#bc it was his first novel that he wrote before he got famous from all the light we cannot see

[pinejay]

it can be pretty fun to read reviews of a book u hate but one of the most painful things u can do is read goodreads reviews of a book u love

[saintone]

So idk if you read some of my svsss posts, I recommend reading those before this one, although you can read this and unsterstand so follow your heart.

Im a big MXTX fan, and I think svsss is one of the best pieces of literature ever written. One of the resons for it is bc of how it reflecs MXTX s own story.

In case you didnt read svsss, in it we have a character called Shang QingHua. He's and author, who had to change his story in order to gain money to survive. And to do so, what did he do?

He added p*rn

In case you didnt know, sex scenes and explicit books have incresed in the book industry, and are one of the genres that has been popping this years. This makes total sence, as sex always sells. The sex industry is one who never falters and is always growing, bc although people can always doubt when spending money on things, human beings have proven to always be willing to spend money on sex.

I'm not making this up, and its not a phenomenon exclusive to the book industry. Look it up if u want to

Svsss is a transmigration story, where the protagonist is sent to a novel he has to fix after it was ruined bc the author had to adapt to the demands of fans in order to gain enough money to keep living.

And authors making changes to their stories, to appease fans, is nothing new. But we have to adress the implicantions of having those changes being about sex.

Idk if you noticed, svsss isnt big on sex scenes. After her first book though, MXTX writes mdzs. And that, thats a kinky book.

Like im sorry. Im sorry to all mdzs fans. But from all the mxtx works, that book has the most sexual scenes, the most weird ones, many with a tint of dubious consent. And oc those have a lot to do with the story characters. Like yeah, wangxian are like that. They need therapy, we know.

Mdzs is a much more sexual novel that svsss. In svsss, let me know if im wrong, but there just one sex scene lol, and is "papapa to save the world".

After this novel, mxtx publishes mdzs. And guess which novel made mxtx famous?

Im not saying svsss is better that mdzs or anything like that. Or that mdzs is worth less bc it has sex scenes. All mxtx's novels are masterpieces. But you know whats a masterpiece?

Mxtx making a book about author including sex in their books to appease fans, then making a book with explicit sexual scenes, AND THEN BECOMING FAMOUS THANKS TO THAT BOOK.

And before anyone tells me mdzs didnt make mxtx famous. Mdzs has a donghua, a manghua, and a live action. After mdzs, tgcf has a manghua, a donghua, a live action is being made, etc.

Svsss has a badly done donghua. Svsss is the least popular book of mxtx.

You can say mxtx was shy, or building herself as an author, and didnt add any sex scenes in svsss bc it was her first book and she was establishing herself. But, after mdzs, what did she do? What did se do in Heavily Officials Blessing?

No sex scenes. None. A pure love story. Hints of the act happening? Yes. The issue isnt with characters having sex or not. The issue is adding pornography to a novel thats not about that, to increase sells.

Im not saying what se did is wrong! Im glad she did. It was thanks to what she wrote in mdzs, that she became famous, and i got to know her work. She did what se had to do. Authors nowadays do what they have to do.

But she made a fkng novel about an author adding sex scenes to become famous, AND THEN SHE HAD TO DO IT.

my girl so good at analyzing society she caught proves her own theory. Best contemporay fiction author in the world and i will fight anyone on that.

Btw. All the respect to mdzs fans. I didnt mean to throw any shade on this. Well maybe a little but u gota admite. Book is kinky.

[plush-anon]

after many hours spent pausing the show bc good lord why did they do that, i have now finished Love Never Dies

annnnnd yikes 😬😬😬

I’ll start with the few positives I did enjoy from the recorded Australian production on Youtube:

1.) the camera work. This is the kind of thing I dream of for professionally recorded shows - it really allows for some lovely close-up shots of how the emotions play over their faces, it’s lush

2.) the costumes are well-crafted, and I desperately Want the Phantom’s long-ass swooshy trenchcoat cape thing he wore for the first half-hour 

3.) the sets used throughout this are honestly very impressively used and put together for some really fantastic shots

4.) the opening, with ‘Til’ I Hear You Sing Once More’. This song is honestly very lovely, and really articulates the Phantom’s loss and heartache for Christine. It’s sung very earnestly, and had the rest of the show been more like this I might have liked it more. 

5.) the Fucking Song, ‘Beneath a Moonless Sky’, is a guilty pleasure. It’s so over the top, and it is only about recounting that One Time they totally banged yo, and I love it. I think it’s the orchestration, but it’s also enjoyably silly even while it takes itself 100% serious. 

6.) As much as I hate to say this? ‘Devil Take the Hindmost’. While I hate the gist of the song - that being Raoul and Erik betting on who Christine will choose, and pretty much deciding for her who will get to be her one true love forever, completely negating the entire point of the OF musical where her choice was the most important factor for all of them - the pacing and the lyrics as they dance around each other are absolutely fantastic. It’s kind of sad to say, but Raoul and the Phantom, in this scene alone, display more chemistry in their singing than they do with anyone else. Let the hatefcuking commence~

7.) Some parts of ‘The Beauty Underneath’ I enjoy, particularly the ending scene where the Phantom is trying to talk Meg down. It’s very slow, melodic, and shows his more manipulative side, as well as how he can crawl into someone’s head, I love it. 

8.) This very interesting visual with a mirror in Christine’s dressing room. There are two separate scenes where someone is in the mirror singing. The first is the Phantom, between Raoul and Christine. The second is Raoul between the Phantom and Christine. It’s honestly a nice touch.

9.) The main three are excellent singers. 

 Unfortunately, that’s all on the list of what I liked. Everything else is a Giant Fcuking Mess. 

1.) The Phantom is no longer a complex, messed-up, but still somewhat sympathetic character, no; this is just a giant asshole who takes everyone for granted and barely realizes that anyone else exists except Christine, and even then only really as his personal instrument. 

He never actually apologizes to Christine for the shit he’s put her through and continues to put her through, but still demands obedience and forgiveness and understanding. It completely negates the entire point of POTO’s ending, where he actually realizes he’s done wrong by her and his actions pertaining her, and lets her go from his world entirely, and RESPECTING HER CHOICES AND LEAVING HER ALONE. 

Not to mention This Bitch also threatens to kidnap/possible “lose” her child if she doesn’t sing for him, keeps pushing her around and telling her what to do, and manipulating her life to change her decisions for her. 

AND HE’S FRAMED AS THE BETTER OPTION HERE

2.) Which reminds of me of the next big asshat: Raoul de Chagny, who has now become an alcoholic gambler who pushes his wife to do things she’s not comfortable doing to repay his debts, neglects his son entirely, and also is abrasive and controlling of Christine, to the point he yanks her back and forth on doing shit. Play this role! We should leave bc he was an asshole! No now we should leave bc Phantom is back! No take the role he’s paying triple! I’ll make a bet on whether she loves me to pay my debts! No wait you should quit ten minutes before you go on-stage bc I don’t want to lose you! MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMN MIND YOU MISERABLE PISSANT SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Like I can understand being overprotective to a certain degree, which could eventually morph into being controlling. But neglecting your son, your wife, drinking and gambling your fortune away? ALL of that?!? Really???

Shouldn’t he be desperate to keep his wife and son close to him at all times after the events of POTO? Never leave, never go anywhere, only do what’s safe? You COULD have set this up as a continuation of Safety versus Freedom with Raoul and the Phantom, show the good and bad of both and have her choose from there. Show the dichotomies and hypocrisies of both men’s standards. 

But nope! We’re just totes gonna make the husband like this for no goddamn reason, especially since Raoul doesn’t start suspecting that Gustave (his son) isn’t really his until Devil Take the Hindmost. He’s just that much of an idiot!

3.) The presence of Madame Giry and Meg Giry. Oh gods, where to even begin? They’re pretty much only here so that Sir Andy doesn’t have to make new characters with different backstories and motivations and introduce them accordingly. Nope! Now both women are blaming Christine for leaving the Phantom Man-Baby, and talking about everything they sacrificed to help him make his stupid-ass circus, and talking about how they love him and GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH Madame Giry in the POTO musical YOU LED RAOUL DIRECTLY TO THE PHANTOM’S LAIR SO HE COULD RESCUE CHRISTINE WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW SHE BETRAYED HIM

And, oh, Meg... she reaaaaaaaaaaaaally got the short end of the stick here. I just... poor dear, she was horribly treated in this. 

Neither of them deserved to be like this, honestly. 

4.) Christine, to a lesser extent. Experienced Literal Character Assassination, forced to choose between two horrible options, stripped of her agency entirely, used as a bet in a game between said two horrible options, lied to and dragged around constantly, should have taken Gustave and run off with Meg to run a music store together. Fcuk you Sir Andy, for using POTO characters to act out your bitterness and frustration at your ex. 

5.) The entirety of the whole Boardwalk Circus schtick, spawning an additional Fuck You to Frederick Forsythe, who thought this was a tenable option for the story to progress. 

6.) The Phantom’s deformity was literally just four lines drawn onto his face with crayon and some smeared lipstick:

what even the fcuk, you couldn’t make the make-up crayon drawing more detailed??? take more than ten minutes to draw it on???

I never thought I would say this, but even the 2004 film’s depiction was better than this! At least that one partially drew from a real medical condition, Sturge-Weber Syndrome. What the fcuk is your excuse LND?!?

