to the 8- and 16-bit Final Fantasy games, at least by most of the people I knew back then.  Really, a more apt comparison would be to Dragon Quest, but I hadn’t played any of those games, and I was part of a group of friends who oddly lacked much experience with that series, so maybe nobody was in a position to make that particular comparison.  With most of my friends, Dragon Quest (then known as Dragon Warrior due to trademark issues; I feel so old sometimes) was always “That game where you grind for hours and hours and then you finally say ‘fuck this!’ and go do something else, maybe play Final Fantasy or go outside or something, I dunno”.

Anyway, the whole series up to this point had been pretty standard high-fantasy fare, with the unique selling point being the main character’s ability to transform into a dragon. Most of the game mechanics beyond this were pretty straightforward.  My experience with the series at large was pretty much limited to some time spent on the fourth game, and some time spent goofing off with ROMs of the first two out of idle and quickly satisfied curiosity.

One other consistent feature of the series is that the main character, the aforementioned dragon-transforming person, is always a young blue-haired swordsman named Ryu, and there is always a blonde, winged young lady named Nina who typically focuses on magic. Additional characters tend to be of all shapes, sizes, and species.

Dragon Quarter, by contrast, occurs in a future dystopia where humankind, having pretty much destroyed the environment through the use of biologically engineered weapons called dragons, has retreated to a single subterranean dwelling called Sheldar.  There, they survive as best they can.

In this society, everyone is given a rank, called a D-ratio.  On the surface of things, this ratio is a measure of one’s current ability and future potential, and places limits on their social standing, the kinds of jobs they can hold, places they can live, and overall determining just exactly how high they can rise in the world, figuratively and literally.

“Low-Ds”, that is, people with low D-ratios, live further down in this habitat.  The air is worse, people’s lifespans are shorter, and there are occasionally monsters called genics that roam around down there.  The people with high D-ratios live closer to the surface where the air is better and things are generally less dangerous. A nice touch is that, especially in cut scenes, the game is literally more hazy and grimy, visually, the further down you are.  As you go up, the environments gradually become clearer and brighter.  It happens bit by bit, so you may not notice it the first time through, but if you finish the game and start over again, the difference stands out.

One of the few story beats to be preserved is our hero: Ryu.  Here, he’s a low-D ranger, whose job mainly seems to involve security and hunting down genics.  His D-ratio is abysmally low: 1/8,192.  His current job is the very highest he can hope to achieve.  He’s partnered with another young man named Bosch, D-ratio 1/64. While Ryu is effectively at the very limit of how far he can rise in the world, Bosch is only at the beginning.  A D-ratio as high as his means he can potentially qualify to become a Regent, one of the four rulers of this underground world. Bosch is basically just paying his dues here.  He’s friendly enough to Ryu, in a condescending sort of way, which Ryu mostly just shrugs off.  What else is he going to do?

While reporting for an assignment with Bosch, Ryu succumbs to a brief fugue, in which he has a vision. He sees the decaying remains of a giant dragon spiked to a wall.  Despite clearly being dead, the dragon seems to talk to Ryu, mind-to-mind, though what it says to him makes virtually no sense at the time.  Not long after, Ryu comes across the real thing, though it is very visibly dead and inanimate.

A terrorist attack splits up Ryu and Bosch, and shortly thereafter, Ryu runs into this game’s version of Nina, as well as a member of the resistance movement Trinity, named Lin. She seeks Nina for her own – or rather Trinity’s – purposes.  The three form an unlikely but highly effective team.  But allying himself with these two has its consequences, and by the time Ryu and Bosch reunite, circumstances have made them into enemies. Bosch is a good fighter, and he has plenty of allies with him, but Ryu refuses to betray his new comrades. Thankfully, his encounter with the dragon was no mere dream or hallucination.  Unbeknownst to him, it has bestowed him with awesome power… and a deadline.

With every passing moment, the monstrous dragon power lurking within Ryu grows more prominent, threatening to overcome him.  While Ryu is in control, he can transform into a bestial form capable of slaughtering even bosses within just a couple of rounds of combat.  But drawing on that power accelerates its progress in overtaking him.

And so, with all hands turned against him, Ryu, Lin, and Nina have ultimately just a single option: Escape.

One of the things that I like about Dragon Quarter – one of many, many things – is the way that the game’s more prominent mechanics and its story are so closely intertwined.

