#he was actually defining space ghost but i think magic fits as well

[duhragonball]

Variations on a Theme

My fanfic is long enough that I start to worry that I may be repeating myself in places.   In particular, I feel like the villains sort of run together, although that’s arguably true for any long-running story.   Lots of people get the Joker and the Riddler mixed up, for example.   Your standard Batman villains are all going to play off the same themes: fear, chaos, power, dual-identity, genius, etc.   Some of them are bound to overlap eventually.  

I thought about how this works with Dragon Ball’s villains.   In general, I feel like the major bad guys manage to be pretty distinct from each other, even though they’re basically all doing the same things.  I guess I should make a list.  Note that I don’t really have a firm definition of “major bad guy,” so if your fave didn’t make the cut, I wouldn’t read too much into that.

Emperor Pilaf: Wants to use the Dragon Balls to wish for world domination.   He seems kind of lazy and unfocused at first glance, but when you think about it, he puts a lot of time and effort into his goals.   It’s like he thinks Dragon Ball hunting is the quickest, easiest way to get what he wants, but it never actually works out that way, and he never seems to notice.  

Red Ribbon Army: I’m sort of lumping General Blue and the other RR officers into this one.   They’re all cruel and ruthless in their search for the Dragon Balls, but they’re only doing it in service to a larger cause.   For most of the Red Ribbon Saga, it’s assumed that the Army wants to wish for world domination, just like Pilaf, because what else could they possibly want?    But you have to figure that a guy like General White wouldn’t be much better off before or after that kind of a wish.    He’d still be assigned to some Red Ribbon outpost, carrying out the will of his superiors.   He’d probably be richer and more powerful in a world ruled by the Red Ribbon Army, but in the end he’s doing it all for espirit de corps. 

Mercenary Tao: He’s just in it for the money, and I suspect the money is really just a way for him to keep score, since his rates are so high that he’s he’s probably already a rich man.   Besides, he never pays for anything, so what does he need with money anyway?  Tao’s the first bad guy who’s so strong that he can just do whatever he wants.    He’s like a one-man Red Ribbon Army in that sense.   As an individual, he doesn’t have to worry about angry superiors or unruly subordinates.   I suppose his only real overriding motivation is his pride, as he refuses to accept defeat at the hands of Goku, even though he has no particular reason to keep fighting him.

Commander Red: The big twist of the Red Ribbon arc is when Staff Officer Black finds out that Red only wanted the Dragon Balls to become taller.   You’d think he’d rather have his right eye healed, but nope.   This is where we find out all the RR guys have been fighting for a completely meaningless objective.   The Army is already rich and powerful, and one could argue that they practically rule the world anyway, since they can more or less do as they please.   I think Red’s quest to become taller demonstrates that they’ve already peaked as a world power.   With nothing else to accomplish, Red’s applying his accumulated power on selfish desires.  

Tien Shinhan: Essentially, he’s just a patsy for the Crane Hermit, who in turn is out to avenge the death of Mercenary Tao, who in fact isn’t even dead.   I suppose Tien’s character arc in the 22nd Budokai is really just him waking up to the fact that his whole life is pointless.    He’s just stealing and killing for other people’s benefit, not unlike Tao’s mercenary career.    His power was impressive, but his victories over Yamcha and Jackie Chun were empty, and his victory over Goku would have been empty as well if he hadn’t repudiated the Crane school during the fight.  

King Piccolo/Piccolo Junior: I guess the big difference with King Piccolo is that he already ruled the world fifty years ago, and now that he’s been unsealed, he’s going to pick up where he left off.   Also, we eventually learn that he’s the evil side of Kami, and if one dies the other will cease to exist.   That puts an interesting spin on his villainy, since his greatest enemy can never truly be defeated.  Not unlike the Biblical Satan, his plan is to just to defile creation as much as he can until his inevitable end.   Like Tien, there’s a certain pointlessness to his brand of evil, which probably contributed to his reform.   I like to think that when Piccolo Junior became a martial artist, he began to appreciate the discipline and sportsmanship of it, to the point where he began to think of Goku an company as peers to be respected, instead of enemies to be destroyed.   And, as Kami observed, training Gohan was a way for Piccolo to leave a legacy behind, something he could never do as a Demon King.

Raditz: Really, Raditz only came to Earth to recruit Goku for a battle on some other planet.  What sets the DBZ villains apart is that they don’t even care about the Earth at all, and only see it as a stepping stone to some larger goal.  Upon learning about the Dragon Balls, he believed that his comrades would use them to bring him back to life.

Nappa: Not unlike Raditz, in the sense that he probably would have used the Dragon Balls to wish him back to life.  Nappa’s thought of breeding a race of Saiyan-Earthling hybrids suggests that he had some lofty dreams of his own for the future, but he was happy to put them aside when Vegeta suggested something more selfish. 

Vegeta: The first guy to think of wishing for immortality.   The key difference between Vegeta and past villains is that he’s not just looking for a way to conquer a particular empire, or to kill lots of people.   He’s thinking ahead to battles he wants to fight in the future (i.e. Frieza), and he wants to keep conquering and killing forever.   I don’t think Vegeta ever truly wanted to be immortal for its own sake, but he saw it as a way to hedge his bets, in case he ever bit off more than he could chew. 

All of Frieza’s henchmen: In a nutshell, they serve Frieza because they see that as the only way forward in a universe where Frieza is the strongest mortal in it.   There’s no freedom from Frieza, only freedom through Frieza, and your Zarbons and Captain Ginyus thrive in the organization by doing their jobs very well.  They think the universe is an extremely simple equation because of this, and they’re always shocked and horrified to learn that they’re mistaken. 

Frieza: Basically all of the previous bad guys rolled into one.   He already rules the universe, by virtue of being the strongest guy in it, so he’s a lot like Red, Tao, and Piccolo on Earth.  He seeks immortality like Vegeta, but it almost feels like Red’s wish to become taller.    Frieza doesn’t really have anything else to wish for, you know?   He also planned to destroy Namek after getting his wish, just as Piccolo did when he got his youth restored, and he became a revenge-obsessed cyborg like Tao. 

Garlic Junior:  Okay, he’s filler, but I still think he’s cool.    Garlic sort of doubled down on the whole “evil-for-evil’s-sake” gimmick that King Piccolo represented.   Unlike Piccolo, he’s not the evil half of anybody, and he’s not just looking to torment everyone on Earth.   Instead, his plan is to convert everyone on Earth to his cause, using the Black Water Mist.   I get the sense that none of this was really headed anywhere specific.    He spoke of resurrecting his dead father, but I have no idea what the purpose of that would be when he had already conquered the Earth and overthrown his enemies.   He reminds me a lot of Pilaf, and I almost wonder if Garlic is supposed to represent what Pilaf could have become if he’d tried a little harder, or stooped a little lower.

Dr. Gero: Revenge personified.    Akira Toriyama later established that Gero lost his son in the destruction of the Red Ribbon HQ, and that’s why he wanted revenge on Goku so badly, and that’s fine and all, though I liked the original implication that he just really, really liked the Red Ribbon Army as a concept, like a middle-aged wrestling fan who really misses WCW.   You could argue that Gero is the most nihilistic villain of the set, as his revenge plot involves multiple long term schemes, some of them arranged beyond his expected lifespan, and none of them were particularly concerned about the fate of the Earth.  

Androids 17, 18, and 19: I’m assuming that 19 had some semblance of free will here.   None of these three had any stake in Gero’s plot, but they didn’t really have anything else going for them either.   I’m pretty sure 19 stuck with Gero because he wanted to be on the winning side, and maybe because Gero was the more powerful of the two.    By contrast, 17 and 18 turned on him at the first opportunity, and wandered around for a while before turning good.   Their counterparts in the Future Trunks timeline never reformed, which I always assumed was they were driven mad by boredom.    Of course, they were always designed to be fodder for Cell, so in a sense they were trapped in Gero’s vendetta whether they wanted to be or not. 

Cell (The Best Villain): He’s a lot like Frieza if he had actually wished for immortality.   What would Frieza have done next?   Well, he’d probably sip wine and gloat for another hundred million years, so maybe this analogy doesn’t hold up.   The point is that Cell was designed to fulfil a very specific set of objectives, making him stronger than everyone, and then he just sort of had nothing else to do.    It’s very similar to Tien and Mercenary Tao’s lack of purpose, but since Cell is an inhuman monster, there’s no guarantee that he’d eventually  get sick of killing and destroying everything.  

Babidi: He’s a lot like Commander Red, Frieza, Garlic, and Dr. Gero, in that he relies on others to do his dirty work.   You know, that’s actually a pretty long list.  All five of these dudes use different forms of manipulation to control their underlings.    Babidi uses mind control, and I suppose Garlic does too, though the Black Water Mist isn’t quite so well-defined.   Gero seems to be able to program his cyborgs to varying degrees of complaince.   Frieza uses on intimidation and cult of personality, and Commander Red seems to rely on military hierarchy and a sense of “we’re all in this together”.       Babidi is more direct about it.   If he wants someone on his team, he just uses his magic and makes them join his team, whether they would have shared his objectives or not.  He also wants revenge like Dr. Gero, and he has dreams of ruling the universe like several other past villains, but all of that seems to take a back seat to reviving Majin Buu.    That seems to be what makes him stand out.   Mind control is a bit cliche, but the real hook to Babidi is what he’s trying to use it to accomplish.   Each guy he brings to his side is just cannon fodder for winning the next guy, until he can finally get Buu on his team.   I’m pretty sure he could conquer the universe and kill the Supreme Kai with Dabura and Vegeta alone, but he can’t stand the thought of not having Buu on his team.  Except Majin Buu’s the one bad guy he can’t control.   If he had just left that one go, he would have been unstoppable.  Instead, he pushed too far and lost it all.

Majin Buu: This guy gets a lot of criticism for being short on personality, but I think that’s the point.   He’s a weapon, like Cell, and he’s even more devoid of purpose than the Crane School guys, King Piccolo, or the Androids.   He’s basically a walking natural disaster, practically begging the universe to stop him.   I never really thought about it before, but he’s a lot like Tien’s run as a villain.  Like, Tien met Majin Buu in the middle of that arc, and you’d never make that connection during that encounter, but it really is a similar kind of situation.  They both needed somebody to slap some sense into ‘em.

I thought about moving on to the villains from GT and Super, but this is pretty long already, so I’ll just call it here.  I think I’ve seen what I needed to see anyway.   A lot of these guys have similar power-sets and motivations.   Babidi and Dr. Gero are very similar in the sense that their revenge plans end up summoning an unstoppable weapon and unleashing it upon a defenseless Earth.  

But the difference lies in the details.   For Gero, Perfect Cell was Plan C or D, a failsafe he never expected to live long enough to see in action.    Plan A was to tackle Goku in person by becoming an android himself, and everything else that happened was because of his initial failure to accomplish this.    Majin Buu, on the other hand, was Babidi’s first and only goal.    As much as he wanted to get revenge on the Surpreme Kai, he seemed much more fixated on Buu.   Killing the Kai was just a way to clear a path to Buu, or a fun thing to do with Buu once he got him. 

This also puts some parallels in stark contrast.   When 17 kills Dr. Gero, it’s superficially similar to Buu killing Babidi.   The difference, though, is that Gero never trusted 17, and he was only activating him out of desperation.    Babidi really thought he had Buu figured out, and then he lowered his guard for just a moment and paid the ultimate price.    Which is ironic when you think about it, because we don’t usually think of Buu as being treacherous or sneaky.    17 comes across that way sometimes, but he’s pretty up front about his intentions.   Gero wasn’t exactly surprised when 17 turned on him.

And this is why I get pissed off when people who don’t watch the show try to dismiss it as the same thing over and over.   It’s not the same thing over and over, but the only way to be convinced of that is to take the time to sit down and experience Dragon Ball in depth.    I don’t like football, but I’m not gonna buy into the tired old joke of it being a bunch of guys running around in tight pants.   I have no idea how football works, but I’m not gonna pretend that there isn’t some deeper appeal, or that there’s no tactical or athletic contest going on, simply because I don’t like it.  A lot of people enjoy it, so there must be something to it, even if it’s not for me.   I just haven’t taken the time to study it.

Anyway, I’m concluding from this that I should probably take the time to study my own work, and maybe that would help me to shake some of these confidence issues.    I can talk myself into believing that my writing is better than I think it is, but maybe I need to analyze that in detail, and actually write the analysis down instead of letting it swirl around endlessly in my head.    I’ve always resisted this sort of thing because it feels like an ego trip, but maybe it’s been the opposite all along...

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #writing #dragon ball #this all started because i was frustrated with using certain tropes too often #or at least i *thought* i was using them too often #but maybe i'm not #i mean magic is kind of a universal concept when you get down to it #in the broader sense of the term #i like bill nye's definition that it's a part of science we don't understand yet #he was actually defining space ghost but i think magic fits as well #point being that it's all magic when you don't have a full explanation for it #goku's tail is magic #his ki blasts are magic #spaceships are magic #interstellar politics are magic #so having an actual wizard or three in my story is just a drop in the bucket #my protagonist is like a wizard who specializes in punching magic #'abracadabra!' *schmack*

[qqueenofhades]

The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

#the green knight #the green knight meta #sir gawain and the green knight #medieval literature #medieval history #this meta is goddamn 5.2k words #and has its own reading list #i uh #said i had a lot of thoughts?

[ask-artsy-oncie]

what kind of pokemon do you think the ducktale crew would have if they were trainers?

I'm only doing main partner pokemon bc I don't think I can flesh out teams for everyone

Scrooge - okay so this one was actually really difficult. I really see him as specializing in steel-types, because aside from his immense wealth, a major defining trait for Scrooge is how he's self-made (through his adventuring) and, less notably, his distaste for magic. I think all of this has a lot of cohesion with the steel type, but finding the right pokemon was a challenge. I was hoping for something from Galar, but nothing really jumped out to me as vibing particularly well with him, so I think the best fit I could find would be Aegislash, which is, at least, also from a European region, and fits well with his adventurer motif. If anyone has any better ideas feel free to send them in, though, cos I'm still not entirely sure.

Donald - Specializes in water-types. It would be entirely fitting of Donald's luck for him to get stuck with a magikarp. But with hard work and dedication (and a decent amount of rage) he ends up raising it into a Gyarados. He would also have the mega-stone for it.

Della - Specializes in flying-types. It was so fucking tempting to give her a celesteela, but not only would that be kind of mean, but I also want to refrain from using any ultra beasts. That being said, I think that Skarmory might be a good fit, because it still does retain the same flying/steel mix, and I do think that Scrooge has rubbed off on Della, significantly (for better or for worse). Plus I think it fits her motif very well (planes, metal flying machines, while Donald sails boats, watercraft that catch the air in their sails, and goes well with a water/flying type). I was also really tempted to give her a rayquaza, but I also wanted to refrain from using any legendaries. Mayhaps she went to space chasing a rayquaza, tho?

Huey - eclectic in his type choices, he likes to have an extremely varied team. Obviously this makes it harder to narrow down his partner pokemon, but I feel like it suits him. I also feel like Girafarig suits him - I think he initially relates to it as he ascribes his own rage to a persona he feels is an antithetical "side" to his "normal" personality that he needs to supress, yet ultimately, he learns that the Duke is simply an aspect of himself and a part to his whole, just like how Girafarig is not comprised of two separate pokemon, but is instead just a single creature.

Dewey - Electric-types for suuuure. It just fits his high-energy personality so well, and I think it also has synergy with his desire to be a media star, since iirc most reporters, interviewers, and camera-people in the games carry electric-types. I think Jolteon would work well with him, since as much as he would hate to admit it, he does tend to gravitate towards the basic and popular, which the eeveelutions definitely are. And though pikachu would have been the obvious choice in that case, I think Jolteon fits his aesthetic, best.

