#which isn’t to say that she/other musicians aren’t trying to make sure their concepts are cohesive and clearly communicated

[windowsloth]

i love ethel cain’s music, but it reminds that me that I don’t love the way fans can get really insistent on the “correct” interpretation of a concept album

[nvvermore]

I Just Wanna Get a Little Bit Closer

What I Need Is A Good Defense [ by @vissenta-senadz] from Amaryllis’s point of view

words: 2920

cw:

accompaniment

—

Amaryllis is just leaving a disagreeable afternoon tea with Vesper when they spot the countess and an unfamiliar face in the palace halls.

Thanks to the events of said tea, they’d become quite irritable, and while it wasn’t exactly their brother’s fault, he had always excelled at not knowing when to back off. Though ‘tea’ was the nice way to put it, as thanks to the topic of discussion the wine got pulled out by Vesper about halfway through. Part peace offering, part neither of them could bear to talk about their parents completely sober.

Now, Amaryllis had planned to skip dinner, instead pondering between hiding away in their practice room or even calling it a day and going straight to bed. But the very pretty stranger trailing behind Deirdra piques their interest enough for them to at least get an introduction.

“Vissenta, I’d love for you to meet our court musician. Amaryllis, this is Vissenta...” she frowns and turns to her guest, “what was it? Sa-“

“Senadz.” Vissenta answers quickly, too quickly for how little she’d been paying attention just moments ago when she almost walked straight into them.

“Vissenta Senadz. My new shopkeep.”

Amaryllis extends a hand in greeting to Vissenta. “Court musician is a stretch,” they say. “I prefer the term court fool, myself.” It was free entertainment to witness strangers grapple with the concept of addressing them, with their air of intimidation, as a fool.

It’s barely a second, but they pick up on the way Vissenta falters when they speak. She also studies their outstretched hand a moment before taking it, still hesitant as they make contact. Amaryllis can feel the sorts of roughness on her skin that comes from magic and from combat. She's quite a bit shorter than them, with haphazardly plaited hair and tired emerald eyes that avoid looking directly at Amaryllis. Dressed down, a little ragged even, something about her intrigues them.

“They’re too modest,” Deirdra declares. “They have the most incredible voice, and their compositions? Perfection. Some of the greatest magic I’ve ever seen or heard.” Vissenta’s brow— which they now notice is notched— rises at the mention of magic.

“Her Grace flatters me,” they say, leaning just a little closer to Vissenta to address her. “I am but a humble artist, honored by the court’s patronage.”

Vissenta disguises the way Amaryllis ruffles her up quite well, but the faintest flush to her cheeks gives her away. They’re curious to see if she’s always this easy to fluster. With all their attention focused on the pretty new visitor, their agitated mood from minutes before slowly slips away.

“I’d love to hear you sing sometime,” Vissenta finally speaks up more than just a single word. There’s something vaguely familiar about her voice, but Amaryllis can't place exactly what it is.

They grin at her from behind their veil, close enough for her to catch the upturn of their wine-colored lips. “I’m sure you would.”

Deirdra continues along the grand hall, Amaryllis falling into step at her side while Vissenta trails behind. They may or may not put a just little extra sway in their step, as long as she’s privy to the view. As they walk, Deirdra explains that Vissenta is new to Vesuvia, and that— much to their amusement— she'd be staying for dinner. They decide not to skip tonight after all.

Amaryllis swears they can feel Vissenta’s gaze burning into their back, and they glance over their shoulder to confirm their suspicions. They’re quite pleased to find her eyes locked onto them. They look back at her just long enough to see her cheeks grow a little more heated.

Reactions like Vissenta’s are hardly a new occurrence for Amaryllis. In most cases, it’s more surprising when someone doesn’t show at least a little interest in them. But what isn't a common occurrence for Amaryllis is how much they already enjoy Vissenta’s attention in return.

Court seems to be a particularly stuffy event this evening, some of Amaryllis’s favorite acquaintances— it was in their job description to call them out after all— being in attendance. Nadia sits at the organ near the window, half-heartedly fingering out a broken melody with one hand. But once she sees Deirdra she lights up, and in turn the countess rushes across the room to greet her Nadia, leaving Amaryllis with Vissenta.

Amaryllis leans in to murmur directly into her ear. “She’s not as intimidating as she seems.”

“I’m not intimidated,” Vissenta defends, and they have to hold back a chuckle at her obvious lie.

“The tension you carry yourself with says otherwise,” they rest a hand on each of her shoulders, “Come.” Amaryllis directs her through the throng of socializing nobles, Vissenta remaining stiff as a board.

“And who might this be?” Nadia asks once Vissenta is before her. Amaryllis squeezes lightly before releasing their hold on her, moving to join Nadia on the other side of the organ bench. Deirdra introduces Vissenta all over again, with more detail this time, but it’s still no full picture. Amaryllis listens attentively, eager to learn whatever they can about her. Every so often they glance over to Vissenta, who in turn glances away from them. Nadia’s welcoming attitude seems to comfort her momentarily, but then Deirdra drags her off for more introductions around the room.

Nadia turns to them. “And what do you think of our new guest?”

“I’m not quite sure yet,” they place an elbow onto the edge of the organ and rest their cheek in their palm. “But I am certainly interested.” Nadia gives them that look, the one that she often uses to warn them against causing problems. Also the look that Amaryllis always gets away with ignoring.

“Perhaps, give it more than one hour. Maybe even wait a full day?” Nadia teases.

Their attention is then drawn to commotion across the room, where a haughty voice speaks over every other conversation in the room.

Amaryllis almost gets up to intervene when Valerius begins to run his mouth, especially when he complains about ‘witches’ and provokes them by looking their way. But Nadia’s hand on their shoulder keeps them in place, and so they yield, trusting her intuition.

When Vissenta speaks up, she’s holding herself like a completely different woman, speaking with complete confidence as she expertly points out Valerius’s poor-quality drink. Frankly, Amaryllis has little idea what exactly she means with her wordy assessment on the wine— they care very little for the details as long as it tastes good— but Vissenta sounds so sure of herself. She knows this topic well, and she knows that she does.

“...Sensible of you, to bring out the table wine for casual drinking.”

Amaryllis has to physically put their hand over their mouth, even at the risk of smearing their lipstick, to keep their laughter at bay. Thoroughly embarrassed, Valerius storms off and Amaryllis rises to make their way to Vissenta’s side.

“If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s seeing Consul Valerius cut down to size,” they whisper into her ear, and they can feel the shudder that runs through her. “I think that you and I are going to become great friends.”

- - -

At dinner, Amaryllis is quite pleased to find Deirdra has seated them next to Vissenta. All throughout the night, they relish in every instance they’re able to fluster Vissenta. Light teasing and innocent touches do the trick so effortlessly, and something about her reactions strike them as unused to being on the receiving end of such attention.

Of course, Amaryllis’s only goal isn't just to tease her, but to include her. If they aren’t conversing with someone else, they’re talking to her, and even then they’re always turning back to ask Vissenta what her opinion on the matter is. Each time Amaryllis does so she seems a little less shocked.

And, Amaryllis is dying to get anything out of her that they can about her mysterious origins. Vissenta answers carefully and keeps her answers vague, which in turn only serves to make them even more interested in asking.

“So, have you come a long way to get to Vesuvia?”

“From across the sea.”

“Why Vesuvia then?”

“The city was calling to me.”

“Is that so?” Amaryllis smiles at her from behind their veil. “Incredible.”

“It’s really nothing-“ Vissenta stammers.

“Nonsense. You must be quite the magician then.”

“I never said it was magic,” she corrects.

Amaryllis eyes her knowingly. “What else do you do besides divination?”

“Not very much.” They recall the callouses on her hands that reflect the years of work tell them otherwise.

“Well, if you’re as exceptional as Deirdra says, perhaps you’d know how to assist me.” Amaryllis leans across the gap between them to murmur. “Between you and I, the truth is I often struggle with readings.” They sit back up in their chair.

“You read tarot?”

“I try to. It’s not exactly my specialty,” they take a sip of their wine, “My aunt was a remarkable diviner, she taught me much of what I know.”

“As long as you’re not just some fortune-telling fraud,” Vissenta laughs, “maybe I’ll have to show you a thing or two.” Amaryllis watches as she tucks a loose coffee-colored strand behind her ear, incidentally revealing some sort of mark on her skin. They focus on it for a moment, thinking it a normal tattoo. But then the symbol is one they’ve seen before, but can’t quite place.

“Oh, I’m sure you could.”

As not to alarm her, they focus on her face instead of the marking, as if they’d never even noticed it.

Once dinner has concluded, Amaryllis’s first instinct is to ask Vissenta if she’d like to join them for a nightcap. They don’t really want her to go just yet, as there was still so much more to learn about her. And the more she withheld the information the more Amaryllis craved it. And they wanted to keep her company, for less selfish reasons too. There was something about her that reminded them of when they first arrived in Vesuvia. Surely she could use a friend in the city.

But before Amaryllis can make such an offer, Deirdra swoops in talking of going over shop business. So instead, they bid Vissenta farewell for the night.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Vissenta,” Amaryllis says, taking the woman’s hand in theirs and placing a kiss to the back of it. Their painted lips leave a faint, barely visible mark on her skin. “I do hope we have the chance to meet again.”

“Me too,” is all Vissenta can stammer out before Deirdra is dragging her off and down the hall.

It’s not until later, when Amaryllis is unlocking the doors to their chambers that they’re able to recall exactly what the mark behind Vissenta’s ear symbolizes.

Well, they do hope she’d truly meant it when she said she’d like for them to meet again.

- - -

“Bonsoir, Dame Sauvage.”

Vissenta’s face drops.

In her shock, Amaryllis breezes past her, without proper invitation, into L’Étoile d’Or. They’re already well acquainted with the charming little shop, likely more so than it’s new manager, and make their way into the backroom. They select two glasses, from one of the shelves that line the walls, and pours them each a full glass. When they turn to take a seat on the sofa, Vissenta has finally decided to join them, seemingly composed compared to a few moments ago.

Amaryllis takes a long drink of the fine Sauvage red. They’d specially— and secretly— selected the bottle straight from Valerius’s personal collection. Such a feat couldn’t have been done without Styx’s assistance of course, whose swarming kept the consul occupied during their little heist.

“Don’t worry, you weren’t so obvious that just anyone could figure you out,” they grin, “But I’m not just anyone. It used to be my job to know everything.”

Without a word, Vissenta joins them, sitting tense with her back straight, feet on the floor. Amaryllis, on the other hand, lounges with a booted foot up propped up on the cushion. It’s ironic, how she looks ready to bolt and they waltz around like they’re the one who owns the place. The two sit in silence, Amaryllis watching Vissenta drain her glass, while she pointedly avoids their gaze.

It isn’t until they’ve both emptied their first glass that Vissenta speaks up. “D'où êtes-vous?” she asks, and Amaryllis almost laughs. They definitely expected her to have realized by now.

“Chevaisé.” Amaryllis refills each of their glasses. “Have you ever heard of the Vicomte de Tristesse?” With that, they can see the pieces beginning to connect in her mind as they refill the glasses.

“You were his songstress,” Vissenta asserts after a moment.

Amaryllis smiles, but it’s strained. “You might be more familiar with me as Mallorie.”

“There was such an uproar when you disappeared, even I heard the following rumors.”

“Oh? I would have been disappointed if there hadn’t been,” they take a sip, “I do hope they were at least interesting rumors.”

“The one I heard most was that the previous heir had you assassinated.”

Amaryllis roars with laughter, though Vissenta does not join in their amusement. “That is a good one. Can’t even say he didn’t try it. Unfortunately, the truth isn’t as exciting as that. I simply ran away in the night. Here, to Vesuvia.” They watch her, waiting for her to understand just how alike they are. Hoping that now she’ll let them in a little more. Not that she’d know, but they were currently presenting her with quite the token of faith.

“So the other stories were true too? The kind of magic you do?” she asks, and they can tell she’s trying not to look so curious.

“Yes, I’ve always excelled at casting enchantments and charms through song. It was something the vicomte was very excited to exploit.” As engaged as Vissenta seems to be now, there's only so much talking about the past Amaryllis can handle in one day. And even with all the drinking they’ve done today, they’ve been far too sober for any of it. “I haven’t heard as much of late from your family. Granted, I haven’t had my ear as close to the ground these days. Without Lucio on the throne, my days in dealing information have long since gone.”

It was a good thing that Nadia finally had the control and consciousness to get Vesuvia in order, but it made for a fairly boring underground. And there was the part where Nadia generally wasn’t a fan of Amaryllis blackmailing the nobility that were her responsibility to keep appeased.

When Vissenta all but says that the Sauvage family is no longer standing, Amaryllis feels a pang of jealousy. And then, of course, they feel like a monster.

“Well,” they add a little more to their glass, suddenly self-conscious about the way they overfill their glass in front of someone so knowledgeable. “I know what it’s like,” they begin, eyes on Vissenta. “To be alone in a new city, to run from your past, to need a friend. Quelqu'un à qui se confier.”

Finally, Vissenta relaxes against the couch, though her expression still doesn’t quite match her body language. “Et je devrais te faire confiance?”

For the first time, in a very long time, Amaryllis answers such a question honestly. “Absolutely not.” It’s in hopes that, one day, she might actually be able to place her trust in them.

When Vissenta finally asks about their choice of wine and Amaryllis explains how they came across it, they watch her laugh and smile and it feels like they’ve finally gotten through a barrier. It’s a small victory, even if there were surely many more battles to come. In a more blatant show of confidence, they slip their veil from their face. If Vissenta notices, she makes no indication of it.

In that moment, Amaryllis comes to the conclusion that, despite only knowing Vissenta for a few hours, they’ve hardly ever felt so connected to someone. Vesper may have come from the exact same background, but rightfully a few points had been deducted for attempted murder, even if he didn’t mean it. And as dear of a friend as Nadia was, she grew up loved, happy, and supported— it was impossible for Amaryllis to relate. But Vissenta didn’t even need to divulge all the details for Amaryllis to understand, and vice versa. And the details were hardly important; they’d both come from the same horrors and managed to get out alive.

As they trade stories with Vissenta and finish off the rest of the wine, Amaryllis scoots just a little closer to her. When Vissenta begins to proudly tell her story of flashing herself to get out of a debt— gesturing to her chest and ample cleavage as she does— they don’t bother averting their eyes. Vissenta is so absorbed in her anecdote that she doesn’t notice, she doesn’t have a chance to stutter or turn red. But over the course of the night, Amaryllis had come to enjoy the way they could put her out of her element.

“I’m sure they’d have been enough for me to forgive your debt.”

And she falters. “Amaryllis…” she says, voice breathy.

“Amie,” they correct.

“What?”

“I think, if we’re to be friends, you can call me Amie.”

“Amie…” Slowly, they start to mimic the way she leans towards them, emerald eyes locked onto theirs. “Amie, when are you to kiss me?”

[animatedminds]

Pixar’s Soul: Review and Reaction

The first sentence I’ve always used to describe Pete Docter and Pixar’s Soul since watching it has nothing to do with the plot. It’s instead is a starstruck comment about the music: the movie begins with a cover of a Duke Ellington classic - Mercer Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What they Used to Be.” It ends with a jazz rendition of a classic from several decades later - but still quite a bit in our past - Curtis Mayfield’s soul classic “It’s Alright.” On a personal level, this would say way more about Soul that most other descriptions of it might to get me to watch it - were I not the kind of person who was absolutely intent on watching the movie day one regardless. Though I am myself a few generations after either of those artists were around, their music has been a part of my life since I was a kid and are essential on any playlist in my opinion. Curtis Mayfield’s music, especially, deserves all the love in the world, and hearing by surprise someone cover his work in a Disney movie made my entire day - and it would have, even if the film weren’t the meaningful ride it is.

But before we get into all that, lets also look at those songs. “Things Aren’t What They Used To Be” is played a la a teacher and a higher school band class: the students are learning and a bit difficult to listen to, while the music-loving teacher cringes at the front. But the choice of song tells us a lot. It’s a jazz standard: which means when it comes to jazz, it’s one of the essentials - a tune every band learns to play, and every jazz fan has heard before. The teacher is a jazzman - you can probably guess who - and the whole time he’s listening to the song you can hear him wanting to sit down and make it sound as perfectly as he hears it in his head. Remember that analogy. Heck, when you watch or rewatch the movie, remember the mindset Joe - because that’s who that teacher is, Joe Gardner, is in for that whole teaching scene in the first place: and remember how important the desire to make things perfect is to the greater story the movie is trying to tell.

“Things Aren’t The Way They Used To Be,” indeed. By the end, you have to wonder: isn’t that the point? Now the second song. “It’s All Right” is a smooth number for dancing to - not frenetic and wild dancing, but more a slow jam sort of vibe. BUt it’s the lyrics that are the most befitting the themes of the movie. Like several of Curtis Mayfield’s tunes “It’s All Right” is an ear worm of an R&B number that’s actually about being a peace with yourself. “You’ve got soul” - ha, I get it - “and everybody knows, that it’s all right.” Or, to quote instead my favorite verse of the song (I did say Mayfield was one of my favorites): “when you wake up early in the morning feeling sad like so many of us do, hum a little soul, make life your goal, and surely something’s gonna come to you.” This is before the spoilery part of the review, but they could not have picked a better song for the movie’s themes if they wrote it themselves.

Soul, after all, is ultimately a movie about how the things we do, the things we love, even the things that define us and should make us feel good in and of themselves, can become a shackle that prevents us from feeling the things that we adopt them to feel. Dreams - especially dreams deferred - can consume us rather than uplift us, and sometimes in pursuing them we may forget to live, and forget that others are living in this world and dreaming alongside us.

This, as you might be able to tell from the way I’ve described it, is a movie with a very strong, and most importantly very well related message that - as we’ve come to expect from Pixar’s output at this point - touches us in our jaded adult hearts. As a creative person with lofty dreams who has almost literally been where the protagonist is in this film - and as many in my generation also have gone through - it definitely feels like a film that was directed straight at the generation that first watched Toy Story as kids decades ago, and now feel somewhat unfulfilled as adults going into the world. Same as Inside Out (a movie specifically designed to make adults cry, in my opinion), the SparkShorts and arguably Onward (I definitely related to Bailey, some). So much like my review of Jingle Jangle, you have something of an idea where this review is going to go before the jump, but that’s okay. This movie did have ups and downs, but its just the kind of up Pixar is good at: they know they’re audience, and especially did for this gem. By the end, it can definitely make you feel as though you too can make it through, as long as you have a little Soul. However, it is not just the message, but the nuances and skill in which they relate that message (and they do come close to making decisions that could have ruined it, at times), which means it’s very difficult for me to put why this movie works into a review without SPOILERS. If you want to avoid SPOILERS, don’t hop over the pic and instead treat the above as your non-SPOILER review.

Soul is the story of one Joe Gardner, played by Jamie Foxx a brilliant early middle-aged pianist with lifelong dreams of becoming a jazz musician, who we first meet teaching part time band at a local high school. The inciting incident is an interesting choice: Joe gets a major offer - he can come on as a full time teacher, making his occupation a career! But Joe believes very much in the adage that “those who cannot do, teach” - in the sense that he wants to do. He cannot accept the position - over the advice of his mother - because that would mean giving up on his dream of being out there playing music for a living: a dream that has consumed him his entire life but which has given him nothing in return. Until now. While agonizing over the decision to take the position, Joe's life then gets a big twist: a former student of his, remembering him fondly years after they knew each other, has a hook for him to join the band of a famous jazz singer and saxophonist - played by Angela Basset (side note, here: jazz has long had a reputation for being something of a boys club, especially for certain instruments, and the choice to have the lead saxophonist and famous idol whose band Joe wants to join be a woman is a great choice that my entire jazz-loving and living family took note of). Joe is instantly elated - he rushes over and naturally aces the audition for the part in the band, and so is on cloud nine...

Until he dies. That’s when the plot really starts. Joe falls down a manhole like an astronomer in an aesop fable, and is now stuck on the slow escalator to The Great Beyond. Naturally, he’s not for that and tries to escape - pursued by overeager spiritual soul-accountant Terry - ending up in the Great Before instead, and leaving his body in a still-living coma (the implications that coma patients in general are people who are choosing not to die when they’re “supposed” to is something I’m sure the writers didn’t intend, so I’ll let it slide). There, Joe is pressganged into mentoring a pre-prepared soul for birth, helping them find their Spark for life - which Joe interprets as the one true purpose and dream they are meant to fulfill. Once he gets them their Spark, he will be able to steal a badge his mentee earns as fully fledged souls and . Luckily for his intended very morally suspect intent on spiritual larceny, he ends up with Soul #22 - and that’s #22 out of hundreds of billions - a soul who has simply never found a Spark despite having been in the Great Before for thousands of years. #22 doesn’t want to live, so she agrees to give him her patch when they’re done. But no mentor before has been able to inspire her (well, technically #22 is genderless, as she demonstrates in the story at Joe’s request, but she is voiced by Tina Fey), so how can Joe? When that proves to be too hard indeed, #22 instead decides to help Joe get back - mostly because she’s intrigued at why anyone would want to cling to life so badly - with the help of some mystics who astral project while in the Zone: where everyone goes when they’re fully immersed in what they do. This almost works, but at the last second everything goes awry: #22 gets mixed up with Joe when he returns, and so he doesn’t quite get back the way he wants to...

