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theokotrain · 3 years

Text

Vestige - Interlude: The Party

Wattpad Version

As the night fills the sky

All my fears are dissipating

'Cause I feel reassured

That I might make it through

And if all my luck should burn

Then I guess it burned for you

---

April 13th, 2012

I was sitting on my bed, back against the bed frame with my knees raised in front of me, holding up my laptop. I had been spending the last few hours writing an essay for my English class, specifically answering the topic question my teacher had given everybody: "How do our past experiences influence our decisions?". The question was simple enough, it's a pretty universally recognized idea that stuff that happens to us has an effect on our decision making. I mean, that's what it means to grow, right? You gain more knowledge as you live through life and form new memories, and that helps you make more informed decisions in the future.

I've never really been too good at writing anything analytical, especially non-fiction. Essays and research papers that required informed arguments that helped to prove your point? Those were an entirely unknown game to me, one which I had never managed to breeze through. Of course, we were supposed to use some of the books we've read this year as evidence for our arguments, so that at least made it a bit easier, even if most of the books were ones from nearly five decades ago and definitely out of touch at this point. The sound of my laptop's keys clicking as I typed away were the only sounds I could pick up in the room. I had my earphones in for a bit, but those always hurt my ears after a while, so I had taken them out.

Looking at the time in the corner of my laptop screen, it was 4:43 PM. I started writing as soon as I got home from class, so I've only been going for about an hour. Unfortunately, this essay is a non-insignificant amount of my course grade, so I needed to finish this as soon as possible.

God, it's a Friday! I could be out doing something actually fun with Shae and the other guys. Isn't that the whole point of high school? That's what it always seemed like in movies, at least, but I guess I've been a victim of false advertising.

After a bit more time passes, the sound of my phone ringing from my desk brings me out of my writing trance. I sigh, setting my laptop next to me on the bed, not wanting to get out of bed, but eventually forcing myself into maneuvering over to the desk, I grab the phone and flip it open, looking to see the Caller ID.

Shaela.

I instantly accept the call, it's almost second nature at this point. She calls me at least once a day so she can tell me about whatever person is pissing her off that day, or whatever drama she's heard from her other friends. I was never really one for gossip, or whatever, but I did appreciate talking to her.

I put the phone up to my ear, "What's up?" I say, a tinge of fatigue in my voice.

"Hey! Just warning you that I'm like five minutes from your place and you don't have a say in the matter." She replied bluntly. I can hear the sound of cars driving by on the other side of the phone, so she's obviously outside, confirming her words.

I take a deep breath before speaking, "...Why?" I said with exasperated sarcasm.

"Because! I have something to tell you, and if I say it over the phone then I seriously doubt it'll work out in the way I'm hoping it does."

"That clears up nothing, actually, and now I regret picking up."

"Even if you didn't answer, that doesn't stop your parents from letting their son's lovely goody-two-shoes of a friend stop by for a visit!" She exclaimed, a mischievous tone subtly layered in her voice.

She's not wrong.

"Wow, you make this sound like you're sneaking into a high-security building or something." I say, utterly confused at her motives. "Obviously you can come over, but I'm not exactly filled with confidence at whatever you're planning."

"Like I said, I can't tell you yet, but it's gonna be awesome!" She said. There was an unusual perkiness to her that made itself pretty clear over the phone.

Before I can say anything, I'm met with the dial tone, signalling that she had hung up. The only thing I can do at this point is wait for her to get here, I guess. She always lets herself in when she comes over, so I don't make the effort to meet her downstairs. A sudden ping sound fills the quiet room, seeming to come from my laptop. I get back into bed, looking to see where the notification came from.

It's a message from Tyler.

He's definitely the newest member of our little group, if even that. I'm the only person in the group that he's actually friends with so far, despite my efforts to bring him along on any plans we all make. I only met the Grey Wolf back in February, at the beginning of the second semester, in the school's photography class. Nobody I knew signed up for it, and due to our prestigious high school's advanced budget for technology, we were forced to be paired up for shared computer use in the Photography Room. I suppose Tyler was also fortunate enough to not know anybody in the class, as we ended up being paired together by the teacher. He was definitely someone I could only describe as uninterested, as the first week or two I spent with him in that class consisted of him either giving me one word answers or answering in the most blunt, bored tone he could manage. Though, it seemed that it took a bit of persistence on my part to push him to be more open, and since then he's grown to be a pretty great friend.

Tyler: u goin to that party tonight ive been hearin about?

Party? I wasn't made aware of anything like that, at least... not yet. Something in the back of my brain was telling me that Shae had ulterior motives about coming to my place so suddenly, but I'm still hoping that I'm wrong. I hate parties.

Jake: party? havent heard anything, are u going?

Tyler: thinkin about it

think its gonna be over at chris's place, guess his parents r gone for the weekend or somethin

Jake: chrisssss? ughh that guy is such an asshole

Tyler: yeah u dont havee to go, but itd prob be more fun to have someone u actually know there

The way he worded that was directed at me, but I could tell he didn't want to go on his own.

Jake: i guess ill think about it

Tyler: sickk, call me if u make up ur mind

Before I can type my farewells over IM, Shaela energetically bursts through the door.

"Jesus! You scared the shit outta me, don't you knock?" I said, mildly exasperated.

"Oh come on, I literally called you a few minutes ago, you had plenty of time to not make a situation where it'd be a bad idea for me to barge in," She replies, laughing, before setting her bag on the ground and dramatically falling into my bed. "Today was garbage."

"What happened?"

"Ugh, Claire decided to just not show up, I guess, on the day we're supposed to present that stupid History project? And, obviously, she didn't give me her part of the project or anything, so I had tell Mr Thomas about the situation, which was fucking embarrassing." She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "Luckily, he said he wouldn't reduce my grade for handing it in late, since I actually had my part finished. God, what a bitch- I must've called her like thirty times before class to get her to email me her part, and every time it went straight to voicemail - and she told me last night that she'd have it ready for today!"

"Have you gotten a hold of her yet?" I asked, closing my laptop and setting it beside me.

Shae turns her head to me, shaking her head, "Nope, she's been ghosting me all day."

"Sounds like typical Claire."

"Yeah, I shouldn't have partnered with her, but apparently I can't say no to anyone, so..." I chuckle lightly in response. "Anyways! I didn't just come here to complain to you!" She says, sitting up on the bed, now facing towards me.

"Right... So what was so important that you just had to tell me in person?" I say, sarcastically.

"Like I said, if I asked you over the phone you would've definitely said no, and my ability to pressure you into doing things isn't as effective unless it's in person!" She responded.

I subtly rolled my eyes, but it's clear she noticed from the stare-down she gave me, "Okay, so what is it?"

"Soooooo..." She says, trying to find the rest of the words, "There's a party."

Wow.

"Wh- did everybody know about that party except for me?!?" I exclaimed.

Shaela's face quickly turns to an expression of shock, "Who told you?"

"Tyler did, like, not even five minutes ago." I say, bluntly.

"What? How does he know Chris?"

"Friend-of-a-friend, I'm guessing?"

"Hmm..." She hummed, thinking about something, "So, did you tell him you were going?"

"I specifically said I'd think about it, nothing definite." I made it clear in my tone that I wasn't particularly interested.

"Oh, come on, dude! It'll be fun!"

I didn't really have an interest in going, but I know it'd make Shae happy, plus it'd be nice to hang out with Tyler again even if we've only known each other for a couple months.

"...Fine. But, if Chris or any of his buddies start shit, I'm leaving."

"Awesome!"

"Lemme just call Tyler and let him know," I said as I grabbed my phone and flipped it open, finding Tyler in my contact list and dialling.

"You gonna bring him with-" The phone rings a few times before he picks up and I extend my hand out towards Shae in a shushing motion. She rolls her eyes, smirking.

"Hey? So are ya gonna go?" He said eagerly.

"Well, Shae showed up at my door literally right after you messaged me, asking the same thing!" I exclaimed in a fake-preppy voice. "So, I guess I have no choice since she'll probably just drag me there if I say no," I joked. She nods her head toward me in response.

"Oh, is she going too?" He inquired.

"Yeah, I guess so! Your place is kinda on the way to Chris', so we could probably meet you at your place and go from there."

"Yeah! Sounds good!" He quickly responded.

I laughed, "Okay, we'll call you when we get there?"

"Sure thing!"

We exchanged our farewells, and hung up. The party wasn't for at least another hour or two, so Shae and I had some time to burn, of which I was entirely out of ideas. I figured I could at least spend this time actually being productive, so I grabbed my laptop and continued on writing my English essay as Shae resumed her previous conversation topic of stuff at school that was pissing her off. It was pretty entertaining, to be fair. She was telling me about how Chris had gotten in a fight with this other kid in our grade yesterday after class, which I wasn't lucky enough to witness, but it was obviously all anyone would talk about for basically the entire day today so word spread around fast. The part I hadn't heard about was that both Chris and the other guy, Nathan, got suspended for a week because of it. Chris was generally an asshole to everybody, including myself, so I didn't feel too bad about that. Although, I didn't know Nathan all that well. Other than having a few classes together, I don't think I've ever held an actual conversation with the guy. I think it was safe to assume that Chris was the one who started it, and Shae seemed to agree with me, even though she hadn't seen the fight either.

"But, apparently Nathan's gonna show up tonight!" She exclaimed coyly.

"...Remind me again why you want me to go to this specific party?"

"You'll have a great time! It's not like we'll be involved in the drama anyway so think of it more as entertainment!"

"I think you and I have different definitions of the word 'entertainment'," I joked.

"I'm sure you can go run off somewhere with Tyler if you're not having fun," She said, her tone reminding me of my mom.

"Oh yeah? What about you?"

"I can't just leave Alex at a party with Chris, those two start shit between each other so much and I'd rather not deal with the aftermath of that today."

"I'm guessing it's safe to assume that Elliot's going too, then?"

"He's not big on parties, but he'll usually go if everyone else is, unlike somebody," She says, gesturing towards me.

"Good one," I reply, unmoving as I keep typing away at my assignment.

"Well, we should probably leave soon since we're stopping at Tyler's place on the way.

I saved the document I had been working on, closing my laptop. "Sounds good to me!"

---

"I can't believe you actually agreed to go." Tyler joked as we walked towards the road from his house.

"Yeah, me either." I replied. I definitely didn't put in any effort in dressing up for the party, opting for a snug space-themed graphic tee, along with black jeans and a white zip-up hoodie. Shae and Tyler both stand on opposite sides of me as we walk down the sidewalk.

"Luckily I learned the subtle techniques in convincing you to do things against your better judgement, so now you get to have fun for once!" Shae exclaimed.

"It's not my fault that going to a party is literally the last thing on earth I'd do for fun in any normal situation." I retorted, putting my hands in the pockets of my jacket.

"Oh yeah? And what do you consider a 'normal situation'?" Shae asks.

"Any situation where you guys aren't the ones trying to get me to go! I'm only doing this for you two, y'know." I said, looking over at both of them.

"What about Elliot and Alex?" Tyler chimed in.

"They aren't the ones asking me to go to this party." I sarcastically remarked, trying to keep the conversation light-hearted. "Speaking of the party- this is Chris we're talking about, there's gonna be beer, right?"

"Uh, duh?" Shae replied.

"Yeah, that's a definite no for me, I'm already enough of a disappointment to my parents,"

"No one's making you drink, Jake. At least you'd be safe if some old hag called the cops about the noise." Shae said.

"I think at that point we're guilty by association, so we'd just make a run for it if that happens," Tyler joked.

"Dude, the chance of me outrunning a police officer successfully is about as likely as me not wanting to punch Chris tonight."

"And the chance of you winning that fight is just as low!" Shae retorted, Tyler laughing in response.

"I specifically said 'want' because of that very reason!"

"Wow, I'd pay money to see you fight that guy." Tyler said, nudging his elbow into my side.

It isn't a secret that I'm not exactly athletic. I mean, I'm definitely not weak, but fighting basically any animal of a similar size to mine was not a situation that favoured my victory.

"That sounds more like just getting the shit kicked outta me for your entertainment." I remarked, lightly punching Tyler's shoulder in return.

"Absolutely worth every penny!" Shae exclaimed. Luckily, the place wasn't any more than ten minutes away from Tyler's place, so I didn't have to endure listening to these two talk about me getting beat up for much longer.

We finally make it to Chris' house, and I'm suddenly filled with an impending sense of regret. Obviously, my parents would never in a million years agree to me going to a party like this. As far as they know, I'm just spending the evening hanging out with Shae at Tyler's house. So yeah, this entire night had a lot of potential for disaster.

Shae can clearly see my hesitation, because she grabs my hand, leading me up the walkway, Tyler following closely behind.

"I wonder if Elliot and Alex beat us here?" She says, knocking on the front door.

"I doubt they had anything to do earlier, hell they probably came straight here after school, knowing Alex." I said, laughing.

Our conversation is cut short by the opening door, revealing the familiar black cat.

"Oh, look, the Stephenson kid brought his girlfriend!" Chris exclaimed mockingly, looking back into the house, before peering around my shoulder, "And... Tyler?" He said, inquisitively.

I lean over, blocking Tyler from his line of sight, "Yeah, hey, not dating by the way!" I said. I've known Shae since I first moved to Vestige, around the time I turned five years old, so it wasn't uncommon for rumours to go around that we were dating. I've always thought of her more as a sister, if anything.

"I asked them to come!" Tyler said. That was only partly true, but according to Tyler, they've been 'somewhat-friends' for quite a while now, so saying that would at least mean less mild-harassment from Chris for tonight.

"Oh, uh, okay... come on in! But you're on the hook for any shit they pull, Tyler!" He said, opening the door wider.

---

The party had been going on for a few hours at this point. I could recognize most of the animals here from school, but not enough to actually hold a conversation with any of them, so most of my time here had just been spent with Shae and Tyler. The place hasn't been incredibly crowded luckily, but there were easily about forty others in this part of the house alone. I'm assuming only high school grades were invited, but there were a considerable number of students to meet that requirement. The issue at hand for me, other than how crowded this place is, is that both Shae and Tyler ditched me to go... somewhere? I think Shae saw some of her friends and went somewhere with them, but Tyler was pretty secretive about where he was going, only telling me that he'd be back in a bit. So I've been standing here in this random corner of the house with a drink in hand, trying to make myself look busy and not awkward, which is exactly why I didn't want to go to this party in the first place!

"Jake!" A voice shouted from a ways away.

I turn my head in confusion, revealing Alex, walking towards me from across the room.

"Oh, Alex! Hey! What's up dude!" I finish the last bit of my soda, waving at him. Because this was Chris' party, there was obviously beer too, but I didn't feel like coming home drunk and my parents finding out.

"I didn't think you'd wanna come to something like this! Feeling the regret yet?"

"I like parties! It's the times like these when I'm standing in a corner by myself with nothing to do that I hate, which seems to happen every time I go to a party!" I exclaimed, pausing for a moment. "Okay, maybe I do hate parties- I've had to explain this so many times today I'm about ready to jump into Lake Ambuscade."

' "Wow, sounds like somebody needs to socialize instead of stewing in a corner for the rest of the night!"

"Socialize? Really? I know just about everybody here and just about none of them are worth talking-"

"Hang with me and Elliot, then? Justin set up some racing games in the other room, we were gonna join, but we could use a fourth... You in?" He said, his tone obviously trying to sound coercing.

"God, please, anything to get me out of this corner for the next three hours." I said, Alex returning my words with a laugh.

"Well, come on then! We'll have to hurry if we want to get one of the good controllers!" He exclaimed, motioning to follow him.

As we move through the various cliques, I recognize a few faces here and there, though not enough to actually want to talk to them. There's been music playing since we got here, and I have yet to recognize a single song, they all seem to be some form of drone-y bass-heavy music that I can't say I've heard in any normal situations. I'm doing my best to follow Alex, although he keeps weaving between the other animals faster than I can keep up, resulting in me having to shove past everyone near me in an effort to speed myself up. Luckily, it seems that no one notices me anyway.

When we arrive in the other room, it seems to just be another living room, but decorated with a galore of punk band posters, shelves holding more DVD cases than I would ever care to count, and even a mini-fridge. Maybe Chris is the type to have a 'man cave' or something? Just hearing that phrase almost makes me want to vomit, but there aren't any more accurate words that come to mind. The room isn't massive or anything, but the TV resting upon the wall across the room seems to challenge that idea, looking almost eighty inches in size. Luckily no randoms from the party were in here, sitting about ten feet away from the TV is Elliot, leaning back in a purple bean bag chair that seems almost three times bigger than him, and Justin, the cougar I'd only known slightly through Alex, laying down sideways on the couch directly in front of the gigantic screen.

"Whatttt! You took the bean bag chair? Lameee..." Alex whined.

"You're the one who wanted to go get Jake, you snooze you lose!" Elliot retorted, looking oddly proud of himself.

"Damn, wish I had a room like this at my house..." I mumbled, looking around the room.

"Are we gonna play or what?" Justin said, cutting through the momentary silence.

"Duh!" Alex claimed.

Justin sits up, taking the spot on the couch closest to Elliot. I opt for the leftmost seat, and Alex sits in-between the both of us. Elliot grabs the other three controllers and tosses them over at us, one by one. Luckily, there weren't any garbage third-party controllers, so at least none of us would have to deal with that. I will admit, it did feel kinda weird going to someone's party just to play games away from everybody, but I would be lying if I said I didn't prefer that, even though I rarely play games, if ever.

After Justin turns the console on, he goes through the menus, launching the game. I can't say I recognize the title, but it seems to be a pretty standard racing game. He goes into the custom mode, opting for a four-player split-screen match, choosing 'R1' as the category of cars to race in. As everyone chooses their cars, I scroll through the list, not really knowing what to pick. I've never been good with car stuff, so I pick an 'Aston Martin Lola' just based on the number-rating system the game ranks the cars with.

"You guys ready?" Justin asks.

"Oh yeah, get ready to eat my dust you guys!" Elliot exclaims, challengingly.

"Oddly prideful words for someone about to lose!" Alex replies, laughing.

The countdown begins, as the cameras slowly show the view of each car as it moves to the rear. When it starts, I somehow manage the fuckup of spinning my tires out, leaving me a few seconds behind the others as the car swerves back and forth. I curse under my breath as I try to regain control of the car, and swiftly pick up speed. The track seems like nothing I haven't seen before, a typical professional track, with rows and rows of audience seating to the side. Unfortunately, I'm now in last place. The next few moments of the track are a few quick corners, allowing me the chance to catch up, at least a little.

Unexpectedly, the track turns off of the main road, going into a forested area. The road is considerably more narrow at this point, so it takes a conscious effort to not drive into the trees by the asphalt. It looks like the road stretches on forever, as I still can't make out any upcoming turns. I guess the car I chose for the race had a better top speed than Justin's, as I'm quickly catching up to him, moving into third place. I'm gripping my controller to an uncomfortable degree, but I can't seem to relax the tension as I try to make my way into second place. I don't think I can pick up any more speed in this car, so me moving up is reliant on the road staying straight for just a bit longer. After what feels like a lifetime, the front of my car finally starts making it past Elliot's, then the midsection, and finally, I'm in second. The sound of all four car engines is drowning out any remnants of the video game music, and I feel the sudden urge to curse out whoever turned the TV volume up this high. My eyes are focused entirely on Alex's car as I make my final push into first place. If I were actually driving this fast in the real world, I'd be scared out of my fucking mind. Out of nowhere, Alex, and the others, begins to slow down considerably.

Oh fuck.

It's at that point I notice that there is a sharp right turn rapidly approaching. I've been pushing the top-speed of this car since the beginning of this stretch of road, and now I'm going too quickly to stop in time. What's the button to use the handbrake, again? I figure that the only way for me to not fuck up this race for myself is to try to drift around the corner. Considering I've never played this game before, it's going to prove to be a challenge. But, it's either that, or just ending up in dead-last again.

I hold down the A button, and pull the joystick as far to the right as possible. Suddenly, all I can hear from the game is the loud skidding sounds of my tires against the asphalt. To my surprise, I cut the corner a bit early, now going over the grass. I try to do a bit of directional-corrections and start heading back onto the track. Going over the grass definitely slowed me down a fair bit, but it definitely was a significantly better outcome over just crashing into the wall. And, to my surprise, the corner of my screen reads... first?!?

"How the fuck...?" Alex questions, seemingly in disbelief.

"I wish I could tell you." I replied, eyes wide at whatever the fuck just happened.

The distance I managed to gain on Alex isn't by a whole lot, but there's only about a quarter of the track left before we reach the finish line, so I have a chance at winning this. The track hurriedly changes from the forest as it reenters the main track. The long, straight roads seem to end as the road becomes a slow series of sharp turns, never giving me the opportunity to get back up to speed. It seems like the high top speed was my only advantage, because at every corner we take, I turn my camera around, revealing the other cars inching closer and closer to me.

I can see the finish line on the mini-map, just a few more turns away. I know that I'm not gonna be able to distance myself from Alex and the others at this point, so my only feasible strategy is to keep moving, cutting the corners as fast as I can, and getting to the finish line before they can pass me. Unfortunately, Alex's car seems to be getting too close for comfort now, meaning I might have to take some risks to ensure I can stay in first. As we approach the final turn, leading into the finish line, I realise I'm gonna have to try to drift this corner. I can feel my pointer finger practically cracking the plastic on the controller from the amount of pressure I'm putting on the right trigger. In a final plea to win, I push down on the A button, pulling the handbrake. The car starts to smoothly skid around the corner. Luckily, there are barriers on the sides of the road this time, preventing me from sliding onto the grass. To my surprise, the drift seems to work better than expected. That is, until, like the fucking idiot I am, make a slight overcorrection towards the left barriers as I exit the drift. I managed to avoid driving directly into the wall, but it did slow me down a bit.

Alex is immediately behind me, and I put all of my strength into accelerating towards the finish line. I'd be fucked if I broke the controller, cause I can't really afford the fifty dollars to buy a new one, but winning this race is more important to me at the moment. The finish line is only about five-hundred metres away, and Alex is slowly beginning to pass. All I can do at this point is push the gas as much as I can, and pray that I can cross the finish line before he can get back into first place. The finish line gets closer and closer, and it seems like it's gonna be too close for me to accurately tell the winner. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest from how stressful this fucking game has been, and now, we're about to find out whose efforts paid off. As each car makes its way over the finish line, each of our dedicated sections of the screen turns to slow motion. When it's finally over, the text fades in on each screen, revealing our place...

...

...Second?!?

"FUCK!" I shouted, realising I had been holding my breath since the final stretch of the race.

"HA! Dude, you suck!" Alex exclaimed, playfully shoving me.

"I think that was the most effort I've put into anything in my life." I said, setting my controller on the coffee table in front of me.

"Wow, that's dramatic," Justin remarked.

"Yeah, that's the usual for Jake," Elliot replied, laughing.

"You probably woulda won if you picked a better car, dude. That track was way too close-quarters so you should've gone with a car with better acceleration." Alex said.

"Wha- do you own this game?" I questioned, looking accusatory.

"...Yeah? It came out a few months ago, pretty popular right now." He replied.

"Ugh, this is what I get for playing with a bunch of gamers." I exclaimed, applying a disgusted tone to the last word.

"Not my fault you only play like one game a month!" Alex joked.

"Even then, I was like this close to beating you anyway!" I said, gesturing a minuscule distance between my thumb and pointer finger.

A voice interrupts our argument, coming from right outside the room, "Uh huh...

...

Really? That's bullshit! Come on...

...

Dude, give me a couple of days, I'll make it right!

...

Yeah, I swear."

It seems that we all stopped talking to listen in at the same time. "That sounds like Tyler... who's he arguing with?" Elliot asked. I can't make out the voice of whoever he's talking to, it just sounds like mumbling.

They seem to pause for a moment, and the sound of a single set of footsteps can be heard.

"Fuck..." Tyler says to himself, still out of view.

"...I should probably see what's up, you guys can keep playing without me." I say, getting up from my spot on the couch.

"Yeah, you do that! Less competition for me," Alex exclaims, laughing to himself.

"Hey, I can still beat your ass at this game, I know exactly which car to pick this time!" Elliot argued.

"Yeah, right! Guess we'll find out!"

I leave as the three start up another game, kind of glad I don't have to have another near-heart attack from playing again. When I get back into the dimly-lit hallway, Tyler is nowhere to be seen.

I look around, heading into the main room of the house to see if I can spot him. It's pretty difficult to see anything, because of how dim it is here, plus the sheer amount of animals crowding up the place. Despite that, I manage to spot the Grey Wolf a ways away, hurrying quickly into the bathroom.

As I shove my way through a few groups of teens, I almost fall over a few times, gaining confused stares from a few in the room. I lightly knock on the bathroom door, waiting for a response, "Hey, you okay Tyler?" After a few moments, I'm returned with no answer, "...Tyler-" Before I can finish my sentence, Tyler swiftly pulls open the bathroom door, pulling me in and shutting the door behind me, before sitting down on the side of the bathtub. As I'm about to say something, I hear the sound of him sniffling.

...Is he crying?

He's looking towards the floor, so I can't confirm it visually, but the sound definitely gives it away.

"Whoa, what's wrong? Did something happen?" I asked worriedly, not yet choosing to bring up the argument we overheard.

There's a few seconds of silence as he tries to bring himself together, not very successfully. "I- I... I don't- I don't think I can-"

"It's fine, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," I tried to reassure him. He raises his head for a moment to look at me, trying to find words to say, instead opting to go back to crying, head in his hands. I've never been good with situations like this, so I sit down next to him, putting my hand on his upper back, softly patting.

"I'm sorry- I'm a fucking idiot. I shouldn't have asked you to come."

"Hey! I've been having fun! Don't worry about me, it seems like you're the one who shouldn't have come." I joke, in some effort to lighten the mood.

Shit, was that inconsiderate of me to say?

To my surprise, he manages to let out a light laugh, "Yeah, I'm starting to realise that."

"...Do you wanna leave, then? They know I didn't want to go here in the first place, so you could just say you're being nice and walking me home." I didn't know if he would actually take up that offer, but I know some guys have a weird thing about not wanting to seem 'uncool' and leaving a party early was definitely considered that.

He thinks for a moment, still sniffling pretty noticeably. "...okay, just- give me a minute, I don't want to go out there looking like this." He mumbles, looking towards the door.

"Yeah, that's fine." I said, continuing to rub around his neck area.

This definitely wasn't how I expected the night to go. But it was a sort of 'two-birds-with-one-stone' kind of situation. I get to help out Tyler, which is usually the other way around, I get to leave early, and hopefully Shae stops bugging me about going to parties, at least for a while.

Now that I think about it, that analogy is pretty messed up.

A few silent minutes go by as I sit next to the still-crying Tyler, waiting for him to recollect himself. Even though he hasn't actually said anything here, in the two months I've known him, this is probably the most vulnerable I've ever seen him. When I first met him, it was pretty accurate to describe him as the kind of guy who acts like he never feels emotion. Hell, even I refuse to be open about my feelings, but most of my friends see through that nowadays. Even now, I don't really understand why I do that. I guess it's just easier to not talk about shit like that? Is that why Tyler does it?

"I think I'm good now," He said, shaking his hands as he stood up.

"Okay, let's get out of this dumpster fire." I sarcastically remarked. Tyler shot me a confused look in return. "Whatever, let's just go."

I open the bathroom door, grabbing his arm as I lead him out into the main room. Almost immediately the voice of a certain black cat perks up behind us.

"Oh? And what did you two get up to in there?" Chris remarked, laughing, "I didn't know you guys were THAT kind of friends!"

God damnit. This stupid fucking feline.

"Yeah, it's too loud out here for me, I needed a break, he came with." I explained, Tyler standing closely behind me with a confused look on his face. Just roll with it, dude, I think to myself, knowing I probably shouldn't say that out loud.