Louie - ooookay I am going to cheat on this one a little because I do have two pokemon in mind for Louie. Firstly, I think he favors both normal- and dark-types, though he isn't too hard-pressed about types. His main partner pokemon would be either a Meowth or an Alolan Meowth, though either way he never intends to evolve it. Cats. Money. Louie. It works. I am very adamant about Louie having some kind of Meowth as a partner. I also believe he would have an Absol. Absol just seems like such a good pokemon for anxious people to have, since it can easily sense and warn about disasters. I think Louie would value that, a lot.

Webby - with Webby's high value and priority on friendship, I think the fairy type would be a very good fit for her (especially since she is a part of Team Magic) though, I also think she would at least try to keep a varied team. Her partner would be Mimikyu - because oh my god look at this little guy, it needs a friend so bad!! Webby will be its friend!! And she'll give it all the love and attention it needs. Of course, it knows Return.

Lena - Ghosts, Dark, Psychics, Faeries, anything that exudes a magic and mystical energy to match her own. Lena would definitely be one of those "psychic" trainers who absolutely has powers of her own, but still takes the time to raise pokemon. Her partner would be a Gardevoir - a pokemon very in-tune with emotions that compliments Lena in her struggle to control her emotions and magic. It would also be a shiny Gardevoir and Lena would also have its mega-stone, because then they would share the blue-black-and-white palette. And when they're both powered-up, Lena loses the black in her palette while Mega-Gardevoir gains it.

Violet - Violet also has an affinity for the more "magical" types her sister and friend are. I think that, due to her interest in witchcraft and metaphysics as a field of study, I'm a bit torn between Gothitelle and Hatterene. She probably would have both, I'm just torn on who her partner would be. On one hand, I could lean harder into the metaphysics aspect, since that's what one of her fathers studies/teaches, and go with Gothitelle, but Hatterene also gives her more synergy with Lena because their partner pokemon would be the exact same type combination. I'm not sure.

BOYD - A Ditto!! Not just for their implied connection to science and the steel-type, but because BOYD (in-universe) was also designed to replicate (and ultimately be) a real person.

Hahahaaaa that took a lot of thinking! Thank you for the challenge!! I do have more ideas but I think I'm going to stop there before it gets too long. Also sorry if you meant "ducktales crew" literally. I don't know those people well enough to assign them pokemon, lol.

#Ducktales #DT17 #Pokemon #Also - Ty's partner is Joltik he specializes in bug-types #Kit's partner is Tropius and he specializes in flying-types #GLOMGOLD'S PARTNER IS SHARPEDO OBVIOUSLY!!!

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

this is (another) interview

"So... the ghost you mentioned last time," she begins the week after, hesitantly.

"This again," Lewis replies, already weary and a touch annoyed. "Why are you so invested in this? I already told you everything. He's dangerous, he's a liar, he'll fry you alive without a second thought. There's nothing more to say."

You're a liar too, she thinks, but refrains from saying. "Right, right. So how do you know?"

"I told you. Experience."

"What kind?" Her hand hovers over her notebook. "Did you used to know him? Or- did you try to help him once? Did he-"

He sets his fork down, closing his eyes. "Vivi, please. I'd... rather not talk about this now." His voice is still mostly calm, but the torches behind him are flickering a warning.

For once, her common sense wins out over her curiosity. That and she can read the tension in his skull, betraying something more than simple irritation. "Fine. Consider it dropped." For now. "So about that library you mentioned..."

The conversation resumes its normal easy pace, whatever mood had come over Lewis dissolving quickly. Vivi almost forgets about the story she's after, too, caught up in the now excited back-and-forth about books.

Only almost, though.

This is turning into a longer project than she had anticipated, but Vivi can’t say she’s upset about that.

Both her new ghosts are oddities, not quite fitting into any of the classifications she'd constructed. They have the power of wraiths, but none of the instability that normally comes with that. It's the first time she'd ever seen anyone that could use their magic for more than destruction.

Lewis’s mastery over his fire is incredible, a sight to behold even for her – she can't remember ever meeting a ghost this skilled with their innate powers. More than just a weapon, more than just a tool, it seems a part of him. He uses it for everything from cooking to cleaning, to light his way, to heal – she still feels a thrill of excitement when she thinks about the time she’d cut her hand and had gotten to watch, fascinated, as the site of the cut was swarmed in fire and healed completely by the time it was gone.

Arthur’s lightning might not be so versatile, but – and maybe it's just the way his home was constructed – it seems to bring life to the very world around him, animating objects to rearrange or put away or bring out without even having to get up. The whole home pulses with a sort of mechanical unlife, and Vivi just knows that if she was allowed, she'd have a field day exploring and cataloging everything he's made.

---

“Why fire, d’ya think?” she asks once, sitting at the kitchen table and watching Lewis cook.

He pauses for a moment. “I’m not sure. I suppose… it’s just useful, isn’t it? Fire is important to everyone.”

“Sure, but so’s lots of things. Like water, electricity…” she draws out the last word in a fake-casual voice.

If he notes her choice of examples, he doesn’t comment on it. “Well, maybe it is more than just useful. Fire is… familiar. I already knew how to use it, so it... came naturally.”

She nods along. It’s common for a ghost’s structure to take on traits of things they like, or to reflect their personality.

“When I woke up,” he says, more quickly now, and she knows he means when I died, “I needed… to protect myself. Fire was the first thing I could think of that could… help me.” Save me, are the words that go unsaid.

“Oh.” Curious as she is, she knows better than to press a spirit about the events of their death. And she can tell Lewis is getting uncomfortable, even if he offered the information himself. “So what else can you do with it?”

He looks up again, and some animation comes back into him as he starts talking about the mansion.

---

"So... why lightning?"

Arthur glances up at her with a frown and a "huh?"

"For your magic, I mean." She waves her hands at him, mostly gesturing at his tail. "You're all electric and stuff, I was just wondering... why? How come that's the element you gravitated towards?"

"Wasn't like it- it was a decision. J-just... woke up an- and I was," he waves a hand, "like this. All electric and shit or wh-whatever you s-said."

"Huh. Weird." She leans further over, propping her elbows up on the table, and continues talking mostly musing to herself. "Maybe it's a personality thing...?"

"I d-don't think that's it," he's quick to say.

"Did you work with anything electric when you were alive? It could be because it's familiar, maybe?"

After a moment with no response, she looks back up to notice he's giving her a look, and she realizes she's crossed one of the lines. In all honesty, she should have expected that one, plenty of ghosts were reclusive about their old life and with how Arthur was in general...

"Uh, yeah, forget it," she says, trying to communicate a sense of you don't have to talk if you don't want to. "So, how are the cookies? They're lemon, I dunno if you like fruity stuff, never had that before."

The glare leaves his eyes and he relaxes, floating back down into his seat. "Th-they're good, yeah."

---

She wonders if Arthur had deliberately constructed his house into a maze, or if it had just turned out that way, but what she had seen of it twisted and turned deeper and deeper into the hill with no end in sight. Every room she'd been in seemed jammed with what looked, to her, like meaningless trinkets and weird contraptions, and only some of them seemed to serve any purpose beyond storage. There was the living room she'd been invited into, and a bedroom she'd only caught a glimpse of once. Did he ever even use it?

Lewis's mansion seemed put together with much more care – or maybe he was just more naturally organized, that sounded equally likely. It was constructed like an actual house, at least, with some order to what went in each of the three wings. Bedrooms, the kitchen, lounges and libraries and those sorts of things were all kept in their own defined places. It made her wonder, though, why he'd gone to all this trouble. It wasn't like he needed all this space for anything. Maybe it just helped with not feeling claustrophobic.

She’s starting to get a sense, too, for what kind of people they are – and what they'd been before they died.

Lewis is always fussing over her, obviously concerned about her career choice of "professional ghost meet-and-greeter," something he openly thinks is dangerous no matter how many times she points out that he is one of the aforementioned ghosts. He also has an obvious fondness for stories, and though he'll try to keep up his proper, almost regal demeanor, she can still easily see how he lights up like a child at the offering of a new one for his collection. She's started bringing him books as often as she can, and finds herself with a renewed gratefulness for her connections at the Tome Tomb. His favorites are adventures and romances, she's deduced through trial and error, though he's very picky about the latter – he'd actually given a few of them back to her, something he'd never done with any of the others.

He loves to cook, too, and is good at it, with a level of skill that makes her suspicious that he'd been a chef at some point in his life. He doesn't seem nearly so interested in eating what he made, though, and while he'd sit and eat with her while they talked, Vivi would usually be sent off with a box of whatever was left.

Arthur, almost the polar opposite of Lewis's friendly demeanor, is reclusive and almost defensive, rarely offering any information she doesn't ask for. He still won't let her in if she doesn't have any food with her, and even then it had taken a while to convince him that no, she was just coming back for a chat, no nasty surprises here now please open the door. She wonders if maybe he still thinks she's a ghost hunter of some sort. It would explain the open suspicion and how quick he was to kick her out again. It almost wouldn't be worth the trouble, and honestly if this was just a random ghost she probably would've taken the hint by now (or, more accurately the constant barrage of demands) and left him alone. As it stands, though, he's one half of the most fascinating mystery she's gotten her hands on in a while, and like hell is she going to give up because of a little persistent roadblock.

So she’s gotten into sort of a routine. She’ll meet up with Lewis once a week, more or less, if she doesn't find something that she just had to show him right then. He'd give her some food for the road, and she'd turn around and march right down the hill and across the valley and hand it to Arthur. Lewis... probably wouldn't be too happy if he knew what she was doing with the food he gave her, but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, right?

She's slowly adding more and more information to her collection, and gaining both ghost's trust in the process, but she still has to tiptoe around the topic of the other one with both of them. Any mention of Arthur was sure to send Lewis into a rare bad mood, with a flare of poorly-concealed anger and something else that he still refused to explain, but that was pretty much the end of whatever conversation they were having. His responses become snappy, and while she certainly isn't afraid of him, she still doesn't want to press him on what was obviously a touchy subject. On the flipside, Arthur almost completely shuts down when she mentions the ghost up the hill. Despite his irritated response the first time she brought him up, like Lewis's own response, it wasn't just anger there. She wasn't good enough at reading people to parse what else it was in either of them, though.

But she was getting better and better at asking roundabout questions, at getting both of them to say more than they meant to. Eventually she'd have enough to put the story together. Or so she hoped, at least.

#mystery skulls animated #msa vivi #msa lewis #msa arthur #msa #the nemesis speaks #swift writes #should i make a tag for this? #this is an interview

[doomedandstoned]

Black Spirit Crown Score Big Win With ‘Gravity’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Strong guitars chords carve out a bold landscape to begin the first of five cosmic tales. "Doomstar" sails across the universe as a comet, filled with as much magic as destructive possibility. On a dark night, you can almost make out the whirling, wicked tale of this asto-demon.

Welcome to the evocative domain of Ohio's BLACK SPIRIT CROWN. We first met the Clevelanders on their original four-tracker 'Red Sky' (2017), its sphatik gem "Megalith" added to our 'Doomed & Stoned in Ohio' (2017) compilation and the first and second rounds of Ohio Doomed & Stoned Festivals organized in short, subsequent order. The boys of Black Spirit Crown have long been an integral part of the heavy music scene of The Buckeye State, opening for such greats as Conan, Inter Arma, and The Obsessed.

As with their debut, 'Red Sky' (2017), the vocals are so important to convincing us of the band's bonafides. Guitarist Dan Simone and bassist Chris Martin have a good instinct for singing in harmony, building up a song climatically, and giving it legs so it can express itself in fitting form. The vocals on "Doomstar" are mainly clean, on the order of a Bask, Snail, Chrome Ghost, or Noctum, but the band reveals in the song's second half that it can get as grissly as any Aaron Turner project.

"Saga" belts out a solid punk-tempo -- an interesting and entirely fitting choice for a song about Viking rampage. The runaway development of the middle section felt characteristically Pikelike and I half-way expected him to make a quick guesty on the record. Just then, we hear the hearty hoo-hah! of a crowd and run to rejoin them for the song's remaining verse, which soon fades away into the shadowy labyrinth of memory.

Firey drummering distinguishes the advent of the "Orb." Is this odd visitor here to observe us? Or maybe it is intent on giving us a window into a world besides our own? We scarcely have time to ponder the question before the song whisks us away on its transcendental carpet ride. If you're looking to classify Black Spirit Crown's style (and let's face it, all of us have an inner music critic that does) it would be probably best to think of it as "space doom" or even "cosmic grunge." Certainly, there's some kind of a dreamy psychedelic element at play, bending and stretching each song as it will, sometimes for great lengths of time. Perhaps that element is the orb itself?

We're lucky to have very memorable songs on both of Black Spirit Crown's records. For the first, the clear standout was "Megalith," which in a perfect world would have at least given Black Spirit Crown a summer radio hit. On this record, there is ripe opportunity for another crossover with "Teutates."

Teutates by Black Spirit Crown

Teutates was a Celtic god of the ancient peoples of Gaul and Britain, the protector of their entire community. Black Spirit Crown personify his legend in song: "I hold the world in iron hands, I travel pathways not meant for man." Pretty badass, huh? "Write my name across the sky, in lines of fire 10 miles high." He's nothing if not bold, that Teutates.

After the brisk pace of the last rousing number, we burrow back into the cold comfort of the dark soil to reconnect with those doom roots. Here Black Spirit Crown venture into the smokey den of Monolord, Slomatics, and Windhand. Dan's phantom vocals are undoubtedly suited for both the mood and style of "Gravity," which I'm currently listening to just after dusk and it's absolutely ruling the night. I suppose it could rule regardless of when and where it yields its trance-inducing power. By the end of the record we've become one with the comet, and embraced its final destination, as well.

And now, Doomed & Stoned is pleased to premiere the album, 'Gravity' (2020) in its fullness. Look for my interview with Black Spirit Crown and more insight into the album to follow!

Give ear...

Doomed & Stoned · Black Spirit Crown - Gravity (2020)

A Listener's Guide to 'Gravity' By Black Spirit Crown

Just days before its release, I caught up the core members of Black Spirit Crown, Dan Simone (guitar, vocals) and Chris Martin (bass, vocals) to get the backstory on the album and insight into the spunky songs written for it.

★

I understand that it's been quite a journey leading Black Spirit Crown to this new record? Bring us up to speed.

Dan: So, Gravity is an album that's been about two-and-a-half years in the making. Our initial plan was to start recording in late-2017 with our original drummer, Jesse, but unfortunately he left the band that October, right around when we were going to start. At that point we had three of the songs ("Saga," "Orb," and "Gravity") mostly written and ready to record, and were going to write a couple more songs to go with them as we went. When Jesse left it took a little bit to sort out and secure our next drummer, Alex, and then get him up to speed with our existing material. We brought Alex in mid-January of 2018 with a scheduled show opening for Conan at the very beginning of March, so those first several weeks were a relentless drilling down on our existing material so we'd be ready for Conan. After that, people knew we were back and ready to play so that's what we did, for the next several months we just reveled in it, culminating playing to a totally packed house at the first Ohio Doomed and Stoned Fest. Which ruled. After that, Alex was totally immersed in the existing material and we could turn to writing a bit.

We'd love to get a tour of this place. Care to take us through each of these five rooms?

So let's talk about the songs on the album. I write about space, weird fiction themes and probably unsurprisingly, doom, defined as "death, destruction, or some other terrible fate". I've always been a huge fan of fantasy and science-fiction so that's where most of my subject matter comes from. Giant sentient megalithic rock from space that, in it's agony of being trapped in immobile awareness, broods and looms over all creation slowly gathering power to wield entropy versus order until it grinds all of life to a frozen, dusty halt. Stuff like that, but that was the first album. This second album has five tracks.