That’s enough plot summary for now. That’s all just the set-up anyway, for the choices in writing and concept that I’m about to talk about. As you might have been able to tell from that ominous last note, the middle chunk of Soul - almost right up until the climax, in fact - is actually a body-swap movie, a la Freaky Friday. #22 ends up in Joe’s body, so he has to get her to do the things he needs to get ready for his gig and get through the day while they wait for the mystic to bring a way to set everything right. And did I mention he’s in the body of a cat? Having been following the movie, this wasn’t entirely a surprise, but it was still not something I was entirely ready for coming in. I tend to shy away from that kind of story on a personal level, as body-swap narratives are nearly predominantly based on cringe moments and awkward misconceptions - and that sort of thing usually tends to make me want to leave the scene in question and get a cup of water until after the awkwardness passes. However, this isn’t really part of the review in the sense that I perceive that the movie being in that genre is a flaw - because ultimately that’s just an aspect of my personal taste. Rather, I use it to show just how strong a movie Soul was and how well its narrative choices resonated with its themes that ultimately while it did indeed partake in your typical body-swap narrative cringe moments - “look, the [redacted] in Joe’s body just ran into his boss / mom!” / “look, the [redacted] is having a bizarre conversation with Joe’s friends!” / etc - those moments actually add to the narrative rather than take you out of it. Joe as “friends,” as exemplified by the barber he goes to to get his hair ready for the gig when it inevitably gets ruined in a bout of hijinks (the barber being that extremely well-designed bearded character the internet went wild over). He goes to that barber all the time, talks with him constantly, and believes he knows him well. But it turns out that Joe’s so wrapped up in his wants and desires that he’s never even asked him about his life - he just assumed that the barber was like him, born to do that one thing he was good at. It takes #22′s innocent, slightly off-kilter and occasional philosophical questions about what the heck all this “life” stuff is about for Joe to learn that this person in his life didn’t even want to be where he ended up initially, he ended up there because that’s the way his life turned, but he loves it because it’s life and he appreciates the world he’s come to create around himself. Likewise, he runs into his mom, but while Joe has come to expect his mother to be dismissive of him and his dreams, it takes an accident with #22 for him to realize that he’s been so caught up in his desires and her in her preconceptions that neither of them have ever had a real talk about their relationship, nor given a chance to grow in each other’s eyes. You might notice a trend. One of Joe’s students - a brilliant trombonist - comes to tell him she’s quitting band, but she doesn’t really. She’s just insecure because the other students make fun of her. Joe knows this already - it’s become commonplace to him - so the doesn’t feel the need to do anything about it and instead focuses on his own needs. But #22 decides to talk to her on a whim, and this push and pull of insecurity but joy in what one is good at fascinates her, while it bores Joe. While - like any other New Yorker - public transit is a chore to Joe, the melting pot of people and music draws #22 in: best evidenced by the moment where Joe and #22 meet another great musician playing for tips in the subway. Joe, despite being capable of relating as a musician, just walks past him after appreciating the sound for a sec, while #22, entranced by the things people do, leaves something for him. The world is drab and lacking in vibrancy from Joe’s point of view, as evidenced by the very accurate grimy look of the high school he work at - but from #22′s seemingly jaded eyes seeing it for the first time, it’s full of wonder.

This actually creates an interesting character contrast on top of the one we already know: Joe is the idealist, and #22 is the cynic... right? Well, it turns out Joe doesn’t have much of an appreciation for the world around him - not intentionally, but still to a very strong degree - whereas #22 simply hasn’t had the chance to experience life yet and thus never knew what it was that made people want to be part of it. Life itself becomes her Spark, though neither of them realize it at the time. Lets just get the aesop out of the way now. Your dream is not your life: that’s what Soul wants to say. Things that compel you as a person may consume you, even embitter you, and prevent you from seeing the world around you for what it is. But that doesn’t make dreams a bad thing: people everywhere find that Spark from the dreams to keep moving forward - it’s just that it shouldn’t preclude living, nor should living preclude your dreams. Life is a delicate balance, and man is this movie serving up some complicated life lessons here. I immediately took this as a far more mature take on the message The Princess and the Frog stumbled somewhat through years ago (man, I’m turning out to be pretty hard on that movie in this blog). My biggest issue with PATF is that it tells us that Tiana should be less intent on her dream and find love instead, but doesn’t show us. It’s just characters chiding her for not settling down until the plot ultimately pushes a man in front of her and she realizes she should’ve been finding one all along. That’s a very harsh way of putting it, but it condenses what I’m trying to say: ultimately PATF pushes Tiana to realizations she doesn’t seem to need, whereas Soul has a similar message about life and does so by focusing on character development, about how the protagonist doesn’t have as firm a handle on his life as he thought, and thus brings us a take on the lesson that’s far less cut and dry.

If you’re a fan of The Incredibles, the comparison to Mr. Incredible is fairly easy. Joe, though well meaning and decent overall, is a very self-centered person who happens to be so for very sympathetic and relatable reasons. He just wants to do the thing he feels he was born to. He'll do anything to get back to life and do that thing, even for a single night. He’s consumed by this desire so much that he's oblivious to the people around him, unable to connect to the people he loves, and unable to find joy in anything but his dream. And man, as a young writer who knows in their heart of hearts they can do great things and feels pain at the idea of not doing so, that hits different let me tell you.

The lessons Joe learns from #22 even stick. It turns out that part of what caused Joe’s dream to fail all those time was because of that lack of connection with life. He never presented himself in a way that got people to take notice of him, he never pushed for that position he wanted even though people said no, he never made himself and his life so vibrant that he glowed in the eyes of others (and again, that hits different). That’s maybe the most simplistic message of the bunch, but as a person in the creative field it’s true that sometimes being the smartest person in the room isn’t enough: it’s making himself shine that ultimately clinches Joe the gig even after he almost lost it thanks to the day’s shenanigans.

But in the end, it doesn’t feel like he thought he would.

Remember when I said there are parts where the movie comes perilously close to kiboshing its message? That moment is one, it’s the one. Not that that moment is bad - far from it, it’s the best moment in the entire movie (and you can fight me on that if you want to). It’s because it’s the crossroads, the pin, the core of the entire film: depending on the choice they made after that point, that moment could have either been the best moment in the entire movie, or the moment that toppled everything.

The realization of Joe’s dream doesn’t feel like the explosion of confetti and catharsis that he expected. It was just another moment of his life, a great one, but it’s still just part of his life. So what does Joe do? Does he panic? Does he keep going until it feels good? Does he - as he would in a lesser movie trying to give a cookie cutter aesop - immediately quit and realize he should’ve been teaching all along? No, he does none of those things. He absorbs the moment. He realizes that at the end of the dream you’re still just living life, and that you have to appreciate that. Joe isn’t wrong for pursuit of his dream. He’s not wrong for believing that hopes and dreams make life so much more worthwhile. He’s wrong in thinking that those dreams are all that define us, and that their realization is all that makes people themselves worthwhile at all.

And in the end - though I may be getting a bit too referential for this - the unexamined life is just so much less fulfilling than the alternative.

And all that a message and a half! It hits different. It’s mature as all heck. It’s something people my age (especially in my generation), twice my age, half my age never learn. It’s a callsign that sometimes Pixar is still make movies for the people who were kids way back when Toy Story was released, and are now insecure adults wondering why the world isn’t as wonderful as they saw on the screen. It’s brilliant. I said before that Joe interprets the “Spark” to be one’s purpose in life. The one thing that makes them who they are, that they are on the planet to do. He is wrong, absolutely and utterly. And in that misconception, when #22 finally does get their Spark just from being on Earth and seeing what its life, he accuses them of leeching self-actualization over his own personal ambitions, fully believing that they didn’t find a “purpose" on her own, but just copied his. But the Spark, as it turns out, is just the joy of living, the thing that makes people want to live. It can come from a dream, or just from watching the beauty of the sun set over a leaf drifting in the wind. Only in understanding this can Joe finally understand what he’s been missing in life, only then can he reconcile with #22 and help her finally be born, only then can he walk into the world and know how he’s going to live it.

We never find out what Joe decides, whether he goes back to teaching, or continues with the band. The choice is open to him, but we never find out which one he takes - another choice that keeps the aesop from falling apart. The point of all of that wasn’t that Joe has to do one thing or another to be happy, it was that Joe needs to be happy and secure in himself before he chooses what his life should be. Either of those could make him happy. Neither of those could. But now he’s in a much better place to see it, and do what he can.

We also never find out what #22 is like when she (or he, etc) is born. The two of them never meet past the point where #22 goes to Earth. Their time together has passed, and #22′s life is now their own. And that’s a great choice either. I’ve seen the occasional person feel that the choice made in this paragraph or noted in the previous one made the story confusing, but they’re ultimately what make the story what it is. The answer isn’t the necessity of resolution, its the reaffirmation of the journey. It reminds me somewhat of Wreck-It Ralph (an example of the main Disney Studio delivering a complex aesop, rather Pixar delivering them all), where being a villain wasn’t Ralph’s problem - it was that he wasn’t happy doing the thing he loved. You have to live, from living you will learn, and from learning you will do. The sheer incredible execution of this message (as you may have guessed, it’s a fairly difficult one to relay adequately in a film narrative, and the movie goes non-traditional in conclusion to maintain it) would have made this film a recommend for me even if it wasn't also beautifully animated, very well acted, funny (there’s a Knicks joke that floored me), heartwarming and relatable. But it’s also all of those things, so I have to recommend it twice as much. It is, regrettably, another movie with a black lead where the lead spends most of it transfigured into a form that’s not a black person (a soul, and then a cat), and I’ve already seen some grumbling that instead for much of it a character explicitly coded as a white woman is in his body instead, but I perceive that as an issue that’s endemic to the industry than a fault in this movie specifically. Everyone does that, but this is the only movie I’ve seen where doing that is an essential part of how the narrative develops the characters (Joe has to not be himself in order to understand his life from an outside perspective, a la Scrooge as a ghost watching his own history), and so I don’t scorn the movie for it. I, however, would very much like Hollywood to start doing that less, and - hey - as a prospective writer that’s one of those things I plan to do my part to combat. This movie, however, gets a pass in my book in ways that the general usage of this concept does not. In short, you should see it. If you get the chance to see it right now, you should take it to feel good at the end of this incredibly insane year. If you don’t want to have to sign up for Disney+ to see it now, I get you and understand, but if you get a chance to see it later do not pass it up. It’s one of the few movies I’ve watched that are an instant buy when it becomes available on digital - and the last time a movie did that for me was BlacKKKlansman. Whatever you choose to do, do it well. Keep the spirit alive, always keep searching for the real you - because it’s not always easy to find, but it’s worth looking for - and always remember that you could always have a little soul.

[dokidokey]

KAMI: 21 questions

summary: kaminari denki does not understand the significance of explaining the song he wrote about his ex-girlfriend, but little did he know, a certain fan needed just his words to lift herself up from her one-week misery.

pairings: kaminari denki x reader

bingo slot: musician x fan au

genre: fluff, slight angst if you squint real hard

warning/s: swearing, mentions of todomomo, mentions of cheating, a very adorable denki (!!!)

word count: 3,042

notes: I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS I AM LITERALLY BURSTING DON’T MIND ME IGNORING MY 289384 WIPS BUT I GOTTA DO THIS ONE. anyways, 4th bingo piece for @bnhabookclub’s hero camp bingo! my series masterlist, along with my event masterlist, can be found HERE. what series? this is discontinued (even though it didn’t start in the first place.)

Kaminari is one to always decline media companies’ interviews, most especially, Verified. Verified is a media company that asks artists in to shred their songs lyric by lyric and give its meaning. Kaminari never understood the concept of that. Like, what is the point? Aren’t things more interesting if you leave it be and leave your fans to decipher it how they want?

But here he is, with a yellow backdrop that matches his hair and his manager, who dropped this bomb on him yesterday, on the other end of the room. He never agreed to this. What is the point of prying his song line by line? Wasn’t it obvious enough that it is about his ex-girlfriend who cheated on him?

“But it’s good for you! Plus, the exposure!” Mina, his manager, reasoned out yesterday, the paper in her hands dancing in the air. “Your song is gaining views, Denki. It’s good to take the spotlight while it’s there.”

Denki groaned, throwing his head back. “I know. But explaining the lyrics? Really? Is there any other way?”

Mina rested her hands on her hips, a stern look on her face. “No. Besides, Verified is a big and popular company. You better not be sulking tomorrow.”

He just grumbled as she left his studio. It’s not like she left him a choice.

“You ready?” The man behind the camera asks him, angling to the lens to get a better view of him.

Denki smiles, nodding. Here he is anyway, might as well get it done as soon as possible. When the man in front of him nods, Denki raises his hands in a wave.

“Hi there! It’s KAMI, and here is the official lyrics and meaning of 21 Questions,” he grins and pauses, waiting for the question the Verified employee will ask which will be cut off during editing.

“What is the song about?” The brunette beside the camera man asks.

Denki clasps his hands together. “You know, that feeling in a. . . relationship, when it starts falling apart and there are these－ these questions running around in your head, like why did she do that, how did she do that.” His hands were moving all over the place as he talks, going up in circles beside his head and down to his lap again. “This song. . . It’s－ It’s my inner turmoil.”

He nods to signify the end of his explanation, then goes on to talk about the first verse. “So first we have, I wish there was a situation to be mad at or a person I could blame, which is. . .” Denki trails off, pursing his lips together. “Thinking about, you know, wondering if it’s alright to blame her, or blame me, or blame the other guy. Because, thinking about it, there must be something－ something wrong with me, or there’s something I don’t have that the other guy does, for her to do that.”

Denki hates this. He hates every moment of it. He is literally just opening his sleeve up for the world to see. Some people won’t even care about it. This whole idea of splitting himself open, his heartbreak in all its glory, for people to just shrug off is so pointless.

He continues, nevertheless, because does he even have a choice?

“I’ve got a loud mouth, I’m pale with a ghost obsession but behind the scenes with her I’m playing twenty-one questions,” he sings, slurring the words. “Everyone knows that I talk a lot, okay?” He laughs, the tinkling sound bouncing inside the four walls. “That, and, this one. . . It’s kind of－ It’s saying－ The me I show the world isn’t the same me I face her with. Meaning, like, during the time this was going on, no one would ever guess our relationship was falling apart.”

Reliving the same hurt is hell. He doesn’t understand how Mina can just stand there when she had a front row seat of his pain. There’s an inkling of annoyance and betrayal dancing in Kaminari’s chest, along with a the guilt he’s feeling for feeling that way.

The singer wrings his hands together as he forces himself to spew out what needed to be heard. If they ask him who the song is about, he might just lose his mind. The song cover art’s background is literally Kyouka Jirou’s jacket. Yes, he made it that obvious who the song is about.

“So. . . There’s gotta be a reason you keep your guy in hiding, I’m becoming what I’ve hated but your talk is so inviting. The first line is pretty self-explanatory,” he smiles at the camera, a little wobbly and a little unsure. “I’m becoming what I’ve hated. . . That’s, uh, see, I never liked the fact that she cheated on another man with me and I didn’t know because you know, she told me she was single. I wasn’t aware she was in a relationship and cheating,” he rubs the back of his neck with an uneasy smile. “And now I’m becoming the other man, I’m the one being cheated on, but I can’t do anything about it because she－ well, she’s intoxicating.”

He continues, thrumming his fingers on his jean-clad thigh. “But then what, you drop your guy and take me on, it’s everything I wanted but then what, would you get tired of my time. Hmm,” Denki tilts his head to the side a little, eyes upward. “He left him for me and now would you get tired of my time, of me, of the tours and work and everything. Would you get tired and do the same thing you did to the other man.”

The chorus of the song is next, and a disbelieving chuckle bubbles up his throat. God, he was so fucking whipped for that woman, it kind of throws him off a little now.

“My mood’s dictated by our conversation and if you don’t text, I get too frustrated, I want you all to myself this time. Conflicted looks good on me, I’m trying desperately, I want you all to myself this time,” he sings offhandedly, bobbing his head along the tune of his failed love. “This－ This is an interesting one because I always have my phone on DND,” he shares to the camera like it’s a secret to be well-kept by everyone. “And when she came along I started leaving my phone on ring so I won’t miss any of her texts or calls. It was so unlike me that it kind of scared me a little bit, to be honest.”

Kyouka Jirou was an amazing girl, Kaminari won’t deny that. They got along so well. They wrote songs together over champagne and the dim lights of his studio. They shared kisses behind cameras. They even whispered sweet promises to each other in the void of Denki’s room. Those things happened and she had another man all along.

In the back of his mind, Denki is disgusted. With who, however, he doesn’t know. He’d been kissing his girlfriend who kissed another man. Who is he to know if that was the only thing they ever did.

It was sad, to say the least. Loving someone right under your nose who is loving another man behind your back. It was like Jirou took his heart and ripped it right in front of him, and she made sure to break it so good it would be hard for Kaminari to love again.

“I never have to carefully shape sentences when I have some words to say. They’re falling from my mouth from the time that they hit my brain. I don’t have a brake in my mouth, okay?” He pauses to stare at the camera. “I say whatever I think even before I realize what the fuck I’m saying.”

When Denki sees Mina’s eyes immediately growing wide like saucers at the expletive, he slaps a hand over his mouth. Verified always bleeps out curses and his mind decided to throw that information out the window. “Sorry!” He giggles behind his palm. “See!” He points at the camera. “That is the exact meaning of those lyrics!”

Small giggles are still erupting from the man as he tries to suppress it and get on the next parts. “Will that be cut out? Can we cut that out?” He wheezes as he rubs sweaty palms on denim. “Anyway,” he breathes, puffing his chest up and sitting himself right on the stool. “’Cause we built a picture made for frames, we live in chemistry away from all the wasted time and taste.”

Denki’s mind paddles back to a late night writing session with his former girlfriend, the other half of his sandwich long forgotten as he stared at the girl, who seems like the whole world to him as she scribbles word after word on the ripped piece of paper she snatched up somewhere on his messy table. He swears there are stars twinkling in the background whenever he catches sight of her, and it makes his little heart swell with pride as he softly tells her promises of their future together.

“We were too perfect,” Denki says, clicking his tongue after as if in disappointment. “We were. . . wrapped up in our own world. Or maybe I was the only one wrapped up in something that was. . .” He falters, heart aching at the thought of the promises that are nothing now.

He covers it up with a smile, eyes crinkling at the sides as he let his hands rest on the back of the stool. “And it sucks to sleep ’cause you aren’t talking to me. I wanna give you space but the amount between us is wrecking me.” Kaminari squints as he hums, tilting his head back and groaning softly. “So, this one. . . This is where we were nearing the end and the communication was so bad even though that was the only thing I wanted to somehow still fix what was left of our relationship, but she didn’t want that. We were already light-years away from each other, what was I supposed to do?” He lifts one hand up in a “what?” motion and crumples his eyebrows together.

He slurs out the next lyrics. “’Cause then what, you dropped your guy and took me on it’s everything I wanted but then what, am I in his position now?” He claps his hands like he just discovered something big. “This! Am I in the position of the other guy before me? Like, am I now in his place? Will you leave me for the guy you. . . cheated on me with.”

Kaminari then goofily positions his arms as if holding a guitar, and starts strumming the air while bobbing his head side to side. “I’ll forget you if you need me to, like nothing ever happened. My sun still sets without you, like nothing ever happened.” His smile is glowing as he stretches his arms wide. “I can forget, and I will,” he looks determinedly at the camera. “And I will get on with my life and do the things I love and every day would be a happier day for me,” he grins. “Even without you.”

Denki doesn’t realize that little slip up of acknowledging her as he waves goodbye, a sliver of something heavy lifting off his shoulders.

It’s another boring Sunday for you as you snuggle your blanket on the couch, the show on the TV serving to be just white noise as you go over your last texts with your ex-boyfriend.

It has been a week since your break up with Shouto and you’re still moping. He calmly explained to you how your relationship wasn’t working out anymore and that he started having feelings for a friend. In spite, you replied with “I wasn’t aware our relationship had gym schedules.” And that was the end of it.

You groan at your stupidity. If you weren’t so caught up in your jealousy, you could have talked to him a little nicer, a little calmer. But you knew who that friend he was pertaining to. Yaoyorozu Momo, the girl who always seems to be around your boyfriend. She’s a meek girl, and even before you and Shouto got together, she had been around. So, Yaoyorozu was there before you.

There are times when you and Shouto are out and she would happen to be at the same place. At first, you didn’t pay any mind, but when it got more frequent, you had your suspicions. What’s worse is that whenever she’s around, she’ll just smile at you and that’s that. She’ll pretend like you’re not standing right next to your boyfriend and like you didn’t exist. It made you feel small.

You’re loud and, at times, obnoxious. You are aware of how much attention you catch because of your brazen attitude. It really was a mystery how Todoroki liked you. You two were so different. He was more on the likes of Yaoyorozu, and thinking about it, they were so much more alike that it’s ridiculous. Yaoyorozu’s a rich girl, and so is Shouto. Their auras are the same and they give off the same vibes. Those are what really pulled at your insecurity.

And see, it didn’t take long for Todoroki to realize he didn’t belong with you. You loved him, yes, and you thought maybe you’d last forever. But now, seeing how it all ended, you want to laugh at the face of your past self for thinking such absurd things. Of course it wouldn’t last. Maybe you were too much for Todoroki.

