#as resident christian tape. i am kind of right on this one actually

[nocontextnumbernines]

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #212

“counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums.”

Have you ever fired a gun? No. Have you ever tried archery? No. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? A day or so. Do you have any scars? Whew, a lot. I scar easily tbh, though me being so so pale probably contributes to making them more noticeable. Are you a good judge of character? I don't really know. I think so, but then again I'm very very paranoid when meeting new people and look TOO deep into how I expect someone to be. Can you do any other accents other than your own? Just British. What is your favorite accent? British generally, but I find French sooo pretty with girls, then Scottish is cool. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? I have no clue. Probably my leather boots. Can you curl your tongue? Yes, surprisingly... I just tried and I can with the slight curve in my tongue ring. Most used phrased? Probably "what a mood" or something like that lmao. Most used word? Besides the words in most sentences, I'm sure it's probably "fuck." How long does it take for you to get ready? Am I taking a shower? Then just like... less than 20 minutes. Without a shower, it's like less than ten minutes. Do you suck or bite lollipops? Both. Can you name all 50 states of America? No. I'm a sad American. Have you ever started a rumor? No. How fast can you type? I took a test awhile back for a job application purpose and it's 72 or so wpm. How fast can you run? I can tell you NOT FAST without even trying. Color of your bedspread? Navy and black. Have you ever had a really bad haircut? I don't think so. What brand, color, and type is your favorite eyeliner? I don't have one. Do you wear eyeliner? If I ever wear makeup, that's the one thing I will wear. Was there ever a time in your life when you couldn’t cry? Yes, probably early 2017. I was so numb until I started to "feel" recovery. Even as I got better, I had a hard time crying. Last year was a pretty "I can't cry"-type time, too. What’s your favorite type of yogurt? Not a fan of yogurt. What are your favorite type of calendars? I don't have one? Do you have a full-length mirror? Yes. Do you have a piggy bank? No. Do you remember your locker combinations from high school? No. What’s your favorite DIY crafts YouTube channel? I don't watch DIY crafts. Would you rather sleep on the top bunk or bottom bunk? At my current age, bottom. What kind of popcorn is your favorite? Probably caramel corn. But buttery and salty is great too. Does your town have a big fountain in it? No. What is your town known for? Probably nothing. Do you know what you want to do for your next birthday? If yes, what is it? Hm. That's a long ways off, idk. All I know is it'd be great if Sara was here. And then there's the yearly urge to get a tattoo that day lmao. What is the last new thing you discovered that was really good? I think The Shining. Watched it for the first time and loved it. What would be the best surprise you could receive right now? Hey could I have money right now. Were there any subjects in school that were really easy for you? If so, what? English/Language Arts. Did you ever skip a grade or get held back a grade? No. What is the best hairstyle you’ve ever had? I love what I currently have. Do you think you look better with dyed hair or natural hair? Dyed hair. Do you think your look better with curly hair or straight hair? Straight. Do you have bangs? No. What’s your favorite rock band? I'd say Marilyn Manson. (I'm excluding metal, 'cuz that's a different story.) Who’s your favorite country singer? I don't mind Tim McGraw. Did you try the unicorn frappuccino, and if yes, were you a fan? I didn't. When you look at your baby pictures, do you recognize yourself? Actual baby pictures, usually no. Has your hair color changed since you were a toddler? Yes; I was born dirty blonde. Do you wear matching socks? Yeah. Do you decorate for Halloween? We don't really anymore. What is your favorite thing to do in the pool? Just swim around, relax. Have you ever taken a picture at the perfect moment? I think so. What color(s) eyeshadow do you wear the most? Only ever black. Do you see yourself as a sensitive person? I'm extremely sensitive. Do you still leave/receive voicemails? Yes. Are you a festive person? Do you enjoy holidays? I'm not very festive, no. The only holidays that really excite me are Halloween and Christmas. What is your favorite subject to learn about? Meerkats. You’re feeling down - do you listen to sad music or happy? Sad. It usually comforts me/makes me feel less alone. Even though I might cry. Is there a song or artist that you secretly enjoy, but don’t want to enjoy? I like a decent number of Blood On The Dancefloor songs. Has your parents' taste in music in any way affected what you like? Yes. When I started getting into rock naturally, I began listening to my mom's CDs, and that's when metal stole my heart. You’re looking for some new music - what’s your preferred way to discover? YouTube recommendations. Do you still own any CD’s/records/tapes? Mom has CDs. She may or may not have tapes from when my sisters and I were really young for memory's sake; we had a lot of kid ones, like Raffi. Do you ever hear a new song on TV that you like and find it? When I watched TV, yeah, rarely. Do you watch the news? No. What about the weather channel? No. What’s your favorite holiday movie? Maybe Hocus Pocus. How do you feel about adult cartoons? I don't have an opinion. Do you still watch shows that you grew up watching? No. What about movies that you grew up with? Yeah. Do you identify with any organized religion? No. If so - is it how you were raised, or have you found your own? I was raised Catholic, grew to simply a Christian, then left that behind a year or more ago. Have you ever protested or been on strike? Does not eating at Chick-fil-a count as some kind of "protest?" That place was hard to let go of, but nah man, I'm not supporting your business when your higher-ups contribute to anti-LGBT efforts and such. Is gun control necessary or no? Some degree of control absolutely is. Are you happy with the political state where you reside? HAHA no. Should abstinence or sex education be taught in schools? Education, but I do believe in heavily advising smart sexual decisions such as not just doing it with just anyone. Have you read the book 13 Reasons Why or watched the show? I read the book. Should shows like this be available to everyone or could it be a trigger? Fuck the show. Do you like animals? Of course. What is your absolute favorite food? Probably pizza. Do you have bad anxiety? If so, do you take any kind of medication for it? You don't know the half of it. I literally cried the first and last day of my last job because I couldn't find the gloves when I needed to. So yeah, I take meds, but I don't think either do very much, honestly. Who was the last person you felt you were wasting your time on? A former best friend. I cared when she didn't. One thing you’ve experienced that you thought you never would have? I never in a million years thought I was going to have a bad - traumatic - breakup when I was kid because I "knew who to pick." I was so sure. What was the last thing someone said to you that kept repeating over & over in your head? The guy who helped in basic training with me saying "well that was a waste of my time" when my co-worker told him what was going on with me. Literally, it won't get out of my head. If a random person were to look through the photos on your phone, is there anything you’d be embarrassed about? lmao I have Mark wallpapers stored, my friend. Don't find my collection. How often do you have late nights out? Never. Ever. Do you currently have any mixed feelings about someone? As far as friendships go, yes. If you could, would you work from home? Do you think that would make you more or less productive? No no no no no. I want a job to get OUT of my house. I know I'd be less productive, too. What were you like in middle school? Weird and probably annoying. If you could give one charity a million dollars, what charity would you donate money to? I'm not sure. I'd have to look more into ones with causes I'm passionate about. Most likely something about conservation. Would you ever be an organ donor? I am. Which do you think is harder: realizing you haven’t changed or realizing you have? The former. Is there something that you really need to do, but can’t seem to get motivated to do it? Plenty of things. Have you ever won some sort of prize or prize package from a contest? What did you win? Yeah, a few. I don't remember most; I only really remember the Silent Hill one I've mentioned before. What is something you’re surprised hasn’t been invented yet? A cure for cancer, I guess? I dunno. Most disturbing movie you have ever seen? Probably The Entity. Has a life goal or dream ever come true for you yet? If yes, what is it? If no, do you think you’ll achieve it? lol by golly do I wish. I don't fucking know if I'll achieve any. What one thing has always bothered you, but seems to bother no one else? I get legitimately bothered by people going in/out the wrong door. Do you still own a VCR and VHS tapes? No. What’s your favorite color gummy bear? I don't care. What is the sexiest part of the opposite sex’s body? Shoulder blades why do I love shoulder blades????? Where do you sing the most, in the car or the shower? I dunno. Ever hurt yourself playing Wii? Probably. Do you have freckles? Not on my face. I did as a kid though. Weird. How many languages can you say “Hello” in? Three. What’s the last video game you played? So not computer? I believe... The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon? Or Shadow of the Colossus. I don't remember. Can you do the alphabet in sign language? No. Do you like your feet? I don't like feet to begin with, and I don't like mine. My feet are so dry and callused to HELL from when I used to walk all the time. I need to see a doctor to get rid of the worst ones on my toes honestly because they annoy the fuck out of me because ugly. Candles or incense? Incense. Reason behind the last time you laughed until you cried? I don't remember. Are you one who brags a lot? I don't have anything to brag about. Do you face your problems head on or do you run away from them? Depends on the problem, I guess... What is the latest you’ve stayed out before? I remember there was one night in particular with Jason where he dropped me off like... really late. Around 3 or later in the morning. I don't remember why I got home so late. Are you confrontational? AVOID! AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! COSTS! Do you stand your ground? Usually. Who do you know without a doubt cares about you? Mom, Sara, and Dad. Have you ever caught yourself talking in your sleep? For the past year and more, I've started sleep talking frequently... and yeah, I've woken up in the middle of doing it plenty of times. Did you do anything stupid/anything you regret today? I probably do something stupid every day. Little things like procrastinate on everything are certainties. Have you ever switched primary care doctors? Do not. Get me FUCKING started. On the doctor who kept me on a medication that resulted in gaining like 150 pounds and blaming it all on me. Yeah, I switched. If yes, what was the reason? lol see above. Do you ever sleep on your bedroom floor just for fun? God no. Sleeping on the floor is a last resort. Are you worried about your current financial situation? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Do you know anyone who’s had a stillbirth? Probably. Who was the last person you know (or that you know of) that died? Uhhh I'm not sure. Possibly the old lady Mom watched. Do you need a new phone? Desperately. Would you rather get a big tattoo or small tattoo? A big one. Do you identify as a supernatural being..i.e., unicorn, alien, goddess…? Uh no. What’s one thing you are tired of seeing or hearing about on Facebook? Guys I don't understand the "me and the boys" meme laskdfjalwier make it go away. What theme do you want for your wedding? Halloween-ish. What theme would you choose for a baby’s nursery? Idk. I don't want kids, so this isn't something I think about. What color would you paint a baby girl’s nursery? Pastel pink. Not for stereotypical reasons, my favorite color just happens to be pink and I think it's cute for a baby. Does your first crush know that he/she was your first crush? No. Which family member did you get your height from? Mom and I are pretty much the same height. Do you like your butt? NO I have a pancake ass. Who was the last friend of yours to have a baby, and what’s the baby’s name? An old high school friend recently had a baby named Jaspen. Are all of your friends having babies right now? I think most of my old friends have at least one kid by now. Do you know anyone who’s given birth to twins? Yes. Growing up, did you listen to country music? Yes, when my older sister started controlling the radio. Do you have a gazebo at your house? No. Where were you going the first time you rode a plane? Ohio or Michigan. Do you like tomatoes? Not really, no. The only time I ever have was fresh ones with bacon and light mayo on a sandwich. What’s your favorite brand of bottled water? Essentia. Do you have any ceramic animals in your house or outside? Why is there a small dolphin in the corner of our back yard?????? What annoys you more: slow talkers or slow walkers? Slow walkers. Have you ever been to a night club? No. If you had a warning label, what would yours say? Something about being prone to anxiety, I guess. Do you believe in reincarnation? No. Do you believe in horoscopes and zodiacs? Not in the slightest. What is your MBTI personality type? INFP Can your dog roll over on command, if you have a dog? No. Is the ocean or sky prettier? Sky. Are you androgynous? No. Do you like to kiss others’ foreheads or hands for platonic reasons? No. Well I kiss my niece's and nephew's cheeks when telling them bye, but they're the only ones. What is the youngest age you can remember back to? I have at least one memory from when I was two. Did you wear your hair in a ponytail today? It's too short for that. What job would you NEVER take, even as a last resort? Slaughterhouse worker was the first thing to come to mind. If you broke your computer, would you be able to fix it on your own? No. What was the shittiest hotel you’ve ever stayed at and why? I don't think I've stayed in a bad one... What was the first kind of alcohol you ever tasted? A daiquiri. Do you use any styling products on your hair? No. Do you have a favorite local band? Who are they? No. What’s the most confusing book you ever read? Even though it's my favorite book, Johnny Got His Gun takes the cake here. The way it's written is very confusing, though I think I get why Trumbo chose such a style. Do you like your personality? I like some things, hate others. Are your legs long or short? I'd say they're proportional to the rest of my body. How many phobias do you have? A lot. Where do you think your last ex is right now? He's probably sleeping since he works 3rd shift. What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in the last week? I don't know. Probably the sky during a car ride or something. Who was the last person to comfort you as you cried? My mom. When was the last time you felt like throwing up? A week ago or so when I had an anxiety attack the night before my first day of work. I got myself so worked up. Have you ever had to wear a hairnet? For the two fucking hours I lasted at my last job lmao. Do you use the Facebook chat often? No. Do you own a robe? What color is it? Nope. Who ended your last relationship? Me. Do you still remember your first kiss? Yeah. Are you happy with where you are relationship-wise now? Yeah, other than being long-distance. How many kids do you want to have? None. Have you ever purposely given someone the wrong number? No. Who’s the last person you smoked weed with? I haven't. Though by this point in my life, I wish NC would catch up with the times and legalize it medicinally because I've given up enough to turn to that for my anxiety. Who was the last person you talked to, other than family? My old VR coach. When was the last time you flew in a plane? Last December. Is there a girl you absolutely can not stand? No. At least not off the top of my head. Ever had a person who was obsessed with you so much that it scared you? No, I was that person lmao. Has anyone ever mistaken you for someone else? Yes. Say your last ex walks up to you and hugs you, what do you say? We're still friends, so. At the current time, a random hug from him would probably make me cry though because he's not very affectionate and I haven't been stable for days. I need the comfort alsdjfakljwer Who was the last baby you held? It's probably been like a year since I've held a baby when I was still friends with Colleen. But y'all my sister is pregnant & next year GUESS WHO I'M HOLDING. Do you have any siblings that moved away to college? She did, but she's long since graduated. Who was the last person who cried around you? I'm sure it was Mom. What was the last thing you cried about? My life. Who’s the last guy to give you roses? Tyler. Would you rather have nice eyes or nice lips/smile? Smile, I suppose. Do you have a common first name? Yes. Do you like your middle name or your first name more? My first, I guess. Do you wear more rings or necklaces? I always have a ring on. Have you ever been engaged? No. Can you see your veins through your skin? In some areas. Did your parents let you have pets when you were a kid? Yes. Do you like spicy chips? Yes. What band was on the last band t-shirt you wore? Metallica. Do you have any tattoos on your arms? Yes. Have you ever owned or known someone who owned a black cat? Both. Who scheduled your last doctor visit? My mom. I don't drive, so she drives me around, and so things have to fit into her busy schedule. So she just does it. Do you have any holiday themed socks? True shit, I think most of mine are, lmao... Like you know, socks are a common gift on Christmas. What’s the last funny movie you watched? Idr. Can you remember your parents’ birthdays? Yes. What piercing do you like most on the opposite sex? I'd say it depends on the person, but in general, I suppose snakebites? What brand of hair dye do you prefer to use? Splat is the only brand that has ever stuck to my hair. Lasted months. Did/do you ride the bus to and from school? Only Jason's junior and senior years sometimes to go to his house. Are you any good at applying make up? No. I have tremors in my hands, and it makes it an absolute nightmare. Are you someone who likes to make simple things difficult? I certainly don't try to, but I somehow always end up doing it. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? Rolls and honey ham. And that is /literally/ it. I don't like Thanksgiving food. Do you like Techno music? Yeah. Is your second toe longer than your big toe? They're like the exact same length. Do you say "merry Christmas" or "happy holidays?" The former. Who do you talk to on the phone most often? Mom. What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to? I've only ever been to Alice Cooper, but it was great. I'm supposed to be seeing Ozzy plus supposedly Judas Priest and Megadeth (you're not allowed to die, Dave) next year, and that. That will be. My preview into Heaven. I will sob. How did you meet your best friend? Over YouTube via the meerkat RP community. Do you need money to be happy? Try living really poor and come back to me claiming money can't ever buy happiness. What is something you do well? Dig way, way too deep into absolutely anything and everything. What’s a good idea you’ve had recently? I've started to count calories on top of fasting. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Ahhhhh, cinnamon rolls. How far in advance do you prefer to plan? For most things, a few days or a week. Bigger things, maybe like a month+? How many slices of pizza do you usually eat? 2-3, depending on my appetite. Would you like to live in a different country? If so which one? I wouldn't move there, not with all my family and such here, but I think living in Canada would be better sometimes. Do you prefer the aisle, middle, or window seat on a plane? I strongly prefer the window seat; I've found that if I'm not looking out the window and the plane changes altitude or direction (takeoff is the worst), I get VERY dizzy. I usually always wind up in the middle seat, and there and in the aisle seat, I have to close my eyes at times like those. What’s your favorite song from a movie? As far as original songs, probably "Be Prepared" from The Lion King. A goddamn beat. What’s your favorite city? I haven't been to many. Idk. Who was the last person to ask you to hang out? Did you agree to hang out with them? Hell, I have no idea. Is there a food that you eat basically every day? What food is that? I usually have a granola bar as a snack or even just a meal in place of breakfast or lunch. Is there a food you eat that others find weird or gross? I grew up sometimes eating waffles with peanut butter and syrup as Dad loved it. It's definitely different, but it's absolutely delicious. What was the last fast food restaurant you went to? Did you get anything? If so, what? I think Sonic? I got a double bacon cheeseburger. I fell in love with their burgers. Can you remember the first video game you ever played? What about your first video gaming system? I'm not sure, but it was probably Spyro The Dragon. My first gaming system was a PS1. The last video game you played - did you play alone or with someone else? Alone. If there is a disc in your computer, what disc is it? There isn't one. Do you shut down your computer every time after you use it, or do you leave it on? I leave it on. Do you know anyone who has ever been in a movie? Who and what movie were they in? What was their part? No. Describe the last shirt you saw that you really liked. Where did you see it? Omg I saw this shirt online of a really cool demonic pig that said something like "Save the animals, eat humans." It was actually a vegan shirt, but I nevertheless wanted it, lol. I support veganism, but yeah... I could never do it. But anyway, it was too expensive. Do you live in a very diverse community? Not really, no. Do you know anyone who has had salmonella? Did you ever have it yourself? What about e-coli? No; no; no. When was the last time you brought a pet to the vet? What was wrong with it? Sigh. We put Cali down. Something ruptured in her abdomen and there was also a mass on her liver or gallbladder, and her abdomen was filling with blood. It compressed her lungs so much she could barely breathe. Surgery was extremely expensive, but more importantly, we were told it likely wouldn't save her. Do you get motion sick easily? If so, does it prevent you from going on any rides at amusement parks? I've never gotten motion sickness, but I don't risk that shit with amusement park rides or boats out at sea. I'm terrified of vomiting. Do you have any bug bites on you right now? If so, where? No. Have you ever made your way through a corn maze? No. Name something that you used to do with your family that you no longer do with them or at all? Easter egg painting. Have you seen Inception yet? Thoughts on that movie? I never saw it.