The dragon power bestowed upon Ryu early into the game isn’t just a narrative device or story element, coming out only when dramatically convenient.  It’s also a game mechanic, in the form of what the game calls a D-counter. This is a number, a percentage, that appears in the corner of the screen.   As you play, it slowly ticks up toward 100 in intervals of a hundredth of a percent.  Everything you do in the game causes it to increase.  Everything.  Every 24 or 25 steps will cause it to increase by one interval.  Later in the game, this happens every dozen steps or so.  Ryu’s special D-dash ability, which allows him to avoid enemy combat, causes it to tick up faster.  Transforming, all by itself, raises the counter, and any actions taken while transformed increase it by whole-number percentages.  It is literally overpowered.  What I mentioned about crushing bosses in just a couple of turns was not hyperbole.  I’ve done it.  It’s basically my end-game strategy.

There is no way to drop the counter.  Ever. There are no items, no spells, no techniques which will allow you to reset it or undo any of its progress.  It just sits up there in the corner, slowly increasing and glowing ever more furiously as the number grows.  The tension between the temptation to use it whenever you’re in a bind and the punishing consequences of that use can be exquisite.

When I first heard Dragon Quarter described as a survival-horror RPG, it didn’t make sense to me.  But that’s mainly because I associated the mechanical elements of most of the survival-horror games I’d played with the more thematic elements of horror.  And there are horrific moments and images in Dragon Quarter; the world of the game is not a happy place, and its maintenance is not easily or cleanly done.  But that horror is mainly a consequence of the world-building; it’s not the point of the game.

The key here, I think, is the word “survival”.  You might more accurately call Dragon Quarter a survival-RPG, except it’s basically the only one of its kind that I know of.  It’s kind of hard to wrangle a whole genre out of that.

At their heart, survival-horror games generally “work” based on two principles.

The first is the fragility of the player character relative to other types of games, and relative to the enemies within the game.  You are not the hero of a more action-oriented game, who can take maybe a dozen sword strokes straight to the face and just keep going, or who can withstand a hail of gunfire and duck behind cover for a few seconds while your shields recharge.  Here, the player is reduced to a much more even footing with the enemies.  Every bit of damage taken is a significant setback that needs to be planned around, either to prevent it or to deal with it when it happens.  Every attack must be calculated.  This is because of the second principle, which is resource management.

The in-game resources, both those which you use to preserve yourself and those you use to eliminate your enemies, are finite.  So they must be spent wisely, frugally.  Because of this, you are constantly required to take a measured, careful approach to any situation.  You can never just blithely wander around; to do so invites disaster twice over.  In the short term, you risk serious harm, leaving yourself vulnerable to future threats.  In the long term, if you come out of the situation relatively unscathed, it’s generally at some expense of resources, leaving you ill-prepared for future encounters.  Carelessness becomes indistinguishable from suicide.

This puts pressure on the player to play extremely well at all times by punishing mistakes immediately and brutally.  As a result, some of the typical elements of JRPGs are missing.

There are no healing spells or techniques.  All healing – whether restoring health or curing negative status effects – is accomplished by way of expendable (and frequently pricey) items.  And you have to consider how often (if at all) you’ll be using some of these items, because inventory space is limited, and multiple items of a single type don’t “stack” very much before requiring another inventory slot.  And, naturally, the usual economics of JRPGs are in full effect.  Whatever you get for selling an item is a pitiful fraction of what it costs you to buy.

The game offers you the ability to use bait and traps to lure enemies into a position of compromise and get the drop on them, but even these need to be used sparingly.  There’s hardly enough for every encounter.

Interestingly, the game knows exactly how difficult it is, and gives you something of a way around the problem.

As with most RPGs of any kind, Japanese or otherwise, you earn experience points, new equipment, and new abilities as you go through the game.  In addition, Dragon Quarter also gives you what’s called Party XP.  Basically, this is experience you can dole out to party members as you like to boost their levels.

Should you find yourself in a situation where you can’t progress without either having your party wiped or running the D-counter up to 100% (which, if it hasn’t become obvious by now, is an instant Game Over), you have the option to do what’s called a SOL Restart.  This restarts the game from the beginning, but lets you keep all the equipment and skills you’ve learned, as well as any Party XP you still have.  This gives you get a fresh start while retaining your improved gear, and the Party XP lets you give yourself a boost in the early stretches.