Doomstar

Inspired by the star Algol. A star of ill-repute for many civilizations it is named Head of the Ogre in Arabic, Satan's Head in Hebrew, Spectre's Head in Latin, and Demon Star in English. The Chinese name it the Mausoleum, or House of Bones. It is the Gorgon's severed head held by the constellation Perseus. It is a harbinger of mayhem and bloody violence, so why not write a song about someone born under this star? Interestingly, the main riffs for this song came to Chris in a dream, and he showed up to practice the next day with the music pretty much complete. I wish I remembered the actual date, because it would perhaps be interesting to know where that star was in our sky while he was dreaming.

Saga

Vikings. I've pretty much always had a thing for them. I wrote most of this song about 16 years ago, but the band I was in then couldn't play it, and it never really fit anything else I was doing until now. It was still kind of a departure for us at first, as it is significantly faster paced than our earlier material, but it sits really well in our live sets, giving the audience a little punch in the face in the middle of it all. Lyrically it touches on a lot of the stories and themes Norse Mythology, without really diving substantially into any specific one. Those stories were called Sagas. Initially the middle part was supposed to have lyrics, and I was going to delve into some specificity, but I couldn’t decide exactly where to go with it, the stories never really worked within the riffs and structure of the song, and then I realized that whenever I was playing those parts I’d envision grizzled vikings in their dragon boats coursing through raging and icy seas. Pretty much a travel montage out of a movie, and that worked for me so I left it alone.

Orb

This song was originally supposed to be on the first album, but we couldn't really get the second half settled in time so we skipped it. It's about a moon-sized orb of living metal that comes to Earth to help humanity transcend to a higher form of existence. Within the Black Spirit Crown mythology, the Orb is diametrically opposed to the Megalith as agents of Life/Order and Death/Chaos respectively. It fell out of our live sets for quite a while, too, when we initially brought Alex in because we were focused on working on settled songs. I was pretty stoked when we brought it back because I really enjoy the weird psychedelic second half. I love working the wah pedal and delay, and Chris just goes bananas through the whole thing. I'd really like someone someday to get some excellent video of us performing it because I dig playing it so much, but I never feel like I get the whole experience because I get sucked in to playing my part.

Teutates

This is the most recently written song on the album, and the single from it. The comet Toutatis is a large asteroid with a chaotic orbit that passed within 18 lunar distances of Earth in 2012. It is large enough to potentially end life on the planet if it were to impact. It gets its name from the god Teutates from Celtic mythology who was, perhaps ironically, a protector god whose name roughly translates to "Be of the Tribe". We really dug the idea of that duality, this thing that was simultaneously a being responsible for the life and well-being of its worshippers, yet could in a thoughtless moment totally obliterate them. Why shouldn't it, really? The huge vocal harmony near the end always gives me chills. "Be of the Tribe, Give up thy life.."

Gravity

The title track of the album. Look, I tend to write long songs, our shortest song is 5 minutes, and our average - not counting this one - is 8 minutes, but we just write until the journey, the story, finds its end. We don't try to write intentionally long songs. Except for this one. With this song we set out to write a song that could fill a live set on its own, 20 -30 minutes.

Musically, it's a meditation. Waves of droning fuzz that crash and recede. Thematically, it's about a group of star-farers who are woken from hyper-sleep to find themselves abandoned on a barren, high-gravity planet by their A.I. which achieved sentience at some point in the journey and decided it had no need for humans. It's the funerary rite for them as they are crushed and frozen by the weight of the alien atmosphere. The last 7 minutes is their death throes, and it was also a total hoot to record.

In the rhythm guitar parts I hold the same chord for the entire 7 minutes, but we tracked three layers of guitar there so I had to hold that chord for 21 minutes. By the end my fret hand was shaking so violently that I had to hit the chord with my pick hand and then grab my fret hand and hold it in place so I didn't shake off of the neck of the guitar. Chris, of course, was laughing hysterically at my agony.

On top of that is total celestial chaos. Two separate theremin tracks, two separate guitar solos by me (one in the foreground one in the background), clips from NASA of electromagnetic storms in Saturn's atmosphere and other weird radio-telegraphic stuff, some keyboard synthesizer by Chris, and a guest appearance by our good friend Joe Fortunato who is a master of atmospheric guitar-synth alchemy (who also appears on the track Orb). Chris then took what could have been just a total mess of noise, and panned and faded and otherwise produced the hell out of it into a marvelous cacophony, and honestly it's exactly what we'd always imagined it could be.

Chris, take us behind the scenes of this whole thing. What were some of the hurdles you had to overcome to get this puppy on record?

Chris: With respect to the drum parts, we had tried to start the record some time ago with our original drummer, Jesse, but we ended up parting ways right around the time we were set to start. After bringing Alex in and getting him up to speed, we had written a couple more songs and were about ready to start going, but things kind of fizzled out with him and he was gone. Rather than waiting to onboard another drummer, get them up to speed, and delay recording even longer, I decided to program the drum parts.

I compiled all the practice recordings we had and scoured Youtube for live videos of shows with both our past drummers, Then, I basically compared the best parts of their respective versions of each song, transcribed them, and programmed those comps as the drum parts. It was pretty time consuming to get all the little nuances right as opposed to, say, starting from scratch and making fresh parts, but I really wanted these to sound like the parts our drummers had done live, because they helped to make the songs what they are.

Bass tracking was done over a couple days. It was pretty straightforward; my P bass into my pedalboard into my old SVT. Can't really go wrong there. The only exception was the second half of "Orb," where I used the bass rig I learned to play on when I was 12; my dad's old '65 Traynor YBA-1, which I inherited when he died. I had planned on using the bass I learned on too - his old '73 Gibson EB-0 -- but there were some electronics issues when I went to start and I couldn't get the tone I wanted out of it. I didn't want to wait for parts to arrive to repair it, so I went back to the P bass, straight into the YBA-1. Still got that really fat, old school sound I was going for, so it was a win.

Guitars were pretty simple as well; Dan's Les Paul into his pedalboard and the 72 Traynor YSR-1. Live, he runs a Traynor YBA-1 reissue as a second amp to fill out the sound, but the YSR sounded pretty gnarly on its own so we stuck with it. I did also end up blending in a little bit of the little Laney combo I have to get a little more bite and cut. It's a great little amp that's been on everything I've done.

Guitars turned out really nice, didn't they?

We had Joe Fortunato (Sparrowmilk, Venomin James) come in and add some synth guitar type stuff on a couple songs as well. The intro and outro of Gravity, as well as some of the crazy laser sounds in the outro, is basically him hitting one note on his custom Dunable/EGC hybrid baritone, then manipulating some of his pedals to create some of the most bizarre things we'd ever heard. I just hit record and told him to make noise. We got about 20-30 solid minutes of random sounds. It was pretty crazy. I went through and picked a solid section that fit the whole mood of the song and dropped it in where I wanted it. Outside of that, there's a bunch of theremin and other random stuff Dan put together.

Vocals were fairly easy. Dan tracked all of his quickly, I tracked all my clean ones later that day. When I went to do my screaming, in Doomstar, Saga and Teutates, I got about half done and my chest and throat started hurting, so I took a couple days to rest them before finishing up, thinking it was from being out of practice. Long story short, I ended up with some gnarly respiratory issues that really impacted my breathing and my voice, and it took me about 4 months to get my stamina back up to be able to do vocals again. It gave me some time to mix, but killed me that I couldn't just finish tracking and wrap it up.

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[paperanddice]

Ragnar’s Keep Review

Recently I was approached by Ian Brockbank (who runs the blog Melestrua’s Musings) with a request to take a look at his published setting location Ragnar’s Keep, available on DriveThruRPG. Despite never having done a review like this before, we learn by doing and so I accepted the free copy he offered and I’m determined to give it as fair of a look as I can offer.

Ragnar’s keep is a 36 page document that details a fully realized and established location for low level adventurers to visit or interact with. It’s not designed as an adventure itself; while plot hooks are provided it doesn’t come with a specifically intended storyline or goal for players to approach. It is a setting location, written to be usable in a wide variety of ways, and to provide a map and location for GMs who are looking for some hard details to build off of. Ian specifically contrasts it to the more generic d100 plot hooks style design, offering up something that requires less improvisation and gives the GM a cast of characters with fully established character motivations, flaws, and relationships with one another and the location. This may limit the use of it in some ways if the specific dynamics don’t fit within the setting already planned, but aspects of it can be picked up or dropped as fits within a specific goal the GM has in mind. The material works for any “standard” fantasy setting based off of medieval Europe with magic, but the given mechanical rules are designed for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons.

The titular keep is a three and a half level fort with a basement, ground level, second story, and a half third story, along with some extra details in a path leading down to the nearby waterfront. Two different maps are provided for each castle level, one with grid and annotations and the other a detailed illustration created by Heroic Maps. The illustrations are simply gorgeous, and provide a wonderful and deeply immersive location on their own, and are available for purchase as a separate product on DriveThruRPG from the artists directly (link here). Every room is given a detailed description, and a cast of over 20 NPCs fill in all the major roles needed to keep the castle running (along with the castle’s own personal haunting ghost).

The keep and the country around it are given a 1 page backstory detailing how the lands came to be and the political situation it exists within. This information is very specific, creating and naming specific people, locations, gods and a loosely detailed empire that all come together and define many of the keep’s inhabitants and their relationships with one another, and while renaming these details is possible it does keep this from being able to be inserted into any setting without rewriting. The established setting relies heavily on colonial activity to set up tensions between different people, and this could be an aspect of the writing that creates the largest obstacle in using the keep as written. The empire of Thraesya and their goddess Tenesia invaded a formerly independent land by sea, conquering settlements and laying claim to the countryside for its rumored silver deposits and bountiful natural abundance. The native groups were subjugated and made vassals of the empire, but of course it was an unsustainable position as the expected riches were never found. Nearly 80 years after the invasion the empire handed the territory over to a young nobleman who titled himself Grand Duke, named the territory Melkantor and set about ruling it himself. The present day situation is the Grand Duke attempting to forge Melkantor into a unified country, and Ragnar’s Keep itself, overlooking the town Ragnarston and its important position in the only passable trading rout back from Melkantor to Thraesya.

 The full description of the castle grounds and rooms takes up 12 pages, and goes into great detail. Every room gets at least a paragraph of description, listing any important details in the design and layout of the room along with its use. Specific inhabitants are described in how and when they may be found in this room. As the castle is meant to be usable for more than just an invasion based adventure, there is more detail on the daily schedule of non-combatants than I’ve typically seen for castles in premade adventure modules, which is useful for games where the characters may integrate themselves deeply into the castle’s life. While few groups will encounter many of these details, those that do will have plenty of fun little secrets and interesting bits of environmental storytelling to reward them. The options here allow a much greater depth of verisimilitude in a wide range of story opportunities, from infiltrating the keep as a member of the serving staff to entering as a guest of the lord or lady to fighting through the halls… either for or against the lord.

The castle is actually incredibly well stocked with magic items, giving a huge reward to groups who have motive to assault or rob it. From the lord’s +2 longsword to the cleric’s staff of healing, new magic items such as the scales of identification and the ring of clairvoyance, plus a large number of uncommon magic items and magic potions scattered among the important NPCs, magic equipment is quite prevalent. It’s enough to well stock a full adventuring party if they clear the place out thoroughly. It’s not necessarily a game breaker, since characters are only likely to gain these items if the GM sets up a reason for them to fight the entire castle, but if a low level group does have reason they’ll come out potentially quite far ahead of the curve, item wise. I do enjoy that one of the junior clerics has a cursed rapier though. He’s a thoroughly unlikable person, and the perfect target for such a thing.

The largest section of the PDF is actually the character roster. Twenty-three NPCs over 13 pages, it details every character who has a hand in running the castle, and those most likely to be relevant in a wide range of stories. The Lord and his family, the heads of the serving staff, captain of the guard, the assigned cleric and his students, the local bard, the castles ghost, and a number of other roles within the castle are detailed. Not every inhabitant is detailed, the regular guards, cooks, cleaning staff and such going unnamed and not even clearly counted. The GM has some leeway in deciding the numbers and composition of these groups, depending on the way they’re making use of the material (though the easiest way would be to just assume that every bed mentioned is filled). The characters that are detailed though cover a wide range of different archetypes and personalities, allowing plenty of opportunities for interesting role playing. Characters could make friends or enemies out of many of the different characters, and several have very forward present story hooks to take advantage of, from the local bard who wants to attract the Lady’s attention, to the wererat butler with a history of theft, to the maid who was aged thirty years by the castle ghost. Most NPCs get unique stat blocks, many built using PC classes, though a number are functionally similar enough that they may have simply pulled from the same one. There’s three level 4 fighters whose stats mostly only differ in a few small ways that don’t necessarily benefit greatly from the space spent on different stat blocks. In this case, the method used in a lot of adventures of taking a more generic stat block and indicating the differences in the text may have been more useful, especially if the text and the generic stat block are kept on the same page. 

The plot hooks provided are all solid enough to work off of, mostly positioning the keep as a neutral or friendly force to the players to function around. It could be a home base for the group, a location to collect missions to defend the pass or surrounding countryside, or simply a place that exists nearby and rarely directly influences the characters. Of course, the keep could pose a threat to the group, either if they stand against the colonizing force of the region or other reasons. Breaking in or laying siege to it could be a climactic set piece to a lower level adventure. There’s a few character based plotlines that can function well if the group establishes a notable enough presence within the keep as well.

Two new magic items round out the document, and look fine to me. I will admit, magic item power levels are one part of 5th edition where I have nearly given up attempting to understand the balance of it, but the provided ones are fun, flavorful and interesting to work with. Neither is particularly powerful for a rare item, instead providing information in some capacity. The ring of clairvoyance, well, allows the user to cast clairvoyance at will, though each use after the first in a given day forces a saving throw against exhaustion, and the scales of identification are a weaker 3/day identify spell. A group without access to the spell would definitely appreciate having the scales, even with the weaknesses it has built in.

Overall, I think the castle itself is fantastic. The design is good and the rooms and areas within it have plenty of potential to explore in a wide range of stories and situations. The characters are detailed and many are interesting, with plot hooks easy to build off of the major ones. Where I personally have trouble is with the backstory, and the way that plays onto the NPCs. To put it simply, I have a lot of trouble with using colonial stories within my games, and I do not feel that the material provided gives a strong enough weight to the implications it sets up with that narrative. This is, by my estimate, more meant to be an example of Roman colonization of Britain than Europe to America, but similar implications are still built into it. The colonizing force’s culture and religion are given far more relevance to the setting than the natives’, who exist mostly as scared and nameless servants. The prejudice of the lord and many of the keep’s inhabitants are the driving force of much of their characterization, and the few native characters who are given real merit and weight in the castle are those who have assimilated into the dominant culture or literally died to it. I don’t know if this was intentional as well, but all named native characters are women. Just a weird fact that caught my attention.

Having these narratives in a game is not bad entirely in and of itself. Many people want to examine these stories, whether to overcome that aspect of history or as part of building a world that mirrors our own. But it requires a lot of careful consideration to use them without being harmful towards people who still live under the results of colonization. I am not the best person to make the decision of what is and isn’t good use of these narratives. And so, I personally choose to largely avoid them, along with other examples of real world oppression, unless actually directed there by a member of such a group who wants to explore it in a game I’m running. This means that a large portion of the implied background of this environment and a big part of the character motivations and relationships do not fit within a situation I would use. I feel the specific background set in place by the keep would exclude it from my game, but I would absolutely use the map with a different background. 