[neurotribe]

“I was Israel Folau.” or “What hill are you prepared to die on?”

I think it was the first time Bishop Tom Wright visited Australia. I was at his public lecture at St Hilary’s Anglican Church in Kew. Wright began with the following statement:

“About a third of what I am going to tell you is wrong, however I do not know which third, because I believe I am completely correct.”

Honestly, it is the only part of his presentation I remember clearly. Upon reflection I recall the looks of shock and confusion upon the faces of audience members, including many a PhD candidate, as one of the most prolific New Testament scholars going round begins his public lecture on Beauty and the problem of Evil. I laughed and recall the way in which this opening invited (and continues to invite me), definitely not a PhD candidate at the time, to participate in what was a dense theological reflection.

I have told that story many times since and I have used this opening myself on countless occasions, especially as I regularly play the role of, and am considered by some to be a theological teacher and lecturer.

It is a great leveller, an egalitarian mechanic that brings the “teacher” and the “student” together in humility. “We learn together” is implied, as it should be.

In light of this encouragement, I have lost count of the things I used to fervently believe were true when I first came to faith as a fiery, passionate 17 year old. Some of those things I believed as a freshly minted convert, I still do. Some of those things are ones I shamefully and embarrassingly regret. Some of them were just downright funny. I think that if I were to discover time travel, I would go back to the 13th of December, 1988, the day after I made a commitment to live conscientiously as a Christian. I would tell my 17 year old self the story of Bishop NT Wright. Of course, the problem would be, would the passionate recent convert put any stock in anything the older and hopefully wiser me had to say? There are a couple of things that separate me from Israel Folau. I don’t nearly have his level of athleticism. I also don’t have anything near his level of wealth, and of course my public profile is virtually non existent compared to his.

There is however one other significant difference between myself and Folau, and that is the difference between the times in which we live. When I was a young, recent convert filled with fiery zeal, everything I said and did was not recorded and instantaneously uploaded to reside permanently “in the cloud” inviting global public scrutiny forever and ever amen. I often joke with my 40 something friends that there would be no way that any of us would be able to get jobs if the stuff we said and did left the kind of digital footprint it does in the present day.

I suspect that if Folau and I were to sit down and have a conversation, there would be allot of things that he believes now, that I did when I was his age.

Not a month goes by when I do not think about the illegal bootleg recording I made of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle Tour” at their Festival Hall performance in 1987, prior to my conversion. I still recall the slight pang of regret as I tossed that beloved cassette tape onto the bonfire containing most of my vinyl records, a sizeable amount of books, comics, graphic novels and magazines as well. I can’t recall if I was encouraged to toss my Tolkien books onto the pile as the church I was part of at the time was split on whether he was ok or not.

I often think about that bonfire. I have replaced most of the music, sci fi and fantasy fiction material. The role playing material is a little more difficult to replace as some of those books don’t exist in physical or digital form anymore, except as rare editions worth thousands of dollars now. <Sigh> I destroyed things that I was led to believe were evil influences on my life and would hinder my development as a young Christian person. That quirky little church taught me many things. That these material possessions were “evil” and needed to be excised from my life were one of those beliefs. There were quite a few more quirky “beliefs” that I took on board and just the thought of confessing them publicly fills me embarrassment (don’t hold your breath, I am not about to do so!).

That quirky little pentecostal church also encouraged some beliefs that I still cling to. I remember being asked the question “who are you when no one is looking?” It was couched in a longer series of conversations about integrity, my lack of it, and how to cultivate it in my life. There are other beliefs that they instilled in those early, formative years. Oh how I would have appreciated Wright’s wisdom back then! Think of my awesome relics from the 80′s I could be sharing with my Stranger Things obsessed son!?

There is a saying popular in military circles, “is this the hill you are willing to die on?”. It begs the question, is this thing you are obsessing over, this thing you are fighting for right now, are you prepared to give it all? Is this the hill that you are prepared to fight for, and if need be, die on?

Folau believes that he is in the fight of his life, so much so that he is prepared to solicit the public in order to raise $3,000,000 Australian dollars. This is where it gets complicated.

Firstly what is he in fact fighting for? The popular phrase thrown around is that he is fighting a legal free speech test case. However it is not that straight forward. There are dimensions of unlawful dismissal (if it is indeed decided in a court of law that he was unlawfully dismissed), as well as the specific commercial dimensions of which ever agreements he reached with his employer regarding the nature of his contract, and of course whatever discussions were made behind closed doors regarding infractions of his contract prior to the last one that resulted in his dismissal.

These aspects are of no small consequence. It is important that the actions of both Folau and Rugby Australia be heard and decided upon, however, as I have already stated, this seems to be primarily about un/lawful dismissal, and not primarily about freedom of speech.

On the subject of freedom of speech, this is where it gets even more complicated, and if I am honest, frustrating for me as a person who identifies as a Christian, observing many others who also identify as Christian claiming that freedom of speech is at stake. The simple reason I find it difficult taking seriously all those who identify as Christian who are now banging on about freedom of speech is, why were they absolutely silent when Yassmin Abdel-Magied was brutalised by parts of the Australian media, exercising her right of free speech? Where were they when people bayed for her blood, called for her employers to sack her because of her public statements? Where was the spontaneous GoFundMe campaign to support here during this horrific example of racially based national bullying?

And that is just one of a few instances in recent times.

The pattern I see emerging is not a concern for “freedom of speech” rather “freedom for me/us to say what I/we want whilst a different set of rules apply when others who don’t share our values speak out”. To put it plainly, the stance smacks of hypocrisy, which unfortunately is perhaps one of the most common criticisms of Christianity not just in Australia, but around the world. In this instance we can once again see why.

If we (and yes, I am deliberately standing with my brothers and sisters who identify as Christian here and are feeling they need to protect Folau and consequently themselves as frustrating as it is for me to do so at the moment, you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your faith family) then it needs to be the defence of freedom of speech for all, and not just for us and ours. Again, I am reminded of Desmond Tutu’s passionate instruction for Christians not to hold power, but to hold power to account. When people of faith fight for the rights and protections of others there is something transcendent and noble about it. Conversely when Christian people feel they need to protect themselves, it tends to look a little ugly. And before you respond with statements including the word “persecution”, that is another conversation that needs to be had honestly. Persecution is one thing, the loss of privilege is another matter entirely.

If you are a person of faith and you claim, encouraged by the words of Desmond Tutu that you are indeed attempting to hold power to account, let me ask once again:

Is it really freedom of speech for all, or is it freedom of speech for one group in society and a different set of expectations for other groups who disagree?

Is it actually about freedom of speech, or is it more complicated than that? See my previous comments regarding unfair dismissal.

Now it gets really messy. You may be aware that a few days ago, Folau launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $3,000,000 Australian. I deliberately said “raise $3,000,000″ and not “raise $3,000,000 to cover the costs of his legal fees” for a number of reasons.

It is estimated that Folou is already worth about AU $10,000,000. If he is in the fight of his life, and if he has estimated that it will cost him this much, why does he believe that, rather than using his own funds, he needs to elicit those funds from others? According to all of the public data available, he could easily cover those costs without needing public support.

There is a caveat, in small print on his GoFundMe profile page that states that he reserves the right to use those funds as he deems fit, and that those funds may not necessarily be used as part of his legal defence. If nothing else, this caveat is highly suspect and problematic.

A number of legal commentators have noted that a legal defence of this kind would cost in the vicinity of AU $300,000. If that is the case, why is he soliciting ten times that amount?

Finally, and more importantly, what will Folou think about his theological positions twenty or thirty years down the track? Will his position regarding interpreting the biblical material as it relates to sexuality change in any way? If not, will his position on how to engage others with biblical material whether it be via social media or in person shift significantly? Those are at least two ways in which Wright’s advice about 30% of our theology shifting and changing over the course of our lives can effect this issue as it unfolds in the public square.

Regardless, as I have been bashing away at the keys this morning, really simply trying to order my own thoughts and feelings on the matter, I received this message stating that his GoFundMe page has been taken down because it has breached the platforms guidelines. I have not read the detail, however, I wonder if this might not in fact be an invitation to pause, take a moment and ask individually and collectively, particularly in light of Jesus’ succinct summary of the gospel (love God, love neighbour as self and to love enemies), a summary that continues to challenge his followers then and now, is this really the hill that we want to die on?

[smokeybrand]

Disgusted Noises

I’m a nihilist and a misanthrope. I don’t like nor do i trust people. I’ve spent my entire life experiencing betrayal after betrayal. I’ve never taken them personally because of the misanthropy but, at the same time, i developed a very bleak perspective, very early on, about my fellow man. There are, of course, rare occasions when I'm surprised by the pure altruism of humanity but more often than not, i am usually affirmed in my apathy toward society and sometimes even disappointed. That last bit? That disappointment part? Yeah, you have to be violently, unabashedly, purposefully sh*tty to actually disappoint me. To accomplish that sh*t is really a herculean effort because I have no faith in humanity. For someone to do something that makes me pause and say “Wow?” That’s the big yikes. You’d have to punt a baby or rape a kid or something exceedingly heinous to get that level of disgust out of me. That’s why it’s so weird when i see optimists. Like, f*cking how? Are you not paying attention to this, the dumpster fire we call a world?

We live in a nation where people are violently against universal healthcare. Even though that sh*t literally benefits everyone, costs less to employers than private insurance, has built-in government regulation so everyone is guaranteed the same quality care, and makes sure there are positions available to meet the needs of the nation at any given time. Yet, there are still people out there who refuse to acknowledge all of these benefits because “Muh freedoms” or “Too expensive.” Really? You're that f*cking selfish? Word? Or how this country refuses to pass free college initiatives because the Boomers demand we youngsters “earn” it like they did, while denying all reality of the fact that they didn't earn sh*t.  College cost a fraction of what it does now, when they “worked” for it. Hell, a lot of State and Junior colleges were free, you just had to show up and be a resident. These hippie liars were screaming about peace and love when they were young but then switched up real fast when they got into the drivers seat during the Eighties. These assholes changed the rules when they were in charge, strip mining the economy of anything beneficial to the working class, lining their pockets even further while f*cking everyone else who would come up came after them. That Gordon Gecko, Greed, “Greed is good” bullsh*t. Nonsense like that colors my life perspective but I'm the asshole, negative, pessimist because my take on reality is a soberingly somber one? Bro, do you see this sh*t around you? Do you pay attention to historical fact? Did you buy into the propaganda they push in government sanctioned primary schools? Were you never curious about the sh*t they weren't saying?

Like, when people show you who they are, how are you like, “Nah?” If someone consistently proves to you that they are an untrustworthy, manipulative, liar, why do you keep taking their word or giving them opportunities to f*ck you over? Because you hope they’ll be better with a second chance? Because you have faith that next time they won’t? That sh*t is stupid and you sound dumb as f*ck. Hope and faith are constructs created by desperate people, grasping at straws to survive atrocity. That sh*t is why black folks are, historically, stupid religious. We took that stuff like a moth to a flame because of slavery. And then segregation. And then Jim Crow. Even then, these same constructs were co-opted by those who oppress in order to manipulate and profit from the distress they heap upon us. But that's just the Black experience in 'Murrica. This h*t happens to everyone who doesn't have a seven figure savings account. F*ck a race, it's about your wallet. It's about you class, and these “high class” clowns make sure you dumb motherf*ckers keep that hope alive. Turn that other cheek and sh*t, it's the Christian thing to do. If you keep turning your cheek, whats going to stop me from slapping you in the face and stealing your wallet? The fact that you ran out of money, which is just going to make me mad. Hell, i might just keep slapping you harder now because I'm mad you’re broke and f*ck you, stupid. If a motherf*cker proves to you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are the worst, repeatedly, because apparently you’re a glutton for punishment, when is enough, enough? When do you stop getting slapped in the face and punch that motherf*cker in the mouth?