There’s also an option to restore a previous hard save along these same lines.  Dragon Quarter allows “soft” saves anywhere, but these are temporary by design.  Once loaded, these saves disappear.  There are only a few “hard” save points, from which you can restore at will, and to which you will be returned with a SOL Restore.

If this sounds ridiculous for what is typically a long-form type of game, it may help to understand that Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is only about eight to ten hours long from start to finish on a single play through, once you know what you’re doing.  Even with a couple of full-blown restarts, you’ll be spending no more time on Dragon Quarter than any other game from the same time period.  Less, probably.

Writing this now, I just about want to say that Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter was Dark Souls before Dark Souls really existed. There’s a certain similarity in that both games are more difficult than usual while still being relatively fair, and in the expectation that you will die, probably more than once, and that rather than being a tragedy, it’s simply an instructive part of the experience. Or in the case of Dragon Quarter, you’ll experience (probably more than once) a situation in which death is basically a given should you continue, and the smart thing would be to cut your losses and restart.

Dragon Quarter’s infliction of pressure extends even to the representation of the game’s characters and world.

Most characters have a skinny, almost emaciated appearance.  Part of this is simple stylization, of course, but it still contributes to the overall effect.  These people live a thin and narrow existence, it says, devoid of the expansive pleasures humankind was meant to enjoy.  There is a grimness and a quiet desperation underlying it all.

The world itself is a fucking hole.  Corridors in the lower areas are littered with random junk and debris; it’s best not to think what it might all actually be.  The air is hazy and grimy, and things have a sort of cobbled-together look that just makes the whole place look cramped and dingy and uncomfortable. In these lower areas, everything looks like it’s about one stern look away from falling right apart.  The upper areas are cleaner, more solid, but can seem so sterile and strictly designed as to be hostile.  Dragon Quarter does a wonderful job of creating a world you want to get the hell out of as soon as you can.

It’s ironic, really. Most games, I play to escape from the troubles and stresses in my life.  And most games oblige this desire.  Even the ones that take place in barren wastelands tend to take place in gorgeously rendered barren wastelands that encourage you to examine every carefully tailored nook and cranny.  They’re an invitation to exploration and adventure, and are “barren” or “waste” only as a matter of aesthetics.

But limitation and escape are the central themes in this game, and a world in which such themes are explored must be more than a background or a prop.  

The world is limited in its size; an RPG with little to no detectable exploration, comprised mainly of tunnels and rooms, and a single clear direction and objective at all times.  The player's inventory of supplies is likewise limited, in keeping with the surival horror influence.  The player is frequently required to prioritize, and ditch whatever they aren't likely to use based on their play style.  Care must be taken by the player to work within these limits.

Narratively speaking, the story also explores the idea of limitations.  Ryu himself embodies these limits.  His D-ratio is among the lowest of the low.  His place in society, the ways in which he can define and express himself, how he can live – all of these things have strict limits placed on them. And this dragon entity, Odjn…  As much as it much as it appears to be the key to his salvation, as much as it empowers him to break all barriers and overcome or destroy all opposition, it limits him as well.  It puts a countdown on his life, ticking down the hours he has left until... well, until whatever horrific thing might happen when Odjn gains total control and breaks free.  

And in the end, the characters decide to break free of these limits placed on them by the world by breaking free of the world itself, to smash through the ceiling of it and see once and for all what lies beyond its narrow, choking confines.

Dragon Quarter is a game about escape.

Ultimately, this is a large part of what interests me about the story of Dragon Quarter, what keeps me coming back.  Rather than a big, trampling save-the-world epic, it’s about a group of characters who just want out.  This is a smaller story, a “tiny tale of time”, as the game itself tells us in its opening narration. It’s huge in its implications for its world and its characters.  It’s great in the scope of the ideas it asks its characters to contemplate.  (It flirts with Gnosticism, which immediately grabs my interest).  It that sense, at least, it does involve the end of the world, in one way or another.  But the scale is smaller, and the characters strike me as being more real because of it.

Ryu, Lin, and Nina don’t want to fight anybody.  There’s at least one memorable occasion where Ryu, surrounded by enemies, asks why they can’t just let him and his friends go.  The character animations in Dragon Quarter aren’t spectacular, but they get the job done here.  There’s something about the way that Ryu asks his question that seems to have layers.  On one layer, he seems mentally, psychologically exhausted from the strain of all the fighting, and the toll all the deaths he’s dealt out has taken on him.  On yet a deeper layer, he seems equally exhausted from fighting the thing inside him that threatens to take over and destroy him.