7.)  The Lyrics. Oh gods, the lyrics. Some songs were decent, mostly the ones I listed up top. But the rest? Did someone forget to give the writer a more advanced/creative guide to rhyming lyrics? I wrote better shit in middle school than Glenn Slater did for the majority of these lyrics. 

Glenn my dude, what the fcuk is this nonsense? You’ve written good shit like the Tangled songs and stuff for Galavant! Why are you writing worse than an angst-ridden middle schooler? It is immensely frustrating, to say the least. 

8.) The really WEIRD direction in acting. No one here acts like they know how to move their arms or hands naturally; there’s a lot of really odd and unnecessary gesturing that makes it look like everyone has just had their limbs replaced with faulty robotic arms. There’s also a lot of leaning the characters do, with their arms perfectly straight by their side and it just looks wrong. 

9.) The Phantom’s pseudonym is Mr. Y. No, they never explain why it is he chose that particular moniker. 

10.) Bathing Beauty. Just... all of it, here, tied to POTO, present and here. 

11.) It’s been exactly 10 years since Christine saw/banged the Phantom, and her son is precisely 10 years old. 

That’s... not how pregnancy works. At all. 

12.) This weird scene with the American press, where they are absolutely obsessed with Christine, despite the facts they present, such as:

- She hasn’t performed in 10 years anywhere. 

- She was a French performer, and

- She only starred in three operas at the Populaire (Hannibal, Il Muto, and Don Juan Triumphant, which wasn’t even finished. So technically 2.2 operas that we know of). 

Why, precisely, would American reporters be so obsessed with her upon hearing she’s coming? I could see some interest given the whole shebang with the Phantom, but after 10 years of radio silence, would she really garner an entire crowd of reporters and photographers... in America, no less? 

France I could definitely see. America? Not so much. 

13.) Gustave is a flat, generic kid character, who apparently is totes the Phantom’s son because... he can play the piano well. And also has the same ideas of music as the Phantom, despite never being taught about them, or discussed such things with his mother. 

Is musical talent only inherited through the father’s side of the family in this universe? I mean, we never learn about Christine’s mother, just her famous violinist father. Otherwise, why is it Gustave’s musical talent isn’t attributed to - oh, I don’t know - HIS FAMOUS OPERA SINGER MOTHER?!?

14.) Apparently the Phantom is also now the one who invented cars OH I MEAN “horseless carriages” 🙄 A carriage with no engine and a “ghost horse” appears, and everyone is just fcuking stunned by this, like they’ve never seen a vehicle move without a horse before. In 1907. 22 years after the first functional automobile was invented. Ugh. 

15.) seriously tho who thought basing a sequel on the Frederick Forsythe novel was a good idea why did nobody think to stop him apart from Sir Andy’s pet cat Otto. why.

16) The Phantom’s interactions with Gustave are distinctly creepy and unsettling. I keep getting pedo vibes from him and I Do Not Like It.

17.) The death scene at the end is so goddamn over-the-top and out of nowhere I just want to throw something, ugh

18.) And finally, my last gripe with this mess: This takes place in 1907, and declares that it’s ten years after the original musical. Despite the fact that the OG took place in 1885. Yippy skippy. 😑

I can honestly say I am Not a Fan of this musical as a whole, mostly based on the plot and the character assassinations (one quite literal) and the poor lyrics. I can admire the camera work, the basic singing ability, the scenery and costumes, and maybe two or three songs. But I just do not enjoy it. It took me two days to finish watching it because I kept cringing from what shit kept happening, and had to walk around and listen to other shit to get it out of my head. 

HOWEVER: People do enjoy this one on the sake of it being so bad and over-the-top, and I can honestly see the whys. It helps that most of the cast can sing, and the orchestration is done well. There’s a TON of stupid to mock, and a lot of over-the-top awkwardness to laugh at. This is a good one to watch and mock with friends, IMO. 

For those of you who do enjoy it, I’m afraid I have to disagree on most of it. Still, it is nice being able to watch this one for free, even if it is a giant hot mess.

And that’s all for me on this one! Have a good week guys!

[period-dramallama]

A skim read of jean plaidy’s St Thomas Eve

For @thalassodromid bc this is our Niche

General thoughts on quality (TLDR)

-First off, I should give this book something of a pass because it was written 60+ years ago. Historical research, like science, Marches On.

-I skimmed it because i was not loving the style. There’s very little description, the pacing feels like This Happened And Then This Happened. With this story, you should have a sense of the stakes, the tension. It lacks atmosphere.

-This book really didn’t spark much emotion in me. I was heartwarmed and amused, but never frightened, horrified, fascinated or upset. I felt no panic when Meg got the sweat. 

-Honestly i was so bored I started wondering if maybe this is too difficult a story to tell, because i came in loving these historical figures and wanting content. How bored must the unobsessed reader be?

-Show don’t tell, Jean! Don’t tell me everyone’s very upset, show me them upset. Don’t tell me Meg loves Thomas, show their bond. Don’t tell me everyone loves Thomas for his honesty, show me him helping his neighbours.

-To be fair, there’s a lot to get through in 260 pages.

-I just love how historical fiction pulp novels have Book Club questions at the back. It just feels rather cocky, imo. Like you think your book is Deep enough for me to sit and ponder the characters. Like there was a question that was something like: “do you prefer Katherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn” which was kind of hilarious because the whole book it was Poor Loyal Old Ugly Katherine and Six Fingered Anne Boleyn Is A Minx And Wants Thomas More Dead

Pet peeves

-at the beginning of the book, it says “Secretly Henry VII was unbothered by his wife’s death” or something along those lines. Given that Henry VII locked himself away after Elizabeth died and his mum had to step in and rule because he stopped functioning, this left a bitter taste in my mouth. Henry VII in this book is a Mean Evil Miser so of course he can’t love or be loved by a Good Woman.

-John More jnr being described as the family dunce. To be fair, maybe the book came out before we knew he was a translator too, but STILL. Don’t put John down to raise the girls up. He is valid too. 

-the language is what my old tutor would call ‘mock Tudor’. I think it was expected at the time that you had to try and make the language authentic- The Blanket of the Dark and the Man on a Donkey both use Tudor language. It really made the dialogue annoying. Lots of ‘tis and ‘twas and it was this close to beshrew me verily and hey fucking nonny nonny. Every time Alice said fuckign ‘Tilly valley’ I went AAAARGGGH. JUST HAVE HER SAY THE WORD ‘NONSENSE’. There’s a happy middle, imo, between too Tudor and too modern, and it’s quite a broad middle, you can move around a lot in it, but there are limits. 

-SPEAKING OF ALICE. Her character introduction was so good- first described as ‘an authoritative feminine voice’ *chef’s kiss* she stops a fainting Jane from being trampled at Henry’s coronation, accompanies her home and cares for her while simultaneously lowkey roasting her interior decoration. But then she becomes a bit of a caricature. When Meg gets the sweat she nags her for going near anyone who might have the sweat. The book club questions say ‘there’s more to her than meets the eye’ THEN SHOW ME MORE THAN ONE SIDE OF HER. Also Thomas loves her even though she’s ‘rude and stupid’ but Meg doesn’t understand why. Grr. 

-”mistress middleton will hear you [2 year old John] crying and box your ears” NO NO NO NO NO!

-also i get a 1950s Spanking Children Is Good Parenting vibe because Alice hits the Morelings with a slipper if they don’t study, and Tm’s described as too much of “a coward” (literally the word coward is used) to hit his children other than with peacock feathers.

-Utopia being described as an ideal state...it’s really more than that. I don’t like the idea that Meg and Thomas were okay with religious toleration but then Thomas became Consumed With Hate and he says “well religious toleration would be great in an IDEAL state...”

-Meg being horrified by heretic burning. Maybe the evidence of her views wasn’t yet available and so social mores of the 50s meant that writers and historians assumed that Of Course Being a Delicate Woman She Would Have A Natural Desire For Peace And Mercy. Grr.

-Too romancey. To be fair, Jean Plaidy wrote a lot of historical romances so maybe that’s just what she’s comfortable with (and these are historical figures that never get a chance to shine) but between Meg and Will, Clement and Mercy, Joan and Thomas, Giles and Cecily... it’s a bit like Pearl Harbour in that it’s hard to care about the cute romance when men are getting burned alive in the background. A good historical romance is more like Titanic: the lovers are directly connected with the Big Historical Events ongoing. Skip!

-in this book, Mercy thinks to herself that Meg would have Tm sign the oath, but Mercy would prefer tm to do as his conscience dictates...that feels like the wrong way round.

-Erasmus and Thomas More speaking in English...Doubt.jpeg. 

-Thomas More muses on how Complex men are because there’s Proud Cold Thomas Howard who is Soft for Simple Launderess Bess Holland...yeah given the multiple colossal power imbalances in that real-life affair, I’d be very surprised if it never strayed into abuse.

-baby Meg is a lil too precocious.

-dying Joan tells Meg to look after her father, no Joan stop I love you but don’t give a six year old responsibility, I don’t care if she’s six but acts eleven, looking after TM is Alice’s job not Meg’s. 

-Tm using the phrase ‘our little secret’ with Meg. The context is not abusive, but the phrase is so weighted, it’s like referring to something as “a final solution”: the famous meaning is too horrifying to feel comfortable with that combination of words in any context at all. 

-Joan’s younger sister being described as beautiful and flirtatious, and the whole bit about More fancying the younger sister but going for the older out of honour. The book says that More’s fascination with joan’s sister is the reason he realised he couldn’t be a priest. Given Joan’s 16, her sister’s 15 at the oldest, possibly 14. So a 26 year old can’t be a priest because he’s lusting after a 14-15 year old girl who is attractive and who has been flirting with him. Squick. 

