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rubyrockz · 4 years

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Blood and Bread Thoughts as I watched

- The bright purple/pink colors

- “Too much murdering to do, let’s go”- Lou

- Oh no, Emily’s gone!!!

- Theo for once doing good on intiIticd l

- “Stupid little muffins”. They made a huge mistake

- Theobald has war magic!!!

- One shot killed a guy first round in surprise attack, go gummy bear!

- Killed two/three of attackers in a surprise round, and the. He still gets to go before the last muffin.

- theo is a bossssss!

- Oh I love Canadian magic!

- Oh, he’s an eldrixh knight!!!

- Poor dude. Doesn’t know Jets dead yet.

- Oh! The queen! Oh god, supper. Oh we’re being attacked!!!

- Oh god, Theo needs to defend the queen.

- thank god, the queen is not in on it.

- Does the castle has a candy land walkway? Oh I love that so much!!!

- SECRET PASSAGEWAYS!!!

- Calroy revealed to the Queen. Fake death Husband!

- “The man who made bastards of your daughters” I fucking love that line. Hate the man who said, but that line.

- Did they level up?

- Poor Ruby, BRING HER BACK

- SUGAR PLUM FAIRY, that “please”. Don’t trust her, but oh god. Poor Ruby.

- “There might be a way to bring all of you to her” NOPE DONT TRUST THATTTTT

- Her sister is waiting for her!

- KILL THAT FUCKING CARROT AND HIS 30 KNIGHTS

- DOUBLE NAT 20 BITCHES

- Glowing Ruby! GLOWING RUBY!

- Oh god, she thought Amethar was dead for a second!

- Liam has a level of rouge???

- Is wTersteel illegal or a war crime??

- Liam can’t be seen by true sight! Ciabatta doesn’t trust Alfredi! Oh spaghetti lady is dead. No more waters tell! Yay!

- Stupid fake glowing rock.

- Jets body! Wrapped in lingerie tear away. That’s fucking sad. At least Ruby will get her stuff back.

- Locket give him advantage???

- The bands getting back together!!!

- Papa daughter love

- RUBY DONT KILL THE CHILDREN

- The inclusion jokes are back!

- Two invisible people hugging.

- Cruller revealed to Ruby

- Amethar just sounds broken

- Cumulous being stealthy like lapin.

- Ruby gets her locket and blade back. Poor girl.

- Liam keeps the necklace. Ruby and Liam getting brotherly.Choker or bracelet.

- THE GANGS BACK TOGETHER!

- Horrified woman. Her worlds about to crash down!

- IT WAS A SETUP! CARAMELINDA DIDNT KNOW LINGERIE LADY(or she lying)

- We have to stop screaming.

- Castle candy has no defenders that are loyal to the true king.

- Love the weird smell ideas!!

- Love to hear “nice” with initiative rolls

- YAY THEY LAUGHED

- BRENNAN PUNCHES HIM IN THE FACE

- So cute! Mini minis! But. There’s. A. Jet. One.

- Good luck charm Jet!

- 25 minutes left!!

- Instresting battle layout.

- Fucking Cruller banners

- So many Nat 20s from my girl!! (And the others!)

- They’re just tracking Theo and Caramelinda right?

- Convincing people you’re a god never works out well

- Liam Rules

- I love creative uses of mage hand! and DM is pretty cool himself for allowing it!

- And message is so useful

- Character sheet edits on the fly!

- Zac keeps trying to kill his character with sacrifices, dog damn.

- Long death monks are freaking badass. Love them so much. Keeping the dogs from moving closer is great!

- So many one shot kills.

- Steal those horses!!

- Who is Liam Wilheminia!?

- Cumulous honestly should have left the dogs alone in my opinion.

- So many shenanigans!

- Kiss on the cheek! Is it Jet??

- JESUS CHRIST! NAT 20s UP THE WHAZOO. Off the cliff we go, whoops!

- Deflect missles!

- How do you hurt cotton candy?

- 17 ain’t a lot of hit point my friend

- IS LIAM CONNECT TO SOMETHING IMPORTANT??? BUT NOT THE HINGRY ONE!?

- Cumulous is so ruthless

- This episode is just them running. This season is just the. Running, let’s be honest.

- You gotta have that lingerie store

- Friends don’t let friends Ford a river!

- Ruby’s rolls are over the place.

- These Nat 20s man.

- Everyone a Italian

- Ally’s nat 20s coming back to them, baby!

- I love Liams Batman-ing.

- Damn.

- Love Siobhans honestly about not being invisible.

- In the future, Ruby and Liam bonding over being ranged fighter buddies.(and rouges)

- Brennan’s, little impatient “23” gives me life.

- I love the rage that gives damage.

- “How dumb we want to be”

- Don’t mess with Candians, man.

- The little bread army didn’t even get to hit the family!!

- I never thought Cotton Candy would be fast.

- Oh those knights move fast.

- You gotta love those roll in the 30s

- That poor black licorice baby. Its just so sad.

- That fucking Hay Bale!!

- REALLY MANTA RAY! YOU HAD TO RING THE BELL?!?

- DO NOT HIT RUBY

- Swirl warden applies to Liam?

- Hoarse Theo, “No one else dies today”

- PUSH THE BOAT AMETHAR!

- Monks are really fucking insane.

- Damn, Ruby’s turning into a little killer.