They aren’t trying to harm anybody.  And it seems reasonable just to let them go, on the one hand.  But on the other, there is the major problem that letting Ryu and company out of this subterranean pit will completely upend the social order – will end this idea of the world – purely as a side-effect of his escape.  Because the underlying problem with Ryu’s world is a variant on the same problem that keeps people in dead-end jobs and abusive relationships long beyond the point when, logically, they should be getting out.

Fear.

The world of Dragon Quarter is, as previously stated, an absolute, utter shithole in purely objective terms.  Even the people in charge don’t seem to be enjoying themselves much.  And it’s because everyone seems to be in unspoken agreement that even if the current circumstances are awful, at least they’re familiar awful circumstances.  It’s possible that things are better on the surface, but it’s just as possible that they aren’t.  It’s just as possible that they’re far worse.  This, at least, is the devil we know.

Even one of the main villains, the ruler of this subterranean nightmare, is ruled by fear. A thousand years before the story proper, he was given the opportunity to open this world to the surface.  But he backed down.  In his fear that the world above might still be the barren wasteland people left ages ago, he turned back at the final moment, sentencing himself and everyone in the underground to remain in it indefinitely.

There’s an anime I like quite a bit – it’s probably my favorite, really – called Revolutionary Girl Utena, and in it there is a bit of dialogue that is recited so often it’s practically a ritual.  It goes like this:

“If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without ever being born.  We are the chick.  The world is our egg.  If we don’t crack the world’s shell, we will die without ever truly being born.  Smash the shell, for the world revolution.”

This is actually a paraphrase from the Hermann Hesse novel Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth (usually just known as Demian), in which it’s put this way:

“The bird struggles out of the egg.  The egg is a world.  Who would be born must first destroy a world.  The bird then flies to God.  That god’s name is Abraxas.”

To go up, to go out, to rise, to escape: This is an act of tremendous faith.

[freespiritcreations]

The Long Lost Diary of Teenaged Yaya

Hey guys, how have you all been? As for me, for the past few weeks, I’ve been watching a lot of films pertaining to youth culture. I’ve seen all of the episodes of HBO Max’s “Euphoria” (2019), along with the movies “The Breakfast Club” (1985), “Mean Girls” (2004), “Mid-90’s” (2018), and “KIDS” (1995). Although all of these films take place at different times periods, their portrayal of youth culture is not too different from my reality. 

 I can definitely say that there were some characters who go through certain life experiences that I can relate too. Especially Kat Hernandez from the tv series Euphoria. Kat is a chubby girl who struggles with receiving and accepting love from other boys. She is also insecure about her weight, and confused about her identity. I personally know how it feels to grow up like Kat.

First of all, I too had that one summer as a middle schooler where I came back twenty pounds heavier. Most of the boys in my former middle school found me repulsive because of my size.

Also, like most girls, I was curious about the concept of human intimacy. There were times when I would express my fantasies through creating explicit drawings and writing odd stories. However, my drawings never pertained to any acts of sexual activities. Instead, they were drawings of sensual looking sonic characters. 

Most of the time, I would draw a specific character that I named Miu. Miu was supposed to be a cross between a lion and a wolf because those were my two favorite animals. 

I choose to draw anamorphic characters because it was like I was creating a world where everyone was imperfect and perfect at the same time. Every time I would draw, it felt like I was escaping to a world where everyone was a mess. But, we were all beautiful creatures because of our differences inside and out. 

In a way, Miu was drawn to be who I envisioned to look like and to become. I was incredibly insecure about the way I looked. Unlike Kat, I stopped growing when I was only twelve years old. So, I will forever be four feet and eleven inches tall. And, being fat and short at the same time doesn’t mix so well. Because of this, consistently drawing Miu was comforting to me.

As far as my stories, they too were also a bit different from Kat’s writings . I would often write fanfiction novels that were based off of my own life. For example, I would write love stories about me and whoever I had a crush on. In those stories, we could be in the world of Pokemon, Inuyasha, or any other anime shows. Yeah, I know, I was a very weird yet creative pre-teen. However, I didn’t have the balls to post them like Kat did.