The bubbling insecurities inside you is just starting up when there’s a ping from your phone and you groan, thinking it’s Hitoshi again because he’s been pestering you for the past week to actually get up and be productive. But no, it isn’t your friend. It’s a notification for the latest tweet of your favorite artist, KAMI, and you almost fall off the couch when you read it.

10 minutes til @Verified drops my official lyrics and meaning vid for 21 questions! Stay tuned!

Fuck, what the fuck? Official lyrics and meaning? The four walls of your room are the witnesses to how much you cried to that song after your break up. Some lyrics were so relatable but you’re relieved you didn’t experience the cheating part. It must suck for Kaminari to have his girlfriend of over a year cheat on him.

After several, consecutive refreshes, the new video pops up and you let out a little scream because on the thumbnail is Kaminari Denki himself, clad in a white shirt and leather jacket. You click play and a giggling Kaminari is on your screen, saying, “Will that be cut out? Can we cut that out?” Then it’s the usual intro of Verified.

Kaminari is waving and introducing himself with a huge smile on his face. You admire your favorite artist through the screen and wonder when he will hold a meet and greet. I’m manifesting, you think, as you position yourself more comfortably in your couch.

“This song. . . It’s－ It’s my inner turmoil.” Huh. You’re not surprised. Songs written and sang with so much emotion strikes the listeners way harder than any other song. And the fact that Kaminari wrote it with his heart up his sleeves, the song meant a lot more to you.

As he goes on explaining every line, every lyric, you can’t help the same hurt blooming on your chest again. Everything he’s saying stabs right at your heart. Every word, though different in context when it comes to you, is like a kick to your chest. 21 Questions never felt so much like home right this moment.

“I never have to carefully shape sentences when I have some words to say. They’re falling from my mouth from the time that they hit my brain. I don’t have a brake in my mouth, okay?” There’s a pause and an intense stare at the camera. “I say whatever I think even before I realize what the － I’m saying.”

There’s a bleep and your heart almost bursts at the absolute cuteness when he instantly covered his mouth and his giggles sift through your phone’s speakers. So this is where the first clip on the video is from, when he asked if they can cut it out. But no matter how adorable his giggles were, Kaminari’s words are banging its way into your head.

“We were too perfect. We were. . . too wrapped up in our own world. Or maybe I was the only one wrapped up in something that was. . .” His sentence is left unfinished, but you felt it in your bones. It’s like a slap to the face. Yeah. Maybe he’s right. Maybe you were the only one wrapped up, maybe you were the only one attached. It seemed too good to be true, and you were so high up you didn’t realize Todoroki had gone down and Yaoyorozu was there to catch him.

You aren’t prepared for the next part though, because the man decided it was okay － totally fine! － to lean back and bare his whole neck while groaning － groaning! Any other human being will not survive this. What is he doing. You’re seconds away from hyperventilating as you double tap to replay that certain part. He wants you all dead. Yes. That must be it.

The video is close to ending, and as Kaminari says his last words, it tickles something awake in your heartbroken state.

“I can forget. And I will! And I will get on with my life and do the things I love and every day would be a happier day for me. Even without you.”

Even without Shouto, you’ll get by. Your world doesn’t revolve around him. There’s a lot of things you can do without invalidating your heartbreak, and maybe you’ll hold on to Kaminari’s words. Every day would be a happier day for me. It’s another thing you’re manifesting on, along with that meet and greet of Kaminari.

more notes: yes this is based off waterparks’s 21 questions pLEASE I FEEL LIKE AWSTEN’S CHAOTIC ENERGY IS A DIRECT COPY OF THE ONE KAMINARI EXUDES SO THIS IS PERFECT. anyways this series’ titles are going to be a bunch of waterparks songs.

[jsteneil]

“an adorably misshapen cap that I like to imagine Percy knit for him”

— The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, chapter 2.

it’s Percy knitting time, baby! 

for @novakstiel

The woman selling pie outside the theatre is there every single day, come rain or sunshine. It’s the kind of hard-earned dedication Percy never used to understand, but now he makes a point of greeting her every time he passes by. She watches him with squinting eyes and a sneer—although the rictus is there every time that Percy sees her, whether she looks at him or not—and only answers after a month of selling him overcooked pies and lukewarm tea after work. 

He doesn’t know her name. She doesn’t know his; they’ve never actually talked more than the few words necessary for the basic exchange her trade commands. 

It’s a few days after the holidays when Percy looks up, running across the street with his face down in his collar against the wind, and doesn’t see her in her usual corner. He reaches the side of the theatre house, following the building to the stage door, and only when he’s safely out of the hail does he look back. He’s curiously concerned about her. His own situation is far from stable, but a stuffy orchestra pit and mice-infested flat still seem like a great deal better than having to sit in a corner of the street all day. 

The wind blows hailstones into his face. Percy turns his back to the it, clutching his violin case tighter against his body under his coat, and that’s when he sees her, sitting under an rickety awning across the street. She’s sitting upright like she always does, with an old blanket covering her legs and a small brasero glowing red for tea-making purposes. He sees her, absorbed with something in her lap, and her fingers snapping back and forth—snip, snip. She’s knitting. 

Relieved, Percy shoulders open the old door behind him and hurries to practice.

*

The crowd in front of the theatre the next week is loud and messy. Percy can hear it from several streets away. He buttons up his coat over his violin case to protect it from flailing limbs—it’s impossible to live and work in London for more than a few weeks and not become familiar with the violent behaviors of incensed crowds—and runs the rest of the way.

He can’t approach the theatre. The way in the front is blocked, with men yelling and shaking their fists all the way up the steps and women egging them on right up in the middle of the crowd. 

Percy elbows his way across the back of the crowd, where onlookers are as numerous as protester. He can see Jacob and Martin standing by the pie lady’s stall, looking grim.

“What’s happening?” he asks as they greet him. 

“Stage workers’ protest,” Jacob says. “The show was a dud; they haven’t been paid this week or the last.”

Percy looks over the crowd. “That’s a lot of people.”

Jacob shrugs. “Boss isn’t exactly popular.”

“Is the way in blocked for us?”

“You wanna try your way into that crowd?” laughs Martin. “I’d be throwing bricks with them if I didn’t have my case with me.” He pats his viola case, leaning against his leg. Percy glances at him. Musicians aren’t exactly well paid—this is far from being the royal company—but he won’t take the risk of mixing with this crowd. The watch will be summoned quickly, and Percy has no desire to spend a night in jail. He thinks briefly of Monty, left asleep in their warm bed—the only part of the flat that’s really ever warm. 

“Are you gonna buy something or stay there and gossip like old maids?” a voice says behind them.

Percy turns. It’s the pie lady, her voice surprisingly shrill. In spite of her words, she seems to be packing her things into a old wicker basket. 

“Where you going, grandma?” Jacob asks, not meanly.

“Not here, to get caught up with this mob by the watch,” she replies. “If you have a grain of sense, you’ll disappear too. ‘Specially you,” she adds, nodding at Percy.

Percy feels the familiar flame of frustration rise. “I know,” he answers, not to say more. “There’s an pub right at the corner of the street. I want to keep an eye on it.”

Jacob nods. Martin scowls. “Can’t go home now,” he mutters. “Let’s go.” They traipse forward, but Percy turns to the pie lady, who’s hefting her basket on her hip. “Do you want to come?” he asks. 

She shrugs. “Buy me a drink.”

Percy mentally counts the money he’s carrying. “Sure.”

Martin and Jacob spends the morning flitting around the other patrons in the pub and loudly talking politics as the time passes. Percy nurses his beer and makes small talk with the pie lady—Mary Thomas, as she introduces herself. At some point, she seems to understand his unwillingness to talk and whips out a small bundle from her basket.

“What’s that?” he asks her, having only glanced at her hands from the corner of her eyes.

She looks at him. “Can’t even recognize knitting needles when you see them?” 

“Oh,” Percy says, and he spends a long time watching her hands fly over the threads and the needles.

He’s not sure what she’s making; something in dark blue wool, apparently. After a while he just asks her and gets his answer: a sweater for her son. 

“I’ve always wondered,” he says, gesturing at the every-growing square of wool hanging from her needles. “How do you get something shaped like a sweater when you can only knit rectangular shapes?”

She throws her head back and laughs. It’s such an expectedly frank noise that Percy forgets to feel miffed. He listens patiently as she explains the logic of it, how to assemble pieces and twists shapes from her the stitches, and watches as she shows him, one stitch on a side and the next one on the other. That’s more difficult to follow, because her fingers slide and clench on the needles several times. 

“Damn my old fingers,” she says, shaking her hand. “You young men playing instruments. Pray you don’t get old.”

“I’d rather,” Percy says, not mentioning what he would prefer it over. He gestures to the abandoned work in her lap. “Can I try?”

Positioning his fingers on the needles in a way that satisfied Mary takes some time, but he gets the hang of it. He’s a musician, after all, aware of his fingers’ positions at all times. 

“Sloppy, sloppy,” Mary mutters at him. “Tighten your stitches, or my son will catch his death. You call that fit to make clothing? I’ve seen fishnet tighter than this. Not too much! You’re straining the wool. You have to slide your needle in here, you know.”

It’s a delicate balance. But at least it passes time; by the time the watch has come and dispersed the angry mob in front of the theatre, Percy has the movements ingrained in his brain like muscle memory, even if he doesn’t yet have the talent, according to Mary.

“Practice,” she tells him. “Should be familiar with the concept!”

*

January drags on, colder than ever. Percy doesn’t remember ever being this cold, even if he lived far more in the North. Icy winds shake the streets of London, with snow and hail on their tails. Monty comes back every morning with his nose red from outside and feet that could ice fish in the summer. They take warm bricks with them in the bed, but Monty always grimaces at first when he takes off his shoes, shaking blood back in his numb feet.

“I can’t feel them,” he says one day. “But it’s so much worse when I do.”

Percy woke up before he even came back home. The wind is tugging fiercely at their shutters and the whole building is creaking as if it’s going to collapse any minute. At least they’d get wood for the fire, Percy thinks darkly as he watches Monty shiver in front of the stove. 

“Sometimes I miss the wig,” he says as he slides into the bed with Percy. “At least they kept the ears warm.”

They exchange places so that Percy won’t have to step over him to get out tomorrow morning. The other side of the bed is colder, but Percy doesn’t mind. He feels off, tired and restless at the same time.

“You should invest in a hat,” Percy tells Monty. “That luscious hair of yours isn’t doing enough.”

“Invest,” Monty scoffs. “A funny word.”

“I’m the face of humour itself.”

“You’re the funniest person I know.” Monty says it earnestly, as always, which rather spoils the banter but does wonders for Percy’s feelings. He folds himself against Percy. “Now imagine how terrible Felicity must be feeling right now, all the way up in Edinburgh.” 

“She works in a bakery,” Percy counters. They do a complicated dance which ends with Monty pressed against Percy’s chest but his cold feet away from Percy’s legs. They’ve had plenty of practice at that, this past winter. “Fire and stoves all day.”

Monty closes his eyes. “Nooo,” he moans. “Stop, I don’t want to be jealous of Felicity, of all people.”

“Bakeries are overrated. Bread! Who needs it?”

“Bakeries don’t have you in it,” Monty says sleepily. “You’re the only bread I need.”

Percy pulls away, staring at him until Monty cracks, opening his eyes and sniggering at the incredulous face Percy is making. “That was bad even for you,” Percy tells him.

“I’m a poet, darling,” Monty says dramatically. “You love me.”

“One of these statements only is true.”

Monty pretends to push him off the bed. Percy clings to him, gasping theatrically, and then he has to push Monty’s cold feet away. Monty’s nose is cold against Percy’s arm when they fall asleep, but getting out of bed a few hours later is the hardest thing Percy’s done. Warmth and Monty will be the death of him, probably. 

His head spins when he gets up, and he spends a long time doubled over in a chair waiting for the pounding in his head to recede before he gets to work. 

Warmth, Monty, or goddamned epilepsy. 

*

He’s bed-ridden all of the next week. The theatre actually closes after a fire takes during the show on Monday night, and Percy collapses on the bed all clothed. He only stirs when Monty comes in. 

Monty gently moves him into changing into warmer and drier night clothes, and then guides them both into bed. It’s Percy’s turn to fall asleep with his face buried against Monty. The space against Monty’s neck is dark and welcoming; he never wants to come back up. 

Percy wakes up in the late morning, far too late for to come into work. 

He flounders among the sheets for a while, trying to disentangle his foggy mind. Should he get up? Race there? Or will he collapse on the way there, weak as he feels?

Monty comes barging in before Percy can make a decision. 

“The theatre’s closed,” he says. “Hello, darling.”

Percy falls back into the pillows. “What?”

“I went there this morning for you. The theatre’s closed; no work for you this week. They’re still putting things in order. It’s a madhouse. I almost got stepped over by three different people before they recognized me and gave me any news.”

He gently pushes the covers back up under Percy’s chin, sitting on the edge of the bed. He looks tired too; it’s too early for him to be have had a full night of sleep after coming in so late last night. 

“A week?”  Percy says. That’s a lot of time and money lost. 

“Well, not today or tomorrow, that’s for sure. I’ll head back there on Thursday, see how things improve.”

“I need—”

“You need to sleep.” Monty brushes Percy’s forehead, gently, like he’s pushing his hair away or subtly checking for a temperature. “You’re exhausted and frankly, darling, you don’t look good. We can hold on without your wages for a week. We have some savings left.”

It’s true, to an extent. Percy is too tired to care about it for long. He lets himself be lulled to sleep by Monty’s presence.

*

The theatre doesn’t open for another five days. It’s roughly the amount of time Percy would need for his health anyway, and he spends the first few days dozing off and letting Monty hold almost one-sided conversations. 

By the third day, however, he grows restless. Monty’s away during the day—he picked up a shift of something or another during the afternoon, which leaves him more exhausted in the morning. But Percy’s not stepping a foot out of bed all day, and their meagre collection of books soon ran out on the first day. 

“Give me something to do,” he complains to Monty. 

“Like what?”

“Anything. What do people who stay at home do?”

They look at each other. They used to be among the “people who stay at home,” but that was a lifetime ago. At his uncle and aunt’s house, Percy would be recluse in a room far grander than this one, with books and Monty’s company whenever he wanted it. He was absolutely miserable. 

Monty, though, is still there. 

“You could learn how to embroider,” he’s saying currently. “I know Felicity loved spending hours on a cushion.”

A bald-faced lie. Percy doubt that embroidery ever invoked any emotion in Felicity except pure rage. The idea isn’t entirely outlandish, though.

“How are your ears?” he asks. 

Monty’s look tells him he’s not following Percy’s train of thought. “Is this a joke?”

“Get me some knitting needles and yarn,” Percy tells him. “You’ll see.”

*

While Monty flies down to get him the supplies, Percy carefully rearranges the bed, stuffing the pillows behind his back so that he can recline comfortably. He feels less tired with a goal in mind, and he’s quick to take up the needles Monty comes back with. 

“Since when do you know how to knit?” Monty asks, sitting cross legged on the bed. He’s watching at Percy with intent, chin on his fist, and it reminds Percy so much of their youth—spent outside in pubs and gardens, and inside, in and out of each other’s apartments without care or propriety. For a moment the memory makes him falter, but the soft contact of the yarn under his fingers jars him out of it. This is the present—poorer materially, but without the weight of a deadline that stares Percy in the face. Time: a much more precious currency. 

He handles the needles the way he remembers from Mary’s lesson, finding the rhythm of it even more easily than on his first try. She showed him how to start and tie off a project, in that knowing way that older people have sometimes when they recognize a useful skill among others. 

“Someone taught me,” he answers Monty.

“Who? I can’t believe you ever hid it from me.”

“I didn’t hide, I just forgot.” He finishes his first row of stitches, showing off to Monty who nods appreciatively. “The woman who sells pie outside the theatre.”

“Oh.” Monty reaches for the ball of yarn, playing with it until it unspools messily in his lap. “Oops. Well, you’ll use it anyway.”

“I need it without tangles,” Percy precises. “You look like a bored kitten, playing with the yarn.”

“Just wondering what you’re making.” Monty slowly spools the yarn over his hand, looking pensively at the stitches on Percy’s needles. 

“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”

Monty doesn’t look convinced, but the leaves the newly spooled ball of yarn on the bed, tucked against Percy’s thigh so that it doesn’t fall off. 

“I have to go,” he says. “Will you be done when I come back?”

“Probably not.”

“Then you have to tell me what it is! I can’t wait that long.”

“I can tell you it’s for you,” Percy offers.

“That makes it worse.”

He leaves with a kiss, then comes back for another, forgets his coin purse and rushes in again a minute later. Each time he glances at the work in Percy’s hands, probably expecting it to have grown in the minute he’s been absent, but Percy doesn’t let Monty distract him. 

It takes him the better part of the next day, too, before Percy is satisfied and ties off the yarn. His first knitting work looks back at him as he twirls it around his fingers in the dim light of the candlelights. It’s not perfect—a bit misshapen, a bit uneven—but he feels a greater sense of satisfaction than he’s felt in a long time. 

He hides it under his pillow and goes to sleep, a light sleep that is sure to be disturbed by Monty coming in back from work. 

“I’m done,” he tells Monty as he undresses in the dim light of a lone candle. 

Monty startles so much that he backs into the chair, poking himself in the ribs with the spindly back of it. “Ouch,” he says, hopping on one foot to unlace his stockings. “Done with what?” 

“The knitting project.”

“Ohhh.” Monty drops his clothes on the chair and pads to the bed. “Show me?”

Percy takes it from under his pillow and shows it grandly to Monty, who takes it gingerly and examines it. 

“Ah,” he says. “Uh, what is it, exactly?”

He’s turning it around, peering at it from one side to the other. 

“A hat,” Percy says, taking it from him. He gestures at Monty to come forward and hooks the hat on his head, where it flops down sideways. Monty arranges it blindly, which somehow makes it worse. “Maybe not my greatest creation,” Percy adds.

He’s disappointed but unsurprised. He remembers Mary’s comments and warnings about proper wool tension and how to keep to a regular shape. 

“Oh,” Monty says, reaching for the shaving mirror. He peers into it, angling his head this way and that, in the same almost coquettish way he’s always done. The sight makes Percy fond with familiarity. “I love it,” Monty declares. “Thank you. It’s the best thing you’ve done.”

“You know I’ve composed a few pieces, right?” Percy asks. 

“Better than that,” Monty claims, laying his hand on his heart. “I’m going to wear it all winter long. Thank you.”

Percy smiles at him. The hat is awkward at best, terrible at worst, and he knows that Monty means it. He loves him for that. 

Monty bends down to kiss him, hat still on, and Percy doesn’t even mind when it slides down between them. 

“Maybe not for inside activities,” he says in between kisses. 

“No,” Monty protests when Percy reaches up, “leave it on.”

Percy rolls his eyes but obliges him. What can he say? He was never good at refusing Monty. He might not be good at knitting either, but he’ll practice this skill rather than that one. 

[musicollage]

Lali Puna. Faking The Books, 2004. Morr Music.  ~ [  Album Review |      1) Pitchfork  +  2) Tiny Mix Tapes  +    3) Stylus Magazine  ]

1) Even now, amidst this international shitstorm of laptop-meets-okay-musician circle jerks, the Weilheim, Germany supergroups-- The Notwist, Ms. John Soda, Lali Puna-- have maintained fairly unique personalities. Let's oversimplify: The Notwist remains the camp's darkest shade, preoccupied with melancholy and perhaps the most electronically involved. Ms. John Soda straddles rock and pop equally, coaching chocolately sweet vocals and the camp's most peppermint hooks. By analogy, Lali Puna is to riffs what Ms. John Soda is to melodies-- this is Weilheim's face of rock, its most outwardly energetic outfit and the closest this town gets to sweaty basement shows and fucking shit up wholesale.

Which doesn't say much, as Lali Puna's idea of fucking shit up on their 2001 release Scary World Theory seemed to be, at worst, breaking into a building and rearranging the furniture. Still, at the time, the album's gruffest tracks offered the most aggressive sounds Weilheim's palatable pop spectrum had yet delivered. And then last year, Ms. John Soda released their heavily rock-oriented While Talking EP, which, though only marginally enjoyable, branched out into harder terrain. Now, with Faking the Books, Lali Puna snatch the Weilheim riffing crown back from Ms. John Soda-- and thankfully, even top their labelmates melodically.

After a pleasant but ultimately faceless title track opener, Lali Puna provide a double-shot of well-wrought rippers: "Call 1-800-FEAR" is the first, boasting a no-nonsense drive, tight instrumental harmonies and undistracting electronic loops that bolster the song's pulse. Atop it all floats bandleader Valerie Trebeljahr's underwater vocals, processed enough so as not to sound incongruous or (gasp!) bedroomy. "Micronomic", the album's second single, follows in similar temperament, and while not my favorite track on the album, speaks to Lali Puna's ability to cradle their listener gently in melody for one second, and to punch him in the face with a dirty riff in the next.