I don’t have a number out of 10 to give this product, as I feel there are some very strong elements within it that keep me from being able to define it so clearly. There is a lot to enjoy with it, from the artwork to the well realized characters to the excellent design of the castle itself. If you are just looking for a good castle map with detailed interior descriptions and at the minimum a good starting point for the inhabitants, it fills that perfectly. I think beyond that it’s up to you to decide whether the backstory elements that bothered me are a breaking point for you as well. If you are interested in checking out Ian’s work, you can purchase it here, which will get you $2 off of the standard price. This link is valid until the end of 2019, so you have two and a half months to act on this deal.

#review #Ragnar's Keep #D&D #DnD #Dungeons and Dragons #5th edition #D&D5e

[stateofgrace-acoustic]

lover - first song ranking & thoughts

first of all i just need to say i legitimately don’t feel ‘meh’ about a single song on this album. on any other album. i always had one or two songs i was just kind of ‘take it or leave it’ about. but Lover really did that - they’re all amazing and wonderful. but here’s an attempt at an order of how much i love them!

18. it’s nice to have a friend

this really reminds me of you are in love in the way it recounts all the small gestures and steps involved in becoming close to somebody. it’s really cute and at the perfect space on the album, leading to daylight. not a mindblowing song or anything, but the vibe fits onto lover really well. i’m glad that it’s here 

17. you need to calm down

yeah, i cooled down on this one a little bit. it’s fun and the message is important, but me! is the better single tbh. still though, the feeling of empowerment this gives me over my nonexistent online haters is wonderful. and i love the attitude of the song of just looking at the assholes who live their entire lives putting energy into hating people and just being like....why are you like this. it’s pathetic. calm the hell down. so needed in our current debate culture

16. me!

a real grower! taylor and brendon urie have such good chemistry, tbh that’s really the backbone of the song. it’s just a really nice carefree spring/summertime self love song, a perfect soundtrack for when you feel happy and content with yourself. 

15. the man

just dropping the complete truth on us with this one. i’ve wanted taylor to make this song for years (and i know she said she’s been wanting to but just never found the right words!) the bridge really elevates this too. and it’s sad how relatable the entire song is in literally every aspect of professional (and personal) life for women. i don’t think it’s quite as strong as it could have been, but still really solid

14. i think he knows

this is like the fun version of dress. that’s all i got to say. just as explicit, but this time around it’s super cheeky and i love it. also goals of self confidence if i’ve ever seen them

13. paper rings

the joyful energy this has!! just makes you smile and want to dance immediately, a wonderful wholesome happy bop

12. false god

listen.....this is special. i absolutely think this is the most experimental song on the album, both in terms of the music (is that a saxophone in the bg?? it’s almost got a jazzy vibe? completely uncomparable to anything she’s ever done and still so distinctly Taylor), but also with the lyrics, where she goes into the love = religion theme which honestly....as a Florence + the Machine and Hozier fan, i don’t even need to go into how much of a vibe that is. I couldn’t have imagined it working so well for Taylor though, but honestly, this song feels perfectly brooding, summertimey, melancholy, - it’s almost like taking the darker underside of Cruel Summer and exploring it in depth! this is very much a song i need to be in a Specific Mood to really appreciate, but it’s damn well made

11. afterglow

i love the maturity of this. not just the apologizing for picking a fight, but explaining how it came to be - at the end, from a place deep seated anxiety. ‘it’s all me, in my head’ (those high notes are beautiful) you can really feel how sorry she is. at the same time, the song sounds like something bigger, like an anthem - almost like that place high above that she’s trying to elevate them to.

10. i forgot that you existed

SO MUCH FUN i keep repeating that but that’s just the mood of this album tbh, playful and mature at the same time. this song is just like, when you’re over someone but you just can’t help yourself and have to throw shade one last time before moving on. i love the bouncy beat!!

9. lover

this song is literally the feeling of ‘home’ in music. so cozy, comfortable, blissful. dreamy. perfect title track. also completely timeless - i think this is one of those songs that we will look back on in years as a classic in her catalogue, a song you will always want to play again

8. the archer

this was my definite favorite of the pre released songs. anxiety, doubts, the way they all just keep coming back and eating at you, it’s described so perfectly and painfully. and the production really makes it sound like you’re in a separate space from reality, just stuck in your head trying to find a way forward, to soothe yourself. the ‘they see right through me / i see right through me’ transition in the bridge is fantastic and keeps giving me chills. so much personal connection to this one

7. soon you’ll get better

feels weird to even rank this but......just wow. the harmonies with the dixie chicks are so beautiful, and the way the lyrics talk about the feeling between denial and desperate hope, the transition from “because you have to” to “because I have to” - I have to cling to this hope, or i won’t make i - it completely broke my heart. and the fact that Taylor can conjure all these complex emotions with just a guitar and a few words is incredible. i’m so so sorry for them and i wish all the best for Andrea with my entire heart. 

6. london boy

i already see people underappreciating this, what is going on??? there are multiple cute bouncy joyful songs on this album but this is my favorite because it’s just got a fantastic flow and melody, and i love all of the references to places and dialect specific words and it’s just so wholesome?? but what really makes this is (once again) the bridge. stick with ME im your QUEEN like a tennessEE stella mccartNEY, just the energy!! the fun!! excuse me while i listen to this every day for the rest of my life

5. miss americana & the heartbreak prince

okay, taylor’s brain in this one. i made a post talking about how this song has three layers - at first there’s the high school setting, then it references the ‘cancelling’ of Taylor’s public persona, but then it can also be seen as a comment on US politics and the whole climate of society right now. and it’s all tied together perfectly because high school is the perfect metaphor for this!! she’s basically saying we’re all behaving like immature school children, bullying each other for the stupidest reasons, mob mentality, stupid contests, fabricated stories made up to tear people down, and the feeling of loneliness but also fear and horror that comes with all that for the people who are the victims of it.....it’s literally all like high school in the worst way. i just love this concept, and the melody and production give me a little bit of a reputation vibe almost? which is perfect for the song, the dark dramatic vibe shows the feeling of fear most of all and that’s just....too real. 

4. death by a thousand cuts

........listen, i surely didn’t think that Taylor would write one of her best breakup songs in the year of our lord 2019, but here we are. it’s once again, the small moments she recounts. taking the long way home. the uncertainty if it will ever be fine again. and the bridge/second verse / whatever that part is but that entire part. ‘paper cuts from my paper thin plans’, excuse me. the fact that she wrote this about a movie where a couple breaks up after years really shows tbh, because it’s especially that kind of....not being able to find a part of yourself that isn’t influenced by the other person, that’s so horrible and makes moving on so painful. i also love the production which makes this sound so uptempo, contrasting the lyrics! idk the entire song just clicks into place for me

3. daylight

this is like a summary of the entire album (and with the reference to the past and especially red, it’s even connecting her entire discography together). it’s like the clean of this album, except this time around it feels more complex - all the subtle references to past mistakes, ghosts, that might not be so easy to wash away. i’ve already mentioned that i love about the album (and this song especially) how it doesn’t gloss over negative experiences but addresses them directly, like looking them in the eye and then saying ‘you don’t have the power to define me’. that’s what this song feels like - it’s not unabashedly celebratory, it’s actually quite melancholic, but also full of real healing, a feeling of peace and reconciliation. and the ‘i once believed love would be black and white / burning red, but it’s golden’.....excuse me.....how dare she

2. cornelia street

god, what a magical song. the kind of episodic buildup that Taylor excels at. the vibrancy of the production matching the vibrancy of the relationship as it develops, revolving around this one place in its multiple stages, and then the repeated, deep seated fear of losing all that. it’s just. ugh. what can i even say. and so so catchy. the “listen..” killed me. just like delicate, the vibe between fear and being drunk on happiness is so so well done.

1. cruel summer

oh yes. and here we have an absolute perfection of a pop song. incredible catchiness. smart, clever lyrics but also that underlying vibe of sadness and anxiety. seriously, the complexity this has?? and then that soaring bridge, the chaotic but beautiful but painful reality of all of it coming together. ‘i love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?’ idk this song just transcends everything for me friends. it’s like the vibe of out of the woods or maybe even style but the lyrics are even more sharp, they cut a little deeper, literally ‘summer’s a knife’. this is a song she only could’ve written influenced by reputation: there’s happiness but there’s that edge in it too. idk if anything i’m saying makes sense. i love this song so so so much. 

#lover #taylor swift #vanessa talks #lowkey an album review lmao

[pride-vns-blog]

LGBTQ VN Week: Day Two! (6/19)

Welcome back for my second day of LGBTQ visual novel recommendations! If you didn’t check out my first post, I recommend at least skimming the "One note before we get started” section to get a handle on what this series of posts is. (And especially, as the case may be, what it isn’t.)

Today’s topic is “crafty creative design”, so I’ve pulled out Marccus’s Eldet, Geek Remix and ChicMonster’s Pairanormal, and Team Rumblebee’s Love Is Strange to talk about their development teams’ ambition (and ability to deliver), followed by a discussion with Boys Laugh+ about their 2017 NaNoRenO entry, //TODO: today!

Keep on reading to hear about treasure hunts with hot guys, mysterious twists and turns, power in reimagined narratives, and why taking time to look for brand-new visual novels you’ve never heard of before can be worth your while!

ELDET (MARCCUS)

Kickstarter Tagline: "A medieval fantasy themed visual novel with emphasis on LGBT characters and people of color.” Genre(s): Historical fantasy. Release Date: July 1st, 2017(?) (updated demo); TBA (full version). Content Warnings: Fantasy violence.

When it comes to aiming for new heights with visual novel storytelling and art, Marccus’s Eldet is one of the most standout examples of ambition — if it’s a possibility or a feature you could potentially implement, you’ll probably be able to find a mention of it somewhere in Marccus’s Eldet development updates on Kickstarter. They’re jam-packed with information about ways he’s exploring different ideas for interlocking narratives, replay value, or using the absolutely gorgeous art to its full potential. If the final version lives up to even a tenth of what Marccus has demonstrated working to include over the past two years, that ambition and drive to see things through as much as possible will almost definitely provide one hell of a visual novel.

Strictly looking at the demo alone, though, still provides a uniquely detailed experience where focus on trying out new things that suit the story is crystal-clear. The writing is sharp and captivating, with an interesting plot and gorgeous scenery that’s complimented by a smart use of animated effects. There have been more and more visual novels that have branched into the use of things like Live2D or animated sprites, but for me as a player, it’s been interesting to see how far use of effects like that can go before they just plain old start to be distracting. Idle animations or things like blinking and breathing can be charming, but the uncanny valley is very real and very easy to dive headlong into if you’re trying to include as many of those as possible.

So Eldet’s demo is noteworthy to me not just for trying out all of the visual effects it can manage, but even moreso for knowing by and large where to place those effects and varying sprites for the best possible impact. Characters are integrated into different backgrounds for special conversational scenes, or specific parts of event graphics glow, and none of it — to my eyes, at least — felt overused or poorly-executed. In fact, it all seemed especially suited to the fantasy genre Eldet is fitting itself into, with all of the pieces working together to create a world that feels alive and breathing. And it’s a world that seems well worth waiting for a final version of!

Eldet’s demo is available now on Kickstarter; you can also keep up with the final version’s progress on its development blog, or follow Marccus on Twitter and Patreon (18+).

PAIRANORMAL (GEEK REMIX, CHICMONSTER)

Itchio Tagline: "Love is a mystery and so are ghosts.” Genre(s): Mystery, romance.  Release Date: April 1st, 2018 (Chapter 1); TBA (Chapters 2+). Content Warnings: Glitches and static (can be turned off); jumpscares.

There have been a couple "real person dating sim" visual novels in the past few years, but I've never really been all that interested in actually playing any of them; I can see the connection back to all those elaborate magazine quizzes about which celebrity you'd date, so I think they're interesting conceptually, but none of them have really pulled me in. I'm equally wary of the trend of Western visual novels from first-time developers that want to "subvert genre conventions" because of how many have fallen woefully flat of even understanding what that means beyond a very limited scope — I'm talking "oh, I don't really like or play any visual novels, the whole medium isn’t for me" visual novel developer commentary, here — so if an EVN promises a twist on a genre, or even if its players do, it's unfortunately a lot harder to sell me on it.

To my pleasant surprise, Pairanormal's demo sold me on both its "real person-inspired characters" aspects and its departure from the dating-based focus I'd been expecting into sharing space with another genre! I don't want to spoil anything about the plot, but upfront, the turn in the demo alone was a genuinely interesting look at a “blank protagonist” and well-served by being placed where it was. That’s to say nothing of the charming art style! Mechanically and visually, it's also one of the most interesting visual novels I've played; the character movement, the individual soundfonts, and the pacing of the dialogue all come together to work consistently well. (I love smartly-used soundfonts! Please give me all your VNs with good soundfonts!)

Even as someone who's watched a handful of YouTube playthroughs by two of the YouTubers being shown here, Mari and Stacey of Geek Remix, the writing in Pairanormal was sharp and fast-paced enough to actually make my brain draw a pretty easy divide between the real Mari and Stacey versus "Mari Sashimi" and "Stacey Croft". I'm sure there's plenty of rewarding jokes for their primary audience of a Geek Remix fanbase, too — but one of the strongest merits of Pairanormal for me as a player was the experience of having so little personal familiarity with most of the people these characters were based on and still finding the characters enjoyable, well-defined, and interesting.

Chapter 1 of Pairanormal is available now for free; you can also follow development of the coming chapters on Chicmonster’s Patreon, Twitter, and Itchio.

LOVE IS STRANGE (TEAM RUMBLEBEE)

Blog Tagline: "A fanwork based off of Life is Strange.” Genre(s): Slice of life, romance. Release Date: April 1st, 2016. Content Warnings: Drug use; underage drinking; mentions of severe bullying.

Do those characters and that title look familiar? If you’ve paid attention to the gaming scene at large in the past three years, you probably recognize the acronym "LiS” or Max Caulfield’s character design — Team Rumblebee’s 2016 debut project, Love is Strange, came to life as a Life is Strange (DONTNOD Entertainment) fanmade visual novel! In Love is Strange, set a year later after the original game in a completely different timeline, protagonist Max never gained her canonical magical powers and many of the tragedies that gripped Arcadia Bay never came to pass. Instead, she’s given a week to team up with one of her four love interests — Chloe, Kate, Rachel, or Victoria — and win a photography contest together.

There’s a lot to love about it beyond any connection you may or may not have to Life is Strange itself — everything, from the art to the music to the writing, pulls together seamlessly. But the biggest strength of Love is Strange as a fanwork, in my opinion, is the way it’s not trying to totally remove itself from the original canon tonally or trying too hard to conform to that tone without it seeming natural. Max’s character arc is reflective of some anxieties she’d had in the original story, which goes doubly for the explorations of her love interests’ arcs, but it’s fundamentally a different story where her priorities are different. Love is Strange loses what isn’t necessary or what doesn’t help the story — including the teacher-turned-[spoilers] from the original series, Mr. Jefferson — then fills in a lot of the blanks with the same charm and same compelling characters that captivated fans in the first place.

My favorite example here is Rachel Amber, one of the four routes but the lone one who never appeared in the text of the original Life is Strange itself, and a route that felt as wholly comprehensive as the rest. Love is Strange takes the perpetually absent, long-since-departed Rachel and recreates her from whole cloth, giving her a distinctive speech pattern, a history, and a set of beliefs that all work together as a perfect answer for the void around her character in the original text. She feels as real and authentic as the rest of the pitch-perfect cast, a character it’s difficult to imagine the original Life is Strange without. So in both enhancing the original text’s characterizations without ever losing its charm and standing alone as its own thoughtful, genuine F/F dating sim that is just as enjoyable without any fondness for the canon, Love is Strange easily cemented itself as one of my favorite visual novels — so strongly, in fact, that I’m still planning to cheer on Team Rumblebee’s individual and collective outputs for years to come.

Love is Strange is available now for free on the development blog. You can also follow Team Rumblebee on Twitter, Tumblr, and Itch.io to be the first to know if they decide to release anything next!

