#its because they made lucifer ripped. that is a father of 8 who lives off coffee no suger and sits at his desk all day. who are you fooling

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

SPN Questionaire

I wasn’t tagged by anyone, I just thought this would be fun to do. Let me tell you my Supernatural story.

I found this from @hannah-deserved-better

1. When did you start watching Supernatural?

Yikes, its hard to nail down a specific year. I’ve been watching it for years now. How about this: when I found the show, seasons 1-5 had already aired and by the time I finished season 5, season 6 had started airing. So I guess maybe I started watching around September 2010. Yes, its possible to have gone through 5 seasons in the span of a month. Don’t underestimate my bingeing abilities.

2. Who is your favorite in TFW?

Castiel

3. Who is your least favorite in TFW?

Do I have to pick? Because I don’t know if I have one. But if I have to, I guess Jack (I’m sorry, its nothing against Jack). I don’t hate Jack by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoy him, he’s super fun and super adorable, it’s just that if he wasn’t there, I wouldn’t exactly miss him either.

4. Tag your top 5 Supernatural blogs.

@charlie-minion @verobatto-angelxhunter @evvvissticante @intelligentshipper @7faerielights

5.  Who is your favorite character (not including TFW)?

Kevin Tran (RIP, alas, you were too good and pure for this universe as well as other universes it would seem)

6. Who is your favorite woman in Supernatural?

Claire Novak. She’s just so incredibly strong inside and out with flaws that only make her even stronger.

7. John or Mary?

I can’t choose. And in what regard? Am I being asked which is better or which is worse? Both have things I like and dislike about them. But that’s what makes them good characters. Neither is perfect and neither was ever meant to be perfect. They’ve both made mistakes, they’ve both done things in the name of them believing it was the right thing to do and while that doesn’t justify their bad decisions, it makes them very interesting characters. But if I am forced to choose one -- and I’m going to assume this is asking about which I like better – I guess Mary simply because we’ve spent more time with her but I’m super excited for ep 300, though. I can’t wait to see what they do with John.

8. What were your first opinions of Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack?

Sam: He was my favorite before Cas showed up. I was definitely what was classified as a Sam girl. I loved his empathetic nature, the nerdiness, I liked that he always questions things before acting, but I like also the dark and grittiness of him as a character, as well.

Dean: He’s the cool guy trope but then I eventually saw that he wasn’t nearly as cool as he wants to be.  Dean is the cool guy who really isn’t nearly as cool he wants to be and he knows it. Dean wants to be seen as cool because he wants to live up to what he sees in his father but also deep down knows that’s not really who he is.

Cas: At first I started off with being intrigued by him. Even in the very beginning, you can tell he’s different from the other angels. And for someone like me who loves puzzles, I was intrigued by trying to piece him together and figure out what it was about him that seemed different. And eventually the intrigue I felt for him as a character turned into complete love and adoration as I realized how much I identified with him.

Jack: I was fascinated by him and then came some adoration as the things he does is just so cute and adorable.

9. What’s your favorite season?

It’s either season 5 or season 11. But if I had to pick one, probably season 5. As a whole, it flows so well and nearly every episode is pure gold.

10. What’s your least favorite season?

Season 10, hands down. It does a lot of things I don’t like and to be perfectly honest, its kind of dull and boring. There were a couple of things here and there I like – the Cas, Hannah, and Claire stuff I really enjoy. But the season as a whole just does not work for me. It starts off interesting but then after a certain point, it turns into something completely different and not in a good way.

11. Opinions on Destiel

I ship it but it’s more in the sense of “how they view each other’s life essence.” When I think about Destiel, I don’t believe either of these two are physically attracted to each other but I do feel that romance would play a part in the sense of these two using romance and intimacy as a way to feel close to one another. I also subscribe to the camp that I would love to see Dean and Cas sharing the same vessel for a possible endgame. These two, perfectly comfortable with each other, inhabiting the same vessel being with each other always, constantly giving each other support, to me, that’s a romantic endgame.

12. Do you believe Supernatural queerbaits?

I guess that’ll just depend on how this show ends. We can’t say for certain until we see how everyone’s endgame pans out.

13. Seasons 1-7 or 8-14?

I have favorite seasons in both categories, it’s hard to decide. But I guess 1-7. There are a lot of consecutive good seasons in that category whereas 8-14 is a little bit hit or miss.

14. Favorite Villain

Amara, I think.

15. Do you think they should end the Lucifer plot line?

Yes. I love Mark Pellegrino but they’re taking Lucifer in a very uninteresting direction and I wish they would just let him go as a character. He was great in season 5, he was a fun flirtation in season 11 but the writers should’ve quit while they were ahead with Lucifer. At this point, the only redemption arc I’ll accept for Lucifer, is Lucifer sacrificing himself for Jack or something along those lines.