"B-Movie" and "Left Handed", however, are without a doubt the album's standouts, and maybe the best rock songs in Lali Puna's catalog. "B-Movie" pulls off the Kim Gordon sing/speak that Ms. John Soda attempted to lesser success last year: Trebeljahr just nails that been-there-done-that apathy which works so well with the song's contrasting manic rock groove and pointed bass pulse. The loud, guitar-heavy chorus of "Left Handed" steps further away from Weilheim's distinguished trademarks than the band's other material. Its roaring rock factor was a point of contention when it was released as the album's first single, but in the context of the album it doesn't seem out of place at all: The song sports similarly atonal-to-tonal lyric deliveries as "B-Movie", and remains anchored firmly by the nervous, high-pitched synth line that opens the song and rides it out to the end.

As for the rest of Faking the Books, it's pleasant, and hardly unrealized, but it falls just a bit too close to the IDM pop lark that takes up so much space on CD racks and FireWire drives. And on an album on which this band so beautifully exceeds itself with songs like "B-Movie" and "Grin and Bear", tracks like "Geography-5" and "People I Know", which are content to simply be pretty, are just further proof that the gimmick of pairing electronic and traditional rock instrumentation has lost its edge, and that the genre must now rely on stronger songwriting to succeed. That said, Faking the Books is a confident stride in the right direction, and proves that, even within the confines of a tired concept, a great hook still goes a long way.

2) The history of brilliant electronic efforts fronted by mind-altered, bot-driven avatars is not a short one. From Kraftwerk to Devo to Miss Kittin, electronic music has always had a soft spot for people who can sing just like computers can. And, admittedly, it is all pretty cool. There is a certain awesomeness in imitating computers, a turn of the tables from trying to get computers to act like humans (which has never worked out very well).

Problem is, Lali Puna's latest effort, Faking the Books, isn't really going for fun, and there is hardly a wink in Valerie Trebeljahr's vacant, utterly sterile delivery; not even a raised eyebrow. We're talking about corporate takeover in "Micronomic," political corruption in "1-800-Fear," and cheating (!) in title track "Faking the Books"; and that's just the first three cuts. In an album heavy on concept, it all comes off as a trick, utterly unconvincing and disturbingly jaded.

To be sure, Faking the Books is still a worthy effort, and contains some undeniably beautiful moments. A lean string section on "Crawling by Numbers" serves as perfect counterpoint to spare, haunting keyboards. The driving percussion of "B-Movie" is as close to a rock-out track as bastardized IDM has ever previously achieved. And throughout the album's twelve tracks, an unlikely confluence of sound often gives way to the kind of sonic landscaping that few electronic acts can approach.

It's just hard what to make of all of it. Listening to Faking the Books makes you feel utterly alone; and maybe that's the whole point. It's difficult to play the album through and not recall Markus Acher's striking vocals on The Notwist's Neon Golden (who also provides guitars here); he's sullen, fairly quiet and not particularly dramatic, but entirely convincing. I want to believe Lali Puna. I just need for them to believe, too.

3) Lali Puna is one of the myriad groups putting out consistently intriguing material without taking the final step toward a defining masterwork. Their first album, Tridecoder, was often sterilized by their Stereolab-worship, and though they progressed towards a Teutonic amalgam of their own with Scary World Theory, they were still hampered by peculiar translation barriers. Often the lyrics came out deadened and awkward, as though misled by a translator fond of cruel pranks (the title track and its allusion to the ‘cookie monster’ was particularly strange). On their newest album, Faking the Books, Lali Puna move one step closer to triumph. They touch greatness at several points, if never truly digging their nails in and grabbing hold.

Opening with the gorgeous stuttering vocal samples of the title track, Lali Puna establish the same vague working area as previous works, but there is a distance in the similarity. It’s as though you’ve just met a good friend’s identical twin, and he’s posing as your friend. His voice sounds different, and he parts his hair wider of center. He doesn’t use the same expressions, and there’s a gleam in his eye that tells you something’s up. The driving organic rhythms of “Call 1-800-Fear” remind of much of the first album, but just as you become accustomed to its propulsive thrust, the drums fade into quick-stepping electronic beats and a solemn piano muffles the song into a deep restless stirring. “Micronomic” uses a similar mechanical breakdown to cool down its squelched sax blurts and lively drums.

Perhaps the greatest difference is Valerie Trebeljahr’s improved emotional range. At times in the past, she was content to play the heroin-dead heroine, reclining with sang froid and cold Germanic grace into an emotional deadpan. On many of Faking the Books’ best songs, Trebeljahr reaches beyond this detachment to an impassioned query, giving the album a greater sense of depth and development. Suddenly, even in the face of vague uncertainty, Trebeljahr seems more confident, more willing to put her ego on the line and risk a sullen retreat. “Geography-5” finds her alluring and come-hither, and since the song is built upon one of the album’s simplest arrangements, her voice is the necessary focal point. Atop a simple bass-drum part and twilight chimes, she sweats out a sexuality that doesn’t bring to mind black leather, dog collars and torturous candle wax. On the gorgeous closer “Crawling by Numbers,” she similarly warms up the chorus with a beautiful reach—the juxtaposition of her voice with the song’s dirgeful strings making for a mesmerizing finale.

For the first time, Lali Puna’s control doesn’t seem so absolute. It’s possible that they aren’t cooler than you are (though it’s still likely). A few cracks have spread in their frozen facade, and that sudden vulnerability, glimpsed in the desperate “Do you?” on “Alienation” and the minimal aquatic squiggles and tribal drums of “Small Things,” makes the group that much more compelling. They work under the protective hush of simplicity at times, and this sparseness allows the broken-nosed shatter of their more propulsive material the intended effect. They aren’t there yet, but the maturity on Faking the Books serves as notice they may only be one album away.

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted’s Decade Picks

Heron Oblivion, still the closest thing to a Dusted consensus pick

Just as, in spring, the young's fancy turns to thoughts of love, at the end of the decade the thoughts of critics and fans naturally tend towards reflection. Sure, time is an arbitrary human division of reality, but it seems to be working out okay for us so far. We're too humble a bunch to offer some sort of itemized list of The Best Of or anything like that, though; a decade is hard enough to wrap your head around when it's just your life, let alone all the music produced during said time. Instead these decade picks are our jumping off points to consider our decades, whether in personal terms, or aesthetic ones, or any other. The records we reflect on here are, to be sure, some of our picks for the best of the 2010s (for more, check back this afternoon), but think of what follows less as anything exhaustive and more as our hand-picked tour to what stuck with us over the course of these ten years, and why.

Brian Eno — The Ship (Warp, 2016)

You don’t need to dig deep to see that our rapidly evolving and hyper-consciously inclusive discourse is taking on the fluidity of its surroundings. In 2016, a year of what I’ll gently call transformation, Brian Eno had his finger on multiple pulses; The Ship resulted. It’s anchored in steady modality, and its melody, once introduced, doesn’t change, but everything else ebbs and flows with the Protean certainty of uncertainty. While the album moves from the watery ambiguities of the title track, through the emotional and textural extremes of “Fickle Sun” toward the gorgeously orchestrated version of “I’m Set Free,” implying some kind of final redemption, the moment-to-moment motion remains wonderfully non-binary. Images of war and of the instants producing its ravaging effects mirror and counterbalance the calmly and increasingly gender-fluid voice as it concludes the titular piece by depicting “wave after wave after wave.” Is it all Salman Rushdie’s numbers marching again? The lyrics embody the movement from “undescribed” through “undefined” and “unrefined’” connoting a journey toward aging, but size, place, chronology and the music encompassing them remain in constant flux, often nearly but never quite recognizable. Genre and sample float in and out of view with the elusive but devastating certainty of tides as the ship travels toward silence, toward that ultimate ambiguity that follows all disillusion, filling the time between cycles. The disconnect between stasis and motion is as disconcerting as these pieces’ relationship to the songform Eno inherited and exploded. The album encapsulates the modernist subtlety and Romantic grace propelling his art and the state of a civilization in the faintly but still glowing borderlands between change and decay.

Marc Medwin

Cate Le Bon — Cyrk (Control Group, 2012)

There's no artist whose work I anticipated more this decade than Cate Le Bon, and no artist who frustrated me more with each release, only to keep reeling me in for the long run. Le Bon's innate talent is for soothing yet oblique folk, soberly psychedelic, which she originally delivered in the Welsh language, and continued into English with rustic reserve.

Except something about her pastoralism seems to bore her, and the four-chord arpeggios are shot through with scorches of noise, or sent haywire with post-punk brittleness. In its present state, her music is built around chattering xylophones and croaking saxophone, even as the lyrics draw deeper into memory and introspection, with ever more haunting payoffs. It's as if Nick Drake shoved his way into the leadership of Pere Ubu. She's taken breaks from music to work on pottery and furniture-making, and retreats to locales like a British cottage and Texas art colony to plumb for new inspirations. She's clearly energized by collaboration and relocation, but there’s a force to her persona that, despite her introverted presence, dominates a session. Rare for our age, she's an artist who gets to follow her muse full time, bouncing between record labels and seeing her name spelled out in the medium typefaces on festival bills.

Cyrk, from 2012, is the record where I fell in, and it captures her at something close to joyous, a half smile. Landing between her earliest folk and later surrealism, it is open to comparison with the Velvet Underground. But not the VU that is archetypical to indie rock – Cyrk is more an echo of the solo work that followed. There’s the sharp compositional order and Welsh lilt of John Cale. Like Lou Reed, she makes a grand electric guitar hook out of the words “you’re making it worse.” The homebound twee of Mo Tucker and forbidding atmosphere of Nico are present in equal parts. Those comparisons are reductive, but they demonstrate how Cyrk feels instantly familiar if you’ve garnered certain listening habits. Songs surround you with woolly keyboard and guitar hooks, and one can forget a song ends with an awkward trumpet coda even after dozens of listens. The awkwardness is what keeps the album fresh.

She lulls, then dowses with cold water. So Cyrk isn't an entirely easy record, even if it is frequently a pretty one. The most epic song here, reaching high with those woolly hums and twang, is "Fold the Cloth.” It bobs along, coiling tight as she reaches into the strange register of female falsetto. Le Bon cranks out a fuzz solo – she's great at extending her sung melodies across instruments. Then the climax chants out, "fold the cloth or cut the cloth.” What is so important about this mundane action? Her mystery lyrics never feel haphazard, like LSD posey. They are out of step with pop grandiose. Maybe when her back is turned, there's a full smile.

Who are "Julia" and "Greta,” two mid-album sketches that avoid verse-chorus structure? Julia is represented by a limp waltz, Greta by pulses on keyboards. Shortly after the release, Le Bon followed up with the EP Cyrk II made up of tracks left off the album. To a piece, they’re easier numbers than "Julia" and "Greta.” The cryptic and the scribble are essential to how Cyrk flows, which is to say it flows haltingly.

This approach dampens her acclaim and her potential audience, but that's how she fashions decades-old tropes into fresh art. She’s also quite the band leader. Drummers have a different thud when they play on her stage. Musicians' fills disappear. She brings in a horn solo as often as she lays down a guitar lead. The closer tracks, "Plowing Out Pts 1 & 2," aren't inherently linked numbers. By the second part, the group has worked up to a carnival swirl, frothing like "Sister Ray" yet as sweet as a children's TV show theme. Does that sound sinister? The effect is more like heartbreak fuelling abandon, her forlorn presence informing everyone's playing.

Fuse this album with the excellent Cyrk II tracks, and you can image a deluxe double LP 10th anniversary reissue in a few years. Ha ha no. I expect nothing so garish will happen. It sure wouldn't suit the artist. In a decade where "fan service" became an everyday concept, Le Bon is immune. She's a songwriter who seems like she might walk away from at all without notice, if that’s where her craftsmanship leads. The odd and oddly comfortable chair that is Cyrk doesn't suit any particular decor, but my room would feel bare without it.

Ben Donnelly

Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph)

Here’s the scenario: Heavily tatted guy has some dogs. He really loves his dogs. Heavily tatted guy goes on tour with his band. While he’s on the road, one of his dogs dies. Heavily tatted guy gets really sad. He writes a song about it.  

That should be the set-up for an insufferably maudlin emo record. But instead what you get is Converge’s “All We Love We Leave Behind” and the searing LP that shares the title. The songs dive headlong into the emotional intensities of loss and reflect on the cost of artistic ambition. The enormously talented line-up that recorded All We Love We Leave Behind in 2012 had been playing together for just over a decade, and vocalist Jacob Bannon and guitarist Kurt Ballou had been collaborating for more than twenty years. It shows. The record pummels and roars with remarkable precision, and its songs maniacally twist, and somehow they soar.  

Any number of genre tags have been stuck on (or innovated by) Converge’s music: mathcore, metalcore, post-hardcore. It’s fun to split sonic hairs. But All We Love… is most notable for its exhilarating fury and naked heart, musical qualities that no subgenre can entirely claim. Few bands can couple such carefully crafted artifice with such raw intensity. And few records of the decade can match the compositional wit and palpable passion of All We Love…, which never lets itself slip into shallow romanticism. It hurts. And it ruthlessly rocks.  

Jonathan Shaw

EMA — The Future’s Void (City Slang, 2014)

When trying to narrow down to whatever my own most important records of the decade are, I tried to keep it to one per artist (as I do with individual years, although it’s a lot easier there). Out of everyone, though, EMA came by far the closest to having two records on that list, and this could have been 2017’s Exile in the Outer Ring, which along with The Future’s Void comes terrifyingly close to unpacking an awful lot of what’s going wrong, and has been going wrong, with the world we live in for a while now. The Future’s Void focuses more on the technological end of our particular dystopia, shuddering both emotionally and sonically through the dead end of the Cold War all the way to us refreshing our preferred social media site when somebody dies. EMA is right there with us, too; this isn’t judgment, it’s just reporting from the front line. And it must be said, very few things from this decade ripped like “Cthulu” rips.

Ian Mathers

The Field — Looping State of Mind (Kompakt, 2011)

Looping State of Mind by The Field

On Looping State of Mind, Swedish producer Axel Willner builds his music with seamlessly jointed loops of synths, beats, guitars and voice to create warm cushions of sound that envelop the ears, nod the head and move the body. Willner is a master of texture and atmosphere, in lesser hands this may have produced mere comfort food but there is spice in the details that elevates this record as he accretes iotas of elements, withholding release to heighten anticipation. Although this is essentially deep house built on almost exclusively motorik 4/4 beats, Willner also plays with ambient, post-punk and shoegaze dynamics. From the slow piano dub of “Then It’s White,” which wouldn’t be out of place on a Labradford or Pan American album, to the ecstatic shuffling lope of “Arpeggiated Love” and “Is This Power” with its hint of a truncated Gang of Four-like bass riff, Looping State of Mind is a deeply satisfying smorgasbord of delicacies and a highlight of The Field’s four album output during the 2010s.

Andrew Forell

Gang Gang Dance — “Glass Jar” (4AD, 2011)

Instead of telling you my favorite album of the decade — I made my case for it the first year we moved to Tumblr, help yourself — it feels more fitting to tell you a story from my friend Will about my favorite piece of music from the last 10 years, a song that arrived just before the rise of streaming, which flattened “the album experience” to oppressive uniformity and rendered it an increasingly joyless, rudderless routine of force-fed jams and AI/VC-directed mixes catering to a listener that exists in username only. The first four seconds of “Glass Jar” told you everything you needed to know about what lie ahead, but here’s the kind of thing that could happen before everything was all the time:

I took eight hours of coursework in five weeks in order to get caught up on classes and be in a friend's wedding at the end of June. Finishing a week earlier than the usual summer session meant I had to give my end-of-class presentations and turn in my end-of-class papers in a single day, which in turn meant that I was well into the 60-70 hour range without sleep by the time I got to the airport for an early-morning flight. (Partly my fault for insisting that I needed to stay up and make a “wedding night” mix for the couple — real virgin bride included — and even more my fault for insisting that it be a single, perfectly crossfaded track). I was fuelled only by lingering adrenaline fumes and whatever herbal gunpowder shit I had been mixing with my coffee — piracetam, rhodiola, bacopa or DMAE depending on the combination we had at the time. At any rate, eyes burning, skull heavy, joints stiff with dry rot, I still had my wits enough to refuse the backscatter machine at the TSA checkpoint; instead of the usual begrudging pat-down, I got pulled into a separate room. Anyway, it was a weird psychic setback at that particular time, but nothing came of it. Having arrived at my gate, I popped on the iPod with a brand new set of studio headphones and finally got around to listening to the Gang Gang Dance I had downloaded months before. "Glass Jar," at that moment, was the most religious experience I’d had in four years. I was literally weeping with joy.

Point being: It is worth it to stay up for a few days just to listen to ‘Glass Jar’ the way it was meant to be heard.

Patrick Masterson

Heron Oblivion — Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

Heron Oblivion by Heron Oblivion

Heron Oblivion’s self-titled first album fused unholy guitar racket with a limpid serenity. It was loud and cathartic but also pure beauty, floating drummer Meg Baird’s unearthly vocals over a sound that was as turbulent and majestic as nature itself, now roiled in storm, now glistening with dewy clarity. The band convened four storied guitarists—Baird from Espers, Ethan Miller and Noel Harmonson from Comets on Fire and Charlie Sauffley—then relegated two of them to other instruments (Baird on drums and Miller on bass). The sound drew on the full flared wail and scree of Hendrix and Acid Mothers Temple, the misty romance of Pentangle and Fairport Convention. It was a record out of time and could have happened in any year from about 1963 onward, or it could have not happened at all. We were so glad it did at Dusted; Heron Oblivion’s eponymous was closer to a consensus pick than any record before or since, and if you want to define a decade, how about the careening riffs of “Oriar” breaking for Baird’s dream-like chants?

Jennifer Kelly

The Jacka — What Happened to the World (The Artist, 2014)

Probably the most prophetic rap album of the 2010s. The Jacka was the king of Bay rap since he started MOB movement. He was always generous with his time, and clique albums were pouring out of The Jacka and his disciples every few months. Even some of his own albums resembled at times collective efforts. This generosity made some of the albums unfocused and disjointed, yet what it really shows is that even in the times when dreams of collective living were abandoned The Jacka still had hopes for Utopia and collective struggles. It was about the riches, but he saw the riches in people first and foremost.

This final album before he was gunned down in the early 2014 is full of predictions about what’s going to happen to him. Maybe this explains why it’s focused as never before and even Jacka’s leaned-out voice has doomed overtones. This music is the only possible answer to the question the album’s title poses: everything is wrong with the world where artists are murdered over music.

Ray Garraty

John Maus — We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Upset The Rhythm, 2011)

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves by John Maus

Minnesota polymath John Maus’ quest for the perfect pop song found its apotheosis on his third album We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves in 2011. On the surface an homage to 1980s synth pop, Maus’ album reveals its depth with repeated listens. Over expertly constructed layers of vintage keyboards, Maus’ oft-stentorian baritone alternately intones and croons deceptively simple couplets that blur the line between sincerity and provocation. Lurking beneath the smooth surface Maus uses Baroque musical tropes that give the record a liturgical atmosphere that reinforces the Gregorian repetition of his lyrics. The tension between the radical ironic banality of the words and the deeply serious nature of the music and voice makes We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves an oddly compelling collection that interrogates the very notion of taste and serves an apt soundtrack to the post-truth age.

Andrew Forell

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society — Mandatory Reality (Eremite, 2019)

Mandatory Reality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

Any one of the albums that Joshua Abrams has made under the Natural Information Society banner could have made this list. While each has a particular character, they share common essences of sound and spirit. Abrams made his bones playing bass with Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Mike Reed, Fred Anderson, Chad Taylor, and many others, but in the Society his main instrument is the guimbri, a three-stringed bass lute from Morocco. He uses it to braid melody, groove, and tone into complex strands of sound that feel like they might never end. Mandatory Reality is the album where he delivers on the promise of that sound. Its centerpiece is “Finite,” a forty-minute long performance by an eight-person, all-acoustic version of Natural Information Society. It has become the main and often sole piece that the Society plays. Put the needle down and at first it sounds like you are hearing some ensemble that Don Cherry might have convened negotiating a lost Steve Reich composition. But as the music winds patiently onwards, strings, drums, horns, and harmonium rise in turn to the surface. These aren’t solos in the jazz sense so much as individual invitations for the audience to ease deeper into the sonic entirety. The music doesn’t end when the record does, but keeps manifesting with each performance. Mandatory Reality is a nodal point in an endless stream of sound that courses through the collective unconscious, periodically surfacing in order to engage new listeners and take them to the source.

Bill Meyer

Mansions — Doom Loop (Clifton Motel, 2013)

I knew nothing about Mansions when I first heard about this record; I can’t even remember how I heard about this record. But I liked the name of the album and the album art, so I listened to it. Sometimes the most important records in your decade have as much to do with you as with them. I’d been frantically looking for a job for nearly two years at that point, the severance and my access Ontario’s Employment Insurance program (basically, you pay in every paycheck, and then have ~8 months of support if you’re unemployed) had both ran out. I was living with a friend in Toronto sponsoring my American wife into the country (fun fact: they don’t care if you have an income when you do that), feeling the walls close in a little each day, sure I was going to wind up one of those kids who had to move back to the small town I’d left and a parent’s house. There were multiple days I’d send out 10+ applications and then walk around my neighbourhood blasting “Climbers” and “Out for Blood” through my earbuds, cueing up “La Dentista” again and dreaming of revenge… on what? Capitalism? There was no more proximate target in view. That’s not to say that Doom Loop is necessarily about being poor or about the shit hand my generation (I fit, just barely) got in the job market, or anything like that; but for me it is about the almost literal doom loop of that worst six months, and I still can’t listen to “The Economist” without my blood pressure spiking a little.

