#being able to use big words and complex speaking patterns is one of my favorite ways to write | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

etherealtauruss · 4 years

Note

tk being insecure about his body hc? please make it mostly fluffy after the angst. i’m soft 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

so .. i may have turned this into 2k words worth of a fic? enjoy!!!

you need some lovin’ (tender lovin’ care)

read on ao3

The 126 and 130 were responding to an apartment complex fire just off of West 6th Street. The blazing inferno– to everyone’s knowledge– seemed to be purposefully started. Thus, APD, and in turn Carlos, were called to the scene as well. He had to take statements from witnesses about the potential arsonist.

One thing to note: TK isn’t fond of the 130. If we’re being technical, he isn’t fond of one member in particular; Jake Matthews. Honestly, loathe is a better word. TK loathes Jake Matthews.

Jake is Carlos’ ex-boyfriend; obsessive ex-boyfriend, to be exact. Ever since he and Carlos broke it off, he’s had a personal vendetta against TK.

But, it wasn’t TK’s fault they broke up. The split happened 6 months before he and his dad even stepped foot in Austin. And yet, he was still being held accountable.

Jake and TK were complete opposites in every way imaginable. Jake was a big guy. He was well over 6 feet, probably weighed a calm 200 pounds, pretty bulky, and was hung between the legs; if the bulge that graced the front of his pants at all times was anything to go by. So sure, Jake definitely had TK beat physically according to societal standards, but mentally and emotionally? TK came first in that race.

Carlos assured him of that plenty of times before. “Baby, you’re so much better than him. I don’t even know what I saw in that guy.” He nibbled on the shell of TK’s ear and continued, “The way you treat me. Love me. Make love to me. Not to mention that impressive package between those thighs, it’s heavenly...”

TK shivered at the thought of that conversation, mainly because of the events that took place afterward. Point is, TK wasn’t worried. Carlos only had eyes for him and visa versa. Nonetheless, anytime both crews were responding to a call, Jake always had something nasty to say to TK. And for TK to claim it didn’t get under his skin in the slightest? Yeah, that would be a lie.

The worst part about it all is Jake would play coy whenever Carlos came around. Luckily, Carlos didn’t believe the sorry act for a second.

After the conflagration was extinguished, all the first responders made sure everyone was accounted for. The crews started to settle down on the side of the road, catching their breath.

“Hey TK.” TK rolled his eyes, and begrudgingly looked up at the person who was speaking to him.

“What do you want Jake?”

“How’s ‘Los?”

TK glanced to where his boyfriend was standing, “He’s fine. We’re fine.” He paused for a beat, “And don’t call him ‘Los. You guys aren’t friends anymore.”

“What’s he still doing with a pretty boy like you anyways?”, Jake sneered.

“Pretty boy? Really?”

“Did I lie, Strand? You’re not very tall. Your build is mediocre, and I’m sure the situation between your legs doesn’t satisfy your man.”

TK swallowed thickly, trying to keep his emotions at bay. He wasn’t too upset. Jake was targeting physical aspects, and for the most part, he was pretty confident in his body. Or, so he thought.

TK could recognize parts of his piece-of-shit ex Alex in Jake. The confidence he held for his physical attributes had been whittled away to mere nubs during said relationship. Wounds he thought had healed were starting to open back up. Jake and Alex were one in the same. They deserved to be together if Alex ever made his way to Austin.

He felt the blood rushing in his ears. His heart was beating a mile a minute. He wished they’d get another call. He wished someone would rescue him. He wish–

“–I remember when he and I were together, he told me he loved being manhandled. Thrown onto the bed. Hands pinned above his head.”

“You can stop,” TK interrupted, in an attempt to get Jake to shut up.

“After rough shifts I’d make love to him, feeling him all around me, knowing he was all mine. But you wouldn’t know about that would you.”

“Jake, I get it.” TK pleaded. He didn’t need to hear about Carlos’ previous sex life; let alone his fantasies that TK couldn’t fulfill. Why hadn’t Carlos mentioned any of these desires to TK? Carlos wouldn’t leave TK. He knew this but he couldn’t help but wonder if he was ever good enough for his saint of a lover.

“If we’re being brutally honest, you’re not his type at all,” he snickered. “Or maybe you are. He helps people for a living. You’re nothing but a charity case to him.”

“That’s enough.”

Carlos. That was Carlos’ voice. Carlos was here.

TK let out a shaky breath he didn’t realize was stored away. Neither of the two firefighters had noticed that he approached them.

“Jake, you can go now. You’ll be hearing from your chief by the end of this week. Let’s hope you’re not without a job for verbally assaulting another first responder”.

TK silently thanked the angels above. The tears that had welled up in his eyes finally spilled over the threshold.

“C’mere Tiger,” Carlos cooed. He wrapped TK in his arms, running a reassuring hand along his boyfriend’s back.

“I shouldn’t be crying,” he let out a wet laugh. “Sorry.”

Carlos placed a finger beneath TK’s chin, causing his boyfriend to look him in the eyes. Rubbing calming circles on his cheekbones in order to get rid of the stray tears that lingered on his face.

“Never apologize for how you feel. From what I was able to catch, Jake said some pretty disgusting things to you. He belittled you, and targeted your insecurities. I’m so sorry you had to hear that, Ty.”

Carlos sighed, “And none of what he said was true by any means. You’re not a charity case. You’re the love of my life.”

TK shrugged, still not fully convinced. He knew what Carlos meant well, and that he’d never lie to TK, but he couldn’t help the feeling of doubt threatening to swallow him whole.

“How about we get you home?”

“Can’t.” TK mumbled into his boyfriend’s shirt. “Not done with my shift.”

“I talked to your dad before heading over to you, he said it’s fine.”

The couple made their way to Carlos’ patrol car, fingers intertwined. They settled themselves into the vehicle, Carlos placed a loving hand on TK’s knee.

“Are you hungry?”

TK simply shook his head. He couldn’t speak just yet; he knew it’d just result in him crying again.

Carlos stopped at Raising Cane’s on their way home anyways. Though TK claimed not to be hungry now, that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be later once all his worries had been washed away by some good ol’ TLC. The fact that chicken fingers were TK’s favorite comfort food was an added bonus.

They entered Carlos’ apartment and TK immediately shed all of his gear at the door. Again, Carlos engulfed the younger in a hug.

“‘Los?” TK questioned, barely above a whisper.

His partner hummed in response.

“Can we shower together?”

“Of course, love.”

They started towards the bathroom, their food abandoned on the dining room table. TK flicked on the light and began removing all his clothing. Well, almost all of it. He kept his briefs on, thinking back to what Jake had said to him.

“Ty?” Carlos asked. “What’s the matter?”

“I-, well. I-,” TK sighed in frustration. “Is my dick too small for you?”

Carlos was taken back and had to bite his lip to hold in a chuckle at his boyfriend’s brash words.

“I’m being serious!”, TK whined. His bottom lip jutting out to display his infamous pout.

“Baby, you are perfect for me in every way.”

TK crossed his arms. “You’re just saying that because you’re my boyfriend.”

“No.” Carlos started, “I’m saying that because it’s true”.