"You know, I would believe that, but normal guys actually just go outside when they need a break." He replied.

"Well, hey! That's where we're going right now, so it all checks out!" I say in the bitchiest voice I can muster.

"Heh, sure thing, Jake." He said, sounding weirdly satisfied with himself. I didn't want to spend any more time in this fucking house than I needed to, especially while talking to Chris, so I continue on, pulling Tyler by the hand towards the exit. After a few moments, we make it to the front door. I promptly open it and we both head outside.

We're immediately greeted by the light of the moon and the starry sky as we head down the walkway toward the street. One of the few benefits of living in such a backwater town was the absence of any significant light pollution. I've been to Portland a few times for school field trips and such, and seeing the sheer difference in visible stars was absolutely staggering. I could only imagine what it would be like to go stargazing in the middle of nowhere.

"At least it's a nice night out." I said.

"Yeah..." Tyler replied, his mind clearly in a completely different place.

"I should probably tell Shae where we went, so she doesn't freak out trying to find us back there." I joked, pulling out my cell phone. Texting on my flip phone was an arduous task, but I didn't want to call her, so I had not much of a choice.

I send the text, and close my phone, returning it to my pocket. As we walk down the road, we stew in the silence, the only auditory sounds coming from the party still close by, and the local crickets chirping.

I won't lie, as much as I usually appreciate quiet, this is the loudest silence I've ever been stuck in. It goes on for more than five minutes. I could tell he wanted to say something, and I was eager to find out whatever was going on that started this in the first place. But, like the coward I am, I try to lighten the mood.

"Hopefully that satisfied your quota of me going to parties with you for a while, cause I do not plan on having the energy for something like that again for at least a few months." I said, awkwardly laughing. He doesn't respond, at least for a while, as he raises his hand, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "...Uhh, are you sure you don't wanna talk about it? I mean-"

"Can I tell you something?" He interrupted, his voice still cracking like it was in the bathroom.

"...Sure?" I replied, slightly confused.

"It's just that- I don't really know- like what-"

"-to say? Just think for a minute. No rush." That's what my dad always says whenever my mind spirals. I used to be really anxious, although I've been getting better at controlling my thoughts in the past few years.

When I went to text Shae a few minutes ago, my phone's clock read 9:48 PM. I'm supposed to be home at ten and we're still at least twenty minutes away, not even including the detour we'll take to get to Tyler's place. Which brings me to the realisation that, when we get to his house, I'm gonna have to walk the rest of the way home by myself, in the dark. If I get murdered by some serial killer this late at night I'm gonna fucking haunt Shae from the afterlife-

"I think I'm gay," He quickly says, his voice holding a noticeable increase in energy compared to what I've been used to tonight.

Well... can't say that's exactly what I was expecting. Was I expecting anything in particular? I honestly don't know anymore. His words took me by surprise, my brain is kind of scrambled right now. I look over at him - he's looking back at me, probably trying to gauge my reaction. I did my best to conceal any facial reaction, but it's pretty clear that my lack of a response is starting to become noticeable.

"...You... think?"

"Well, like- I don't know. I guess I've just been thinking for a while, and it makes sense... all things considered." He replied anxiously.

"That- That's great! Does anyone else know?"

"I only really realised a few weeks ago, so... no. But compared to anyone else, I probably trust you the most to not like- tell anyone?" He said, looking over at me again.

"Well, I appreciate the completely undeserved confidence you have in me," I joked, realising too late that now probably isn't the time for that, "Yeah, I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Thank you," He replies, a genuine smile strewn across his face.

A few minutes go by as we walk down the road, absorbing the positive energy we created. Having only known Tyler for a little over two months, it definitely surprised me knowing that he trusted me more than anyone else to keep a secret like that... I mean, despite the short amount of time since I met him, I'm as close to him as I've been to Shaela for the past eight years. Maybe even closer? I barely even tell Shae about my actual problems, at least the non-surface level stuff. So yeah, I guess it makes sense that he would trust me with something so important, I know I would absolutely trust him if it were me in that situation.

"...So, do you think you're gonna tell your dad?"

He didn't say anything for a moment as he stared down at the ground beneath him, "I'll probably have to tell him soon, if he has to find out from some asshole that isn't me it'd make it ten times more difficult than if I just said it myself."

I agreed, and we let the conversation cut itself off as we finally approached Tyler's house. I followed him up the walkway and stood on the patio, making sure he actually got inside. He tries the doorknob eagerly, to no avail. Realising that it was locked, he reaches into his pocket for his key - again, to no avail.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Tyler mumbled under his breath, clearly done with tonight. All of the lights were off in the house, signalling that his dad was not awake.

"Maybe you'll wake him up if you knock? Then he can let you in."

"Nonono, he thinks I'm staying at your place! If he finds out I went to a party I'm in deep shit," He whispered.

Of course. If I had to lie to my parents, why would I expect anything different from anyone else?

"Okay, uhh... maybe we can make that lie... not a lie?" I said, sounding weirder than I'd like.

Tyler looked at me, confused for a moment, eyes widening as he realised what I meant, "I can't let you do that, I've already forced you through too much shit tonight."

"Oh, come on, of course you can sleep at my place for the night! My parents think I'm at your house right now, so I can just tell them that we both went over there early in the morning. They love you anyway, so it won't be a problem!"

He didn't move at all, still looking reluctant, "Are you sure it won't be... weird? I don't want to put you in an awkward situation cause of w- what I told you."

"Dude, that couch in my room has a hide-a-bed if you don't want to share mine. Either way, we're friends, aren't we? I trust you."

After a few moments of silence, he speaks up, "...I guess so-"

"Great, then it's settled!" I said, putting my arm around his shoulder as I led him back down the walkway.

---

Once we make it to my place, walk up the creaky wooden steps of my patio as I fish the house key out of my pocket. Tyler's standing closely behind me, looking awkward as ever, clearly not knowing what to do with his hands as he switches between putting them in his pockets and clasping them together.

I turn the key on the lock and try the door, noticing that It's completely pitch black inside the house. My parents usually go to bed at 10 PM, and it was well past that at this point. I lock the door behind us as I reach for my pocket, grabbing my phone and flipping it open to use as a barely-useful flashlight. I take Tyler's wrist as I lead him through the furniture of my living room and up the stairs. The only sounds in the house come from the soft ticking of a clock in the kitchen, the sound of which has always freaked me out whenever I'd come downstairs at three in the morning. Despite my best efforts to be as quiet as possible, the old wooden boards of the stairs prove my effort to be futile as they creak with every step. I can only hope that both of my parents have fallen asleep by now, or else they'd definitely have heard us. As I take Tyler down the hallway, walls strung with various family photos and art fit for a motel, I hear no sounds coming from the master bedroom, relaxing some of my tension.

Once we make it to my room, I breathe a sigh of relief as I turn on the overhead light, hoping my mom doesn't find out and try to lecture me in the morning, "Okay, hide-a-bed or mine, your choice!"

"Hide-a-bed." He replies.

"Sure thing, lemme show you how to set it up," I say as I remove each couch cushion one by one. The couch is sitting directly under my massive bedroom window, illuminated by the glow of the moon. Under the cushions is a black folded-up contraption, bearing a metal handle. I grab the handle and start pulling the bed out from the couch. As the first section of the bed comes out, Tyler stands next to me and helps unfold the second section, and finally the third.

I move over to open the closet door, "I have some spare pillows and blankets in here."

"So, why do you have a spare bed... thingy... in your room anyway?" He asked.

"My cousins' family came to visit from the other side of the country a few years back, so my parents made the cousins stay in my room and gave me our old couch that used to be in the living room. They were here for like two weeks, it was fucking awful," I remarked, pulling a comforter out of the closet and unfolding it out on the mattress.

"That sounds miserable," Tyler sympathized.

"It was, but hey, now I got a sick as fuck couch in my room! And it works as a great place for certain friends to sleep when they wanna spend the night," I said sarcastically, looking over at Tyler as I grabbed the pillows from the closet, tossing them to one end of the bed.

He turned his head, baffled, "Was that a dig on me?" He questioned.

"Depends on how you took it I suppose," I replied, smiling cunningly.

"You're the one who offered, dude- are you sure you didn't drink at the party? You've at least doubled your usual level of sarcasm." He retorted.

"Nope, unless somebody spiked my soda!" I joked, but the realisation slowly set in, "Oh shit- maybe someone spiked my soda?!?"

"Don't freak out, I seriously doubt someone would spike your drink,"

"God, I hope so, if my parents found out I went to that party, that'd be one thing, but if I got drunk? I doubt I'd see the outside world for months," I sighed.

"Even if you were drunk, it's not like you would still be drunk in the morning for them to find out, anyway."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I said, letting out a yawn shortly thereafter. "Fuck, I didn't realise how tired I am." Looking at my alarm clock, it was 10:37 PM. That wasn't terribly late, I've definitely stayed up later when there was an assignment due the next day that I forgot about, but even before I met up with Alex and Elliot, that party was just wearing me down. "At least I can sleep in 'till like noon tomorrow. You sure you don't need anything before I pass out from exhaustion?"

"No, I'm okay, I think. And, thank you... Jake." He replied, smiling at me.

"No problem, dude!" I quietly exclaimed as I turned off the bedroom lights and hopped into bed. I can practically feel my muscles dissolve as I lean into the mattress, pulling the heavy blankets over me as I close my eyes.

I can't help but feel something itching in the back of my brain. I never did find out why Tyler was even crying back at the party. Was it related to what he told me after? He sounded pretty upset when he was talking to whoever it was in the hallway, too, so maybe that was why? We've already talked about so much shit tonight, though, and I definitely did not have the energy to have another huge conversation about something like that. It could definitely wait until tomorrow.

Soon, I feel my consciousness drift away, the only sound I can make out being the slow breathing of Tyler, across the room.

---

As I wake up, I'm blinded by the bright sun shining in through my windows, directly into my eyes. I glance over at my alarm clock, feeling incredibly groggy and sore, noticing that it's 11:13 AM. Usually, the latest I'd sleep in on weekends was only around ten, but I guess it took a lot of my energy yesterday to try to tune the party out. At least it's over.

I slowly sit up, yawning as I lean back against the bed frame. I glanced around the room, noticing that the hide-a-bed had been folded back into the couch, Tyler nowhere to be seen. I reach over to my bedside table to check my phone, finding an unread text from him, sent a few hours ago.

Tyler: hey

woke up early, figured youd want 2 sleep in.

will call u later, might have somthin big i wanna share, will see

A pair of oddly cryptic messages. Guess that confirms he isn't here anymore.

At least it was a Saturday, meaning that I had full permission to be a slob. I get out of bed, deciding to skip my usual shower until after breakfast. Other than the snacks that were out at the party, I ate practically nothing last night. I could almost feel my stomach turning itself inside out, so I hurried out of my room and downstairs to the kitchen to have some breakfast.

The first thing I notice when I get downstairs is my mom, sitting on the couch with a book. I head straight to the kitchen, trying not to make myself stand out.

"Jake! Finally woken up, I see." She remarked, still looking at her book.

"Hey, mom!" There's a moment of silence as I grab a bowl out of the cupboard, as well as a box of cereal, and begin to pour.

She speaks up, "Your friend, Tyler, seemed to be in a hurry to leave this morning, anything I should know about?"

"...Not that I know of? Like what?" I questioned as I poured some milk from the fridge, grabbed a spoon, and sat at the kitchen counter.

"Well, it's not like we didn't notice that you weren't home by ten like your father asked you to be, so obviously you must have a good excuse for why you didn't at least call to let us know you'd be late?" She replied. I could tell when she started talking all responsible-parent-like, it meant that she was gonna lecture me about something.

I sighed, thinking of the right thing to say. "...Well, Tyler was going through some things... so I was trying to help him with that, I guess. Time just kinda flew by and I wasn't able to get home 'till later."

"So he spent the night here? Weren't you at his house?" She asked as I ate a spoonful of cereal.

"Yeah... we went out for a bit and once I noticed how late it was I offered to let him spend the night at our house since it was closer," I said. Almost entirely a lie, but definitely preferable to the truth.

"Jake..." She said, setting her book down on the coffee table in front of the couch, walking over to me, and resting a hand on my shoulder. "You're sixteen now, obviously we don't expect you to tell us everything you're up to nowadays. But we worry about you! I worry about you. Just for future reference, please let us know if you're gonna be home late or anything like that."

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind," I said, looking up at her.

"Great! Now, I have to go meet a friend for lunch, please try not to burn the house down while I'm out!" She said as she grabbed her purse and keys off of the counter, hurring out the door.

"No promises, love you!" I said as she closed the door behind her.

Well, I guess that went... better than expected? I doubt she believed that story I made up, but I guess as long as I don't break curfew without telling them, I should be fine.

Having the house to myself wasn't totally uncommon. Considering my dad was gone during the day five days a week, and my mom would head out to go meet friends or run errands pretty often, I got some much needed alone time often enough to not go mad.

As I finish my bowl of cereal, I realise that I probably should go shower as soon as possible, considering the night I had. I put my bowl and spoon in the dishwasher and head back upstairs. I grab a towel from my room and head into the bathroom, grabbing my various fur care products out of the cabinet for after the shower. As I turn the shower on, I hear the sound of my ringtone going off in the pocket of my pants on the floor. I sigh annoyedly, walking over and trying to figure out which pocket my phone was in. When I flip open the phone, the Caller ID reads out Tyler's name.

"Tyler! What's up?" I ask eagerly, hoping to find out what the news he cryptically texted about was.

"Jake- fuck, I messed up, I shouldn't have- what am I gonna do?" He said anxiously, sounding almost out of breath.

"Hey! Slow down, what's wrong?" I questioned.

"I'm such a fucking idiot! Why did I think this would be a good idea? Jake, I'm so sorry-"

"Tyler! Calm. Down. Just take a few deep breaths," I said. After a few moments, I can hear his breathing steadying on the other side of the call. "Okay, good. Now, what's wrong?"

There's a short pause as he tries to find the right words to say. It sounds like he's been crying. What even the fuck has been the past twenty-four hours?

"Can- do you think I could crash at y- your place for a few more nights? I don't know what to do."

#story #novel #interlude #writing #novel writing #vestige #town #coming of age #lgbtq #gay #furry #wattpad

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seanfalco · 4 years

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Road Trip: Punk!AU

Fandom: The Witcher Pairing: Punk!Valdo x Punk!Aevryn (oc), Punk!Geralt x Punk! Yennefer, Punk!Jaskier x Reader Word Count: 2963 Rating: T Taglist: @ficsandcatsandficsandcats, @nevadawolfe, @magic-multicolored-miracle, @coffee-and-stories a/n: This installment is really oc heavy sorryyyy. Also I’m really terrible at writing lyrics, so please forgive my shitty attempt lol. The next part will be supplied by @ficsandcatsandficsandcats :3

{Part I}{Part II}{Part III}{Part IV}

Part V - If You Need Anyone

Chicago had been fun.

After her talk with Win, Aevryn felt like a weight had been lifted from her lungs. She still wasn’t talking with Yennefer, which stung, and Valdo’s request for her to listen to his new album hung over her head, twisting her stomach anxiously, but at least one thing was okay.

I release you.

She’d finished out the rest of the city with a genuine smile on her face, glad that Jaskier had begged for them to stop and have some fun, forgetting her worries for at least a few hours.

Back in Roach Aev sat in the backseat as the others piled in for the night, exhausted, putting her earbuds in as Win’s comforting presence settled next to her. Leaning against the darkened van window she watched the dark lake shore fly by with the blur of headlights, the city skyline shrinking in the distance, an empty ache settling in her chest. Valdo’s album was set to drop soon and she didn’t know if she was ready.

True she’d put on one of his songs the other morning as she’d drove, just to hear his voice, but it had been one she’d heard many times before. This new album was uncharted territory and she worried it might dredge up more emotions she wasn’t sure if she was ready to face yet; there was still so much to unpack there, things long buried.

Unlocking her phone she opened up her twitter messages, reading them over again when a new message alert popped up.

@valdomarxofficial: Hey, happy birthday, beautiful. Am I the first to wish you that? I hope so.

Shit, she swore, eyes flicking up to the top bar of her phone that displayed the time, to see that it was indeed a couple minutes after midnight, July 31st. Her birthday.

Groaning at the thought of what embarrassing things her bandmates’ were going to attempt to do to celebrate, a slight giddiness filled her chest that Valdo had been the first to remember.

@aeverona: You are, actually. I’m impressed you remembered.

@valdomarxofficial: You wound me, love. How could I forget something so important? Are you doing anything special to celebrate?

Shaking her head fondly, Aevryn scooted down further in her seat, chewing her lip, fighting back a smile as her fingers flew over the onscreen keyboard.

@aeverona: you prick, there are a lot of important things you’ve forgotten over the years... but i’m glad you messaged me. No, we’re just driving right now, everyone’s asleep.

@valdomarxofficial: a shame, you should be the center of attention at a decadent party thrown in your honour. Perhaps i’ll have to rectify that. Well, if you have nothing better to do, consider this your birthday gift from me. x

Attached was a download link from his bandcamp and Aev sighed at the sight. He really wanted her to listen, didn’t he?

@aeverona: a bit self absorbed, are we? lol okay, i give in i’ll listen to it

Taking a deep breath she clicked the link to the download. While she waited she turned back to the window, pressing her cheek to the cool glass. She could hear Yennefer’s voice in her head, as if her friend could read her thoughts even now. Don’t. How many times are you going to let him hurt you?

She closed her eyes.

—

Yennefer pulled her cardigan tighter around her shoulders as she shifted in the passenger seat, trying to find a comfortable spot while avoiding glancing at Geralt behind the wheel. The soft music he had turned on had effectively lulled the rest of the van to sleep, but her thoughts swirled, keeping her awake.

She could sense Geralt’s eyes flicking to her every so often and sighed, sitting up in the seat, unable to will herself to sleep anyway. Her change in posture signified that she wanted to talk, but an awkward silence fell over them while Geralt merely waited.

“So… what did you and Jaskier do today when we split up?” she asked without looking at him.

Geralt glanced at her, a ghost of a smile tracing his lips for a moment.

“We climbed a rock wall.”

Yennefer jerked in surprise, her dark eyes peering back at Jaskier, snoring softly. “But he hates heights.”

“I know,” Geralt replied with a soft snort, wanting to say more, though the words died on his tongue. Silence fell once more.

Several miles passed.

“What about you and [Y/N]?”

Yennefer shrugged. “We rode the carousel and talked.”

“Oh?”

“Yep.” Yennefer answered simply. “I got to ride a dragon.”

Geralt snorted in amusement. “Very you.”

Yen’s answering laugh lifted his spirits, buoying him even as silence fell once more. At least she was talking to him again.

—

Aevryn startled awake as the van slowed, turning off the highway into a brightly lit truck stop. Geralt threw Roach into park and got out. The others stirred slightly, but no one woke. Aev looked down at her phone. Fuck, she thought angrily, Valdo’s album list staring her in the face. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. It had only been an hour and a half, but now that she was awake and filled with nervous energy she didn’t think she could just sit there.

Carefully extricating herself from the depths of the van she slipped out the sliding door, following Geralt into the rest stop. The usually stoic drummer gave a start when he turned from the cooler, drink in hand, to find her standing right behind him.

“Jesus Aev,” he growled, frowning, stepping around her to go pay.

“Can I drive for a bit, Gery?” Aevryn asked, quickly grabbing another Red Bull from the cooler before jogging to catch up to him, flashing him a smarmy smile as he grabbed a box of Little Debbie snack cakes.

“Don’t call me that,” Geralt grunted, setting his purchases on the counter. After a moment he grabbed the giant can out of her hand to set with his stuff before handing the cashier a worn twenty.

“Please?” Aevryn asked. “If I don’t keep my hands busy I’ll go crazy. And I need to keep my mind off some… stuff.”

“Hmm.”

The cashier handed him his change and Geralt handed Aev her drink.

“You’re not tired?” he asked, giving her a pointed look, his light hazel eyes studying her sharply, knowingly.

“No.”

“Hmm.” After a moment Geralt nodded and shoved the box of cakes at her. “Here. This is for you.”

Aevryn ducked her head to hide her grin as she followed Geralt back to the van, noticing the cakes were mini birthday cakes.

Taking the driver’s seat Aevryn buckled in and stuck her headphones in her ears, not wanting to face a repeat of the other morning as she listened to Valdo’s new music. If Jaskier happened to wake up and heard it he would flip his shit, and on top of everything else going on, that was the last thing Aev wanted to deal with. She still didn’t know how she was going to break it to him that she was on speaking terms with her ex again, amongst other things.

Taking a swig of her energy drink and stuffing one of the snack cakes in her mouth she turned on the first song as she pulled back onto the highway.

This album is a letter, one I should have written long ago.

Valdo’s low voice in her ear sent an involuntary shiver down her spine and her breath caught at his words, fending off the intrusive thought that he was speaking directly to her before the guitar swelled, leading into the next song and Aev nearly barked a surprised laugh at the opening notes -- a cover of one of her favourite songs.

Not usually one to care for covers, she couldn’t help but admit that it was good; Valdo’s voice filling each familiar lyric with new meaning, and again it felt as though he were singing for her and her alone, a private performance that the masses might peer into, but never truly understand. The next song was an original one, but again with an easter egg she felt was strangely meant for her to uncover. Valdo’s haunting vocals were joined by another voice, barking and raspy, and instantly recognizable to Aevryn.

That fucking bastard, she thought, shaking her head in disbelief, though a smile stole across her face like a thief. He’d just had to go and collaborate with her favourite musician -- one so obscure that not even Jaskier knew she listened to. Now he was just showing off.

As she continued to listen, each song had something jump out at her, some lyric that tickled her memory or a reference to some in-joke shared between the two of them as teens, and it was becoming more and more difficult to believe that these were just coincidences. Looking down at her phone she realized she was already on the final song and that’s when it happened.

The opening notes were accompanied by a lonely piano chord and the instant mood change gripped her, holding her hostage as she listened raptly, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. Valdo’s voice trembled with emotion, weaving poetry that would certainly steal anyone’s breath away -- personal and raw, but the words hit her like a train, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open.

Darling, it was always you, since day one, I knew, I was smitten, I admit, but it was more than that. After all, ‘just friends’ don’t look at each other like that. ‘Just friends’ don’t kiss each other like that.

It nearly took this immature fuckup too long to realize, What you meant when you said I needed you. And by then it was almost too late. How was I to know you’d need me too? I never told you, when you lay in that hospital bed, unsure if you’d ever wake, It nearly killed me, it drove me mad. Not caring what might become of me I went to his house and I went to bat, I lashed out in hate. Please don’t tell me it was all for nothing...

Her throat suddenly dry, Aevryn swallowed as the song continued on.

It was her. It was their life.

Had he really done that, she wondered, her breath shallow as a memory she’d fought hard to bury surfaced hazily. When she’d woke in the hospital after telling him why she’d done it, he was lying in the bed with her, his cut lip and bruised knuckles standing out in stark relief now. She’d never really questioned where they came from before.

“Oh my God,” she whispered; her hand covering her mouth as her lip trembled and a single tear fell.

This song was about her, for her. No, not just this song, she realized -- “this album is a letter…”

As Valdo continued to spin their story, the highs and the heartbreaks, his fuck-ups and regrets -- it broke her anew and soon she was wracked with silent sobs, tears flowing freely down her cheeks til she could barely see the road before her.

Forgive me Aev, I never deserved you in the first place, but I want to be the man that does.

In the passenger seat Yennefer stretched, a soft sound catching her attention and she opened her eyes slowly.

“Aev?” she asked softly, noticing her friend in the driver’s seat. Then she noticed she was crying. “Fuck, Aev! What’s wrong?” Yennefer sat up quickly, reaching out to touch Aevryn’s arm.

“That fucking bastard,” she managed to choke out, crying harder and Yennefer quickly glanced in the back to make sure it hadn’t woken anyone else. Her violet eyes swung back to Aevryn and then noticed the wires going to her ears connected to her phone and she snatched it up, her stomach dropping when she saw what her friend was listening to.

“Aevryn, why?” she demanded, disappointment and anguish thick in her voice. “Why would you do this to yourself?”

“He asked me to listen to it,” she sobbed. “It was for me. The whole damned thing!”

“Aev, I think you need to pull over,” Yennefer urged, anxiously eyeing the sign for the next turn off.

Aevryn nodded and did as she was asked, barely able to see through her tears. As soon as Roach was stopped, she jumped out, walking swiftly away, though not as if she knew where to. “Aev!” Yennefer called after her, circling the van to chase after her.

At the slam of the van door Geralt sat up abruptly as the others stirred groggily.

“What was that? Why are we stopped?” Jaskier asked, looking around, the feeling that something wasn’t right gripping him, waking him faster. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Geralt answered, worriedly watching Yennefer take off after Aevryn.

—

“Aevryn!” Yennefer finally caught up to her friend and grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks. “Talk to me, please,” she begged. She’d never seen Aev look so lost.

Wiping her jacket sleeve across her damp face, Aevryn sniffled, trying to calm her breaths. “I knew you’d tell me not to listen to it, but… but I did. I couldn’t help it. I had to know why he wanted me to hear it so badly. And I know now. It was for me. It was his apology. The whole fucking thing. He even released it on my fucking birthday.”

Yennefer gaped at her, unsure how to respond. If what she said was true… well, it certainly sounded exactly like something Valdo would do; he was nothing if not that extra.

“Just… just listen to the last song,” Aevryn exclaimed, holding out her phone. Wordlessly Yen took it and put the earbuds in her ears.

It felt like an eternity elapsed as Aev waited, Yennefer’s face an unreadable mask as she listened. When it was done Yennefer took a deep breath and pulled the headphones from her ears.

“I must admit he certainly has gone to lengths to get his point across.”

“I still love him, Yen,” Aevryn said softly.

“I know,” Yennefer replied simply, holding her arms out.

With a soft sob Aev surged forward and Yennefer wrapped her arms around her, letting her cry against her chest, her fingers combing through her friend’s messy hair til she was all cried out.

“I want to make it work,” she said thickly through the remnants of her tears. “I want to give him a second chance.”

“I know,” Yennefer murmured soothingly, her heart twisting with hope and fear for her friend. She knew all she could do now was support her in her decision.

“I’m so sorry Yen,” she exclaimed, tears running down her cheeks once more. “I don’t want us to fight anymore. I want you to look after me.”

“I will always look after you. You know that.” Yen’s voice shook as her arms tightened around Aevryn. That was how Geralt found them and Yennefer raised her eyes meeting his silent gaze as she gave Aev one last squeeze before stepping back.

“I need to call him,” Aevryn murmured absently, glancing over her shoulder to throw an imploring look at Geralt before directing it at Yennefer, who knew what she was asking of them wordlessly.

“Don’t worry about the others,” Yennefer said, smoothing Aevryn’s hair with her hands. “We’ll be waiting at the van.”

With a nod Aev watched Yennefer and Geralt head back and she waited for them to pass out of sight before pulling her phone out. Despite the hour she had a feeling that Valdo was waiting for her call and sure enough the phone only rang once before he answered.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Aev whispered, her voice trembling. “I listened to it.”

“Yeah?” Valdo asked, the hope in his tone unmistakable.

“Yeah. You fucking asshole, you could have warned me,” she exclaimed, though there was no heat in it. “Did you mean it -- everything you said in there? You’re being absolutely serious?”

“Serious as a heart attack, babe.”

“Please don’t joke right now, Valdo.”

“I’m not.” She could hear him breathe, a shaky sound that rattled her own chest. “Can I see you?”

“Yeah. I’d like that,” Aev answered, a small smile tugging at her lips.