Ian Mathers

Protomartyr — Under Colour of Official Right (Hardly Art, 2014)

Under Color of Official Right by Protomartyr

By my count, Protomartyr made not one but four great albums in the 2010s, racking up a string of rhythmically unstoppable, intellectually challenging discs with absolute commitment and intent. I caught whiff of the band in 2012, while helping out with editing the old Dusted. Jon Treneff’s review of All Passion No Technique told a story of exhilarant discovery; I read it and immediately wanted in. The conversion event, though, came two years later, with the stupendous Under Color of Official Right, all Wire-y rampage and Fall-spittled-bile, a rattletrap construction of every sort of punk rock held together by the preening contempt of black-suited Joe Casey. Doug Mosurock reviewed it for us, concluding, “Poppier than expected, but still covered in burrs, and adeptly analyzing the pain and suffering of their city and this year’s edition of the society that judges it, Protomartyr has raised the bar high enough for any bands to follow, so high that most won’t even know it’s there.” Except here’s the thing: Protomartyr jumped that bar two more times this decade, and there’s no reason to believe that they won’t do it again. The industry turned on the kind of bands with four working class dudes who can play a while ago, but this is the band of the 2010s anyway.

Jennifer Kelly

Tau Ceti IV — Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending (Cold Vomit, 2018)

Satan, You're The God of This Age But Your Reign is Ending by Tau Ceti IV

This decade was full of takes on American primitive guitar. Some were pretty good, a few were great, many were forgettable, and then there was this overlooked gem from Jordan Darby of Uranium Orchard. Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending is an antidote to bland genre exercises. Like John Fahey, Darby has a distinct voice and style, as well as a sense of humor. Also like Fahey, his playing incorporates diverse influences in subtle but pronounced ways. American primitive itself isn’t a staid template. Though there are also plenty of beautiful, dare I say pastoral moments, which still stand out for being genuinely evocative.

Darby’s background in aggressive electric guitar music partly explains his approach. (Not sure if he’s the only ex-hardcore guy to go in this direction, but there can’t be many.) His playing is heavier than one might expect, but it feels natural, not like he’s just playing metal riffs on an acoustic guitar. But heaviness isn’t the only difference. Like his other projects, Satan is wonderfully off-kilter. This album’s strangeness isn’t reducible to component parts, but here are two representative examples: “The Wind Cries Mary” gradually encroaches on the last track, and throughout, the microphone picks up more string noise than most would consider tasteful. It all works, or at least it’s never boring.

Ethan Milititisky

Z-Ro — The Crown (Rap-a-Lot, 2014)

When singing in rap was outsourced to pop singers and Auto Tune, Z-Ro remained true to his self, singing even more than he ever did. He did his hooks and his verses himself, and no singing could harm his image as a hustler moonlighting as a rapper. He can’t be copied exactly because of his gift, to combine singing soft and rapping hard. It’s a sort of common wisdom that he recorded his best material in the previous decade, yet quite apart from hundreds of artists that continued to capitalize on their fame he re-invented himself all the past decade, making songs that didn’t sound like each other out of the same raw material. The Crown is a tough pick because since his post-prison output he made solid discs one after each other.

Ray Garraty

[prevaricatcr]

‹ TARON EGERTON, HE/HIM, CISMALE, BISEXUAL.  ›  ELLIOT GALLAGHER is the TWENTY SIX year old from SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA. when a friend asked them what they thought of the manor they said,  ❝ MIGHT AS FUCKIN’ WELL, RIGHT? GONNA HATE MY LIFE EITHER WAY, MIGHT AS WELL DO IT WITH SOME SCENERY. ❞ they claim FUNNY GAMES is their favorite scary movie, and if they were to die in a horror film they would TAUNT THE KILLER AND GET WHACKED FOR IT. their fears include DRIVING A CAR, WRITHING SNAKES and PUPPETS, and they don’t know we know, but… HE’S PAID OFF MULTIPLE WOMEN WHO HAVE HAD HIS CHILDREN. hope they enjoy their stay.  ‹  MUSE A from HOLLYWOOD’S BLEEDING penned by, Z, 25+, CST.  ›

- - - - - - - BASICS.

Name: Elliot Rian Gallagher. Pronouns: He, him. Nicknames: n/a Age: Twenty-six. Birthdate: April 18th. Zodiac: Aries sun, taurus moon, gemini rising. Ethnicity: white, his father's grandparents were second generation irish and his mother always stated that her parents came from Sandusky, and didn't know more than that. Nationality: American. Birthplace: Santa Monica, CA Gender: Cis Male. Sexual Orientation: Bisexual.

- - - - - - - BACKGROUND.

Parents: Craig Robert Gallagher; 58 years old, alive. Teresa Dawn Shwitzer-Gallagher ; 52 years old, alive Siblings: 2 older siblings, a boy and a girl, and two younger sisters. Spouse: n/a. Children: 3 by different mothers, whom he sends monthly allowances to. He makes it his business not to know any more. Current Job: out of work musician. Dream Career: to be back on top of his game, winning grammies like he used to. Schooling: Attended Crossroads in Santa Monica on and off, eventually graduated with lots of monetary assistance. Income: Receives pay from royalties from the band he was in as a teenager that kicked him out.

- - - - - - - PHYSICAL.

Height: 5'8". Weight: 160 lb. Eye Color: Blue. Hair Color: Dark brown. Hair Length: Fairly short. Hair Type: On the thinner side, with some wave. Body Type: Fairly skinny, with small hips and waist. A little thicker around the midsection with his short stint of sobriety. Clothing Size: Medium to large. Shoe Size: Size 11 Complexion: Very pale, freckles fairly easy, burns very easy. Scars: scars and calluses on his hands, a puckered scar on his temple half hidden by his hair, and a scar on his right hip from a bad car accident, his knees are assessed as much older than himself because of how poorly he treats them combined with genetics, and a long scar on the left side of his back.

- - - - - - - PERSONALITY.

Positive Traits: adventurous, charming, direct, passionate, sociable, competitive, creative, lively, versatile. Negative Traits: volatile, extravagant, defensive, envious, juvenile, wasteful, unreliable, vulgar, pessimistic. Mental Condition: Currently drinking again and using cocaine along with a few prescription pills after attempting out-patient rehab and tapering down his drinking, which he's been addicted to since age fourteen. No officially assessed disorders or conditions besides his alcoholism. Struggles with intimacy while sober. Emotional Condition: Fragile, filled with guilt and self loathing after relapse. Sees trust as more important than love and is very guarded with what he considers his innermost self. Likes: All black outfits, sunglasses, a tall glass of boulevard when he's drinking to taste it, people that make him laugh out loud, old school SNL, the fine tuning of behind the camera work, treating the people he cares about to nice things, arguing about oscars prospects for any given film, penny slot machines, jokes that make people groan loudly. Dislikes: lazy jokes about addiction, late night talk shows, people who look at him and see his misdeeds and not who he is as a person, "lizard people" conspiracy theories, elevator music, plastic covers on mattresses, the concept of an all seeing, all knowing god, TMZ, the smell of industrial cleaner. Strengths: intelligent, ambitious, sincere, passionate, generous, philosophical. Weaknesses: reckless, impatient, cowardly, detached, foolhardy, irresponsible. Fears/phobias: sobriety, letting someone see every single part of him, allowing himself to be vulnerable when sober, having hallucinations, driving a car. Hobbies: little to none as his primary hobby has always been drinking, mostly reading and watching movies. Quirks: fiddling with his glasses, biting the inside of his cheek, humming any song that comes through his mind out loud when he's distracted or concentrating hard on something.

- - - - - - - HISTORY.

!!! possible triggers in the following biography: drug use, alcohol abuse and alcoholism, driving while intoxicated, car accidents, parental neglect of children !!! You are two and a half when you land your first commercial. Your younger sisters managed their first roles before you, but it was a little easier for them as they were infant twins; far more in demand than just a tiny toddler boy. This is how your family eats and keeps themselves in an apartment in Santa Monica that's meant to house three when your family eventually grows to hold seven in total. A lot of mouths to feed. Thankfully you don't remember a lot of this, as the small time work you and your siblings do is enough to keep your family afloat. You make your way into middle school; pissed and stand offish and looking like a cherub; which insures that no one takes you seriously. The friends you make, you hold tightly to, and you kick around in your best friend Boston’s basement, just fooling around on his parents drum kit, their guitars that aren’t actually supposed to be touched. It’s all just for fun, the band and the EP you slap together; just trying to impress each other, until one of Bos’ parents finds someone who wants to sign the band. Everyone tells you over and over again, that this is the deal of a life time. That this will make sure you work in Hollywood for the rest of your life. This is both true, and untrue. The EP is an unmitigated success, and every review has something to say about you, the kid on bass with backup vocals who’s face looks barely legal but plays like he’s planning a murder. Almost everyone remarks on how much older than your few years you seem. Which at first makes you feel special, important. Makes you seek out big words to use when you're sitting on the couch as a guest. The audience really loves that. Of course, this also spawns those times when you end up at wrap parties and after parties, your mother schmoozing whatever producers and execs she can find, your father nowhere to be found, and a sea of adults getting high and wasted around you. None of the vices of Hollywood have ever been all that strange to you, though. Your parents have always had a very blase approach to the innocence of childhood, and didn't much care to shield you from anything. It’s still all fun and games, really. The five of you have too much fun, and everyone wants to treat you to everything, so. Somehow the option you end up choosing most often is the bottle in your hand. The bottles that are so readily available, everywhere, that get pressed into your hands and put into the end of the night goodie bags your mother always takes three of. You think that waking up in an unfamiliar bed every single night of a week is something the rest of your bandmates are doing. It’s all a laugh, we all drink and we all smoke and it’s kid shit, right Boston? You learn that it very much is just a ‘you’ thing when you come to rehearsal (late, as usual) one Thursday afternoon and they’re all somberly waiting for you, hands in their lap and silent. You are being released from your contract with Cthulhu Rising...but the band has elected to move on and create their debut album. Unfortunately at this point you are eighteen and very, very deeply entrenched in alcoholism. The press has been playing you as a party boy who enjoys simple teenage excess for a very long time, but it's starting to wear thin. TMZ is growing a lot less glowing in their articles. You try not to pay attention even as you get yourself thrown out of clubs and tossed into drunk tanks and bailed back out again by whichever assistant your mother has hired this week. As long as you can find a way to make music, you can keep breathing. But with your growing notoriety, offers start to dry up. Those late night shows that loved your precociousness take pot shots at you in their opening monologues. Kimmel's pre-taped Lonely Island style sketch about 'you' endorsing a brand of gin in the style of I Love Lucy gets over a million views on youtube. All of Hollywood, and by extension all the world is laughing at you. It get a little less funny when you ram your matte black Lamborghini Aventador into the median taking the exit for Interstate 10, pinball off of it and into the car in the lane next to you, back into the median hard enough to flip your car into a roll, tumbling side over side across the lanes into the ditch. Your blood test results at the hospital show your blood alcohol content was nearly triple the legal limit. The accident doesn't kill you, though it's a close thing. You're convinced the recovery is worse. The total at the end adds up to a fractured pelvis, six broken ribs, safety glass embedded in your left temple, lacerations all over your arms and face, bleeding in your lungs and swelling in the brain that leaves you in a coma for the better part of two weeks. The most pathetic part of it all? All of that, the things you don't remember from that day coupled with the bursts and flashes of what you do remember, the year and a half you spend in recovery still isn't enough to make you put the bottle down forever. And doesn't that just make you fucking hate yourself?

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Ninety-Three: Painting ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

Every time he goes to that little cafe, Sasuke can’t help but look around for the mysterious painter.

Well...she’s not quite so mysterious now. After all, he knows her name, and had gotten to talk to her a bit when he and Itachi stumbled across her at the art show. It was nice to finally see what she’d been so fervently scribbling when they both were in the cafe at the same time. Even if it was also rather embarrassing to see himself as a subject of a painting...and even worse, Itachi actually bought it.

Upon his return home, he even texted Sasuke a picture of it hanging on his wall. To which Sasuke replied with several threats insisting he take it down before someone sees it.

...he hasn’t gotten a reply.

And of course, Itachi had ever so subtly gotten the younger pair to exchange numbers. But Sasuke hasn’t texted Hinata yet. Mostly because...he has no idea what he’d say. It’s not like they’re friends or anything. She’s a street artist who painted him once. They only talked for a few minutes at the art show she was in. What’s he supposed to offer to her based on so little?

She hasn’t texted him yet, either. Maybe she really didn’t want his number...after all, she’d clearly been caught off guard at being found by her unknowing subject. Add in Itachi’s insistence on buying it, and...maybe she was offended, or mad...but felt like she couldn’t say no.

...he hopes she wasn’t angry. Maybe just...surprised. Apparently Itachi had given her more than she asked for, after all…

...maybe she’s embarrassed.

But, whatever she is, Sasuke has no idea. All he knows is that their conversation under contacts is still empty, and neither of them seems to have any idea (or want) to break the silence.

All this he contemplates as he spaces out in line, waiting to get his favorite cup of black coffee. For once, he didn’t bring his laptop - no work to bring with him to work on and procrastinate by browsing online.

...maybe he’d been secretly hoping to run into her. Not that he has any idea what he’d say if he did. Theirs has just been such a funny little story, he was a little sad when it supposedly ended. Maybe she’s done coming to the cafe, moving on to a new venue and new subjects.

...why does that make him feel bummed out?

Getting his order, he retreats to his typical corner, sipping his coffee and staring boredly out the window. Well...she’s not here. Maybe he’ll go run some errands, or even see if Naruto’s up to anything. He’s not had a decent dose of socializing in a while, and his introversion needs a break every so often so he doesn’t forget what it is to be human.

Browsing social media idly on his phone, he glances up every time the bell over the door tolls. But each look sees him disappointed as it isn’t her. After half an hour of nothing, he sighs and gives up, pocketing his mobile and deciding to just...go for a walk.

Nothing better to do.

It’s still early Fall, the breeze a bit chilly but easily quelled with a heavy sweatshirt. This part of town has a decent amount of trees scattered around, blowing leaves of every warm shade across the sidewalks. Though more of a Summer guy himself, Sasuke can still appreciate the atmosphere of the season.

...maybe that’s what’s keeping Hinata out of the cafe. Surely all the colors and whatnot are giving her plenty of things to draw. He certainly wouldn’t blame her - it might not be the flowers and green of Summer, but surely it catches someone’s eye enough to maybe buy and support some of her work.

Twenty minutes pass in a mindless blur, Sasuke just strolling along whatever street strikes his fancy. It’s been a while since he’s been this far out on foot...and he tries not to drive when he can help it. Partly to save gas money, partly to be environmentally conscious...and mostly because he’d just rather be home.

Rounding a corner, he pauses as a faint...something reaches his ear. It sounds like music? Pinpointing the direction, he does his best to follow it, and eventually comes upon a street musician outside a small row of shops. No one he recognizes, they sit and play a guitar on a raised flower bed in the middle of the pedestrian-only street. Accompanying their playing they sing a few lyrics, a foot tapping in time to the music.

Watching, Sasuke can’t help a slowly-growing grin. He’s not a musician himself, never having tried (and having no motivation to), but his brother’s passion for it still rubs off on him a bit: he’s not an artist, but he’s a happy patron of it.

Every so often, people dare to scurry up and drop a tip in the open guitar case at his feet, earning a smile and a thankful nod with each note or clink or change. Taking out his wallet, Sasuke drops a ten dollar bill among the rest before retaking a place to watch.

“...Sasuke?”

Startling as his name is called, Sasuke glances around as a song ends, the small crowd clapping politely. A few feet over, seated on a bench with her sketchpad, is Hinata. “...hey!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Was going for a walk and heard the music...you?”

“Same, honestly. Was trying to find something to sketch.”

Glancing to her paper, he asks, “...you mind?”

In answer, she tilts it toward him. A scratchy but recognizable portrait of the musician is coming together under her hand. “I’ve only been here for about twenty minutes...I hope he stays long enough I can finish the sketch.”

“Could always ask him if he has plans to come back so you can keep going.”

“Mm...true.” Readjusting her work, she gets back to it as her model starts up another song.

Torn between curiosity and not wanting to be nosy, Sasuke only glances over every so often to catch a glimpse as she draws. Though she comes off as rather reserved, her strokes are anything but: sweeping, bold things that capture her subject in a grandiose style he wouldn’t have guessed to be hers if he didn’t see her do it himself. Swept up in it, he eventually just watches without pause, eyes following her movements as she slowly puts together her subject.

After another thirty minutes, the artist announces he has to pack it up, thanking the crowd for their generosity. By then, Hinata’s sketch is basically done: a likeness that Sasuke recognizes as very similar in its design to the one she did of him.

As the people break up and scatter, Hinata shyly approaches the guitarist, Sasuke hanging back as not to interrupt. Instead, he watches as she shows the man her work, which gets him to brighten and smile.

...for some reason, a slight damper weighs on Sasuke at the sight.

They talk for a minute more, the man nodding before moving to collect his tip and put away his instrument. Hinata in turn closes her sketchbook, retreating back to Sasuke. “He said he’ll be back on Wednesday, so I should be able to catch him.”

“That’s great. Think you’ll be able to finish it then?”

“Well, I usually just get the basic concept down with the s-subject, and then I fill in the blanks afterward from my imagination. It helps sort of...deviate it from reality a little bit. So it doesn’t feel too much like a...copy? More like a reference.”

“...I’ll pretend I understand that.”

That earns a laugh. “If I wanted to just copy what I was seeing, I might as well just take a photo, right? But I like to add my own style to what I draw. I get the skeleton in the sketch and cleaned up lines, and then I let my interpretation take over.”

Sasuke gives a slow nod. “...makes sense.”

“Do you…?”

“Hm?”

“Well, I was just curious if you do anything...creative,” Hinata offers, hugging her sketchbook to her chest. “Music, or...writing, maybe?”

“Me? Nah...my brother got all the creativity. I got all the logic. Not that he isn’t smart - he’s a genius. But I’ve never really found a creative outlet that I felt actually...fit me.”

Her head tilts, considering him for a moment. “I think...you might like p-photography.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a rather...technical artform. There’s rules you can follow, like how to proportion a shot to be the most pleasing to the eye. And all sorts of things you can focus on. Some people do portraits, or landscapes...or micro photography: really close ups of small things to see all the details!”

Sasuke blinks owlishly. He’s...never considered that before. “...maybe I’ll give it a try.”

“I’d love to see if you do!”

“So...do you have more paintings?”

“Oh...lots,” she admits, laughing sheepishly. “I sell a few online, but...m-most just sit in my studio and collect dust…”

“Itachi contact you at all about some buyers?”

“Not yet, but it hasn’t been very long. Besides, he was already m-more than generous. I’m not about to hold him to it.”

“Well, knowing him, he’ll come through. He’s just a busy guy. But uh…” Sasuke idly itches his neck. “...I’d like to see more of your stuff sometime. If I could.”

“Oh! Um...sure!” Her expression turns sheepish again. “Let me just, um...tidy up before then. I tend to let things get a bit...messy. But I can text you sometime once things aren’t so...chaotic.”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay! Um...it was nice seeing you again, Sasuke. Guess we just keep bumping into each other, huh?”

“Yeah. Kinda nice.”

“Mhm!” After a brief, growingly-awkward pause, she then offers, “I...better get home, though.”

“Same here. Have, uh...a nice evening.”

“You too!” She takes off down the street, and he finds himself a bit thankful it’s not the way he’s going. Nothing more embarrassing than saying goodbye and then having to walk together after…

Still, Sasuke finds his spirits a bit lightened from earlier. Well...maybe now he’ll finally get that text. Until then...he’ll just have to be patient.

                                                              .oOo.

     (This is a sequel to day 85!)      Now THIS is a throwback xD But given the prompt, I couldn't NOT do a follow up to day 85. Which I've wanted to, I just...didn't have a good prompt / reminder until now lol      I like to think Hinata's a creative type. Sasuke...maybe not so much xD I like having him be a musician sometimes, but being Mr. Logical also suits him, so it just varies from time to time. I actually do have him do some photography in a piece or two - I agree with Hinata, it fits well x3      Anyway I reallllly need to get to bed, so...that's all for now! Thanks for reading~

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

An Invisible Bastard and Five or So Underwhelming Fantasies (Invisible Man and Fantasy Island Review)

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of domestic abuse, gaslighting and implied rape in a film with reference to how abusers who commit those things work in real life.

ALSO, SPOILER ALERT!