I don't know, man, it's just weird the punishment people are willing to take using such detrimental concepts like hope and faith as a means to mollify any responsibility for their own disrespect. It's fine to believe but accept reality, you know? If a cat is beating your ass, they're not going to stop. If a politician is lying to your face, they're not going to stop. If a family member is taking advantage of you, they're not going to stop. You have to stop that sh*t. You have to do what's necessary to get right in that situation. The misanthrope in me knows that as an unassailable truth. People can only be trusted to let you down. I keep several plans of action, just in case something, or someone, falls through. I accept the reality of everything, be it the worst or the best, and plan accordingly. There's nothing wrong with doubt. That sh*t will save your ass more often than not, really. That other sh*t though? That hope and faith sh*t? Too much of that will keep you f*cked up for as long as you keep putting way too much stock into them. Everything in moderation. It's not bad to hope. It’s not bad to have faith. It’s not bad to be optimistic. It's bad when you blindly believe in that sh*t, denying the f*ckery you see in front of your eyes. F*cking stop that dumb sh*t! I know this was kind of a stark read but we live in stark times. And, while I absolutely believe everything I've written here with everything that I am, it's my truth as a I see it built upon three decades of traumatically sobering life experience, the nihilist in me says that it doesn't even f*cking matter. The human animal is a whole ass idiot and people are going to do what they want, regardless of if it's good for them or not. 45 committed a whole a treason this passed Sunday. It was recorded and presented for the world. We really got to see who this man is. But naked and exposed, this motherf*cker pleaded for fraud. He demanded dishonesty and the wholesale destruction of liberty. That sh*t happened and it was caught on tape. And today, there are people asking about the legality of the recording, not the content of the call.

I am so f*cking disappointed.

[impressivepress]

Félicia Atkinson: A Closer Listen interview

Do you have a favorite piece of gear you’d care to talk about?  With this series, I try to not fetishize equipment the way that often happens but rather to try to demystify the creative process.

Some people have all this expensive stuff and produce nothing of interest, others use literal garbage or broken old things and produce beautiful soundworlds.  So, not necessarily from a technical standpoint, but as a piece of equipment that you’ve developed a kind of relationship with.

I like to collect stones from my travels, especially the ones I find on empty beaches or desert. I put them in my pockets, forgetting where they come from, and then use them during my show with micro contacts. Sometimes I just hold them during shows, they don’t make any sounds but they give me energy or at least the courage sometimes to stay silent or not add anymore sound to what’s already in the air. It’s difficult sometimes not to add more, you have break yourself somehow in order to keep the focus and sharpness.

I am fascinated by this image of you deriving inspiration from these stones, even when they are not making a sound. Do you have any early memories of sound, as listener or recorder, that stand out to you, that you draw inspiration from as you do with your found stones?

I think the first sounds I enjoyed were birds in the evening and trains passing. Especially just before nightfall. I am still always moved when I hear them. I leave not far from the station in Rennes and there are birds in my garden, and every day I feel still deeply touched by those sounds.

I seem to recall you’ve spent some time in the American southwest, a residency perhaps? Were you at Taliesin West? Can you talk a bit about your interest in the region?  Quite a contrast to Brittany, no?

We went to Arizona, California’s Mojave and Nevada, and also New Mexico quiet often. Each year since 2014 we do the LA Art Book Fair with Shelter Press and we manage to add some wandering time before or after, a kind of research time where I can record, see, draw,s  listen, write, paint…

We actually went to Taliesin West, and the Biosphere, and Arcosanti, but also to the Meteor Crater and the Petrified Forest. Arizona is Crazy! In New Mexico we visited Georgia O Keefe’s ranch and Agnes Martin’s room in Taos. It’s very inspiring.

There are so many contrast and different energies and people out there.

My relationship to those places is very intimate and I don’t know how to speak about it rationally; but let’s say my records Hand in Hand andCoyotes are my way of explaining and sharing my relationship to those environments.

But speaking of stones, you know Brittany is very rich in dolmens, monoliths and megaliths, that are sacred stones…

May I ask about your musical formation?  Did you study an instrument as a child, or play in more traditional bands in your youth?  How did your current practice develop? Can you describe what led your interest in making music? What is your musical background, both in terms of playing instruments and musical “scenes” which you were shaped by?

I studied harp and piano as a kid, listening to classical music mostly, but was very bored with « solfège » and music theory.

I remember learning « Methode Martenot » [an unconventional form of music pedagogy] that was more intuitive and based on rhythm and really enjoying it.

Also, some people came to my public elementary school to present to us the Structures Baschet by the Baschet Brothers and I was fascinated by them.

I grew up in Paris and my parents were listening to music all the time. My dad, who was working as a psychiatric nurse, was listening to Robert Ashley, Stockhausen and Pierre Henryand my mom, who was working as a librarian at the National Library to world music such as Yiddish songs, Cape Verdian music, Polish music…

I stopped playing music at the age of 14 when I discovered grunge music, Brit pop, indie rock and trip hop. I decided to keep on studying theatre instead. I even wrote a few plays.  I wanted to be a writer at that time and was writing all the time; poetry, novels… I destroyed everything I was really living in my imagination.

In those years (14-18), I was listing to music all the time and reading the NME, The Face Magazine, Les Inrockuptibles… I was a music fan, collecting images, reviews, of the bands I was adoring!

I was doing a lot of baby sittings all my teenage years to buy records and go to shows. (There is no age restriction in shows in France.)

I even went to Bristol when I was 16 with a friend to see where Massive Attack and Tricky where coming from, but we were so broke and young the only thing we could afford was to hang out in parks. But we really enjoyed it, Ahha!

Then in my twenties I was a fan of Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Smog, and Low and the voice of Kim Gordon showed me you can speak in songs. I still enjoy the mood those musicians were putting me in, the importance of the lyrics and the feeling of being very close and intimate to the singer. The energy, the experience.

Then I started writing a bit in French magazines such as Octopus and Mouvement about music, read The Wire Magazine, and thinking about it in a more theoretical way.

At the same time, I discovered in my late twenties improvised music, avant-garde music, going to see shows at Instants Chavires, Fondation Cartier, Centre Pompidou…. I studied at Les Beaux Arts de Paris and did a workshop with Christian Wolff that was very influential to me. I started listening to Luc Ferrari, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, but also Jim O’Rourke, David Grubbs, Fennesz, etc… I started playing music, in different projects such as Strechandrelax with dancer Elise Ladoué and a spoken word project with Sylvain Chauveau.

Then, when, and then around 28 years old, under my own name and the moniker Je Suis Le petit Chevalier. With Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier I made a lot of tapes and CD-R on great DIY labels that really encouraged me to be prolific and use recordings as a kind of sound diary. I feel it was a very liberating time because there was no pressure. I was doing live shows that were very short, very loud and noise, I felt since at that time I was playing in talking audiences I had to be louder than the audience. It was like an exorcism. I really enjoyed that psych / synth DIY scene with labels such as Not Not Fun, Stunned, Digitalis, Ruralfaune, Kaugummi…

And then, in 2011 we created Shelter Press with Bartolomé Sanson and it changed a lot for me, knowing I had my own home to release my music and trying to shape things with more specificity and control.

I had a very important discussion when we were living in the Alps with Bartolomé with our friend Pete Swanson. I think he asked me something very basic, like «  what kind of music do you want to record » and it made me rethink the whole thing. I discovered also new composers, such Ruth White, or Moniek Darge and came back to Pierre Henry, Ferrari and Robert Ashley, and then I released A readymade ceremony, which is for me the volume 1 of a kind of new moment in my music, that I am still following now.

I’d like to ask about Shelter Press.  You’ve brought together quite a roster of artists, with some incredible aesthetic variety.  Shelter Press also publishes books and artist’s books. This feels very right to me, and isn’t something that is as common as one might think, as there is so much overlap between artists who produce work in small editions, whether it be music or books, but I’d imagine that the second decade of the 21st century has been a challenging time for such an endeavor.  Please, tell us more about Shelter Press, how you go about business, how you tie these various threads together.

Well, Shelter Press is 90 per cent run by my partner, Bartolomé Sanson, he is the captain,  holding the vessel on an everyday basis, thinking things ahead and making it possible; even though we take all the decisions together. I am more like the passenger, watching the GPS, looking at the window and tuning the radio accordingly to the drive…and making sandwiches!

It’s a lot of work to publish in the same time books and records, especially since he is handling creative direction, design, editorial, sales and shipping on his own

I think in many ways we often feel overwhelmed by work!

I can imagine!

But we are very happy and proud of what we put out: for example lately from the Ocean Scores of the artist David Horvitz to the latest Eli Keszler record, Stadium,  passing by a compilation of essays about utopian pedagogy (In The Canyon Revise the Cannon), the first record in ten years by Tomoko Sauvage, or the first album by CV & JAB in collaboration with artist Zin Taylor, etc…

We try to draw a kind of circle that links a kind of sparse but connected family.

We try to always meet people in real life before working with them, this is why we do not accept demos, we are not a dating app of some kind, a record doesn’t happen in one sec, it’s a slow process of exchange, not a fast delivery.

Metaphorically, we invite people to eat our table, and in that order, we like to know them first and then take our time to eat different courses and have a good conversation.

Shelter has just released Spectres, in collaboration with INA-GRM, in which you have a text. I’m looking forward to reading this, it looks fantastic.  Can I ask about how you understand the relationship between theory and practice in this context, between ‘research’ and the production of artistic works? You mentioned that in preparation of producing new works you have a period of absorbing various inspirations (books, films, landscapes, etc). Does the intellectualization of the process, as with this essay, come as part of the process or is it more removed (before, after)?

I just believe things are never isolated. Sometimes my ways of rehearsing is making a salad. I am very inspired by John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Ana Halprin, or Alison Knowles in the way they embrace(d) the world as a whole. A walk in the forest could be a research.