—

“Yen, Geralt, what the fuck is going on? Is Aev okay?” Jaskier demanded as his bandmates walked side by side back to Roach. You and Win were both out of the van as well, worry gripping you as Jaskier’s tension bled into you.

“She’s alright,” Yennefer answered as Geralt clapped a hand to Jaskier’s shoulder as he passed.

“But-but what’s going on?” he asked, the helplessness in his voice twisting your heart.

The sigh that left Yennefer’s lungs was heavy with the secrets she couldn’t yet tell him. For it truly wasn’t her place to tell Jaskier, though she also didn’t like keeping him in the dark. Beside Valdo he was Aevryn’s oldest friend.

“She listened to something that made her a little emotional and I didn’t want her to crash the van because she was crying.”

It technically wasn’t a lie.

“What did she--?” Jaskier cut off before finishing his question, his lips twitching into a frown. “Aevryn…” he grumbled, something akin to exasperation creeping into his voice as he closed his eyes.

Just then she walked back to the van, stopping next to Yennefer, looking rather small. “I’m okay now. I’m sorry for worrying everyone,” she said softly, not quite meeting Jaskier’s gaze before climbing back into the van.

“Jask?” you asked, slipping your hand in his as you looked up at him.

He watched his friend, worrying his lip, clear blue eyes cloudy with worry and hurt. “If what I think is happening, I’ll kill him.”

#punk!au #road trip series #punk!jaskier #punk!geralt #punk!yennefer #punk!aevryn #punk!valdo #punk!jaskier x reader #punk!geralt x punk!yennefer #punk!valdo x oc #valdryn

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thethirdwheel404 · 4 years

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Med Rewatch Series (#1)

Right, monkey brain said no sleep no rest, only suffering at the hands of med.

I am going to start with the first episode of S2: Soul Care. Reasoning? I need to check if Latham references Ava in his first interaction with Connor.

If my memory serves me right, when Connor is passed over to Latham for his fellowship, Latham says that he was not his first choice. In fact, his first choice was a brilliant surgeon from South Africa. In the first episode of S2, a season where Ava Bekker is only introduced with one line at the end of the last episode.

If I remember correctly and Latham does actually say that in the first ep of s2, it will be huge for the continuity (and my theory that I came up with today, if you’re interested in following this you should really read that really long post that came a little before this where the basis of the theory is laid out).

Also in rewatching this I see more of Sarah which, again, I have not seen in two years, and she was the reason I became invested in the show, and the reason I stopped watching after she left.

And all of this even before I start the episode.

There are so many emotions and thoughts running through my brain it literally hurts. I think i’m getting a headache. I’m already really regretting this, this cannot be healthy for me.

(btw, this will basically be a train of thought type thing, I’ll do my best to keep it coherent)

- omg its starting

- i completely forgot how s1 ended but its not importnat in anyway

- just, why are they in a helicopter

- how fast does the episode move ive forgotten and i need to know

-JESUS CHRIST SO DRAMATIC

- THE BEGINNING WITH WILL WHY

- it is at this point where I apologize to all those who made it this far bc we’re literally not even 30 seconds in yet

- i just have a lot of med thoughts

- oh god save me

- i am laughing hysterically

- JESUS CHRIST THE APRIL TB STORYLINE AND TATE WTF

- god that feels like a lifetime ago it was relevant holyshit

-remember when she was pregnant?

- literally what have I missed

- side note, i really like the cup april drinks out of.

-THERE SHE IS

-SARAH

-SHE’S HERE

-and she’s a barista

-literally wtf is this show

-and the dramatic music is still going literally chill man god

-THE WAY SARAH SMILES HOLY SHITTTT come on man there was literally no way i’d survive this but fuck not even a minute in...

- okay but i never understood charles’ family scenario but this is already too fucking long for a minute in so i hope we can just skip past that

-hahahah sharon’s fucking divorce? holy shit, this is too dramatic for the first ep literally save me (at least she acts well)

-yeah the one thing I will say about med (thats a lie ive already said a hundred but yk) is that for the crap storylines and all, the actors take what they’re given and give it their all and i appreciate it so much

-the helicopter’s number is N365UCC and just... succ

-ethans bird (!)

-also the fact that’s so big for ethan to be chief resident is so weird to me. like the last medical drama I watched was greys and they are all like grizzled veterans and have been doing that stuff for actual decades and i tend to put med and greys on like the same level bc they are the only medical dramas ive watched but.. holy crap the people on med are so young?? half their main cast is med students and residents. when nearly every main character on greys is a department head. its wild.

-proud of ethan. proud of my boy (did you know that adam jacobs who played aladdin on broadway was in a s3 episode? fun facts) (fun fact: did you know that ava is the only main character on the show who’s status is now deceased? I’ll shut up now.)

-oh my god i say roland buck III’s name and GOD noah jesus

- i find noah incredibly annoying, especially bc he tries to overshadow reese (my fav) but also just bc hes spoiled [that thing that said that one of the biggest mistakes med made was not having sarah get the emergency med residency at the end of s1 comes to mine, and the fact that noah got his residency easy peasy] - but, i will say that the moment at the end of this season where noah and reese dance together at the party is very adorable. (pre reesker brain showing lmao I really did love sarah with my whole heart) (moreover my snapchat memories were filled with just recordings of reese scenes lmaooooo)

-okay at this point I need to stop once i get to the potential ava thing bc what is happening we’re not even two minutes in why is this so long. (so many thoughts)

- i find will annoying but,,, he is kind of nice to look at. and what i mean is like facial acting (i am a lesbian). like. just. don’t speak. and when he’s being a good character he’s fine. it’s very few and very far between ig

-natalie annoys me so much and shes only had one line, and it wasn’t even a character line, it was mainly exposition.

-EW

-FUCKING EW

-ITS CONNOR HE’S HERE. god i forgot what he looked like in red scrubs and his poofy hair. child compared to s3 and s4. hopefully we see latham soon so we all don’t have to suffer through this. and he looks so angsty. he definetly glowed up in the later seasons.

- i have no clue how to spell definetly. I am guessing literally everytime.

-latham please come and end this all.

-oh haha there’s downey hes dead.

-okay so i actually watched s1 after i watched s2 which is so weird to think about. like that means that i liked s2 so much that i BOUGHT THE DVD FOR S1. yeah. I liked it that much (it really only means I was that much of a simp for sarah). but it also means that technically i watched s1 after i met ava?? like i honestly had NO CLUE what was in my future. did young me ever think she was going to stay up late at night, avoiding history hw while analyzing a defunct character from this show on a whim? a character i was super annoyed with at the beginning? who has no become a huge part of my personality? honestly? no. no she did not.

-and the story with downey was so jarring. and the story with zanetti. like i think i first started watching with the first ep of s2 (the one im talking about rn) and i was a bit lost. so going back and watch s1 to like connect the dots. but i never expected the dots to look like that. its like each season of this show is a completely different show from all the other seasons. like i’ve said before, this show is a headache. but literally latham please come and end this for now.

-GOD CONNOR LOOKS SO YOUNG WHAT THE HELL thats so weird lmaooooo

- like i had absolutely no clue who downey was going into this. and they they started talking like ‘oh yeah he killed his attending’ and i was just like ‘damn bro ill cheers to that’

- that’s literally ava’s first line actually. “i heard your girlfriend went insane and you murdered your attending.” - which was why she was hated at first. that was literally her first line to connor which is like, so hilariously rude that it was instantly iconic.

-also HAHAHAHAH CUE FUCKING ANGST ABOUT CONNOR HURTING EVERYONE AROUND HIM WTF BRO THE EFFECT YOU HAVE ON PEOPLE

- but i’m also sad now. --- “I heard your girlfriend went insane.” Oh. Oh, sweetie. Ava... No. --- but why does s2 ava (all two lines) foreshadow s4 ava in so many ways. like literally what were the writers on.

-baghdad.

-ah yes. the return of baghdad. been a long time since i heard that one, but it is easily one of my favorite running things about med. its just a little detail but the nick name is like perfect. (when i read fanfic where the chars are actually doing doctor stuff in the hospital it makes me light up) the WORLD BUILDINGGGGG. but whatever

-this is the girl who has the fake baby right? that was a really good ep (bc sarah content. can you see my favorites? for the same reason the one where the girl has split personalities easily ranks high with me.) oh wait this is the one where the dad like dies but then comes back for a split second to see his grand child. there’s not really a lot I can say about that, but the fact that i remember it vividly is... weird.

-okay but I actually love the ED in this show. I love how the show is centered around the ED and not the OR like greys. its fast paced, you see a lot about the characters really quickly (one of the reason’s connor’s intro to the hospital in the pilot is certified iconic in my mind [his interactions with will are gold]). the team works well together (usually, when things are good. - which is another reason I hated the show more as time went on. The personal lives interfered more and more and more with their work as time went on. it got so annoying). but like right here will just calls maggies name and maggie is just On It. I love it. I love the fast pace. it’s why this show got me to come back. so many things happen, it overloads my brain, like the way a video game works y occupying all of your attention.

-when is the dad gonna pass out i’m just waiting

-AHAHAHAHAHA JEFF NOOOOO. what even was the deal with jeff that storyline annoyed me so much I never got it. he was friends with nat’s husband (who died) and they were both named Jeff? and she actually ended up getting with Jeff a few times?

- the more you watch med and see how the characters get with each other, the more jaded you become

-omg they’re transferring the girl to the bed i love it when they count

-maggie was great but from what i heard/read they ruined her character too??? just not the same

-lmao only real g’s remember the chicago fire backdoor med pilot (if you want an explanation ask me lmao it was a ride)

- i was a real med simp bc I bought that episode on apple video.

-ahahaha this is so stupid. Jeff tries to do things and Will (being a fucking asshole and jealous, doesnt’ let him). he’s a med student let him fucking learn. also i remember why i hated will

-okay but if you look at greys vs. med, greys literally gives their med students no rights. scratch that. they give they’re interns little to no rights. (i only watched the last three seasons bc lesbian, but in those seasons they introduce the bottom of the totem pole, the sub I’s, who are a step ahead of med students, yet they are jokes on the show.) its just a weird juxtaposition is all.

-”lungs are wet.” dramatic music intensifies.

-OKAY BUT I LITERALLY FORGOT NATALIE SPECIALIZED IN PEDS. LIKE I COMPLETELY 100% FORGOT. HOLY SHIT THATS SO FUNNY i can’t believe in my mass hyperfixation i forgot, just more proof that she doesn’t deserve anything.

-why did will make nat do that call? also idk why but is it weird to anyone else when the characters call each other but just.. their names.

-ahahahah i laugh literally everytime i remember that will is supposed to be in charge like he is threatened by anything that MOVES. (also more juxtapositon to greys bc here the attendings are treated as a joke!)

- hly shit i just remember monday mourning and god damn the angst literally never takes a day off but whatever.

- i dont usually get like this but the dad’s acting here is actually making me sad lol. Usually i get annoyed when family members get emotional (im weird uhhhh)

-why did we have to watch the tube being put in for so long - med is so dramatic this fucking show whyyyy

- i bet u the dad is gonna pass out

-oh ig not oops

-OKAY FUCK ME THAT LITERALLY ONLY TOOK US TO THE TITLES HOW DO I HAVE THESE MANY FUCKING THOUGHTS.

-wait latham introduction we may just be able to call it here.

-haha i fucking hate him (connor). he just... comes off so fake-charming its annoying. i cant get over it lmao

-okay but literally every gives connor shit and I am here for it. Latham: “did you kill him?”

- it is literally so funny but annoy how connor throws hands with literally everyone in his path (like dude just chill come onnn)

-okay. okay. okay. finally the part i was waiting for.

- Latham: I preferred a young woman from Groote Schuur, but I was outvoted.

That’s an actual quote, from Latham. For those who are wondering, Groote Schuur is a famous hospital in, you guessed it, South Africa. This is where I’m calling the episode. This is all I needed.

I just want to restate. This is the first episode of season 2. Ava Bekker is introduced to the show in the last episode of season 2. What does this mean, my friends? It means everything.

For those of you who stuck through to the end, I am very thankful. Here we have probably the first piece of evidence to my theory, at least chronologically.

I, personally, think it’s absurd I remembered this point, but I did. That point, that line, presently, watching this episode with no idea of what the future holds, is only there to tell us that Latham and Connor are not going to agree. But this is the single greatest piece of foreshadowing med has ever done.

Med has never planned anything. I feel confident when I say that. Look at their storylines. They are literally on fire, and every decision the characters make reads like the writers going ‘we have no idea how we made it this far, we thought we would get stopped like ten steps ago.’

When has med ever planned things more than a few episodes in advanced, honestly? Almost never, and going a full season sitting on a plot point, that’s major. This was the first time med has ever planned something miles in advance.

In all honestly, yes I am probably giving the med writers a lot more credit than they deserve. It’s quite possible that as the season progressed they just decided connor needed a new love interest or at least a new dynamic, so they could have just easily looked back and thought ‘oh, hey, here’s a fun little thing we said earlier in the season, wouldn’t it be fun if it paid off?’ That could be true.

Here’s why it probably isn’t. The med writers have no respect for their own continuity. you really think that, in order to come up with a whole new character, they went back to the first episode of the season and paid off a line that is said in less than 2 seconds? no way. Bull. Shit.

honestly, it is probably equally unlikely that either of these things happened. The med writers don’t look back at their story. It’s true, but they also don’t plan things in advance either.

here’s the thing, the more i write, the more absurd it starts to sound. Yeah. Sure. the med writers sat on a character for an entire season, that’s totally a thing that happened and not sarcasm. When pigs fly. everyone knows med is impulsive and messy. But what I am saying is that they planned one thing. One thing.

Ava has an accent. That was a commitment. A pretty uncommon one too. South Africa is such an out of the box choice that god its barely on the map. It asks a lot of someone to act hard while also doing an uncommon accent. If the med writers just decided they needed to give connor a new dynamic, they could have made it a n y o n e. Yeah, sure it would have been nice to have the latham dynamic with the new character, but it would have been so much easier to just create a new character that doesn’t have such a commitment. We all know people who play opposite of Connor Rhodes do not stay around that long.

There is absolutely no reason Connor’s s3 love interest had to be the girl from South Africa. It could have literally been anyone. They could have kept Robin on. They could have made the new character not have so many specific requirements.

At this point, I’m pushing this really hard. Yeah, obviously Ava was planned from the beginning of s2. She had to be. It’s way too specific to be anything else.

What I’m pointing out here is med has never done that before. (at least to my knowledge, if i’m wrong please tell me i don’t want to be a fool) They have never had such a concrete plan for a character, so much as to tease them a full season before they were introduced.

I’m saying, that Ava was special. She was the only character who was teased ahead of her arrival. The one who they knew they wanted, other than the originals, and honestly saying the ‘knew what they wanted to do with the originals’ is being generous. But Ava was different. They had big plans for Ava.

It’s undeniable. Ava was the only character who was planned and teased ahead of her arrival. Ava has such a different style and character than anyone else on the show. She was always planned to be, even when she was just being teased, a rival to connor, meaning she could stand her own against him (or without him).

Now of course, the med writers forgot this when writing s4 and s5. But for the purposes of the important things, all that really matters are the two mentions in s2, and what happens in s3. (for the theory at least).

In conclusion: think about how odd it is that Ava was the only character that was planned over the course of the show. Like sure the characters are planned, but never this far in advance. Med writers don’t really plan anything. I would be shocked if they did anything but through a dart at a spinning wheel. But they had plans for Ava, and they had plans for s3, when she was good.

Think about how odd it is that the med writers had a character planned from the start of s2, that they sat on for a whole season. They never, ever did something so slow and deliberate. Never. It goes against their formula. Like a fucking shark, they have to be moving or they die, at least in their heads. But Ava was always a change to the formula. They had a plan for s3.

that’s it for now. we will see what happens when i watch the last episode of s2.

read the next parts:

Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Extra

#chicago med #med rewatch series #mine #soul care #ava bekker

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ltworld · 4 years

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Revelation, Coronavirus, and the Mark of the Beast: How Should Christians Read the Bible’s Most Fascinating Book? Part 1

Kevin DeYoung

Whenever there is a cataclysmic global crisis—be it war, rumors of war, or a novel coronavirus—we see a sharp uptick of interest in the book of Revelation. While paying attention to the Bible is always a good thing, Revelation is too often used (by Christians and non-Christians) in a way that does less to edify the body of Christ and more to stoke the fires of wild speculation and unfounded conspiracy theories.

It may be helpful, then, to understand what kind of book Revelation is and how to make sense of imagery like the mark of the beast. We’ll get to the mark of the beast in the third and final installment of this short series. But before we get there I want to take a couple posts to look at what Revelation is all about and how we should interpret this not-as-strange-as-it-seems book.

Big Picture

Probably no book of the Bible has been harder for Christians to understand and, as a result, produced more bizarre theology than the book of Revelation. Although it is called “revelation,” it has been anything but a revelation for many Christians. It is a closed book for many of us, not correcting, not teaching, not rebuking, not training in righteousness like all Scripture should.

I remember teaching through part of Revelation for a Sunday school class several years ago and telling my mom about it over the phone. She said something like, “Kevin, you’re not going act like you have everything figured out are you? John Calvin didn’t even write a commentary on Revelation. You don’t know more than John Calvin, do you?” It is true that Calvin did not write a commentary on Revelation (one of the few books he didn’t write on), and it’s true that I don’t have everything figured out. But most of Revelation can be understood and applied if we will take the time to study it.

In fact, the entire book of Revelation can be summed up in one word: nike. Nike is the Greek word for victory. It occurs one time in the New Testament—1 John 5:4 states, “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” Another form of the word (nikos) appears four other times, three times in 1 Corinthians 15 (e.g., “Death has been swallowed up in victory;” “He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”). The verb form, nikao (meaning to conquer, to overcome, to triumph), occurs more frequently—28 times. Seventeen of those occurrences, more than in the rest of the New Testament combined, are in Revelation.

Revelation is the story of the Devil trying to conquer the church, but the church overcomes the Devil and the world because she belongs to the Lord who has won for us the victory (Rev. 5:5; 17:14). The book of Revelation gives instruction for the believer on how to conquer instead of being conquered, how to triumph instead of being trampled, and how to be an overcomer instead of a succumber. That’s why each of the seven letters to the seven churches concludes with “to the one who conquers . . .” If we cave and give in to persecution and give into worldliness and give into the Devil’s temptations, we will lose. But if we overcome through trial and suffering and seeming irrelevance, we will win (Rev. 21:6-7). That’s where history is heading, and that’s the big idea of Revelation.

(Possible) Map for the (Seeming) Madness

There is no one inspired way to understand the structure of Revelation. When studying this book in-depth several years ago, I found 11 different outlines, which suggests there probably isn’t one obvious structure we’re supposed to see.

One simple approach is to see Revelation as divided into two main sections. Chapters 1-11 introduce the story of God’s triumph, and chapters 12-22 explain the story in greater detail, this time unveiling in more depth the role of evil through the beast, the false prophet, and the whore of Babylon.

Another way of approaching the book is to divide it into four main sections, each marked off by the phrase “what must soon take place” or “what must take place after this.”

Rev. 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things that must soon take place.

Rev. 1:19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.

Rev. 4:1 “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

Rev. 22:6 “And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”

The language in these four passages comes from Daniel 2 and indicates that Old Testament prophecy is already and not yet completed in Revelation.

There’s another way to outline the book into four main sections. This approach marks out the times John says he was caught up in the Spirit.

Rev. 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.

Rev. 4:2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.

Rev. 17:3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness.

Rev. 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

By this reckoning, Revelation consists of four main visions that John saw while he was in the Spirit on four different occasions.

Yet one more way of approaching the book—and the approaches are not mutually exclusive—is to look for sets of sevens. Everyone recognizes that seven is a crucial number in Revelation, and that there are at least four sets of sevens: seven letters, seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. This much everyone agrees on. But from here things get less clear. Since there are plainly at least four sets of sevens, many scholars have wondered if we are meant to see seven sets of sevens. I am convinced there are seven sets of sevens, but I certainly wouldn’t be dogmatic about it. My outline, which is similar to outlines I’ve seen from others, looks like this:

Prologue: 1:1-8 I. Seven letters: 1:9-3:22 II. Seven seals: 4:1-8:5 III. Seven trumpets: 8:6-11:19 IV. Seven visions: 12:1-15:4 V. Seven bowls: 15:5-16:21 VI. Seven judgments: 17:1-19:10 VII. Seven last things: 19:11-21:8 VIII. The beautiful bride: 21:9-22:21

You’ll notice there is an eighth section that is not a set of seven. An eighth section makes sense because eight is often the number of new creation in the Bible (Jesus rose on the eighth day/first day of a new week, eight people started the new humanity after the flood, sons were to be circumcised on the eighth day), and this eighth section is about the new heavens and new earth. But there is nothing inspired about the outline above. It’s just one way of making the book more manageable and putting together some possible patterns with some obvious ones.

Our Interpretive Lens

The last thing I want to do in this post is look at the various ways Christians have understood Revelation. There are four main schools of thought.

The first school of interpretation is called preterism. The preterist approach teaches that a large portion of the book of Revelation was fulfilled in the first century, specifically in the destruction of the temple in AD 70. Further, most of the prophecies in Revelation were fulfilled by the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century.

The strength of the preterist school is that it puts Revelation in its original context. Revelation was written to first-century Christians with first-century metaphors and imagery and referents. If we jump to the 21st century and ask, “What does this mean for me?,” we will almost surely get the wrong answer. We have to first ask, “What did this mean to them, to John’s original audience?”

Preterism is not without weaknesses. First, some preterists try to find a single, specific fulfillment to the prophecies of Revelation when it seems more likely that John’s visions often portray generalized spiritual battles and struggles that occur throughout the ages. Second, full-blown preterists argue that all of the end-time events, like the second coming and the last judgment, actually were fulfilled by AD 70. This does not seem in keeping with the cataclysmic language used at the end of each sequence.

The second school of interpretation is called historicism. The historicist reads Revelation as a straightforward, sequential roadmap of history. Revelation is seen as predicting any number of key historical figures and events from Napoleon to Hitler to the European Union to the United Nations.

The strength of historicism is that it makes Revelation relevant for all Christians. It focuses our attention not on the fall of the temple or on the Roman Empire but on the way of the church in the world.

But besides this strong point, historicism is the worst way to try to understand Revelation. It is full of weaknesses. Let me quickly mention just four.

First, historicism is often anachronistic and takes Revelation out of its original context. I am thinking of those who argued that the country out of the north (from Daniel, not Revelation) must be Russia, or that the locust swarm from Revelation 9 is foretelling a helicopter battalion. These sorts of interpretations completely ignore the imagery of ancient prophecy and the context of the first century.

Second, historicism, with its end-of-the-world predictions and identifications of the beast, has often been demonstrably wrong. During the cold war, people saw Russia in Revelation. A decade ago they saw Iraq. Now they see the coronavirus. In a few years, they will be on to something else. Historicists tend to see Revelation being fulfilled in whatever crisis is pertinent for the day. And then on another day, another group of historicists see that view was wrong and find something completely different.

Third, historicism limits the prophecies of Revelation to one exclusive location or personality instead of allowing that the imagery of Revelation may be well suited to an inclusive number of different figures and times. That is, I think historicists are right to see Revelation unfolding in history, but they are wrong to think that Revelation is uniquely unfolding in one historical moment.

Fourth, historicism is irreducibly subjective. There is simply no objective standard of interpretation. Who’s to say that Hitler was more the beast than Stalin? Or that 666 is a reference to Bill Clinton (as one website I found argues)? Or, as another article maintains, that Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each of his names!) was the beast? It’s all hopelessly subjective. The text ends up saying anything we want it to.

The third school of interpretation is futurism. The futurist reads Revelation (chs. 4-22) as a prophecy solely concerned with the distant future. The events depicted refer to the time involving, or immediately preceding, the end of history. Dispensationalists are futurists (though not all futurists are dispensationalists).

The strength of futurism is that it emphasizes how Revelation speaks to the future, not just about the past. Futurism is right to see that some things in Revelation deal with the final consummation of human history. Futurists are also right to see that the future is moving somewhere, toward the triumph of the Lamb.

But futurism also has weaknesses.

First, if Revelation 4-22 is entirely and only about the distant future, then most of Revelation was barely relevant to its original readers. Sure, it would have helped them see the end of the world, but it really spoke little into their immediate context (when John says Revelation revealed “what must soon take place”).

Second, futurism often assumes a strict sequential chronology. And yet, we cannot assume that what is shown to us in chapter 12 comes in time after what we see in chapter 6. To the contrary, one of the keys to interpreting Revelation is to understand that its visions are recapitulated. So, Revelation gives us a sweep through history in the seven seals, and then does the sweep again in the seven bowls. Revelation comprises overlapping prophecies that go back and forth between the present and the future and are not strictly chronological.

Don’t think of the visions of Revelation as frames from a movie reel running through the light one after the other. Think of the visions as portraits in a gallery. You look at one portrait and get a glimpse of reality, and then you look at the next portrait, and then you walk over to the next room and look at the portraits over there. They are pictures telling the same story and pointing to the same reality, but they aren’t sequential clips from a movie.

The fourth school of interpretation is idealism. The idealist reads Revelation as a symbolic conflict between the forces of good and evil. Revelation, idealists argue, does not point to particular historical figures but depicts the timeless struggle between God and Satan. It interprets Revelation as a series of repeated symbolic pictures, focusing on the church’s triumphant struggle from the first century until the last judgment and the eternal state.

The strength of idealism is that is understands the symbolic nature of Revelation. It realizes that Revelation’s imagery is rooted first in Old Testament language and second in the known world of the first century. The other strength is that it sees behind the first-century context deeper spiritual realities that would outlive and transcend ancient Rome and remain relevant for believers throughout the ages.

The weakness of idealism is that it can at times under-emphasize the fact that all of history is moving somewhere. That is, idealism sometimes sounds vague, as if there were no end point in history as we know it, as if Revelation was just about the struggle between good and evil and not also about the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ.

Interpret the Book

So what approach do I think helps us best understand Revelation? I think each approach offers something needed. This doesn’t mean that I think every approach is good or that one is not better than another (I’m basically an idealist with a partial preterist bent). But each school of interpretation does offer something important.

With the preterist, we must read Revelation in its immediate context.

With the idealist, we must look at Revelation as a symbolic portrayal of God’s work, most of which can be applied to any historical time.

With the futurist, we must read Revelation with end of history in mind, recognizing that the book depicts, in parts, the second coming, the final judgment, and the eternal state.

And with the historicist, we must understand that the prophecies of Revelation, though they are not limited to one particular occurrence, are fulfilled in time and space.

The best way to defend one’s interpretive grid is to actually interpret the book. But since this is a three-part blog series and not a 50-part sermon series, we will have to settle for just one more post on the subject. In the first three verses, John makes clear that this book is an apocalypse, a prophecy, and a letter. Once we know what each of the terms entail, we will be better equipped to understand the book as a whole and specific imagery like the mark of the beast.

Note: This post was first published through The Gospel Coalition website.