As far as my stories, they too were also a bit different from Kat’s writings . I would often write fanfiction novels that were based off of my own life. For example, I would write love stories about me and whoever I had a crush on. In those stories, we could be in the world of Pokemon, Inuyasha, or any other anime shows. Yeah, I know, I was a very weird yet creative pre-teen. However, I didn’t have the balls to post them like Kat did.

As I got older, I had similar experiences in promiscuity too Kat. Just like her, it felt empowering to have some type of sexual control over guys. In fact, the more I felt that way, the more my identity started to change. I went from looking like a geeky nerd, to looking like a 80’s high school dropout, and finally I look like some kind of urban looking goth chic. My identity change increased my confidence over the past years.

However, that type of lifestyle does have its drawbacks. Similar to Kat ,after some time it became harder for me to recognize boys who actually had genuine feelings for me. I would try to push away those who showed me a lot of affection because I often feel like it’s a set up. Because of this, it is difficult for me to accept that kind of attention from guys. Overall, I can relate to most of Kat’s youthful experiences.

In addition to Kat’s personal experience, I’ve noticed a few common themes that these films share. These themes include teenage rebellion, drug abuse and dealing with relationship issues. Although these themes were portrayed in a fictional setting, they do resemble traits of contemporary youth culture. I can even relate to these themes from my own personal adolescent experiences.

I’m pretty sure most teenagers go through the challenges or phases at one point or another. Just like in the films, there was at least one character that had gone through these issues. For instance, Bender from The Breakfast Club had a reputation of being a bully and causing trouble. His behavior resulted from his unstable home life. Rue Bennette from Euphoria started abusing drugs once her family was breaking up. Stevie from Mid-90’s started hanging around a rowdy crowd because had no one else to look up to. Maddy from Euphoria continued to stay in a toxic relationship even though she was aware of it’s conditions. In a way, my adolescent life was similar to theirs.

 I can say that I definitely went through a rebellious phase by the time I was in high school. However, there were certain situations that lead up to that point that were similar to Rue Bennette from Euphoria and Stevie from Mid-90’s. When I was about ten years old, my parents had gotten into a nasty divorce. Not too long after, my step dad Fritz came into my life. His presence had felt threatening at first because I feared that he was going to replace my dad. Around the same time, I was diagnosed with bipolar depression. At the time, my mom treated me like another mental patient. My dad wasn’t really around, and my step father didn’t understand my mental illness. My moods started to become so unpredictable that it was extremely hard to hold onto friendships.

 By the time I was fifthteen years old, I started to smoke weed, sneak out at night, sneak boys inside my room, get into physical altercations, steal from others, and unexplainably start irrational arguments. It seemed like the only thing I didn't do was let my grades drop. Somehow, I was able to maintain a high GPA while acting like a tyrant. 

By that time, I had an estranged relationship with my family. My mom and I would constantly fight almost every other day. Although my step dad tried his hardest to earn my trust, I continued to resent him as my father. My little sister was so hellbent into tarnishing my reputation, that she would vindictively tell my friends and her own that I was crazy and to stay away from me. She would also purposely pick fights with me in front of her friends, so I could respond irrationally in front of them. She would do this just to further prove her point about me.

I felt so alone when I was a teenager, so I decided to look for acceptance elsewhere. I started to sleep around with boys who I knew were emotionally unstable trouble-makers. I also started to hang around gang affiliated teenagers with no ambition to better themselves. It had felt like my family, friends, and even my own teachers had seen me as no different from them because of my mental illness. So, I thought that that was where I belonged. They lost hope for me, so I began to lose hope in myself. I didn’t care where my actions would lead me, I just wanted to be a part of something. Even if I had to hurt or deceive others just to feel like I mattered to someone.

That’s what I thought at first, until my rebellious behavior caught up with me. When I was seventeen, there was one guy who I had a friends-with-benefits type of relationship with. He pretended to be interested in me, so he could find out where I lived. He had teamed up with my so-called “friends,” and they all robbed my family while we were at my brother’s wedding. That was the same day that I found out my step father’s cancer had gotten worse, and he was going to die soon.

Fritz died the day before Thanksgiving that year. His passing inspired me to better myself. I stopped being around a bad crowd, and began to improve my behavior.

That’s when I met the love of my life Cristian in my late teenage years. We had gotten so close because we both lost a parent to cancer the same year. As well as that, we both suffered from bipolar disorder. It actually felt like someone understood me for once in my life. I was finally receiving the love I’ve been longing for. What made things better was that he actually loved me for who I am and not just for my body. He even accepted my past as well.