-also no mention of erasmus at the end of tm’s life. Boo. I think a dude in the tower would think about his BFF of 30+ years who he hasn’t seen for 10+ years 

Good bits

-It’s obviously unintentional, but given how the word ‘gay’ has changed, i gave a little cheer every time a character was described as gay. Cecily and John are both gay, Thomas More is very gay, and later in the book wishes he could go back to being gay again. Loving the accidental representation 

-”a boy who is not worth the tossing” i have a dirty mind ok

-Joan getting something of a personality! She even feels insecure because she’s a normal person stuck in a family of geniuses.

-George Boleyn is described as being ‘a bright boy’ and later the girls joke that if they meet him they’ll probably fall in love THIS SO REFRESHING. Otoh, Mary Boleyn is slutshamed and Anne is a scheming minx so the double standard does spoil it a little. 

-Thomas More makes puns! At one point Alice says “more’s the pity” and then immediately says “don’t you dare make a pun out of that. i know u will. DON’T I AM NOT IN THE MOOD FOR PUNS” Granted, Plaidy stresses that his wit is never cruel or mocking (Doubt.jpeg) but i think this is maybe the funniest More. 

-It acknowledges the heretic burning! Not bad for 1950-something. At the end there’s a sort of Hm Thomas More Is A Complex Dude How Do We Approach Him page from H8′s POV.

-More’s father getting all misty-eyed when his son becomes Chancellor

-Henry VIII kissing tm’s forehead

-the flogging of the mentally ill upskirter being depicted

-Wolsey not being a caricature but a worldly and practical man. He’s explicitly described as “not a bad man”

-”He [TM] was no Erasmus, who, having thrown the stone that shattered the glass of orthodox thought, must run and hide himself lest he should be hurt by the splinters” not a very fair way to depict Erasmus (as he spent a lot of the last decades of his life arguing against Luther and trying to mediate between religious factions, esp in Basel) However, I like the metaphor

-Meg talking about how she and her sisters will always compare men unfavourably to their father... understandable.

-More explaining why Heretic Burning is Good Actually is done well

-Meg pointing out that More and Erasmus both criticised the Church, only it’s a bit half-baked because More never experiences any doubt or crisis over it. 

-Meg being torn between the Lutheran and the Catholic men she loves is at least some conflict and stakes when it finally shows up.

-Alice standing trial for dogknapping on page 195. A Big Lipped Alligator Moment, and I’ve no idea the source (i doubt Plaidy would make it up completely, it’s so out of nowhere) but it’s fun. It feels like one of More’s ‘merry tales’

“[Erasmus] read aloud to Thomas when he came home; and sometimes Thomas would sit by his friend’s bed with Margaret on one side of him and Mercy on the other; he would put an arm about them both, and when he laughed and complimented Erasmus so that Erasmus’ pale face was flushed with pleasure, then Margaret believed that there was all the happiness in the world in that room.” my emotions! my emotions! my ship is sailing, i repeat, the ship is sailing!

-”Meg, this is one of the happiest days of my life. it is a day I shall remember on the day i die. i shall say to myself when i find death near me: ‘the great erasmus said that of my daughter, my meg.’”

-”So the King likes verses!” said mistress middleton, her voice softening a little. 

“Ah, madam,” said Thomas. “What the King likes today, may we hope Mistress Middleton will like tomorrow?” Do I smell... flirtation...

-”His face was pleasant and kindly, [Alice] concluded....She would like to feed him some of her possets, put a layer of fat on his bones with her butter.” Does this version of Alice have a feeding kink I definitely think, in this ‘verse, Tm and Alice are 100% having sex.

-John Colet’s in it, though described as tm’s confessor (who i think was actually grocyn or linacre)

-Alice clearing a path for a fainting Jane with “Stand aside, you oafs.” alexa, play X gon give it to you. 

[raybangoddess]

the fallen angels - good omens fic part 1?

idk what this is really. i wrote this when i was really really sick and kinda in a daze bc i wanted a different zira and crowley fic that involved crowley being a famous rockstar. i kinda wanna write more but i’m also writing so many other novels rn. tell me what u think tho and we’ll see if i should continue w this shit.

.

The two of them had been friends. The best of friends, actually- completely inseparable. So close to one another it was rumored that they may in fact be more than friends (which shows a mark of a true friendship). And it was shocking that they were friends. Since on the outside- they appeared to have nothing in common. One liked dressing in white, beige or tartan and reading books and eating food. The other liked black and gardening and Queen and when the time came- speeding in his father’s old beat up car. They had nearly nothing in common, looking from the outside. But if you got to know each of them well and how their bond worked, it really did make sense. And they really genuinely belonged with each other.

However what was more surprising was their fall out. The one that occurred on the first week of summer holiday before their departure to uni. The one that shook up both of their worlds and ultimately caused them to stop talking with one another. Over something so stupid. 

So Stupid.

But neither of them had the pride to talk to the other so they carried on. As if their bond never happened. As if they didn’t once mean the world to each other. As if they didn’t spend a decent time of the day, each, thinking about all of the what if’s. What if we remain friends? How would my life differ? What if I never knew him in the first place? Well, wouldn’t that be a relief?

What if there was no silence between us?

.

Aziraphale was running a bookshop in Soho, 7 years after he had a falling out with whom he thought was his best friend. Now, the books he was selling had little importance to him, really- all were modern and/or not much of his taste, per say. All of his important books were stored safely away in his flat above the shop- first editions passed down through generations in his family of classics, prophet books and such. Whatever book he could get his hands on from his ancestors’ collection was considered a pot of gold to him- and better yet, he had a few that were signed. More or less, he loved the books probably more than anything.

“Have you gotten tickets yet?” a voice in the corner of Aziraphale’s store asked to another customer, now.

“Of course I have, long ago. I wouldn’t have been able to get good seats if I waited ‘til the week before the concert. I’m surprised it’s not sold out, at this point,” the other customer commented.

Aziraphale looked up and watched as the first girl spoke sighed, looking at a book that was on display.

“You’re so lucky. You’ve got tickets in the pit, correct?” she asked.

“Obviously.”

“Oh please get as close to the stage as possible. Tell me what Crowley’s like up close,” the first voice said, dreamily.

That perked up Aziraphale’s attention even more so. They were talking about him and his band. 

“You twat,” said the second customer, swatting the other’s arm. “He’s gay and you know that.”

“Yes, but can you blame me? He’s one hell of a man.”

Aziraphale had tried to keep his attention on the book he was reading behind the counter. But how could he? Once Crowley trickled into his brain, there was almost always no hope in getting him out until he slept on it. Because little did they know, that the fussy man behind the counter knows in person that Crowley is one hell of a man. Or- well- at least, was. He only knew of him personally as an adolescent- now he was a man and tainted by fame. And Aziraphale knew for a fact that fame changed people.

“He’s rumored to have a boyfriend too, now,” the second voice exclaimed. “The paps caught him snogging some bloke not too long ago.”

That was new information too Aziraphale. And quite frankly, new information he did not care for. He never kept up with Crowley because even though his old best friend’s life was so conveniently displayed online, it would hurt a lot to see what he was up to. All he knew about him now was through gossip and accidents. Seeing his picture on the front of a magazine as he passed a newsstand on the street. Hearing his voice on the radio when he went into shops. Passing by teenage girls that were so head over heels in love with the man despite him being openly gay. Any moment that acknowledged Crowley’s existence was hell to Aziraphale. It made him wonder if Crowley was doing this to him on purpose. The whole becoming famous thing so Aziraphale could never forget. It was very Crowley of him to do such a thing- being the prankster and drama queen he was as a teenager. 

But it really shouldn’t have surprised Aziraphale that he was caught with someone like it did. Of course he was with someone else. Just look at him! Everyone desired him and that was no secret!

“Lucky lad, then. Well, I hope you have a great time. Get lots of videos for me.”

And just like that the conversation was over and shifted to a book synopsis they thought was funny. But Crowley was still haunting Aziraphale’s mind. What if, what if, what if?

.

Crowley’s band primarily had four members including himself. If you excluded background vocalists that went on tours with them.

There was Robin, Cleo and Lorchan alongside him that made up The Fallen Angels. A band with strong Queen influence, strong sixties influence while keeping up with modern alternative music’s flare. It was a recipe to make teenage girls go crazy- especially if the singer was so damned attractive.

But the four of them were all astonishingly attractive in unconventional ways. Robin had their eye catching fashion tastes. Cleo had her crazy hair. Lorchan was the cutest cinnamon roll. Crowley had nice hair and a nice voice.

But what people found hard to believe was the fact that they were genuinely normal. Sure, they lived the rockstar life and got wasted at parties after performing but they also spent nights drinking alone with each other in hotel rooms, quite literally playing a round of Go Fish (which Crowley tolerated despite somehow being awful at it) or Old Maid (Crowley’s personal favorite card game).

And that was what they were doing in Dublin, their last concert before the final show in London- which was their hometown. Also, the town where his Aziraphale lived who could show up and be there at the concert without him even knowing.

“Oi! Anthony, love, you are out!” Cleo exclaimed.

Crowley rolled his eyes at her- she had proven herself time and time again that she was the master of Go Fish,

If anything, at least he wasn’t alone without Aziraphale. He had his band, Who did love him even if he was a difficult blasted diva at times. They really did have each other’s backs.