- Knock is fucking cool. Let lose the horses of war!!

- THEY ESCAPED!!

- Ohh they have us official art of Jet and Amethar.

- Kinda a short episode.

- they have a funeral next time!!

- Damn, secrets are coming.

- Ruby’s shadow might be Jet!!!(or lazuli? She had a long braid as well??? Right?)

#a crown of candy #ruby rocks #acoc spoilers #amethar #amethar rocks #king amethar #acrownofcandy #d20 acoc #dimension 20 acoc #acoc #a crown of candy spoilers #acoc episode 10 #blood & bread

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d00dt00nz · 4 years

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Obligatory promo stuff at the top because it sucks and I hate it and let’s get it out of the way! follow me on twitter where I’m active, check me out on spotify for music, or like my facebook for sparse updates on music stuff. Thank you. The Cover art is by Ellie Tison

Okay!! Last song!!

Well, I say last song, but it's more like “last song”. There is one more song that I used as an epilogue, but I'm not going to get into that, and honestly if you've listened to 13 tracks without being sold (why would you do that?) one more track isn't going to sell you on it.

And would you look at that, the last song is a reprise of the first song. Wow, it's like Sgt Pepper... that's so cool. Now it makes sense why I didn't bother talking about that first song right? Not planned btw.

This song was one of the first songs I wrote for this album. I said this for a few. Truthfully I did four or so around the same time and they were all great. I had a few more tracks in the oven as well. Everything was going great. I was like “wow this album's gonna be done in no time!” Anyway that was like three or four years ago. I guess that's how these things tend to go.

This is back when I was trying to make a bit more of a straight ahead rock/indie rock sounding album. I'm pretty sure I wrote this song on guitar, lyrics and all, which is honestly (and sadly) pretty rare for me these days. I had this idea for repeated backing vocals and a call/response sort of song structure. I'm pretty sure this more energetic version of the song came first. I originally wanted a sort of Lou Reed feel to it, but once I wrote that groovy dancy bass riff it immediately lost that feel. Once I started recording electric guitars I accidentally did a grungy “brrroww” at the end of the phrase and really liked it. I replicated it throughout the track and in turn lost even more of that Lou Reed feel.

In my original recording process I had a damaged patchcord. I didn't realize it at first because I was trying out some new equipment. I just thought it was really quiet. That being the case, I had to turn it up way loud to get a good volume and that's actually where some of the guitar tone you can hear (mainly in the one playing a melody-line during the chorus) comes from. I actually really liked it, I thought it sounded like Pavement. Actually, my Tiff did too and that's probably the nicest thing she's ever said about any of my music.

At some point I added more guitar tracks to the track to make it sound fuller, and also replace some of the ones recorded with a broken patchcord. I honestly kinda liked the original tracks, which still had a little bit of that 70s glam grittiness to them, but I'm far too neurotic about this stuff to really sit with that. In the end it sounded less 70s and more mid 90s. It had a sound that I've actually been trying to get for a while, though not on this track – the sort of fuzzy swirling guitars with a groovy beat and bassline to it. Tiff described it as being “Like those music videos where everything is blue and everyone's got really baggy pants”, which, again, big compliment. I don't know if that one was actually a compliment, but I'll take what I can get.

The song had its genesis at that same party I mentioned last time. There's nothing specific really. We had my album on and it's got a pretty fun cool first half. The people there were enjoying it, but then it gets to the second half and it's a little bit more mopey. It's also completely sexless and uncool throughout. That being the case, one of the guys there was like

“Sorry Con-dog, the vibes are just not working with this right now,”

and I was like,

“Oh don't worry about it, I understand dude,”

And then he was like, “Right on man. I’m getting fucked vibes from those guys over there. Here, hit this for me.”

And then I did some coke off a Pulp Fiction VHS tape.

I thought to myself, “man it'd be nice to have music that you could put on at a party”. Which basically was the whole idea behind this album, conscious or not. I don't really know if it succeeded, but there's definitely a certain kind of party where this would play, and honestly I don't think I'd mind being at it.

The album was originally going to be more centered around the idea of the character described in this track. I mean, obviously he's me, but I'm trying to detach myself and make things a little more universal. I wanted to explore all the different traits and behaviors that this one person has. Some of them being mine, and some of them being not. Honestly, it didn't really pull through to the end. There's a little bit of that in here, but it's mostly just songs. I'm okay with that. They have some thematic cohesion. It's got this song bookending the album. Wow, it's like Sgt. Pepper.....

The ending is a little bit embarrassing for me because I do a bit of a scream voice, which, honestly I don't think there's anything actively wrong with it, I just cringe when I hear myself doing it because it's like “ah oh god I'm doing that”. I don't know. There's also the fact that, well, one of the things I yell is the word “Wasteman”, which is a little bit of an outdated slang right now, but when I actually recorded the song it wasn't. Whatever, this is an insanely white album from a white kid. I figure a lot of people who enjoy this type of music haven't actually heard that word. I wouldn't have, but I hang out with Tiff's cool friends sometimes. Honestly I think it's a cool term. I think the most embarrassing part though is I copy-pasted it so it repeats twice because I felt like I wanted more intensity. I don't think it's super noticeable, but the idea makes it a little disingenuous. During the outro I wanted to add a little more of that “90s blue and baggy” feel, so I plugged in a keyboard and freaked out on the organ setting. I think it really adds a lot.