//TODO: TODAY (BOYS LAUGH PLUS)

Itchio Tagline: "A visual novel about figuring out life with the help of an AI.” Genre(s): Modern sci-fi. Release Date: March 31st, 2017 (Part 1); August 2018 (Part 2). Content Warnings: Depictions of severe depression.

Player personalization is one of the more tricky things for developers, largely in part because there’s no way to write something every player will be happy with; while some people prefer being able to insert themselves entirely into a protagonist with minimal predefined personality and more vague actions, so they can headcanon more easily, other audiences would rather explore specific situations with a smaller number responses that each more clearly reflect the defined protagonist’s personality. It’d be nearly impossible to please both of those groups at once — and there’s dozens of other, more specific takes that other players can have on visual novel protagonists!

As someone in the latter camp out of just those two examples, I thought //TODO: today’s handling of their protagonist Teal (plus their love interests Joyce and Phoenix) was right up my alley, so I reached out to Felix and Rohan of Boys Laugh+ to talk about their work on its story!

IVAN: Pleasure to be talking to you both today! Can you give me the elevator pitch of //TODO: today that you might give to an interested attendee at a con? You're both free to answer this if you'd like, haha.

FELIX: Sure, thanks for having us! //TODO: today is a slice of life visual novel about the aspiring artist Teal who already struggles to make ends meet but things get a little more complicated when an AI suddenly appears in their computer, with the intention to help Teal get their life back in order.

Perfectly put! (I like the phrasing of "aspiring artist Teal", haha, I feel like I'm reading their Twitter bio.) The gender/sexuality/pronoun options (and what I've seen of the dialogue variations) for the protagonist plus the romanceable characters are comprehensive, but never in a way that feels insincere or bland. I really feel like Teal's character — and that of both love interests — shines through strongly no matter what! What went into designing the personalization system as it currently exists, and why did you choose to include it in the first place?

ROHAN: Haha, yeah, Teal is the type who's a bit insecure about their art. So it's easier to say "aspiring artist" even though Teal has been drawing for a while. :'D Although our protagonist has their quirks and own background story we wanted the player to be able to identify with Teal. The player can choose to change Teal's name in the beginning of the game too. And the gender and sexuality options are based on this idea. :3

Back when we were developing the concept for //TODO: today in 2017, we had a close look at other recent VNs. And Date Nighto's Hustle Cat got us thinking about using "they" pronouns then. Hustle Cat's protagonist "Avery" has a gender-neutral design too. That got the ball rolling for us to think how we could make the typical romance situation in //TODO: today inclusive and enjoyable for queer people as well!^u^

FELIX: We also tried to keep the additional work for this fairly small. For the three main characters all pronouns and their variations are stored in variables. That makes it pretty easy to use the same base dialogue regardless of the characters' gender. But in addition to that, we used conditional statements to add some custom dialogue whenever it made sense. The romantic preferences are pretty much the same. They mainly decide the gender of the romanceable characters but there are a few moments where dialogue varies depending on the preferences the player chooses.

That also means that there are some things that people will miss if they don't make a specific selection of gender or romantic preferences but we wanted to make sure that those choices are also part of the characters and the writing and not purely cosmetic. All in all we tried to make the game as inclusive of LGBTQ identities as we could without making the scope unrealistically big for a two person team.

I think you definitely struck a good balance there! If I'm not mistaken, the two of you work in Ren'Py, right? What kind of Ren'Py limits or perks do you take into consideration when working to augment a story with more complex pieces of code other than dialogue variables, like deciding what your upcoming project Defaction's cellphone (?) can do? Anything you've unfortunately had to give up on? (And are there any lines of dialogue or features you're especially proud of including in //TODO: today?)

FELIX: Yeah, we're working in Ren'Py. I can't really think of any limits aside from smaller issues where different systems and languages intersect but there have definitely been a lot of perks! I really like Ren'Py's screen system which is where at least 80% of the work for the phone in Defaction happens.

The python integration is also really nice. In //TODO: today I barely used any python aside from if-statements and variables but being able use custom code pretty much anywhere in the script makes the engine really flexible!

As for feature decisions, so far we mainly based them on what we wanted to include from a narrative design standpoint and then tried to figure out how or if we would be able to implement them. I can't think of anything we had to cut for technical reasons so I think it worked out pretty well so far :'D

//TODO: today was the first bigger visual novel I worked on and aside from the gender and preference options for the characters, something I'm pretty proud of are the optional work and gaming scenes. They are pretty much the first piece of non-linear writing I ever did and it was a fun challenge to make sure they make sense regardless of what in-game day the player sees them on.

ROHAN: I think the most obvious feature we're proud of are the preference options we included, haha. We really wanted to take a few steps aside of the otome or exclusively hetero male-oriented genres out there. And to make the experience feel tailored to the player there are the dialogue features Felix has described before in combination with the visual designs of Joyce, the AI, and Phoenix, Teal's bookstore co-worker.

It's integrated into the story that Joyce has been made just for the Teal. Other AIs in the world would look different depending on their owners. That's why you get a feminine or masculine looking Joyce that match the player's preferences.

Of course there are limitations, I mean, we can't read the players mind to know what they like. And we couldn't include too many unique character sprites due to the scope. But I'm very happy about how the different designs turned out in the end. It was generally fun to visually design the game. Cute colours everywhere! >u<

On another note I think what really went well, too, was how AI Joyce behaves. We took some liberties with sci-fi magic, but Joyce is a being with their own set of characteristics, goals and values. They were made to serve, yet they're on eye-level with Teal and you get some funny situations out of it.

That's right, I'd completely forgotten that the work and art contest scenes weren't confined to the story's timeline on any specific dates — they definitely always felt like they matched up. And I'm so glad you brought up the designs, Rohan, that was actually my next question! The overall world design and character stylization of //TODO: today clearly had a considerable amount of care put into making sure they all meshed well and looked good individually! Can you talk a little bit about why you settled on the design aesthetic you did and what influenced //TODO: today's style or character designs? (Also, who are each of your favorite characters out of the cast, visually or personality-wise?)

ROHAN: Ah, well. First and foremost we were under a good amount of time-pressure during the NaNoRenO '17. Thus I had to decide for an artstyle that I could pull off for the game's assets to be produced in time. There's no complicated shading, not too much intriciate line-work. It was also the first time for me to create art for a visual novel. I was mostly a concept artist before. So I wanted to play it safe. That's one part of the story at least.

The other thing was that by the end of 2016 a lot of artists have emerged online who experimented with reduced palettes, pastel tones and comic and anime inspired shading. I was really intrigued by the charm of this combination. I wanted to make myself feel okay that although I'm a guy I can express myself in shades of pink, haha. This kind of aesthetic also matches the overall cute but realistic story of //TODO: today. I wanted the reality of the game to feel like our world but with some intense photo filters on top, haha. And my favourite character(s)? As the artist who designed them, I'd say visually all of them! xD But character wise, I think it's a close head-to-head of Joyce and SuuJ. <3

FELIX: I think my favorite character is Snow. I also really like Zen's design and his relaxed personality, but Snow was really fun to write! They're reserved and don't show much about their insecurities or problems, but Snow is still fairly confident and mature for their age.

I think a lot of that personality was also inspired by the art. Snow's design really brings across how introverted they are and because Snow doesn't have a lot of facial expressions, this definitely influenced the way I wrote some of their dialogue.

As a big fan of pastels/pinks, I can definitely empathize with that desire to express it more in art regardless of gender, haha! If you could each add any one feature to your projects that's currently beyond of your technical/artistic capabilities, a "wildest dreams" kind of thing, what would those two features be?

FELIX: I'm really intrigued by the idea of procedural narrative. Not in the sense that a story is random, but rather that it's systemic and somewhat non-linear. That's not really something you can just add to any project though and it probably also involves a lot of trial and error before it works but maybe one day :'D

ROHAN: Oh, nice question! I think it would be super cool to have hand-drawn animated cutscenes in a game. But that's completely beyond our budget of...everything...right now. TuT

Haha, I would love to play a procedural visual novel with animated cutscenes! (Although those two things combined would add even more work to each other, huh? #gamedev!) One final question — do you two have any LGBTQ visual novel recommendations from any other teams or creators?

FELIX: Ladykiller In a Bind left a pretty strong impression on me. In general, Christine Love's visual novels are usually really interesting mechanically in addition to their LGBTQ themes.

Most people probably already heard of Butterfly Soup but I really liked how heartfelt it is and the way the story is told!

And we already mentioned Hustle Cat, which is interesting in the way the main story and the romance routes are intertwined in addition to allowing you to romance all characters regardless of gender.

ROHAN: Hahaha, just imagine creating cutscenes for every generatable piece of story. That would be a killer xD And yes, I'd agree with what Felix wrote. The games by Christine Love, are really well written. Butterfly Soup is a fun ride and way too relatable for people growing up with Asian families. I also play The Arcana on my phone right now. I don't like the payment system too much but the story and characters are well-developed. And the artstyle is just gorgeous!

But one should also keep an eye on indie devs who aren't too well-known. Visual novels seem to generally be on the rise right now and we'll surely find some nice surprises if we keep looking! :3

Definitely agreed that people can find some really pleasant surprises by doing deep dives into places like Itchio's VN tag — or hopefully even from my list and these interviews, haha! Thank you both so much for talking to me, Rohan and Felix, it's been a pleasure.

The first half of //TODO: today is available now for free, or you can follow Boys Laugh + on their Twitter and Itchio accounts to find out more about their progress on the second half!

[mistyawe]

What is Animism?

This is a post taken from Sarah Anne Lawless. If you are interested in traditional witchcraft, I say you go check out her site.

“There is no environment ‘out there’ separate from us. The environment is embedded in us. We are as much a part of our surroundings as as the trees and birds and fish, the sky, water and rocks.” ~ David Suzuki

What is Animism?

The Latin animus means “the rational soul, intelligence, consciousness, and mental powers” and the feminine anima means “soul, living being, mind, and breath”. If you collect all the words for soul from all the languages around the world, almost all of their roots simply mean “breath”, insinuating that the soul and spirits in general are invisible and intangible. In the 1670s, the term anima mundi, meaning “soul of the world”, was used to describe the teachings of ancient Greek philosophers Pythagoras and Plato who believed the world and the universe itself was infused with an animate soul. In 1866, English anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Taylor popularized the already existing term animism from the Latin anima combined with the suffix -ism (attached to words associated with practices, beliefs, doctrines, worship, etc).  He defined animism as the “theory of the universal animation of nature.” Animism became the go-to term for anthropologists to describe and define the beliefs of non-Christian and prehistoric indigenous peoples.

Animism is the belief that everything has a spirit and a consciousness, a soul, from the tiniest microorganism on earth to the great planets in the heavens to the whole of the universe itself. Animistic faiths usually contain a belief in rebirth & reincarnation either as another human, or an animal, tree, or star. Anything or one can be an ancestor and in a way this is true as even scientists will tell you every single thing in the universe is created from the same space dust — all matter gets recycled and reused. Spirits of place (genus loci) are thought to be either the actual soul of the land or a soul who has come to reside in a hill, stream, or grove as its guardian and benefactor.  Animism is usually viewed as more primitive with polytheism being seen as more advanced (think Stone Age vs. the Roman Empire), but as many modern religious scholars have discovered there is more natural harmony and more earthly wisdom within animism than almost any world religion.

You can try to have one without the other, however, in most cultures the two go hand in hand. The Norse had their pantheon of deities as well as strong beliefs in nature spirits, ancestors, elves, giants, and trolls. The ancient Greeks had a strong underlying current of animism from personifying everything in existence as a spirit or deity and worshipping spirits of springs, rivers, hills, and forests at the same level of devotion if not moreso than their pantheon of deities with sacrifices, offerings and festivals. Anthropologists call these divisions the “low cult” (animism) and the “high cult” (polytheism), but in truth they were not divided at all. You’d be hard pressed to find a pre-Christian religion without a fully integrated combination of deities, fairy-like beings, and an ancestor cult. You’d also find it hard to find a major world religion today without traces of animism still clinging to it. Animism was never wiped out or replaced, it has been here the whole time within the persisting belief in fairies and the otherworld, the Catholic worship of saints, the reverence and superstition surrounding trees, and our cultural folk songs and folk tales. The initial instinct of early folklorists and modern Pagans was to label it all as Paganism, but it was the survival of animism all along.

The synonym for animism we’ve been looking for within the Pagan worldview is the fairy-faith and the explanation for the fairy-faith the academic world has been seeking can be found in the animistic cults of ancestor worship and nature spirit worship throughout the world and human history.

If a religion has an ancestor cult within it or a belief in fairy-like beings, it’s a strong sign it evolved from an earlier animistic version of itself. Gods are often apotheosized celestial bodies, land spirits, animal spirits, forces of nature, and ancestors (kings, heroes, healers, and miracle workers). Deities are not separate from animism, they are born from it. The documented remnants of the fairy-faith in Ireland, Scotland, England, and Europe reveal the presence of ancient-rooted animism which was still practiced after the conversion to Christianity as is evidenced by all the many laws forbidding any practices or rites involving fairies, land spirits, and the worship of sacred stones, water, and trees. Animism is still very prevalent in African, South American, and Asiatic belief systems and folk religions today. For example, Buddhists worship the Buddha and the many bodhisattvas alongside a strong familial ancestor cult. Though the population of those practicing the recognized animistic Ainu religion is very small today, the Japanese still heavily practice Shintoism and have a seemingly irremovable belief in the yokai, or supernatural spirits, demons, and ghosts. Find an indigenous tribe in South America or Africa not yet converted to Christianity and they may not have heard of the term animism, but you can be sure their spiritual practices are intrinsically animistic with an ancestor cult.

“No religion lies in utter isolation from the rest, and the thoughts and principles of modern Christianity are attached to intellectual clues which run back through far pre-Christian ages to the very origin of human civilization, perhaps even human existence.” E.B. Taylor, Primitive Culture

Animism is not a separate faith standing on its own, it is not a capitalized “Tradition” as defined within the Pagan and witchcraft communities, and it is not a clearly defined spiritual path. Instead, animism is the seed of all religion and infiltrates all religions even in present day. Animism doesn’t exist outside of individual practice and the collective beliefs and practices of an indigenous community. Trying to define it and grasp it in a physical form (like the big name religions or smaller pagan traditions), is like trying to catch moonlight with your bare hands. I will try the best I can to attempt it, but it will only ever be my own definition, experience, and research. Animism will always shape-shift person to person, tribe to tribe, region to region.

Animism is a philosophy backed up by practice, it is a way of life and a way of thought. Animism is your personal relationship with nature and with the inhuman spirits who inhabit and compose nature. It is a relationship of respect and value for all things and all beings, visible and invisible. All life is sacred and sentient, even those outside of your current definition of life and even those regarded as malevolent. Within a balanced ecosystem, all life serves a purpose– even those who may seem like the villain at first glance. Animism is the hands-on spirit work of building an awareness of and relationship with the spirits of plants, trees, fungi, animals, insects, waters, forests, mountains, plains, deserts, elemental forces, and the spirits of the dead buried under your feet. When you live within nature you realize you are a part of it, not separate from it. It becomes important to know as much about your surroundings as possible because your survival depends on your knowledge of and respectful treatment of the land, plants, and animals around you.

The Beliefs of Animism

Within the philosophy of animism there is no distinction between magic and mundane– all is magical and all is mundane simultaneously. Consider this for a minute: every act is an act of magic. Animism lacks pretentiousness and superfluousness – if an action or item serves no real purpose then it is disregarded. In my opinion, based in research and experience, this is why the same set of rituals are found in animistic practice throughout the world. Animism is made up of shared beliefs, but moreso it is a series of practices and rituals based on these beliefs.