#deyoung #revelation

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thegeminisage · 5 years

Text

alright im about to watch 5.03 of merlin for the 2nd time ever

because if i dont do it now i may NEVER GET ANOTHER CHANCE

but first i wanna get out of the way that i thought merlin convincing arthur to keep the ban on magic in 5.05 because he was trying to thwart ~*~destiny~*~ or whatever is the laziest writing ever, it’s unsatisfying for the audience, it renders the rest of the last season utterly pointless, it’s unfair to merlin and arthur, and the tonal shift of the show from farting trolls in season 2 to full greek tragedy in season 5 was completely unwarranted and i feel TRICKED as a human person because i expected the end to be bittersweet and make me sad, not table-flipping angry, and i do not at all have high hopes for the finale

but i can ignore something having a “bad last five minutes” i did it for life is strange and final fantasy 13-2 i will do it for merlin but honestly

speaking on 5.03, after it was over the first time i was like “i can never write my fanfic now because nothing i ever do will be as good as that” but i’m really relieved in that way that that was apparently the last good episode of merlin because now i can continue my work in peace and maybe hopefully even actually finish it

okay commence the liveblog:

love that arthur and merlin are down to just jump off their horses whenever random women start screaming in the distance. season 5 could have been so good, they’re so much more grown up and in sync with one another, i absolutely LOVE their #vibe

it was interesting to me also that arthur DEMANDED a fair trial for this woman despite her being accused of sorcery. god, he was SO CLOSE?? that hatred of magic just can’t really take root in him especially with uther gone...arthur may be an asshole in the early seasons, and he may be quick to anger and quick to lash out in that anger, but it’s just not in him to be cruel, especially needlessly

EVEN THIS LADY IS LIKE “u showed kindness and compassion” arthur is a Good Boy deep down he is he IS he didn’t care a bit about that horn she gave him but still politely said it was beautiful

although lmao the way his face changed when she said it was magic...that’s the STUFF

lowkey losing it at athony head in the credits. i was looking to see if he’d be in the s5 ones since he’s dead and didn’t see him in 5.01 or 5.02 so when i DID see him in 5.03 i was like haha no way did they pay to put him in here i guess i just missed him the first couple of times BUT I WAS WRONG

like, in buffy, they spend an entire episode trying to decide whether or not to necromance their mom or whatever and she doesnt actually APPEAR IN THE EP they never SEE her i thought this would be an episode ABOUT uther i didn’t think uther would be IN it

love that from the get-go arthur’s face screams “i am thinking about making a terrible mistake” and merlin’s face is like “he is thinking about making a terrible mistake”

i’m quite proud of merlin in s5 actually. bad writing aside he uses multiple braincells many times per episode. it’s a vast improvement. same energy as clary from shadowhunters right down to getting shafted in his final season

ive said it before and ill say it again gwen looks SOOO GOOOOD as queen

if this is the anniversary of uther’s death then (if you go by 1 season = 1 year) arthur just turned 30...it’s been nine years and change since merlin met him, and by the end of season 5 it will have been an entire decade

in an otherwise increddibly heavy episode arthur panicking and throwing all the apples out of the bowl so he could cover the horn with it is absolutely priceless. season 5 if nothing else has really hammered home for me what a TERRIBLE liar arthur is - merlin got good at it fast out of necessity but arthur can’t hold a poker face to save his LIFE. “leave it.” “why??” “because i’m telling you to and i’m the king of camelot” buddy......

we were ROBBED. if there had ever been a day where arthur came to accept merlin’s magic but still had to help merlin hide it there could have been an entire episode of arthur nearly blowing merlin’s cover because he’s a nervous nelly and at the end he goes “i cant believe you have had to do this 24/7 for YEARS without a single friend to help you” and merlin goes “well now i have you” anyway.

i love also that repeatedly when arthur goes to do something scary by himself he also brings merlin. they LITERALLY are two halves of a whole

“you’re threatening me with a spoon??” i can’t tell you about the unfortunate fanfics i have seen involving The Spoon. i shall also not mention the ones involving The Glove. we will not speak of it

I CANNOT BELIEVE STONEHENGE IS IIN MERLIN. i got so agitated i did not pay one bit of attention to the conversation following its reveal and me and cathy and had to rewind so i could listen properly

my hate-on for stonehenge goes thusly: stonehenge apocalypse, starring misha collins, is @callowyn‘s favorite movie. i have seen it 45 times. i hate it nearly as much as she loves it. it’s an age-old battle

merlin is so intense when he looks for signs in arthur that he DOESN’T totally hate magic...arthur using magic to see his dad again is one of those signs. he’s willing to turn to it in desperation - maybe he’d be willing in less desperate times too

“my father was taken from me before his time” i mean...he was practically in a coma. so like. he wasn’t

love that when arthur mentions merlins dad ONCE he immediately looks like he’s about to cry. mood. i also want to cry every time i think about merlins dad

up until the moment i laid eyes on uther i was SURE they werent actually gonna do it. i came into this thinking it was a FLASHBACK EP

for the record (and believe me i NEVER thought i’d say this) even though i waited and waited for his demise and cheered when he was gona for good...i really missed uther in season 4. at least with uther you know what you’re getting. agravaine (his replacement as “evil guy who keeps us from being able to solve our problems too easily”) was a slimy cowardly CREEP. and in season 5 i WISH things were as simple as “work around uther’s pigheaded unreasonableness”

for a hot second i really thought uther and arthur would have a nice conversation where they reconciled or said something heartwarming. i was worried about an uther redemption arc - this guy is responsible for the genocide of magic users, he doesn’t deserve redemption - but this show said NOT TODAY and they said it QUICK

ARE

BLESSED

i have A LOT of issues with season 5 but JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS WAS DADDY ISSUES 2.0 BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD

repressed trauma returns: harder better faster stronger!! that’s the STUFF

was i not just speaking the other day on my fanfic ask meme about how i love emotionally intense stuff? this is IT babey

uther’s such a bad father! he’s with his only child again for the last time in ever and all he does is tear him a new one! this is why arthur’s such a fucked-up human being (morgana too)

i’m THRILLED we got to revisit this. his eyes get bigger and bigger and he starts fucking stammering and by the time uther’s done calling him weak and a failure he looks ready to CRY. i was HOLLERING. i still couldnt believe uther was even HERE and not only is he HERE he’s a WRECKING BALL

“this CAN’T be the last time i’ll ever see you” oh buddy you’re gonna wish it was

and he looks back, as he leaves. of COURSE he does. just like lot’s wife. so it goes.

you know how at the end of every supernatural episode sam and dean debrief and talk about their feelings in the car? for merlin and arthur it’s almost always done around a campfire at night - sometimes in arthur’s chambers or other places, but usually out here in the wilderness where it’s just the two of them. i’m...really going to miss it, when it’s gone.

“my father doesn’t approve of the way i’ve chosen to rule his kingdom” “you mean YOUR kingdom”

you know i don’t think i really got...like, fundamentally, on a deep level...that merlin fucking HATES uther

i’ve seen him save uther’s miserable life so many fucking times that i thought for merlin it was kind of the way it was with gwen - he feels nothing for him, but he looks after him for arthur’s sake (or as i came to understand later because he’s professor x about the whole thing)

but the way his expression got SO UGLY when arthur revealed that uther just shit-talked him the entire time...holy fuck

between that & some other stuff that happens later it really paints a clearer picture of like...uther’s dead so merlin doesn't have to hold back anymore and he FUCKING HATES HIM?? like obviously he SHOULD bu i just never SAW it before this. merlin LOATHES him. it’s INCREDIBLE to witness when he bore it so silently for so long. maybe even merlin didn’t realize just how much he hated him until now

and not to get too real here but if youve ever been friends with someone who had an abusive/toxic parent or was in an abusive/toxic relationship and you watch them feeling like shit after and they start making excuses for that asshole like “oh yeah he’s right about x” and you just want to find this horrible person and THROTTLE THEM that emotion is like ALL OVER merlin’s face rn. i didn’t actually seriously "”ship”” merlin and arthur until late season 4/early season 5 (i didnt like dislike it i just wasnt actively bothered by a lack of it) and what changed was this vibe. merlin wants to kill uther all over again just because he made arthur feel this way. he’s so fuckijng PROTECTIVE

and he still almost manages to drag a smile out of him via roasting, god bless these 2

ok so i didnt believe this show would actually DO THAT re: putting uther himself in this ep but i was doubly shocked by the fact that he HITCHED A RIDE AND GOT OUT

me shrieking during this entire poltergeist sequence: OH MY GOD OH MY GOD IT’S REALLY HIM?? HOLY FUCK HE IS LITERALLY HAUNTING ARTHUR I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE DOING THIS I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’RE GIVING US THIS etc etc etc

actually most of that was probably muffled nonsense because i was yelling with both hands over my mouth

percival’s the realest motherfucker on this whole show. dude survives a murder attempt in which he got an AXE lobbed at him by the fucking GHOST of a power-mad genocidal king and he’s like: yeah idk i guess it fell

there was thunder in the bg for this WHOLE ep and i’m Big into it

absolutely CACKLING at the bit where merlin has to ask arthur if he looked back at uther’s spirit. it’s one of those nice big heavy questions - so heavy, in fact, that arthur can’t answer, can’t even LOOK at merlin, either because he’s ashamed or because he’s bugging out or both. you thought this shit was over? it’s never over! daddy issues are a lifelong ride, pal! arthur’s just get to haunt him literally this time. god it’s so fucking good

can i just say? merlin reads that damning silence reeeal well. and it’s a big, heavy thing to know about arthur - but then again he knows all the big heavy things about arthur

the score for this episode is really good too...very suspenseful and good, adds a lot to the atmosphere, keeps it from getting too slow

there’s a hint of merlin’s absolute HATRED of uther in this conversation again - the way his face tightens when he says “uther would do anything to protect his legacy and that makes him dangerous, who knows what he’s capable of now”

and arthur dismisses him because he can’t hear this but merlin almost refuses to leave - and when he DOES leave, he doesn’t take his eyes off arthur for one fucking second. he stares him down all the way out of the room. i don’t think it’s because he’s angry with arthur, per se - he’s angry with uther, and he knows uther in a way arthur never can or will, as someone ruthless who will kill without warning or remorse. he’s afraid of uther and he’s trying to get arthur to be afraid of uther too before it’s too late and LSDKFJGHSLDFJH

if you’re thinking “thats a lot to interpret from one look” yes it is but i’m right. IT’S A BIG, HEAVY LOOK. NICE AND LOADED. love unpacking all of that

i cant believe this dude tried to KILL GWEN like he really is coming after everything that makes arthur happy. im so glad it was merlin that saved her. i really do think merlin is her best friend

multiple times in this serious arthur fidgets when he’s nervous or thinking, usually with his hands near his mouth. i am endeared to him. my poor boy

“i always knew my father could be cruel but why would he do this to gwen when he knows i love her” BECAUSE HE’S CRUEL

merlin knows. merlin knows his cruelty much better than arthur. boy does he know. i’m dying. it’s fine

love that at this part of the ep we slide seamlessly into the “merlin and arthur are both scared shitless” section which was truly one of my favorite things about the s4 opener. they’re both so fucking jumpy and giving each other shit about being frightened and continuing to be frightened anyway. the DELICIOUS IRONY of arthur finally being scared of uther in the way merlin has been scared of uther for Y E A R S oh my god it’s so GOOD

do also love the entire silent conversation they have when deciding what to do about the door. this is what i mean by their upgraded vibe.l in the early seasons merlin wouldn’t have understood and his lack of understanding would have been played for laughs. now they’re totally in sync

here’s the thing, gaius could have made this magic “able to see uther’s ghost” potion for just arthur and he didn’t. he made it for both of them. everything arthur does merlin does. they’re partners in all things. they’re COMPANIONS. and this is why i finally now Ship It. tragic.

you know this is a kind of weird comparison but late seasons arthur reminds me JUST a bit of gwaine. he complains so much less that he sort of has that same “roll with whatever” vibe to him. pretend to faint so you can steal some guy’s dagger? why not. take this foul potion that may kill us? sure, let’s do it. come what may he’s not really fussed. much more unflappable

until he starts getting spooked again LMFAO

we do love a good pair of spooked dumbasses. this is charming and entertaining.

leon HAD to know they were lying about poetry. he probably thought they were having.......a tryst,

love also that even in this very dire moment merlin does NOT miss the chance to have some fun at arthur’s expense. that’s true friendship

i got jumpscared three separate times during this ep and one of them was when uther was glaring down merlin and arthur in the hallway after leon left

arthur didn’t jump but he did go hunting after him and to his credit he does not look scared. he looks like a man who is trying to deal with his business and get his shit together

merlin made that FACE again when arthur expressed sadness at hunting his own father because all he ever wanted to DO was make him proud

honestly it’s like since he can’t shit-talk uther he just sings arthur’s praises instead like this here is a guy who is just barely holding his tongue about how fuckin pissed he is. i cant believe it

splitting up was the WORST idea. have they not seen scooby doo??

love that when merlin gets cornered by uther’s ghost and gets scared he yells for arthur and when arthur gets scared because his torch blows out he yells for merlin. you fools, why did you SPLIT UP

uther locks arthur in the room with him, which is already some top tier content, but doubly good? it’s the same room in which arthur nearly ran him through in 2.08. don’t think i didn’t notice. i did notice. i was shrieking into my hands.

seriously this is a pretty calm liveblog but the first time i watched this ep my face was like this the whole time: O O

just kept going “HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK OH MY GOD” over and over. it was greeat

“arthur your fatal flaw is that you put too much trust in other people” do you think arthur, who now has a complex about people betraying him, ever forgot that for one second in his entire life afterward? me neither

speaking of 2.08 arthur dropped some FACTS “your hatred comes from fear” i'm sure they didn’t do it on purpose but #throwbacks

i’m fully experiencing human emotion. “i’m not you, i can’t rule like you did” he’s trying SO HARD to fight his way out of that bullshit

also lmao arthur like “then you’ll have to kill me” and uther like “yeah okay” arthur didn’t KNOW how this man was this could have been SUCH a good awakening

AND NOW IT’S TIME

FOR MY FAVORITE PART OF THIS EPISODE

when i say merlin hates uther. WHEN I SAY MERLIN H A T E S UTHER

HIS LINE HERE. ok. “get away from him, uther. you’ve caused enough harm” he’s furious! he’s GROWLING!

“you are just a serving boy” “i am much more than that” listen. human words cannot express the emotion that ran through me. when they said “we’re gonna bring back anthony head as uther” i doubted. when they said “he’s gonna be the bad guy and reopen all of arthur’s old wounds” i doubted. when they said “he’s still here LITERALLY haunting arthur who now has to HUNT HIM” I DOUBTED. i didn’t believe they’d do any of it until it was happening on my screen. but ONE LOOK at merlins face made a MOTHERFUCKING BELIEVER out of me. i knew exactly what he was about to do. pretty sure i gasped “NO” in astonishment

AND HE DID THAT

HE👏

DID👏

THAT👏

NOT ONLY. DID I SHRIEK ALOUD. FULL SCREAM. WHEN IT HAPPENED THE FIRST TIME. BUT JUST NOW. WHEN I WATCHED HIM DO IT AGAIN. MORE SCREAMING.

how LONG do you think merlin had ACHED to do that

to show himself to uther for what he was, what he REALLY WAS, someone to be reckoned with instead of someone to be overlookedd, without fear of consequences

i can’t even like

like just imagine the triple rush of 1. satisfaction 2. rage 3. lingering habitual terror

i think at this moment merlin was closer to and more like morgana than he had ever been and maybe ever will be again. because the two of them have so much in common but one thing i didn’t really clock until now is how much they both hate uther

it’s so good. uther is SHOCKED and DISMAYED and this is like merlin’s old fear come back from death too (getting found out by uther) while at the same time being a dream come true (getting to tell uther what he really thinks, who he really is - “i was BORN with it!”) he’s so ANGRY! he is LIVID!)

he’s also really SATISFIED like “even while you were king there was magic at the heart of camelot” GOD how long has he been WAITING for this and not even realized it

and like then uther starts spewing his hateful bullshit and stalking forward with the intent to kill and my guy merlin who should be terrified STANDS HIS MOTHERFUCKING GROUND and says right over him “you’re wrong, you’re wrong” for thirty beautiful seconds merlin really got to be free. i know i will keep comparing things to 2.08 until i die but it’s just like when arthur was almost ready to kill uther in cold blood because for one perfect, brilliant moment he really and truly saw clearly the world as it was. i really love these moments...the strength of their respective convictions is so gratifying

merlin yeeting uther through a door is also gratifying although i have no idea what he hoped to accomplish by following without waking arthur first

i. LOVE. that the camera lingered a little on the spears or whatever after merlin walked by them. nice little foreshadowing moment

THOSE SPEARS GOT AWFULLY CLOSE BUT IM PRETTY SURE UTHER MISSED ON PURPOSE BECAUSE HE WANTED TO TAKE HIS TIME. HIS MISTAKE

okay merlin spent the better part of a lifetime dreading uther’s death sentence and here’s uther stalking down a hallway sword pointed at his chest and certain death is IMMINENT and what does merlin’s face look like?

arthur comes in with the rescue and INSTANTLY his expression changes to?

IT’S BETTER IN MOTION BUT HE LOOKS READY TO CRY

my immediate thought: oh jesus what if uther outs him

i knew he wouldnt bc of spoilers but i would bet a benjamin that that was merlin’s first thought too

tbh. i wish he had.

i kind of wonder if merlin doesn’t wish the same thing. like yes being outed like that is terribly violating and he’s terrified of telling arthur obviously or he would have already but at the same time there would be so much relief once it was finally out. no more secret-keeping. no more burden

i mean, if you go back and watch it, dude’s straight up shaking. he’s trembling all over. he’s losing it. that last teary glance they exchanged.......

uther was two SYLLABLES away from blowing the whole thing

and in a better happier canon where arthur knows and was waiting for merlin to tell him this is like double angst because uther wouldve ben blowing something for them both

i like arthurs followup of realizing that he’ll never be able to please uther (step 1 of breaking away from the cycle of abuse) but for the LIFE OF ME

i will NEVER be able to understand why they segued into this GLOVE THING

i’m not talking about the glove thing

i will say however that by the end of this episode i was so hysterical i had to get up and get water and pace around my kitchen for ten minutes fanning my own face

and that’s it. that’s the second-best episode of merlin and the last good episode there ever was

#personal #merlin blogging #it took me three and a half hours to rewatch this episode because i kept pausing to scream #MERLIN DESERVES TO BE OUT TO EVERYONE ALL THE TIME it's not FAIR #that episode deserved to be 20 minutes longer it ended too soon #in a happier world arthur found out about the magic and immediately took merlin's side and defended him against the genocidal maniac but app #apparently this show is a greek tragedy now

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mentalmimosa · 5 years

Text

ten and two (part iv)

Previous installments here: [https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538759/chapters/43940245]

Steve said that in his younger days, Tony had been a terror: parties every night and armfuls of beautiful women, too much drink and too much sex--a life carefully designed to make Stark the elder crazy. And it’d worked; boy howdy, had it. By the time Steve had met him in 1941, Tony and his father hadn’t spoken in almost ten years.

But in that intervening decade, Tony had changed. He’d gotten bored with spending money and more interested in making it and figured out that he had a knack. The same cleverness that had helped him talk his way out of every speakeasy raid, he now applied to the family business and in the high-power circles where Stark Technologies ran, Tony’s charm proved almost as lucrative as his head. He stopped fucking around and got on with his life and reshaped the family name in his image. When war broke out in Europe, nobody who mattered gave a damn about Howard Stark; the Stark they knew, the one they called when the generals in the War Department started getting itchy, was Tony. The Super Soldier project, it turned out, was one in a series of efforts Uncle Sam had brought Tony on, and it was the one that had stuck.

“Of course it was,” Bucky said to Steve over watery coffee and burned toast. “Because none of those other ones had you.”

It was hard to square Steve’s secondhand stories of Tony the wild man, the womanizer, with the man who lived in the big house on the cliff. Yeah, he was older--more gray in his beard now than black--and presumably wiser, but there was also a sadness to him, a kind of shadow melancholy, that had crept in around his bright, darting eyes. Sometimes, when he invited them for supper, there were other people there, colleagues from the East Coast who were in California for meetings, maybe, or Stark Tech officials from London or Milan who he wanted to keep on a short leash. But so far as Bucky could tell, none of those people seemed to be Tony’s friends. There was a sheen to him when he interacted with them, a kind of glib hardness that Bucky hadn’t seen him wear before. Oh, he was still convivial and funny as hell, but he wasn’t the same Tony that Bucky had met that first night, the one who sat across the table when it was just the three of them and watched Steve talk and gesture and knock over the salt cellar with such fucking obvious delight.

They lit up around each other. That was the god’s honest truth. How the hell they didn’t see it and do something about it, flummoxed Bucky more and more every day. But then, that kind of behavior went against all his instincts, the ones that had always told him do it now, don’t count on a chance later which was how, he figured, he’d spent so much of his life getting laid--and, on the battlefield, not getting dead.

In this instance, of course, he couldn’t make either of the them do shit. Maybe, though, he could poke the old hornets’ nest.

“Have we ever told you about how me and Steve got together?”

They were halfway through a fucking glorious dinner and farther through a bottle of wine. Outside, the sky had darkened since they’d arrived and it was already raining; looked like a hell of a storm was on its way in.

Tony squinted over at him, fork hanging in the air. “Ah, no. I don’t think so.” His lips lifted. “And your face tells me it’s a story I’d remember it, huh?”

“Damn right.” He glanced at Steve, who was studious examining his plate. “You ok with me telling this, babe?”

Steve cleared his throat and reached for his water. “Sure. I mean, if Tony wants to hear it.”

Tony laughed. “Ok, if it’s making him look like that, now I have to.”

“Well,” Bucky said, aiming for nonchalant, “we were in the middle of nowhere, France. Camped out in this pretty apple orchard right in the heart of spring and all the trees were blooming right over our tents. Best place that we’d slept in days.”

“Weeks,” Steve said. There was a little smile on his face now. “It was like a postcard, wasn’t it? And it smelled like absolute heaven.”

“So one night, I’m lying there on my bedroll listen to two other guys snore and I think, I’m never gonna have a day like this again, am I? I’m never gonna fall asleep watching pink and white petals ghost over the top of my tent. Hell, in this man’s war, I may not ever get a chance to sleep again.”

He had Tony’s full attention now. Their host had leaned back from his plate and was cradling his wine glass, the stem set delicate between his long fingers, the bowl resting flush in his palm.

“And then," Bucky said, "I thought about Steve. I’d had a thing for him forever, since Ike first stuck me in Easy. Here’s me, a skinny dumb kid from Brooklyn who’s barely learned to hold a gun and they hand me over to a walking recruiting poster. And there he is at HQ, standing there looking beautiful and he’s got all the guys laughing and I walk up and he smiles at me. Holds out his hand. ‘Fellas,’ he says, ‘this is Sergeant Bucky Barnes, best shot to walk out of snipe school. And lucky us, he’s ours.’”

He felt Steve’s shoe tap his calf under the table; a warm, familiar bump. “Lucky us was right,” Steve said. “How many times did you save our bacon again?”

“26,” Bucky said without missing a beat. “But that’s not the point of the story, is it?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said, chuckling. “I suspect it’s gonna end with you getting your man.”

Bucky smirked into the last of his wine. “So I’m lying there and I think about Steve and I then I think, what the hell. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Uh,” Tony said. “A whole goddamn lot.”

Bucky shrugged. “Maybe. But I didn’t let my head dwell on that.”

“So what did you do?”

“I get up as quiet as I can and I creep over to the cap’s tent, where lo and behold, the lamplight’s still burning. I knew him good enough by then to know he wouldn’t have turned in yet. Not until he figured all of us except the night watch were asleep.” He took a breath, breathed in the smell of Tony’s cigar and for a moment, sensed the scent of apple blossoms again. “And sure enough, there he was. Wide awake, studying some damn document or other.”

“It was a map.” Steve’s mouth was turned up now, his eyes fond. “I was reading a map.”

Bucky met his eyes, remembered: one minute, Steve’s head had been dipped over a piece of paper, tiny lines in dull lamplight, and the next, it had been in Bucky’s hands, blond balanced in his palms, those blue eyes raking over his, startled.

“Bucky?” As long as he lived, he’d never forget it: the thin scratch of hope in Steve’s voice. A question in all of that petal soft dark.

“Yeah,” Bucky had said. The only answer he had. “Yes, sir.”

The map was crushed between them and then it fell to the floor, Bucky said all those years later, and then they were twisted on Steve’s rickety cot, rutting, kissing faster than they could breathe. Bucky could remember that feeling, like he was falling, tumbling end over end, a leap without a parachute in the still of the night and when he’d come, Steve’s fist tight around him and his mouth sweet on Bucky’s neck, it had felt like a ripcord, a sharp, perfect snap back into a reality where there was no war, no impending fucking crisis: just Steve’s hands and the sound of flowers falling and the smell of sweat and seed.

“Jesus,” Tony said. There was a flush on his face and his grip on his glass wasn’t so steady. “You took a hell of a risk. Both of you.”

“Wasn’t the first time,” Bucky said with more bravado than he’d felt then, lying back spent, his captain’s tongue hot in his mouth.

“No,” Steve said, “but risk felt different then.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Huh. Different enough to risk your stripes for a quick fuck?”

“Who said anything about quick?” Bucky grinned and reached for the bottle. “There might have been another few rounds that night. No way to know that we’d ever get another chance.”

Steve’s fingers found his on the table; bless him, he looked pleased as punch and still somehow abashed. “But we did.”

Tony cleared his throat and raised his glass. “Well, fellas, all I can say is, from the bottom of my heart: lucky you.”

The words were heartfelt, Bucky got that, but there was a tension inside them that was just as real, felt just as true. The air at the table seemed to rise like a thunderhead. For a long, weird moment, nobody said anything.

Ok, genius, Bucky thought, looking at Steve, flipping his eyes back to Tony. This is it. Take your shot.

“So,” he said, his tongue thick with red, “let’s get it all on the table, shall we? What the hell is it that happened between the two of you?”

#stucky #1950s au #pining #shades of unrequited stony

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saints-row-2 · 5 years

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film watch day 31: Every Halloween Film

happy Halloween today i watched every Halloween film currently available to me. i couldnt get to rewatch Halloween 2018 but i already wrote about it a couple of weeks back so feel free to revisit that post. anyway, i watched ten Halloween movies today. It took around 17 hours. i started at 11:15am and im writing this now at 6 am.

so lets get to the post. for the most part i went in chronological order, except i chose to start with Rob Zombie’s remakes because i knew if i didnt id be finishing the day by watching them at the break of dawn and the idea of doing that was so fucking putrid to me that i decided to get them out of the way first.

Halloween (2007)

i hate this fucking movie. i mentioned in an ask the other day but im happy to repeat here, i dont hate the idea of expanding on Michael’s backstory. like the fact is we largely know his backstory, the issue is how this film chose to portray it. the original Halloween is frightening because its based around the idea that the seemingly safe, quiet suburbs are not as safe as they seem; you can be on a street youve known your entire life, only a few metres from your own home, and still at risk. the whole idea of showing Michael as a murderer when he was six is to tell us that anyone could be a threat, that our conventions that all killers are a particular kind of person is false.

Halloween 2007 says fuck that, we know what serial killers are, and theyre those poor kids who come from shitty neighbourhoods and have abusive parents and mothers who are sex workers. everything that Halloween brings to the table is fucking tedious, played out, and massively uninspired. it wants to bring us the truth about why Michael is like he is, but Rob Zombie’s only understanding of serial killers is in the cliche and exploitative. he has nothing honest about human nature to show us, only the exact same stories that have been fed to us by crime and horror movies past.

this film is incredibly loud and in fucking constant motion. even on steady shots of still scenes the camera constantly shakes, and in every other scene its always whirling around from tracking shot to panning over the scene to just idly zooming in and out of nothing. Zombie’s favourite shot is to have something large and out of focus in the foreground -- like some plants -- and to shoot the characters standing about six feet away muttering to themselves. every single fucking shot in this movie lingers too long, every scene drags a little longer than it needs to. this film moves with the pace that i would describe as “family guy gag”.

and this film is so loud. people are always talking or screaming, largely about nothing important or interesting. theres always music, but it never particularly adds anything; for reasons i fail to fucking understand the entirety of the original theme plays over mostly uninteresting tracking shots of a minor character walking around yelling filler lines about nothing.

the writing is horseshit. everyone in this film is vile, no one talks or behaves like real human beings. almost every exchange in this movie is the characters saying the exact same thing back and forth inanely, frequently punctuated by screaming FUCK as loudly as possible and talking about sex in a way that 40 year old men really really wished teenage girls talk about sex. Halloween (2007) is thoughtlessly gross and mean and nasty, disconnected from any kind of human sensitivity and empathy. it wants to be complicated and to be deep but its crushingly simplistic and stupid. the only thing that redeems it is that its not Halloween II (2009). speaking of which...