The slower version of the song was written afterwards and I actually cheat because it uses some of the same midi tracks. I was super torn between the more exciting sound that I had and my original “vision” for the song, which was a bit more downtempo Lou-Reed inspired. I figured, why not do both?

There's not a whole lot to cover here that I haven't already covered. Mostly the backing vocals, but only because I think I did a worse job with them than the other version. There's nothing outwardly wrong with them per-se, but I think the blend is not good and that's gonna immediately stick out to some people. The middle section just kinda came about because the other version doesn't really have a proper chorus. It just has some guitar noodling. I played around with the chord progression of the middle chorus in the fast version and made something that was a bit more structured, then adapted a melody around it. Harmonies grew out of the melody. I felt like something was missing, so I took that same call and response idea from earlier and applied it here too. I really liked the interplay between the two vocal lines. The “Purify me” line was originally supposed to come up again and again throughout the album. One of the tracks that ALMOST made it would have been the song it was from, and then there would be callbacks to the melody throughout the album. It was kind of like a motif. That was unfortunately completely scrapped and this is the last trace of it. Maybe I'll work the idea into something I do in the future.

I like this song. I realized way too late that it massively rips off The Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane. I guess that “Lou Reed inspired” idea was a little bit too literal. Fortunately I would say the middle section saves it from being too much of a copy. I think it's a good way to start and finish the album. I also like the thematic notions of this album starting with the same track it ends on. Like these things work in cycles and you're never truly free of your own quicksand. Like an Ouroboros eating its own tail, like Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. When one cycle ends, a new begins. The same, but slightly different – until it is completely undermined by the epilogue track that says “no this is actually the end”.

Hey congrats on making it through all of these entries! You may have only read this one, or even skipped to the end. If you did that, disregard that previous sentence and go back to read them. This album was the culmination of a lot of work and thought. 13 of these writeups was nothing compared to probably hundreds of hours spent working on this album, and probably thousands of hours thinking about it. I'm aware few people are reading these writeups, but it's honestly mostly my own indulgence. I gotta decompress this stuff and be free of this album. I can finally get rid of all this useless crap in my brain. I'll probably enjoy being able to go back and read this stuff once I've forgotten most of this, and once I've become a more mature person. I'll probably go “wow this shit is cringe. I can't believe he posted like 22 pages of cringe” but that's okay. The album's okay. I made for certain it was not, in fact, cringe before releasing it. And honestly I enjoyed writing these.

A part of me wants to get back to the freakish pace I had in like 2011 where this blog was nonstop content. I don't think it'd work so well in 2020 Tumblr because who even uses this site anymore? I think it's a little sad because it's pretty much the death of long form posting. Twitter is great because people pay attention to you, but sometimes I just want to write like two thousand words and have some psycho actually read them and respond to it. I think we've lost that on the internet. Sometimes I think of making youtube videos, but I'm no good in front of a camera. Sometimes I wonder, couldn't I just read something like this TO the camera? The answer is no, I can't. That'd be boring. I'm completely convinced nobody would watch that. I sometimes think that if I could add some editing and some visual component though, it'd work out. Some sort of... video essay. Some kind of... man with facial hair and left leaning politics who enjoys media and talks about both... Wow I wonder if that niche has been filled at all?

#music #songwriting #rant #music production #lou reed #pavement #indie rock #the fact that there's an epilogue that ruins the concept is also like sgt pepper

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paladin-andric · 5 years

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The Creation Legend: Kobolds

Ahh, the second of the series! How many more will there be? I’m not sure, these two were the only ones I really had in mind when I came up with the idea.

Last time we learned of the pseudodragons, a species born of love, peace and kindness, utterly incorruptible souls of selfless purity. This time however, we see quite a different origin for these beings. Rather than loyalty to goodness, they find only loyalty to their master...but how will that loyalty be used?

Deistoul felt the power of the world coursing through his body as the spell came to its end.

Long ago, he came to the conclusion that this world, and everything in it, was so...boring.

Ages before the rise of man, the world was an empty and barren place, devoid of life. Here, dragons roamed this massive expanse of nothingness, ruling over it as they saw fit.

Not that there was much to rule over. There were animals to devour and lairs to guard, but that was really it. If one didn’t get intimate with their neighbors, there were only really two things to stave off the insanity born of boredom.

One could duel and battle their neighbors instead. While dragons might form pairs and have children, they could also name rivals and do battle with them. An interesting choice to be sure. A life of war and glory...though often short-lived.

It was strange, sometimes rivals fought simply because there was little else to do, and slowly...some of them began respecting one another. Deistoul even noted a pair of nearby dragons that fought for glory’s sake who began to enjoy each other’s company so much that they became close, stopping when they had the upper hand, healing one another with magic, and then joyfully recounting the battle once it was over.

Ah, but the final choice in these sparse lands was to pursue magic. Not simply learn and use it like most dragons, but seclude yourself in constant study. Harness it. Master it. Command total control over it. Have the secrets of the world at your claws.

This was what Deistoul had decided to do. He spent so long mastering the art of magic, and creation in particular...but magic for magic’s sake is, once again, boring.

What was the point? Greater healing power? Bigger waves of magical beams? Why spend decades refining your skills in such a way? Was all the time training worth that?

No. Not to Deistoul. He spent this time for another reason.