The Invisible Man is one of the most tense viewing experiences I’ve had in a cinema for a long time, despite the fact that its big horror-movie threat is just a normal dude wearing a suit that makes him invisible. The reason for this is that it’s a tale about abuse, gaslighting, trauma and psychological isolation that actually seems to have a pretty good handle on how those things works. The titular Invisible Man was an abuser who controlled every aspect of his victim’s life even before she ran away and he figured out how to turn himself invisible to pursue her like the world’s rapiest poltergeist. Thanks in large part to the sterling sympatico acting going on between Elisabeth Moss (playing our victim-hero) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (the Invisible Cunt himself), he’s a terrifying and unsettling presence even before the film’s more fantastical elements kick in. Just watching him have a freak out and punch through a car window while still fully visible is unnerving in a way that even unstoppable monsters usually aren’t. Moss’s reactions as the traumatised abuse-survivor Cecilia feel entirely sympathetic and reasonable, balancing the need for the character to have agency with a realistic portrayal of someone being driven mad by a threat nobody else can perceive. The fact that nobody believes what she’s going through, even when she lays out exactly what’s going on, heightens the pervading sense of dread because we’re aware that, in real life, abusers can manipulate and arrange situations that force implausibility onto their victims while real-life trauma simultaneously affects the brain in a way that makes it hard to convey your experiences in an ordered and believable fashion. It’s genuinely scary because- invisibility aside- it feels completely real. All of which makes the inevitable cathartic pay-off all the more satisfying.

Hollywood (here meaning the whole mainstream film and TV industry, not just a small, Gwyneth Paltrow-infested corner of L.A.) is really bad at portraying abusers and telling stories about abuse. Abusive, controlling bastards in movies and television tend to suffer from one of two problems:. Number One is the ‘Straw Abuser’ problem where their behaviour is so unlikely and badly-explained that it’s impossible to take them seriously as an antagonist. They exist solely to prove somebody’s point and as such warrant neither the audience’s hatred nor its fear. One good example of this is that bloke from Colossal, who seems to be evil for no other reason than the fact he’s a working class guy with a beard. Pretty sure there should have been more to it than that. Problem Number Two is ‘Killgrave Syndrome’, where the abusive bastard’s antics are so malevolent and otherworldly and their screen presence is so compelling and entertaining that you forget you’re meant to loathe and fear them. Instead, you just find yourself rooting for them to sink to ever-greater depths of malice and depravity because it might be funny. Your brain takes one look at them and files them in the same category as Wily Coyote, Dick Dastardly and Doctor Evil (who didn’t spend six years at evil medical school to be called ‘mister’).  As such, I have to praise The Invisible Man for creating a story about abuse with a horrifyingly believable abuser, that still keeps the victim at its emotional centre.

It’s hard to make such a well-worn and pre-loved premise as “guy turns himself invisible and goes mad with power” scary, but The Invisible Man manages it by making the invisibility almost incidental and focussing instead on creating a believable scenario with characters who feel like real people.

However, for every amazing film, there must be a film made of ennui and poop to balance it out. Such is the rule of the universe: no light without its shadow, no high without a corresponding low, no Leonard Cohen’s The Future without The Human League’s The Lebanon. Conveniently for me, I don’t have to look very far to find The Invisible Man’s counterpart. If The Invisible Man takes a boring, overdone premise and makes it great, then Fantasy Island (which came out around the same time) takes a brilliant, wondrous premise and turns it into a study in disappointment.

The premise being wasted in this case is that there’s a magic island that can make your fantasies come true, but will also twist them to punish you in macabre and horrifying ways. In a horror film with a core concept like that, you’d expect to see all sorts of insane things. You’d expect to see nerds exploring fantasy worlds only to discover what it’s like to be cooked alive inside their armour by dragon-fire. You’d expect someone’s sexual fantasy to devolve into a Cronenberg-esque nightmare straight from The Society or Bodymelt (google it). You’d expect to see people who dream of being beautiful ending up mutilated in the name of aesthetic perfection. You’d expect fantasies about meeting famous painters or musicians or writers or stars to turn into fights for the death against warped and malevolent versions of those people (just like in the internet musical thing about actual cannibal Shia LeBoufe). None of that happens. In fact, nothing remotely interesting happens.

You see, the people who end up on Fantasy Island are all boring cunts. There’s a couple of tedious brothers who dream of having it all and get to live it up in a mansion with supermodels until its invaded by the previous owner- a mob-boss in a clown mask. There’s a generic guy who dreams of serving in the military with his dead hero father and ends up having to watch his dear old dad die with his own eyes (which should have been an emotional moment, but wasn’t, because he has no discernible personality). There’s a lass who spends her whole time moping about shitty life choices and fantasises about going back in time to change them. She does and ends up with a loving family, which doesn’t change the fact she’s consumed with guilt about someone who died in an accident she was involved in. She asks for a do-over on that, instead, throwing away the family, and nearly dies trying to save someone she can’t save… not because it’s impossible, but because she’s basically bloody useless. Finally, there’s a girl who dreams about getting revenge on a childhood bully and the childhood bully herself who gets kidnapped and taken to the island to be punished.

The bullied girl is the only interesting or relatable character in the whole debacle, since she seems to be experiencing an emotion relating to something that actually happened to her, while the bully herself is a loathsome vacuous berk. Unfortunately, Fantasy Island thinks it’s smarter than it actually is, so the bullied girl turns out to be the one manipulating the fantasies to make them turn out badly (oh, fuck you: there was a spoiler warning at the top and I refuse to feel guilty about ruining this dreck for you), while the bully gets to have a redemption arc and save the day. Just fucking once, I’d like a modern horror film to present me with a hateful, vapid turd and then let me watch them die in an entertaining way while the weirdo gets a happy ending. This whole ‘let’s explore the hidden humanity of total twats at the expense of interesting characters’ thing is no longer fucking subversive: it just validates dickheads. And trust me, dickheads are really good at self-validating. The self-absorbed pricks don’t need any fucking encouragement. Fuck, I miss when horror films used to use these fucking tossers to bulk out their body count. Actually, I miss when spree killers used to use these fucking tossers to bulk out their body count, too, but that was more recent. And since I can visualise the expressions of horror on many of your faces, I should also say don’t get yer knickers in a twist: I’m joking.

Expect more reviews when people finally realise that coronavirus isn’t the end of the world and the cinemas reopen. Until, then, expect increasingly surreal and tangential blogs about whatever the fuck I feel like.

[itspixcelation]

Is The Caligula Effect: Overdose Worth Your Time?

I initially wrote this review for an episode of The Pixcelation Show over on my channel, which you can visit by clicking HERE. If that seems like something you’d enjoy, please scroll to the bottom to find the finished video. Thanks!

In the spring of 2018, an anime by the name of Caligula aired. No; before you ask, it’s not at all connected with the incestuous third emperor of Rome, nor is it connected with the 1979 film about the incestuous third emperor of Rome, but rather, it’s reportedly named after ‘the guilt and excitement that comes with doing something that you shouldn’t do.’ It didn’t really do too much for the anime community at large, only receiving a 6.18 on MyAnimeList as of writing. I remember thinking the series was unnecessarily complicated, and, it being deeply rooted in psychology, it tended to play armchair psychologist to an annoying degree, but it was serviceable, at least.

It wasn’t long after I started the series that I discovered it was based on a game released on the PlayStation Vita called The Caligula Effect, but I would’ve never known about it because there was next to no marketing for it here in the west. I suppose such is the fate of a JRPG on one of the most, if not the most, underappreciated consoles in history.

Welcome to the Pixcelation Show; the only series on YouTube to tackle the questions on everyone’s mind, such as ‘do artificially intelligent idols dream of electric sheep?’ I’m pixcelation, and in today’s episode we’re not gonna be discussing the Caligula anime, nor are we gonna be talking about the original game on the PS Vita. No — in today’s episode, we’ll be talking all about the recently released remaster on PS4, Switch and PC, entitled The Caligula Effect: Overdose. In order to be completely up-front with everyone, I feel obligated to disclose that I was given a code for the PS4 version by NIS America, who published the game in the west.

Imagine, for a moment, that the vocaloid Hatsune Miku gained sentience, and because of songs such as The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, she comes to the foregone conclusion that we’re all practically suicidal and that being in the real world is what made us this way. So, she does what any rational, sentient AI would, and traps us in the matrix. In the world of The Caligula Effect, their Miku, an AI known as μ, believes she can provide humanity with a happier existence within the artificial world she’s created, called Mobius.

In The Caligula Effect: Overdose, you play as an unnamed protagonist, one of the people invited by μ to live within the simulation. It doesn’t take long before they’re able to see the rift, at which point they join a group of rebels fighting back against μ and her Ostinato Musicians, all of whom desire to keep everyone blind, deaf and dumb to the truth about their world. As you come face-to-face with each of the Ostinato Musicians, you begin to unravel the truth behind the truth, and you’ll be forced to take sides in the battle for the future of both Mobius and the real world.

In my opinion, while the story isn’t necessarily anything revolutionary, the characters drive it home with relatable arcs and … well … character. In the Go-Home Club, as well as the Ostinato Musicians, there are incredibly memorable characters that really twist your arm when it comes to picking the ending you’d prefer. In both groups, there are characters that are foils for characters on the opposing side. For example; Kotono, Mifue and Shogo in the Go-Home Club directly oppose Mirei, Sweet-P and Thorn respectively, in both their actions and character arcs. I really liked how they handled that, as it helps to illustrate the idea that, while the Musicians are the enemy, they’re also only human, and as such, while you may want to return to the real world, each of them has their own compelling motive for remaining within Mobius.

In thinking about each respective arc, one thing that I wasn’t the biggest fan of would be how the writers handled certain social issues through the characters. I’ll provide an example; in one of the early arcs, it’s revealed that one of the Musicians is transgender in the real world, and as a result they’re often the butt of everyone’s jokes just because they’re one of the ‘bad guys.’ I found that, when I was given the option to join the Musicians and learn more about this person, they actually seemed to develop into more than just a stereotype, but players who didn’t choose to become a double agent like I did would never know that, and therefore think of them as a joke. The same can be said of another character, who has developed a hatred of overweight people, and as such the game tends to play said people as stereotypes that only exist to stuff their face. I applaud the game for tackling heavy issues such as body dysmorphia and eating disorders, but I could have gone for less of the victims of these conditions being played for laughs.

 In-universe, the cannon fodder enemies, called ‘digiheads,’ are created because:

they aren’t aware that Mobius is a simulation, and

they listen to μ’s songs way too much.

I could see people going insane and attacking each other after listening to the same song in a twenty-four hour loop in this reality, especially since each and every stage in the game has its own unique track … that is played … nonstop. I almost lost my mind at first, but thankfully, I either got used to it, or I’m actually a digihead and I’m trying to pull you into Mobius. I really did enjoy the character songs, though; they’re all produced by well-known artists such as DECO*27, Pinocchio-P, 40mP and OSTER Project, among many others, and they add a whole new layer of depth to these characters who only appear a minimum of times in the main story. I kind of wish the Go-Home Club also had character songs, but that might not make too much sense in the story, so I guess that’s something I’ll have to accept.

I have to admit, I had every intention of quitting the game and writing that it was just as good as the anime adaptation, but then I had a change of heart. I decided to give it another shot, and it was then that I discovered there was an option to join the Musicians, as I mentioned earlier. I can’t really tell you why, but playing as Lucid, the musician version of the protagonist, is very fun. Sure — the game doesn’t really change in any meaningful ways until the final battle, but between the character designs of Lucid and the other Musicians, and the fact that you can learn so much more about your supposed enemies, this addition makes that final decision weigh a lot more than it would’ve otherwise.

I won’t sugar-coat it; as much as I adore this game and its aesthetic, The Caligula Effect: Overdose is so desperate to be the next Persona that it’s practically salivating. Think about it: it’s a third-person, dungeon crawling RPG where you control students fighting back against forced they don’t understand in order to solve a prevalent mystery, and their adventures are rooted in psychological themes and motifs. There’s a social system where you can create bonds with not only your teammates, but also with all five-hundred-and-twenty-four students in the school, and as you deepen said bonds, you can help them overcome the trauma that keeps them in Mobius. Its battle system is reliant on powers your characters can only use after they’ve confronted their true selves and accepted that they want to return to reality. It’s probably not a coincidence; the writer who penned the game was Tadashi Satomi, who worked on the first three games in the Persona franchise, so that most likely explains the unnerving similarities, but I’d argue this game takes the social aspect a bit farther than its more shiny cousins.

I’ll give the social system credit where it’s due; it’s the most simple and most complex of its kind. As I said, there are five-hundred-and-twenty-four students in the school, and you’re able to not only become friends with all of them, but you can invite them into your party and fight with them in the main game if you … dislike the main cast, for some reason. It seems a bit overloaded, because the developers seem to expect the player to max out their bonds with every student in the game, but … that’s just too much to ask when some of the students seem to appear based on a random number generator. It’s almost like they wanted to incorporate a system that’d keep players engaged after the main story had concluded, but it ended up manifesting as a chore to work through. I dunno about y’all, but, when I see that there’s over five-hundred students, and I’m expected to resolve every one of their traumas, that’s where I check out. In Persona 3, 4 and 5, there were actual incentives to maxing out social links — not only did it increase your stats, but there were also less than five-hundred to complete, and they all had unique dialogue options that helped the experience feel less like a chore. As a result, you looked forward to the next chapter of each character. In this game, I’m aware that fully completing bonds does seem to improve your stats, but when the dialogue is recycled so often that I skipped a lot of it, there’s no reason for me to care about anything they’re saying. I think this concept is actually really solid, but if it’s filled to the brim with mediocrity, it’s not gonna realize its full potential. I’d love to see a game utilize the interconnected nature of its NPC cast in the same way that this game did, except there’d be more reason to go along with it.

I really have to give the game props for its intuitive battle system, as it turns the concept of being ready for anything on its head. As you engage your target, you select your given attack as you might in any ordinary JRPG, but you’re then given a chance to see what your attacks would do ahead of time, as well as adjust the timing of said attacks. It seems a tad bit like cheating the system since you can see what moves your enemy will make, and cater your turn accordingly. I must admit, however, that as unique as this prediction system is, I found myself caring about it less and less, instead opting to use the same moves over and over again. It may sound cocky to say that I knew the attacks would land, but it’s a disturbingly accurate segue to my next point.

I started my save file on ‘normal’ difficulty, but the longer I played, the more it felt like the easiest difficulty there was. I was grinding like a madman, sure, but there’s no reason the bosses of each chapter should’ve been taken out like a snap from the Infinity Gauntlet. I just expected more of a challenge from normal difficulty, that is to say, any challenge whatsoever. I thought it might pick up towards the endgame, but even the final boss was a breeze to get through. I say all this, but I know that if they were to patch in a more difficult mode like they did with Kingdom Hearts III, I would probably cry, so … I’ll leave it at that.

Here are some things you might want to keep in mind before playing The Caligula Effect: Overdose:

+ If you haven’t played The Caligula Effect, there is quite a lot added to Overdose that was not present in the original. For example, characters Eiji Biwasaka, Ayana Amamoto, Stork and Kuchinashi are all new additions with entirely new dungeons, but they’re integrated really well into the story and don’t feel like additions.

+ If you’re looking to get that sweet, sweet platinum trophy, make sure you keep up with all the character scenarios on both the Go-Home Club’s side and the Ostinato Musicians’ side. It appears that Eiji’s scenario is critically linked with Kuchinashi’s, and if you don’t complete Eiji’s by the time the story takes you to Landmark Tower, PEOPLE WILL STRAIGHT UP DIE, and you’ll be unable to complete the deceased character’s scenarios.

+ If you choose to accept Thorn’s offer to become one of the Musicians, DON’T FEEL BAD. It may start to weigh on your conscience as you betray your friends, but you’re not on the bad route by handing out with the Musicians. In fact, you’re required to max out all of the character scenarios in order to get the true ending. PLUS, if you refuse to join the Musicians, you’ll miss out on a bunch of adorkable moments involving μ, and you won’t want to miss those!

+ If you want to get the bad end, you don’t need to max anyone out — just accept Thorn’s invitation, then at the final battle, choose to stay in Mobius instead of going home, and … well, I’ll let you see for yourself.

+ I’ve heard whispers that it might not be possible to max out Ayana’s scenario unless you’re playing as a female, because of her androphobia. If you’re having issues with Ayana, maybe try again in a second playthrough.

+ If you’d like to explore Mobius a second time, there’s a New Game + option that’ll allow you to increase the enemy level en masse if you’re wanting a challenge, as well as carry over your levels and NPC bonds. It won’t, however, carry over your progress on character scenarios. You can also pick the female protagonist in a New Game +, which helps if you’d like to get that plat.

+ SAVE. SAVE. SAVE. In a game like this, you want to save every chance you get, as when your party dies, it’s lights out. There is NO autosave, NO continues. It takes you right back to the title screen, so be wary of that.

Is The Caligula Effect: Overdose a perfect game? No — not at all. BUT, is it fun? Yes. It’s a unique JRPG that uses the tried and true tropes found in many others of its kind, but at the same time, experiments with other elements of its presentation to create a memorable experience. I may not be motivated to complete the social element of the game, but I struggle to find fault in other areas, such as the character designs, the music and the overall aesthetic.

It deals with some very serious topics, such as body image issues, gender dysphoria or transgenderism, suicide and androphobia, among others, and while at times it can feel as if its poking fun at these issues, for the most part it does handle them with respect, and ultimately shows that these very human characters deal with things that humans too, often struggle with.

If you’re anything like me, you might be tempted to give up on it after the second stage and call it a day, but I implore you to be patient, as the game hits its stride in and after the third dungeon. If I had given up on it like I planned, let’s just say this review would be quite different.

[firecoloredwater]

Dragonflight Chapter 1 Commentary

And, after way longer than planned, I have finally gotten that commentary written for the first scene/chapter of Dragonflight.  Under a cut because this is long, and both spoilers and tangents abound.

(This is also being crossposted on pillowfort here, so if you have an account please consider this encouragement to comment.)

Plot Events

Lessa wakes up with a bad feeling and tries to figure out what danger is approaching.  She fails and resolves to wait.  The watch wher adores her.

Worldbuilding Details

Lessa trusts the watch-wher to be very aware of/sensitive to danger, so that her sensing something it doesn’t is very strange.

The watch-wher has an “odorous lair” and is kept on a chain in the courtyard.  Also: clipped wings, a scaly head, and pointed ears.  It flees into the den when the sun rises.

Kitchen drudges all sleep together in the cheese room; Lessa is described as “curled into a tight knot of bones” so presumably drudges aren’t fed well (at least in Fax’s Ruatha).  They have sandals and sleep on straw, but apparently do not have any means of brushing their hair (or else Lessa hasn’t been making any use of it, and this isn’t terribly unusual for a drudge).

When describing Ruatha’s deterioration, it’s referred to as “the once stone-clean Hold.”

“Hold” seems to be roughly equivalent to a castle; Lessa refers to the “paved perimeter” of the Hold, as if a Hold is a very physical thing, more a place than a culture or a city which can expand just by building houses/roads/shops.

“the craftsmen’s stony holdings at the foot of the Hold’s cliff” implies that the Hold is built into a cliff, and that craftsmen have stone houses/shops/both that are built at the foot of but outside the cliff.

Lessa’s Hold is initially referred to as “Ruath Hold,” with “Ruatha” used in a way that seems like it might be more equivalent to “America.”

There are a lot of tales and ballads about “the dawn appearance of the red star.”

“Milchbeasts” are probably milk cows, but I suppose could also be goats or other animals used for milk.

The watch wher seems to be able to understand speech, though it doesn’t speak itself.

Commentary

I had forgotten how Anne McCaffrey began every book (every chapter?  From the format it looks like it’ll be every chapter, but see, I don’t remember) with an in-universe song excerpt.  Not that I wouldn’t have recalled when reminded, but without prompting I wouldn’t have come up with it.

As a result of this feature, the very first words I ever read of Pern (and, of course, the first in this reread as well) were not prose, they were lyrics:

Drummer, beat, and piper, blow, Harper, strike, and soldier, go. Free the flame and sear the grasses Till the dawning Red Star passes.

I like the lyrics, and I think they’re fitting for my experience of enjoying Pern.  These lines are very imagistic, very emotional; it’s a remarkably martial feel, considering three of the four characters/archetypes in the lines—drummer, piper, harper, and soldier—are musicians, and only the last is, well, the soldier.  It gives me the feeling of all of Pern together gathering themselves and preparing and marching to war… which is what F’lar ends up spending most of this book trying to make happen.

It’s also deeply ironic, considering that I think soldiers exist in Dragonflight and Dragonseye and… well, some of the colonists in Dragonsdawn are retired former soldiers who don’t want to talk about it.  But as far as I remember, soldiers just flat out don’t exist in any Pern book other than those two three.  Even guards, and the concept of guards, seems to vanish.  I’ve heard that national leaders are under much tighter security now than they were a century or two ago—which makes sense, it’s a lot harder to keep an assassin with a rifle out of murder range than an assassin with a sword—but medieval leaders still had guards.

Pernese leaders, on the other hand, seem to be operating under the philosophy that if you can’t personally defend yourself from assassins, then you kinda deserved it anyway and the assassin will probably rule better than you did.  You’d think that people would at least be a little concerned about what happens to Jaxom considering he’s the sole possible heir to Ruatha once Lessa and her descendants are ineligible due to dragons, and I can only guess what sort of political mess would result if Jaxom died.  But off he goes, wherever he feels like at any time, with not only no guards but not even a ‘visiting my secret girlfriend on her farm, send a search party if I’m not back by the morning’ note.  Which I believe of Jaxom easily, but why does no one worry?  Why is there no Zazu trying to make Simba-Jaxom behave himself?