Cleo won that game. Then they played a round of Old Maid.

Lorchan won that time.

[bryce--newhouse-blog]

♡ . ˚ ◝ chris pratt, thirty-two, cismale, he/him ↷ in level ten, apartment 1205 you’ll find bryce newhouse. he has been living in wisteria apartments as a publisher/volunteer firefighter for a year. during that time they have earned the reputation of the icarian. it makes sense you know, they can be loyal + supportive but let’s not forget they’re pretty hot-headed + closed off. crackling flames, cracked book spines, filled passport books .× kay. 25. she/her/hers. est. ×

more about him below the cut & if you like this i’m gonna message you to plot unless you hit me up first bc yes. also SAVE yourself and just go with the summary and the personality because i wrote a NOVEL i’m sorry! 

Summary:

Rebellious, Brooklyn-born, rich kid who finally turned his life around when he got a dose of reality. Heir of the Newhouse family (famous for publishing among other things), he attended NYU to study finance while he found his home with the FDNY. He was getting his life together, succeeding in school and his internships, working part time with the family company and volunteering with the fire house. On a call one night, he met the girl he believed he’d spend the rest of his life with, she was the victim of a drunk driving accident and once they cut her free he couldn’t forget about her. He started visiting her in the hospital every day, helped her through rehab, they were really great together in his eyes. Six years later, he planned a trip to Paris to propose. She broke down in tears while he was on one knee and admitted to a multi-year affair with one of his FDNY brothers. Livid, he hopped on the first plane to the first state he spotted on the departures list and ended up in downtown LA about a year ago. In the year he’s been out in the golden coast, he’s taken his family’s publishing company to new realms and has opened another publishing house out on the west coast. Though he manages the west coast office full time, he still volunteers with the fire company as well. 

Biography:

The next generation of Newhouse’s began with Bryce’s birth.. A supposed autumn baby, arriving in the dead heat of summer as a surprise to his parents - Adam and Olivia, was a tell-tale sign of what the eldest Newhouse son would be for the rest of his life. Though the Newhouse name was well known, their publishing company presence expansive across the world, Bryce’s parents made sure him and his younger brother and sister did not grow up with the typical nanny experience in their Brooklyn brownstone house. Olivia kept her hands busy with her children, but also helped her husband manage his role and stake in the family business with ease. Adam made sure to leave his work exactly where it was meant to be left when he came home to his wife and children at night, refusing to mix family time with work. It had allowed the Newhouse children to grow up in a supportive environment with parents that paid attention to them.

Bryce, being the oldest, often found himself testing the boundaries of what his parents would allow. From his toddler years, all the way up until his young adulthood, he tested to see how far he could get with his actions before his parents swooped in to stop him. What started out as touching things he wasn’t supposed to, slowly creeped up to worse and worse incidents, and the fear about the family’s business set in as Bryce grew older. His parents shipped him off to boarding school once he hit fourteen – an action he had never seen coming from his childhood and the support his parents had always given him. In turn, he acted out, finding himself in and out of a new boarding school every year of his high school career. When high school graduation rolled around, he knew his time testing the limits of his parents was over. His father, disappointed sat him down and gave him two options: he could either go to college and earn his spot in the company, or he could get out and live life on his own. The dose of reality set into the rebellious young adult, but he refused to give in.

He spent six months on his own, crashing on couches of high school friends, taking on whatever jobs would hire him, but eventually he realized his mistake. Returning home to grovel his case – his parents welcomed him back without hesitation and though he was surprised he remained grateful. He spent two years taking classes at a SUNY, working up his GPA to a 4.0 to off-balance his high school record before he applied to a slew of four year colleges. During his time in his first couple years of college, he began to volunteer more – finding a FDNY. When his acceptance letters rolled in from out of state colleges, his position with the fire department weighed on him and he decided to take a spot at NYU to finish out his finance degree so he could still stay with his department. Bryce had completed turned around from the trouble starting teen – he balanced classes, internships and his time with the fire company with ease. He made time for his family and allowed himself to be the older brother his siblings could look up to. His life was golden, and it only got better when he met the girl of his dreams in the most unlikely way.

An early night fire call had him on route with his engine to a car accident. A call to them for an auto accident meant one of two things: they either had a fire burning because of the accident or they needed the jaws of life. Twenty-three-year-old Bryce had already seen enough auto accidents to know that neither option was good. There were no amber colored flames when the engine rolled up and he could explicitly remember the entire crew taking a deep breath as they examined the scene. It was a drunk driving accident that had taken down four other cars and a tractor trailer. One of the cars had slipped nearly underneath the bottom of the tractor trailer and all the men in the engine were quite sure it would be a recovery mission instead of a rescue one. But, they were informed differently when they filed out, each of them reporting to their specific command while they got their information. Trapped in the car was a nineteen-year-old girl, her friends had been able to escape from the car after the accident, but she was trapped in the driver’s seat, needing their equipment to get her out to even begin to access her injuries. His captain immediately sent Bryce over to try and connect with the victim, and he did exactly that.

He had always had a way of calming people, and once he let go of his rebellious years he was able to fine tune it and she was no different. He kept her calm, chatting about anything and everything he could think of. She was in her second year of college, pursing a BFA in dance from Juilliard and her only concern was whether she’d ever be able to dance again after what she was going through. He held some fear for her, unable to share them with her for fear of making it worse on her, and so he promised her she would. After what felt like hours they finally cut her free, immediately rushing her to the nearest hospital for treatment and Bryce was set on doing what he always did after a call – hoping for the best and avoiding the news for a few days to make sure he didn’t hear if it was the worst news. But, instead he tossed and turned that night, her face popping in and out of his head and he knew as soon as the sun came up he’d have to find out if she was okay.

Bryce found himself at the hospital she had been sent to, pacing back and forth until one of the friends he had made through his involvement with the company would let him in to see her. She was surprised to see him, and the sight of her had nearly done the same to him. Her legs had been injured in the crash, broken in a handful of places and he felt so guilty for assuring her that she would be able to dance again when he had no idea how hurt she was. She seemed hopeful though, resilient with her words and he found that one visit wasn’t enough. Soon it progressed to every week, and then slowly every few days before he found himself there with her every night, the pair of them chatting and laughing over Netflix shows and life in general. When she was finally released and entered rehab, it seemed only fitting that he was there with her and slowly they realized they had become more than either of them imagined they would ever be. Their relationship only grew as she continued to get better and when they could actually go out on their first date after all their time spent together - the rest seemed to be history. She went back to school to finish her BFA while he worked with his family’s company, bringing the publishing company into new light when he signed on new young-adult authors who were pushing the lines with their writing, it was a bold move for the Newhouse company, but it immediately paid off and Bryce was credited with the famed move. His life was nearly perfect when he hit his late twenties. His job was good, his family was wonderful, he had the same woman by his side for six years and he was happy. There wasn’t much else he could ask for except to begin a family of his own, and so he took the steps to do that. Their schedules had gotten hectic and so Bryce booked a vacation for the two of them to spend some time together and so he could also pop the question. A trip to Paris for them to check off their bucket list and coming home as an engaged couple – that was really all he wanted. And yet, when he dropped down to one knee, the diamond ring he had picked especially with her in mind her reaction was to immediately break down in tears. Initially, he thought they were good tears, but eventually a confession spilled from her. She had been having an affair for years – with one of his best friends from the fire company. It was a shock – something he had never expected of her and he walked away from her that night and found himself booking a flight to the first state he spotted on the departures list – California. Personality: Bryce is a mixture of all things when it comes to personality. He can be quiet and reserved, but can also let loose and be the life of a party. He’s incredibly indecisive with everything – it’ll take him hours to figure out what he wants to eat for his next meal and once he’s decided he’s usually likely to change it. He can be a sweetheart and wicked charming, but he can also be hot-headed and has recently developed a temper. Bryce reads situations and people very well – he can often pick up on people’s emotions. He has the ability to be brutally honest and overly opinionated, but also can tone himself down and get to the level of the person he’s speaking too. He’s very careful about who he trusts now, hesitant to really open up to anyone after leaving his trust with someone for so long and it backfiring on him.

[lvoplds]

aye ! i’m d or dennis either is hideous. she/her and i’m a big ol’ Gay. my timezone is gmt but that means nothing bc i sleep like garbage & that’s pre much all the ooc info i got bcos i’ll ramble which makes sense considering i’m leo’s mun --- speaking the fuck of ! hit the readmore for a lil breakdown i’m trying to keep brief ( i lied barbara sue me ) + the like button if u wanna plot <3

☆ · ˚ . ✦ . ˚ { COLE SPROUSE, TWENTY-FOUR, HE/THEY } spotted! LEOPOLD FISK making their way down the streets of the ues. i swear, every time i hear WELCOME TO JAPAN by THE STROKES, i think of them. the DEMIBOY is currently a COLLEGE STUDENT. though everyone knows them for being HEEDFUL & WELL-ROUNDED, page six says they could be BITTER & PERIPHRASTIC. according to gossip girl, LEO BLACKMAILED THE ADMISSIONS DIRECTOR TO GET INTO UNIVERSITY, but that could be a rumor. { d, 20, gmt, she/her }

so, leo feat. some basics --- just turned twenty-four. demiboy with preference to either he or they pronouns. 

he’s ny born and raised. a fact that’ll be fun later: his mother’s from scotland & he has family he visits there.

he’s demisexual/demiromantic. romantic and sexual attraction come hand in hand with emotional depth and since he’s so skeptic/extra about the first and uncaring when it comes to the latter, it makes it difficult for leo to be available, but not at all impossible bcos hey ! he’s very open to connecting with people. he just needs to reset some of his priorities and ideals on people. it’s been two years, cunt.

a continuation to the point upstairs -- he’s pretty social though not as much as he used to be in highschool ?? he says it’s bc of college which is partially true but u never know.... now it’s pretty much him being socially operating: extensive phonecalls, he likes talking. keep him updated. spill teas and ur feelings, hon. the wingman of his people;  think caleb gallo from the gay and wondrous life of caleb gallo or cher horowitz got brutally murdered by amber and possessed josh lucas. will set you on a date on the spot which is IRONIC considering he *gasps* has cynical opinions on dating but that’s a preference not a fact. venting-friendly; he pays attention and takes mental notes and will be able to keep up. the catch is that you never see him during the week and if you do, it’s by planned accident. he’s a big Nerd and also lives in campus. td;lr: he’s the parental figure but mostly the aunt who lives five states away but knows your business because she cares and is also going through a rough divorce  handled poorly by her budding alcoholism and needs the distraction.