To bring forth new life into this world. To shake things up. To make this bland and tasteless existence more interesting.

The years of training and practice had borne fruit. After a few...failures, he was ready.

This time it would go to plan.

The beasts he was bringing forth into existence were...to be honest, quite pathetic. They were so tiny, so very frail, and their minds were as weak as their bodies. There was little redemption in them, to be quite fair...

But that wasn’t the point. Deistoul didn’t WANT powerful beasts.

He wanted something that could never touch his glory and greatness...so that his hold over them was absolute.

Along with their weak wills and minuscule strength, they would be implanted with a deep, all-encompassing awe of dragonkind. It was only proper that the creations served their betters.

Their weakness did not make them truly worthless, though. Have enough ants, and they could kill a lion.

Ah, but their combat prowess was also not his intention for creating these creatures. He was bored. He wanted little things to watch, and be entertained by. Nothing more.

Now he was in his mountain-cave, incantation deep and booming. The green dragon waved his talons about as the end came near. With a final roar and an explosion of magical power, it happened.

In the dirt beneath him, they began to take form.

Little more than outlines at first, more and more of them came to be, until all of them was woven into the world.

There were many of them, and they all looked pitiful. They were hunched over on the floor, still coming into their persons. Soon, a few of them jolted, and then slowly rose to their feet.

Out of the barren darkness, small, unseen creatures began to awaken. Their minds switched on, and soon they realized that they were people...people who existed, thanks to the great and powerful behemoth before them.

They were partially created of the dragon’s own image. Reptilian, sharp claws on their hands and feet, tails, horns...though even though they stood upright and he didn’t, they came nowhere near his height.

Indeed, they were to him what insects would be to humans in due time.

Of course, along with their size, their spirits couldn’t hope to hold a candle to the dragon’s greatness either.

Their eyes widened as their lives began, and as soon as they rose, they were dropping back to their knees. They quivered and cast their eyes down, unable to handle his glory.

This amused him greatly, and he inspected his creations with vested interest.

He was almost disgusted by how pitiful they were, but...such was the way of the dragon. Anything that could not match them was theirs to decide the fate of...and he had a cave filled with such creatures now. Finally, he could decide fates, change the world and alter the path of history.

He had...minions. Something no other dragon had, apart from the rare instance one dragon subjugated another. It took exceptional circumstance to break the near unending pride of a dragon, though.

None could boast an army. He could rule the world with this kind of power!

Coming back to his creations, he felt immense pride despite their feebleness. Though...did he make them TOO weak of mind? Were they little more than beasts? They showed little in the way of awareness...

“Creations,” he spoke deeply, “Speak.”

Ever so slowly, their heads rose, and they looked to their creator. Their eyes widened again, and each of them seemed utterly overwhelmed.

There was a long period of silence as they stared in reverent awe.

Deistoul grimaced. “I said speak!”

That did it. Though they wanted to, it seemed they lacked the courage. One of them managed. The beast had trouble, but he did it.

“M...master...”

A weak and trembling voice. So fragile. So timid. Lacking grace and dignity.

“That is right. I am your master. Your creator. Your salvation. You serve me, and nothing else. I, your lord and ruler, hereby proclaim this to be true.”

“Y-yes, master...”

All of the little beasts continued kneeling, dropping even closer to the ground. It appeared they were prostrating themselves before him, reinforcing his complete and utter dominion over them.

Good. That was good. That was what he wanted.

“You will live your lives here, in my lair. I permit you this great honor, to live beside my immense greatness. Am I not a gracious and benevolent master?“

There were hurried nods. He could see them trembling, nearly unable to contain their joy at such a prospect.

It made sense. They WERE programmed to be unwaveringly obedient and dependent on him.

“Very good. I can see you wish this dearly. I shall be merciful and grant you your greatest wish. You are permitted to stay here with your master. Go on and explore your home. Begin doing what you will to become situated. Perhaps you wish for the comforts of a soft pile of hay to lay on while you sleep? Some recreational activities? I will grant you these things, so great and just of a lord as I am. Such is the way of the great Deistoul.”

One of the creatures finally mustered the courage to speak in his presence. “M-master Deistoul! I live to serve you!”

This caused a chain reaction. Realizing they could speak their innermost feelings to him, a surge of shrill voices cried out, all screaming his name in joyous rapture.

“Master Deistoul! Master Deistoul!”

The dragon nearly burst out laughing. All was going to plan. Soon their little society would begin to take form. How would they behave? What would they find fun? How would they interact with one another?

At last, things had finally gotten interesting.

One of the creatures carefully approached, mind running wild with questions but her immense awe of the dragon making it difficult.

As the small lizards began to split up, some beginning to explore as master suggested and some sticking close to the dragon, she finally reached him.

She looked up at the dragon and swallowed. “M-master?”

“Yes?”

“What...what am I?”

Deistoul grinned manically as he craned his neck down, the beast quivering as his face neared hers. His answer only furthered her anxiousness.

“Why...you are mine, of course.”

She nodded hurriedly. “O-of, course...”

“Ah, but that is not what you meant, was it?”

“No, my lord.”

His grin widened. “Of course, I was only drawing out a reaction. What ARE you, indeed? A creation, a fabrication. You were not formed over the span of eons, but of my whims. You, in a way, are me. You carry me in your own existence.”