Halloween II (2009)

jesus christ this movie is so fucking boring. Halloween II is two hours long but feels like its about twenty hours long. i felt like i was watching this film for twenty days and twenty nights. i was trapped in an eternal purgatory with this movie.

i really cant fucking emphasise how boring this film is. endless scene after scene of nothing of consequence happening, uninteresting death scenes that add nothing, and Michael wandering around doing jack shit. Halloween II fucking made Michael Myers boring, and im saying this as someone who (as i repeat once every 8 seconds) has a tattoo of him. this film couldnt hold MY interest in two of my favourite characters of all time.

the big fun new addition from the first movie is the presence of Michael and Laurie’s mother as a kind of weird goth ghost guiding Michael to kill. i dont know why Michael had to be Jason Voorhees and be a mommy’s boy all of a sudden, but this addition brings absolutely nothing of interest to the film or to his character. its meant to be symbolic of fucking... something im sure, but it feels meaningless. somehow Michael and Laurie are both able to see and interact with this ghost and the ghost has an agenda to do... something? it feels about as intelligent and coherent as the bullshit cult of thorne shit from 6, but a lot less fun. at some point Michael Myers apparently has mind control powers?

not to repeat myself a hundred fucking times but this film is insanely unpleasant to watch. every scene someone is screaming, generally wailing “fuck you bitch” at anyone in their vicinity. this is two hours of people howling swear words at each other and not infrequently making rape jokes. Rob Zombie loves rape jokes! almost as much as he loves putting sexual assault in his movies over and over again for no reason.

there is nothing to enjoy in this film. theres nothing to gain. there is too much slow-mo and far too many strobe lights and absolutely nothing of any intelligence or grace. Halloween II is a thirteen year old boy in a korn T-shirt calling his mom a bitch while he draws zombies on the back of his homework, which he will get an F for because the only thing he wrote was “reading is for faggots”.

Halloween (1978)

what the fuck can i say. this is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, if not the greatest. its one of my favourite movies. its forty years old and still just as chilling and frightening as it ever was. it has some shot composition and cinematography thats up with the best ive ever seen, all while being shot on a budget of $300,000. it does more with less than just about any film, launched the slasher genre, shot Jamie Lee Curtis to stardom and created a pop culture icon that stayed strong for decades. its a masterclass in tension and suspense, a lean-cut perfectly paced film with heaps of atmosphere and character.

i love this film with a frantic passion that makes me unable to talk about it in a particularly helpful way. i cant “review” Halloween. I love this film beyond reason and sense and you either get it or you dont.

Halloween II (1981)

Halloween II is largely one of the less remembered entries in the franchise; its a decent enough movie, neither matching up to the highs of the original or the lows of the later films. its a pretty enjoyable little film, created under the logic of ‘well the first one did well, lets do the same thing again’. Carpenter wrote the script but didn’t direct, and while the film has a solid story, the directing lacks his signature flair. its hard to pinpoint, because the film is generally fairly well-shot, but lacks a kind of eye for shot composition that Carpenter made look easy, doesnt have as much patience for suspense.

on its own merits, theres still some great shots and great scenes in the movie. and a lot of really cool kills; II got a lot more creative with what Michael was capable of, and i think the boiling water drowning kill is rightfully pretty infamous.

this was the last Halloween movie Carpenter wrote, and it was the film where the idea of Laurie and Michael being siblings was introduced. and believe me ill defend this fucking decision to the grave. adding the human connection between Michael and Laurie gives a whole other layer to their relationship thats so fascinating to me, and i love that other films try to expand on the themes of family. in general, deciding that this film would continue to focus on Laurie and not do what later slashers did with bouncing around between different casts was a great fucking move, ironically for a franchise that was intended to be an anthology.

quietly exploring the aftermath of the first film was a good idea for a follow-up, and i especially really enjoy Loomis’ role in this movie, and his discussion about who Myers is. the biggest disappointment for me personally is that Laurie lacks a lot of presence in this film. Curtis is great, as always, but the movie dawdles on some side characters who are too disconnected from her to get a sense of what shes going through.

all that being said, Halloween II is decent. the ending is really great, with some really powerful shots. Michael bleeding from the eyes of his mask after Laurie shoots him is one of the best fucking images in horror and him swinging blindly as Laurie and Loomis slowly orchestrate his death is a fucking amazing scene. i have an immense fondness for this movie, with all its flaws. it brings a lot of really cool concepts to the table, and i think it deserves some appreciation.

heres a question tho; where the fuck were Laurie’s parents. theres a suggestion theyre missing, but theres no explanation why and we never hear from them. did michael kill them too? hello? mr and mrs strode? your daughter just fucking killed a guy and all her friends are dead. where the fuck are you.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III is infamous as being the Halloween movie that isn’t about Michael Myers at all. when it first released it was wildly unpopular and remained so for quite a while, but has had a surge in popularity over the last few years. i think just about every horror critic i know now considers Halloween III one of the best in the franchise. and to be fair to it, its a great little movie. not a slasher at all but rather a conspiracy thriller, Halloween III is all about the mystery of what the Silver Shamrock mask-making company are really up to, and why people are disappearing. its a weird and creative little movie, with some really fucking great practical effects that turn it from just being a thriller to being an all-out horror film. it has a few too many ineffective jumpscares and some of the plot twists are kind of disappointing and feel a little too much like the easy option -- and then others are so wildly bizarre no one would see them coming because theyre fucking completely out there. but i kind of love that sort of nonsense in a horror movie. like lets just have a fucking good time in here for once in our fucking lives.

Halloween III is not a perfect or even a really great movie, but yknow, fuck it. the idea that only perfect films are worth watching is dumb. i appreciate the weird shit this film tried and i think it deserves a lot more respect than what it got; if it had been released under another title it probably would have gone down as a classic instead of being derided for years, you ask me.

now things start going rapidly downhill

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Halloween 4 is when Jamie is introduced as the new final girl; Laurie’s seven year old daughter, after Laurie herself died off-screen in a fucking car crash. the decision to kill off Laurie came from Jamie Lee Curtis decided not to return to the character and instead of recasting her, they went with just having her… die. off-screen. in the franchise where the previous two movies were about her triumph and determination to stay alive. like its the casual thoughtlessness of this that, the idea no one would give a shit a character returned, that in my eyes epitomises how fucking little anyone cared about this franchise going forward.

man the idea of Laurie dying completely irrelevant to Michael… thats a lot. anyway continuing on his quest to erase anyone related to him, Michael starts targeting his niece Jamie for the three movies in the franchise. this is where the series started rapidly losing any grip on reality. while Michael always had some kind of superhuman elements to him (he took six bullets to the chest and survived in the first movie) these became increasingly wildly exaggerated. now hes crushing peoples skulls with his bare hands shit like what the fuck. first of all do that to me and secondly, it was this kind of slide into unreality that let the supernatural elements of the series creep in further until you end up with the shitshow that is Halloween 6. like it was the decrease in the impact of violence and human life that really fucked this franchise over.

this film is not great. its a definite decline in quality after 2 and was on the slippery slope downwards. it has some high points, primarily in Dr Loomis. Donald Pleasance is a better actor than most movies deserve and brings gravitas to a role that in the hands of a less capable actor would be laughable. his sincere plea to Michael at one point to just kill him instead of going after Jamie is honestly fucking tragic.

outside of that, the film isnt massively interesting. Michael himself isnt particularly threatening or engaging, and his mask looks like shit in this film. the characters in this film are largely very stupid, also, which doesnt help anything much.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

if theres a Halloween movie people talk about the least, its this one. II has the sibling twist, III is the black sheep, 4 is the return, even 6 gets talked about for its troubled production history. no one has anything to say about Halloween 5. and thats mostly because there is fucking nothing to say about Halloween 5. it is a relentlessly fucking dull movie that pads out its 100 minute run time with endless unnecessary scenes of shit that does… nothing. this film is dull in a way that i find incredibly detestable. i cant even watch it through a haze of impassioned anger like i can with the also incredible dull Halloween II (2009). its just fucking boring. every single scene drags like its trying to walk on two broken legs. the plot is so bare bones its nonsensical. it constantly adds new characters and new elements but all that does is makes it more incoherent and confusing. watching this movie i literally found my fucking eyes glazing over in my skull. if this film was edited correctly it would be twenty minutes long. i cannot fucking emphasise enough how much of relentless slog it is. Halloween 4 was dull but even that had the lifeline of ‘some cool ideas’. Halloween 5 is nothing. Halloween 5 is puddle dirt water.

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

if Halloween 5 is puddle dirt water Halloween 6 is just a fresh hot glass of piss. there are two versions of Halloween 6, the director’s cut and the theatrical release, and both are wretched. this film went full ham with introducing the supernatural elements, telling us that Michael was his whole life psychically controlled by a pagan cult called the Cult of Thorne in order to make Halloween scary again or summon the devil or who fucking cares. this movie is fucking insufferably dull, totally absurd, and wildly unsympathetic. i loathe Halloween 6 and every terrible, stupid plot decision it makes. Paul Rudd defeats Michael Myers by drawing druid symbols on the ground and Michael just gives up and lies down. theres a baby that does nothing and serves no purpose. Halloween is apparently banned in Haddonfield, which makes this more closely related to Footloose than Halloween i think. this film takes itself incredibly seriously while spouting nothing but total fucking bullshit drivel and i dont believe that anyone involved in this movie, from the cast to the cameraman to the guy who served the lunch had any faith in this movie outside of the vague hope it might make money and i wish this movie had been burned at the stake. also i hate Paul Rudd.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

oh thank fucking god finally some good fucking food. Halloween H20 took the decision to retcon all the sequels (except II) twenty years before Halloween 2018, proving that everyone knew 5 and 6 were fucking mistakes.

this film loses a lot of the Halloween feeling in favour of making a more generic late 1990s/early 2000s style horror. theres nothing particularly interesting about the way this movie is directed or shot, the music is largely very generic, it has a generally uninteresting glossy quality to it that studio movies always do. its very obvious this movie was inspired by Scream and it looks a lot more like Scream than it does Halloween. all of this makes me kind of sad, but other films in the franchise have proved that other directors generally are not capable of imitating Carpenter’s style so maybe its better they dont really try.

what H20 does so well, and the reason i love it so much, is that it explores the relationship between Michael and Laurie, which is something im endlessly fascinated with. this was the first movie to have Laurie shake off her fear and rise up against Michael, and while it doesnt do it with quite as much depth and intelligence as Halloween 2018, it still has a fucking good crack at Laurie’s character, and its still powerful watching her turn on the man who terrorised her for years. Michael is great in this movie too; while he has a terrible mask, watching him back on his shit as a furious force of nature who wants nothing more than to destroy anyone who gets in his way.

honestly i kind of enjoy having a Halloween in a different style; theres something fun about seeing characters recontextualised and done with justice and empathy. most of the Halloween sequels before this one (and after, looking at Resurrection) are shallow, unconcerned with any kind of emotional depth or personality. and while a lot of the stock filler characters in H20 who are lined up for the chopping block arent that interesting and dont particularly standout, watching Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance and seeing her interplay with Michael is enough. and most of the side characters arent particularly annoying, which is more than i can say for half this franchise.

this film also has what is one of my absolute favourite endings in a movie ever; the final confrontation between Michael and Laurie has a particular interaction between them that i absolutely adore and that alone is enough to make this movie one of my favourites.

H20 isnt perfect; it weirdly feels like a blueprint that Halloween 2018 would later refine into a better movie, but the idea its going to be completely disregarded for Halloween 2018 in the future makes me a little sad. in the face of so many fucking mediocre and awful Halloween sequels it did the right thing in trying to focus on what actually mattered; the connection between Michael and Laurie, although i dont feel like it succeeded in making Michael as scary as 2018 would much later. that said, the shot where Michael and Laurie just stare at each other through the glass of a window? that gives me chills every time. and hearing the Halloween theme kick in as Laurie marches off into the school with an axe looking for Michael is so fucking triumphant.

i love H20 even if Michael’s mask looks like his hair was dunked in a bucket of water and then gently blow-dried. i have no idea why it looks so fucking stupid in this movie. why is it so hard to get Michael’s mask right. you wouldnt think it was that fucking hard. anyway, i really fucking love Laurie Strode a lot, which didnt help to make Resurrection any easier to swallow.

Halloween: Resurrection

so whats the obvious thing to do after you have a movie where the power and emotion all comes from the emotional catharsis of seeing a woman get her vengeance on her tormentor? you, uh, make a sequel in which she is immediately defeated and pointlessly killed after its revealed her victory at the end of the previous film was entirely false, and then you never return to focus on her and instead introduce a horde of entirely uninteresting stock characters. yeah, makes sense.

Resurrection is fucking incredibly stupid, in the kind of fucking hysterical way only really bad horror movies can capture. theres absolutely nothing of Halloween in this other than the presence of Michael, who just as easily could have been replaced with anyone or anything. the story has a group of people on a reality show staying in the Myers house to… stay there? its not entirely clear what the challenge is meant to be, other than to just be inside the house, which i imagine gets to be pretty dull viewing pretty quickly. theres no suggestion theyre like, hunting for ghosts or something along those lines, theyre just… looking at stuff.

Michael slopes around this movie like he doesnt fucking understand where he is or whats going on, an entirely out of place relic of better times past while the cast cavorts around him doing nothing of interest and having no plots or characterisation to speak of. the film has exactly two or three funny moments, including the legendary ‘Michael Myers getting electrocuted in the dick by Busta Rhymes’, but youre way, way better off just looking that up on youtube instead of watching this movie. there is an hour of pointless plot development about characters no one cares about until Michael starts fucking killing people. this movie shouldnt exist and we should all go back to pretending it doesnt.

and thats it. thats all the halloween films. i can die now.

#rantsfilmwatch #this is around 4000 words long so yknow consider yourself warned

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years

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07/03/2021 DAB Transcript

2 Kings 22:3-23:30, Acts 21:37-22:16, Psalm 1:1-6, Proverbs 18:11-12

Today is the 3rd day of July, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s awesome to be here with you today. As we continue our journey through the next steps forward and right now the territory, we’re in is the month of July and the territory we’re in the Scriptures is 2nd Kings and Acts and so that's where we will find ourselves situated today as we bring to a close another one of our weeks together. Tomorrow we’ll begin the first full week of the month of July. Today we’ll finish this kind of transition week are reading from the New International Version this week, 2nd Kings 22 verse 3 through 23 verse 30.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We love You Lord what a gift, what a gift it, it's binding us together. It's pulling us together in community as we day-by-day step-by-step move through it together and it's not only doing that it's transforming us from within. Transforming things that we, we have no power to change within ourselves and yet Your Holy Spirit keeps leading us on the pathways that lead us deeper so we are grateful. And as we embrace July, we invite Your Holy Spirit to move mightily among us. We asked this expectantly, and with anticipation in the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base. It is the home of the Global Campfire that we sit around every day and enjoy the Scriptures washing into our lives in the little oasis that we create and that's where home is. So be aware of that be aware of the Daily Audio Bible Shop. Be aware of the Community section where the Prayer Wall lives.

Be aware of what's coming up in a couple of days. On the 7th this coming Wednesday, the 7th of July is our own little Daily Audio Bible Global Campfire holiday that we have had for goodness well over a decade, well over a decade now. So, man probably maybe 14, 14 years I'm not sure a long time a lot a Long Walks and that's what we do on the 7th of July we recognize we’re in the center of the year recognize that were probably weary in a lot of areas and a lot of times we do is double down and get more busy to try to create space so that we can maybe feel at peace or get a grasp on where we’re headed or as an alternative we could just plan a day for that not to catch up on chores a day to just breathe and be and heal and restore and go out in nature and be restored and look around and appreciate how much life is happening in nature, the birds, the little critters, all the stuff that's going on around us but we’re pretty much too busy to pay attention to and to go for a Long Walk. That's what you do when you fall in love right you go for Long Walks. Doesn’t matter if it's raining. Doesn't matter if it's cold, doesn't matter, you go for a Long Walk hand-in-hand. Time stands still you’re in love and God is in love with you and would love to go for a Long Walk with you and with me with each of us. And what and how could that be? Because God is Almighty and our Father, who knows all. So, these things that were so confused about and we can't find peace about, maybe we could. Maybe we just need to talk em out with somebody who loves us deeply. That's the purpose of the Long Walk to sort of set ourselves up strong for the second half of the year. So that's coming up this Wednesday, and it's obviously it's a private solitary thing to do to go for a walk with God. Consider life and where it's headed. But it's also something that we will be doing together all over the world and so we’ll put a post on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page for the Long Walk and then you can post pictures in there from your Long Walk of little videos from you long walk. Share your story and when we come back from our Long Walks, we can go to that place and we get like a double dose, like a mini vacation all the way around the world as we look through the windows into each other's lives and I love them very much. So, that's a Long Walk and that's coming up in a couple of days, mark that on your calendars.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com there is a link on the homepage and I thank you with all of my heart for your partnership. If using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement you it the Hotline button in the app or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And I was gonna say that's it for today but the other thing about the Long Walk is there's a resource available that really is is perfect, it’s called Heart, a Contemplative Journey and you can get that where ever you get your music so like at the iTunes store or Google play, just search for my name or Heart a Contemplative Journey and that is really a wonderful conversation starter for the Long Walk to just kind of begin with prayer that opens our hearts opens us to the different emotions that we’ve been going through and feeling some of them we've been overwhelmed by, and some of them we've been suppressing but just open our hearts invite God, allow prayer and music to be a part of that story as we go on our Long Walk, so check that out.

And that's it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Prayers and Encouragement:

Hey DABers this is Nick Florida today is Thursday, July 1st. This is my third or fourth time calling in, I’ve been listening to the Daily Audio Bible for over three years now and I just love this community. You guys are awesome. I was calling today to see if everyone could pray for my neighbor. Her name is Beth. She has two young kids ages seven and three and her husband is very supportive of her through the tough time they are going through right now. She has stage IV cancer and doctors say that she doesn't have too much longer with the way things are progressing. And I just call and ask for all of you to pray for her to show that God is the great physician and he can heal her through the name of Jesus. I'm not sure she's saved. I don't think she is but I know with the help of your prayer and through Jesus she can be healed and I'd love to give the honor and glory to God through all of you, praying and show her that God can heal and she should turn to him for salvation as well. Please pray have faith believe it can be done. Thank you everybody have a good day.

Hello DABers this is a prayer for Billy in Montgomery who is going to be on a Kairos ministry walk. He is going to be giving a talk to the prisoners there who are attending the Kairos. He commented that he, he wants so, to have a very, very powerful message for them. But Billy, I want you to know that, you already know, it's not, it's not you that has to come up with this God is going to come up with that particular wonderful talk that day that they need to hear and He will use you through your presentation, through the love that you have for God's people and definitely count on, on being in, held up the prayer that day and as I do my walk, my Long Walk will be thinking and praying for you and the prisoners there. God bless you. This is Artie from Arkansas. Amen.

Hello DAB community this is Bubba D and my prayer goes out to Ben from Pennsylvania. Father God I ask that You would encourage Ben’s wife, give her strength to endure this time of small children for several months two and four, all the girls. We ask You to bless them. Bless Ben’s wife Lord with wisdom, how to get her day to a place where she can have breaks and she would have the fellowship with fellow moms and just time away from the daughters and give Ben wisdom too so that he would provide for her those breaks in times of R&R. Thank you Lord, asking your Holy Spirit to infuse Ben's wife’s energy give her everything that she needs right now, mostly that rest that peace, for you are the Prince of Peace, Jesus. Give her all that she needs right now in your name Jesus Christ we pray.

Hello DAB this is Rob from Ohio, I’ve been listening for about a year and 1/2 now. I’ve called him several times and been on the Prayer Wall. I suffer from long COVID, long haulers like calling and the reasoning I'm calling and today is not so much for me and asking prayers for me. But as I go through the Cleveland clinic and I see these doctors and I'm meet in these groups. I see more and more people like me struggling to get back to normal for get over COVID or get over the symptoms. I just asked today that you say a prayer for all the people out there suffering from what is pretty much been you know miserable the last year and 1/2 for me and I know I've talked to a lot of people that have experienced quite similar things for months and months so please, please I ask for the people that aren’t able to return to normal. I ask you to please pray for them. Pray for wisdom for the doctors pray that we find answers why COVID is so much harder on us. They have their theories but nothing, nothing set in stone. Thank you very much and God bless.

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gudlyf · 4 years

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Confirmation [Short Story]

[Edited original photo by Elviss Bitans]

I will never forget the sound Evil made when it died in the Baxter’s house one night in the fall of 1982.

—

The basement of the rectory of St. Ambrose had that smell. The one that appears to be common amongst cellars of houses of the Lord. Of decades-old candle wax and spent wicks, mold-imbued books. Of rotted flowers and palm reeds. That smell. I’d once thought it unique to our chosen parish at the time. It’s not. And any time I happened upon it in some other basement, sometimes in another church, I’d be reminded of CCD.

Some people call it Catechism. I suppose it could have been called Sunday School, except in our town it was held on Tuesday nights. Tuesday School? Not the same ring to it, I’d say. So, CCD. Sounds like some kind of mental condition, now that I think of it. Apropos, if you don’t mind me saying so.

Needless to say, I did not look forward to Tuesday nights.

The last year of CCD for me was centered around preparing for Confirmation. I won’t get into the details of that for you non-Catholics, and to be quite honest I can’t remember what to tell you about it anyway. I suppose it was to “confirm” one’s faith in God and the church. Confirm beliefs. Confirm that you bought the whole damn thing. One of “them.” One of the flock. For me it served only as confirmation that, following that fall, my Tuesday nights henceforth would carry with it only the aroma of glorious, sweet freedom. Thank you God, Hallelujah, Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong, Amen.

Father Jacobs, the presiding priest at the time, did not conduct CCD at St. Ambrose. The old guy would show up from time to time, sure, when he wasn’t busy doing God-knows-what on a Tuesday evening. Probably better off pulling numbered letters out of a bingo cage, really. But for the most part it was just us ten kids and Mr. Baxter.

Of all the teachers I had for CCD throughout the years, Mr. Baxter won the prize for being, shall we say, the most devout. This includes the likes of Sister Estelle, a decrepit, miserable thing harkening from the days of when my own mother attended Catholic school in a neighboring town. No lie, Sister Estelle — or Sister Est-Hell, as we called her — carried a yard stick along her back like a rifle on a cattle rancher. I’ve learned since then that it served more as a bullshit deterrent than anything else. God save the poor soul warranting its unsheathing. Thankfully, I never bore witness to it.

Warren Baxter’s boys, Mark and Jason, attended this particular CCD class along with me and seven others our age. They were homeschooled, so I can’t say any of us knew much about them beyond the walls of that basement, and that the poor bastards had their dad as a teacher. Not just Tuesday nights, but every fucking day. Mr. Baxter sorta reminded me of Christopher Cross. Y’know, “Sailing” and “Ride Like the Wind”? Not to mention he carried a beaten acoustic guitar with him anytime I saw him. He certainly wasn’t an old guy, but he sure had what I guess you could say was an old way of thinking when it came to the education of religion. He had a habit of taking it upon himself to detour from the illustrated Jesus textbooks and remind us of all the things that could make up a mortal sin. You might think that means killing, stealing, raping — that sort of thing. No. He’d remind us weekly that masturbating was a mortal sin that was a sure ticket to Hell. Even thinking about jerking off. It was like you might as well give Satan himself a handy, because, son, it’s just like knocking on his door with that hand.

I guess Mrs. Baxter was a sure help of keeping her husband Heaven-worthy, at least before their divorce.

Mr. Baxter was a parishioner at the church, but he also sang and played guitar at Sunday mass. Considering the limited source material, he wasn't half bad. I’d been taking guitar lessons at the time and knew he wasn’t just some two-bit hack. He played for us a couple of nights at class, which was a welcome reprieve from mundane bible verse analysis, even if it wasn’t exactly Clapton we were listening to. The man dug music; no question of that. And on the second-to-last class of the year, he took it to a new level.

The record player sat in the center of the largest table. Not an odd sight, really. We’d listened to hymns and such before, and even been forced to — dear God — sing along to them. But there was something very different about it this time. Something special. When my eyes caught it, I couldn’t restrain myself.

“Zeppelin!”

Paul Morley, my best friend at the time, saw it too. Led Zeppelin IV, its unmistakable album cover featuring that painting of an old man lugging a bundle of sticks, sat among a few recognizable others. AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. Queen’s The Game. Classics today — purely defining, then. A few kids started in with “Stairway to Heaven” before Mr. Baxter shut them down.

“And she’s buy-uy-ing a-”

“Sit down, everyone. Yes, I’m going to play some of these — just a little. But then I have an important story for you.”

He slipped Led Zeppelin IV out of its sleeve and placed it onto the turntable. Man, I thought, this is gonna be great. I prepared myself for the sweet sounds of Robert Plant, belting out his “Hey hey, mama,” rolling into Jimmy Page on the ax and Bonham on skins. It was already playing in my head.

Instead, we got something else entirely.

Mr. Baxter turned on the player and moved the needle up a bit onto the platter. He put it down a few times, giving us a little tease here and there of what we could have — should have — been listening to in entirety. He finally got to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and let it play. Sweet release.

About midway through the song, he turned the player off. What is this, another lesson about not beating off? I thought. To 14-year-old me, it may as well have been.

“Now, listen to this.”

We all knew what was going to happen. Playing “Stairway” backwards wasn’t new. And then it all became painfully clear. Zeppelin. AC/DC. Queen? I hadn’t heard about that one yet. But most of us knew of the supposed hidden messages within the latter two, and now Mr. Baxter was going to play them. Here. In the basement of a church.

He spun the record counter-clockwise, slowly, by hand. Eventually he got to the money shot, where Plant’s voice seems to sing out the words “my sweet Satan,” along with some other things that don’t sound so Heavenly when you over-analyze the shit out of them.

But for the playing record, the room was silent. I don’t think we quite knew what to make of it. Mr. Baxter — a guy who’d preached that the simple pleasures of alone time in a long, hot shower was sinful — was playing verses about the Devil. In the Lord’s house! What was next, a Ouija board?

Once he was through with Zeppelin, he went onto Highway to Hell. The album cover alone should have burst into flames the moment it entered the parking lot, but he played it just the same. For a few minutes, singer Bon Scott became Scott Bon. Or maybe it’s Ttocs Nob. You’re supposed to hear something like “my name is Lucifer” somewhere in that backmasked garbage, but all I heard was blasphemy to some wholesome, British-borne rock and roll.

Queen was an interesting one. Played backwards, the lyrics “another one bites the dust” becomes “it’s fun to smoke marijuana.” Oh great, so now that’s evil too? My older brother’s days were numbered.

Mr. Baxter let the chuckles and high-fives among us slide and stopped the turntable.

“Alright. Why did I play these for you tonight?”

I dunno, to thank Jesus these classes are almost over, I thought.

Paula Spencer spoke up. “Because they talk about the Devil…?”

“Not exactly.”

We all looked at each other, clueless. That wasn’t it? Besides Freddie Mercury soloing in reverse about weed, what else was there? And I was sure as shit stinks that Baxter had his fair share of ganja in his days. Hell, at that moment, I was thinking he’d smoked a bowl before class.