THAT BEING SAID, it’s not a shocker to know that his mother is a therapist and he clearly takes a lot from her. known one to socialite moms all the way to governors’ wives in the upper east side --- and that’s how he managed to blackmail the admissions director of nyu.

as smart as he is, the one thing he’d worked for ( maybe not too hard, but he didn’t think he’d need to ? straight a’s should be more than enough ) somehow did nawt work ??? and he’s not ???? taking that ??? at all ?? WHAT ??? and in comes his moral ambiguity where he reasoned w himself that yea... he deserved this. and the director shouldn’t be diddling with their family friend -- no, her being a model is not an excuse. and yes leo had to investigate to know whom that was  -- so this is karma. right ? right. and it happened. he ofc didn’t tell them he’s their therapist’s spawn -- his mom goes by her maiden name - but he knows the reveal would be #iconic on graduation day.

additional fuckshit he’s on about: he’s a famous local erotica romance novel writer in scottland and goes by pseudonym brenda j. thomson who wrote elicit confessions. it’s as extra and terrible as it sounds.  

COOL SO MOVING ON TO WANTED CONNECTIONS

FAMILY FRIENDS ? absolutely. they’d notice the shift in personalities maybe. he was extra before and he’s extra now but less and studying environmental law with a full blown depression. #grown

EXES ? just a major one. they’d been a Thing^tm throughout high school but dissolved as most relationships would after grad. i’d say it’s the most intense romantic relationship he’d had but that’s only because it was his first and while it hurt before, he knows that’s what it was now -- still refers to them vaguely and dramatically as his first love/experience by habit and for point delivery purposes but it means less to nothing now.

A NEIGHBOR ? has to come back home to someone next door on the weekends ! they could be close, absolutely despise each other, a little bit of both, etc.

HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS ? these people... are his life. literally wouldn’t go a day without talking to them. his lil web of lovely distractions. whether it’s who he met after grad or knew all his life, they’re important. if they all know each other ? kudos ! if they don’t ? he’d probably mention them in conversation or make it a point they would one day, no problem. ( i wanted to set a number aka five ppl but nah - a good starter number tho and the rest are budding friendships bc we stan those )

MOM’S FREQUENTERS ? yes. people who see his mom, whether it’s a muse or a muse’s parent. he’d probably run into them when he stops by his mom’s therapy office or knows of them. anything could be done and fleshed out more here !

DORM MATE ? yes. they share a dorm, they’re mates. they crash parties together and steal minivans for fun.

ENEMY ? rivalry is approved in this house. could be friends before and shit went left why not leo’s a shithead ?? im ready to go off !

FRENEMIES ? only talk when they’re forced to in social settings or in a group of people. heavy opinions of each other. passionate despising, maybe a little too passionate -- for everyone’s comfort.

FRIENDS HOW ??? they only ever talk on the phone/text. only. it’s weird, they don’t know how to explain it but that’s pretty much it and it works ! they’re comfortable enough to talk about fleshlights and communism.

PROBABLY MORE BC IM SURE I HAVE MORE IN MIND BUT THIS IS ALREADY SO FUCKING LONG BUT WE’LL SEE ! 

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Pulp on Pulp, Sabatini, Jirel, Weird Westerns

New Project (Misha Burnett): A reminder that the collection of essays that Cheah Kit Sun and I are putting together is open for submissions. I don’t know that Pulp On Pulp will be its title when it comes time to publish it–I just needed to call it something. I am looking for essays from writers, editors, reviewers, and readers of fiction on the subject of what makes fiction fun. The emphasis should be on practical considerations–do this, don’t do that.

Writing (Amatopia): I recently put up a huge blog roll of sites I read and authors I want to spread the word about. Problem is, lots of them didn’t have websites or blogs to link to! Sure, there are alternatives. For example, I linked to many Amazon pages, either for the author or a particular book. But an actual web presence can make an author seem more official, and in the indie world, this is very important.

Review (DVS Press): Brian Niemeier’s new book is out now, and it’s a number one best seller. Let’s address one 100 IQ level comeback I see frequently when talking about shutting your wallet to the mega-corporations who not only don’t give a shit about the franchises that you grew up with, but actively hate you and your culture and want it (and you) dead: bUt yOu Use AMaZon/yOuTUbE /fAcEbOok/PAtreON.

Popular Culture (Wasteland & Sky): As you can see from the photos in this post, normal people were all over the arcades at its peak in the late ’80s to early ’90s. I know, because I was there. When the most creative and successful games from Double Dragon and Final Fight, to Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, to Time Crisis and Dance Dance Revolution, were around, arcades thrived. By the end of the ’90s, the crowds got smaller as the games were shifting to home consoles. Normal people left, and developers abandoned the subculture.

Fiction (DMR Books): When I wrote my first post about Rafael Sabatini and his swashbuckling fiction, the concept for a series about the “Forefathers of Sword and Sorcery” here on the DMR Blog was still merely a glimmer in my eye. As with Arthur Machen, it’s high time Sabatini received his own entry. In this post, I try not to retread too much ground. For a more complete picture of the man and his work, I recommend that you check out “Rafael Sabatini: King of the Swashbucklers”.

Westerns (Brain Leakage): it’s not hard to see the appeal of stories about rugged loners living by their own rules. Nor is it difficult to see the appeal of books and movies that dwell on the majestic beauty of wide open spaces. Above all, Westerns are stories about personal freedom. After so many weeks being told where we can and can’t go, how close we can and can’t get to people, and what businesses we are and aren’t allowed to patronize anymore, who can blame viewers for looking to John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Yul Brenner for a little cathartic release?

Weird Western (Marzaat): There are new additions to the Weird Western subgenre all the time in games, fiction, comics, and movies. I’ve been interested in it for decades, starting with old Twilight Zone comic books and the Clint Eastwood movies High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider. The trouble is that, while I haven’t looked at every single example of the subgenre, I have sampled quite a few and most have been disappointing. For me, that disappointment comes in three areas.

Art (Broadway World): The Frank Frazetta The Serpent (aka “Aros”) Paperback Novel Cover Painting Original Art (Paperback Library, 1967) and Bernie Wrightson Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein Front Endpapers Illustration Original Art (late 1970s) sparked furious bidding to lead Heritage Auctions’ Comics & Comics Art Auction to $9,099,710 in total sales April 30-May 3. So strong was the demand that the Dallas-based auction raced past its pre-auction estimate of just over $7.3 million and boasted sell-through rates of 100% by lots and value.

D&D (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): Magic is way more interesting. Tons of off the wall spells get used. Having to find magic the AD&D way creates one of the best incentives to adventure ever made. Success here– finding even two or three new first level spells– can fundamentally change the nature of the game and the balance of power between the first level classes. Exciting! With three big books of monsters instead of a “pure” edited down list of archetypes, the players run into something they’ve never seen before almost every session.

Art (Mens Pulp Mags): David is, among other things, an aficionado of men’s adventure magazines (MAMs). So, he knows that Eva is the most widely-recognized female artist’s model in the MAM genre, in addition to being a popular pinup photo model featured in various types of men’s magazines from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. He also knows that Steve Holland is the most famous male model in the realms of both MAMs and paperback covers. Holland is particularly well known for being the model artist James Bama used for Doc Savage, in the cover art Bama did for the Bantam paperback series.

Sword-and-Sorcery (Legends of Men): What makes this story bad is first and foremost the prose. Phrases are repeated in ways that only seem like that of an amateur author. In the opening scene, Jirel storms a castle and impatiently calls for Giraud’s head. Twice more we are told how impatient she is. This sort of repetition is rampant. More importantly, C.L. Moore does not follow the best practice of “show, don’t tell.” Rather than showing us that Jirel is brave Moore just writes “she was not afraid.” This frequent and another example of how the author comes off as an amateur.

Video Games (That Matt Kid): Conan has had quite the bumpy ride in his transition to the video game world. Let’s revisit some of the earliest titles in the barbarian’s gaming adventures.

Pulp Magazines (Don Herron): ere’s a shot of Kong emerging from an alley next to a news agent shop. More mags. The big model allowed panoramic shots and flyovers, but the level of detail extended to street scenes as well. Those shots are rich in every way. Relevant to our interests, there are numerous shots of newsstands, featuring a variety of magazines, including pulps.