What could even be said to that? She averted her gaze and bowed deeply.

“J-just as I am you...I am yours to command.”

“I am gladdened by your acceptance...but once again, not quite what you are seeking, is it?” the dragon scratched as his chin as he thought it over.

“W-well...I care only as far as...knowing when I am being called, Master Deistoul.”

“Of course...a name...a name...” he looked down and nodded. “I have come to a conclusion. Names shall come later. For now...I name your people. You...are the kobolds, servants of dragonkind, but I above all of course.”

The member of the newly named species nodded. “Y-yes, of course. It’s perfect, master. We are yours, my lord. I-I will serve.”

“Indeed you shall.”

So began the life of these new beings. They spent the rest of their lives with him, their master. During this time, much changed.

It quickly became apparent that they were quite alien to Deistoul. Though he made them, he put their minds on a different path, and left that path to be formed on its own. They did not find the same things interesting, or even live in a similar fashion.

But that was the point.

Deistoul now had something truly unique. A new race given form, utterly one of a kind...even if their existence clung to his in turn.

The following decades were just as he had wished. He tried to speak with them, but they were so thoroughly in awe of him...they could not speak to him as an equal. They shivered and kneeled, cried thanks and bordered on worshiping him.

To be expected. He had a way of seeing them acting normally, though.

Spying.

He used his magic to hide himself, and observed the minions carrying on in their daily activities. THIS was where the interesting things happened.

He sat concealed in the shadows with a grin as they talked, played games, argued, sang, and eventually even started finding love.

Interesting. So very interesting, to see an entirely new culture begin to take form. To see history begin here, with these few. He was witnessing the birth of a new civilization, and Deistoul was joyous over it all.

Soon, he too was changed by these things. While at first he saw them as little more than a novelty, a bunch of cattle to treat how he saw fit...something changed.

Seeing the tribe begin to use instruments, dance and sing, and live in perfect harmony affected all of this. Deistoul soon found his heart softening.

There was much pride in them. Though they were so different, they were wondrous in their own way, and they pledged their lives to him so selflessly...

They were their own people. They had their own lives, their own dreams, they chased skills and ambitions as they wished...but if master ordered them to throw it all away, they would.

It nearly brought tears to Deistoul’s eyes, now that he considered this.

In the blink of an eye, they were gone. After decades, they passed on from old age. Deistoul was nearly shattered when it happened. His own wonderful creations were gone. Their lives snuffed out in under a century from their own limitations.

But not all was lost. They had left behind something special for their master.

Children. Their children. HIS children.

And soon enough, they too had their own children.

His creations...the originals were gone, but their people would live on for all time. He would never be without his new children, who he now couldn’t imagine living without.

They were eccentric, over the top...and such great company. How did Deistoul manage before them?! Life was so very dull...this life brought color to the lair.

Eventually their numbers grew so massive they spilled out into the surface, the cave unable to support this enormous city.

Soon, Deistoul decided it was time. There were too many, but lives would not be squashed under this turn of events.

It was time to go forth and forge their destinies.

Deistoul ordered groups to move out and find new homes of their own.

It hurt everyone involved. The kobolds wept. Deistoul’s heart ached, even if there were too many to remember by name.

But despite that, it had to happen.

“I will not allow overcrowding to bring down the standards of living for you,” he explained, “I insist you live the greatest lives possible for yourselves. Do not weep, children...within yourselves, you carry my image. I am always with you, even if we are separated physically. I will ALWAYS be with you, wherever you go.”

It began. Every few years, more would pack up and leave. They traveled miles, setting up small tribes of their own. They traveled farther and farther as their numbers grew.

Soon they were all over the lands, and a few even approached other dragons. Soon enough, they were utterly common.

Live moved on. Generations came and went, each time wounding Deistoul on the way out...but he had grown to accept it now. He understood the meaning of mortality, so exposed to it as he was.

Millennia passed. The dragon slowly forgot of his grand visions of world conquest. Why would he want to? He had a family. Everything he wanted was right here.

At the same time...there was something new. Strange creatures of flesh that stood upright, lived in colonies and worked together, just like his children...

The humans had emerged. They wore strange fabrics, used sharp weapons of bronze, and also had their strange quirks...the dragon was glad he had lived long enough to see yet another civilization come to fruition.

As the thousands of years passed, he grew. The massive behemoth couldn’t even fit in his own cave anymore, wrapping himself around the mountain it was formed in.

As his life reached the mark of five-thousand years, it became apparent something was different. Where before his power was unmatched, where he could lift mountains and quake the earth, now there was nothing.

He lay motionless all day, every day. His vigor left him. His scales dulled. His voice grew weak.

Deistoul was dying.

It was the natural way of things. Millennia of living in bliss, his entire life used to the fullest...he couldn’t be upset.

The kobolds were different now. Where there was carefree joy, now they seemed sullen. They knew it too.

And at last, the day came.

He called them all to the mountaintop, where his head lay on the dirt. His eyes. His breathing...he was so tired.

“My children...we have spoken of this day, have we not?”

The countless figures watched, their fears affirmed.

“It it time. I must leave you.”

The chorus of screams made his head hurt.

“Please...silence. I have not the strength to shout anymore.”

They grew quiet again, though their tears told him all he needed to know.

“I know it hurts. Every time a generation would pass...I too felt this pain. It is a fact of life. It is something you must learn to accept.”