“A couple of reasons. First, it’s to make you aware. The things your generation is listening to — on the radio, on records, and tapes — are deceiving you into falling out of love with God.”

“But on the radio, it’s not backwards,” Paul said.

“I don’t even have a record player,” said someone else.

Mr. Baxter shook his head, in that these-clueless-kids sort of way.

“It’s doesn’t matter. You heard it for yourself. It’s still there. And the Devil — he hid it there.”

We learned years ago: you don’t groan at a teacher in CCD. But the restraint in the room was palpable.

“So … Robert Plant … is Satan?” I asked.

“No. He’s just one of many instruments.”

“Like a guitar?” Randal asked. Now that let loose a volley.

“Alright, quiet down. Not like that, no, Randal. I mean they serve the anti-Christ. Though they may not know it. But, because we can play this … music this way, the Devil’s tricks are revealed. And they are in all of the music you’re listening to. All the rock and roll, all the heavy metal. It’s there, and he is trying to use it to deceive you into falling out of grace with God.”

“So … what are we supposed to do?” I asked.

“Stop listening to it. Forwards. Backwards. On the radio, or at home. These are all the new instruments of Evil. And you should shun them just as you would any other mortal sin you’ve learned about in this class. You’ll think you have control over what you believe until it’s too late, and you stop coming to mass. You stop loving Jesus and God and everything else that will bring you to everlasting life in Heaven.”

Well, I was going to Hell. Before he’d finished his bummer of a diatribe, I’d started to think that if everlasting life in Satan’s parlor meant a lot more Zeppelin, Rush, and everything that was candy to my ears, I might just be okay with that.

“The second reason I played these for you — and this is very, very important. You listening?”

Most of us nodded.

“Never — and I mean never — do this on your own. I know it’s tempting — a fun trick to show your friends. But do not do it. I played this here, because we’re safe in God’s house. But at home, or anywhere else, you are not. And the Devil does not like when his tricks are revealed. And he will let you know.”

“How?” Paul asked.

Mr. Baxter pulled out a chair, sat down and leaned in. “I’ll tell you how. Because it happened to me. Mark and Jason can tell you — they were there.”

All eyes were on the two Baxter kids. Their eyes told us that either they were mortified or terrified. After what their father had to say, I’d go with the latter.

“A night a few months ago, Mark was playing one of these records in the cellar at home. I told him what I told you, many times before — none of that music. The work of the Devil. Sins against God. But he couldn't help himself. That’s how it works: You let him in, and he won’t let go.

“So I decided to show him what was hidden in those songs. I did the same thing I did here tonight. I stopped the record, and slowly I began to play it in reverse. And those same, hidden messages were revealed.

“And then … he walked right through the room.”

“Who?” someone asked.

“The Devil,” Jason whispered. In the ensuing silence, you could hear a guitar pick drop.

Mr. Baxter nodded. “He did. A dark figure. Dressed in the darkest cloak I'd ever seen, he passed into the room. No face, just nothingness. Tears were streaming down our faces. We couldn’t move. He glided closer to us, and we still could not move. He stopped just ten feet away from us, and he pointed, right at me. And in a voice I’ll never, ever forget he said …”

He let the sentence hang in the air. This was some real campfire-story shit, and I’m betting I wasn’t alone in hankering for some roast marshmallows right about then. What a showman.

“… ‘No’.”

No? That was it? Not “come with me, you’re going to hell” or “turn it up, man?” I say that now, but to be quite honest with you, I was shitting bricks.

I’d been taught for years every manner of how the grip of evil might drag me down into a fiery pit of doom. You bet your ass I was saying the rosary every night and had a small shrine to Virgin Mary in the corner of my bedroom. Now I was learning that this Satan fella came in a physical form like the Grim-fucking-Reaper if you pissed him off.

I glanced over at the Baxter kids. My look said “this shit real?” Their look was “this shit real.” That did it. After an extra lap around the beads before bed that night, sleeplessness would be unavoidable.

—

The following Sunday morning, I was once again packed hip-to-hip between my mother and brother within our usual pew at St. Ambrose. The usual congregation was there, including Mr. Baxter on guitar, and front-man Father Jacobs. Paul, a four-years-running altar boy, was on the bells with Mark Baxter.

I hadn’t forgotten the story Mr. Baxter told earlier that week. How could he just continue on like that, seeing what he saw? Or worse, what load of horse shit he fed to a mess of God-fearing — and now, for certain, Devil-fearing — kids? I wasn’t sure what was worse: That he went so far as to convince his own boys to play along so convincingly, or that they actually did see something that night.

Paul caught up with me in the parking lot, as the adults meandered around shaking hands with one another and secretly hoping they’d get home in time for football.

“What’s up?”

I shrugged. I had nothing.

“Hey, I talked to Mark earlier. About what his dad said.”

“What, about masturbating?”

He pushed me. Hard. I guess I deserved it.

“That Devil shit.”

“Paul! We’re still at church!” Paul’s mother hissed from somewhere in the crowd. That woman could hear a hummingbird fart in a bison stampede.

“It’s the parking lot, Mom! God, relax.”

If I’d talked to either of my parents the way Paul did, all the prayers in the world wouldn’t protect be from the sure evil that would ensue. The Devil would walk right in and applaud. But Paul’s exposure to the dictionary from Hell came from none other than his own mother’s mouth, and with certain regularity. I became fluent in the language by the time I was eight, from weekly summer sleepovers at the Morley house.

“He still swears it’s true.”

“You make him swear to God?”

Paul laughed. “No. But he’s not changing his story. Said a big person in a cloak sorta floated into the room, and then back out again.”

“What did he sound like?”

“I dunno. I didn’t ask him. Probably like ‘STOP THAT SHIT NOW!’”

His impression sounded more like Froggy from The Little Rascals than some dark being from the netherworld. Come to think of it, that would be pretty terrifying. Would someone please get that poor boy a cough drop, for God’s sake?

“Paul!”

“Sorry, Ma. I tried it, y’know. The record thing. Nothing happened. It’s a bunch of buuuuull shit.”

“Well, duh, yeah. You thought it was real? Creepy story, but no way is that gonna really happen. He was just trying to scare us. Don’t you think we’d hear of it happening to someone else already? I did it at my cousin’s house a few months ago.”

“What happened?”

I gave him a look that told him that his stupid question was going forever unanswered.

Paul pointed to the parking lot behind me. “Look, there he is.”

Mark Baxter was still clothed in his altar-boy whites, carrying his father’s guitar case to their station wagon. Paul gave me a nudge and started in his direction.

“Hey. Mark.”

Mark was a quiet kid, but not shy. More of a rebellious sort, I guess you could say. If he’d been in traditional school like the rest of us, no doubt he’d be one of the “cool kids” who took no shit from anyone and gave a pile of it to the teachers. There were few occasions you’d see him without bruises or a black eye, a sure sign he hadn’t backed down from trouble. It was that attitude that made the story he was holding onto so compelling.

“What’s up? Hey Keith.”

I held up a hand in greeting.

“Swear to God that story is true,” Paul said. The equivalent of a religious double-dog dare.

Mark shut the rear door and leaned against it.

“I’m not doing that. You know I won’t do that.”

“So it’s a bunch of buuuuull-”

“I don’t care if you won’t take my word for it. It’s what I saw.”

“How come it never happened to Keith? He said he did it at his cousin’s house, and nobody creepy came drifting through the room. Except maybe his Aunt Helen. Sorry Keith, she’s, like, a witch or something.”

Mark shrugged. “I guess you’re lucky. Maybe it’s the house.”

Paul seemed to back down at that. Then the wheels started to turn.

“Let’s do a sleep-over, then,” he said.

“A … sleep-over? What are we, ten?”

“Well then just have us over at night. Your dad’s got the records already. We just play them in the same room, on the same record player. If the Devil doesn’t show up, then it’s a bunch of crap.”

Mark’s cool demeanor warmed at that. “My father really doesn’t like people over. And it’s not a bunch of crap.”

“I wanna see for myself. So do you, right, Keith?”

I did my best to hide my real answer to that one. Instead, Mark did the honors.

“No. You don’t. And I don’t either.”

“Psssh. B.S. Whatever.”

Paul turned and walked away. I gave another silent wave to Mark before taking off as well.

—

I was only just getting ready for bed when something rapped against my bedroom window. It was early, but it was a school night, and I knew just who it was.

I opened the window to Paul’s shit-eating grin.

“Let’s go.”

“Now? Where? It’s a school night, man.”

“Baxter’s.”

“What, Mark wants us over? I thought his dad wouldn’t let us.”

“We’re just gonna go visit. Come on.”

I shut the window in his face. Paul kept right on talking.

“If you don’t come out now, I’ll go knock on your parents’ window and tell them you called me over.”

I flung the window back open.

“No you wouldn’t. And they’re not even in bed anyway.”

“Fine, then I’ll go knock on the door.”

He wasn’t bluffing. He’d done this to me before, and my folks fell for his Eddie Haskell routine every single time, hook line and sinker. As usual, Paul was going to get his way. I, as usual, was not.

—

The Baxter house was walking-distance away, but since Paul had his bike with him, I took mine as well. There’s something about walking while someone rides circles around you that feels a bit degrading.

We threw our bikes onto the Baxter’s lawn. I headed for the front door, but Paul started around the back.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“Mark’s window.”

“Jesus Christ! He doesn’t know we’re coming?”

“Nah. You heard him. He wasn’t gonna have us over. So we’ll just come over.”

I really should have made for my bike and headed back home. I started to weigh the punishment I’d get from my parents due to Paul’s threats against Mr. Baxter’s wrath, should we knock on the wrong window. Once I got home, Paul would make good on what he said, I’d be grounded for a week — and more — and the process would repeat until he got his way. I thought it better to see it through and put an end to Paul’s obsession right then.

None of the shades were drawn in the Baxter’s single-story ranch, and we found Mark hanging out in one of the rooms alone with its door shut. The lights were on and he was laying in bed, sort of huddled in a ball, back to the window. He was still clothed and clearly not sleeping. I tried to convince Paul otherwise.

“He’s sleeping. Let’s go.”

Paul ignored me and gave the window a knock.

Mark sprang up from the bed and turned to the door.

“I- I’m just praying, Dad. I promise.”

Paul knocked again. Mark stiffened, snapped around, and was greeted by Paul’s smart-assed wave. My look said, “I know. I’m sorry. What can ya do, it’s Paul.”

The window unlocked and opened.

“What are you doing here?”

Mark licked at a cut below his lip, and his face was sunburn-red. Always meeting trouble.

“Man. Who’d you fight this time? Did you finally fight Felix?”

“Maybe I’ll fight you for coming here knocking on my window. What do you want?”

“Play us the records.”

“Go play them yourself.”

“We wanna see what you saw. Come on.”

“You really don’t.”

“Just let us in. If you don’t, I’ll just go knock on the door and tell your dad you called us over.”

Right from the Morley playbook.

“No! Just … Fine. Meet me at the back by the bulkhead.”

Mark lowered the window. Paul was already on his way to the back of the house, but I watched Mark push his bedroom door open carefully, looking around before edging himself into the hallway, and pushed the door shut without a sound.

The bulkhead was a rusty, two-door entryway set into the house’s foundation. A few minutes passed before the inside latch was screeched open like a prison lock, and one of its doors creaked open. I could barely make out a person standing in the dark. I sure as Hell hoped it was Mark. Paul nudged me ahead of him. Either his night sight was better than mine and he was sure of who it was, or he just as blind and I was his shield.

“Get in,” Mark whispered.

The bulkhead led into concrete-floored basement, pitch black but for a crack of faint light from beneath a closed door. The smell of mildew and machine oil was unmistakably workshop-ian. I confirmed this when I bumped into what I figured was a long workbench. A few tools clattered onto wood and clanged against the floor.

“Shhh! My dad’s room is right above here.”

“Where’s Jason?” I asked.

“He’s staying with my mom.”

Mark opened the door into a finished part of the basement. All was dark but for a single lamp on an end table against a torn couch. Grey berber carpeting covered the floor from wall-to-wall, stained in the corners with water damage. French drains were always an afterthought back then, and not one easily or cheaply rectified. An old pool table took up the place of honor, consuming most of the room. Against one wall a Radio-Shack-brand Realistic stereo. Of course, it had a turntable.

Mark shut the door behind us as quietly as he had his bedroom door.

“We’re under the living room here. We should be okay.”

Paul already had the turntable cover off and was flipping through the sleeved albums stacked vertically beneath it.

“Which one did you play when you saw that thing?”

Mark hurried over and pushed Paul aside.

“Get out of there! My dad has them all organized. He’ll kill me if we mess it up.”

Marked pulled an album from the shelf and looked at its cover. Admiring it? Fearing it? One couldn’t tell.

“This one.”

“In this room, right?” Paul asked.

Mark nodded.

“Where did he come from?”

Mark pointed to an opening without a door. “The laundry room.”

“At my house, that’s where my dad keeps his booze,” I said.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just your mom?” Paul said.

“What? No! My parents are divorced, stupid.”

“So maybe it was your mom.”

Mark said nothing, but the seething in his posture was palpable. At that moment, I felt sorry for both of them.

Mark eased the platter out from the sleeve and placed it on the turntable, then turned the receiver on. He grabbed the needle and halted before placing it down.

“I don’t think you want me to play this backwards. It ruins the record, anyway.”

“No, we want you to play disco so we can dance,” Paul said. “Just play it. I want to see the Devil you said you saw.”

I finally spoke up. “But what if-”

“But what if what?” Paul snapped. “We see him and he tells us ‘no’ again? So what. Then we know and we won’t do it again.”

Mark looked back at us both, then placed the needle down. He seemed to know just where it had to go.

“This can play the record backwards on its own. I don’t need to do it by hand.”

He flipped a lever on the turntable and stepped far away, eyes not leaving that laundry room door. At first, seconds of silence, but for the popping and crackle of worn vinyl, then the speakers came to life. Sure enough, the words of Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” began to blast in reverse. I was caught off-guard at how loud it was, on account of Mark’s fear of alerting his father to the goings on. It caught Mark by surprise as well.

“Shit!”

Mark stumbled to the stereo. Someone stood in the doorway to the dark laundry room.

Mark froze. We all did. Satan had come. And then he spoke.

“What did I tell you.”

We said nothing. I felt the urge to run, but my legs were no better than bowling balls on Twizzler sticks. Paul backed up and was stopped short by the pool table. The record kept on playing.

“What. Did. I. Tell. You!”

Mark spoke. “N- No?”

“No! Nobody over! Nobody!”

Mr. Baxter stepped into the room. He was seething. He was nothing like I’d seen him before. And he was clearly loaded.

“And are you … are you playing that again?! After what happened last time?!”

“Dad? I … I’m sorry. They just showed up. I didn’t know-”

“Shut up! You two, get out of here the way you came!”

Through this all, the record continued to play, but all I could hear was Mr. Baxter’s rage.

“And you! Get over here!”

Paul and I turned tail and blasted through the door into the workshop. Paul shut the door behind him.

“Holy shit! His dad is … he’s crazy! Let’s get the hell outta here!”

For once I was willing to following Paul’s lead. As the bulkhead lock slid open, I heard Mr. Baxter’s anger turn up to eleven, while Robert Plant carried on.

“How many lessons do I need to teach you, Mark?! Another one?! And another?! I guess it’s time for one more! Come here!”

Mark started to cry. “No, Dad. Please.”

I couldn’t move. I knew that plea all too well. To leave, or stand idly by, knowing what was sure to come next, would be as damaging as what that bastard was about to do.

“What are you doing? Let’s go!” Paul said, and then flew out into the yard.

I turned and opened the basement door. Mr. Baxter had Mark pinned against the wall by the stereo, his arm cocked back with a fist. The record skipped. I’d say it was comically timed to my entrance, but the situation was anything but.

I’ve carried on a lot about how strange Mr. Baxter was. How he seemed to thrive on using the fear of damnation as a demented teaching tool, to kids who had been taught throughout their lives that Hell was no place to wind up. Throughout lessons failing in everything but illustrating the absurdity of it all, he had been kind. He had been patient and good. A seemingly willing volunteer to God. In that moment, the fog had lifted. Like with the ridiculous things he preached, he had fully veiled the truth of himself.

Mr. Baxter’s head snapped in my direction.

“I thought I told you to-”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. My breath caught in my chest. My eyes were no longer looking at Mr. Baxter or Mark. The anger that had blazing within them turned to absolute terror, trained on the open laundry room door.

The being floated into the room.

Mr. Baxter dropped his arm and flattened himself against the wall next to his son. The record played on.

Tattered dark brown robes draped over what was mostly human-shaped, drifting about it within a nonexistent wind. Swirls of debris and filth floated within the gaps of the cloth. Though they could have been flies, as the sounds of Led Zeppelin seemed drowned out by a skittering, hissing sound that bordered on radio static. There was no face, no real body parts at all. Just a thing. I would say it stood about seven feet tall, but that wouldn’t be quite accurate. Because the best I could tell, it was floating. The thing drifted closer to the Baxters. Mark continued to cry. Mr. Baxter looked as though he might start. Neither one said a word.

A long piece of the thing’s robe lifted, as though carried by an arm that wasn’t there, pointing, at the abusive wretch against the wall. It spoke.

“NO.”

Mr. Baxter broke down and slid to the floor. His mouth moved the words of “Our Father,” though I couldn’t hear him over the hissing, the music, and the throbbing in my head.

Mark didn’t follow suit. Instead, he ran over and stood beside me.

“NO,” it hissed again.

“Please.”

“NO.”

“No. I know. I know,” Mr. Baxter whimpered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you said no. I won’t do it again. I won’t do it again. I won’t!”

“COME.”

The specs floating within the swirl of robes darted to where Mr. Baxter lay huddled on the floor. There was no music, only the sound of what had begun to consume Mark’s father within a cloud of black, black which became solid, almost gelatinous and liquid. He screamed as the mass took over the man’s shape, writhing on the floor in what appeared to be pure agony.

The screams became grotesque, muffled gurgles before ceasing as abruptly as the thing had appeared in the laundry room doorway. Mark turned his face away. I still couldn’t move at all.

I have no idea how much time had passed before what had overcome Mr. Baxter once again became a cloud of airborne debris. On the floor, only another stain to match those in the corners of the room, filling the room with the odor of stale urine. As though called back to their master, they drifted to where the robed thing hovered, wafting about it as they’d done before.

It didn’t go back into the laundry room. Instead, it was just gone. Just as was the music. Just as was Warren Baxter.

—

Outside, I wasn’t at all surprised to see Paul and his bike long gone. I’d been inside with Mark for a long while after what had happened. He was a raw mess, as anyone would be. I helped him give a call to his mother, who lived about an hour away. I stayed for about that long before walking my bike home — I was in no condition to ride.

“I’ll say he just left me here,” Mark said. “Nobody would believe me if I told them what really happened.”

“What about his car?”

“He walks a lot. Usually to the bar down the street. They’ll believe that. I know Mom will.”

I could tell you I was terrified, walking that stretch of road alone late at night, after what I’d seen. In truth, I was relieved. For so long I was told of mortal sins I thought frivolous as being the true path to Hell. That simple “impure thoughts” would destine me to a horrible eternity only a young, teenage boy could imagine. How could such things measure in defiance of all that is good to the monstrous acts of murder, or of rape, or of beating one’s own child? There was a comfort in knowing that once the Devil truly is in someone, he comes looking for that piece of him to take home.

—

My house was in complete darkness. I threw my bicycle into the garage and entered through the back door, into the kitchen. At that hour, I was sure everyone was asleep.

“Where’ve you been?” It was my father. The son of a bitch was standing in the doorway from the basement, in the dark. Ice cubes tinkled from his highball glass.

“I … was just putting my bike away.”

“No. You were out. All night.”

“Dad, I-”

“Get in your room.”

There was no point in carrying on. I did as he said and shut the door behind me.

It was a school night, but I wasn’t about ready to sleep. Sleep, I knew, wouldn’t come at all. Not after the Baxter’s. Not after Dad. It would be another day of looking tired, looking terrible. All under the guise of looking tough.

“What are you doing?” I heard my mother ask from down the hall. “What time is it?”

“Your son. I’m getting my belt.”

“Steven, no…”

I turned on the small stereo in my room. Led Zeppelin IV was already mounted on the turntable, affectionately played countless times in the past as I fought to sleep through a shroud of tears and pain.

I placed the needle down, and as the door to my room opened, I began to turn it counter-clockwise by hand.

#the nosleep podcast #nosleep #horror #short story #short fiction

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tshirtfashiontrend · 4 years

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Patrick day Gnomies I dont need lucky Ive got Jesus shirt

When it comes to Patrick day Gnomies I dont need lucky Ive got Jesus shirt . fashion icons, no one compares with Angelina Jolie. The actress, who turns 44 today, arrived on the scene in 1990 and showed Hollywood a fashion perspective that was completely original. These days, Jolie may prefer her clothing understated and elegant to correspond with her position as an acclaimed director and humanitarian, but in the early days of her career, she embraced her inner bad girl. Sure, she could slink onto a red carpet in a bejeweled slip dress like her Gen X contemporaries, but Jolie was often at her best in jeans and a ripped T-shirt that let her tattoos and famous pout take center stage. Patrick day Gnomies I dont need lucky Ive got Jesus shirt, hoodie, sweater, longsleeve and ladies t-shirt

Classic Ladies

Hoodie

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Unisex Credited with going goth at big events before it became the norm—her leather maxi coat at the premiere of Playing God in 1997 could have come directly from the Fall 2019 runways—Jolie laid the foundations for what would eventually become her signature look Patrick day Gnomies I dont need lucky Ive got Jesus shirt . The vibe may have changed over the years, but her love of neutral colors, minimalist design, and statement-making body art remain constants. It would be easy to imagine the actress pulling the cream beaded Randolph Duke she wore to pick up a Golden Globe in 1999 out of the back of her closet today and looking just as fresh as she did two decades prior. Here, a look back at the best of Jolie’s vintage fashion from the mid-’90s and onward.Is that a really chic kerchief-wearing granny shuffling along the streets of New York? Maybe an ancient UES yenta who got lost downtown? No, it’s Marc Jacobs. This morning, the designer Instagrammed an image of himself (and a really long caption about just how busy he was!) wearing none other than the trend of the season, a babushka scarf. The silk accessory was daintily knotted under his chin and worn with a black coat. Though, this look wasn’t entirely old country: Jacobs sported a pair of cat-eye sunglasses with classic Grace Kelly appeal. The babushka—technically the Russian word for grandmother—has become a popular fashion statement over the past year. In the last few months alone, the scarf has been worn by A$AP Rocky, Frank Ocean, Kendall Jenner, and Chloë Sevigny. Now it’s only a matter of time before the beloved piece shows up on his runway. You Can See More Product: https://kingteeshops.com/product-category/trending/ Read the full article

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 4 years

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5th December >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 7:21, 24-27) for Thursday, First Week of Advent: ‘It was founded on rock’.

Thursday, First Week of Advent

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Matthew 7:21,24-27

The wise man built his house on a rock

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘It is not those who say to me, “Lord, Lord,” who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. Therefore, everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on rock. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and hurled themselves against that house, and it did not fall: it was founded on rock. But everyone who listens to these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a stupid man who built his house on sand. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and struck that house, and it fell; and what a fall it had!’

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 7:21, 24-27

Whoever does the will of my Father will enter the Kingdom of heaven.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

Reflections (9)

(i) Thursday, First Week of Advent

In more recent decades we have become more aware of how houses can easily get built in places where there should never be houses, such as the flood plains of rivers. When houses are built on flood plains, it can often give rise to flooding further down the river. We have also become aware that faulty material has gone into the foundations of houses, resulting eventually in walls cracking and the whole house becoming unstable. It is vital to get the foundations of a house right, both in terms of the materials in the foundations and where the foundations are laid. It was no different in the time of Jesus. Houses were sometimes built in a way that was suited to the dry, hot, summer climate of the Near East, but left them exposed to the winter winds and rains, because their foundations were not laid down with winter conditions in mind. The foundations rested on sand rather than rock. Jesus sees in this shoddy building practice a message for our lives. Not just our houses, but our lives need to be built on firm foundations. Jesus declares his word to be the firmest foundation we can build our lives on, not just listening to his word, but putting his word into practice, living by his word. When we heed Jesus’ words and live according to his teaching, we are building the house of our lives on the firmest foundation imaginable. Then, when the storms of life come, we will have a firm footing.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, First Week of Advent

We can probably easily identify with the weather image that Jesus uses in this morning’s gospel reading, ‘Rains came down, floods rose, gales blew’. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Apart from actual physical storms, we can all be struck by storms of a different kind no matter what part of the world we are in. The church has been through quite a storm in recent weeks, and the storm is still howling. As individuals, we can find ourselves battling against the elements of life, as we struggle in one shape or form, for one reason or another. Jesus declares in our gospel reading this morning that difficult times will indeed come for all of us. The real issue is the extent to which we are equipped to deal with them. When the storms come will we find ourselves at the mercy of the storm, tossed about helplessly, or will we be able to withstand the storm and move through and beyond it? Jesus states in our gospel reading that he can be our rock when the storm comes. If we listen to his words and try to act on those words we will remain upright and standing when the storm breaks around us. Jesus brings us back to basics, the doing of God’s will as Jesus has revealed it for us. If we keep on returning to that focal point then the Lord will see to it that we endure, regardless of the strength of the storm.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, First Week of Advent

The parable of the two builders we have just heard brings the long Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel to a close. The Sermon on the Mount is full of wonderful teaching; it has been analyzed and reflected upon for the last two thousand years, and rightly so; its message continues to speak to us today. Yet, Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount by declaring that it is not enough to listen to the teaching of the Sermon and to admire it; we must live the teaching, allow the values of the Sermon to shape our lives. If we listen to it and do no more we are like the builder who built his house on sand; if we listen to Jesus’ teaching and put it into practice we are like the builder who built his house on rock. We have been made more aware of shoddy building practices in recent times here in our own city. Building an apartment or a house to required standards is the responsibility of those in the building trade and only a small proportion of us are involved in that trade. However, we are all involved in the work of building lives to the standard that God wants and expects from us. In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus declares that the way to do that is to listen attentively to his word with a view to allowing his word to shape all we do and say. That is what Mary did; let it be to me according to your word. She is our model and inspiration in Advent.

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, First Week of Advent

The image of rock is to be found in both readings this morning. The prophet Isaiah speaks of the Lord as the everlasting rock. Like rock, the Lord is enduring and faithful. Therefore, he can be relied upon; he can be trusted. If we come across a substantial outcrop of rock one day, we know that it will be there again the next day, and the following day, and long after we have gone, just as it was there long before we were born. In speaking of God as a Rock the people of Israel were trying to capture that sense of the reliability, the durability, the faithfulness of God. God can be relied upon; he can be trusted. This morning’s gospel reading was taken from the gospel of Matthew. At the beginning of his gospel, Matthew gives Jesus the title Emmanuel, God-with-us. As God with us, Jesus embodies the reliability, the faithfulness of God. He has that rock-like quality of God; he is with us to the end of time. In this morning’s gospel reading he declares that those who build their lives on what he says, those who listen to his word and keep it, will be building their lives on rock. He is the reliable foundation of our lives and if we give ourselves over to his word and his presence we will draw from his strength especially when the storms of life threaten to engulf us.

And/Or

(v) Thursday, First Week of Advent

We know that a building is as good as its foundations. If the foundations are flimsy, the consequences for those who live in the house can be catastrophic, especially if unusual stress is placed on the building because of weather or some other disturbance of nature. The most important part of the house is that which is not immediately visible. In the gospel reading, Jesus draws on that image of the house to speak about the foundation of our lives as human beings. He declares that entrusting ourselves to him, listening to his word and trying to live his word, will provide a foundation for our lives that will enable us to withstand the great storms of life. We need some solid ground under us as we go through life. Jesus presents himself as that solid ground. If we build our lives on all he says and does, he will prove to be a rock, enabling us to stand firm even when the disappointments and sufferings of life leave us feeling very vulnerable. As human beings we long for security at many levels. Jesus tells us that we will find our ultimate security in him if, in the phrase of Saint Paul,we allow his word to dwell in us richly.