Streaming T.V. (Running Iron Report): The world was living for real in the shadow of the fictional prophecy that forms the bedrock of Showtime’s new horror tale, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels: City of Angels is built around the seething racial tensions that simmered just below the golden surface of Los Angeles through most of its history. The planned Arroyo Seco Motorway (eventually the 110 Freeway running from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles) will displace a Mexican-American neighborhood, just as the construction of Dodger Stadium would clean out Chavez Ravine two decades later. Nazis are infiltrating the film studios and the aircraft manufacturing plants.

Review (Paperback Warrior): After the pulp magazines disappeared, they were largely replaced by a more gritty and realistic magazine genre collectively known as Men’s Adventure Magazines (MAMs). These glossy, color publications featured stories and artwork by the same people servicing the men’s paperback original market in the 1950s and 1960s. Magazines like Adventure and Real Men were filled with colorful illustrations and stories designed to appeal to working class men returning home from the wars of the Mid-20th Century.

Fiction (DMR Books): Gustave Flaubert died on this date in 1880. While most famous for his novel, Madame Bovary, and dubbed “The Father of French Literary Realism”, Gustave nonetheless had a strong influence on the early formation of sword-and-sorcery. Salammbo–published in 1862–is loosely based upon the events following the First Punic War. The Carthaginians had lost their war with Rome and then decided to stiff the mercenaries who had fought for them. Predictably, mayhem and atrocities ensued during what has been dubbed the “Mercenary War”.

Fiction (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Fire Hunter (1951) by Jim Kjelgaard follows Hawk, chief weapon-maker for his tribe, as he makes innovation after innovation and leads his tribe to survive sabertooth tigers, rival tribesmen and grass fires. It was illustrated by Ralph Ray. Kjelgaard, who is best known for his Big Red dog books, serves up a fascinating tale of cavemen and invention that is plausible for the time but filled with action and adventure too. He attempts Burroughsian fantasy but strives for plausibility in a way that Jean Auel will make best-sellers of in thirty years. The film 10,000 BC should have used this story.

Gaming (Pelgrane Press): There’s value in seeing how a hero you know translates into Swords of the Serpentine, especially when that hero changes over time. SotS lets you play fledgling (less experienced) and sovereign (exceptionally experienced) versions of the same character, jumping back and forth in time between adventures in the same way a collection of fantasy short stories might jump between different eras of the same hero’s life.

Sensor Sweep: Pulp on Pulp, Sabatini, Jirel, Weird Westerns published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[laurapaq]

Ancient Egyptian Art

As promised, here’s the first in the grounded fantasy series.

Initially, Egyptian art was completely functional (as were many ancient cultures), such as a beautifully crafted vase, but they also had a different view of utility than we might have. A monument commemorating a martial victory or a tomb painting showing scenes from the life of the deceased may seem purely aesthetic, but they had a specific civil or religious job. This isn’t to say that the Egyptians weren’t totally nerds when it came to beauty; they were so extra they didn’t write left to right or right to left, up to down or down to up, they wrote in whichever direction they thought looked the most beautiful. Point is, even if they would drive Oscar Wilde and his “art for art’s sake” posse insane, they did have a concept of beauty that was internally compelling to the civilization. How could it not be? Imagine if your afterlife depended on the artist properly depicted scenes of your life so that the gods remember you, or on the sculptor creating properly spooky figurines to scare of angry ghosts. Art was a part of their every day life, and they believed it to be a part of their eternity. 

Philosophy and Style 

One thing you should know (and probably already do if you go through the trouble of reading these sort of online articles) is that Egyptian art is very symmetrical. Egyptians believed the world wasn’t so much a struggle between good and evil, but order and chaos; this was known as celebrated so that people would play sport games celebrating when the chaos was first pushed back. Thus “art” (I don’t have another term for it, unless we want to go all aesthetic and call it “the beautiful” or something but that’s pretentious even for me) was also a celebration of that order and balance, or “ma’at” (harmony). 

Ma’at was represented in duality, balance between two options, whereas before the ma’at there had only been oneness, a single unregulated chaos. For instance, an obelisk was always made with a twin. Because art was used for religious purposes, and was undergirded by theological principles, it was largely conservative. For the most part, it wasn’t influenced by outsiders (although it influenced outsiders). Although there is some changes, it is very gradual—it takes six hundred or so years for realism to be favored over symbolism, and even then the old symbolic style still pops up. Gods are sometimes depicted with animal aspects. The Egyptians didn’t think there was some guy running around in the sky with a man body and a crocodile head. This is just symbolism and metaphor meant to symbolize an aspect of said god. People were usually depicted in a unique manner, each part of the person was shown in its most familiar aspect: the head and legs are shown from the side, the eyes and shoulders are shown from the front, the torso is seen from three-quarters. Hands and feet were identical. Men were shown with darker skin than women, and people were painted with blue hair to signal life and fertility. People were drawn larger if they were more important, so that a giant pharaoh is often scene crushing his child sized enemies.

Common motifs were important or familiar plants, such as lotus flower or papyrus plants. Other motifs included the bull, a symbol of power, and other common animals, as well as geometric symbols.The pyramids themselves were often depicted as a sign of strength.

Techniques

Egypt had many naturally occurring paints and fine stones for the craftsman to draw on. They did not have good wood, however that could be gotten through intermediaries from tropical Africa, or from Lebanon or Somalian merchants.The two main building materials were unbaked mud brick and stone. From the Old Kingdom on, stone was preferred to mud brick in tombs, but mud brick wasn’t only for peasants as it was even used in royal palaces and army fortresses and some buildings within a temple. 

Paints were made from natural material: black from carbon, red and yellow from iron oxides, blue and green from azurite and malachite, white from gypsum, and mixed with an unknown substance to make it sticky. Paint was used on statues made of wood, stone, or metal.To create a wall relief, the wall would be plastered and sanded, and then a miniature work would be created. The scene would be outlined in red, revised, then re-painted in black. The scene would then be carved along the black lines, and touched up according to the miniature. 

Metal work was used in bowls and jugs, and other flask like vessels. Copper was common until sometime in the predynastic period when tin was added to copper to create bronze. Vessels were beaten into shape at first, and later on made from casting. Metal statues of gods, kings, or even mortals were usually made of gold (it was actually fairly common and so wasn’t as valuable as something like silver), the gods’ color, but also copper, bronze, silver. These were made by pouring hot metal into the cast, or covering a wooden statue with sheet metal. 

Wooden statues were made from pieces of different trees and glued or pegged together. Glass was known, but not commonly used until the New Kingdom, where it was used for amulets, beads, and small vessels such as drinking cups or flasks for precious liquids. It was often used an inlay, as in King’s Tut’s golden throne. This glass was opaque, and often blue. Jewelry was often made via cloisonne, where thin strips of metal are laid within a work and then put in a kiln to create compartments which can be painted or inlaid with jewels. Ivory and bone were also used, and have been found in tombs. Historical Movement

Like most ancient cultures, Egyptian art starts in its pre-history, with rock drawing and ceramics. A few cultures, named after the site of archeological remains, such as El-Amirah and the Naqadah, show red pottery with blackened tops. These show geometric shapes as well as people. In the Badarian graves, there were depictions of animals, waves, and ships. Lines could be filled in with white clays.In the Predynastic period, craftsman could work stones and incorporate semiprecious stones in jewelry. Sculpture began, not showing people (although some vague maybe people maybe spirit female things existed), but with animals. Draws and paintings on pottery could show hunting, boat, and conquest scenes.

But the first item of note is in the Early Dynastic period (circa 3150-2613 BCE) with the Narmer Palette: a two sided (of course) ceremonial plate intricately carved with scenes of unification under King Narmer.  In the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-2181 BC) art throughout the land echoes that of the capital at Memphis. This was considered a high point in Egyptian history, and later pharaohs would occasionally commission their tombs or other important works in this style. This period was known for its idealism and symbolism. It’s of some question as to whether the symbolism was because the artists couldn’t do realism (not just among the Egyptians, but in art in general), but given the ceremonial purposes, I believe that the symbolism and idealism was intentional. It is most famous for its pyramids. 

During the First Intermediate Period (2181-2040), after the collapse of the traditional kingdom, artists had a freer rein. Here, Egypt was ruled by local governors and aristocrats, and without a centralized government, art was dictated by regional preferences. These were mass produced, which enforced the local uniformity. 

If the Old Kingdom was a high point, the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BC) was the high point. This is marked by realism, as well as being more inclusive of the lower class. 

During the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1782-1570) the Hyksos and Nubians held large areas of Egyptians land, but continued the artistic trends of the Middle Kingdom.The New Kingdom (1570-1069 BC), is the time of Egyptian empire and reflects a greater understanding of neighboring cultures. It also shows more of a technical, craftsmanship ability, which was most likely learned from their Hittite allies. In the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1069-525 BC), attempts are made to retain the high standard of the New Kingdom, as well as to include some throwbacks to the Old Kingdom style, but they weren’t fooling many people. From here on out, Egyptian art will reflect more of its conquers, first Persian, then Greek, then Roman.

Going Forward

I’m going to just highlight some things I think might be interesting in a novel.-The interplay of art and connection to the divine is just asking for some sort of fantasy magic system.

-The idea of ma’at and order above everything. It’s definitely just by 21st century American sensibilities, but this idea seems sort of dystopian to me, but in a culture where you depend on the annual flooding of a river to keep from starving, it’s very understandable.