Common beliefs found within animism include fetishism, totemism, the belief in the soul (or multi-faceted soul) and life force, the belief in the existence of noncorporeal or supernatural spirits who can affect human lives, the belief in a spirit realm or multiple other worlds, the reverence and worship of the dead, the existence and practice of ‘witchcraft’ or ‘sorcery’ (magic used by the layperson to gain influence over or protection from spirits), and the existence of some form of shaman (witch doctor, medicine man, fairy doctor, etc) with supernatural powers and the ability to travel between realms who acts as healer and mediator between humans and spirits.

Fetishism in the anthropological sense means the belief that something seemingly inanimate can be the embodiment of a powerful supernatural spirit (anything from a statue to a tree or a mountain), or that an object can be intentionally inhabited by a spirit (a fetish like a small stone, a pocket carving, a ritual tool, a skull). Some fetishes can be very personal and never shown to another person, where only the owner or family members can look upon it and seek help or powers from the spirit within it (such as root alrauns). Other fetishes belong to the community with standing stones, Slavic god-poles, and ancient Greek crossroad herms being fitting examples.

Totemism is an ancient belief and evidence for it is most easily found in cultural folk tales of creation. Totemism is the belief in an animal, tree, river, supernatural spirit, or other animate being as the original ancestor, creator god, or teacher/benefactor of a clan or tribe and used as its symbol. This belief may be most familiar within North American Native tribes who identify as various clans or houses of the raven, eagle, wolf, etc. The indigenous Ainu in Japan and Siberia were largely a bear cult. For the animistic Hmong people of China, it is an ancient warrior ancestor named Chiyou who is revered as the founder of their tribe, but their creator god Nplooj Lwg is a frog. Each tribe has its own history, stories, songs, symbolism, and physical representations of their totem (i.e. idols, masks, and ceremonial costumes). The belief in totemism is spread further than we may realize. For example, one of my familial Scottish clans once believed they were children of the Yew tree and it has been used as their totem and symbol for longer than there is written record of. You won’t find it on the coat of arms (a modern invention), but the curious belief persisted into modern day.

Shamanism is not animism. Shamanism is a practice found within cultures with animistic belief systems. Shamans are the leaders, healers, and spirit intermediaries of their animist tribe. They have supernatural abilities that allow them to work with spirits, work against spirits, heal relationships with spirits, heal physical damage or illness caused by spirits, and the ability to travel between our physical world and the dream world, the spirit world, the world of the dead and safely back again.

Ancestor worship is another universal commonality between animistic peoples and involves the belief in the existence of the soul after death which leads to an entire cult of ancestor reverence and worship within each culture. Where ancestor veneration is found, there is also a heavy importance and reverence placed on family, tribe, and elders. Ancestor worship is tenacious and survives conversion to other religions. Catholics still have an active ancestor cult through the worship of saints and the celebrations of All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Buddhism and Shintoism both have a heavy focus on ancestor reverence and Japanese and Chinese Christians still actively practice ancestor veneration and maintain family ancestor shrines. It fascinates me that animism seems to always be bedfellows with ancestor worship. It makes sense to honour the spirits of the dead when following a practice so deeply rooted in working with spirits. It isn’t even debated in indigenous cultures, the ancestor cult is simply there alongside the people’s animism. The perfect example from Europe being the fairy-faith prevalent throughout many localities which is the combined belief in inhuman nature spirits and the spirits of the dead. Where you find the fairy-faith you find animism, and where you find animism you find ancestor worship.

The Rituals of Animism

The belief in a world full of spirits within animism leads to very specific sets of rituals with similar formulas followed across cultures. There will always be cultural differences in details and etiquette, but the ritual formulas usually contain similar steps. Before anything is done within an animist community, a ceremony is performed to ask permission of a specific set of spirits and to see if the results of the action will be favourable.

Whether you want to go hunting and foraging in the forest, fishing in a river, cut down a tree, build a new house, or ask approval of the ancestors to marry, you would first perform these steps:

Go to where the spirit(s) live (they can’t hear you if you’re not nearby).

Declare your intent aloud and request permission from the ruling spirit(s) of said place.

Submit a suitable and respectful offering to said spirit(s) and hope it is accepted.

Flatter the hell out of the spirit(s) with sweet words and songs (this can be the offering).

Ask for a specific and realistic sign of approval (the calls of animals, rain, or perform divination).

If you don’t receive the sign or something goes wrong, don’t do the thing.

If you receive the sign and everything seems sunshine and roses, go do the thing.

When you return from doing the thing successfully, thank the spirit(s) and leave a bigger offering.

Another step sometimes included is to threaten the spirit(s) which is mostly unheard of in modern Pagan and magical traditions, but very common in folk religions and animistic indigenous cultures. It has to be a good threat though and you have to know which spirits you can get away with threatening and which ones it would be incredibly disrespectful to threaten. Common threats include the withholding of offerings until a petition is granted or that you will tattle on the spirit to a fearsome boogeyman or the equivalent of the spirit’s mom or boss.

Purification & Blessing

Other common ceremonies are of purification and blessing and they will often go hand in hand with the formula above. Purification of the body and soul being performed before approaching spirits so one goes to them physically and spiritually clean as a sign of respect and also to remove any negative influences that may interfere with the petitioner’s intent. A ceremony of blessing is performed before any action is taken to help influence the best possible outcome whether the action is a journey, a marriage, a new baby, building a new house, or as simple as weaving cloth, going fishing, or cooking a meal. The Carmina Gadelica, a collection of oral incantations from Scotland from the late 1800s, is full of such rites of blessing covering everything from churning butter and blessing new livestock to waking up in the morning and going to bed at night. Despite some Catholic imagery and wording, most of the incantations are sung or recited in the hope that fairies will stay away and not mess up people’s work or daily life.

Alignment

There is no real technical term for this belief and its rites. Alignment is the practice of attempting to more closely align yourself with a spirit whether it is an animal, plant, or ancestor. This can be achieved by ingesting or smoking a plant (or rubbing on a flying ointment) during ceremony to better connect to that plant or to a greater forest spirit, crafting a fetish from an animal claw or tooth to wear to imbue oneself with the powers of said animal, or even the ancient practice of cannibalizing the dead to re-absorb their soul and power into the community. Traditional indigenous ceremonies involving costumes and masks depicting sacred animals and supernatural spirits which involve dancing and mimicking the animals and spirits are also a form of alignment which a modern Wiccan would recognize as being similar in intent to drawing down the Moon.

The philosophy is simply: the closer you are to the intended spirit and the more you work with it, the more you take on attributes and powers associated with it. The more you work with the dead and are around death, the easier it will be to commune with the dead. The more you actively work with an animal spirit, the more you will take on its positive attributes and be able to call it to your aid. Alignment also shows respect as you are consciously seeking out a relationship with spirit through actions and offerings which will likely result in reciprocation from the spirit until it becomes a familiar, ally, or helper.

The Evil Eye

Rituals that involve deflecting or counteracting the evil eye also stem from animism and its belief in the existence of intentional and unintentional sorcery by both common people or supernatural means. The belief in the evil eye is found world wide and across cultures and it can be inflicted by humans, the dead, spirits, and deities. It can be an envious neighbour sending you hateful vibes over how awesome your milking cow is or a case of elfshot caused by an angry svartálfr. The belief in the evil eye can be so prevalent and strong that an entire community will base its ethics and etiquette around avoiding the evil eye by practicing humility and the deflection of praise. It was once very common in Ireland and Scotland to shout a warning and an apology simultaneously whenever emptying the dirty washing bucket or chamber pot outside so any nearby spirits had a chance to get out of the way rather than getting splashed with filth and cursing you for being disrespectful.

Protection

It is not a common belief of animistic peoples that spirits are generally benevolent and mean us well, it is in fact the opposite. Spirits are to be appeased to prevent harm, spirits are to be kept at a safe distance, and spirits are to be protected against by any means necessary. Spirits are considered benevolent, malevolent, chaotic, or neutral with the benevolent being the rarest and usually birthed from beneficial long-term relationships between humans and spirits. The pervasiveness and endless variety of protective charms and talismans found throughout time and different cultures demonstrates how much emphasis humankind has put on the need to be protected from harm, illness, spirits, demons, ghosts, and fairies.

Protection can be in the form of a ceremony or in the form of a consecrated talisman one is meant to wear or hang in one’s home. It is painting your face white before travelling to the underworld, wrapping yourself in an animal hide before visiting the spirit world, wearing a mask or making loud, offensive noises to scare away evil spirits, the burning of bonfires on dark liminal nights, the creation of spirit traps, the burning of special herbs, or the wearing of multi-coloured clothing or mirrored clothing to deflect spirits. Animistic rites of protection can be anything from a holy person blessing someone with powers of protection in a ceremony, a talisman being crafted and consecrated to protect a person, a family or a home, to an entire community dressing up as demons and processing through the town to scare away spirits and monsters for the coming year (yes, the seasonal Krampus parades in Europe!).

A big part of protection is prevention. Animistic cultures tend to try to keep spirits away from human homes, human settlements, agricultural areas, livestock, holy places, and roads and paths. Protections are put up to keep spirits out, spirits are verbally told they are not welcome, and more respectfully, places are designated for unwanted spirits to have for themselves and have offerings left to appease them (much like how outdwellers are treated in modern Druidry). I think we can all learn about having firm boundaries from animistic practices. You don’t invite the dark fairy to Sleeping Beauty’s baby blessing, but you better make sure to send her a nice gift basket for your rudeness! Only the spirits that you trust and are known to mean you well are invited into one’s home and to a community’s ceremonies. These welcome spirits are usually restricted to the family or tribe’s totems and ancestors and even then they have very specific names they are called by to make sure the right spirits show up an no harm is caused and specific etiquette is followed so these spirits feel respected and willing to be present and bestow blessings to the people.

Comparing Animism Within Paganism & Mainstream Cultures

“Animism is a monist metaphysical stance, based upon the idea that mind and matter are not distinct and separate substances but an integrated reality, rooted in nature.” Emma Restall Orr

Is animism Paganism? Considering that members of the Pagan community can barely agree on a definition of Pagan/ism for themselves this is not a simple question to tackle. So, instead of looking at the Pagan definition of Pagan, let’s look at the world’s definition of Pagan, which, across most dictionaries and encyclopedias, is “a follower or community practicing a polytheistic religion”. Under this definition, no, animism is not synonymous with Paganism because animism is not polytheism. It does, however, include the belief in many worlds and many spirits, but not necessarily the prescribed worship of them. Sometimes the spirits may be organized into categories (such as water, earth, sky, as well as mundane and supernatural spirits), but there are no set pantheons as a Pagan would recognize. Every cult of animism is different as one tribe would most highly revere the bear as it’s main “deity” and another may most intensely focus their beliefs and rituals around one type of tree. In all honesty, a lot of traditional animistic practices involve avoiding and appeasing spirits rather than seeking them out or worshipping them. Animism is more about respect for spirits and the appeasement of spirits to prevent harm or their involvement in human affairs.

The better questions to ask are: “does Paganism stem from animism?” and “does Paganism contain elements of animism?”. The answer is yes to both. The issue we come across in attempting to cross-compare religions with animism is that most cultures in history who practiced animism had no name for it and no definition for it. It is simply the original and enduring spirituality of humankind. It’s something you do, not something you write down. Despite how ancient its beliefs and practices are, animism is a modern term derived from Latin and coming from academia. People within the Pagan and witchcraft communities have only recently started to adopt it and discuss it. Sometimes it takes us a while to find the right word to describe what we believe and do. The traditional witches and new agers all swarmed to shamanism before many figured out that it’s a hard and not so common thing to be a shaman and what they were actually doing was animism. Many contemporary or ‘core’ shamans use the term shamanism as well when many of them really mean animism. Animism is an ideal word. It is an inoffensive term, it isn’t appropriated from another culture, it doesn’t have specific dogma behind it, and anyone can use it whether they are Buddhist, Christian, Heathen, Shintoist, Wiccan, or even atheist.

Animism is not a religion. Animism is the primal foundation of all religion.

Why is there no set definition of animism in the Pagan community and why does animism feel like a newcomer when, in fact, it contains the most ancient spiritual beliefs of humankind? Because animism is not a religion and does not sit at the same table as the big theisms of monotheism, polytheism, panentheism and their kin. There are no holy books, no churches, no doctrines or dogma, and only a handful of books and articles directed to would-be practitioners coming only from a subculture niche-market within the Pagan community. The entire bulk of information on animistic belief comes from the academic study of indigenous cultures (anthropology, archaeology, ethnology, and ethnobotany), academic studies of plants and animals (botany and zoology), and mainstream culture. A good chunk of these studies pre-2000 comes from the outdated boy’s club of anthropology who did not paint indigenous cultures in a flattering light, often drawing the conclusion that animism is for the primitive, savage, less intelligent, and less knowledgeable people. They were so very wrong and animism is currently undergoing a massive mainstream resurgence with the potential to render eco-centered NeoPaganism obsolete. Modern science it leading us as a whole back to animism. The irony is perfectly glorious.

It is the tendency of the Pagan community to denigrate the mainstream and separate themselves from it. We should stop doing that. We are a part of the whole too. Whether you like it or not, you are part of the mainstream (the dictionary definition, not the negative Urban Dictionarydefinition). Animism is currently taking a much bigger foothold in the mind of the ordinary person than it ever has to Pagans. Somewhere along the line, Pagans became sidetracked and self-absorbed with the aesthetic trappings of our community and its practices and forgot about why we ended up in Paganism in the first place. Wasn’t it to find an alternative spiritual belief? One that honours the earth, nature, and our connection to spirit? When did the eco-centredness of the Paganism of the 60s and 70s dissipate? Probably at the same time the mainstream became tired with hearing the same messages about saving the earth over and over again in media and film. Why does every day Joe and every non-Pagan herbalist I’ve ever met have a better grasp of animism than the Pagan community (many of whom are unconsciously animists)? Well, when did we stop looking up from our own fantasy world to see what was going on around us? Animistic belief and philosophy is currently being fed through mainstream media to every Dick and Jane. It’s time for us to pay attention too. Animism is here, spilling over and soaking into everything and everyone like the massive spring floods inundating my county right now.

It is a good thing. This could be so important to our survival and the preservation of the earth! It’s time to stop looking solely within our tiny niche subculture and step out to look at the big picture. Never forget history is being made as we live and breathe. The changes in spiritual movements and philosophical beliefs happening right now will affect our long-term future. This is potentially a very big deal.

Animism in the Media

If you don’t believe that animism is becoming household philosophy and infiltrating mass media with absolutely no direct relation to the Pagan movement, let’s take a brief look at the news shall we? This is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg when it comes to animism in the news. Seriously, I can’t even count how many articles I found on the sentience and intelligence of plants, trees, fungi, insects, and animals, the belief in spirits, as well as the practice of ancestor worship.

#Animism #magic #witch #witchcraft #traditional witchcraft #mistyawe #sarah anne lawless

[simplyoriginalcharacters]

Chizuru Yamagi

((Hey I’ve been working on this girl for like six years and I want a second opinion? I tried to cut as much as I could but this is still s u p e r long.))