16. Who do you think has gone through more trauma (Sam, Dean, or Cas)?

I really don’t like this question. I don’t like the question of trauma to be seen as a competition. Everyone’s trauma is legit, no one is worse off or better off compared to how much trauma they’ve been through. Also how are we quantifying trauma here -- # of traumatic experiences, how much the trauma affected them? I feel like this is a very loaded question. I think I’ll pass on this one.

17. What’s your favorite Supernatural episode?

Season 4 Episode 20, The Rapture

18. Do you like case episodes?

Absolutely. Like I said, I love puzzles so I like trying to figure out what’s going on in MotW episodes. And these episodes can be a very welcome break if I’m not really feeling a season’s mytharc.

19. Who do you relate most to in TFW?

Castiel. I’m someone who never feels truly comfortable or like I belong anywhere but I still keep searching. Just like Cas, I have faith one day I’ll find that place.

20. Why do you like Supernatural?

Lots of things. Fantasy, adventure, “family don’t end in blood”, empowerment to keep on fighting even when it might seem like you’ve lost or you have nothing left.

21. If you could bring back one character and kill off another, who would they be?

Lets exchange prophets, okay? Bring back Kevin Tran and kill off Donatello.

[happymetalgirl]

Behemoth - I Loved You at Your Darkest

Well, it took long enough and came with a lot of hurdles, but I’m finally writing about Behemoth’s highly anticipated follow-up to The Satanist, an album I and a large part of the metal sphere have lauded as a triumphant and elevating return for the band after Nergal’s bout with leukemia. And it really is a massive improvement on a sound they had been consistently improving over the course of their entire career, and for that reason I and everyone who loved The Satanist were of course very eager to hear what Behemoth would do next. I can’t blame Nergal for his hesitation earlier last year about continuing with Behemoth, knowing how much he had to live up to now, and honestly, I would have been okay with The Satanist being the last chapter in the band’s story. It’s a beautiful, intricate, deeply cathartic, and conclusive body of work that leaves me so fulfilled every time I listen to it. It’s the kind of album that by the time the climax of “O Father O Satan O Sun!” finishes, I’m left just savoring the silence of the post-experience high, not immediately reaching for another piece of music to listen to. It really is a masterpiece, and as much as Behemoth has consistently grown in their approach to blackened death metal and carved out their own dominant identity synonymous with the genre, I Loved You at Your Darkest was never going to surpass The Satanist. The most I could realistically hope for amid Nergal’s own indecisiveness about where to go with the music on Behemoth’s next project was something worthy of living in The Satanist’s shadow after all the hype died down.

I Loved You at Your Darkest was, nevertheless, easily one of the most anticipated releases for me this year, and because of that I definitely wanted to sit with it for a while and let it resonate with me at whatever frequency was best. I didn’t want to just write my early impressions of the album and my reaction to my own anticipation. I also sat with this album for awhile because a good few songs on its predecessor were growers for me as well. During the first week or so after the album’s release, I saw a lot of people praising the album immediately and saying it was even better that the Satanist, which even my first impression didn’t agree with. But as the hype died down, zealous fans slowly seemed to come to accept I Loved You at Your Darkest as something not quite on the same level as The Satanist, which is kind of where I stayed all the way up until writing this piece. Strangely, the impression I’m left with is my first impression of this album. It’s a satisfactory follow-up, and not much more, which is unfortunate because I was kind of hoping that Behemoth could easily surpass my conservative expectations. It’s still representative of the huge growth the band made with The Satanist, but musically the uncertainty of direction on this album is what sticks out like a sore thumb.

Nergal had strongly stated that he definitely did not want to simply milk The Satanist with an identical follow-up and that he wanted Behemoth to continue to progress, but he was just so conflicted about how to do so. Well, that aspect of the album definitely shows, but so does the irony of it. In many ways, I Loved You at Your Darkest does rehash a lot of ideas from The Satanist (not in a bad way by any means), but the band’s attempts to define the album as something dramatically different and separate come across as desperate and sometimes clumsy. The first bit of hype I heard about the album was the incorporation of all these new musical elements that were going to spice it up and make it a wild stylistic ride, and the thing Nergal kept bringing up was the children’s choir, which shows up on the intro track and the lead single “God = Dog”. I could have seen the children’s choir really emphasizing the humanism of the lyrics’ Satanic theology and being a really chilling presence at the forefront of a few passages. However, the mere chant they ritualistically recite makes them feel so underutilized and even out of place on the otherwise melodically well-supplemented song. There’s also the melodic clean singing (which also sounds a bit like an invocation) on the song “Bartzabel”, which again just feels like something Nergal thought to just throw atop the mix of spiritual blackened death metal for the sake of differentiating it from The Satanist, even though The Satanist also had a melodic vocal section on its closing track that was much more invigorating. In fact, a lot of songs incorporate these short choral mantras to enhance the songs’ liturgical nature (especially on the song “Sabbath Mater”), but they are often thrown in so sporadically and without proper support that they just end up distracting from the whirl of sacrilegious death metal surrounding them.