And/Or

(vi) Thursday, First Week of Advent

This morning’s gospel reading makes reference to listening, speaking and doing. Jesus refers to those who ‘listen to these words of mine’, to those who say aloud, ‘Lord, Lord’, and to those who act on his words. When it comes to our faith, listening and speaking are important, but Jesus declares that listening and speaking on their own, without doing, have little or no value. This passage comes at the very end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is saying that his words in the Sermon on the Mount are not just there to be listened to and admired; they are not just there to be responded to in words of prayer, ‘Lord, Lord’. Rather, they are there to be lived, to be acted upon. Each day we hear the call to live the message that Jesus proclaims. We are to translate his teaching into living. Advent is a season when we are called in a special way to live the word of Jesus that we listen to. In this regard, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a very good model for us. On one occasion when some women in the crowd around Jesus declared Mary blessed because of the Son that she bore, Jesus replied, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it’. Mary if blessed not primarily for the son she gave birth to but because she heard God’s word and lived it every day. That is our calling too and, in this season of Advent, we can look to Mary as our inspiration as we try to respond to this calling.

And/Or

(vii) Thursday, First Week of Advent

There are many images of God in the Jewish Scriptures. All such images are simply that, images. They give a very small window onto God. They attempt to express some element of God’s reality which, in itself, is always beyond our full comprehension. We find one such image in today’s first reading. Isaiah speaks of God as ‘the everlasting rock’. There is very little in our created world that could be considered ‘everlasting’. Yet, perhaps rock comes close to being an exception to that rule. There is something about rock which is clearly enduring and reliable. When Isaiah speaks of God as an everlasting rock, he was expressing his conviction that God was someone who was enduring and reliable, and, therefore, to be trusted. We step on rock knowing that it will hold us up. We can trust rock. Isaiah in that reading calls on his hearers to ‘trust in the Lord forever’ because he is an ‘everlasting rock’. Jesus is the one who reveals God to us in a way that no other human has ever done or could ever do. It is not surprising then Jesus uses the image of rock with reference to himself. In the gospel reading this morning he declares that those who listen to his words and live by them are like builders who build a house on rock. We live in a world in which so much is disposable, so little lasts, in which the rate of change is constant and progressive. We often feel the need to find some solid ground that endures, that can be trusted and relied upon. Jesus declares himself to be that solid ground and he calls to us to build our lives on him by allowing his words to shape us.

And/Or

(viii) Thursday, First Week of Advent.

The weather is a great topic of conversation in Ireland. Maybe that is because it changes so frequently. There is always something to say about it. We are very familiar with the weather referred to in today’s gospel reading, rain, floods and gales. Such weather was less common in Palestine, the land of Jesus. Yet, occasionally in the winter months people had to contend with rain, floods and gales. It was probably tempting for builders in that climate just to build for the better weather that was the norm. However, the really wise builder built with a view to the worst case scenario, even though it may not arise very often. That meant paying more attention to the foundations of a house than might have seemed necessary. Jesus draws a lesson from this scenario for our own lives. Our lives can be going along fine for a period of time and then some severe storm hits us unexpectedly. We find ourselves in a kind of a whirlwind that throws everything out of kilter. Jesus is saying that we need to prepare for that scenario. Our lives need the kind of foundation that will enable us to survive such traumatic experiences. Jesus offers himself as that foundation. If we listen to his words and try to live them every day of our lives, we will be putting down a foundation that will stand to us when the storms come. We don’t wait for the storm to come to start looking for a foundation. The laying of a foundation that gives us something of God’s own strength is something we do every day, little by little, by opening our lives to the Lord’s word and allowing it to shape who we are and all we say and do.

And/Or

(ix) Thursday, First Week of Advent

When people were building houses in Palestine in the time of Jesus during the dry season as the weather was fine and warm, it was tempting to build them in a way that did not take into account the wilder weather to come during the winter, when heavy rain and strong winds could affect that part of the Near East. It was easier to build on sand than on rock but it was also shortsighted. What serves in good weather does not always serve in bad weather. Building on rock ensures that the house will stand regardless of the weather. The gospel reading suggests that we have to build our lives in such a way that we will stand firm, not just when all is well, but also when life gets difficult, when the storms come our way and threaten to engulf us. We are to build for the worst of times and not only for the best of times. Jesus declares in the gospel reading that if we not just listen to his words but also try to act on them, we will be building our lives on rock. If we embrace his life and message and allow our own lives to be shaped by it, then we will be building our lives in such a way that we will stand firm when the trials and tribulations of life assail us. We need a firm foundation, we need resources to fall back on, when our vulnerability is exposed by life’s storms. Jesus tells us that he is our primary resource. He will be our firm foundation, if we keep on trying to take the path that he sets before us by his teaching and his way of life.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie Please join us via our webcam.

Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC.

Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf.

Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.

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unproduciblesmackdown · 6 years

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yallnve realized by now that this is a fulltime 100% narnia blog...and as i havent slept since finding out someone somewhere was set on making "the silver chair" into a movie & the dynamic world of narnalysis is the best i can offer,

first of all im like.........ya rly gonna just jump into the silv chair!! im not really interested w the details on what anyone plans to do with the content b/c i donno, ive never been really interested in the book. not because its like bad or anything, actually it's probably the most cinematic in terms of things actually happening at a steady rate. i just like what i like, maybe because its sort of lower scale? whatever. its not like its hard to make into a movie i dont think, is what im saying. that would be either the horse and his boy or prince caspian, probably the latter b/c like a genuine 1/3 of it is an expository flashback. but all of the books are bit tricky to adapt coz theyre just short, you have to pad basically all of them in some way or another. but sure. silver chair. w/e

the thing is that you Have to assume despite starting afresh that theyre doing this one since the first three books have been recently filmed? and this being the fourth. but How Are You Going To Just Jump Into This One. thats an awful lot of exposition thats being built on, at this point in the game we're neck deep in the Lore. you'd really just have to have read the previous books or at least seen the movies. are they counting on the audience to have done that? but at the same time its really not fair to fully rely on that. in the book you can go "read the other books" and wave it off in a sentence of "and then they explained it all" which does tend to happen in the actual text a fair amt. its a bit awkward in movie form though? its a plot point right off that eustace knows who prince/king caspian is. so then you have to sum up dawn treader. and that has to do with what happened in prince caspian, in which the plot of lww is pretty important. like, alright, possibly you could just explain tvotdt & take it from the perspective of the girl who doesnt know crap about narnia yet? but thats not nearly as good a starting point as lww. on account of that ones meant to be a starting point! i'll see scholastic / any publishings that try to push magician's nephew as the first book In Hell, frankly. strongest narnpinion right there. the published order over the chronological order

anyways i'm sure it can be figured out, its just.......Interesting to think how the silver chair intro might be made into Intro To Narnia v.2.0? will they even try or will it be "ok but seriously just have read the books or whatever before you come in here." mystery unfolds

another thing thats interesting is that lww is clearly abt like, hey kids here's a version of the resurrection for you. whereas silver chair doesnt have anything to do w any Biblical Events at all (tho of course neither does prince caspian, tvotdt, or the horse & his boy). it is instead about how atheists will try to steal your firstborns for.................reasons. (no reason, theyre just evil.) this one is just a major amplified version of another particularly ridiculous CS Lewis Apologism Favorite that runs through the books: that when it comes to having no Faith (in aslan but you know also the abrahamic god) everyone who doubts aslan/god is like, actively lying to themselves, because they have that Gut Feeling telling themself that their faith is not only whats righteous but also whats true. the gut feeling of truth is a big theme in the books, shit hinges on it all the time and makes doubt all Clearly Sinful instead of a reasonable result of aslan effing off for centuries or whatever. and speaking of, god only knows if lewis is really suggesting that real life doubt or nonreligiousness is 100% populated by people who are clenching their fists like "i know in my heart jesus is real but i dont want to believe it so i won't, damnit!" which yknow makes no sense for like....life, and uh? i dont know what its supposed to mean for like....other religions? i dont think he's about putting the nuance that not every concept of religious Faith is the same as in christianity into this book, i dunno abt his thoughts irl. lord knows its a mystery how he thinks that "if jesus wasnt lying and jesus wasnt Insane then christianity is real" argument means anything. nothing in the world fits that argument for finding out if something is true or not........and also it hinges on that concept of "insanity" which......like.......i'm sure is all about nice 1940s ideas of how "insane" people act. its shit, throw it out, i mean. and besides? as though theres a Logic argument to prove christianity as truth? have you just Solved religion, lewis? have you? sometimes, i swear..

anyhow so in the silver chair its just a big ol festival of his "atheists are lying to themselves" and "atheism starts by someone who Knows The Truth (jesus is real) lying to others, likely aka the devil or whatever, and the stand-in for the devil is a witch again." and lewis really seems fond of the allegory of the cave. smh! like, in that allegory "knowing" that your faith is true is impossible! but youre also out here arguing its logically provable? and don't forget the gut feelings thing. but it makes NO sense for him to drop it into this book universe because in this allegory the prince captured by atheists & the protags are people who have hopped into the cave and seen the sun and shit!! they dont need to be the people who have only ever seen shadows who need to be convinced that an outside world can exist!!! bitch!!! get your allegory in order. silver chair just.....lord. the lying babysnatching atheists

a n y w a y s . . . thats a weird conflict to put in your third act, and its also a weird argument to make re christianity, that even though you acknowledge its impossible to know that your faith is in something thats real, you're willing to risk it? its sort of like that idea that you might as well be religious even if you dont "believe" any religion is true, because you lose nothing and potentially gain both comfort in life and reward in an afterlife. but its kind of a big deal in christianity that you're supposed to believe that what you believe in Is Literally Real. maybe apologists are allowed to do that sort of thing in their arguments, i suppose. its like in the last battle where he has a dude who believes in another deity accepted into the christian afterlife b/c despite a lack of belief, his virtuous nature is, from a practical standpoint, accepted to be for all intents and purposes to be equivalent to having believed in the christian god, like if he happened to follow all other rules except the Believing In Jesus one then he's good to go anyhow. interesting in that its also supposed to be pretty vital in christianity that one has to accept jesus as god in order to be Saved all up into heaven! i suppose that guy in the book was meant to have been converted right before death or whatever. at that point its very unclear who is exactly dead or not, but probably everyone. still, aslan clearly makes the argument that "basically you might as well have been believing in me, so you're good to go." fascinating stuff. another one to ask lewis abt

uhhhh another point is that i think theyre intending to make other movies also? but not all four remaining ones!! and if i had to guess which one they'd be leaving out uhh lets say....the horse & his boy....................which conveniently is the other sort of sparsely plotted one. two kids ride horses towards narnia, briefly have to have a shenanigansy undercover sneak through a crowded city, ride towards narnia some more, and then one of them stays at some guys house while the other kid goes into narnian battle where he himself doesnt actually do anything, but that fact is described pretty funnily. its still sort of a fun one, on account of the sneaking around hijinx, and the fact that it happens to give ANY of the details of what tf the pevensies did for like the twenty years they reigned over narnia's golden age which the lww just tells you absolutely n o t h i n g about! the answer is: a lot of battling probably, on account of narnia went from being ruled for a century by someone who could kill you in a second and also why would you have invaded narnia at that time, it wouldve been like trying to invade russia. but then a bunch of kids took the throne and upended the whole system and the snow went away, it seems like a destabilizey time to invade or whatever. imo. but then again they mightve bought themselves a few years on account of aslan having shown up and all. but lbr, they were just put into battle right off and coronated three seconds later, theres no reason on that front that they wouldnt shy away from having more battles. and the books said there were a lot of battles. and in thahb, its like, well we've been battling a lot lately and now we're in shenanigans and we'll just have to battle our way out of it, which they absolutely do. edmund straight up decapitates a guy. how ARE they supposed to just transition immediately into english schoolchildren after a couple decades of that mess??? they even have the fancy courtly speech. its magic i suppose

the point is its kind of a fun book, oh also, aslan is TOP shenanigans in this one. he straight up actually attacks one of the protagonists, for Reasons, but still. not that he doesn't murder the pevensies in the last book. i mean, i guess you could argue that its just like Divine Coincidence where what with the unaligned timelines betwixt england and narnia, aslan couldve just picked the moment everyone was gonna die anyway and just tossed them over to X point in time in narnia. but I Donno.....im kinda with that university student who's stressing about whether aslan cause ww2 for the purpose of sending the pevensies to the wardrobe. like, that train accident that killed everybody killed four people on the platform & five people on the train in different carriages and everything, or maybe the numbers are switched because i dont remember where lucy was. im saying, that was a hell of a crash. but sure. anyhow, even more fun, aslan appears as a cat to the Other protag while he's spending a night on the edge of the wilderness, and scratches him for saying he once threw rocks at a stray cat. like, hard #same, aslan!!! wtf dude why arent YOU being claimed by satan

whats also fun is that it doesn't really take place in narnia, which is also the reason besides pacing that you wouldnt really want to make this one into a film? because uhhhh the whole worldbuilding lewis crapt upon everyone for calormen is clearly racist as fuccck. if you arent already familiar with all the books (namely this one and i suppose the last battle) then its like.....i guess its some sort of vague notion of the ottoman empire? its really just a mashup of any number of white-english-variety racist notions. everyone is brown, is it an inaccurate stab at an amorphous amalgam of middle eastern culture? east asian? are people islamic or hindu? just try and guess what he was going for because its just. not based on anyone needing to know anything about reality. lewis was against seasoning food i guess, because it will mention i guess like, people cooking with onions like the heathens they are. (spoilers: this country just exists in the narniaverse to represent Those Heathens). its not necessarily an Evil place, they are noble savages ok!! with their formal seriousness and cutthroat customs.......b/c they are not as advanced and peaceful as the white northern christians, see. closer to the less developed violence of their inherently backwards ways and Cruel Society reigned by violence DONT CONVERT OR YOU'LL DIE, KIDS. but also.....you wont be white? the reason of calormens existence is really never explained. telmarines came from englandverse on accident thru a magic portal just lying around, possibly thats whats meant to have happened there too? its never attempted to be explained. anyways its basically the intro to the disney aladdin.

lewis is entirely inconsistent and self contradictory all throughout the series for the sake of the authors convenience. this is part of what makes the stories fun and the worldbuilding charming. it is also what allows him to pull stunts that have you pinching the bridge of your nose in exasperation and writing out essays to try to figure out how narnia is supposed to work. it is also what allows him, five books in, to be like, "here is the country to the south where the demon-worshipping gross scary brown uncivilized folk sit around hating narnia and confirming any racist notion you have about any nonwhite nonchristian country or culture." thanks, clive

its of course ludicrous and, of course, the protagonist shasta just so happens to be white despite being raised calormene. spoilers, he is narnian. or really from archenland, which isnt narnia but is still white and pro-narnia so its alright. i mean, technically narnia is allied with calormen at all points in time of the series? calormen just quietly tries an invasion in that book and also in the last book. so thats interesting. i suppose lewis is anti-crusades, which is big of him. the pevs arent out here trying to conquer calormen and convert them to narnianism. so that must not be the Destiny of the true christian? or are we meant to believe calormenes are beyond help? shasta who is of course secretly not "really" calormene is still representing someone undergoing "conversion," yet again, the guy is white. i suppose being brown is whats hopeless?

theres an inadvertently laughable line at the start of the book where a calormene expositorially points out that shasta is white by comparing him to the "accursed but beautiful" narnians. who are all white? is he just talking about the pevensies? the archenlanders (i cant remember where theyre meant to have come from either.) are like, all humanoid narnian natives white?? wtf, aslan. anyways, the dialogue is unnatural and funny enough, but its also like.....ok lewis, we got it, whiteness is the standard for all universes and everyone wishes they were white. stupid, sexy narnians.

what alllllmost suggests that being a poc isnt an automatic fastpass to hell is that im fairly sure the second protagonist aravis is a nonwhite calormene?? i dont remember it ever saying she was "fair" like the narnians the way the book immediately points out that shasta is. she is of course escaping an arranged marriage (the calormene plot to sort of vaguely try to invade narnia is also based on forcing susan to marry a dude she doesnt like yet who she apparently genuinely considered as a suitor when he wasnt acting like a jerk? so not only a dude who isnt white but a dude who isnt aslanian christian. its a whole complicating element to just toss out in this otherwise flat af worldbuilding, dude!! not to mention? despite the battles and shit, susan was out here considering marriage? how absolutely fucked up would it have been if any of them married and then effed off back to england. moving along) but she is from the start portrayed as equally sympathetically as shasta and nothing about her is pointed out as being Bad and Reprehensible, which the narration has no qualms about doing. she even gets to spend some time with her calormene friend, who is not exactly meant to be as sympathetic or noble but certainly isnt portrayed as at all evil. like...theres at least the occasional exception apparently, in which maybe not every person is inherently evil and violent and cruel. who knows

also aravis definitely later marries the white protag?? but apparently interracial marriage isnt entirely Unthinkable here. wait, also, aravis claims to be somehow a direct descendant of the calormene god tash? first of all, is that true, comma, possible? in the last book its confirmed that tash is real, albeit, like, a demon. dunno what c.s. is telling us with that one. is aravis related to a demon. we can only guess on account of the theme of Inconsistency

anyways. i suppose you could make it into a movie if you just threw out the racist shit. but the "calormen is also distinguished from narnia via its religion" element is also a touch janky. can it be thrown out too? if they intend to produce the last battle, will it be thrown out then. it kind of comes up again. if you get rid of those elements though, the stakes get a little blurrier and more political and more "wait well why would they have any beef with each other in the first place" if you cant just easily point out that the calormenes are shaking their fists at the narnians and their demon worship and their jealousy at not being white. again, are all centaurs white or something? wtf

truly calormene is the most racist ass shit in the whole series, but the concept comes up in less painfully direct ways other times, too. why are there native species in narnia that are considered inherently evil?? sure, the white witch as the stand-in for the devil wasn't originally from narnia. was she creating shit too? i dont remember what she was up to on account of i havent read the magicians nephew in a hot minute. i know they had to take a pegasus into a garden of eden type shit to smoke her out of wherever she was lurking for some reason or another. still. whys there whole types of creatures who are universally and unilaterally condemned? i know we're meant to believe that they just have evil intent according to their nature, but uh....theres no point at which any of these creatures are given a chance? maybe they served the white witch because she was nice to them for once. you're not given the chance to know. EXCEPT for the fact that you get shit like: giants are evil save for the occasional exception, like in lww when a "good" giant is described as having like, a long family line, and "traditions." not like Those Sorts. they do talk in like prince caspian and shit, when their numbers are miserable and theyre discussing tactics, whether to get help from the gross hags and harpies and etc and ppl will talk about Those People and Sorts and Rabble and its like...jfc. b/c apparently sommme of them can be decent! if theyre a giant or whatever. and meanwhile the dwarfs are always chaotic neutral or whatever. not believing in aslan but not necessarily being anti-narnia coz they live there. but sometimes being good guys!! but sometimes being bad guys, and jadis was cool to them apparently. like.................theres definitely cases of Types of narnians who fall outside the "born good / born bad" system, and thats pretty fucked. wolves too? theyre the Talking Beasts aslan definitely created, but on the side of the white witch? how was she having trees be on her side, too? whats going on around here. whats the moral meant to be. smh

uhh well anyhow, you could do a nice essay on gender re narnia. on account of sometimes its staleass typical sexist tropes like uhh, say,, the devil stand-ins keep being women? witches, ok. and the idea of "women need to be protected as pure creatures" as a basic sexist notion, and even lewis taking a relatively subdued jab at the idea of calling that sexist. susan being the miniature mom character type, and of course the infamous last battle bit where, in an attempt to describe her lack of spirituality as a self-insert of what lewis considered his own period of fake maturity via rejection of christianity, she's of course not only described as not believing in narnia (which????? what is anyone supposed to make of that. again, in the allegory of the cave shit, she's been outside the cave!!! she lived in narnia for YEARS AND YEARS and then WENT BACK. how are we supposed to believe she just convinced herself it wasnt literally real? its not quite the same as someone losing their faith in christianity.) but as like, wearing makeup, damn her. even if he wasnt trying to make the point that "look at boys and go to hell" which, i suppose he couldnt, as in narnia susan was being courted just fine as queen, yet i suppose also she didnt marry anyone—anyways, of course its still sexist to slight the way she decides to dress as some form of false maturity, even if its meant to be metaphor. just clumsy af & not great when again, devils are always witches around here. and being younger is to be more spiritually pure which like............mmm ok. this is sort of another one of those weirdly sexless fantasy universes, why do those keep happening. i mean sure this is a christian fairy tale for kids. but nobody even gets married save for in the last paragraphs of a couple books. its left a bit ambiguous whether thats even spiritually acceptable in the narnia rules, unless its to Continue the Line a la the telmarine monarchy from caspian the first to tirian the whateverth. hm

but also of course you get the young girl characters being...somewhat almost allowed to fight (archery mainly) but anyways at least being given equal status to the boys who are there also. theres even mention of once apparently narnia being ruled by a queen w no kings around. fantastic. and theres some non-witch lady characters on occasion. the human characters are where the dynamics are most at, i suppose, but anyways this at least has some nuance & at times seems to go just a bit beyond what you might expect from some old dude in the 50s. still not that surprising or innovative, but not completely flat, and seeming to contain at least a little reflection upon the topic

the essay of race re: narnia would be really short though. Its Racist Af. if you threw classism in too, you might get a bit more length out of it. but really its just so flat in this subject, and totally needless. there's the fact that even narnia is ruled by white english people but.....you can really do without juxtaposing this with the heinous nonwhite country somewhere over there. the rest of the books operate just fine w/o this

tolkien mentioned HIS scary brown backwards civilization to the south a lot more fleetingly in lotr but its....v much the same worldbuilding as narnia??? aka middle earth is pretty much an imaginary proto-england where you dont want to go too far east or south or you run into dangerous &/or inherently evil territory!! ok, jrr.....who was the other people in the inklings?? what did they write. could no one rein these guys in. coz lewis is over here with his Alternate Universe england. with uhhhh wilderness to the north and west and the dangerous evilish racismland to the south. and the ocean and dont forget narnia is a flat earth to the east. also? why are the lone islands like that. can aslan take care of some of that shit. for gods sake. anyways. the all-white good guys / evil poc should be thrown out of everything, thats not what makes the worldbuilding in either lotr or chronarnia at all interesting. yet is it is surely a subsection of the inherent Englishness of both examples........it warrants analysis but not "carrying on into films or anything based on either's precedence in the fantasy genre."

god who knows what im talking about at this point. im just saying "if they arent looking to even bother trying to wrangle the horse and his boy into something not ludicrously racist then i wouldnt be at all surprised." still, do you suppose theres like a curse where unless all narnia books are given some sort of film adaptation, the world won't know peace? more likely the world would end, maybe. the curse of clive. i dont really remember but that elder bbc series sure didnt cover the whole saga

well this is long enough but lets all set off in more endless, doomed narnalysis, such as

my thesis on trying to figure out what. the Fuck any reader is supposed to make out of edmund's role in the lww

whats the deal with merpeople?!

where are all these witches coming from, anyways

seriously if the narnians were just less murderous to the Undesirable species would they have been on the pro-aslan side all along

if there was only two humans staying in narnia at its birth, wouldnt their line like, die out immediately with their kid.

where did the archenlanders come from

where did the calormenes come from

oh yeah and like. are we seriously meant to believe that, at the end of the world, when aslan reveals that being goodnatured supercedes having the Wrong Religion, there is only one calormene in all of a) current existence and b) history who fits the bill? really. why even bring it up, then.

how did narnians react to their four monarchs completely disappearing......for real.....and what happened to the line to the throne?? was there just no ruler until the telmarines came in and took things over for the rest of the few centuries or whatevs.

when was that deep magic in lww written? at the start of narnia? coz thats the magicians nephew. again, how tf did the white witch get any leverage in that one. how was that supposed to be a good idea. wtf. see my thesis

whats the white witch supposed to represent as a stand-in for the devil? not helping that i dont remember the details of magicians nephew for shit, but she's definitely in the Multiverse lore of narnia as being from a different world as narnia and england. wtf is like...her nature

how weird is it in narnia that you have a god who drops in confused alien children to both go on personal journeys and save the world? is narnia-aslan/earth-jesus also dropping other children from other worlds into other other worlds? via other forms? hmm

lewis is all but inviting us the readers to be filling in the blanks with narnia fic. he's basically like, outright actually inviting fic with people wanting to speculate what happens with susan, who must inevitably return to narnia as lewis intends her to represent his own departure from (and obvious inevitable return to) christianity

a weird detail that is also never elaborated on: in addition to the narrator freely inserting loads of opinions into the narration, there's a time or two its made clear that like, the narrator has gotten this info from interviewing the characters. how'd you know about that last battle, "they all died and this happened in the afterlife" shit, huh. just another weird element

sussing out other lewispinions, like how he hates all schools apparently

narnia vs middle earth!! both quasi englands, both pre industrialization, both with christ figures running around some more than others, both with the need for rightful kings, totally different roles for humans tho. well, thats the whole comparison

and, inevitably, more.

#just narnblogging #or narbling #stay tuned for......murder

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daleisgreat · 6 years

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Dale’s Top 21 Videogame Experiences of 2017

Howdy, everyone! Welcome to my first blog of 2018, and what better way to kick it off than reflecting back on my top gaming experiences of 2017! I had a blast with my top 11 gaming experiences blog from last year, which was really more like 30-40 moments condensed down to 11 entries. I did a similar thing for this year, but for a whopping 21 entries instead. That is nearly double the fun! Just be forewarned, this is a doozy of a read, so without further ado, let us get onto the list! 21) End-Label-Fever

My buddy Matt introduced me to unofficial N64 end labels that were available online. I became immediately envious and ordered the complete set off Etsy and promptly applied them to all my games. I am still befuddled to why Nintendo never had them to begin with. 20) Quantities are Limited! I ordered several games from Limited Run throughout 2017. If you are unfamiliar with Limited Run, they publish physical versions of former digital-only PS4/Vita games, but true to their name in small print runs that you have usually only several minutes to order online as soon as they are available or you are out of luck. Thankfully I had no problem getting my orders in on them and I was stoked to get the physical versions of games I was super into such as Oxenfree, Firewatch, Windjammers and Read Only Memories. 19) A Certain NES Guide Book

Past few years I have gotten into YouTuber Pat Contri’s work a bit. I first found out about him on an AVGN guest spot, and have been keeping up with his podcasts and videos since. A couple years ago he released a mammoth tome dubbed The Ultimate Guide to the NES Library and as the title eludes it tries to be the ultimate guide by reviewing every American, Europe and Australlian release for the NES and have a bunch of bonus columns and features to round it off. I try to read two-to-four reviews before bed at least a few days a week and I have been doing that for just over a year now. I have found out about a ton of NES games I have never heard of before or knew very little of, plus it was interesting to find out their takes on the games I grew up on. This has lead to me tracking down a few NES games throughout the year such as Roundball, Crystalis and Indy Heat to name a few. I still have a ways to go and am only up through Rolling Thunder on the reviews as of this writing. 18) Mmmmm….Pie The last couple years I have been hearing a lot of buzz about all-in-one emulator machines known as RetroPies. Questionable legalities of the device aside, they have risen in popularity this past year and I inevitably stumbled into playing a couple variations of it at various places throughout the year. One person had a custom arcade cabinet with it installed and we tore it up playing countless arcade fighters and brawlers on it. Another time another friend and I went out of our way to search for obscure versions of Street Fighter ports and had a decent time experiencing the original Street Fighter and surprisingly decent versions of Street Fighter Alpha on the GameBoy Color and Street Fighter Alpha 2 on the SNES. I told one friend my joy last year experiencing the import-only arcade release of Ring of Destruction, and sure enough we found it and slaughtered each other for quite a bit on it. The best RetroPie moment was finding an English-patched version of Super FirePro Wrestling Premium on SNES and the worst was when playing a RetroPie for the first time for whatever reason the first game of the several thousand available on it I decided to play was Shaq-Fu, a game I already own…two copies of…don’t ask. 18) The Return of Bimmy & Jimmy!