-People are really interested in symbolism. Depicting yourself as having blue hair for all of eternity, and not just because you think it looks nice with your complexion, but because it symbolizes life and of all things, fertility? Really, bruh?

-There’s definitely some comedy potential in the Egyptian use of gold. Some dude walks around and he’s got a gold amulet and has to leave his homeland and thinks from all the crazy looks he’s getting that there’s something wrong with him, but then realizes he just became very wealthy.

[rhuemis]

13

13. Introduce your current party.

hoo boy so we got: 

-Scales

-Rhys

-Jeckyl

-Isiah

imma put the lengthy descriptions under a read more aha

Scales ((I dont think Scales even has a surname lmfao)):

-Warlock but insists that hes the party medic

-A white dragonborn that was born without scales due to a birth defect who has more than a few screws lose, calls himself a ‘doctor’ and we cant quite tell whether thats the truth or not

-Grew up in a brothel and now travels with the party to gain ‘medical knowledge’ whatever that means

-Has dissected the corpse of a literal god, harvests organs from whatever we kill and puts them all into bottles and then offers to transplant them into you if you get even remotely injured 

-Is already mildly possessed but then ate some of the tentacles from a weird squid god for fun and then got DOUBLE possessed and tentacles shot out of his mouth and we had to drag him to a temple 

-Something burst out of his chest one morning and now its his familiar. We were all stood at the door to his room like ‘This is Scales, this could just be part of his morning routine for all we know.’

- Speaks with a heavy German accent which makes anything Scales does like 4000 times better

-Isiah has literally promised his corpse to Scales

- Despite his quirks is protective of his party and deserves a pat on the snoot every so often

 Rhys Lignius

- Half-elf sorcerer that currently has more levels in warlock than sorcerer

- hes the mom friend of the group and is a pretty serious guy, hes the one who gets shit done but not before he monologues so hard that the rest of us party members say ‘oh fuck no im not listening to Rhys’ spiel again’

-Came from a very important family and is very proud of his Latian heritage, doesnt let you forget that hes a big fuckin deal lmao hes on a mission to do something in relation to his father but hes not quite spilled on exactly what yet, hes just trying to get to some ancient ruins

- Is so much of an actual loser that whenever he casts Prestidigitation he clicks his fingers and the whole party has started doing it back at him jokingly

-Despite being a square we all love him and hes probably the most reliable in the group. Lawful Good™.

-Flavours my bacon.

-Is the metaphorical designated driver of the party, cleans up after us shit monkeys.

-Is physically around 22 years old but might as well be 55 years old.

Jeckyl Corvus:

- Newest party member, a half-elf rogue that keeps getting cockblocked from actually stealing anything

-Wrote a really intense anonymous love letter to my character and slid it under his room door at a tavern a few years before the campaign started after watching him perform and recognises Isiah but Isiah doesnt realise it was him who wrote the letter yet

-Spent some time in gay baby jail for being part of a group of thieves that got bamboozled by a rich and powerful family and was abandoned by the people he thought of as family.

-Wanted to be a tailor in the years before his taste for adventuring kicked him in the nards. He ended leaving his family to go and explore but this decision ultimately ended up with his family being stripped of everything they had so now hes plagued by The Guilt™. Wants to eventually save/steal enough money to get his family back on it’s feet again.

-Rugged and handsome but the most important thing you need to know about Jeckyl is that he keeps a pet mouse in his pocket named Rupert and that one day Jeckyl wants to fucking transmute him into an owl or some shit because he just cannot be satisfied huh. ‘Oh Rupert was my only friend whilst I was living on the streets blah blah blah’ yeah sure tell that to his face whilst you go fuckin Fullmetal Alchemist on his ass. Love Rupert for the contents of his character, not his form smh.

-Acts suave and cool but loses all of that composure when it comes to Isiah. Would probably commit sepukku if Isiah died. 

-Has a lot of knives, which Scales finds ‘respectable’. 

-First combat fuckin crits the fish plant man that had Isiah grappled 15ft underwater out of sheer gay panic. RIP Shape of Water fish man, you’ll be sorely missed.

Isiah Vakalyn:

-My character so you know hes....really something. Half-elf bard.

-Comes from a weirdly strict family who were actually fucking cultists and were ((and probably still are)) planning on sacrificing him to a demon or some shit but Isiah didnt even notice this shit and still has no idea. He thought everybody was taught Infernal and that families were just like that. His family told him to become a bard and he obeyed. They told him study and he obeyed. They limited his interaction to the outside world and he only really started thinking for himself after he made his first proper friend who then also later fucked him over real bad.

-Ran away from home after being cucked by his “only friend” into maybe murdering her dad we dunno if he died or not but I sure did stab him a lot. She lied and told him she was being abused by her dad and Isiah saw red and agreed to her murder plot only to be abandoned midway through. He also pickpocketed for her for like a year beforehand bc she said she was poor. She was very not poor. Bring on the subsequent trust issues.

-Is a bard but hates getting attention so he wears a black rabbit mask when he performs in front anything that isnt a small crowd. He found that mask in his house so you know thats gonna be some spooky cult shit.

- Is only 5′4 and is very conscious of it. Luckily the party is very understanding and calls him ‘the halfling’ or ‘the midget’ lovingly to watch him implode.

-Once accidentally stole a dwarven baby. Named it Isiah jr.

-Has a pet eel named Illius who is the most fuckin talented eel you’ll ever find. He glows! He talks! He beats your ass at card games! Translates languages! We found him behind a door that was sealed by magic and was only opened after Isiah played the music notes on the map we found. Those notes were an exert of a song by the most famous of all bards, Rickus Astelyus. Lo and behold behind the door was a huge tanks with a heckin good boy inside and Isiah adopted him IMMEDIATELY. Loves bacon bits and scritches.

-Received an anonymous love letter a few years back that gives him major anxiety and literally avoids the city he got it from. RIP Jeckyl youre gonna have to talk to him about that, Isiah is oblivious and has no idea lmao.

- Loves to eat bacon and recently bought out the bacon from the local tavern. Feeds some to Illius because its what he deserves. He’s also currently carrying a fuckton of bread, cheese, jam, and flour. Food is practically his way of diplomacy as he gives some to whoever he meets. It’s almost like his way of nervous self-defence. When tentacles shot out of Scale’s mouth Isiah just started shovelling bread into the tentacles and Scales woke up feeling incredibly full lmao.

-Has also in his inventory: a gay erotica book, a romance novel in a language he cant read, a rainbow slinkie, a magic mood ring that gives him poison resistance, 6 wolf teeth, a wolf leg bone, some gems, 4 days worth of rations on top of all the food he already has, a violin, a flute, and a fancy lute that he found in Illius’ chamber.

-Hes just nervous but loud mouthed and contradicts himself a lot. Anxious and eccentric. Says that hes just a bard and wasnt meant for any kind of greater scheme but the universe has other plans.

-Was once dabbed at by the god of entertainment, Apollon. ((Apollon is the only god Isiah really cares about lmao)).

and despite him not being in the party anymore im gonna give honorary mention to my favourite skyrim-glitch-of-a-barbarian, Florys:

-Was the character of a guy who played with us for one session. At the beginning of the next session he was on webcam with us all and we were about to start playing when suddenly his camera cut out and he went offline and weve literally not seen from him since. He’s not been online in over a month now. Some common theories in our group is that hes off fighting ISIS or got arrested for weed right there and then.

-Due to this weird player disappearance our DM, Benjamin, had to take control of Florys whilst we looked for a new party member. In the session that the player disappeared from we didnt know if he was gonna come back or not so Benjamin had Florys suddenly contract a horrific stomach bug and was just in the tavern toilet presumably making a fuckin hole in the floor with the noise it apparently made lmfao Isiah actually had to try and play music over the top of Florys’ shitfest at one point and only just managed to drown the sound out. But as time went by days were eventually passing in the campaign and the player still hadnt come back so poor Florys was not having a great time in the bathroom for several DAYS.

-Eventually the DM realised that this player was not gonna come back and that the party was short on a tank so he started piloting Florys for a while to accompany us on our quest ((and miraculously recovering from his terrifying stomach illness)) but hed forgotten how the player said Florys was so just was making shit up on the fly. I specifically remember the original player of Florys saying ‘Oh Florys isn’t like those stereotypical dumb barbarians’ which is why I lost my shit when the Florys being piloted by the DM turned around and said ‘What the fuck is a triangle?’ ... Florys is practically brain-damaged at this point, I think it might be the DMs retribution for the player disappearing lmao

-Threw all of his hand axes into a river during one fight and then into a cieling the next, which provoked Isiah to jokingly call out: ‘Oh, Florys! You’re so handsome and cool!’ which Florys with his last 2 braincells took seriously. The handsome and cool line became an on-running meme and gets used whenever any of us fucks up lmao

-For some reason grew rlly attached to a piano he found in Illius’ chamber and carried it around with him out of two parts stubborness two parts piano LUST.

-We ended up using him as a mule to carry all of our heavy shit bc he’d just do it and he literally wouldn’t think anything of it.

-We found a giant birds nest and Florys for some reason picked it up and carried it away and got fucking kidnapped by a giant bird so now hes literally just in fucking sky somewhere sat in a birds nest and being flown around which is wild bc we expected the DM to just kill Florys but instead hes just in the fucking sky where he belongs. Like legit hes just sat in there. Hes just in the sky. Godspeed.