The older man began to undress as well, “And why are you asking me that?”

TK stayed silent. He wanted to tell Carlos everything Jake said, but at the same breath, he’d much rather not relive the conversation.

Carlos waited a few moments for a reply, stark naked in front of his significant other. His tan body glistening under the glow of the luminous lighting. His muscles that looked like they were painted onto his body flexing. Not to mention the member that was the icing on the cake; perfectly hung between two burly thighs. TK’s cock twitched at the sight of his boyfriend. Had he not been upset, he would’ve jumped Carlos’ bones then and there.

He sighed, “Ty. Baby, you have to tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”

Before he knew it, TK words were spilling out of his mouth like vomit. “Jake said that I don’t satisfy your needs. He reminisced about how you guys used to make love. Told me that you like being manhandled. You never told me you liked to be manhandled. Why didn’t you tell me? I can do it. I’ve done it. Is that what you want? I can work out a bit more, start upping my weight–”

Carlos intercepted, “–Sweetheart, breathe.” They took deep breaths together. “Now, start over, and go slower.”

“Jake basically just reminded me how different he and I are from each other. Which isn’t a bad thing, except it is? Our body types are nothing alike. I like my body; trust me, I do. I work hard to keep it this way, but I had no idea me not being super ripped made you feel like I couldn’t top in the bedroom.”

For the third time that day, Carlos enveloped the younger in a bone-crushing hug. Deft fingers ran through TK’s hair, pausing at the nape of his neck to scratch lightly. TK melted under the touch, practically turning to putty in his lover’s arms.

“Baby, have I ever said anything to make you insecure? Be honest, please.”

TK huffed, “No.” He adjusted his hands so that he was tracing random patterns onto Carlos’ back.

“That’s the worst part about it. You do everything right, and I let your jerk of an ex-boyfriend get inside my head.”

“Well, I doubt I do everything right. But I certainly do make an effort to keep you happy.”

“Babe, it's not you, I swear. Just the shit Jake said was fucked up. It made me feel bad about what I can’t do for you.”

“Can I let you in on a secret?”

“No time like the present.”

“I like taking care of you in the bedroom. I take it Jake never told you why we broke up?”

“Nah, don’t think that’s ever going to be on his agenda.”

“We split because he was too controlling”, Carlos revealed. “You know better than anyone else, I love taking care of people. So, imagine my surprise when he didn’t let me take initiative in anything. Not the bedroom. Not where we went on our dates. Not even what was for dinner.”

“But you love cooking?”

“Exactly. He didn’t even let me do what I loved most. I couldn’t take the constant nagging, and the unnecessary controlling demeanor, so I broke it off. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“So you mean to tell me, he was deflecting? That whole time?”

“Yep.”

“I feel like an idiot” Tk replied, letting out a soft chuckle.

“No way you could’ve known. And Ty? You mean everything and more to me. What we have is irreplaceable. Every inch of you deserves tender loving care. From your alluring sea-green eyes to your incredible compassion.”

TK captured Carlos’ lips in a sloppy kiss. All the emotions of the day embedded in this act of affection. Between the intense licking into Carlos’ mouth, and their naked bodies pressed against each other; things were heating up, fast.

They pulled away from each other breathlessly, shallow pants exiting their lungs.

“Our food is probably ice cold by now, Tiger” Carlos said, turning the faucet to the shower, allowing the water to heat up.

“It’s fine. We can just reheat it in the air fryer.” TK replied, going in for another searing kiss.

The two stumbled into the shower, relishing in each other’s presence. The food could wait.

#tarlos #tarlos fic #tarlos prompts #tk x carlos #tk strand #carlos reyes #911 #911 lone star #ronen rubinstein #rafael silva #fluff #tiny bit of smut #tiny bit of angst #i swear this was supposed to be an hc #but it got really long #so here we are

37 notes · View notes

thearcanaartificer · 4 years

Text

Okay! These are not the next ones I had, but I crunched through this ask list faster. Here is the original post. I will be cutting off my post a bit because I will only be doing half here and half in another post.

Thank you to those that are reading this and enjoying it. If you ever want to chat, I love talking.

OC asks that reveal more than you think.

1. Do they sleep with a stuffed animal? If they have multiple, who’s the favorite?

She has a few. She made a lot of stuffed animals when she was regaining a lot of her motor skills as a way to practice stitching and pattern making, though most she donated to the local orphanage for the children there and a few have been given to her pets. She likes making stylized bunnies, dogs, cats, birds, and teddy bears. Asra had to hide most of her old ones she had from their childhood- even the ones she had made him when he was ten.

Her most prized one is actually one that she found that Asra didn’t hide very well. A black bunny with mismatched button eyes. She calls it Pumpkin (Yes, she had just bitten into some of Sesali’s pumpkin bread when she named the thing). It’s not well put together and the type of stitching that was used is the wrong choice- like a surgeon had sewn it together like they would a laceration- and messy, but the thing is worn and obviously well loved. She felt attached to it from the first moment she discovered it.

She use to chew on its ears a lot when she was first recovering from her amnesia as a from of comfort. She’s stopped since then, but she takes the best care of it since its the only part of her past that she seems to be able to hold on to without headaches.

2. Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child?

Yes to all three! Though she is a bit of a scatterbrain when she’s in the middle of a big thought or job, she’s actually very good at taking care of things. Plants are easy enough, just water them and make sure they are maintained and make sure they get the right amount of sunlight. Boom. Done.

Pets, she has a multitude and some of them are exotic, so she has a few rescues scattered around Vesuvia to keep them properly cared for and has actually hired other Vopels to keep them for her. But she has at least five at home that are hers to care for and she takes very good care of them. Her dog is almost always by her side, her cat is intelligent enough to find her when he wants her company, and her familiar is a bird, so he comes and goes but she always has bones ready for him if he doesn’t want to have to scavenge.

3. Ask them to describe their love interest.

Big dumb, leggy bird of a man.

Okay, she knows he’s not dumb. He’s honestly one of the smartest men she knows- but he does dumb things when left unsupervised! So when she’s trying to describe him in a way that doesn’t give away the fact that he’s Julian Devorak- the wanted ‘murderer’ of the Count- she calls him that.

But if she’s asked to describe her love the right way? He’s a handsome man with the prettiest wild russet red curls of hair, strong nose, and a charismatic energy that will just pull you in. He wears mostly dark colors with at least one flashy bright one for dramatic flair and stands above the rest of the crowd with his height. He may be wearing his eye patch- no he doesn’t need it, its for the aesthetics, thankyouverymuch. He’s brilliant and kind and despite his towering, threatening looking frame, would rather cling tightly to her hand and draw courage from her presence. But he’s brave with or without her. He’s tender and altruistic and plays the part of being confident, but can get nervous and anxious if left alone in his head too long.

4. Do they look good in red?

She thinks she looks good in anything that isn’t predominately white or pastel. So red? Throw in some black or dark greys and yeah, she could work it.

She’d prefer orange though…

5. Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?