More and more time passes more and more i believe there is not in one hand theory and in another practice, everything in embedded.

Right now I have a small child, we spend most of the day in the park under the trees, and observing an Atlas Cedar for an hour is for me a way of deep listening.

I understand more time since I started to do soft boil eggs, for example. They handle a very good duration I feel.

And music is about duration.

It’s an important stage. The thinking part is the moment where you allow yourself to stop producing, and look back and forward. What have I done? What am I gonna do?

What is around me? What is missing? What is too obvious? Who / what should I call? Where should I go? To whom am I connecting, referring,  in order to say/ show/ make what I feel /want?

I feel full of questions. I need to share those questions sometimes, and take the risk to make some hypothesis. It’s part of the game. Share your ideas and the risk to be wrong or boring.

Right now, for example, I have a small baby at home. My creative time is very limited, my hands being full all day with this little and wonderful person. Well, it allows me time to think and observe.

I go to the park with my baby, I go close to the Sequoias and Cedars of the park with him, I am not playing music, but I feel it is something that prepares me as much as a rehearsal to play shows or record later.

It’s about being alive. I don’t separate life and theory and creation. Each one is one hour of a whole day.

I feel close to John Cage again in that way. Picking up mushroom is also making music. Or making music is just a part of a bigger process.

I’ve only been able to read the first page of your essay in Spectres so far, but it concerns the voice. It seems to me that your work often foregrounds the voice (and the body, as in Hand in Hand). Can you tell me more about the role that your voice and language plays in your music?

I bring my voice with me. I record it and then, a double exists, and people are listening to the double, to this strange stamp called recording. I find it fascinating.

Language is an obstacle to fascination. It brings doubt and subjectivity. I use language to break the image and I use the voice to play with its plasticity and its ghost-like ability to be multiple, pitched, distorted, doubled or vanished. Voice is a wind that penetrates the ear and leave again and come back, it’s also a feminist embodiment of a flexible force.

I believe also in the power of hushing versus screaming. Getting closer to the ear where the shout push you outside. I believe in energies and flux through the voice and its recording.

The voice for me is interesting because it’s always with you. It’s also for me something that travels; from inside to outside, passing walls, staying recorded and filling a room while your body has always disappeared.

The voice is the metaphor of the spirit in that way. It can talk but in the same time stay difficult to understand. It brings images but also confusion. It’s like a stream or cloud. You can see in it or not, it can appear and vanish.

I am very fond of Robert Ashley or John Cage’s voices. Even if they passed away they are still speaking to me.

Sometimes I feel inspired by that, I want to talk to some listeners who are not born yet; at least to people I will never meet. Recording my voice is a way to travel in time and space.

One of the tensions Sound Propositions is concerned with is the difference between working as an artist in the studio (producing records and compositions in “fixed,” recorded form) and in performances.  Do you approach to a live situation in terms of improvisation as opposed to how you work in the studio?

Aha, I would say it is almost the opposite: I improvise way more in the studio than live

Most of the outtakes on my records are first takes with a lot of improvisation in it, whereas live I construct more the performance with diffusion and scheduled sounds.

I feel that the fact that the record is « fixed » allows many strata of improvisation, because you can pile up time on it, the record has to be played several time, and is recorded in that goal of fighting with age and time;  whereas a live event is meant to disappear and therefore has , in my opinion , to be anticipated ahead, so it’s strong enough to face such a rapid and short amount of time and existence; like fire works!

Perhaps working as a writer brings with it a similar tension?

Almost all the texts that are not borrowed from literature or cut ups from magazines are improvised, they “happen” to me when I record and then I convoke them again live.

Animals, or Twenties are Gone, the two books of poetry I made were written within the same process, very condensed and fast.

How does this vary between working solo and working (live or in the studio) in collaboration with others?

I don’t do that many collabs, but for example with Jefre Cantu Ledesmathe process was like a mail  correspondence : I send you this, you answer, I react, etc… we never recorded on the same room / continent!

We would conceptualize very little ahead but rather exchange links of records and books we like to read / hear. The connection and language was a very special way of listening that, I think, we have in common.

How do you approach or conceive of the process of musical composition?  Is it a studio-based practice for you?

It’s a slow process, very similar to the way I do art. First I read books, watch films, listen to music, walk in landscapes. Then some ideas and desires appear out of this contemplation. Therefore I start producing various materials: field recordings, melodies, modular patterns, voice…. and then I listen to everything and assemble, like making a bouquet of wild flowers, according and tuning sounds into this first hunch I had at the beginning. This « feeling » or « idea » that will be the shape makers of those drafts, that will give sense and cohesion.

I think of composition as way to create form in space, with layers, blanks, densities, perspectives and light.

Would you be willing to choose a recent or upcoming track and break it down, talk about its development, equipment used, etc?

This is impossible for me to answer, I never follow recipes, neither in the kitchen, nor in the studio.

I can explain what inspires me, the environment of a composition but  I’ve always been a bit skeptical about technique demonstrations. I find it often obviously masculine and even sometimes even shallow; like ooh look how much gear I’ve got.

I feel creation, wherever it’s music, literature or painting can be analyzed as an objet, of course,  but what the artist does can only be explained in terms of intention and context, that’s it. It’s always completely relative, because at the end, the listener might catch something very different, because he/she is a different person than the artist, at a different time, in a different place, and that’s the beauty of the artefact. To be able to travel, to be able to remain a mystery and in the same time, to be able to be explained and analyzed in many different ways. Like a diamond with different facets.

In fact, I feel rather the same. I don’t mean to imply that the particulars (of the studio or a particular track’s creation) should have some universal importance, or be instilled into some kind of hierarchy, such that readers might think, oh “this piece of gear or software would make my work better.” I absolutely do not subscribe to this idea, and I’m very much moved by work that comes from making do with what is available. (Arte povera artists, or the sculptures of Louise Nevelson for instance, or the artists I’ve profiled in the series).  So, yes, I absolutely agree (about cooking as well!), improvisation is key, and formulas are generally to be resisted. Art is not a recipe to be followed.  I also concur regarding the masculinist tendency of gear shots and demonstrations of skills, flexing in the studio and all that.  (I for one dislike FACT Mag’s On the Clock series in part for this reason.)

So perhaps the question is more pedagogical: what advice would you give to someone starting out to make music or art in whatever form?  

Take your time. Believe in small forms.

Be curious and imaginative. Don’t forget to have some humour and distance around you . it’s only music. It’ s just music.  and to paraphrase JL Godard what is «  une image juste / juste image »?

You evoke Godard, and I think there’s something pedagogical in all we absorb. So, I always like to ask about an artist’s favorite work outside of sound art or music. What books, visual art, plays, films, etc you are inspired by, or find common cause with? Are their artists working in other media (past or present) that you feel an aesthetic kinship with?

So many of them of course. I wish i could have seen the Anni Albers retrospective in London and the Hilma Af Kint retrospective in NYC. Both of those wonderful women are very inspiring for me. They are both masters of colors and shapes, and I could watch their work all day. Same with many other artists such as Ruth Asawa, Agnes Martin, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Sonia Delaunay… Painting is source of every day joy for me.

I was lucky enough to catch the Af Klint at the Guggenheim while I was home for the holidays. What a revelation, when viewed all together in a space such as that. She knew her work would be misunderstood, so she imposed this long restriction on public exhibitions of her work. To think it’s taken this long for her work to be appreciated. Imagine what else is out there, still hidden.

What is on the horizon for you? What future projects can you tell us about?

Horizon is a line in the sky I am always contemplating and questioning. We never know.

I am currently composing a piece inspired by the work and persona of the painter Helen Frankenthaler for Atonal in Berlin this summer and another piece called Hedra Helix for Musica Sanae in Sokolowsko in Poland in August. [Episode 6 of the podcast includes an excerpt from her live performance at Musica Sanae in Napoli in May of 2019.]

I am gonna play at Le Poisson Rouge in New York in September and I’m working on the score of a dance piece by the choreographer Rebecca Chantinell in Stockholm.

Thank you so much.

~

by thenewobjective · July 5, 2019

[latefrequencies]

Okay so this is how Chromarose and IHNMAIMS are related in their setting

So descriptions of the settings:

as probably most of you know, AM from IHNMAIMS basically has the last five humans on Earth kept in a setting where AM can warp reality and create tortures and imaginary (sometimes) narrative scenarios for the humans, and what most of you didn’t know bc I just fairly recently decided this was that Chromarose has a Torture Basement in which they do all their filming (at first I wasn’t sure where they filmed bc I was like “isn’t a torture basement too unrealistic and cliche” and then I went “well like real life people have had torture basements and gotten away with it for a very long time and honestly where else are you going to have the setting be”) 

yes I am positing that AM basically just created the archetypical “torture basement” setting. He didn’t not do that.

So anyway both are scenarios where somebody has basically absolute power over the settings and creates sometimes very elaborate scenarios for the purpose of inflicting some kind of harm on people. Said creators of the settings have no regard for human life and they never did, thereby creating absolutely no complications in doing their respective things. There is sometimes vaguely religious imagery associated with them being “gods” of their scenarios (AM has the whole “I AM” thing and that’s a phrase associated with God in Christianity and I BELIEVE there were like...at least a few times in the short story where someone said something about about AM being the god of this setting and I’ve drawn Chroma with some religious imagery before and posited “what if they were the god of murder tapes” and I’m like actually considering making something like that canon-ish. Not like making them an actual god but making religious references canonically a thing.)

So you may be going “but Jude that’s what all murder basement settings have in common” but there are two things that basically kind of set Chroma and AM apart and make them similar to each other

First part is the fact that both people (AM is a “people” to me) created these settings and torture people in them because that’s the only thing they can do. AM is a war machine who was literally programmed to do nothing but inflict harm and probably literally only can do that. Chroma THINKS that all they’re good at is devising violent scenarios and they kill people as a means of realizing that “potential”. (I’m going to talk about this like Chroma really is only good at murder ((and also like music isn’t the other thing they think they’re good at)) because in their mind, that’s true and really in this situation what matters is that the person who made the situation thinks it’s true.)