As clear as it is that Behemoth couldn’t really find a sure way to move on from The Satanist, that’s hardly a bad album to have spillover from. In fact, most of this album does feel like a sequel to The Satanist, and it’s when Behemoth don’t try to force their way out of a style or process that they have perfected when this album is at its best. The best execution of this tried-and-true style comes on the patient and spiritual “Havohej Pantocrater”, which builds over the course of heavy tom drumming, acoustic guitar leads, and choral clean vocals into a massive solo-driven bridge and a deservedly theatrical outro. As far as most of the writing on here goes, though, it really is like runoff from The Satanist, with knock-off musical ideas that capture the identifying features of that album, but much less of its charisma and potency.

There are plenty of times when the band does move away from that sound or go back a little bit to their more direct blackened death approach, and it does provide the album with some much needed diversity. The album’s second song, “Wolves ov Siberia” nicely blends the relentless black metal tremolo picking and blast beat ferocity of Evangelion with a grand ode to freedom that characterized The Satanist. The extended instrumental outro of “If Crucifixion Was Not Enough” and the ripping blast beats of “Angelvs XIII” also hearken back to Evangelion. The simple, slower, punchy beat of “Rom 5:8″ is a nice change of pace for the album too. But for the most part, I Loved You at Your Darkest really is just the afterthoughts of The Satanist trying to dress themselves as something completely different.

The next major problem with this album lies not with he style, but with the more formulaic writing. It’s not formulaic the way Nickelback’s music is formulaic, but so many songs seem to work in so many of the same ingredients from The Satanist’s cabinet in the same order across their run times, which renders the band’s attempts to mask it with clean choral vocals and children’s choirs come across as almost gimmicky. The somewhat homogeneously liturgical nature of these songs makes me thirst greatly for the likes of a guitar anthem like “Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer” or “Chant for Eschaton”, a gritty riff-based banger like “Conquer All”, or a cinematic epic like “Lucifer” or “The Satanist”. This is honestly one of the flattest albums in the band’s catalog; there’s just so little substantial deviation from the norm

I know a lot if this sounds really harsh for an album I actually really like, but I do feel like this album rides The Satanist’s coattails more than it would like to admit, and by being so similar (with only superficial differences) to such an album in aesthetic and style, it’s hard not to point to how much better the band accomplished this kind of album four years ago. Again, an album like The Satanist isn’t a bad thing at all to have residual inspiration and ideas from permeating a new Behemoth album, and I had my expectations set pretty reasonably, evidently, for I Loved You at Your Darkest. I am both satisfied with this album and disappointed that I’m only just satisfied with it. I think Behemoth have the ability to continue to make compelling music even after they’ve clearly peaked, and I think they could still take all the progress they’ve made and the lessons they’ve learned and channel that through the most honest version of themselves, because that’s what bugs me about this album. It’s trying so hard to not be its predecessor, but it was clearly unavoidable, and the few new elements the band threw didn’t cover it up. Again, this album is still rife with ethereal blackened death metal arrangements, scriptural lyricism, and so much of what Behemoth’s sound has culminated to. There is still so much of what Behemoth have made themselves famous for here on this album; it just seems like they were trying to do so much that wasn’t them just for the sake of not coming across as lazy by repeating The Satanist. But honestly, if they could manage to match The Satanist with something of similar style, it would be anything but lazy. If anything, the flavorless coloring added to the diluted runoff that pours into this album is what comes across as lazy. I’m not saying the whole project is lazy, but it’s clear that the band were just stumped at the question of how to progress past The Satanist. And instead of patiently pushing through an understandably thick creative barrier, they opted to just toss a few novel musical elements atop their current sound and call it solved. Behemoth’s conflicted and stalled creative process is what taints I Loved You at Your Darkest, and I just hope they don’t overthink their next album (if there is a next album) the way they overthought what they wanted this album to be in the context of their discography. The more religious aesthetic of the album could potentially be seen as reflective of the going through the motions by the band in their inability to come up with answers to their self-imposed questions, and I’d be happy to see the raw, unfiltered enthusiasm of Demigod or Zos Kia Cultos (Here and Beyond) in the more refined and dynamic form of The Satanist and Evangelion in the future.

I’ll end this on a good note, because, again, I do still think this is a pretty good album. For what is the product of the clearly stressful post-masterpiece crisis for this band, I Loved You at Your Darkest still manages to channel a lot of energetic performances and layered arrangements in a manner that proves that The Satanist was not a fluke and that the band can still do great things. And I still look forward to a hopefully bright future for Behemoth.