Yes, she’d give you one. No, you don’t want her too. Hers are a bit complicated and unending and always to the wrong audience. One minute she’s giving some normal speech about whatever the occasion is and next, she’s trying to teach a bunch of drunks the nonlinear properties of the magic realms and how to navigate their way through time lapses, its like the folds of fabric with how they intermingle and touch from one time to another, and the different realms can be tricky based on their patterns and-hey Juli put me down! I’m trying to give a speech about- why are we leaving?!

6. Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is?

Old Glory, surprisingly. She’ll take most advice from other Vopel women and even Asra, but she’ll toss out a lot of their sillier ones- like don’t date Ilya (Asra’s). But anything Glory tells her tends to be very good advice (she’s never given her bum advice) and she’s far better with reading people than Odelia and so she’ll just default listen to her on a lot of topics.

She has a long list of who she won’t take advice from, but, to no one’s surprise, she’ll instantly tune out Valdemar’s advice. They rub her wrong and even if the advice is solid, she’ll ignore it because why would she ever want or take their advice?

7. Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words.

Smol chaotic neutral.

Controlled, chaotic exuberance.

8. Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them?

The more complicated the puzzle, the more interested Odelia is. She has a deep love for whodunit novels because she loves a good mystery to piece together. Her mind loves puzzles of any sort. Magic and science both have the allure of being a puzzle, especially when she’s working on projects that require them to work in tandem (hence her unique brand of magical artificery). Asra use to bring her little puzzles to fidget with as she reclaimed the dexterity of her fingers and she’d just sit there playing with them- before she could even properly speak again- and figure out how solve them by herself.

9. Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)?

She talks to them. A lot. Her plants are her babies and she’ll baby talk them. Her dolls have ‘personalities’ based on weird things they’ve done (like refused to stay in a particular spot so its persnickety about where its to sit or has fragile stitching so it’s an old lady stuffed toy). And books- she’ll talk to them about their condition or if they fall and land funny. A ‘there you are you sneaky thing’ to books that had eluded her.

But Odelia is a talker and it does help her focus on the here and now (rather than get lost in her thoughts) by talking out loud- even to inanimate objects.

10. What age do they most want to be right now?

The age she is now? She’s not one to daydream about her age or whatnot. She’s in her very early thirties and the world is her oyster. She’s fit and capable and her age is just an unimportant number to her. (especially since she doesn’t remember the previous years before ‘waking up’ anyhow.)

11. They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save?

Haha, she’s already well off, so hurray more money? She’ll just invest the money responsibly as she did the money she had prior to that.

12. Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)?

Oh she’s a sucker for a good romance. If she likes the two characters, she’s in their corner rooting for them. She likes the wittier ones that banter more than anything. But she does get annoyed by impractical drama. Excitement! Danger! Ah YES! ‘Oh no who do I pick? I’m stuck between two choices!’ Grow up and outright pick. Let the one you don’t choose have a chance to get over you and move on with their life and find happiness (or pick both of them if that is a possibility! Just pick!). Because nothing is worse to her than pulling on the heartstrings of someone you aren’t going to pick.

13. Name one thing their parents taught them.

She doesn’t remember her birthparents. They were never a part of her life. Her birthmother briefly, but, when her magic’s rare classification came to light, she was taken into the care of another to raise and train her in the ways of their magic style. But she has had parents in her life. The most current ‘parent figure’ she has (one she remembers) is Old Glory (a nickname she gave the older woman and uses regardless of if the woman is present or not. A bad habit.).

She taught her through her actions that kindness isn’t reflected out outer beauty. Though most think she looks scary, as gnarled and scarred as she is (has a very mean resting bitch face), her heart is kind and compassionate. She tends to children with the utmost of patience, though tolerates no blatant disrespect. She remembers the names of everyone she’s been introduced to and what was last told to her about their day or life. Volunteers her free time to visiting the less fortunate and charging them no fee for her services. Hard shell, ooey, gooey insides.

14. Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? Do they have any?

Oh she has guilty pleasures. A lot of the sweets she buys at Sesali’s bakery are guilty pleasures of her because she buys them by the dozens. Also mystery novels. She will re-read mystery novels she’s already read because she still likes the narrative and the build up to the big reveal. And theater. It’s fun, no matter how obvious the plot is sometimes.

15. What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?

Oddly enough, she finds sitting down to do her hair or having to apply make up or even more complicated outfits a waste of time. She’s very utilitarian in that regard. A ponytail will keep her hair out of her face so why spend hours learning how to do complicated braids simply because they look pretty?

Don’t be mistaken though. If Portia or Nadia or Julian want to do her hair or make up or dress her up- the time is no longer wasted. They enjoy doing those sorts of things and letting them enjoy themselves, despite how much she doesn’t understand why its enjoyable to them, means the time is well spent.

On her own though, nah. She’d rather do anything else- just throw on some clothes, toss her hair into a pony tail, and get going.

#ask Odelia #The Arcana Game #arcana fan apprentice #fan apprentice #odelia the artificer

1 note · View note

stevenuniversallyreviews · 5 years

Text

Episode 127: Are You My Dad?

“This might be serious.”

Those of y’all that check out my episode rankings at the end of every post know that my favorite “normal” episode of Steven Universe (so not Steven and the Stevens or Hit the Diamond, which are in their own category of perfect character studies) isn’t Lion 3 or Alone Together or Jailbreak or The Answer or Mr. Greg or Mindful Education. And, spoiler alert, it won’t be Jungle Moon or A Single Pale Rose or Reunited or Change Your Mind. It’s Mirror Gem.

So it’s not a shocker that I’m drawn to another episode that’s the beginning of a two-parter closing out the first half of a fifty-odd episode chunk, which starts out goofy but grows increasingly ominous and ends in a confrontation with a new blue Gem. In terms of tone, Are You My Dad? is an incredible exercise in tension, albeit one that benefits from two prior episodes’ cliffhangers in a way Mirror Gem manages without (but to be fair, Mirror Gem arrives when we still don’t know there are other Gems, which gives its mystery a major advantage).

The silly beginning here is strengthened by the return of all three original Crystal Gems, who haven’t been in a room together since Rocknaldo. They’re increasingly out of focus as we get into more Steven-centric storytelling, and I’ve heard this lobbed as a criticism of latter-day Steven Universe; while I agree that these characters are terrific and am always down to see more of them, I can appreciate that their big moment is Act II (Seasons 2/3), and Steven’s is Act III (Seasons 4/5). If Act I is about creating Steven’s universe, and Act II is about developing Steven’s family, it’s because Act III, which the other two have been building towards this whole time, is about Steven.

Episodes like Storm in the Room and Lion 4 fundamentally don’t work with the Crystal Gems around, and our last two episodes place Steven among Beach City citizens to prime us for a finale about Beach City paying for Steven’s past. So I get why we haven’t seen the trio as a whole for a while. But I sure am glad to see them again.

Amethyst’s offer of beans and suggestion to barter them for donuts is great, but come on, nothing beats Garnet and Pearl’s sand castle. I love glimpses into the Crystal Gems’ leisure time independent of Steven (he’s around, but clearly wasn’t involved with the construction): because the Gems are so often characterized in relation to Steven and/or in big personal ways, it’s a pleasant change of pace to just see them reading the paper in Watermelon Steven or assembling furniture in Shirt Club. Doug Out and The Good Lars are celebrations of the mundane tainted by the supernatural in their last moments, so it’s perfect to ease us into this new story with more slice-of-life lazing.