“B-but master,” one of the called out, “W-we...we need you!”

“I would stay if I had a choice in the matter,” Deistoul said bitterly, “You know this. Please...do not wound me. I cannot help this.”

As silence born of shame settled over them, Deistoul felt his heart grow warm. “I...I never imagined all of you would live. When I first created your ancestors, I thought them to be a brief flash in the passage of time...and while they were, they did not go without forging you first. You, you proud servants of the dragon...you shall be eternal, in a way. You must promise me something. Never stop. Grow your numbers. Spread far and wide. Bring my image to every corner of the world. Will you do this?”

“YES!” “YES, MASTER DEISTOUL!” “WE SWEAR!”

The entire crowd roared their acceptance.

“Good...that is good.”

Deistoul winced as a deep pain filled him. His already spent strength was fading away, and he could feel his body begin to shut down.

“It...it is time. I...I go...”

The crowd stared at him, each of them shocked.

“B-but...you can’t!”

One of them walked up to the dying dragon.

“Master...what...what do you want us to do? What...what happens to you, after you are gone?”

Deistoul thought for a moment.

“Hah...I tell you...live! That is all...though if it strengthens your hearts...spread my bones throughout the mountain.”

“Master?!”

“Indeed,” he spoke softly, “Bury my bones within the lair. Around the mountain. On the summit. This way...you live with me. Let this place became sacred ground for you. Each step you take, every place you go...I shall be right there, with you. I shall live with you forever.”

“Forever...”

The pair grew. His vision grew dark. This was it.

“You have given me something no other could. Joy. I will never forget these moments. Farewell, my children. Farewell...”

His eyes closed. His breathing ceased shortly afterwards.

He was gone.

The crowds wailed. The screams echoed. The despair was absolute.

All around his body, in a horde, thousands wept. For days, they cried. For weeks, they stared at him. For months, they mourned.

But no matter how many years passed, the pain never truly faded.

They knew he wasn’t going to live forever, but they never imagined their generation would have to witness such a thing.

True to their promise, life went on. They kept going. They kept growing. They survived in this now much darker reality.

They indeed took the master’s suggestion. After much time they split up his bones, burying them all around the mountain and in it. Every inch of ground had a bone of his underneath.

He really was with them, forever.

It became as sacred as could be. Even the others, having gone on to distant lands, learned of what had happened. No matter how far away, they traveled back to pray at the mountain.

Thus, Deistoul Mountain was born. A sacred place where each should come once in their lives. Here, the kobolds would pay their respects to their creator. Even as time marched on, this tradition was never forgotten. Though some didn’t bother to make the journey, thousands of kobolds would come every few years to visit the grave of their ancestors, and the tomb of their creator. It crossed all paths of life. Even the ones who had forsaken their people to live with humans or others would come. The dragon was kind, benevolent, their reason for existing, the one who accepted them for what they were.

It would not do to ignore such truths.

The kobolds became divided without their master. Each picked different dragons to serve. Some even rejected servitude altogether. Some lived lives of great evil, while some would strive to make the world a better place.

Even righteous holy warriors would kneel beside tribal raiders. Here in the mountain, bloodshed was forbidden. In this brief moment, there was peace, tranquility and understanding.

Here, only respect for the great dragon mattered.

Soon, they would leave, and all would go back to normal. Tribes fought, others defected for different people, and faith and culture clashed.

But in these precious moments, all kobolds were one. Together, in the caves, each would pay their due to Deistoul the Creator.

Tag list: @thereisnothingwrongwithbeingmad, @lady-redshield-writes, @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword, @sheralynnramsey, @tawnywrites, @writer-on-time, @oceanwriter, @zwergis-spilledink, @fluffpiggy, @elliewritesfantasy, @homesteadhorner, @laurenwastestimewriting, @elaynab-writing, @the-ichor-of-ruination, @reya-writes, @bexminx

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tuckinpodcast-blog · 7 years

Text

EPISODE 2: THE HAYS CODE AND OTHER BAD IDEAS.

LISTEN: SOUNDLCOUD / ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY (coming soon!)

NOTES: minimal note-shuffling, I promise. Google Play is reviewing the podcast as we speak, so we should be up soon!

SOURCES: listed at end of transcript

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi! I'm Jack, and this is Tuck In, We're Rolling: Queer Hollywood Stories. This week's episode is titled 'The Hays Code and Other Bad Ideas'. This is gonna be a long episode, but it's a really important one, because it lays down the basis for a lot of our future discussions.

Let's start off with the basics. The Hays Code came about in 1930 but it wasn't really enforced until 1934. Basically, what happened was way back in 1915, the Supreme Court heard a case called “Mutual Film Corp. V. Industrial Commission of Ohio”, and voted 9-0 that free speech didn't extend to films. The courts kind of reasoned that, as a form of mass media, movies could literally be used “for evil”, and for some reason this decision also applied to circuses? I don't know, not entirely relevant, but I thought it was a weird aside. The decision by the court was what drove the studios to more closely regulate their content, and the decision was eventually overturned in 1952 with the hearing of the “Joseph Burstyn Inc. V. Wilson”, also known as the “Miracle Decision” because of the short film “The Miracle” that the case was heard over, and it really kind of marked a decline in movie censorship in the US, but by this time, the damage had already been done.

So, what was the Hays Code?