Okay anyway Chroma is only good at harming people. Granted Chroma does kill people and AM. Doesn’t. It’s a plot point he doesn’t want them to die but yknow both do torture people (Chroma usually includes a torture sequence in any given video). They have created these settings of torture because in some way, it was inevitable for them to do so and there was nothing else they were good enough at doing or capable of doing.

Second part is the fact that both settings feature a narrative aspect. In Chromarose’s videos, there is always a sequence that Chroma personally sees as a narrative. They have things in their videos that aren’t the murders (they will interview victims, have them do something for the camera, put music in the video, etc.) and themurder is the conclusion and the finale we came to see, so to speak. To them there’s a beginning (the victim selection), a middle (everything that isn’t the murder), and an end (the murder). 

This is more in the video game than any other version, but in IHNMAIMS, AM creates narrative settings. Like, it’s clear that the “game” he plays with the humans involves putting them in scenarios that come with a narrative and I would entirely not be surprised if he did this kind of thing to them semi-regularly (I mean.....I feel like it’s also implied because all of them seem to have a sense of familiarity when in their scenarios like Oh It’s This Again). Even in the short story he does make a sort-of narrative for the humans, like he does the thing where he makes them go to get the food and provides varying obstacles and painful things along the way but he’s very clearly setting up a (very simple) story (which turns out to be basicaly just a rly mean practical joke kind of but yknow) where it’s like “these people did these things to this effect” and like. It’s clear he can stage scenarios and narratives if he wants to. Granted AM’s narratives are quite different than Chroma’s but it’s still this narrative quality. Like it’s very planned out as opposed to just “hey let’s torture somebody” it’s a specific “scene” of torture (yes I’m aware I just used and quote-marked that word that’s also used in sadomasochistic contexts to mean somewhat kinda the same thing I said it just seemed like the right word) There’s just this kinda stageyness and narrative quality present in both settings that isn’t inherent to the torture basement setting.

There’s also the fact that both AM’s and Chroma’s torture basements have similar outcomes for both themselves and the people in those settings. AM doesn’t kill the humans but he does prevent them from escaping or finding relief (until the end kinda but yknow. Also how many times have I said “but yknow” to mean “not exactly but still yes” in this post.) Chroma kills everybody. It’s not like the thing where the person provides the victims a way out if they do XYZ thing or where the victim escapes there are no escapees there are no survivors in AM and Chroma’s House Of Pain (I don’t know why I said it that way it sounds like I’m trying to be funny I might be trying to be funny I do not know.) And there’s no thing where someone Finds Out and shuts the places down. Obviously in IHNMAIMS there’s no way to make someone do that with AM bc he is Truly In Charge Of Everything. In Chromarose’s story just. That just never happens. 

Also vague religious references. AM’s whole “I AM” thing (that phrase is a reference to God in Christianity like it’s A Thing in Christianity) and the fact that I think at least a few characters call him the god of their world. I can’t remember who says that. I’m too tired to try to find out at this point in time. I’ve drawn Chroma in religious-esque settings (”Your own! personal! Chroma!”) and been like What If They’re The God Of Murder Tapes and I will probably make religious references at least kinda canon (not that I’ll make it so Chromarose is indeed a deity but like in one of the interviews I’m probably gonna do the Thing where someone’s like ‘I know there is a heaven for me and a hell for you” and Chroma’s just “regardless I am the god of the space we are in now and wherever you’re going to I’m very soon to send you on your way”) 

Also the way it ends for the creators of the painful environment? this is kind of a spoiler but I’ve talked about it the gist of it before but Chroma stops making films at around the time that VHS becomes obsolete because they realize they can no longer get attention the same way as they’re used to and their work isn’t serving them the same end (yeah that’s a difference between Chroma and AM never did I say they were like. similar, character-wise, as such. Just that they create similar environments for similar reasons-ish.) but no one stops them they stop of their own volition, and their Final Tape happens at the end of their story when their place of residence is discovered and the protagonists go to the place where Chroma is and they’re like “I’ve been waiting to do this for years!” and they film themself doing the ultimate final video where they kill themself and film it before anything else can be done.

the reason Chroma’s ending has anything to do with AM is because I’ve seen people apparently argue abt what happens to AM at the end of the story? because there are some people who are like “no he’s not really doing time distortion on Ted that’s Ted being an unreliable narrator and genuinely thinking there’s time distortion, AM actually shut itself off on purpose and is now basically dead” which is like. obviously of course a suicide. and then there’s like. apparently uncertainty as to whether or not he keeps doing bad things to Ted after The Event at the end of the story. because some people are like “and Ted just has this one extra horrible thing on top of the other terrible things he was experiencing before” and some people just assume AM doesn’t directly do anything to Ted again (except the time distortion, if that’s a thing) because what has happened now is the Ultimate Torture why does AM have to do anything else now. and like. Chroma dying in one of their own tapes is The Ultimate, time to go home everyone we just got the best on tape. obvs they. can’t do anything else after killing themself but they did see that as their Finale so yeah. in no cases does anyone survive the pain. no one escapes. they just have to deal with these horrifying gods of pain, one of whom is wearing a weird mask. 

[darklingichor]

Gilmore Girls Season Two, Episodes 8 & 9

It would be nice to watch one episode of this show where someone I regularly see doesn't set my teeth on edge. I grew up watching weekly TV and it is possible to have conflict between recurring characters where you don't want to put one into a medically induced coma, so they can grow a new personality.

So I can see why I didn't remember much about this episode. Three things that were awesome: Mia, Luke giving Lorelei a pep talk, the development of the painting.

The rest is annoying.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with flights between friends. If everyone was always skipping through meadows it would be stupid. However, as I've said before, I have a problem with conflicts that come about because people don't open their damned mouths. As fast and as often as Lorelei talks, she couldn't say to Sookie “Mia selling this place scares me because this is where Rory and I started out” ? I know that sometimes friends pick fights with each other when they are stressed but in my experience, once you get into your 30s and have friends that have known each other, long enough you can tell that's what happening. There have been numerous times when my best friend or I have started a conversation where one of us is just geared up for a fight. My friend let's me get about ten words in before she says “You're acting weird, tell me what's wrong.” I can be a little more blunt saying something along the lines of “What are you pissed off about?” She has two kids so once I turned the mom tables on her and said: “Use your words”.

Basically a blind cat could see that Lorelei was being an ass and it had nothing to do with Sookie. I have a hard time buying that Sookie wouldn't see it. Why did there need a fight in the first place? Was the script too short? Lorelei could have been freaked out and been a little quiet with Sookie and it would have had the same effect. Luke could have just as easily asked how Lorelei was doing with the business stuff, and they could have had the same heart-to-heart. Lorelei could have come to Sookie and explained why she was being so weird, and they could have had a similar moment. The script must have been two minutes too short.

The town turning on Luke... Yep, officially dislike Jess. Also, not too happy with the rest of the town. I'm a little biased here. I grew up in a small town, while there were no town meetings where everyone got together to decide who to treat badly, there were certain people who were just routinely shit upon. It usually had to do with what last name you had. Two families in particular were sort of singled out as “bad news”. The weird part? Everyone in town (except for a very very small number of people) were in some way related to those two families, hell, those two families were related to each other. It always seemed crazy to me... But then I was one of those few people not related to anyone in town maybe it made sense if you had an inside track?

Anyway, I get where the town is coming from, sort of. Jess is a pain in the ass, but he is doing minor mischief. Star's Hollow should count themselves lucky that they aren't a bigger town because Jess is the type to match his mayhem to the town. In a bigger place, there just might have been a dead animal outside the store instead of a chalk outline.

I did love Rory telling him off. I don't really get why Rory would find the prank funny. I mean, she likes the town, right? And while her and her mom do like seeing Star's Hollow residents be quirky she's never really shown any love of chaos. I mean, yeah, Jess is being the G rated version of Loki, but he's still making a lot of people unhappy. I would think that that alone would annoy Rory.

Also, the vibe I got was that he did the whole prank as a way to get Rory's attention... What's the thought process?

“How do I impress the pretty girl who reads a lot? Talk to her about books? Movies? Just talk to her in general? Nah, too common. I know! Dead body chalk outline and police tape! That's not freakishly odd and totally not an idea I should seek therapy for!”

Then again, I also don't get the thought process of “How do I fix the fact that I made the whole town turn on my uncle? I'll fix the toaster, now we're square!”

Jess is both weird and annoying.

I did like the interaction between Emily and Mia. It is weird because I see both sides. I totally get why Emily would be upset that Mia didn't send her home, but on the other hand I get why Mia didn't. Mia didn't send her home because she couldn't have.

Think about it. A sixteen-year-old turns up with a baby, asking for a job, she has steel and determination in her eyes. If you tell her no, you can tell she's not going to give up. She'll just move on to a place that would hire her and maybe that wouldn't be a place where she and her baby would be safe. If you give her a job and a place to stay and then try to make her go home. You can't be sure that she'll actually go home or stay home, that leaves the pair of them in the same iffy situation. Mia knew that Lorelei and Rory would be safe with her, so she took them in.

Not saying Emily should be happy about it, but as always she is looking at how Lorelei leaving impacted her and Richard, not anyone else. She has never talked to Lorelei, asked what her thinking was, the why of it all. It is just all about Emily. That is annoying. But I do like that she seems to be taking small steps forward.

All in all a fairly forgettable episode.

Episode 8. Don't really know why I forgot this one as I really liked it. I loved the ice cream machine bit. I loved that Lorelei named it and called a bunch of relatives. She should have just donated it to Luke's! Even if he didn't need it he would have taken it. Made it into a planter or something.

I feel sorry for Paris for a number of reasons but this episode highlights one. She's laser focused on college, so much so that she's not getting the most out of her education. The assignment of interpreting Romeo and Juliet in a new way is a great one! It allows for the students to really look at and analyze the play, think about the themes consider which are universal and which were products of the time and culture it was written in. This allows for creative thinking and the development of the ability to think about and use what one is learning. But poor Paris is only worried about the grade and so afraid of taking risks that she will only go with what is standard. I speak from experience here, college will melt your brain until you learn how to think.

The teachers are worried because Rory doesn't socialize? I would think they would also be worried that Paris can't think beyond the rigid boundaries of what is written on a page. This school is supposed to prep the kids for college, right? They aren't doing anything differently than the public schools of the early 2000s (aside from the one rogue teacher, I guess).