Still, this beach day is a backdrop for Steven wondering where his mail is (in the first of many callbacks, we get his Mr. Postman song from all the way back in Cheeseburger Backpack). On its own this might not be a big deal, but we know that Onion and Sadie were being stalked by new Gems and that Lars didn’t show up at the potluck (which, for now, we can lump in with other disappearances), so even though Steven doesn’t know anything sinister is afoot, Jamie’s absence sets off warning bells for us.

The scenes that follow build dread with masterful efficiency. First we get an uncharacteristically worried Sour Cream, which stands out even more than normal because we just saw him behaving as usual in The Good Lars. His concern is tempered by fun visuals: our MISSING poster is a repurposed WANTED poster, and we get a neat flashback aesthetic as Onion’s haunts are seen as if through an old-school View-Master (calling back to Onion Gang, Arcade Mania, and Onion Friend). While the audience knows new Gems are to blame, Steven is able to write this off as another weird Onion thing, and is more disappointed than concerned when he hears the Big Donut is closed.

Even now, Steven thinks things are probably fine, assuming Lars and Sadie are blowing off work to watch scary movies (calling back to Horror Club and The New Lars). It’s here where we’re introduced to the most clever element of this first act: Barb Miller. She’s connected to Sadie, so she can reveal that her daughter never came home after the potluck, but is also connected to Jamie, who she sent out that morning with Steven’s package. And she’s overprotective enough that she doesn’t make rationalizations like Sour Cream and Steven did for Onion (although she does reference Island Adventure, finally acknowledging how weird it is that three kids went missing for days and nobody seemed to care). In one fell stroke, Steven realizes that this is an alarming pattern, and starts looking for answers at last.

But he still hasn’t caught up to us. Sure, he knows his friends are missing, but he hasn’t seen the looming shadows from the end of Doug Out and The Good Lars, so when he comes across Aquamarine he has no reason to suspect her of kidnapping. A lesser show might build suspense making its characters too thick to put obvious hints together, but Steven Universe makes it clear that none of these threads are obvious to Steven. A more cynical version of the character might deduce earlier that this new Gem is bad news, but despite everything he’s been through in Season 4 he’s still empathetic to his core. After all, the pivotal event of this season was his own dad’s disappearance, so he’s primed to help a kid in a similar situation.

But finally, after knowing more than Steven from the beginning of the episode, Aquamarine asks the titular question and brings us back into the unknown with him. “Are you my dad?” is a brilliantly weird question: of course it’s odd for anyone to ask this of Steven when the answer is so self-evident, but it’s even odder for a Gem to do so. As Steven later tells Connie when she suggests the stranger might be a hybrid, this is a full Gem, and Gems don’t have dads.

Steven’s council of Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Connie shows that his instinct isn’t to go it alone, lending weight to his solo sacrifice at the end of this two-parter. But for now, it offers a moment of respite by reveling in the artistic differences of these characters; on the one hand, it makes little sense for Steven to not just draw Aquamarine himself, considering he’s the one who saw her and we know he likes drawing from Shirt Club and Open Book and Barn Mates, but on the other hand, this scene is a delight. Connie draws a manga-influenced figure using an amateur ball and plane method, Amethyst goes abstract, Pearl undersells her dramatic flourish, and Garnet just draws herself; I actually think Pearl’s is closest, but we go with Connie’s and set off.

This is the second time since Lion 4 where we’ve explored the potential for other half-humans like Steven, and in my first viewing of Are You My Dad I saw it as foreshadowing for fellow hybrid. The trend never really continued, and while it seems like a red herring in retrospect, the close proximity of two stories about Steven maybe not being alone shows just how alone he really is. There’s nobody else like Steven, and while this makes him special, it adds to his burden as a bridge between worlds, a burden that’s partially thrust upon him and partially created by his own sense of outsized responsibility.

Connie lightens the mood as they search by inventing exciting new scenarios to explain this new Gem, contrasting her further with Pearl. Connie’s art is cutesy while Pearl’s is dramatic, and where Connie sees hope for a new friend, Pearl is the only member of the team who advocates preparing for a fight. We don’t go very far down the “optimism is wrong and cynicism is right” road, because that isn’t at all what this show is about, but I love that youthful innocence from both Steven and Connie isn’t championed as an absolute positive in this story.

The light mood of two friends hoping for the best leads to Steven making a game of looking through Onion’s woods, and his facetious search of an empty log ends up getting him trapped. Again, this show isn’t here to build suspense by dumbing down the characters: Steven needs to be out of commission for Connie’s kidnapping to work the way it does, but getting stuck comes from realistic playing around rather than stupidity or ineptitude. And it continues the thread of others getting punished for Steven’s perceived mistakes, which of course adds to his guilt complex (and is furthered by Connie getting kidnapped because Steven shouted her name). These are small moments of getting us from Point A to Point B, but it’s so important that this crew pays attention to such details for the story and themes to flow smoothly.

Aquamarine’s questioning becomes even more confusing when she corrects Connie, saying she’s not looking for “your dad” but “my dad.” Connie’s condescending Tarzan speak is a bit out of character, but it at least makes sense that she wants to simplify her language for someone who doesn’t seem to understand the meanings of words. Aquamarine’s hidden nastiness emerges, with a wicked snicker at Connie’s “Me Connie” routine before she calls for Topaz.

While I prefer Mirror Gem to Are You My Dad? in most regards, the reveal of Topaz takes the cake in the horror department. She’s announced by thundering footsteps that clear birds from the surrounding trees, and emerges first as a shadow before we see our missing friends trapped inside her body. None of the captives’ mouths are free except Onion’s, and he's nonverbal, so their struggles are joined by muffled and incoherent screams while their captor lurks in silence. The soundtrack lurches into unnerving strings as Connie panics at the sight, substitutes more typical digital music as a moment as Topaz splits up, and returns to even tenser strings as Connie is viscerally absorbed into the giant Gem. As with the Ruby Squad’s giant fusion, it’s a brutally practical application of something the Crystal Gems have made beautiful, and Steven is as helpless as Connie to stop it.

A key element of Steven’s martyr complex is that his sense of ownership over everything bad that happens around him is unwarranted, and this sequence is a perfect example. Yes, he’s stuck in a log when Connie is taken, allowing him to blame himself for the kidnapping, but once he’s free he doesn’t stand a chance against Aquamarine’s magic wand. In the best-case scenario, where he and Connie manage to fuse and fight off Topaz, Stevonnie would still lose: as we see in I Am My Mom, even four Crystal Gems working together are beaten with ease by the wand’s ridiculous power. If anything, getting stuck in a log was the only reason Steven was able to regroup and fight back later in the first place. But in the moment, it seems like he made an avoidable mistake that cost Connie her freedom, which is certainly on his mind when he makes his sacrifice.