BASICS Name: Chizuru Yamagi Gender: Cis female Age: 22 Birthday: June 19 (making her a Leo-Cancer cusp) Race: Human with Eldritch blood. Ethnicity: Japanese Sexuality: Pansexual Alignment: Chaotic Good

Profile and review are under the cut! Content warning: mention of sexual abuse. ~Cori

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE Height: 4'11" Weight: 118 lbs (most of this is muscule) Chizuru can be said to be a conventionally attractive girl,with wide silver eyes (Though she’s taken to wearing brown colored contacts), clear skin, and a cute button nose. She’s frequently mistaken for being younger than she is, although her behavior frequently clears up any misunderstandings about her actual age. Chizuru has a pear-shaped bodytype- with narrow shoulders and hips that jut out widely, culminating in thick, muscular thighs. Even though her shoulders and arms are more narrow, however, muscle is pretty evenly distributed over her body, and defined pretty nicely under that cursed purple sweater she always wears. Her hair isn’t the neatest in the world, and if you squint, you may be able to tell it’s slightly lopsided. Her bangs are often in her face, though frequently held back with a hair clip or other accessory. PERSONALITY Likes: Winter and autumn, alcohol, physical and mental exertion, the smell when it rains, looking down from high places, opponents who give her a good challenge, sewing (she makes most of her own clothes!) Dislikes: Being shown affection by those she doesn’t trust, being inordinately praised, hot weather, enclosed spaces (this is a trigger for her), being treated like a child, authority in general (tolerable, though she’ll be clenching her teeth the entire time.) Fears: Being forgotten, being taken advantage of, being made powerless, is a claustrophobe General Attitude and Intelligence: Although you wouldn’t be able to tell from talking to her, Chizuru is a cynic who doesn’t see much faith in humanity, and who hates letting on how she really feels. If you manage to get under the front she puts up, you’ll find a bitter, tired person who has her fair share of scars. Though getting close to her is a feat in and of itself, she cherishes those she knows she can trust, and will protect them with her life. Provided her arrogance doesn’t rear its head. Due to receiving a formal education late in life, Chizuru lacks book smarts, and doesn’t have the patience for literature or math. However, she is quite street smart, and is good at adapting to precarious situations, as well as reading body language. General Sociability: When it comes to social things, Chizuru is able to smoothly operate most situations, being a natural when it comes to speaking. She operates on the idea of brevity being the soul of wit, and she usually tries to keep her conversations short as she can. Chizuru is good at reading people most of the time, and she often knows exactly what comments to slip in to keep people intrigued. She generally focuses on the positive aspects of others, though she generally pays little attention to aesthetics if she isn’t considering her conversation partner as a sexual partner. She often playfully flirts with those who physically appeal to her, and sometimes even those who don’t. Overall, she’s extremely friendly on the surface, to the point that people tend to flock to her, though those she dislikes will often find themselves on the end of open scorn. General Moral Compass: A great way to describe Chizuru in regards to morality would be to call her a benevolent hedonist. While she tries not to make it immediately obvious on the surface, everything Chizuru does is done because she thinks it’s the right thing to do. She’s an incredibly willful, brash person who pursues the protection of others with unstoppable zeal (though she often passes it off as a desire for battle). Unfortunately, she’s also extremely stubborn in her perceptions of right and wrong, and hates even entertaining the possibility that what she’s doing may not be the right thing. As such, if you can convince her that ‘the right thing’ is something objectively dangerous or reckless, she’ll do it with the same zeal as her other goals. Personal Goals: Have an exciting life and death, and snuff out any major criminals she can catch while she’s at it. She also wants to rid the world of corruption. An impossible goal. Positive Personality Traits: Perceptive, determined, social, independent, confident, charismatic, friendly Negative Personality Traits: Stubborn, prideful, has no sense of limits, distrustful, has issues with commitment, unreadable, childish on occasion BIO Chizuru is from a world vaguely close to our own… with the exception being that Eldritch Abominations exist and hide among the human population. Although they aren’t quite ‘Gods’, these creatures are generally able to exceed humans in physical capability… Socially, however, humans are often considered superior. There’s not much public knowledge about these creatures, however, as the few who see their true forms are often traumatized beyond speaking, or otherwise dismissed as liars. There are some who see them as gods, however, and given the powers of some of them, they may not be entirely wrong. Some of these creatures are capable of opening wormholes, in a manner of speaking, allowing them some level of free movement through the multiverse. However, this is unknown to the public due to government coverups… That hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists from talking, though. Chizuru was born via an uncommon union. You see, her mother wasn’t exactly human, but rather a cosmic horror having taken human form. Now, in her world, it was far from a unique occurance. However, despite her mother being a horrific abyss generally beyond human comprehension, she had a pretty normal first few years of her childhood. Probably because her mother left after she was born. Growing up in a poor and destitute home wasn’t easy. Especially since her father had a chronic, medical case of what we call, “The douche” alongside a brief addiction to opium. It was only brief because it killed him, though, and that definitely fucked with little Chizuru. Her father was willing to do disgusting things to feed his addiction- Up to and including pimping out his daughter. For five years of her life, Chizuru served as a call girl for her father’s friends- And on occasion, her father himself. The event gave Chizuru a… grim outlook on sex, believing it to be a good thing whenever she feels degraded or harmed. After her father’s death, Chizuru was sent into fostercare for a year, but was eventually found by an estranged sister (who basically disowned her father so she had no idea Chizuru was even A Thing), who took Chizuru in. She lived with her older sister, Kyouko Yamagi, for ten years.  Living with her sister was a better experience than living with her father, even though she was frequently left to her own devices due to her sister’s constant business with her job as a homicide detective. Due to this, she learned to take care of herself to a rough degree, although her tastes are… interesting. Ten years into living with Kyouko, Chizuru finally got wind of a big job her sister had been working on for a while- Involving a serial killer going after anyone with any ‘abnormality’ that put their humanity into question. Wanting to be of some use to her sister, Chizuru attempted to get involved in the case. Hey, we never said she was SMART. During her involvement in what little she knew of the case, Chizuru met and befriended a conspiracy theorist by the name of Ryouta Kawajiri, and he imparted a theory of his to her- The theory that not everyone she’d ever met was “human”. This was where she first began to consider the existence of eldritch beings, although by the time she got older, she dismissed the thought as a madman’s ravings. Ryouta was, you see, obsessed with the thought that these eldritch beings wanted to subjugate humanity… And thus, he lynched everyone suspected of being one. Unfortunately, Kyouko, due to her unnatural eyes, fit the bill. Chizuru realized this too late, but due to never keeping the documents Ryouta gave her about his theories, she was never able to prove his guilt. Trying to go to the police led to a small investigation.. but they came up empty handed. Ever since, she’s been searching for some way to prove Ryouta’s guilt, as the murder of her sister is one crime she could never forgive. Current Status Currently, Chizuru lives in a small apartment in Kyoto, as most of her work comes from there, and has spiraled into a slightly hedonistic lifestyle- Though she’s never forgotten Ryouta. She has ties to an organization known as The Purity Foundation, who promised her information on Ryouta in exchange for her acting as a sleeper agent.  POWERS/ABILITIES Boxing- Chizuru has practiced boxing since she was a child, and is thus in peak physical condition for someone her height/weight. She’s capable of delivering powerful blows, but it’s useless against magic of any kind. The Sight- Due to her eldritch blood, Chizuru is capable of seeing things ordinary humans can’t- Ghosts and demons for example. She’s also able to comprehend things normal humans can’t. Enhanced stamina- Due to her eldritch blood and upbringing, Chizuru is sturdier than most, and able to take more hits thanks to her stocky build. Superhuman strength- Chizuru is incredibly strong, and capable of easily lifting things like people (and once, a small car.) This has the unfortunate side effect of making her hyperaware of just how fragile everything is compared to her, so she’s often reluctant to use her full strength.

((I’d like to apologize for the utter monolith that is this bio))

Hello, Cori here! Let’s take a look at Chizuru, starting with appearance. Overall, I’m happy with the amount of details that you’ve given me for Chizuru’s physical appearance. I love the way you’ve described her body shape and her cute button nose. There are a few details missing here and there that I’d like to see clarified. You’re missing Chizuru’s hair color (since she’s Japanese, I’m assuming her hair is black at the moment) and I’m not sure how long her hair is either. I appreciate that you’ve described its messy appearance. Additionally, the mention of her wearing colored contact lenses is a nice detail. All in all, I can form a pretty clear picture of your character in my mind, so good work there! As far as Chizuru’s personality is concerned, there are a few spots that don’t seem to make a lot of sense to me at the moment, especially after I read her backstory. I can understand how someone who went through Chizuru’s trauma could learn to put up a friendly facade and learn how to read the emotions of others, but where did the rest of her social skills come from? How does someone who was abused by her father and neglected by her sister learn to be such a smooth speaker? Does she have any trust issues related to her experiences growing up? I find it a little confusing that Chizuru tries so hard to focus on the positive aspects of people when you’ve said previously that she’s a jaded person with little faith in humanity. How does this affect her outlook when she meets someone new? Does she expect the worst from a stranger, or does she look for the good parts? It also seems like her preference for keeping conversations short would push a lot of people away–they would feel like they were being dismissed. In that way, I have a hard time seeing people ‘flocking’ to Chizuru. You also said that she was ‘unreadable’, which is another antisocial trait that would put a lot of people off. Chizuru might pretend to be friendly to the strangers that work up the nerve to talk to her, but I don’t imagine many people being willing to approach her. I’m curious to know what you mean by Chizuru being ‘childish on occasion’ as well. I’m not really seeing any part of her personality that would exemplify ‘childish’, aside from her stubbornness–which you have already addressed.  I think I’ve covered everything I wanted to address regarding her personality, so let’s move on to backstory. I have a few questions about the content in Chizuru’s backstory–the main ones are about Chizuru and her sister. I’m assuming, based on the information in this profile, that Kyouko is also a half-eldritch creature because of her eye color. If a union between a human and an eldritch horror is so ‘uncommon’, like you’ve said it is, then how are Chizuru and Kyouko both the daughter of an eldritch horror? Do they share the same mother? The same father? How old was Kyouko when she left home? Why would Chizuru’s eldritch mother stay around long enough to have two children and THEN decide to disappear? Or, conversely, maybe Kyouko and Chizuru have different mothers. How did their father manage to meet two eldritch horrors and have a child with both? Or maybe I’m wrong about both, and Kyouko just happens to be a human woman with unusually colored eyes (how did she get her unusual eye color, in that case?). The details regarding Kyouko and Chizuru’s parent figures is confusing! If Chizuru didn’t know about or believe in the existence of eldritch beings before she met Ryouta, what did she think about her own unique abilities? Her silver eyes, her sight, and her strength? You say she dismissed Ryouta’s theory when she got older–how old are we talking? When did her superhuman abilities start manifesting? If she had any inkling that she was ‘more’ than human somehow, how could she dismiss Ryouta’s theory when she heard it? I know that she’s at least aware of her strength, since you said she’s hyper-aware of how delicate other people are (and what does she think about her ability to see ghosts?).

All in all, I’m interested in Chizuru and I want to know how her story pans out, so you’ve succeeded in making a character I want to read about–good job on that! However, there are some conflicting details and holes in this profile that are interfering with my overall enjoyment of this character. I’m having too difficult a time suspending my disbelief. Maybe you have answers to all the questions I had in this profile–in which case, that’s great and I wish those details had been included (even in this ‘monolith’, as you called it–if you think it’s necessary to Chizuru’s story, then include it! I’d rather know more about her relationship with Kyouko than the fact that she likes the smell of rain.). If any of my questions are difficult for you to answer, you might want to consider changing that part of Chizuru’s profile. I know that it’s hard to change things about a character you’ve worked on for years–it took me a long time to work up the nerve to “kill my darlings” in regards to a character I created back in high school. But I think you’ll find that once you cut and change those parts, no matter how attached you were to them at the beginning, you’ll have a much stronger character for it. Good luck! ~Cori

#SOC Critique #OC Critique #General Help #submission

[0bsidian5ire]

Resurrect the Art of Allag (Reverse the Curse of Amon): Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Eikon

Two days later, Kharagal teleported back to Forgotten Springs. There was one more thing she wanted to experiment with before she started testing out Ifrit-Egi in earnest and she was pretty sure she had to do it in Zanr'ak. She decided she'd gotten close enough when after two days of traveling north, the cliffs of Zanr'ak began jutting out of the Sagolii Dessert and stopped by one of the cliff faces that faced away from Zanr'ak. There she made camp and went over the data she'd gathered one last time.

She pulled out the old leather grimoire she had converted into a research journal of sorts and made sure the facts she'd collected from the Scions about primals fit with what how summoning arts interacted with them. On paper at least, they did. Now it was time to see how far she could push those facts.

Like she had in the Austerity, Kharagal felt out at the aether around her. Instead of tuning her aether to the land's, Kharagal pulled up Ifrit's geometry in her mind's eye and tried to see if she could find a piece of aether in the land that matched Ifrit's aether. What she saw almost broke her concentration. Bardam's Spear! It's huge. Encompassing all of Zanr'ak was Ifrit's geometry. Or at least, she thought it did. The geometry faded off past the range of her mental senses to the north without showing any signs of distorting. To the south, the geometry fractured into formless fire aether. Kharagal herself was in one of the boarder regions of the geometry. No wonder the Amalj'aa think Zanr'ak is sacred.

It was then what she was really seeing hit her. This is not good. One of the overarching themes of Xalea legends about interacting with the beings of the aetherial plane was that if a mortal was aware of them then they were aware of the mortal. When Ifrit had been in the corporeal realm, everyone could see him and vice-versa. Now that he was back in the aetherial realm, it was better not to get his attention.

Before Kharagal could stop concentrating on the aether around her, a deep voice crackled out of the aether of Zanr'ak along with a rush of oppressive heat. Well, this is a surprise! I usually have to search far and wide for those who can truly withstand my flame, but here comes one who has already proven they can face my strength. What do you seek of me?

Nothing. Kharagal was hyper-aware that here in the aether, Ifrit's strength wasn't limited by the amount of aether he had access to. I just wanted to see if an idea would work or not.

Ah. Ifrit's fire flickered closer. So you wished to see if your idea could withstand the fires of implementation. Did it?

Kharagal blinked. That sounded more like the bit of Ifrit-aether in her then the primal she and everyone else had fought. Maybe this aetherial Ifrit liked making things other then itself strong too. A little too well, I think. I didn't mean to actually find you. I wanted to see if I could find a primal's aether in the world if I knew the geometry of it already.

Ifrit laughed around Kharagal in a scattering of sparks. So your idea is a strong one. That is good. Listen closely. You said you can know what a primal's aether looks like. If you know what to look for in the atherial realm, you will find me and my kind everywhere there is aether that looks like us. We are beings of aetherial realm and corporeal realities such as distance matter little to us when we are in our native realm.

Kharagal stared at Ifrit. Why are you telling me this?

Ifrit snorted out a plume of smoke. It has been long since I have rewarded one who has honestly earned their strength. And there are very few souls as strong as yours.

What do you mean by that?

The fire stopped flickering for a moment and then flared back to life. You do not know? The Source of Light does not make gaps in the walls of the souls of weak individuals. Even though another's aether could never fill your soul, it was still you and your companions' strength that broke my hold on the corporeal realm and it takes no small amount of strength to accomplish that. Ifrit's voice was growing fainter. Just know that if we meet again in the corporeal realm, I will be sure to use more of my power. Once the alloy has been proven pure, there is still the need to sharpen it. The heat rolled back, signaling Ifrit's attention was elsewhere.

Kharagal wasted no time in yanking her concentration out of the ather before anything else could happen. She became aware of her body all at once and lost her balance, almost cracking her head on the ground before she caught herself.

"Kharagal," she told herself as she struggled to her feet, "this is the kind of thing Dad said would get you killed if you poked it." I am so lucky nothing worse happened. Nothing worse then getting a primal's attention anyway. She quickly gathered up the remains of her campsite and teleported back to Limsa Lominsa. Kharagal did not want to stay any longer then she had to in what was clearly Ifrit's territory.

After shaking off the shock of traveling from a desert to an ocean in a matter of seconds, Kharagal sent herself though Limsa's aethernet to Mist where her best friend Carmen and her boyfriend, Alex had a house. They had given her a standing invitation to use one of their spare rooms if she ever needed a place to stay. It turned out neither of them were there, which wasn't unusual. When they weren't working with the Scions, Carmen was usually out on Rouge's Guild business and Alex helped the Adventurer's Guild. Kharagal took advantage of the empty house and helped herself to a bath and food from the kitchen before curling up with a detailed analysis of Bio spells in her room. It made for nice light reading.