The Hays Code was basically the theaters and the studios agreeing to self-censor in order to avoid losing money from religious-led boycotts or local governments refusing to show so called “immoral” films. As I've mentioned, times were kinda tough in Depression era Hollywood, and a lot of studios went under or cut their contract stars to save money or try to cut costs somehow. The Code is actually called “The Motion Picture Production Code”, but it's known as the Hays Code after William H. Hays, who was the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, and it's basically the racist grandfather of the MPAA ratings system we all known and love today.

How does this come back to queer history? Thanks for asking, all six of my followers on SoundCloud! Let me read the entire section of the Hays Code pertaining to what it calls “impure love”:

“In the case of impure love, the love which society has always regarded as wrong and which has been banned by divine law, the following are important:

Impure love must not be presented as attractive or beautiful.

It must not be the subject of comedy or farce, or treated as material for laughter.

It must not be presented in such a way to arouse passion or morbid curiosity on the part of the audience.

It must not be made to seem right and permissible.

It must not be detailed in method or manner.

I've included a link to a copy of a Hays Code pamphlet and the transcript of it that I just read from so you can go check out the kind of stuff it talks about. And it talks about a lot. No interracial marriage or romance, no adultery, no white slavery. No boobs, no disrespecting the American flag, no dissing the clergy. It's kind of intense, and it explains some of the weird wholesomeness and out-of-left-field endings you get with a lot of the movies from the 30's and 40's.

Now, there were, obviously, stereotypes and stigma around being queer before the Hays Code, but it really cemented this feeling of “othering” – extending beyond queer people as well.

Pre-code, you had a lot of movies that used drag or gender role reversal for laughs. In 1915, Charlie Chaplin dressed in drag for his movie A Woman, and so did Fatty Arbuckle in Miss Fatty. Early films used the “sissy” or “pansy” stereotype – you know, and you've seen it today, the flamboyant, effeminate gay man who had no real humanity to speak of but was only there for a laugh. It was kind of the beginning of that stereotype, and even if it wasn't harmful – and still is – it wasn't as overtly hateful as some of the things we'll see later on.

I've done a lot of digging into what was going on with pre-code lesbians, and I found some movie titles and a few references, but not a lot. Lesbians weren't shown nearly as much as their gay “pansy” counterparts – but if they were shown, they were butch crossdressers for the audience to laugh at, or they were weirdo older spinsters who were dead by the end of the movie – huge surprise, right? Some notable portrayals of lesbians, overt or implied, include Louise Brooks in the 1929 German film Pandora's Box, this is one where the romantic relationship is implied. There's Marlene Dietrich in Morocco in 1930 – and we're gonna talk about in detail in a later episode. There's a girl-on-girl dance scene in 1932's Sign of the Cross, and a butch lesbian in 1933's Women They Talk About. And of course, there's Greta Garbo kissing another woman in Queen Christina in 1933. Of course, it's kind of difficult to find these references, so I want to point out that people have been dismissing lesbians and women who love women as just 'gals bein' pals' for a really, really long time.

After the Hays Code, a lot of this overt sexuality got swept under the rug and buried in subtext. Culturally, you're looking at a time – again, going back to what we talked about with masculine panic – when men are looking at homosexuality as a direct attack on their masculinity. During the Depression, men were already feeling emasculated because they were losing their jobs and they couldn't afford to take care of their families. They're looking at effeminate men and masculine women, and they start to freak out even more. So even though pre-code movies were using shock value – things like queer people or prostitution and violence – to get butts into seats and boost ticket sales, there was still this pervasive anxiety from men getting scared about their masculinity, and from religious groups that were worried about the effects of on-screen sinning on polite society.

The Code essentially killed the pansy, and buried queer people in hints and subtext. So in the 1930's and 40's, if you were queer in a movie, you were either really vaguely defined like Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon, who is explicitly gay in the source material, or you're a villain, also like Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon. Censorship evolved a little to say, basically, you can show perversion of almost any kind, but you can't show it in a positive light. And this sort of gels with the feelings of the time. You have characters running around committing crimes because of their sexuality, because back then people thought that being gay drove you insane as well as being a sin. People thought of being gay as being a disease or a defect and police were running around raiding gay bars and harassing women dressed in men's clothing, and it's really not a great time to be queer.

In 1948, Hitchcock's Rope comes out, and he's very obviously skirting the censors with the two antagonists. It's very thinly veiled that they're in a romantic relationship, but they're also still murderers. But that kind of moves us along into the 50's, when that 'Miracle Decision' has the courts saying that, no, films are protected by the first amendment and they're an art form, and this is really when censorship in film starts to decline. This is also about the time that its ruled that the studios can't own the movie theaters that distribute their films, so the monopoly on the film industry is broken up and the power of the old studios is drastically reduced.

There's still a censorship code at this point, of course, but it's really loosening up in the mid-50's. The code at that time allowed for hints of queerness as long as it was used for humor or if the person was punished for their “deviance”, which eventually led to 1959's Suddenly, Last Summer, starring big names like Liz Taylor, Katherine Hepburn, and my favorite actor Monty Clift. This movie is a landmark because it has what's considered to be the first movie with a named, explicitly gay character.