Aquamarine follows the Holly Blue Agate mold of brief but memorable villains, and while both are petty monsters, Holly Blue Agate’s Professor Umbridge has nothing on Aquamarine’s Eric Cartman. It’s one thing to let middle management power go to your head, but Aquamarine is cruel for the simple joy of being cruel, an attitude captured magnificently by Della Saba’s refined British accent. She taunts Topaz as readily as her enemies, and unlike the fiercely loyal Homeworld villains we’ve seen before, she sees her duty as a waste of time that she begrudgingly fulfills because she’s the best. Like Kevin, this is a troll who’s just mean to her core, but she unfortunately has a lot more power than your everyday toxic douche.

As is standard for two-parters by now, we end with a cliffhanger, this time evoking Steven’s Dream (another first-parter that ends with a new blue Gem). A loved one has been taken, Steven blames himself because he put this person in harm’s way and couldn’t stop it, so now it’s time for a rescue mission. An unprecedented streak of consecutive serialized episodes already began with Doug Out, but now we get a proper two-parter, then a four-parter, then a six-parter, then another two-parter all in a row. It’s a special time in the series, highlighted by Earth plots and Homeworld plots colliding in ways that backdrop Steven’s role as a child of two worlds, and Are You My Dad excellently escalates the plot.

In closing, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this is the final episode from the amazing Raven Molisee. Other veterans like Joe Johnston and Kat Morris ended their roles as lead-credit writer/storyboarders to fulfill other roles for the show, but this is it for Molisee’s tenure as an active member of the Crewniverse. Her work speaks for itself: she helped introduce Lapis in Mirror Gem, Peridot in Warp Tour, Jasper in The Return, Yellow Diamond in Message Received, and now Aquamarine and Topaz in Are You My Dad?. She helped bring to life the comedy of Kindergarten Kid and The New Crystal Gems, the tragedy of Rose’s Scabbard and Monster Reunion, the horror of Frybo and Keeping It Together, the wonder of An Indirect Kiss, the catharsis of Earthlings, and so much more. We were lucky to have her, and I really hope she didn’t leave because she was abducted by aliens.

Future Vision!

Steven is down to watch a movie about an orphaned Gem whose parent figure left for Beach City and never came home. So were the fans, apparently.

If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have inconsistencies…

The ages of Lars and Sadie were nebulous at first, but it’s more or less been established that they’re teens of sorts by now, which makes Barb’s declaration that Sadie’s an adult confusing in a way that I find surprisingly annoying. It’s really not a big deal, but it bothers me way more than your average nitpick.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

It’s not unheard of for first-parters to make my greatest hits list: Mirror Gem is certainly one of them, and we’ve also got The Return and Steven’s Dream. But it’s hard to put an episode without a proper ending up with the best, and despite its wonderful tone, meeting Aquamarine lacks the conclusive impact of meeting Lapis, we don’t get a huge moment of Steven summoning his shield and protecting his team, and Aquamarine isn’t a Big Deal like Blue Diamond. I still love Are You My Dad a lot, but this is a hard list to crack and it does feel like half an episode when viewed alone.

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

When It Rains

The Good Lars

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Doug Out

Are You My Dad?

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

6. Horror Club 5. Fusion Cuisine 4. House Guest 3. Onion Gang 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

(It took some serious sleuthing, because the amazing Are You My Mother parody image is unsourced on Google Images and comes from a TeeSpring shirt that is no longer available, but I tracked down the artist as Zaccrim.)

#are you my dad #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

31 notes · View notes

uzumaki-rebellion · 6 years

Text

Black Boys Bloom Thorns First: Volume 2, Chapter 6

"Loving you has taken time, taken time But I always knew you could be mine I recognize the butterflies, inside me Since it's gonna be made tonight, tonight All you gotta do is say yes…"

Floetry – "Say Yes"

N'Jobu waited for Califia outside of his apartment complex.

The fifteen-story off-white building was full of working-class families, but it also had some sketchy characters who hung around the basketball court adjacent to the property. There was only off-street parking available. N'Jobu wanted to escort Califia inside so that folks hanging around outside could see who she was with. Residents gave him a lot of space and were happy to have him living in the building. When the block got hot or some young knuckleheads popped off, N'Jobu tended to be the peacekeeper and the ass kicker. He had a scuffle with a few ruffians his first week in the building, and once he reached for his waistband most folks thought he was packing and let him be. Word got around not to fuck with the barber on the fourteenth floor. Especially since he really was strapped now.

He saw Califia pull up in her teal hatchback and he hopped into the passenger seat to guide her to a parking spot. Walking back with her he wanted to hold her hand, but he strolled close to her, making eye contact with a few men loitering near the entrance.

They were quiet on the elevator together, so he gave side-long glances to her outfit. She had changed from teacher gear to hanging-out-for-happy-hour fits: a simple long sleeve black maxi dress with black ankle boots.

She followed him to his two-bedroom bachelor pad. His neighbors across the hall, two attractive women who worked retail, were stepping out of their apartment when N'Jobu was opening his door.

"Hey Joseph," one of them cooed as they let their eyes flit across Califia on their way out.

"'sup," N'Jobu said.

He peeped Califia checking out the women as they sauntered over to the elevator. When she turned back to look at him, he had his door open.

"Heyyyyy, Jo-seph," she teased.

"Stop," he said smiling.

"The ladies in 1402 seem very friendly."

"They are."

"Hmph."

He held the door open and let her walk in first. Califia looked around. His furnishings were simple: a second-hand couch he bought from a thrift store that had a hideous striped pattern that he found charming. Two old bookcases and a brass and glass shelving unit that belonged to the previous tenants that he found useful and sturdy. A small coffee table with matching end tables that he bought from a cheap furniture store. A tv stand and an old tv set rounded out his humble abode. His bedroom and kitchen furniture he ordered online, along with a full cookware set and dishes. The carpet was a forgettable bland beige.

"Kick off your shoes and get comfortable," he said reaching for her purse.

She gave him her handbag and he hung it up on a wall shelf near the front door.

"You want anything to drink?"

"Sure. What do you have?"

"Juice, water…"

"No wine?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Water then."

She sat down on his couch and he went into his kitchen to retrieve a glass for her. The batch of jasmine rice he made was ready. All he needed to do was fry up the vegetables and shrimp he had prepped. An old favorite he knew she liked when he made it in the past. Spicy plantains with onions, peppers, and mango relish. Easy to make quickly.

He brought her a cold glass of water and returned to the kitchen to cook. She wandered in to watch him.

"Should I at least set the table?" she asked observing him cook.

"No. You just let me cook. I'll do everything. Relax."

She sat at his dinette table and watched him fix their late dinner. He prepared the table for them and plated their food. She still had a healthy appetite and when she was smacking her lips and humming as she ate, he knew he'd made a good choice for their meal.

"Damn, I missed eating this," she said. She gulped down some water and dipped her finger in the mango relish still on her plate and nibbled it down, cooling her tongue from the peppers.

He cleared up their dishes and stuck the leftovers in his fridge. She followed him back into his living room and sat next to him on his couch.

"Thanks for dinner," she said.

They stared at one another for a moment, and then her eyes fell away from his. A quiet shyness came over them both. She turned her body to face him.

"We're married?" she asked.

As always, she was straight to the point.

"In a manner of speaking—"

"No, you said I was your wife. You were quite adamant about that."