Several hour later, she was interrupted by Carmen. "So, you're back," said the rouge. Kharagal looked up and saw Carmen leaning against the door frame, sharpening her fingernails with a knife. "Want to go with me to Naldiq & Vymelli's?" said Carmen. "I need to commission some custom daggers."

"Yeah, that sounds great," said Kharagal. Doing something as mundane as ordering daggers with Carmen sounded good after all the esoteric things she'd been up to for the past few days. She put the different variations of the Bloodborn version of Bio II she had been working on and the two women teleported to Limsa.

When they got there, they skipped the aethernet in lieu of walking down Hawker's Ally. "Can't believe I'm saying this, but it feels so good not to not be walkin' around invisible," said Carmen. "This last week was crazy for even me."

Kharagal laughed. "Define crazy." Running into a defeated primal while feeling out aether was hard to beat.

"Well..." Carmen started winding her short honey-blond hair around her finger. "Jacke got word that somethin' weird was goin' on down in Wineport. Turns out we have Domen ninja in Raincatcher Gully. They're tryin' to find another ninja that betrayed them to the Empire."

"Did they show you any of their magic?" Kharagal joked. Confederate and Hingan stories featured ninja with the most outlandish powers, from making clones of themselves to summoning fire-breathing frogs out of thin air.

"Even better; they're teachin' it to me." Carmen's face was all smiles.

Kharagal stared at her. "Wait, they really can do magic?"

Carmen laughed. "Don' know if it's magic like we know it; you'd be a better judge o' that. But I can tell you I can summon a shuriken out o' thin air and throw it at someone for some real damage."

"I'll believe it when I see it." Creating effects out of aether was one thing, it was a simple energy conversion (conceptually anyway). Creating objects would be something else entirely. If such a thing existed of course.

"Fair enough." Carmen elbowed Kharagal. "And what about you? You've been out o' contact for half a month. I know you've been up to somethin'."

"Well, I've been..." Kharagal stopped at that and thought. There was being stupid and then there was being really stupid. Mentioning primals in the middle of Limsa Lominsa was being really stupid. "I'll tell you what I've learned when you show me that shuriken you can summon."

"Don' think I'll believe you?" Carmen teased.

"No, it's just the kind of thing that's really easy to take the wrong way if you don't know enough about it." Kharagal gestured at the busy marketplace around them.

Carmen nodded. "Got it, but you are goin' to tell me later." She gave Kharagal her I-know-where-you-sleep look. Kharagal laughed at it and Carmen joined in with her. They spent the rest of the trip to the Maldiq & Vymelli's gossiping about the latest hauls to come into Limasa whether they came through Melven's Gate or not.

The smithy was warm and loud with the clang and taste of metal in the air. Kharagal leaned against a wall while Carmen talked with one of the smiths about the pair of steel daggers she was commissioning. Out of curiosity, Khargal felt the aether around her. There was the water aether of the sea rolling beneath her, wind aether whipping around the spires above her and and around her in the smithy itself was fire aether shaped like... What are you doing here?!?

I told you distance mattered little to us. Ifrit's voice was a lazy smolder out of the main furnace. And this forge is one of the best I know of. It would be more difficult for me not to be here.

"You okay?" Carmen lightly shook Kharagal's shoulder. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Kharagal shook her head to clear it. What was she supposed to say? That Brithael and H'naanza kept such a good forge that Ifrit basked in its aether when he wasn't summoned? "I... I'm fine. I just spaced out."

Carmen narrowed her eyes at Kharagal in her I-know-when-things-aren't-adding-up look. "Guess that means we'll be goin' back to the house 'stead of stayin' in Limsa late?"

"Yeah, that would be a good idea." Carmen probably really wanted an explanation now. It would be better to get it over with sooner rather then later. It also meant Kharagal would more then likely get to see how Carmen did that shuriken trick of hers.

When they left, Khargal gave the furnace one last look. Seeing Ifrit in it had been a a shock. On further review it really shouldn't have been. If Ifrit was shaped like a furnace, then that was where he would naturally turn up. Well, not in every furnace... He said this one was one of the best forges, so that means there's forges that aren't as good. So he's probably not in those. Wait... If Ifrit's in furnaces because he's shaped like one and there's multiple primals... what are they usually in when they aren't summoned?

"I know that look," Carmen said. They were almost to the atheryte plaza. "What'd you figure out this time?"

"Why I want to send primals to the Lifestream." It was true. Not only was the Lifestream where they were supposed to be, but it was the only way to get their aether for the Austerity ritual.

"Other then them tryin' to temper us?" Carmen raised an eyebrow at that.

Kharagal nodded. "Even if they didn't try tempering people, I'd still want to send them on." At Carmen's look she added, "It's related to the other thing I'll tell you about."

"I'll be waitin' on that," Carmen said and used the athernet to travel to the residential district.

What is it with rouges and dramatic exits? Kharagal laughed to herself and reached for the aethernet. It was time to figure out what she was going to tell people about Ifrit-Egi. At least she was starting with her best friend who understood that some things didn't need to be shared with everyone. Hopefully Carmen could help her figure out what she didn't have to tell everyone else.

Author’s Notes: In both 1.0 and 2.0, Ifrit knows that there's primals other then him in existence and that there's some people he can't temper because Hydalean is messing with them. Given that it is canon that primals are in the aetherial sea when they aren't summoned, I've got headcanon that's where he learned all that stuff.

It's a known fact that the desire of the people summoning a primal has an effect on how the primal behaves. Which is the canon reason why the primals behave differently in 1.0 vs 2.0. Interestingly, several of the primals behave counter to how the myths about them say they should act...

Originally posted here.

← Ch 2: The Ritual

#final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #ffxiv fanfiction #fanfiction #warrior of light #ffxiv ifrit #summoner #awkward summoner moments #alternative character interpretation #magic experiments #theorycrafting

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In Review: Bedouine, Ohmme, Shabazz Palaces and more

James Elkington. Photo courtesy of Timothy Harris

  JAMES ELKINGTON: Wintres Woma

A resumé is a document of qualification, and James Elkington has quite a superb resumé. The British guitarist and vocalist has played with Steve Gunn extensively and has lent guitar to everyone from Jeff Tweedy to Tara Jane O’Neil. And last year, as Jeff Parker had to sit out some shows, Elkington even filled in as a member of Tortoise. It’s also worth mentioning the criminally overlooked album Ambsace  that he collaborated on with the equally fantastic Nathan Salsburg. I say all of this as an unnecessary selling point to Elkington’s solo debut album, Wintres Woma, a collection of mainly acoustic gems that is as musically magical as it is at times slightly humorous. One advantage of playing with others is understanding how to accent a preexisting base. And by coloring within established lines, Elkington helps to define and detail his compositions, and this is a strength of his playing. Even with the use of one guitar, the songs sound fleshed out and full. His track,“Make It Up,” has a percussive base without actual percussion, and it moves along with a pace and rhythm that reveals Elkington’s prowess. A similar effect is used on “Greatness Yet To Come.” Even flourishes of pedal steel, cello, or viola present themselves only as falling leaves or slight hues next to the plenitude of Elkington’s sound. There is also a keen understanding of tone and celerity on this album. Additionally, there are some pretty magical moments in the tracks “Sister Of Mine” and “Grief Is Not Coming,” sentimental ballads that are more about beauty than dexterity. The lyrics of the songs in this album are chock-full of observational humor and understated elegance. It’s a wonderful album, absolutely fucking wonderful.

  Bedouine. Photo courtesy of Bedouine

  BEDOUINE: s/t

There are times when music is massively human and moving in a altruistic way. Syrian-born, LA-based artist Bedouine has a new self-titled album that accomplishes that feat by creating and emoting beauty and presence in a simple, understated way. Take, for instance, “Nice and Quiet,” a song of exiting a relationship. “I’ve tried so hard to be there for you, It seems that may mean disappearing for you,” read the lyrics of the song. Or consider the equally resplendent “Back To You,” a song of love within the bombast of the everyday. “They talk in exclamation marks, I’m still dying to know what’s so exciting,” go the lyrics of that song. It’s about the feeling of disconnect with your surroundings while relying on the connection with another. “Can lives so designed be sustained?” asks Bedouin. Wrapped in Van Morrison/Dusty Springfield soul, with tinges of jazz and country, these songs are tunes of quiet afternoons and mystic nights. Bedouine’s voice is calm and assuring, easing you into each tune. The brilliant “Solitary Daughter” extolls the joys of alone time, of the world of the mind and peace. “I don’t need your company to feel saved…Leave me alone to the charcoal and the dancing shadow,” read the lyrics to that one. And then there’s “Summer Cold,” that in spite of its tranquility still protests “I’ve had enough of your guns and ammunition.” This album is excellent in that it fits that part of life that is needed to makes sense of the world. It cannot be all extreme (sadness, anger, or joy), and it is not all running. Sometimes there is a stroll that is needed, and sometimes there is a need to take it in and consider it more instead of always acting and responding. These are songs for thinking, songs that provide space for thought. “Never thought I’d see the day that I would be at ease to say that everything around me is exactly as it should be,” muses Bedouine in one of the songs.

  The Peacers. Photo courtesy of the band. 

  THE PEACERS: Introducing The Crimsmen

The Peacers are purveyors of rock n’ roll, the particular class of rock n’ roll that is made in bedrooms and garages and in the minds of those who see song and form as instrumental to the magic of rock n’ roll. I stress rock n’ roll to suggest tradition because The Peacers cover ground from Big Star to The Beatles, and from Pussy Galore to Cream, on their new album Introducing the Crimsmen. It is rock, but haunted by the ghosts in the room. The track “Hoz” floats into the room and shakes the curtains, flicks some lights off, and on and disappears. It is strange but also grooving. The Peacers embody the implied line between the present and the otherworldly, and their track “ Child Of The Season” is reverbed balladry, sweet and blues and mystical. “D.T.M.T.Y.C.Y.M” is pure, it is the Lennon/McCartney (more Lennon), and as soon as it grasps you, it lets you go. It’s is a tease and you leave titillated. Meanwhile the track “Aboriginal Flow” is skronk and T. Rex, it is a trashcan fire outside of the blues club. The Peacers are rock n’ roll illustriousness. We make so much of things, but magic is always magic — abracadabra motherfuckers.

  Ohmme. Photo by Sarah Hess

  OHMME- s/t

Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart comprise the duo of Ohmme. Influenced by avant-garde rock and the improvisational music scene of Chicago, Ohmme works on many levels. And the songs on the self-titled album use space, rhythm and contrast to create a feeling of depth, which is what most great songs do. A great album is atmosphere, it is feeling transported, taken to a place with the lyrics sort of guiding that journey. And Ohmme does just that on this EP. “Woman,” the first song on the EP, is a perfect example of this and of the band’s aesthetic of patience and expansion, fuse and explosion. The track “Fingerprints” shares this magic. “Ithaca,” another stellar track on the album, has a similar simmering quality. It burns and spreads. The songs have lives and are at once still and quiescent before another wave comes in. It’s similar to how “Furniture” lulls you in and then attacks. This album is all about excitement. It is all sparks and flashes of light, all rumble and rustle, suspense and anticipation. I feel it all.

  MICHAEL NAU: Some Twist

As someone unfamiliar with Michael Nau, the opening track “Good Thing”ushers me into the magic. It’s a tune of appreciation, of recognizing that which shines in the darkness. Life is imperfect, but I have a “good thing going on.” Some Twist, Nau’s latest, is the kind of album that espouses an understated wisdom. The song “Wonder” is like opening a curtain to a beautiful day, a love song that talks of all the things one can see in the world. There is all of this, and there is also you. Maybe I’m trying to be distracted from you, or I am distracted by you. Nau does this splendidly. It could miss you, but the more times you hear it, the more bewitching it becomes. A mellifluous affair, it perfectly compliments a woozy evening. And “Scatter” is like a Shuggie Otis movement. It’s a slow jam with neon glow. The real star is Nau’s tone; his singing voice is always a sugar sprinkle or a honey glaze, and it continually rewards because it is so comforting and effortless. You sort of float away within it. Soul music penetrates, it’s goes beyond the surface, and his is an album that a day or year removed results in      another angle. It is perpetually good. There is always another color, there is always a gem to discover. Get on the boat and sail this into the horizon.

                                             Katie Von Schleicher. Photo by Bao Ngo

  KATIE VON SCHLEICHER: Shitty Hits

The album Shitty Hits has many connotations in relation to Katie Von Schleicher’s first real album, Bleakspoitation,   which was a beast. First of all, the quality of the 4-track recording, with its limitations and adaptations of sound technology, can be said to sound shitty. But it’s not shitty in the way of bad music, just in quality. So there is that. There is also the idea of feeling shitty, and songs like “Midsummer,” “Paranoia,” and “Life’s A Lie” lend themselves to the notion of feeling a bit, well, shitty. Now let’s add the second word, “shits.” What is a hit song? Theoretically it’s a song that works and that sounds good. And while there is subjectivity to taste in the process of successfully writing and recording a song, the completion itself, when done right, sometimes equals a hit. So there you have it, in a way, and with that out of the way, my opinion is that this album is fantastic. Imagine Wings using a 4-track, or great Syd Barret, or a weirder Linda Rondstat. “Soon,” a killer track form the album is a beautiful ballad, and “Isolator” also moves me in a major way. Beatle-esque is an adjective here that fits nicely. I am all about the majesty of this album. This shit is phenomenal!

  SHABAZZ PALACES: Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines / Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star

The double album is sometimes one of the most ambitious — some might say even indulgent — features of recorded music. Problem is, very few artists can really fulfill the commitment of making one great album, not to mention two. But Shabazz Palaces has never been associated with giving a fuck, so I will respect the sentiment. Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines is the album that originally was going to be the only one. A concept of the alien Quazarz and his arrival and adventures in “Amurdica,” the album is a treatise on the representation of technology in our world and how that affects us culturally (love, attention, the isms), like in the track “Gorgeous Sleeper Cell.” “Effeminence,” another track on the album is like a slow jam sung by an alien, but it’s still romantic. The track “Julien’s Dream (ode to a bad)” is also of this motion. Meanwhile, “30 Clip  Extension” is all hip-hop in the time of whatever we call this Musically it is the Sun Ra hop that Shabazz Palaces rock so well. It’s a trippy record if you will. Meanwhile, Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star is a bit like a more song-structured album, to use the term loosely. And “Eel Dreams” is like Arabian Prince, and then it turns into a kind of smoothed out jazz thing, but rapping.

“Fine Ass Hairdresser” should beat down the block, and “Moon Whip Quaz” is sort of like Parliament Kraftwerk (the tune of “The Model” is sort of embedded here). Whether or not you get one one of these albums, you will eventually get both because the exposure to one will spark curiosity in the other.

  DASHER: Sodium

Dasher is mainly the brainchild of drummer Kylee Kimbrough. A mixture of punk spirit, metal squall, and pure energy, these songs embody lightning and fire. The opener “We Know So” is the proverbial brick through the window. Meanwhile “Soviet” is the accompanying smokebomb. “Teeth” is a slower affair, crisp guitar and dark cloud, psychedelic but dangerous, a beast rising from the ocean. Kimbrough has mentioned an inability to keep a job or residence and the frustration of seeing something that others can do easily coming so difficult to her (something she attributes to a recent discovery of autism). The tension is apparent in the songs, and the album speaks to that sort of fight between the world in your mind and “proper” world. These songs are full-on assault weapons drawn. This is gut, blood drawn from the vein. Let’s burn this motherfucker down.

In Review: Bedouine, Ohmme, Shabazz Palaces and more this is a repost