Now, that's great and all – but the shitty part comes from the plot. Basically, this guy is murdered violently and his cousin, played by Katharine Hepburn, sees it and goes nuts, so the mom – played by Liz Taylor – tries to bribe Monty Clift's character into giving her niece a lobotomy so that no one finds out that her son was gay. And don't worry, I'm going to talk a lot about Monty in a later episode and we'll talk about what kind of effect the movie had on him as closeted gay man, but this movie basically proved to the public that being a “mama's boy” or being controlled by your mom led to being gay, and it was sort of implied that violent murder was the inevitable fate of gay men, and that they kind of deserved it.

This is sort of a trend, moving into the 60's. You've got a lot of subtext in the 1959 remake of Ben-Hur, a lot of covert themes and implications. But at the same time, audiences aren't so interested in boycotting a film because of religious leaders, and movies with “questionable content” didn't really need production code or religious approval anymore. But even though we've got the code loosening to compete with television and the rise of the indie studio after the break-up of the old studio monopoly, you've still got a lot of queer characters who are miserable and depressed, or suicidal and homicidal. A lot of them are still dead by the time the credits roll.

In 1965, a movie called Inside Daisy Clover comes out, and there's a gay man in it. He isn't miserable or struggling, and he survives the entire movie – but he's never really explicitly named as gay. It's all still buried in subtext. In 1967, we get Marlon Brando and Liz Taylor in Reflections in a Golden Eye, starring Brando as a repressed gay Army major – a role that was supposed to be Monty Clift's, but he turned it down due to his declining health, supposedly. This is kind of an interesting, weird movie about sexual repression, both heterosexual and homosexual, and the violence it can spark. I'm going to talk in detail about this movie when I do my Brando episode, so I'm gonna put a pin in this discussion for now.

The sixties also brought us the beautiful weirdness of Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and other people like them who were giving us fully realized and complex queer characters, but we don't see any movies marketed towards a gay audience until the 1970's. In 1968, the final death knell of the Hays Code came with the introduction of the MPAA rating system we're all familiar with today.

So, why the long history lesson? I wanted to talk about this bit of film history for several reasons.

First of all, chronologically it makes sense in the context of the show. Last week, we talked about noted vampire Rudolph Valentino – I finished American Horror Story: Hotel, by the way – and he died before the Hays Code was even written, a whole year before, to be exact.

Second of all, it's important to talk about all of this to give context to our future discussions about Hays-era movies and about the environment that actors were working in. Next week, we're going to be talking about some ladies I mentioned this week – Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, and Katherine Hepburn, women who's work snapped from pre to post-code, and we're going to pick this thread of queer representation post Hays Code in a few episodes, but for now, you have some background on the subject.

And third of all, and most importantly, now you can look at some of the stereotypes that we still have today and be able to trace them back to their origins. You see these harmful stereotypes all the time, on TV and in the movies. So we have like, Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, and we can draw a straight line back to Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon. None of this is an excuse or anything – it was wrong then and it's wrong now – but now we have context. We can ask Hollywood, “Why haven't you changed? Why do these offensive things still happen?” You know, back in the 1950's, it was playing into toxix masculinity and that same fear of independent women that was driving criticism of Valentino in the 20's. And for whatever reason, we still have caricatures of queer people on screen as well as this same pervasive toxic and performative masculinity. We have a lot of trouble finding fully realized queer characters that don't end up dead or alone, or even still hidden in subtext.

There's this great moment in the last season of True Blood, maybe the only great moment other than Ryan Kwanten and Alexander Skarsgaard's sex scene – when Lafayette lashes out at Jessica after she catches him and her current boyfriend hooking up, and it's so good and sums up what I want to say so well, that I'm going to leave you with it:

“Everybody else in this fucking town is falling in love and getting engaged and having babies! Has it ever occurred to you that Lafayette – that queen that makes all you white heterosexuals laugh and feel good about yourselves – has it fucking ever occurred to you that maybe I want a piece of that happiness too?”

Thank you for listening to Tuck In, We're Rolling: Queer Hollywood Stories. This episode was researched, written and recorded by me, Jack Segreto. You can find a transcript of this episode and all of our episodes, along with some fun facts and photos, on our tumblr, tuckinpodcast.tumblr.com. You can also give us a like on Facebook at facebook.com/tuckinpodcast. We accept messages on both of those platforms, so feel free to shoot us suggestions for future shows and comments. We upload new episodes every Wednesday and you can find us on iTunes, Soundcloud, and now Google Play. Don't forget to rate and subscribe so more people can find us! Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

SOURCES:

The Motion Picture Production Code (PDF)

The Hays Code - Arts Reformation

From Sissie to Secrecy: The Evolution of the Hays Code

The Hays Code: Censorship, Sexism, and the Code that Built Pop Culture

Homosexuality in Film

Gay and Lesbian Characters in Pre-Code Film

History of Homosexuality in Film (yeah, I got lazy and used Wikipedia. SUE ME, OKAY, I WORK 40+ HOURS A WEEK)

True Blood Wiki: ‘Lost Cause’ Synopsis & Quotes

OKAY BYEEEEEE

#queer history #queer history podcast #lgbt history #lgbt history podcast #the hays code #history of lgbt characters in film #hollywood podcast #( TRANSCRIPTS & SHOW NOTES. )#( EPISODE 2. )#[ friends #i haven't done this much research on a thing since before i got my degree #it's in mortuary science btw #if anyone was curious THOUGH I DON'T THINK YOU WERE ]

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