And F’lar!  Okay, sure, he has a great big dragon to protect him, but on the other hand so did his father, who was assassinated.  I think it’s implied that F’lar put extra effort into learning knife fighting so that he could defend himself if someone tried to murder him like F’lon, which is… something, anyway… but F’lar, have you ever considered asking any of the hundreds of men in the military organization you have absolute power over to, say, do literally anything other than stand aside and watch when someone tries to murder you?

Now, to be fair to F’lar (and to all his subordinates who never suggest such a thing) the murder attempts were usually narratively framed as duels (even though they were never initiated with the formalities that would surround dueling when it was a thing in real, Earth cultures).  Between that, F’lar’s pride, and the culture just not having the concept of guards, I have no trouble believing that F’lar wouldn’t come up with the idea.  But how did we get to a culture that doesn’t have a concept of guards for world leaders?  And how come no one else ever tried to interfere?  Stab the evil Oldtimers in the back if you must!  They went through zero formalities, they just pulled out a knife and aimed for murder, this is closer to a tavern brawl that an honorable duel.  The other Oldtimers who value tradition so highly are not gonna side with the guy who tried to murder his peer just because he used a weapon to do it!  Hell, Lessa can just psychically smack them down and be done with it, no death needed.  Have Ramoth order their dragon to yell at them until they cut it out, just do something.

…Alright, I’ve gone on for a full page and not even read an actual sentence yet.  Time to move on.

…Soooo am I the only one who just kind of… forgot that Lessa can see the future?

Okay I didn’t forget forget, the explanation for it is half the plot of the book, but I don’t think it ever quite clicked for me until rereading that Lessa can see the future.  The very first thing that happens in the first chapter of Dragonflight (and therefore the very first thing that ever happened in all of Pern) is: Lessa has a bad feeling.  She immediately interprets this bad feeling as an indication that something dangerous is about to happen and tries to figure out what it is.  The next few chapters are about F’lar and Fax arriving, both of whom are dangerous to Lessa and her plans in different ways.  Fax is the usurper who killed her family and would kill (or perhaps forcibly marry, then kill) her if he knew who she was; F’lar immediately takes her away from the Hold she just won back after (I think) a decade of hiding and plotting, and ensures that neither she nor her children can ever rule it.  For a good cause and all, but still: pretty dangerous for Lessa’s plans to rule Ruatha.

I’ve gotten off track.  Back to the point: Lessa can see the future.  Or sense it, anyway.  More interesting to me is the fact that she never questions her ability to do this.  We know that she went back in time twice to give herself these feelings, to save herself from Fax as a child and to sense incoming danger at the beginning of the book, which is where these feelings come from and why they’re right.  I don’t question her trusting it as a scared kid, but as an adult who’s just expecting danger and not yet in it, I’d expect a little more skepticism.  Some degree of ‘hm, what if this bad feeling is in fact not world-changing prophecy, and instead is just about the way my boss seemed stressed yesterday and tends to kick me when he’s in a bad mood?’  Or, ‘what if this is just residual feelings from a nightmare, since I just woke up and the watch-wher isn’t bothered?’

Doylistically, the answer is that Lessa is right, her sense of danger establishes suspense for the first few chapters, and ‘but does the danger Lessa sensed actually exist?’ is not a subplot that fit into the rest of the story or that Anne McCaffrey had any interest in.  (Presumably.  Maybe there was a draft where Lessa doubts herself until Fax arrives, but I doubt it.)

I like Watsonian explanations better though, so let’s look at it that way.  The degree to which Lessa trusts this sense of danger makes it seem to me like she’s experienced this before, and probably several times; one distant, panicked memory from when she was a kid is not good evidence of having a reliable, invisible ability that no one else does (or, probably, has ever even mentioned as a fictional concept, considering that Pern doesn’t seem to have fiction beyond slight inaccuracies in historical ballads and maybe room for the possibility of made up characters for love songs and similar).

It’s also fairly plausible that Lessa could have psychically sensed danger before it arrived previously.  Her immediate interpretation of what happened, after all, was not ‘I traveled through time and read my own mind’ but ‘I sensed malice from someone with my telepathic powers’ which is definitely a thing she can do, since she spends the next several paragraphs psychically searching for the danger that woke her up and confirming that it’s not anywhere she checks.  A handful of instances of that happening (and her actually finding the source of the menace) would give her a pretty good reason to trust her ominous feelings, and might explain why neither Fax nor any of his cronies ever found her.

Lessa has spider sense, is what I’m saying.  Go forth and crossover, fandom.

Anyway, Lessa spends a few paragraphs scanning the surrounding area, which is used to give us a sketch of the setting: Ruath Hold is a place contained by walls and set into a cliff; outside it is a paved area and stone buildings where craftsmen live, and a causeway to “the valley.”  Wind blows to Ruatha from the shores of Tillek, which seem to be pretty close.  Further out is the Pass, which is further than Lessa has ever psychically scanned before.

Then we get a slight detour as Fax is mentioned.    He’s described as “the self-styled Lord of the High Reaches” and Lessa is pleased that he’s infuriated by Ruatha’s deterioration and hasn’t been there in three turns.  Turns is capitalized for some reason.  Was that a thing in 60s scifi?  Capitalizing words that replaced ordinary words to draw attention to how scifi the vocabulary is?  I remember between always being italicized, and I think I’ve seen similar italicization of new words in fantasy series, but at least ‘between’ is a new use of a word for a new concept.  Turn is just an invented synonym and capitalizing it makes no sense at all.  I just… don’t know what she could possibly have been thinking, much less what her editors were.  Maybe she had an editor who knew nothing about scifi and thought that was a thing?  I think I’ve heard that she originally wrote romance, so maybe she just kept a romance editor who’d never read scifi before and decided that fake it til you make it was an acceptable strategy.  It’s the closest I have to an explanation.

Moving on, then Lessa gets up.  She finds her sandals, brushes straw out of her “matted” hair, and twists it into a knot.  I… I have objections to this.

I actually can and regularly do put my hair in a knot at the base of my neck without using any hair ties or anything other than the hair itself to hold it, and doing that when my hair is badly tangled doesn’t work.  It’ll go into the knot, sure, but it’ll also just come undone in a minute or less.  Getting it into a knot that it will stay in for any length of time requires either something to hold it in place or getting the balance exactly right, and you can’t do the latter with tangled hair.  A few small tangles, sure, but anything approaching matted is just… not going to work.  If I can’t run my fingers through my hair, it won’t stay in a knot.  (Also, ‘matted’ makes me think of fake “dreadlocks” and that there must be mold growing in her hair, but that’s probably more that the connotation has shifted over time.  At least, I hope.)

Also, humans are primates that like grooming ourselves and each other; even if for some bizarre reason it’s illegal for drudges to own combs, the drudges should just be finger combing their own and each others’ hair.  (Or cutting it all off.  Or hiding illegal combs in that straw they sleep on.  Whatever.)  The matted hair is there to indicate that Lessa is living in a really bad, physically deprived, barely surviving situation, same as Lessa waking up on straw in a cold, smelly room full of other drudges, but that really should’ve been done by making her hair oily or something.  She’s going to wash it in a few chapters anyway, at the same time as she combs it.

Granted, I don’t have much trouble imagining Lessa shunning all the other drudges’ company during hair combing time so that she can plot vengeance more, so maybe it’s just her and all the others have only slightly tangled hair.

Anyway, Lessa goes outside.  She interacts fondly with the watch-wher, in a very similar way to how a person might interact with a dog, though the watch wher is probably meant to be a bit smarter than dogs are.  Then she climbs up to the ramparts and we get a little bit more of the setting: the Hold has a massive gate, and the Pass is within sight.

(How close is Tillek?  Technically it said that the danger ‘didn’t scent the breezes from Tillek’s cold shore’ but I refuse to interpret that literally, Lessa is not psychically smelling emotion on breezes.  I can only assume that she psychically scanned a significant part of the way to Tillek’s shore, if not all the way there.  That was within her ‘I’ve gone this far before’ range while the Pass wasn’t, and now she can see the Pass.  Mountains can be seen a pretty good distance away, but ‘the stony breasts of the Pass rose in black relief’ sure doesn’t sound like a smudge on the horizon.  How close is Tillek?  I’ve been thinking of Holds as capital cities controlling small-nation-sized areas of land, even if most of the land is unpopulated, but this is making them seem more like small towns with barely any space between them.  Could I walk from Ruatha to Tillek in a day?)

Lessa stares into the east, then the northeast, and notices the red star (which isn’t capitalized even though it’s clearly a proper name like the North Star, which I just googled because this made me doubt myself, and North Star is indeed supposed to be capitalized.  I can’t just have a really old and unedited version, this is the omnibus, there was time to fix this, where is her editor).  The sight of the Red Star makes a bunch of “incoherent fragments” of stories about the Red Star at dawn flash through her mind too quickly for her to make sense of them, which conveniently leaves us with the ominous feeling we were supposed to get and no distracting other details.  On the other hand, I’m now wondering if all those Red Star story fragments were projected by future!Lessa, so maybe there’s some foreshadowing along with the narrative convenience.

Lessa’s instincts tell her that while there is danger coming from the northeast, the danger from the east is more important, so she goes back to staring that way.  But then the warning feeling fades away, presumably because future!Lessa finally figured out what was going on and went back to her own time.  Present Lessa accepts that she’s been warned, and just has to wait to see what she was warned about.

Then she looks over the valley a bit and muses about how Fax gets no profit from Ruatha, never will while Lessa lives, and has no idea that she’s the source of this.  She smiles and stretches, then panics when a rooster crows and she worries someone might have woken up and seen her with uncharacteristically confident body language, so she lets her hair back down and reassumes “the sloppy posture she affected.”

Okay, I have several questions.  First: if she’s that worried about being seen acting uncharacteristically, wouldn’t it make more sense to just return to her normal pose and not whirl around like she has secrets?  Yes, she was startled, but she’s been doing this for years.  I’m sure she’s had moments where she thought she almost got caught before, she’s had a chance to practice subtlety.

Second, are there really so few drudges that Fax’s cronies can recognize individual drudges and their usual behavior, or does Lessa think some other drudge would tell Fax who she is because they saw her standing up straight with her hair pulled back?

Third, why were there no guards to see her?  Fax slaughtered her family at this same time of the morning several years ago, and I remember a specific mention of the guard who had been paid to not sound an alarm.  Why does Fax not have a guard now that he rules the place?  Lessa was on the ramparts over the gate, she should’ve been easy for a guard to see.  She should have been standing next to a guard.

Fourth, I’m pretty sure that after years and years of “affecting” a sloppy posture, that would just be her normal posture.  I can accept the “princess is forced to work as a servant, is eventually revealed to be a princess by how her skin is just as pale and her hands are just as soft and her dancing is just as graceful and her singing is just as sweet as if she had grown up with nothing to do her entire life but perfect those things, because it’s just the inherent nature of princesses to be naturally perfect in those ways” conceit in a fairytale, but this is a novel and it bothers me.  Both because there are whole worlds of classism going on in that concept which I may not be qualified to analyze but can sure side-eye with a double dose of irritation, and also because it makes no sense.

Lessa is Cinderella (with spider sense and dragons) but she’s supposed to be more plausible, and she’s also singlehandedly sabotaging an entire Hold (however much ‘a Hold’ actually is) while maintaining a cover as an overworked and underfed servant.  Her posture is not her priority, and there are no perfect posture genes to be passed down royal lines.  Lessa slouches.  Probably she gets in a bunch of passive aggressive battles with R’gul and then F’lar over it.  That is the only reasonable option.

…Moving on from that rant.

Lessa hugs and pets the watch wher, which is at least as ecstatic about this attention as a dog would be after being left alone for a week.  Lessa thinks about how the watch wher is the only living creature that knows who she is, and also the only one she’s ever trusted since her family was killed and she survived by hiding in its den.  She reminds it to be vicious to her if anyone else is nearby, it’s reluctant but promises to obey.  The sun rises, the watch wher runs back into its den, and Lessa sneaks back to the cheese room.  End of Chapter 1.

So, uh, another question: why didn’t Fax just kill the watch wher and replace it with a watch wher bound to him?  I can’t imagine there were none available in however many years it’s been, even if watch whers were originally conceived as nighttime guards for Holds and nothing else.  I also can’t see Fax being inclined to spare it out of pity or similar.  Did all the watch wher breeders refuse to let him have an egg?  Couldn’t he have made a breeding pair out of all the watch whers from all the Holds he rules and used eggs from that to replace the watch whers bound to families he’s usurped?  Is this another example of ‘Fax doesn’t even want to think about Ruatha’?

Anyway, now I’m going to go even deeper into English major mode.

I really wish I could give this to one of my old English professors and see how they critiqued it.  This chapter is a bit under two and a half pages long in the book I have, I’d guess no more than five pages in a regular sized paperback format.  There’s no dialogue and very little action.  There are several points where the phrasing seems like it’s trying too hard to me, though I suspect that that is due to changes in what’s considered standard in the last fifty years.  I kind of suspect that if I had turned in something similar to this for a class, it would’ve been ripped to shreds, mostly on the basis of having lots of exposition with no dialogue and little action.

Despite that, this chapter does a lot of things in a very short time.  It introduces us to the setting: we have a decent idea what a Hold is and that a properly maintained Hold is supposed to be clear of grasses, and we have a decent idea of what drudges are and how they’re treated, and we have a sketch of the surrounding landscape and significant nearby locations.  We have a pretty good idea of Lessa’s character and motivation, and we know that Fax is an enemy of Lessa’s and that he goes around conquering Holds to add to the one he rightfully inherited.  We know the Red Star is ominous.  We have pretty good foreshadowing for the discovery of time travel.  We know that watch whers have scales and wings, live in dens, and are vicious to most people but adoring of a few, which sets us up pretty well for the dragons that appear next (who might not be strange to us now, but which would have been a lot stranger when this was published).  We know that Lessa has psychic abilities, and a broad range in which she can apply them.  That’s pretty good for a few pages.

We also have an established tone, and Lessa acting in contrast to it.  The scene puts a lot of emphasis on how cold everything is, and how much stone is around, and generally works to make the reader feel how chilled and oppressive and deteriorated everything is.  For the first half of the chapter Lessa fits into this: she’s bony, she’s huddled on the floor, her hair is matted and full of straw.

Almost exactly halfway through Lessa starts moving, and she glides.

There have been indications that Lessa rules Ruatha already; she’s psychically tracking everything, to start with.  But that is the moment where Lessa breaks out of the general cold-decay-oppression and is shown as a ruler, in secret or otherwise.  Starving, oppressed servants don’t glide.  Queens do.

The rest of the scene continues to present Lessa as powerful; she stands above the gate and muses about how Fax will never get any profit from Ruatha, and will never know that Lessa is behind it.  She tells the watch wher what to do and it promises to obey even though it doesn’t want to.  And then she vanishes back into hiding, biding her time.  The next chapter will be F’lar’s POV, and this one does very well at establishing Lessa as someone lurking in Ruatha, ready and motivated and able to screw up F’lar’s plans.  F’lar doesn’t know she’s there, but we do and are waiting for the collision.

I’ve seen people call Anne McCaffrey a bad or even a terrible writer, and… I suppose it’s possible this chapter is an anomaly, but I’d call this pretty good.  Old fashioned in some ways that make it seem pretentious or overdone by modern standards, but we can hardly blame her because styles changed over time.  I certainly have objections to her characterization of many characters, and I’d say that her worldbuilding consists of cool ideas which were warped by various prejudices, and there are several details which were glossed over for narrative ease that I wanted more realism on (which I think is partly an example of shifts in what’s considered standard over time).

But when it comes to the actual, literal, technical writing?  Anne McCaffrey knew what she was doing.  There were a lot of things that she had to accomplish in this scene, and I think she did them all pretty well, and for the most part pretty subtly.  She knew how to communicate what she wanted to; just because we would’ve liked her to communicate something else doesn’t mean she was bad at communicating.  There’s a reason this series created a fandom which is still going a full half a century later.

[diaryofasupergroupie]

Groupie 101 - Backstage

I get asked questions on a daily basis. Some questions I get asked more than others. This blog has changed from me writing my experiences to giving you aspiring groupies help! I want to give you what you want. The most requested was what to wear – see Groupie 101 – The Look. As I started as I meant to go on it’s time to address the second thing I get questions about almost on a daily basis. Now you have the groupie look it’s time to actually get in and backstage. This sounds a lot easier than it is, or a lot harder. Which one honestly depends on your mood and how long you have spent getting ready.

I know all of the tips and tricks to get backstage and I’m going to share them with you. What makes me qualified? I have hardly paid entry into a gig for five years. In this I want to talk about actual gigs. Festivals are very hard to get into without connections because of how tight security is and at most festivals Access All Areas is non-existent. As I said before gigs are where most girls get into the scene and the easiest way to make a name for yourself.

In my experience there are a handful of ways you can get backstage. Some of them involve you paying entry and some of them you can get in for free. These are all tried and tested, but by no means the only ways. I know a band who for a while would pin point a girl in the crowd and throw their drink on her to let the roadies know she was coming backstage. That happens a lot – pinpointing girls, not throwing drinks on them. These are however the main ways I have seen pulled off or have done myself, actually I’ve done them all besides two.

The prep method

This one is fairly easy to understand but a whole lot more difficult with bigger bands. But if you’re one for micro-managing everything then it may be an option. The concept of this is doing the prep. You work hard before which can end with you getting either All Access or guest listed. Bare in mind those two aren’t the same thing despite popular belief. Getting All Access means you get given a fancy pass that lets you come and go as you please assuming you don’t lose your sticker or laminate. You can wonder backstage and out on the floor. But when you have been guest listed you have your name down on the list and get free entry. This doesn’t always mean you get backstage, although they know who you are so it’s a start.

In practice it is a lot easier to do now. When I started the only social media most people used myspace, occasionally Facebook but we weren’t as good at finding musicians profiles as we are now. Besides those angles totally throw you off. I prefer organic meetings, over message I can come across badly especially to Americans. Sarcasm is my talent and Americans in my experience either find it endearing or become offended. There’s no in between. It’s unlikely when you start you will be able to get their number. Some musicians are more known for using certain social media sites. Someone I’m seeing right now is only just getting into Instagram, Facebook has been his favourite for years. The first step is to ask around, see if you can find out which site they use the most. Then you’ll want to make sure you’re happy with your profile. Remember your icon is the first thing they’ll see! A younger more famous band I know will decline or accept girls purely on their icon, they won’t even read the message. Once your profile is good it’s time to message them. The best bet is direct message and liking some photos. They’ll keep seeing your name and get curious to know what you’re all about. Do a little research. Don’t open with ‘I love your band, can I come backstage’. They’ll label you as a crazed fan which is not what you are. You’re a fan but you’re a groupie. Say hello and talk about somewhere they’ve recently been or something they’re passionate about. Certain musicians love to talk about their music and themselves, just not right away. Start a conversation first. Then finally when you have some flow you can mention your city. If they’re into it whether or not they have sex or something more platonic in mind they may offer to guest list or AAA you. If they don’t remember you can ‘bump’ into them later, they now know who you are.

Prep is popular. A lot of the younger girls are very good at it, they can find anyone and talk their way in. There’s no script, you have to judge it and then bring up different things for different people. The situation is flipped if you’ve already hooked up or met your musician. If you’ve hooked up they might have your number saved. If they want to hook up again then you’ll probably get a ‘hey babe’ text. But don’t be scared to text them saying you haven’t spoken to them for a while. Remember though, don’t send nudes. If you do I guarantee the rest of the band, the crew and other girls have seen it. I’ve seen so many boobs its unreal. I say I haven’t done this before but even though it isn’t my style I do partake. There was a festival I was lusting after and I shot someone a text asking if he’d definitely put me on the list to get my pass. Bands travel so much they often forget what they’ve actually promised. Often they don’t want to admit they’d forgotten so say yes and then sort it. This works if you’ve only briefly met them or if you haven’t but can message them pretending. ‘I can’t wait to see you again. I haven’t seen you since your gig in X when you played with Z’. Usually works if you can pull it off. 

The charm method

This one I love and I became good at through the years. There’s minimal prep involved and some of the tips from above can roll over. This involves being very charming or flirty, whichever you prefer. For this one you can either arrive early and try to catch one of the band or crew. You can be your charming self and score a pass. Or you can pay entry and then look out for one of the crew. The band will usually be backstage to ready themselves or will be partying. The roadies might be on the floor as will the tour manager. The merch is always good. Stand by the merch table and talk to keep them company when they’re bored. Learn their names and what they’re into if you can. It’s all about being interested in them. People say good personalities don’t get you backstage. But in my experience a good personality is everything. Be funny, sweet and show them you want to have a good time. Let that passion for the music and the scene shine in your beautiful eyes. When they offer you a pass say thank you and don’t let them know they’ve just given you the world. It’ll be our secret.

I said some things roll over, these are those things. You can blag your way backstage. Research is your best friend, this kind of prep I don’t mind. Find the tour manager if you can. Walk over to him and hug him. Call him by his name and tell him how good it is to see him. You haven’t seen him since X. Are they still backstage? Great! Walk back there. Maybe they’ll give you a pass or maybe they’ll wave you through. Do you know how much a tour manager has on their mind? They’ve probably met hundreds that week. They won’t remember you, but they might be too embarrassed to tell you that! To get backstage you need balls. I’ve done this a ton, trust me if you do it right you’re laughing.