I kinda like the fact that Paris ended up being Romeo. If they had used a more modern setting that could have been the plan from the start and the whole Tristian drama could have been avoided. I mean, they could have reinterpreted the whole “forbidden love” thing as a lesbian relationship or with the idea that Romeo might be a DFAB trans guy. It would have highlighted society's issues with non hetero, non binary identities. Hell, if they wanted to go deep they could have figured out a way to address the “LGBTQ+ people don't get happy endings” trope that is obvious in a lot of media.

That would have been interesting as Paris and Rory would have had to work together to make this believable and maybe come out of it with a better idea of each other's perspectives.

Speaking of perspective, it was a throw away joke but I liked that Lane's mom watched and came up with a different take on Romeo and Juliet. In my view, R&J is many things, but a love story it is not! What kind of great love story ends in teen suicide? Sure, I thought of it as a love story when I was younger as do a lot of teenagers. I think this makes a point about the play. Teenagers do dumb things out of emotion (adults do too, but that's a whole other line of thought). This doesn't mean that teens are dumb just that they are feeling things so intensely, probably because it is the first time they have felt these emotions that they do stuff that is not well-thought-out. Add parental pressure to that and you have a powder keg. I think R&J is more about how overly controlling parents can push their kids into dangerous situations. Also, to look at the play in a way that might not have been Shakespeare's intent, it could also be seen as a parable detailing why 14 year olds might not be ready for marriage, arranged or otherwise.

Anyway, the little “love triangle” between Christian, Rory, and Dean in this episode was less interesting. First off, I get that Rory is a pretty girl but why is she like catnip to all the boys? Are there really no other nice girls in Chilton or Star's Hollow? The way all the guys flock to and fight over her, you'd think she was dating a sparkly vampire.

Secondly, am I the only one who sees a lot of similarity between Tristian and Jess? Is that why Tristian had to go? Because he was redundant? It is sort of like Christopher and Max. They both could play the same role so one of them had to be cut. The writers needed to compare notes because I feel like there were a few “Oops, we wrote another doppelganger” discussions.

Thirdly, why is Rory still getting the blame for her and Dean's break up? The whole practice fight between Lorelei and Rory just highlights that Lorelei is sort of mean when it comes to this plot line. Dean told Rory he loved her and then got pissed and broke up with her because she didn't feel comfortable saying it back. How does this make Dean the victim? Just because one person is ready for the L word doesn't mean that the other person is, and that doesn't make the latter person bad. Acting like an ass and breaking up with someone you “love” because you didn't hear what you wanted to hear when you wanted to hear it makes that person a jerk.

This seems sort of like the whole “friend zone” myth. A dude decided he wants to date someone but that person doesn't want to date him therefore it is the other person's fault because the dude wants to date them, so they should date the dude! He's decided that he is the right guy for this person, so it must be true. The other person is just a bitch.

Dean loves Rory and is ready to say it, therefore Rory must love Dean and be ready too. He's reached this point so, goddammit, she needs to be at this point too. After all Dean decides how emotions work.

Dean is a teenager (and did something dumb out of emotion) so I can sort of forgive him for not fully empathizing and acting out of hurt feelings. It is the fact that Lorelei keeps sticking up for the dude who was trying to emotionally manipulate her daughter that gets to me. That was part of the “rage trilogy” from last season that made me annoyed at Lorelei because she was all “See it from his side” which is totally valid except for the fact that his side was to act like a brat who didn't get the ice cream he wanted *right then*.

Uge!

Okay on to somewhat happier things. Lorelei's date. That was cute and funny, how she was all proud of being a casual dater and I even liked a lot of jokes Luke made about how old the guy was. It was also really cute how Sookie tried to explain Luke to her. But Luke was being snarkier than necessary. I mean Lorelei is firmly set on her course of sailing that river in Egypt, so she's not going to ask him out right now. I get him being jealous, but he could, you know *ask her out*. I get why he doesn't, I mean what if she says no? But if what Sookie said is supposed to be true, that he's upset because it seems like Lorelei would date anyone but him, how can he be pissed at her when he's never asked? I guess that's why Luke limits it to taking pot shots and then being grouchy(ier) because he realizes he's sulking? Oddly I don't mind this sort of stuff when it involves Luke and Lorelei but when the same stupid jealousy stuff comes up with Rory and Dean, it bugs me. Maybe because as pouty as Luke gets he doesn't act like he owns Lorelei? Don't know really. Luke is likable, Dean is not. Might be as simple as that.

A forgettable episode followed by a pretty good one. Episode 8 didn't have Jess and despite revolving around Rory's love life Dean was less irritating than Tristian. Nothing has pissed me off horribly yet. So far, so good.

[drscotcheggmann]

Resident Evil VII: Evil Seems to Have Moved House.