I was surprised with the out of nowhere announcement and quick release of Double Dragon IV at the beginning of the year. I am presuming the 16-bit Super Double Dragon is no longer cannon. Got a chance to play it with Matt shortly after its release and I loved how it captured the NES feel of the classic 8-bit brawlers and we had a good time with it until we hit one of the final levels. That level was filled with mazes of mind-boggling auto-scrolling ramps and pillars that pop down from out of nowhere and instantly kill you much in the same vein as that godawful N64 Sub-Zero game, but worse! It was an instant turn-off to an otherwise fine co-op brawler. Limited Run had a nice collector’s edition of it up for sale recently but those memories of those nasty pillars and ramp sequences convinced me to stay away. 17) Now You’re Playing With Super Power! I loved the NES Classic in 2016 and in 2017 I had to make sure to line up in stores a couple hours ahead of opening to procure the inevitable SNES Classic. While it has nine less games compared to the NES Classic, the quality and scope of those 21 SNES games is far greater than the ones featured on NES Classic. Finally experiencing the previously unreleased StarFox 2 was a treat and I made sure to first play the first game I owned for my SNES 20 years earlier in Street Fighter 2: Turbo. Me and my friends Derek and Ryan had a ball taking turns to see how far we could last in the unbelievably-hard Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (it was not all that far). A couple months later I got my brother one for his birthday and we spent many hours failing to make significant progress in the brutally-tough-yet-super-fun Contra 3. I believe we only got to the third level. One day we shall conquer it, and one day I will sit down and take the time to get through EarthBound! 16) Them Damn YouTubers!

I mentioned YouTuber Pat Contri earlier and I think 2017 has become the year where I routinely started to follow several YouTube videogame personalities. Before I primarily stuck with the crew at GiantBomb for most of my online gaming-related videos and still do for most of them, but I like mixing in a little variety from several other YouTubers. I will give a shout out to Pat Contri again for his many podcast excerpts that entertain me, as well as James Rolfe and his Cinemassacre crew for the always-excellent AVGN videos and let’s play streams he posts with his co-host Mike Matei. Gaming Pick-ups and hidden gem list rundowns sound kind of blah on paper, but the man known as ‘Metal Jesus’ and his wide array of mostly likeable guest hosts find a way to make them entertaining and I cannot help but watch nearly every video he posts on his channel. I have been following Jeremy Parish’s writing and Retronauts podcasts for well over a decade and have been a huge fan of his Works line of YouTube videos chronicling countless GameBoy, NES and SNES games. They are exhaustively researched and well-produced and filled with tons of facts and behind-the-scenes info that your average online review likely would not have. Finally I will give a shoutout to two more retro-themed gaming channels, The Gaming Historian and Classic Gaming Quarterly. Both YouTubers do deep dives into gaming’s past and put a lot of work into their videos and as a result they do not have as frequent videos as other channels, but their quality makes up for the quantity. I am beyond belief, but my hat is off to the host of CGQ for making his ‘Let’s Read’ videos where he highlights and notates tidbits from his favorite articles of old-school gaming magazines and somehow makes them must-see material! 15) I AM TUROK! Last year I mentioned how I got a Retron 5, a handy device that allows you to play several retro game system’s cartridges on an HDTV with clean visuals like how I remember them instead of the dreadful fuzziness you get when hooking up old-school systems on HDTVs with the older composite cables that came with the system. I finally finished my first game using the system in 2017, and the game that got that honor was the long forgotten GameBoy….gem….Turok: Battle of the Bionasaurs. It came out alongside the more popular N64 game and was a simple 2D side-scrolling action/platformer game. If you are wondering why that random GameBoy game it is because I spent several summers on a farm with nothing but a GameBoy growing up so these no-frills basic platformers resonate with me in a unique way.

The Retron has the ability to download an exhaustive vault of Game Genie/Action Replay codes onto an SD card from their website and that came in handy here or else I stood no chance of beating this game. Even though the infinite health made dealing with enemies a breeze, the limitations of the GameBoy’s screen made platforming a bit of a hurdle than I intended so I still died plenty of times, and if it was not for taking advantage of Retron 5’s save-state feature I definitely would not have finished it. I have all the other Turok games on GB (there are five of them!) and eventually would like to get through most of them as these simple watered-down GB conversions are nice little pallet-cleansers to start off a gaming session. Speaking of the Retron 5, Hyperkin released an adaptor for it this year allowing it to play Master System and Game Gear games. I picked it up, but kind of regretted it afterwards as it took a few hoops of downloading and applying updates/patches from Hyperkin’s website in a particular way until a couple hours of trial-and-error got it to finally work. I do not believe the effort was worth it though because I have no Master System games and only six or seven Game Gear games. I did make sure to play quite a bit of Game Gear Road Rash immediately afterwards for my troubles. Hey….if I were to track down just five Master System games what would you recommend? Tweet me your picks! 14) The Year of VR….No, Not That VR

I keep hearing about how Playstation VR, Oculus and HTC’s virtual reality sets that came out over the last couple of years have legitimized VR and brought it up to par with core console based gaming. However, I am just not seeing it. The price point is the primary deal breaker for me, and then factoring in the space factor for all the cables and some games that require you to move around is another major deal-breaker too. This past year saw some AAA console games get their full single player mode available in VR like Resident Evil 7 and Skyrim that I would not mind checking out one day, but most of what I see that is playable out there seem like decent little mini-games and shooting gallery variants, but not worth the barriers to invest into a proper VR setup. If you have it and enjoy it, that’s awesome, but I simply cannot justify crossing that line. That said, I still have the original VR monstrosity that is the Virtual Boy and 2017 was THE year it became active again! I was missing the AC power adaptor hub for my Virtual Boy that I misplaced long ago, and I searched for them on eBay and they were surprisingly affordable there, as was a replacement tripod for the Virtual Boy. I also picked up a few more VB ‘gems’ such as Virtual League Baseball, TeleroBoxer, Galactic Pinball, Vertical Force and Wario Land to increase my mammoth VB library to nine games (that is more than half of its complete library, seriously!). I tried a few of them out and was surprised at my lack of TeleroBoxer skills that I need some severe practice at. VB does have a fine pinball game though and I would like to set aside time to finish Wario Land one day because it is one of the few legit quality games on the platform. Suffice it to say, the good ‘ol Virtual Boy will likely be my sole VR system for the forseeable future. 13) Pinball Gaming Love

Like last year, I played a healthy chunk of pinball games. This year it was primarily Zen Pinball 2 and I kept up with its final round of new tables and tried my best to attain each table’s trophy/achievement. I probably put way too much time trying to get that pesky Rogue One trophy. I put in some time into Pinball Arcade and Hyperspace Pinball, but not nearly as much as last year. I really need to put more time into the former because I just got caught up acquiring its latest season of tables and have yet to try any of them out. It is a shame that unlike the Zen tables, purchasing Pinball Arcade tables on PS3 does not carry over to the PS4 version so I am stuck playing them on PS3. I did do the upgrade a few months ago from Pinball FX2/Zen Pinball 2 to Pinball FX3 and am still coming around to it. Zen thankfully allows my PS3 purchased tables to carry over into the PS4 version! I think I am finally getting use to PFX3’s new unlockable upgrades system, but there seems to be a bit too much optional mini-modes available in order to ‘master’ each table. I will give Zen props for making their latest two tables free in honor of the 10 year anniversary of the first Pinball FX. I imagine I will conform to its various new extras and features soon enough, but not as quickly as I thought. 12) Twin Cities Gaming – Part Two

Last year I mentioned how I went to the Twin Cities to visit a couple friends where we engaged in all sorts of gaming awesomeness, and I continued the trend again this year. I first visited my friend Tyler and while checking out the Mall of America we caught a glimpse of this VR Arcade/theme park there that had all kinds of ambitious sets rigged up. We did not test any out, but just surveyed the area to get a good idea of how to plan out a day there next time we return. We did stop in one of the other traditional arcades in the Mall of America however where I finally discovered in the wild one of the Mario Kart GP games that Namco develops. There have been a few iterations of these over the past decade and I believe the version we played was Mario Kart Arcade GP DX. The version we played had a sweet two-player setup that held its own with the latest home versions, and I was delighted to see it bring back some of the two-player co-op features not seen in the series since Double Dash. I made another trip to the awesome Up/Down Arcade with my friend Dick while I was in the Cities and I was thrilled to see they had just as many awesome 80s and 90s arcade units there as it had last year. We also checked out a pinball bar called Tilt Pinball Bar. It was much smaller compared to Up/Down, but still contained everything I wanted out of such an establishment with a good variety of around 25-30 tables from all eras. We spent a good couple hours there competing for high scores while enjoying a brew and I finally got a chance to play the authentic versions of tables I put countless hours into their digital versions in Pinball Arcade with tables like Champion Pub being a thrill to finally play in reality! 11) First Rule of Fight Club… I have neglected online multiplayer on Playstation since Sony started charging for it on PS4. A couple months ago I relented and picked up a three month card because of my friend Chris who I use to semi-regularly play online PS3 fighting games with. Since I activated the subscription we played on three out of four Saturday mornings and had some great sessions in a variety of fighting games. Neither of us are EVO-quality vets by any means, but we kind of have a vague idea of what we are doing out there and are both along the same skill level. We played a ton of Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, Street Fighter V and Injustice 2. I dug all three games, and Chris and I talked a lot of friendly smack while we mashed away on buttons relentlessly. 10) Reviewing my first game since 2011…kind of

I adored the first two Syberia games that hit PC/Xbox in 2003/04. I loved their story, atmosphere, cast and writing. While its adventure-genre standard puzzles it featured had me referencing guides online, I did not mind because I had to see what was next for the affable heroine, Kate Walker. I somehow missed the announcements leading up to the third game and was surprised to see it on shelves one day early in the year and I immediately grabbed it without question. That turned out to be a mistake because Syberia 3 is a near-unplayable mess filled with countless glitches and bugs that were previously not part of the franchise’s pedigree. I have no idea how this got the stamp of approval for release. I saw Syberia 3 went on to have more patches and updates after I finished it so hopefully it is not as much of a hot mess as it was when I played it during its first week of release. I wrote a lengthy post chronicling my troubles with the game on a forum I frequent online. Once I realized I rambled on for a quite a bit about the game that it nearly resembled a review, I tweaked a few spots in the original post and made a couple other minor addendums to cover most of the bases of the game. I then submitted it with the lowest score possible to my GameFAQs profile (I am not a fan of how they converted to its five hearts rating system). I have not done a video game review in several years since I switched to focus on reviewing movies on this blog. That said, if you want to see a more detailed account of my disappointment with Syberia 3, then click here to see my first video game review since 2011. 9) Beating my first Mega Man game at Extra Life!!! On my top gaming moments blog last year I recounted how Mega Man 2 became the first game in the series I put serious play time into by beating three stages in it during the annual 24-hour Extra Life charity drive I participate in every year. I beat a few more stages since then, but still had a few more to go and it felt fitting to finish the game off at the next year’s Extra Life! That is exactly what I did, and boy did I feel like an idiot doing so with my lackluster Mega Man expertise. While I still enjoyed my time with the game, I had to exploit save-states for every few screens of progress. I had no idea there was a huge labyrinth of levels leading up to the final encounter with Dr. Wily, which included finishing off all the previous bosses again one more time. I was only anticipating spending another couple hours with the game when instead it took me about five to six hours to finish it off. I still loved every moment of it and want to at least finish off a couple more games in the series someday. I hear that Mega Man 3 is even better than Mega Man 2 so I should at least play that one….right? 8) Off to the Races

Just like last year I played a ton of racing games off and on throughout the year. Like pinball games, starting off a gaming session with 30-60 minutes knocking off a few races of progress before I move onto something else is ideal for me. I played way too much Konami Krazy Racers on the GBA Virtual Console on WiiU. It is a fun little kart racer featuring a unique cast of side characters from various Konami franchises. I also played a ton of Fast Racing Neo on WiiU and loved its take on F-Zero/Wipeout. Before the Switch version of Mario Kart 8 launched earlier this year I got in a few more online sessions on the WiiU version since I imagined most of the player-base flocked to that version upon its release. I am still surprised at how well that version runs online with my wi-fi setup. Other racing games that dominated my time this year were The Crew. I am not really engaging in much of its online content and trying to romp through its story mode, but I do like its take on using the USA as an open world hub. The spiritual successor to Road Rash that is Road Redemption finally came out of Steam Early Access a few months ago and I enjoyed a couple loops through its career mode with my brother. TrackMania Turbo is a fun time-trial based racer oozing with style that has me itching for those perfect runs. JoyRide Turbo is an inferior racing game also with ‘Turbo’ in its title. It is a port of the Kinect-racer on 360 that hit XBLA a year or two later with standard controller gameplay added, and it is ok, but eventually it wore out its welcome. It is not as terrible as Beach Buggy Racing on Xbox One, a budget kart racer for the platform with very loose controls and gets my nod as least enjoyable racing game I played in 2017. Finally, I have been playing a lot of the 360 version of Forza Horizon 2. I loved the first game and its festival/party atmosphere it introduced to the spinoff series and the same applies to the sequel. I am almost done with most of the races in the career mode and after that I can finally move on to the third Horizon which I hear nothing but amazing things. 7) One Game in One Day!

I have referenced here before how I am down with the genre of games known as ‘Walking Simulators’ with much love from me to prior hits in the genre like Oxenfree and Firewatch. Games in this genre cater towards me because they usually have powerful narratives that can be finished in a couple sittings. I wanted to finish one more game before the end of the year so on December 30th I started and finished another popular game in the genre that hit earlier in 2017, What Remains of Edith Finch in about four hours. The game did not disappoint as it focused on the last surviving member of a cursed family revisiting her childhood home and each through an interesting series of flashbacks she experiences each family member’s demise. I enjoyed most of it and absolutely loved its atmosphere exploring the mysterious house filled with literally thousands of books. The big focus of the journey though is reliving those 10-12 flashbacks and they scale all over the place from enthralling, to vague, to underwhelming and head-scratchingly dull. I still very much enjoyed my experience with it, especially since it was one of those rare times where I can plow through a game in a single sitting, but I would rank it a notch or two under Oxenfree and Firewatch. 6) Pound-Town!! On last year’s best of blog I dedicated an entry to my awesome couch co-op gaming nights with friends Derek, Brooke and Ryan, so I will continue that trend this year. We started off the year rotating in and out a lot of our usual favorites but sticking more and more to the social party games featured in Jackbox Party Pack. About halfway into the year another Jackbox-style game hit the PS4 that was a hit with our group called That’s You and it incorporated more unique ways of getting the smartphone in the mix in its games compared to the Jackbox use of the smartphone.

About halfway into the year however we started to play more and more board games. We got a few in the mix in 2016 but 2017 was the year board gaming took off for us. A couple board game/hobby shops opened up in town over the last year or two and it resulted in our group trying out tons of new board games. I must have tried out nearly a dozen tabletop games and some of my favorites were Five Minute Dungeon (a super quick card based version of DnD), YamSlam (think Yahtzee meets poker) and another game I forget the name of where you where a headband and put a card on it while your teammate gives clues to the answer like in the classic game show, $25,000 Pyramid. While we are on the theme of board games this entry I will give a shoutout to Matt and the few rounds of Othello we got in over recent years (new version out on Switch!). Another night Derek and I joined my brother and friends Mike and Justine for an epic night of the board game Zombicide. I have played that game before and do enjoy it, but that game makes rounds of Risk seem like a sprint and you need to dedicate at least several hours to finish a game. Luckily, Mike is a seasoned pro at the game and breezed through its elaborate setup. Somehow, someway we managed to finish a whole game in about five hours, and it was a blast. I feel bad for my brother because he was the only one in our group that did not survive the zombie horde that night. 5) More Love for the 3DS This is another themed entry I am carrying over from 2016. I continue to try and get in a couple hours of handheld device gaming a week on my 3DS. 2017 saw me finally finish Phoenix Wright: Spirits of Justice after a whopping 68 hours!! It easily surpasses Dual Destines as the superior 3DS installment of the franchise as it finally opens up Apollo’s background and it gets all the ace attorneys involved from the Wright Anything Agency and brings back fan favorite Maya back into the fray after a lengthy absence from the series. I am now all caught up on the latest games in the series…in America anyways as I hear Japan is getting spin-off exclusives I am envious of. The other 3DS game I put a ton of time into this year was the remaster of Dragon Quest VIII. It originally hit PS2 around 15 years ago, but this version makes some added benefits for on-the-go gaming like quicksaves and auto-combat which I greatly appreciate. I always liked the Dragon Quest series of RPGs for being simpler, easier to pick up RPGs compared to the average Final Fantasy, and I am digging its art style, score and whimsical narrative thus far after around 30 hours in.

One last game I finished on 3DS is Find Mii and that is a Street Pass Plaza game contained with the 3DS UI. It took forever to finish because to advance in it you need to earn coins via carrying the 3DS around with you in sleep mode to beat simple monsters in a straightforward dungeon layout. There are quite a few monsters to conquer though and it took me banking up many coins to hire countless temporary heroes to defeat in its many dungeon rooms and after nearly three years of off-and-on gradual progress I finally finished it. Huzzah! 2017 saw a far more advanced version of Find Mii released on the 3DS called Mii-Topia which I understand is more of a full-on RPG compared to the intentionally basic design of Find Mii. I think Mii-Topia released shortly after I finished Find Mii and I kind of impulse-bought while on my rush of finishing Find Mii so who knows when I will get to it. Speaking of the 3DS, my brother Joe and I went in together and got my nephew Carter a 2DS for Christmas. Joe got Carter into Pokemon at the beginning of the year by exposing him to the cartoon and the world of Pokemon cards. He is now a devout PokeKid! He never played any of the games though, so I we got him a 2DS and I loaded it up with Virtual Console rereleases of Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Trading Card Game and Pokemon Puzzle League and I made sure to download and install a super-sweet Pikachu theme on the system for him too. When he opened it up on Christmas Eve he gave both us the biggest hugs!!! So worth it! 4) Kept You Waiting? Just like in 2016, I played a good amount of Metal Gear Solid. The first few months of the year I dedicated to trying to finish off Peace Walker. I say trying because I got the first ending to the game, but it seemed premature due to the gameplay style and sure enough after looking up online there was a true ending to unlock that involved beating many more boss fights in a specific fashion that is too particular to explain here in order to truly finish it. I spent way too much time going down this route before ultimately giving up and moving on. I still had a blast with the game and since it did not have a difficulty level setting I guess you can say I did ‘beat’ it on its default difficulty level instead of setting it to ‘very easy’ like I did in prior entries.

I needed a break from the franchise after that fiasco for a few months so it was not until the end of summer that I picked up and played through all of the prologue to Metal Gear Solid V that is called Ground Zeroes. It is like the introductory mission to MGS2 and MGS3 that is a couple hours long and sets up the rest of the game, but it was released nearly two years ahead of the main game. It picks up right after Peace Walker which is why I invested so much time in attempting to see that through. I loved how the new game looked on the current gen with stunning graphical effects that make the series stand out above all other AAA games, and its cutscene production is in a league of its own with a gorgeous set piece that sets up the proper full MGSV experience that came out in 2015, The Phantom Pain. A couple months later I finally started The Phantom Pain. The introductory stage is an experience I will never forget and is more like an hour and a half movie that introduces you to the core controls while Konami takes you on a visual effects smorgasbord with easily one of the best produced opening cinematics I have ever seen, and that is saying a lot not just for the franchise but for games in general. Even if you are not that familiar with MGS universe and lore, please click here and take the time to watch The Phantom Pain’s opening hour play out to see a new level of production caliber that games have rarely achieved. That hour and a half or so of gameplay is what I finished off the Extra Life marathon with, and I was glad to rock a pair of surround sound gaming headphones to it because just as much care was put into the audio as in the visuals and it all combined for my eyes being glued to the screen the entire time. I have only had time to play about four or five hours more of it since, and I am glad I played Peace Walker because it looks like it is carrying over that game’s ‘Mother Base’ central command hub that took a bit of adapting to and I will not be going in to that interface blind this time around. This is a huge departure from previous MGS games as the gameplay is changed up big time and now takes place primarily in an open world. I am still getting use to that part, but I am loving the little I have played so far as The Phantom Pain continues to open up with so many options available at Snake’s disposal. I do miss the traditional codec calls, but I understand why Konami switched it up for this game. Speaking of Snake, I thought I would never accept Keifer Sutherland replacing David Hayter as Snake’s voice but after that opening played out I did not second guess it again.

One last thing about Metal Gear! I referenced earlier how the crew at giantbomb.com are my go to crew for gaming based videos. They occasionally do full play-throughs of games with a second person on hand for commentary, and over a couple years from 2004-06 they went through almost all of the core Metal Gear games. Giant Bomb called the series ‘Metal Gear Scanlon’ because their video-guy Drew Scanlon was playing through the Metal Gear games for his first time while resident Metal Gear expert and published author, Dan Ryckert on hand to lend his Metal Gear expertise. During the course of 2017 I watched their playthroughs for the first three Metal Gear Solid entries. They were a riot to have on in the background and watch in chunks here and there. Here is a link to a few highlight packages from their sessions for those who are interested. 3) Mmmmm….Fresh Meat I have an odd history with the Diablo series. I love hack ‘n slash RPG games, but I have never finished one in the premiere franchises of the genre from acclaimed developer Blizzard. I played a bit of the first chunk of the debut game right around its release on PC, but then my brother Joe started it up and he had more time to dedicate to it than I did so I wound up occasionally watching him play it from time to time instead. The exact same thing happened with the sequel and I saw Joe play that game nonstop for at least a few years. I played the opening couple of missions to the long awaited Diablo III shortly after its release in 2012 at a friend’s but held off picking it up hoping for a console release instead. I was thrilled when it hit console’s the next year and I picked it up on PS3 and Joe and another friend joined us for a few awesome couch co-op sessions of it and we got nearly halfway through the game until it became difficult to arrange nights for all three of us to meet up and continue and eventually the game fell into my gaming backlog abyss. Fast forward four years and Joe and I picked up our routine, bi-weekly Sunday morning gaming sessions that we use to do all the time until a few years ago. You want to know how long it takes to finish Diablo III and its expansion act when you only have time to commit about three-to-four a month to it? Turns out it takes roughly five months to finish it that way, but it was gratifying to finally cross finishing a Diablo game off my gamer bucket list. I am also mighty thankful that Blizzard made the normal difficulty a relative cakewalk for people like me who do not have ample time to set aside to master the game. We did not lose a single life until we got to the final boss, and even then we finished him off on our third try, and it felt so good! Joe-berg I apologize again for making you sit through all the story and dialogue sequences, I know you want to just keep on hack ‘n slashin’, but you know I gots to absorb that Diablo-lore! 2) Is This Really A Thieve’s End? When I hosted my videogame podcast that ran from 2005-2013, Sony’s top-of-the-line action/adventure Uncharted games would always rank high on my year-end game of the year lists. Hell, I even dug the Vita entry, Golden Abyss too! I got my PS4 towards the end of 2016 and it came bundled with the fourth game of the series. I wanted to play it right away, but did not want to nickel-and-dime my way through the game like I do for most games nowadays.

I held off on playing the latest version I heard so much praise for until I requested a week off from work in April this last year when I had a few other things going on in that timeframe I needed time off for. During that time I made sure to set aside nearly two hours a day to make decent headway in that game, and I am glad I did because Uncharted 4: A Thieve’s End is the longest game of the entire series and it took me nearly 20 hours to finish. It took me that long because I did what I always do every time I play through Uncharted and took my time to soak in its lush and beautiful environments while I explored off the beaten path for the game’s trademark hidden treasures. Uncharted 4 ranks right up there with the second game as my two favorite games in the series. The core gunplay and stealth mechanics I had some issues with before got tweaked and are far more enjoyable this time around. This is the first time in the series I did not mind playing stealthy for a change in certain areas. The platforming is just as masterful as ever as I took in every climbing, rope-swinging, and rock-sliding path that was bestowed upon protagonist Nathan Drake. The vintage set piece chase/interactive cinematics are just as impressive as the past few entries as well. I loved the introduction of Nate’s brother Sam to the cast and he perfectly blended into the series. There was one twist with him later on in the narrative that did not get fully explained that kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but other than that the story lives up to the brand’s high standards. Definitely do no skip out on this entry in the series!

Later on in the year a spinoff Uncharted came out subtitled Lost Legacy. It made the bold move of not having Drake as the protagonist and instead casted Drake’s partner-in-crime Chloe from Uncharted 2 & 3 and antagonist Nadine from Uncharted 4 as the two stars. Playing with these two and an open-ended stage that took up a major part of the second act of Lost Legacy combined to significantly change up the core Uncharted gameplay. I approached parts of this game differently than previous installments while still experiencing the aforementioned top-of-class production values from the series. While I hope it is not the final Uncharted game in the series, I hope the series goes on a mini-hiatus for the time being after six awesome entries within 11 years. 1) Zelda + Elder Scrolls = GOTY The hype leading up to the latest Legend of Zelda game in the series that hit in 2017, Breath of the Wild was impossible to avoid. Nintendo finally changing up the core formula of a console based Zelda for the first time since Ocarina of Time and going to an open-world format was something I had to be there day one for. I still recall playing the first five hours of Breath of the Wild and being fully immersed with its its new levels of open-ended gameplay previously unseen in the series. I instantly fell in love with its world, and for its first several hours of gameplay I felt I was playing something truly special. The only times I felt this way before about a game were for Grand Theft Auto III, the first Halo and the first Uncharted. That is elite company to reside with.

Minus a couple short breaks to focus on other games, I have been consistently playing Breath of the Wild since its release and have invested nearly 100 hours into it. Despite that I have yet to finish it and have only vanquished two divine beasts so far because I love losing myself exploring its world. I rarely make use of fast travel points and I never use horses for fear or running past and missing out on hidden areas/secrets in the game. It took me several hours over many attempts to finish the mystical Eventide Island and I did not mind its grueling challenge to figure out how to overcome the unique predicament that island starts Link off in. I remember the thrill of finishing off my first ancient machine and defeating the formidable foes that are the Lynels. I did not mind the weapons breaking frequently since it inspired me to mix up my weaponry and try out weapons I would not have otherwise and there are always a constant flux of weapons available. Somehow, someway, Breath of the Wild is the first game to get me into crafting, something I detested in games prior. That jingle it plays when you make a super zesty dish with bonus attributes is an awesome feeling. I am playing this on the WiiU and my only gripe is that it did not have the option to use the gamepad for inventory management. I guess the rain was a minor hindrance too since it prevents climbing, but those minor two gripes aside did not bother me to invest all this time into it throughout the year, and probably just as much time going into 2018 too. This is easily the best time I have had with any Zelda game ever. Until Next Year…. Phew, thank you for sticking with me throughout this novel of an entry. This was quite the adventure to write, and I give big ups to you if you got through this in its entirety! See you next year for my top 2018 gaming experiences! As a little bonus, if you are not tired yet of clicking through all the supplemental YouTube videos linked above, here is one more that always manages to crack me up when I need to get myself out of a funk, so please click away and enjoy!

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