"In my culture, the acceptance of the ring signifies a bond, a marriage bond. There would have to be a ceremony to formalize it, but getting the ring and seed…pretty much a wrap."

"You should've told me that."

"Would you have gotten the piercing if you knew? In this country, it doesn't mean anything, but back home…it's a sign of commitment."

"Yeah, I probably would've still done it. I was committed to you."

"Zinzi broke off the engagement."

Califia's face grew softer in her expression.

"It became a really big deal."

"Why did she break up with you?"

"She eloped with her lover and my family wanted to do damage control by keeping me hidden away in the military. We uh, we had a bit of a reckoning between us when we returned from D.C. that last time I saw you. She was with her lover, and I was with you…when we returned home…"

He wrestled to find words to explain the turmoil. It was an emotionally draining experience. On the flight home, Zinzi cried and there was no comforting her. Back in the palace, they both struggled to come to terms with not being with who they loved. In essence, they couldn't fake the funk anymore. N'Jobi approached his brother privately and tried to break down what was happening between them. T'Chaka was upset, but he held Zinzi in high esteem. She was already a part of his inner circle on national projects. She was even being considered as a future replacement for Kholiwe on the Council of Elders.

The look on T'Chaka's face when N'Jobu told him that Zinzi was in love with Gcuma was an accusatory one.

"Did you force her into his arms?" T'Chaka asked.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"I know about your indiscretions, Baby Brother. I also know you have never wanted to get married so soon. I would have thought that you of all people could be a little more careful with her heart."

"She has been in love with that man a long time. Even before she was approached for marriage by me. We have been friends maintaining a lie that can no longer be kept hidden. Her desire is to marry him. I want her to."

T'Chaka wanted to contain Zinzi, convince her to disregard the general and honor her duty to the Udaku family, but she ran off with Gcuma and married him in another city and the family was in an uproar. Their father was outraged that Gcuma could betray the family, and of course, tongues were wagging about the trip to D.C. and Gcuma being around Zinzi. N'Jobu didn't have to worry about Yejide or Ometeko revealing his liaison with Califia. They were loyal to him.

Their mother was concerned with rumors and the truth getting out. T'Chaka was more concerned with N'Jobu being able to save face and being viewed as a weak cuckold. N'Jobu decided to play into that scenario by acting the part of a hurt but understanding ex-fiance who didn't want Zinzi or her family punished. The War Dog expansion came right on time, and N'Jobu campaigned to get an assignment out of the country. Lagos. Marrakesh. Joburg. His parents wanted him closer to the family and tried to compromise by suggesting he take an assignment in Niganda as Special Ops, but N'Jobu played up the fact that he needed distance to get over his loss of Zinzi.

Leaving far away from Wakanda was his only option, and it would help cover the marriage of Zinzi when it did come out. They could spin the story that his sterling military career put a strain on their engagement and they broke it off mutually. And Zinzi could still be a part of the council with no stain on her name in the public. Marrying a high-ranking general in charge of training and stationed in Birnin Zana would be seen as an acceptable consolation. Zinzi's family would have to get over Gcuma's age and previous divorce.

He was sent to Marrakesh first. Then a short stint in Accra before being shipped to Joburg.

For a year he toiled in the muck and mire of military politics and subversion in South Africa. Every War Dog had to come back to Wakanda each year for a month-long psyche evaluation and debriefing before returning to their work. During his annual check-in, N'Jobu learned of the Oakland assignment. He went hard for it. His superiors agreed he was the right person for the job. By that time Zinzi already had her first child. A boy. All he could remember was how much she wanted to make babies with Gcuma. She was doing it.

N'Jobu sat on the Delta plane to America thinking about having a child of his own. He remembered that Califia said she liked the name Erika or Erik if she had a baby. So be it. He would give their child, (the one that only lived in his mind as he flew across the ocean), a middle name. N'Jadaka. A gender-neutral name that would fit any child that came from Califia's womb placed there by him. N'Jadaka- One who brings down thunder. What did Califia say the name Erik/Erika meant? Ruler?

He mulled the name over on the plane. This child who had yet to be created by them. A ruler who brings down thunder. He was going to speak this child into existence with her. They had lost one already. But not this next one. No, this next one would make it all the way into the world. He would see to it.

"Zinzi has the family and person she always wanted. I want the same, Califia. This job I have is covert and I will have to return to Wakanda every year to check in with my people. No one but you and I can know the true details. We have this one chance to be together…"

"But?"

"But what?"

"C'mon now. There's always some caveat. Something that could change at the last minute."

"As long as I toe the line, keep up with my reports, and never interfere overtly with the goings on in my sector, I can be here for…years."

He saw her eyes widen a bit and she scooted a little closer to him.

"How would this work? I mean really work, N'Jobu? You just live like a regular random barber and we get together whenever?"

"We are expanding our global observations-"

"Global observations? Is that code for spying?"

"Yes. We have been expanding our observations in major cities. The only thing I do is live here, watch, and report—"

"What are you trying to find out?"

"The less you know the better—"

"No. That's not how this is going down. You have been secretive with me since the first day you met me. I don't want secrets or omitted facts. You tell me what your people want to know or else I'm walking—"

"My country has natural resources that we have protected—" "Oil?"

He didn't want to give away too much. White lies had to be given.

"Yes. Oil, cobalt, gold, tantalum, diamonds. Many countries want to get their hands on it. Exploit us. Our only protection has been to stay low key. To extract these items would destroy our environment. We are poor in the Western sense but there are forces gathering to use us and our land. Some of those forces are connected here."

His face felt hot. He had to walk a fine line. He had to live with this woman in plain sight but also keep her safe. They were just white lies…no really just an omission. The true resource was vibranium. She would never know about that. Never know how far ahead his people were compared to her own.

"We also want to know about some disappearances happening here—"

"Disappearances?"

Her face appeared anxious.

"In parts of East Africa, there have been people going missing. Not like regular missing persons…and not just East Africa. Europe. Southeast Asia—"

"One of my students was taken away under mysterious circumstances. Him and his whole family."

Her lip curled up a bit.

"I was questioned two weeks ago by men who were not the Feds. I'm sure of that. They were evasive and wanted to know if Terrell….that was my student's name…they wanted to know if there was anything unusual about him."

"Was there?"

"Yeah."

"What could he do?"

"Heal people. He could heal people. Moods. Physical ailments. I told him and his parents that they had to be careful. What is going on, N'Jobu?"

"I don't know. I'm here to find out."

"This won't be dangerous, will it? You won't have to do anything that will get you hurt, right?"

Stress marred her facial expression.

"I just watch, listen, and report."

"Didn't your people think you'd be recognized once you came back?"

"No. When I lived here, I was only in places tied to the university. I've blended in completely."

"But there are people around who may remember you when you were with me. If we go out together—"

"It's why I chose the name, Joseph. People would think I Americanized my name. Most didn't know my last name, and you never gave any real details about me. We'll work out something to tell your family. And Bakari."

"And Rolita, Soliel, and Serah."

"True."

She took a deep breath.

"Is this really happening? I'm not going to wake up and you'll be gone again, right?"