That’s when I met the love of my life Cristian in my late teenage years. We had gotten so close because we both lost a parent to cancer the same year. As well as that, we both suffered from bipolar disorder. It actually felt like someone understood me for once in my life. I was finally receiving the love I’ve been longing for. What made things better was that he actually loved me for who I am and not just for my body. He even accepted my past as well.

However, because neither of us were receiving professional help for our disorder, we would often engage in violent fights and arguments. Eventually, we were engaged to be married, but our relationship was falling apart at the same time. I started to smoke weed nonstop. It felt like for the entire two years I was constantly high. I can’t even remember a time when I was sober for an entire day back then. I even started to experiment with other harder drugs, such as ecstasy, cocaine, and LSD. I was in denial that my life was falling apart. I wanted to num the painful thoughts of losing my father, my family’s trust again, my relationship and my mind.

Eventually, I stepped out of the relationship which ultimately ended it. I began to rebel again which pushed people away from me even more. When I had gotten arrested and was facing pending charges, that’s when I vowed to myself to regain my life again no matter what challenges I faced. I started to seek professional help, and I even regained my family’s trust again. I was gaining back the friendships that I had lost, and I started smoking weed only once a day.

It had seemed like my life was getting back to normal, until I saw Cristian again. The last time I had seen him, we had gotten into a very bad fight which stopped us from communicating for at least a year. When I saw him, we cleared the air and squashed any kind of bad blood we had for each other. He wanted to get back together with me, but I declined his advances. He was still persistent in wanting to at least regain a friendship again. So, we decided to work on that. That night, something inside of me told me to hug him, but something was preventing me from doing so. I wish I had given him that hug because he died two weeks later from a drug overdose.

The night of his candle lighting ceremony, his best friend told me that he had seen him the same night he passed away. He told me that Cristian was talking about me that night. Apparently, Cristian was telling him that he was excited that him and I were friends again. He also told me that Cristian’s plan was to get back together with me. That was the last time someone had ever loved me.

So yeah, my adolescent life was an absolute mess. To be honest, this entire experience was incredibly traumatizing for me. But, after watching those films, it made me realize that somewhere in the world, I’m not the only one that goes through hard times. I truly believe that the themes from these films resonate with the ugly side of contemporary youth culture.

On another note, the soundtrack for Euphoria had greatly impacted the narrative of the story entirely. I mean, what doesn’t go well with music nowadays. Soundtracks have a way of further emphasizing the focal point of a story. Especially, when the lyrics and meaning to a song matches perfectly with the situation at hand, as well as the movements being seen in the film. A soundtrack with these qualities emotionally connects an audience to the characters in order to empathize with what they are going through.

If I could pick ten songs to put on a soundtrack based on my adolescent life experiences, they would all be songs that were made at different time periods, including the ones that weren’t out yet at the time.

The first song I would choose for my soundtrack would be “lovely” by Billie Ellish and Khalid. The song is about being in a dark place in life and wanting to get out of it. This song is a perfect example of how I felt when I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder. During that time, I was battling depression because of my parents divorce. Not only that, I was being severely bullied while I was in middle school for liking anime. Other students would harass me and leave death threats in my locker. They would do this because they also accused me of being a lesiban just for watching anime. My mental illness had gotten so bad that I was in and out of hospitals, homeschooled, and then eventually placed in special education classes just for having a mental illness. I was at the lowest point of my life and often had thoughts of suicde. I wanted so desperately to be happy again like how I was when I was kid. I wanted to live a life of no worries and  live shamelessly, but I didn’t know if I was ever going to overcome my depression.

The second song of my choice would be “Drop the World” by Lil Wayne and Eminem. The song is about letting out your frustration on society  by reatulationg on the world around you. Like I mentioned before, by the time I was in high school, I went through a rebellious phase. I made careless and risky decisions because of how isolated I had felt from society. I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about how I felt, so I would bottom up all of my emotions until I would lash out on people. After a while, my behavior became a part of me. I turned into a selfish narcissistic person who wouldn’t listen to reason. I was so full of anger because of how I was being treated, so I began to treat everyone around me horribly in retaliation.