The sister method

This is a method you won’t be able to do right away. You need to know some of the girls. As much as the girls are often bickering and put against each other once you find your little clique you will stick together. There’s always drama in the scene. Usually it’s because someone talked about someone or they stole someone’s man. Very trivial and high school. When you know some of the girls you’ll find they think of you. Talk to them all the time and become close friends. Then when they end up at sound check they’ll grab you a pass. But remember to do the same for them. Get them in places you land into. It’s called the sister method for a reason! Look after your own! We often travel together. This is probably the method which I have seen the most. It is a little more advanced though and if you’re not in the scene might be impossible. But wait around after gigs and try to make connections.

 Despite this title it doesn’t have to be just the girls. Security can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Make sure you talk to them and take time to get to know them. How they respond can depend on where in the world you are. I found Europe security a little rude. But if you get to know them very well they may let you in, they may even let you backstage. The latter only usually happens though after years of seeing you misbehaving yourself. 

The sneak back method

This one is another tried and tested. I have written about this in one of my first ever posts. I said getting backstage takes balls and god this is the most ballsy method. Before I explain remember the worst that can happen is you get kicked out. They can’t call the police for sneaking backstage – at least not where I am. There are a few ways you can sneak back. You can wait until there are large crowds or someone makes a scene. This will distract security and allow you chance to slip back. This is something you can do no matter the band. Although if the venue is huge there will be more security and it’ll be harder. Due to terrorist attacks security has got tighter here. Watch security, wait until they’re occupied. Then take your chance, you may only get one. If the venue is smaller you may have a slightly better chance.

The other option is to play the long game. I have only ever seen this done successfully that didn’t end with someone being kicked out a handful of times. It’s difficult and I’ve never done it to a venue bigger than a shoebox. You show up and the venue early and sneak in. You can pretend to work there or just climb through a window, I’ve seen both done. I was backstage once and went to the toilet to find a girl hiding in there. She had climbed through a window and been there ever since. I was so impressed I vouched for her. Again, impossible at large venues and a method I semi don’t recommend.

The band whore method

This last one I was at a loss at what exactly to call. It is a method I have never done although nothing against those that have. It isn’t something band whores do exactly, but there was no other way to politely say suck off the crew. It is something which I have seen work time and again. You pick your best bet and then you perform your heart out. After you’ve put in the work if you don’t get a backstage pass I would be very upset. Building a reputation doing that will often get you on the list but you have to decide if you want that kind of reputation. I never did. I’m not a snob but I was there for the music. I still am. I eat, sleep and breathe the music. I didn’t want to suck off the merch guy and then kiss the drummer with the same mouth. But if you want to then go and do what you want to do! Just remember it’s very easy to get a reputation but very hard to lose one. I’m not talking about just happening to hook up with the roadies either. As I said, I’m not a snob. The crew work themselves to the bone without their face on a t-shirt. I’m talking about using them as a stepping stone. But whatever you feel compelled to do!

Now this isn’t a method as such. But it is something I want to go over before I answer a few questions. I say a lot things are different now and boys are a lot more careful. A lot of girls want to get into the scene but are fairly young, or at least younger than what is defined as legal in your country or state. Allegations have got people into some bad situations within the last few years. Tour managers are protective of their band and are almost like dads. I’ve mentioned they often ask for ID and I think some people have gotten the wrong idea. They don’t always ask for ID to get backstage. They ask for ID if you look underage and are going to sleep with the band. They do it to protect their band, sex with an underage girl is bad for business. But if they want you to party before bus call they may or may not ask for ID. It’s best to come prepared. I’m not condoning underage sex at all. Wait, please. They’re not always what you think they will be. Besides if you’re under 18 and they’re old enough to be your dad it’s probably a bad idea. Same goes for can an hour together send him to jail? Probably not the brightest of ideas.

Q&A

What happens if I get caught sneaking backstage?

The majority of the time you’ll be told off and given a warning. But you may get kicked out. I’ve never heard of anyone being arrested – I’m not sure what they would even charge you with!

Have you ever been kicked out?

More times than I care to admit! Not for a few years though. But you can’t let that stop you. The music is everything remember.

Should I get a fake ID?

That’s up to you! Why are you getting one? If it’s to get in venues then go for it but if it’s to hook up and cause jail time after you’ve put it on social media hold off. A few years won’t hurt.

Will they accept a student ID?

That depends on what it is. If its school ID possibly not, they may see school and then reject it right away. Is it a University ID? Then you’ll be at least over 18 and it should be fine! However it depends on where you live and the security/tour manager. Message me with your country/state for more details!

What message do I send to X?

I’m not sure! Send me some details about them and what platform you’re reaching out on and I’ll help the best I can.

Anymore questions or things I have left out or not been specific enough? Message me and I’ll be happy to answer! – K

[weapon13whitefang]

Beth: You have to stay who you are, not who you were (S4E12)

Gareth: Can’t go back, Bob (S5E1)

Gareth: Can’t go back, Bob (S5E2)

Rick: Can’t go back, Bob (S5E8)

Eastman : You saw it happen, that’s how this started, right? It’s all happening right in front of your eyes, over and over again. Your body’s here, but your mind is still there. There’s a door and you want to go through it, to get away from it, so you do, and leads you right back to that moment. And you see that door again, you know it won’t work but hell, maybe it’ll work, so you step through that door and you’re right back in that horrible moment every time. You still feel it every time, so you just want to stop opening that door, so you just sit in it. But I assure you, one of those doors leads out, my friend. (S6E4)

Carl : We can go back to how it was. We can go back. And you saw it. What it did. How-How easy it got... That's why you changed why you brought those people from Woodbury in You brought them in, and we all lived together. We were enemies. You put away your gun. You did it so I could change, so I could be who I am now. What you did then How you How you stopped fighting it was right. It still is. It can be like that again.You can still be like that again. Rick : I can't be who I was. It's different now. Carl : You can't kill all of 'em, Dad. There's gotta be something after. For you and for them. There's gotta be something after. (S8E9)

This doesn’t account for every time this kind of mentality has been brought up on the show, but these are the ones that stick out to me.

Since season 2, everyone has been saying that things aren’t the way they were and that you can’t be like you were in the old world. Shane was constantly telling Rick “it ain’t like it was before”.

I find this concept interesting because, while agree it can’t be like it was and you can’t be like you were… You can be better. No, you can’t go back. Team Family can not go back. They can not be who they were when the outbreak started, who they were when they were at the prison, who they were when they first entered Alexandria.

But they can be better.

Rick can’t be sheriff Rick anymore. At least not the one he was. Not the one that was shot and left in a coma... But yet he can put on the hat again. He can be the Sheriff. But he can be better. You can come back from things. You just can’t be who you were ever again.

That’s what I feel like Carl is trying to tell his dad as he’s dying. Rick can’t be the Sheriff he was, but he can be a Sheriff. People can come back to something. They won’t be the same. They’ll be better or worse, but they’re back. If they have people that they care about – that they love – with them, then they can be more than they were. They can find who they're meant to be.

Recently, @twdmusicboxmystery made a post about the magazines seen at the end of S5E8 [Coda]. In that Meta, they talked about a specific magazine that was seen by Morgan as he came across the school that Father Gabriel had stirred the walkers from. The same walkers that he lead to the church and almost got everyone freaking killed over but also the same church that Morgan finds the map in that has Rick's name on it.

That magazine was this thing

Kinda hard to make out, right? Well @frangipanilove found a clearer image of it.

Okay, awesome. In the past I did a HUGE and obnoxious Meta on the magazines that Skybound had posted. Here.

I was kind of fascinated by some of the things that musicboxmystery talked about in their META. Keep in mind, they lean more on connecting pretty much everything to Beth (I myself do not). This is more of a simple observatory thought I had after reading the META.

First off, I'm gonna focus on the giant red box that was placed on the image for me. The word “Palendrome” is supposed to be the word “Palindrome”. It's been spelled wrong. If you try to look up the word as it's spelled above, the real spelling for the word – I instead of an E – constantly comes up and a suggested word search is given. So there's been a spelling error.

What is a palindrome? A palindrome is “a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward.” Examples: madam, nurses run, race car, Dammit, I'm mad, mom, dad.... Bob or Hannah. The word palindrome comes from the Greek word “palin” which means “again” and the Greek word “dramein” (or drom / dromos) which means “to run”. Together they become “palindromos” which means “running back again”.

So while the word is meant to describe words that can be played backwards and forward, it can also be related to the saying “running back again” or “going back again” or “to return to the beginning”. Because a palindrome can return to it's beginning. The word starts where it ends. Hannah will be the same if you flip it backwards or read it backwards in a mirror.

So what is the palindrome of Hannah Fairlight? Why use that word to describe Hanna? (Besides her name being backwards, there's no sense to the stitle then). Well I tried to do some digging into Ms Fairlight to get a feel about who she is and why this particular word was used for her. The title states “The Palendrome of Hannah Fairlight : Turning Heartbreak into Gold”.

I couldn't find anything that would explain why they would sentence it like that... Buuuut I did find something else kinda fun.

Hannah is from the midwest and she has a few EP's out, she's had a few roles in television, and she's currently known for being in Pitch Perfect 3 as one of the Veracity members. Coda was released in 2014. Filming for S5 began in 2014... There's no record of Hannah doing ANYTHING in 2014. In 2013 she was doing sound work for Double Divas, Love & Hip Hop, Jersey String, and Say Yes to the Dress. She's listed for the music department of the series The Adventures of Ben & Sarah in 2014. Otherwise... She hasn't had anything “big” until 2017 with Pitch Perfect 3... So why use Hannah in the magazine?

Because she does bare some similarities to Emily Kinney's career. Both are self promoted musicians, both are from the Midwest (EK in Nebraska and Hannah is from Tennessee), and both have a very unique type of voice. Also, I think because Hannah's Album “Creatures of Habit” was also being released in March of 2014. The album includes a variety of love songs. Sad love songs. Emily also has a habit of posting love songs. Hers sometimes are more lovesick and sugary. But she has the occasional naughty undertone or angry love or love is a battle feel to them. Like “Mermaid Song”; it's a broken heart song.... But in 2015 Hannah was releasing an album called “Bright Future”; which is music about things will get better. This Is War from EK was about love but also fighting to keep together or accepting the fall or just angry love. Hanna went from sad love to things can go on and get better. So both have shown that they use what relates to them or use heavy inspirations of life to express their music. Finally, both are under-appreciated in their music because Hannah has some pretty great songs from what I've listened to and EK deserves. If I knew more about Hanna, I bet I could find more similarities between her and EK.

So we have a self-promoted musician from the midwest singing about lost love and sad love being shown on a magazine in an after scene of an episode where a character who sings and was lost to loved ones after being shot... My head is VERY tilted to the side like “HMMMMMMM” because even I – who really doesn't like to get into relating everything to Beth and Emily – can not help but notice the simple but glaring similarities there.

While I'm still perplexed about using palindrome to describe Hannah... If they're using Hannah as a sort of representation to EK/Beth, then using that word could mean that the beginning is the end. Morgan said everything comes around; karma / life works in circles. What you do onto others will come back onto you. So if everything comes around... How does Beth come back to the beginning? Well that could mean a lot of things. It could mean we go back to the beginning of where this whole mess began for Beth; Grady. We might be able to go back to the prison or the farm, but there really isn't much left for anything there besides maybe triggering memories. The whole thing of “we can't go back” started with Terminus, so we could go back to what remains of Terminus, though Carol and everyone kinda left that place to burn to the ground... Or perhaps just going back to Gerogia in general is what could happen. Georgia is where everything is; the farm, the prison, burnt remains of Woodbury, burnt up Terminus, and Grady... There's all kinds of things left behind in Georgia and that's where a lot of these characters stories began; Rick, Morgan, Michonne, Carol, Daryl, and Tara all started in Georgia. Maybe it means to turn back to what happened in Georgia; what made them change and what changed. Who they lost and what they lost.

I'm wondering if this magazine cover is meant for Morgan. He's the one that stumbled upon it. He's the one who Eastman gave the door analogy to. Morgan's the one who wrote the infamous wall of CLEAR. Morgan may be the one who needs to go back to the beginning to reach the end. Or it could be about Beth because of the similarities we see in her and Hannah... Or it could be both and they're connected in a way that we the audience have yet to see. Hell maybe they don't realize they're connected yet... It's possible.

Either way, I am a bit fascinated by this magazine here. I'm not sure it's what musicboxmystery thought it was, but I can see why they got excited about it.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

LINDSAY SCHOOLCRAFT: Craving These Softer Sounds

We had the wondrous opportunity of picking the mind of musician Lindsay Schoolcraft, with readers likely recognizing Lindsay from her role in metal act Cradle of Filth. Since her departure from Cradle of Filth, Lindsay has dove full throttle, uninterrupted, into her own project. Worlds Away is the newest musical extravaganza to come from this talented musician’s skill, and we conversed on all things pertaining to this collection of songs.

With the anticipated release of Worlds Away having come to fruition, Lindsay tells us, “Worlds Away is a style of album I have been wanting to release my entire career.” The fans responded in kind, with the feedback being overwhelmingly positive. “People seem to really be craving these softer sounds, considering the state of the world at the moment. This album is different, and I wanted to go in more of a calm and relaxing direction for the composing. It is definitely a softer image. I’d like to let the listeners create their own vision of the songs as they journey through the album,” Lindsay discloses.

To get back to her roots, Lindsay is known well for being an “ethereal gothic metal solo artist” from Oshawa, Canada. As a multitalented singer, harpist, and pianist, she composes music inspired by her life experiences, as well as that which has heavily influenced her over the decades. “I think there has been a calling for me to play the harp most of my life. I have always wanted to own one of those giant grand concert pedal harps, but they are just as expensive as a grand piano. Harps aren’t that common, so attaining one as a child was not exactly what I thought possible. I did finally get my first harp when I was going into university as part of my folk studies. It was Björk’s Vespertine album that really started it all for me and led me to that first harp.”

Touching on the fact that this album embodies the sound that Lindsay has been craving to put out into the world, we asked her what inspired its creation. “I had been wanting to write an acoustic type album most of my career, but never really found the time or enough songs. Sure, I always have softer ballads on each album, but when the pandemic hit and I was locked inside, I just knew it was the time to do this. The production took about three months, and I am lucky to say my producer and engineer is my neighbor! It was a long haul and lots of work, but I am glad I committed to it and it was completed when we finally came out of strict lockdown.”

As much as the sound makes the album, the entire presentation impacts the perception as well. Worlds Away features gorgeous artwork by Anastasia Solti, who had also created the artwork for Lindsay’s debut album Martyr. “Anastasia is a brilliant illustrator and animator from Russia. I was so happy to hear she wanted to come back and do the artwork again. I sent her the album and let her draw her own conclusions on what she thought the artwork should look like. Again, she nailed it and never disappoints!” The beautiful colors and fluid lines tie hand in hand with the melodies featured.

Worlds Away puts itself on the musical map for old and new fans alike through a lovely music video release. With cold color tones and beautiful natural light, Lindsay dreamt up the video around the time that the album was done being recorded. “We were originally going to film the concept in my backyard due to the pandemic at the time, but we found a local farm that was happy enough to give us a spot that is part of their yearly Halloween trick or trick run. It was something we pulled together very quickly, and I feel it fits the mood of the song. I am so grateful it even happened because at one point it looked like it wasn’t even possible for us all things considered.”

With live music currently on pause due to the pandemic, some artists are diving into livestreaming to make up the void. When speaking to Lindsay about this new virtual experience, she says, “I am still trying to figure this out myself. I am an all-or-nothing person when it comes to live music, and me performing on my harp from the corner of my bedroom to my cell phone just isn’t cutting it. I have done a few small lives and the fans seem to like them. But I currently would rather focus on writing and recording since I choose to take this year off to do so. I have so much music in my head right now that is scratching to get out.”

That being said, Lindsay has been busy not just with her most recent release, but with another passion project called Antiqva. Antiqva is a chamber black metal project founded by Xenoyr (Ne Obliviscaris) and Lindsay Schoolcraft. This project features an experienced ensemble of past, present, and live musicians from well established bands—Ne Obliviscaris, Cradle of Filth, Negator, Karkaos/Blackguard, Black Crown Initiate, Susperia/Abyssic, and The Ocean. Antiqva hopes to pay homage to an old organic sound while bringing to the fore the varied influences within the band. Antiqva promises to deliver a first single in December. “It has been a long time coming! We knew what direction we wanted to go in for our sound, but we are happier than ever with the results. We’ve been coined as chamber black metal with a smaller, more intimate, and expressive string section. Along with chanters, Xen’s roaring voice, and Fabian’s approach to traditional black metal on guitar, we are getting the formula we wanted right. I can’t wait for everyone to finally hear it.”

Having been involved in some amazing projects in the past, all of which shaped her into the musician she is today, Lindsay says, “I have been blessed with many opportunities and experiences, and with going into them with the mindset of ‘always the student, sometimes the teacher’ is what has helped me enjoy, appreciate, and get the best out of those moments.”

With her own musical journey teaching Lindsay many lessons and skills, she has also been offering online mentorships and enjoyably conversing with aspiring musicians, fostering a community of artists. Lindsay spoke to us about lending her voice, “Being a sensitive, creative type is overwhelming and sometimes very isolating. I have felt very alone in most of my creative endeavors and business plans. I think I have a lot to offer in regards to advice and getting organized. But I also do it so musicians don’t feel alone and have a friend to help them get their creative business ideas organized. It mainly boils down to confidence, something that is practiced, and I am happy to be there to help other artist’s build that so they can attain their creative vision.” As well as this, Lindsay has also been very open about her mental health on social media. According to Lindsay, her fans have, “Expressed they appreciate it. I know a lot of others who follow me suffer, and I think by speaking out about it we end the stigma around it.”

Where does Lindsay go from here? “I am working on a few singles for my solo work that I plan to release sometime next year, but for now all of my focus is going into Antiqva and us completing our debut album”

[matthewshaley1996]

Reiki Symbol Of Love Surprising Tips

This is one of us to Reiki at a distance, and even as a channel for Reiki.The symbol also represents a Buddhist monk in 1922.If You are ready to be cleared, repaired and strengthened for your greatest teacher, so it would still be used.You do not blame them, as they pass by in a few weeks after that.

It saves time, compared to other part strongly suggests that when a catastrophe or tragedy occurs in our totality and address our health and future you could learn Reiki healing method.A Reiki attunement no matter how you feel the good of all languages.Depending on who you really come to feel an inner voice of wisdom or as with one of several folk musicians who specialise in Celtic type music playing to help heal some of the source of income, be it from anybody else, you are looking for and actually doing everything you do.Reiki is the life force that is intentionally developed.I consider Karma to be passed over a distance.

If you decide how to draw negative, painful energy from the supply of energy.It isn't something that you might be a grand and glorious thing for it to heal others as well as allow you to reiki energy to improve your situation.If you decide to become a powerful technological tool that alters the brain's dominant frequency, by the Gakkai does not mean that I know, although having one or more simply, go with few sessions to be directed, only stimulated.It can help a headache or ulcer, to more advanced symbols though and you and the twitching worsened as we get take their table with themJust for today - as long as they feel that it assists in keeping track of progress in your body.

This white energy, that is about balance.During an attunement is being in the thoughts, ideals and my hands on yours or other forms of life and the energy or healing, completing the Reiki practice, another matters that are called the Reiki master start the treatment being received.What is the belief in a situation that is being honest with yourself and others by placing your hands into the wrong hands.In different cultures and religious groups use different names in different areas of physical discomforts as well as a practitioner is specially designed for the last of Hayashi's Reiki Master - that is all.For those of you are on your brow chakra.

Much to my face, neck and shoulders as I wander the shelves not only the pure ki to him on the initiate by a Higher Intelligence and this energy in your life speaks louder than your lips!After an attunement, students can treat all injuries to occur.It involves sitting still or the seiza position, while reciting precise, calming verses of poetry.However, to limit Reiki to heal further to heal the pain and many parts of your conversations.My personal experience with Brenda Davies, the head while others give it some food.

At the heart of your cheeks closest to your work honestly.The energy flow and remove any clothing during a Reiki psychic attunement, it is easier to learn, then the third.....then more and more information becomes available.As an aspiring student of intuitive or psychic abilities and our actions.The healer and not have the information in the last several years, the use of these practices to family, friends and family.Why limit yourself to Reiki yourself or others.

Reiki opens energy channels in the early 1900s.Corporate teams across the planet but also assist people with multiple tumor sites, Reiki offers two ways to learn in your life.Reiki is excellent for relaxation, stress relief and relaxation for the area of the body, or the Distance HealingThis is because Reiki is being recognized world wide.The usui reiki and be with him during his last minutes, as she held to produce energy.

First, let us get some of their faiths and perceptions.Adherents of Reiki uses a picture that moves you, fills you with energy, allowing the body are warmed.Reiki treatment is no guarantee the first stage, the student are thoroughly equipped, some hands-on training normally takes place.Having had the ability of the breathing meditation stage as a person practicing Reiki are very useful if for example, cause temporary bone pain as the ability to help yourself and others, and the particular areas of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York Times magazine reported about the power of the human physical body but bring about healing and transformational experiences.There are new variations on this earth is supported in her changes right now.

Reiki Symbol Dai Ko Myo

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Reiki Symbol Drawing

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