"I'm here. There will have to be layers to how we live. I have to keep this apartment. Stay in it at least two to three times a week. It has to look like I'm the only one who lives here."

"My townhouse…I was only able to get it because of you. The money you left me. I used most of it for a down payment. That makes it your home too."

He smiled.

"You'll stay with me there for most of your time?"

"If you will allow it."

She scooted in and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I will allow it."

She pressed her lips into his. He closed his eyes and swept his tongue inside her mouth. So close. They were so close to realizing their life together. He pulled her onto his lap, one hand supporting her neck and the other draped around her waist. Her kisses were wet like fresh morning dew and he couldn't stop himself from lifting her so that she straddled him. She pulled up her dress so that her warm thighs could spread across him untangled. They were all full lips and open-mouthed exploration. He couldn't get enough of her. Had to hold onto her for dear life. She was his life. His whole life right now.

He broke away from her first and nuzzled his forehead into her cheek and then her forehead.

"My people can never know about you."

"But if we have a baby…don't you want your family to know?"

"They would drag me back."

"You're willing to do that? Live with that?"

"I want to be here. With you. That's all I want."

"God, N'Jobu, baby, that's a huge sacrifice-"

His mouth overpowered hers. He had to make her know that she was worth the sacrifice.

Adjustments.

They were hard at first.

The first thing Califia had to do was bring N'Jobu back into the fold of her family and hope they believed the story of him being disowned from his family after leaving the military. It took her father months to be comfortable with N'Jobu being with her, especially when he learned of her going through her surgery without N'Jobu being by her side.

Nana Jean was easier to win over, especially when she saw them together. Bakari flew out to see them during a weekend break and it was good to see the two men patch up their friendship. It was obvious they missed one another. Soliel, Rolita, and Serah supported the reunion too.

Casual friends and associates just absorbed him as part of her life. At the barbershop, he was JoJo or Joseph. Same at his apartment. Around her family, he was Dayclean or D.C. In their townhouse he was N'Jobu. In bed he was Jobu. It was only in their house where he would drop his American accent and allow the lilt of his Wakandan native tongue to return.

When he went to his apartment without her, she sometimes worried about the women across the hall from him. He was playing a role. What if part of that role-playing involved being involved with people because he needed information from him? The two women, Dionne and Alma, were single and too familiar with N'Jobu for her liking. Califia didn't feel jealous per se, just concerned with their overly flirty behavior. And N'Jobu's insistence that Califia not come to his apartment that often weighed on her mind. He wanted to keep work and home life separate. Her stomach would feel queasy when he was not in bed with her and sleeping in his apartment.

Their work schedules took time to adjust.

N'Jobu worked long hours and Nate was giving him more responsibility, grooming him to be a manager out of fear that N'Jobu would leave to work for another shop or open his own. His reputation had grown and his skills grooming and making men look like new money were in greater demand. It caused some friction among the other barbers with seniority, but Nate didn't want to lose N'Jobu's clients. Some were Pro athletes from the Giants and 49ers. Coins were flowing in.

Because of this, Califia often came home from teaching and wouldn't see N'Jobu until much later in the evening after he was exhausted. Their sex life went into a natural transition. It was still satisfying when they did have it, but it wasn't as often. A lot of it had to do with his having to be in the apartment to keep up appearances. It was beginning to put stress on her. She didn't want to complain. She was happy to have him back and they were building on their relationship, but if they were going to have a baby, it appeared that she would be doing the bulk of the parenting.

They agreed not to start trying for the baby until the following month, and she was already off of her birth control. They found a doctor they liked that understood her medical history and appeared to have a good reputation. If they timed it right, she could hopefully carry her baby and have it during her spring break. She could get maternity leave and have the free summer months to be with the baby before heading back to work again. But there was no guarantee her body would just do what she wanted it to do. The research they both did showed that it could take a year to conceive for some people who were actively trying.

She knew that because she was high-risk she would be tenser trying to conceive. She started looking around for a doula to help her navigate a full-term pregnancy. She had heard and read horror stories of Black women dying recently from childbirth in local hospitals. Maternal deaths of Black women were high. N'Jobu's sister-in-law was still on her mind. Her death still gave Califia chills. She wanted an advocate to walk her through the entire journey in case doctors tried to talk over her or dismiss her fears. She remembered the case of a famous athlete who had the best doctors in the world, and she still almost died because her medical team didn't trust that she knew her own body and that she knew something was wrong after pushing out her child.

Califia was ready. She wanted a baby. She planned the timing for a baby. She wanted to have their baby set up right.

But she needed her man at home with her and between her legs to make that happen.

Walking around their house she found herself bored and checking the phone every twenty minutes. He said he was coming home early tonight. He was nowhere to be found. She sat down on the recliner that she bought him for his birthday. She could smell remnants of his cologne in the headrest. Perturbed, she grabbed her keys and her motorcycle jacket.

It felt good to ride her bike. She was tempted to ride to his apartment, but what would she say to him if he was there? I'm checking up on you? I don't trust people around you? I have some doubts about us?

She rode out to Lake Chalet restaurant for a glass of wine. It was a venue that stayed open late and had a nice water view. She ordered herself a carafe of Sauvignon Blanc and sat outside. She had to enjoy alcoholic beverages as much as she could before she got pregnant. She had tenure now for teaching, and still smoked an occasional joint during holidays and the summer, but now she was slowly eradicating all her vices to prepare her body. This would probably be her last glass of wine for a long time.

She checked her cell, but there were no messages from him, and it was already eleven at night. A fog was rolling in. The restaurant was shutting down, so she gulped down the last good swallow of wine and headed back home.

Pulling closer to her neighborhood she noticed street lights and house lights were out all over. The darkness mixed with the fog was eerie and she had to ride slow to maneuver her way home. She parked her bike and used her cell phone to light her way to the townhouse.

Inside the house, her cell light revealed N'Jobu sound asleep on his recliner with his jacket and shoes still on. Light snoring greeted her. She reached down and gently shook him. His eyes reacted to her cell light.

"Why is it dark in here?" he asked.

"Power outage. It's dark all up and down the street. What time did you get back?'

"Been here for about an hour. Had to do some things at the apartment."

He sat up to kiss her. "You've been drinking?"

"I was waiting for you and got bored. Went to the Chalet."

He stood up and pulled out his cell. She followed him into their kitchen where he pulled out some mini flashlights.

"Where did you stash the candles?" he asked digging around a cupboard near the fridge.

"They broke when the box fell. There are some tea candles upstairs under the bathroom sink."

They went upstairs and he helped her light several tea candles sitting inside of small round candle holders. They spread them onto both of their bedside nightstands and the glow from the orange holders gave the room an ethereal ambiance.

She changed into a short nightgown as he took one of the flashlights into the bathroom so he could see as he showered himself.

She crawled under the covers of their bed and waited for him.

He walked into the room nude and still drying off, placing the flashlight on his side of the bed. She watched him towel himself down, her breath still catching in her throat while looking at him. His nudity was still so beautiful to her. He laid the towel across a small stool.

"What?" he said when he caught her eyeing him.

"I like watching you dry off."

He slipped into their bed next to her and pulled her into his arms.