First of all, this isn’t a review. Not really anyway. If it’s a good ol' review you’re after then allow me to oblige: the game is great; buy it! I’m hoping that you’ll still want to keep reading, even if that was all you wanted to know. But I warn you now: all who enter here beware, for spoilers lurk around every corner! Fair warning, more than Ethan ever got! When Resident Evil VII was first teased, I’m sure a lot of fans, like myself, held their breath and said the same sentence to themselves over and over: ‘Please don’t fuck this up, Capcom!’ Well it seems that mass fan recital of that very wish has paid off in full and we can all finally breathe out. Despite some blips in the series most recently, I am pleased to say that Resident Evil VII is a true return to form, ensuring the series remains as relevant as ever. The latest release in the franchise feels less like Resident Evil VII and more like Resident Evil I. And by that I don’t mean a modern reworking of the original formula; I mean, it feels like the series is starting again, acknowledging and retaining what once made it great but at the same time dragging its festering corpse in a fresh (or putrid) new direction. Arguably some of the most striking examples of how this entry in the series attempts to stride into brand new territory occur before the action even begins. The cover art is interesting in itself. Ok, there’s a big spooky house, creepy little girl, a garden in need of some pruning and a fair sized puddle that hints at an underlying drainage problem. Standard horror gaming fare, right? Yes. And I’m fine with that. Does the puddle symbolise the waterlogged, murky and troubled recent past of the Resident Evil series pre VII? Does the fact that the little girl is standing at the other side of said puddle mean that Capcom have exorcised the ghosts of RE6 in particular, hung themselves out to dry and are now ready to tackle whatever the future holds with a fresh set of clothes? Does the sun breaking over the roof of the house hint at a new dawn for the series? In a word, no. This isn’t High School English poetry analysis. The most I can give you is that the house’s porch looks like a gaping mouth into the unknown, the pillars flanking each side acting as teeth, hinting at the menace that awaits on the other side of the front door and ready to swallow up anyone foolish enough to come near. And the little girl? Her face in darkness, it isn’t clear if she’s approaching the house or walking away from it. Entrance or escape? Having finished the game and looking back at something as simple as the cover art, this idea of Evelyn's escape or refuge and its consequences in terms of how pivotal she is to the whole plot, takes on a frightening new meaning. I can honestly say that I’ve never invested so much thought in the cover art of any game to date. All of this conjecture may be a load of old twaddle but at least its interesting old twaddle. But the actual art aside, it’s how Capcom have chosen to market the game’s title that really catches the eye, or at least my very overactive one: The VII hidden or not so hidden in the word Evil. Clever. But is it about more than being clever with words and shapes? Yes, this is VII. The one after VI. But the game isn’t called ‘Resident Evil VII’. It’s called ‘Resident Evil’. The biohazard tag, all lower case and oddly uncapitalised for a title, seems almost like an afterthought. Or else perhaps the name of the first entry in a new series (here’s hoping). But the message is clear – this is a Resident Evil game first and foremost which, ok, is number seven but the understated number seven. It’s as if Capcom wanted to acknowledge it as the next entry, perhaps in ‘hiding’ the VII they hoped to create a little distance from VI but at the same time make clear that it’s a new breed of evil and that’s how we should approach our time in the Baker household. We should expect something new. Yeah, yeah, yeah so why not just call it Resident Evil? Well, I’m sure that calling it this and then risk defecating all over the original’s cult status, especially had VII flopped, was a path that Capcom were reluctant to tread. 'Resident Evil? Do you mean the good one or the shite one?' I’m glad this never happened and Capcom has allowed both games some space to breathe and to exist independently of one another. For this reason I'm sure there was a conscious design decision to set the game in a house rather than another mansion. Run down dilapidated old house means fresh start. And it is a house by the way, a big one but not a mansion. Mansions are luxurious and decadent. By the looks of things in VII, you'd be lucky to find anything fitting that bill in this front yard. I'm also pleased to see that Capcom did not feel the need to blatantly cross reference previous entries in the series for the sake of sycophantic fan service. Don't get me wrong though, Resident Evil VII does have cross references but I'm glad that they don't consist of bland and frankly forgettable audio files and written logs which we often feel obligated to collect for fear of missing something important, as is the norm now in games of this ilk. Resident Evil VII's cross references are subtle and meaningful to those who know what they're looking for. They’re not thrust down your throat with a ‘This is a reference to Resident Evil II! Fucking appreciate it!’ kind of tone. If you miss them, you miss them. It really isn’t a loss in the grand scheme but a gain if you like that sort of thing. For example, there's a painting of the Arklay Mountains in the Main Hall which I'm sure many of us missed. These were the mountains where the Spencer Mansion from the original was built. Didn't know that? No big deal. If you did happen to recognise the name though, you still have to do some memory jogging to pin it to the mansion, especially since said mansion isn't pictured. Subtle. But clever too as the picture does not look in any way out of place in this dimly lit hall and blends seamlessly into the decor of the place, despite it being an obvious/not obvious cross reference. There really is something for everyone here. Perhaps the final example I'll put forward to illustrate this point is the VHS tapes that can be found dotted around the house. Handled incorrectly, these tapes might well have turned into the type of heinous obligatory file collecting exercise mentioned above; the type that has the potential to bore the arse off you, especially if there are 563 of them hidden around the house, which you then feel you must find and listen to. But these tapes are far from arse-numbing. These tapes, remnants of a now almost dead and buried technological age, are paradoxically one of the freshest and most modern mechanisms in the game. Find a tape recorder, put the tape in. It actually takes a minute to load. Shit, is the tape broken? Is my PlayStation broken? Is my TV broken? A click and a flicker and it's rolling. Then not only are you privy to what the tape shows but you become the subject of the film and have control over what you're viewing. Your actions here help inform your decisions as you seek to drive your own narrative forward once the tape clicks and pops out of the recorder. But, again, miss one of these tapes? And you might, as there aren't 563 of them (but why would or should there be in a house this size? A family vendetta against Blockbuster, deliberately never returning rentals?) There are a mere four VHS tapes. Three are optional. It's actually no big deal if you miss an optional one. Ok, you've missed a gem of an ordeal caught on wobbly handheld but you can still proceed regardless. This is brilliant. And realistic. And fresh. And new. For this series at least. But let's pause and rewind, a squeaky VHS style rewind. Perhaps the true taste of things to come arrives as early as the title screen as, with trepidation, you take the plunge and press ‘New Game’. But the traditional ‘RESIDENT EVIL’ voice clip that heralds the beginning of every game in the series, like Christian Bale’s Batman with a chest infection, the voice that always struck me as verging on the ridiculous and somewhat tonally inconsistent with the atmosphere of terror the game tries to create: this voice never comes. It was this voice’s absence that chilled me more than on any start screen of past entries. This is still Resident Evil but not as we know it. In terms of major thematic departures from some previous entries, the one thing that really leapt out at me in REVII, as well as all of the things I really didn’t want to leap out at me, is how ‘human’ the game feels. This may sound odd considering how a large proportion of the game involves sub human abominations seeking to disembowel you at every turn. But I do mean 'human' in the truest, most redeemable sense of the word as well as in the very darkest sense. The central protagonist, for the first time in the series’ history, is a nobody. No offense, Ethan. This is to your and Capcom’s credit. Ethan is not some macho, dual machine gun wielding, in the gym five days a week, protein shake drinking super cop who has direct links to some far-fetched government conspiracy. He’s just an ordinary, everyman looking for his missing girlfriend. In fact, we don’t ever even get to see what he looks like. His facelessness is indicative of this new direction Capcom have taken. Ethan is you, me, everyone and anyone. We all have or have had loved ones and by thrusting us into the character of someone who has had one taken away, we are drawn in immediately and arguably feel a more intimate connection with Ethan than with any other Resident Evil protagonist. The game’s clever subversion of expectations in the opening hand held camera cinematic is both chilling and deeply affecting as Ethan’s girlfriend, Mia looks straight into the camera, addressing you the player directly: ‘…if you get this, stay away.’ Not, ‘come after me, help me, save me’. Pause a moment and think about how genuine this is, from a human rather than a video game protagonist’s / purely narrative perspective. Despite one’s obvious state of emergency, what decent human being would drag a loved one by invitation into a hell hole of horror if it meant putting them at risk? Yet so many games, movies, books have run headlong into this narrative pitfall. Sure, sometimes it can be entertaining but is it realistic? Well done, Capcom on two fronts here. The first is for actually portraying how normal human beings would behave in this situation. If Ethan had heeded his girlfriend’s warning it would have made for a fairly short and shite game for 45 smackers but thankfully he doesn’t. His decision to drive into rural Louisiana is also down to a well met sense of humanity: he loves his girlfriend and cares enough to want to save her. She’s been missing for a few year for Christ’s sake! There’s nothing wrong with that but it’s these sorts of emotions that are sometimes missing in games at the expense of setting up exciting or emotionless dialogue or a cheesy set piece. And thankfully, as Ethan’s car rolls up on the edge of the Baker estate, he doesn’t open the trunk, haul out a Gatling gun and sling several ammo belts over his shoulder ready to wage war on whoever the fuck took his sweetie pie away from him. He doesn’t even seem to anticipate a fight. He’s there to get Mia out and that’s it, not to play the hero in any romantic sense. That leads onto hooray for Capcom point number 2: Mia is no damsel in distress. She’s a highly educated research scientist, not a naïve and over trusting hitchhiker who stumbled upon the wrong house. She can also handle herself, even if this is when her veins are pumping to bursting point with the virus. She’s a strong female presence who is just as robust as her male counterpart, Ethan. While not the main protagonist, she has a face and so is in some ways more identifiable than Ethan is. The gaming scene has seen a positive upsurge in strong female leads recently, most notably the new, significantly less sexed up version of Lara Croft, the headstrong young mind of Ellie in the Last of Us and Aloy, the post apocalyptic kicker of robotic dinosaur ass. More of this, with an extra dollop of humanity all round please! And the much discussed switch to first person is also a great fit to help achieve this sense of the game being more human and intimate. This is never more obvious than when sampling one of Resident Evil VII’s finest items of functional décor: the simple door! Gone are the slowly zooming cut scenes of doors creaking open in previous installments that felt detached and often distanced the player from the action momentarily. For instance, when the Nemesis chases you through that police station in Resident Evil III, frantic music pumping in your ears and you come to a door and have to wait for its animation to finish before proceeding (albeit slightly quicker than normal since you are in kind of a rush) 'Come on, for fuck sake!’ And then the Nemesis just breaks the bloody thing down anyway! What was that about? But here, Ethan’s hand, our hand eases each door open, with a pause before being pushed fully ajar. For me, this, with the deliberate pause, was ten times more tension filled than a generic cut scene, so much so that I would only trust myself to open about three doors at a time before legging it back to a tape recorder. Never in any game I’ve played have corridors, confined and more open spaces been so heavily pervaded with dread. And thanks to how the character of Ethan is introduced to us, his eyes being our eyes and his relationships our relationships, there is a sort of trickle down effect in terms of human emotion and feeling. As a consequence we feel much more deeply affected by it all. And by affected I mean scared. There, I said it. Pure shitting myself for large portions of this, I was. All because Capcom have bothered to make it's setting and everything in it feel real. When I wasn’t staring in wonderment at the box art or title screen, I spent the vast majority of the game scrubbing skid marks from my underpants which in turn is testament to Capcom nailing the other side of the human coin: the subhuman. Resident Evil is an exploration of the darker side of humanity: depravity, cruelty, sadism and blood lust. This is barebones horror. But it’s ok, because it’s not mindless gore. All of the horror you witness as Ethan is not as straightforward as it first seems. Never have you felt more sorry for a family of cannibalistic sociopaths than you have for the Bakers, who happened to be living in the wrong house, on the wrong waterway as the wrong ship ran aground, with the wrong chemically infused little girl on board. It’s a pity it takes until the very end, having been almost run over, chain-sawed and bludgeoned to death by one of the family for you to realise this. But forgive and forget, eh? They are the victims as much as you and Mia. They were a family before all of this happened. Family photos found around the house show a closeness and affection for their children. But unfortunately as we progress, our view of the Bakers is tainted by the fact that they would prefer to have your intestines for dinner (literally) and smear your blood across their living room wall. And you, the lone wrecking ball that blunders in and begins to dismantle this sick family from within, destroying them bit by infected bit. This raises further questions which are not immediately obvious as you make your way through the game: are you noble in your quest to save Mia when you're also ultimately responsible for the death of this backwater family, regardless of what state you find them? Are you saviour or usurper? You might say you're doing them a favour, putting them out of their misery? Has a Resident Evil game ever been so keen to confront you with so many hard hitting and 'human' questions, beyond the more sweeping ones raised by the unethical actions of a megalomaniacal corporation, as seen in previous installments? Then there's the biggest little question of them all: Evelyn. She wants to be loved. She’ll pump your veins full of her muck in a blink and kill you in the process but isn’t that adorable all the same? I’ve only completed the game once and am unlikely to have a second go. But I would be very interested to see how I would actively feel toward what I am going through with all of this knowledge on board. I sense I might be playing an entirely different game. That’s clever! This is the Capcom we deserve but it’s not the one we need! Actually, no, we do need this. Never has this genre needed it more and Capcom have delivered. Resident Evil VII is a gem, there's no doubt. But it's still an imperfect one. The puzzles are nice. That’s a really bland word and it’s a fair one for the puzzles. Not overly challenging but at the same time not overtly offensive either. Solving them quickly means the action and exploration can continue apace. The game is also guilty of quite a bit of hand holding. I’m looking at you, constantly ringing telephone. I did try to melt the cord with the burner at one point but to no avail. Hand holding in this game is especially annoying since the house itself, while not completely linear, is not a huge place. The final and also weakest portion of the game is completely linear and akin to a tower challenge level in which waves of monstrosities are thrown at you to test your mettle, each wave stronger than the last. Then there are the boss fights which, I’m pleased to say, are not as bad as many make out. They’re far from the most sophisticated encounters in gaming and are heralded with the now standard glut of ammo and health remedies housed handily in the room immediately before the fight itself. This stood in direct contrast to the vast majority of the game where I found myself dangerously low on both and having to make sure that I managed my inventory well and that all of my bullets counted. But to the game's immense credit, in nearly all but one boss battle I didn’t fully realise I was engaged in an actual boss battle until the fight was almost over. My chief aim in the garage boss fight with Baker, at least initially, was ‘How the fuck do I get out of here alive?’ rather than actively seeking to engage with the madman. Marguerite's insect form had me literally scraping the coffers of my ammo and health reserves, running around the lower flower frantically, with pee running down each leg, looking for a chance herb or box of bullets. I eventually won this battle backed into a corner, slashing blindly with my knife. Skin. of. my. teeth. And not a boss health bar in sight which was refreshing, a detail that Monster Hunter championed. But at least in that game a monster would limp when injured and near the end. Get with it, Capcom! That one’s your game too! Although I’ve dedicated a sizeable paragraph to the game’s shortcomings, these really are minor when all is said and done. I'm not a Resident Evil/survival horror fanboy by any stretch but imperfections notwithstanding, Resident Evil VII is an absolute tonne of nerve jangling, heart attack inducing fun that will leave you feeling extremely hopeful for the future. It’s handling of people and human beings and how human beings and their emotions should form the focal point of any believable narrative is refreshing to see fullstop, let alone in this genre. For some bizarre reason, this is a detail, as obvious as a wet fish to the face, that is so often sacrificed in video games in favour of jumping off high things, blowing things up or swishing the biggest sword imaginable. I know that not every game is driven by people but when you are aiming to go down that route, let’s do it right. Let’s hope that Evil has not only come home but that it has also moved into a new house! For good. And there's plenty of room for lodgers too!