The third song of my choice is “Under the Influence” by Chris Brown. This song is basically about the feeling of being high while undergoing sexual intercourse. It also explains how his sex appael had gotten his partner lustfully addicted to him. Obviously, I won't go into too much detail, but this song describes exactly how I felt during my promiscuous adventures. For the most part, I was extremely high during those circumstances. I did it in order to not feel so guilty about my activities while feeling extremely relaxed during the process. In a way, it was just another addiction. It was also just another outlet for me to num the pain. Even so, the guys would not get enough of me.  For some reason, they just keep coming back for more even years later. Somehow, I became extremely desirable amongst the boys in my class despite my weight.

Anyways, the fourth song would be “idontwannabeyouanymore” by Billie Ellish. In a nutshell, the song is about how girls negatively envision themselves based on discouraging criticisms of their appearance. After the robbery situation, I began to reevaluate my life and who I was becoming. It took me sometime to realize that I did not like who I was becoming. I had even heard numerous rumors about myself regarding my sexual prerogative. A lot of people started to call me a whore, and I started to become ashamed of myself. However, I didn’t want to change that specific aspect about myself. I didn’t understand why it was okay for boys to be sexually active but not for girls. I wanted to change my behavior, but I didn’t want to completely change who I am. I wanted to accept my interests while becoming a better person.

My fifth song of choice would be “Heaven” by Beyonce. The title itself is pretty self explanatory, but overall the song is about losing a loved one. My step father was one of the best guys I’ve ever met in my life. He stepped in to be a father figure when my biological father walked out of my life. He was a smart, kind hearted, and considerate man. When he passed away, I was in denial about his death for about three months. Once I came into terms with it, the only way I was able to handle it was by telling myself that he was no longer suffering or in pain. Additionally, this song was already prior to his passing. Therefore, I found a lot of comfort with this song while I was grieving his loss.

The sixth song for my soundtrack would be “Love Yourz” by J. Cole. For a long time, I used to compare my appearance and life with other students who I thought were better than me. During my first healing process, I was starting to become grateful for the challenges I was beginning to overcome. I also tried telling myself that things could be worse off, and I tried to love myself for who I am while I was trying to improve myself. This song relates to a lot of what I dealt with during my healing process.

The seventh song for my playlist would be “How to Love” by Lil Wayne. The lyrics in this song remind me a lot of a reflection of my earlier troubled teenage life. If you listen to the song, the rapper talks about how men play a role in the way women view themselves and behave. Looking back, I can say that the lack of affection from my biological father had definitely impacted my life negatively. It had shaped me into becoming the person who I was. I honestly didn’t realize how much that had affected me until I started going to therapy. That goes to show how much an absent father can affect a young woman's life.

The eighth song would be “Losin Control” by Russ. This song elaborates how a toxic relationship affects the way a woman handles a stable one. When I first got with Cristian, I didn’t know how to accept his love and affection. I would accuse him of similar accusations that the previous men in my life have committed. However, Crisitan remained as patient as he could with me. Even when we would argue, he also made sure that we never went to bed angry. At the end, Cristian really did love me for who I am. He also didn’t know how to handle it because of his past trauma.

The ninth song for my soundtrack would be “WE ARE CHAOS” by Marilyn Manson. The gist of this song is that people are naturally a mess, and there’s nothing we can do about it. When my relationship with failing and my life was spiraling out of control, I started to lose touch with reality. Because I was constantly high, I didn’t feel like I was living. I felt like I was existing. It was like I was no different than a piece of furniture. I was there but I am not here, if that makes sense to you.

The final song I would choose for my soundtrack would be “Keep Holding On” by the cast of Glee. There are a couple of reasons why I choose this song. The first reason is because of the meaning of the song. This song inspires me to continue to move forward through bad situations. It also reminds me that I’m never alone, and that I have people in my life that have my back no matter what. The second reason is because the show Glee is one of my favorite comfort shows. That show has helped me overcome a lot of obstacles in my life. This also includes the episode when the characters had performed while singing that specific song. That sentimental moment has helped me so much when I used to watch it in high school.

Well that’s enough blogging for one day. Thank you for taking the time out of your day by reading what the hell I had to say. This blog post really lets you inside of my personal past, so please do not judge me for that. I am who I am. And, I’m no longer ashamed of my past. I hope this post inspires you and others to live your best life unapologetically no matter how you grew up. Don’t forget to not let your past or any mental illness define you as a person. You are more than that, and that’s what makes you special. Talk to you guys another time.