HEAVES I could write so much more but this is already incredibly lengthy so here take it

also @redthebattler idk if any of this would be interesting to you lmao

[pldcrl]

Walls

My uncle wrote a great essay about history and walls. His name is Peter Vella. He doesn’t have an “internet presence” or any social media accounts, so I thought I would post it on his behalf.

Henry Ford said, "History is (more or less) bunk." He was wrong. Just like his timing for the Model A, and his idea that Adolf Hitler was a swell guy, Henry was wrong about history. History gives us a chance to avoid the mistakes that our predecessors made. Recording and studying human events means we will never have to sport mullet haircuts again, we will never think it is someone's right to smoke a cigarette inside an airplane, and we don't need to go to war to stimulate an economy.

Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order to start the construction of a wall along the U.S. Mexican border shouts that the newly elected president skipped a history class or two.

There have been ten or so major walls constructed in the history of the world. The biggest wall by far was the Great Wall of China. Its length varies depending on who you ask. The most famous portion built in the Ming Dynasty measures 8,850 kilometers. A different source claims the entire structure spans 21,196 kilometers. It was built and rebuilt from 700BC to 1644 AD which is longer than it took to finish the Montreal Olympic Stadium. It was meant to control immigration and military intrusion. However, international news agency GB Times reporter, Riho Laurisaar claims “the Great Wall may have been a manifestation of power that put fear into the hearts of barbarian raiders, but it failed miserably when it mattered most". And, “The Great Wall was nothing more than an ambitious project contrived by a vainglorious emperor, trying to make a clear distinction between civilized people and barbarians”. Now that sounds familiar. Today the Great Wall of China is a tourist attraction.

The Romans were usually pretty bright, yet they built (not one, but) two walls in England. Hadrian; the Roman Emperor from 117 to 138 AD was responsible for the first one. It was to” keep Romans and barbarians apart”. The 110 kilometer wall wasn’t working too well so Hadrian's successor Antoninus built a wall north of Hadrian's to supplement the whole process, and get his name on a wall as well. This second wall was like having a mud room to keep cold drafts from coming into the kitchen when you open the back door; except that mud rooms work. The barbarians (Scots) got by anyway. Hadrian's Wall has become a famous hike and today is a tourist attraction.

The history of Jerusalem is a litany of "build it up, and knock it down" by all the major Fertile Crescent state religions and the Romans as well. The West Wall or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is part of the fortification of the Temple Mount. It was built by King Herod about twenty years before he supposedly tried to kill baby Jesus. The wall around one of the holiest of holy places may as well have had a revolving door on it though. Today it is Israel’s biggest tourist attraction.

The French Maginot Line was not really a wall per se. It was a wall of defence consisting of bunkers strung in a line along the French German border. The bunkers were connected by underground trains and were equipped with artificial sun rooms and gourmet canteens. Built in the 1930s, the line was meant to keep Nazi invaders at bay. However, the Panzer tanks took the Belgian detour route and you could order schnitzel in Paris restaurants a week or so later. The Maginot Line does get tourists, but most of them are German.

If we zip over to Turkey we have the Walls of Troy. This edifice withstood a lot of abuse in a ten year war with Greece about 1190 BC. As the story (myth) goes, those crafty Greeks gave up on knocking the wall down and set up a large wooden statue of a horse stuffed full of soldiers by one of the gates. Curiosity got the better of the residents of Troy and they dragged the faux equine into the secured area. That night the Greek soldiers popped out and the expression, "Duh" was heard for the first time in history. The Walls of Troy are now small sections of stone but are definitely in the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey.

If Donald Trump was a guest on Celebrity Jeopardy he may be forgiven for answering that the Ming Dynasty is a Chinese soap opera, or that King Herod was the guy that opened up that department store in London, or that Hadrian was Rocky's girlfriend, but he should know the story of the world's most recent wall; the Berlin Wall. Built by East Germany (aka the Soviet Union) and eventually covering a distance of 96 miles, “the Wall” marked the region where American and Russian troops had met in their occupation of Germany. After about fifteen years of tense co-existence, the two “allied” victors decided that they would start a war against each other. It was only a Cold War; still, it cost a lot of money, and kept most Europeans awake at night. Starting in 1961, the Berlin Wall became a physical monument to the world’s efforts to avoid a third World War and nuclear devastation. What made the Berlin Wall novel was the fact that it was built to keep people in, not out. This might be the same premise for Trump's next secret project; “The Canadian Wall”. It will be there to keep “Trump Dodgers” from skating across the frozen Detroit River to Windsor, or claiming refugee status when they step off cruise ships in Vancouver or Halifax. The Berlin Wall lasted only twenty eight years and the deconstruction party became lore. This was the only functional world wall that could be witnessed in my (or Mr. Trump’s) lifetime. I did cross it at the infamous Checkpoint Charlie gate. The elevated tourist passage showed me that the Berlin Wall was actually a pair of walls. In between them was the “death strip” consisting of mine fields, speed bumps, ditches, electric fences, and a series of frightening looking steel structures. “X” shaped rough cut metal protrusions with rusting edges were meant to snag would be escapers until they could be shot by guards in towers. Maybe this is where the expression, “overkill” came from.

A beautiful building or sculpture is a testament to the imagination and ingenuity of the human race. The Berlin Wall was all about what ails us; divisiveness, fear, and control. I was there on a gloomy overcast day, and it felt like it was the Wall that was sucking all the light out of the sky. Approximately two hundred people died trying to escape the Berlin Wall. Today it is a tourist attraction.

History demonstrates that only one substantial wall was built in the United States of America; so far. Situated in the city of Boston, the ominous sounding “Green Monster” has been part of the mystique of the Fenway Park baseball stadium since 1912. At almost four storeys high, it was intended to keep non paying spectators from watching the Boston Red Sox games from outside the park. That only worked until television was invented. The Green Monster did serve to keep hits that would have been line drive home runs in most other parks well within the realm of outfielders. However Jose Bautista and a few other players have foiled the Monster on several occasions. Fenway Park holds the Major League Baseball attendance record at 794 consecutive sell out crowds. Many of those would be tourists. Possibly, concerning the rhetoric needed to sell Congress on the idea of the Mexican Wall, Mr. Trump may alter a famous baseball phrase, “Build it and they won’t come”.

The Dutch are known for dykes to hold back the sea, but you may not be aware that they are also responsible for creating a wall that was relied upon to impede the process of millions of invaders. The “modern” contraceptive diaphragm was developed after the vulcanization process of rubber was patented by Charles Goodyear in 1844. Eighteen years later Wilhelm Mesinga not only designed the device but his name would be used on the only brand available for sale for decades. It may be a dubious distinction. Even though one third of American married couples were using the “Rubber Wall” for contraception in 1940, there is physical evidence that the diaphragm was only moderately effective. Some of that evidence may be in the same room as you right now. There are three cities in the world that have been able to advertise a contraception museum as part of what tourists may want to visit; the cities are Toronto, Vienna, and Cleveland.

There were other walls; in places such as Peru, Croatia, Iraq, and Zimbabwe but the recurring theme that comes from this frightfully abridged history lesson is, that large walls do not work as static defense: not for long anyway. It seems the inherent flaw is size. Even if you have tens of thousands of slaves to build an enormous edifice, how do you secure it? A perfectly good soldier is at their post sixty kilometers away from the subverting action enjoying the sunset or playing solitaire on their I-pad.

The total border length between the United States of America and Mexico is 3,201 kilometers; or 1,989 miles for those that live on its north side. There is already 700 miles of security fencing where the Border Patrol feels the majority of illegal action is focused. That leaves a 1200 mile reno. Donald Trump's wall to keep out “drug dealers, criminals and rapists” is going to cost 10 to 25 billion dollars to build. He says he is going to get Mexico to pay for it. That would make his wall historically unique at least. Is it going to be a toll wall?

A wall in this climate zone is going to be hot dirty work to build. Your average American isn't going to want to do this kind of work. So.....why not hire Mexicans. Save them all that travel to do farm work in Ontario or housework in Los Angeles. The trick will be to somehow get them to pay to do the work. That would really secure Don's place in history. But even if he pulls it off, how effective will it be. What about an innocuous bus filled with Mexicans dressed like Japanese tourists; or a giant Trojan Piñata that looks like it just might be stuffed with donuts?

Admittedly there are still large numbers of illegal aliens entering the United States, but the numbers from Mexico have been reduced by more than half in the years of 2008 to 2012 according to a joint study by the University of Texas and the University of New Hampshire. The researchers believe this is due to a drop in the birth rate and the availability of work in Mexico. They go on to suggest that the most recent illegal immigrants are leaving Mexico to “flee violence”. Twenty five billion dollars could go a long way to help Mexico clean up its internal problems, and end the need to escape Mexico for good.

Maybe the whole thing is intended to fail and become a tourist attraction like all those other defunct walls. Maybe there will be a theme park. Speaking of theme parks, the first theme park in the world was built by none other than Henry Ford whose Greenfield Village ironically became a "historical" reproduction of a rural Michigan town site, like the one he grew up in. In his later years Henry spent more and more time strolling around in Greenfield, happy to be in another era than the one he invented. So much for history being bunk.

When the Trump Wall is torn down, like Berlin, there will be a heck of a party. I see a big show with lots of celebrities. The highlight will be the famous Mexican guitarist Carlos Santana playing "Soul Sacrifice" which he scorched through at Woodstock in 1968. Check it out on U Tube. By the way, the walls didn't work at Woodstock either.

In case you were wondering, Donald Trump’s mother was Scottish and his father was German. So his relatives have had experience being on the wrong side of a wall.