"I got caught up with some things I needed to take care of—"

"You didn't call me all day."

"I'm sorry. A lot was going on and I had to get reports completed and sent before I leave," his eyes closed and she felt his body settling down the way it did when he was ready to go to sleep.

She didn't like the sound of him saying "leave". He was due for his annual check-in back in Wakanda. His first one since they were back together. He was flying out in a week.

"I wish you would've called me. I thought maybe you had left without saying goodbye…"

He kissed her cheek.

"I'd never do that to you again."

She rubbed her hand on his chest.

"You will come back, right?"

She felt her body clench up, the anxious tension making her feel rigid and cold. He rubbed her shoulders and lifted up her chin.

"Is that what has you so worried these last few days?"

"Yeah."

"It's routine. I've done it before. Thirty days there, and then I'm back on the plane."

"What will they do with you?"

"Evaluations. Debriefings. After that, I'll spend some time with my family and then I'm back here with you."

She hated appearing helpless or weak in front of him. He always stirred up such intense emotions within her. She didn't like acting like a crybaby, but she really felt afraid. Their love had always been topsy-turvy and uncertain, and she couldn't help feeling that same way even though he tried to reassure her that things would be fine. She worked hard not to press out any tears between her eyelids.

"Hey, don't worry. I promise. I'm coming back."

She released a small shudder and he shifted his weight, lowering her head onto her pillow. She could see the flickering glow of the candles licking across the ceiling of their bedroom and tracing the shapes of their shadows.

"I'm coming back. And when I do, we'll make our baby. Okay?"

She nodded her head. His index and ring finger stroked her from her temple to her chin. He lowered his face toward her and kissed her. Just their lips touching. He pulled back and studied her face.

"I love you," he said.

She started cheesing so hard that her face felt tight. "I love you too," she said.

"Show me," he said with a teasing quality in his voice.

She kissed him again, lips only, and then she opened her mouth when his tongue prodded her with insistent licks. Tender and slow, they took their time for a long time until she started nipping at his lips, her signal to him that she was damp between her legs and needed more from him. He pulled back from her face.

"Kissing is never just kissing with you, girl," he said. She could hear the strain in his voice. It had been some time since they had kissed like this. He stared into her eyes and she could tell that he was ready for something more. It had been over a week since they had been intimate.

She unlaced the top of her gown and his eyes watched her hands free her breasts for him. His hands reached for her hardened nipples first and then he was clasping each breast, massaging them.

"I wonder how big these are going to get," he said and she giggled until his mouth latched onto a nipple and he suckled her. Fingers from his other hand stroked and teased her other nipple. He took turns catering to each breast and her clit thumped like a bass drum keeping time with his ministrations. When a nipple popped out of his mouth with his lips wet with saliva, his eyes had changed from soft to determined.

"I can't wait for you to feed my baby with these tits," he said plying her legs wide open. He pushed up her nightie from her hips up to her waist. He propped up on his knees and when her eyes dragged down to his waist, he had his full erection already in his hand stroking himself. He ran his thick fingers around the head of his dick and stared at her tits. She reached up and pushed her breasts together for him.

"Ah, yes…feed my baby, huh, girl. You'll do that, right?"

She nodded and he pressed his tip against her clit and rubbed it. She felt her legs quake and pulled them up.

"I'll put a baby right in this pussy…right in this good pussy…let me put this in you…okay?"

She nodded and he pushed forward, filling up her insides. He watched her play with her nipples for him and his first hard thrust took her breath away.

"Jobu," she whimpered pointing her toes up to the ceiling where the candlelight continued to dance for them.

He took his time with her, his eyes still watching her face and darting down to watch her chest move.

"I need to enjoy these big tits before I have to share them, huh?"

They both started to laugh even in the midst of his long strokes.

"I can't wait baby," he said.

Her breath became uneven as he hit a spot inside her pussy that caught her off guard and caused her toes to curl. His eyes closed when he hit that spot again.

"Oh shit, you feel good. Got my balls tight already, baby."

When he hit another angle that surprised them both with how good it felt, they both groaned.

"Get you some, baby," she encouraged, still tweaking her nipples.

He sank down deeper then pulled all the way out.

"Shit," he gasped. He pushed her legs wider and moved his head down to her folds and lapped up her juices with delicate swipes from his lips and tongue. She was nearly crawling the walls when he sucked on her clit and plied her clit ring with an eager tip of his tongue. He lifted up when she began squirming and sank his thicker erection back down into her walls.

"You'll let me put this baby in you?" he asked.

She was lost in the rhythm of his strokes and murmured yes. A rough hand from him gripped her left breast and squeezed it. His eyes sought out hers.

"Tell me you want to have my baby," he said.

His eyes were glassy from the candlelight and his face looked so vibrant and alive. The passion in his voice was unmistakable. She wound her hips and pushed back on his dick. She felt his balls smashing into her ass as he rotated his hips. He matched her thrust for thrust and her mouth flew open when he slowed down and pressed deeper into her. She arched her back. Their eyes were still locked together.

"Califia, tell me…please…" he gasped.

"I want to have our baby…Jobu…oh…Jobu…"

"I'm not pulling out…"

She rested on her elbows keeping her eyes on his. His dick felt so good. More than good. Perfect. She kept her legs up as he claimed her body over and over, the hunger in his penetration stripping away any preconceived notions that they were going to make a baby when he returned to her. N'Jobu was ravishing her with the intent to put their child inside of her now. He was buried deep within her and he wasn't leaving until his cum was swimming in her womb.

Her fingers sought out her clit and she plucked at her clit ring. She felt like she was going to cum, but he pulled out yet again and feasted on her pussy. She let her legs fall back onto the bed, but his hands pushed her thighs back up as he tasted every part of her down there. When she felt the prick of tears springing forth and cascading down her cheeks, he fell upon her again, the heat from his cock plunging back into her depths. The grip of her arms around his neck anchored her to him. His lips were in her ear and his pants were tormenting her. He was keeping her on the edge of her orgasm.

"I'm going to make you cum so hard on my dick," he choked out. Her eyes were back on the ceiling. Their animated shadows made her smile. God, she loved this man so much. She sought out his lips and kissed him within an inch of her life. When his mouth went to her neck and he sucked on her spot, more hot tears flowed from her eyes. She couldn't take much more. And since he wasn't changing positions, she knew he was on a mission. A tickling sensation spread from her clit to her anus. The time had arrived. Her body was going to spiral out of control. He must've felt it. He smothered her lips with his mouth, and when she clawed at his back, his body jerked.

"I'm about to cum, girl," he gasped and slowed his hips to crawl.

"Cum baby," she coaxed.

"I want you to cum first…please…I'm 'bout to bust…fuck."

He pressed into her all the way.

"Cum for Daddy…Califia…shit…cum for me so I can give you this baby."

Califia ground her hips into him so that the swollen nub that thumped in glorious pleasure pressed down on his cock.

"Bay-bee—"

"Yes!"

She said no more as her walls spasmed around him. He gripped his hands around her ass and pumped into her, his voice growling out expletives.

"Here it comes….here it comes….here it comes….here it comes…fuck…oh fuck…!"

She squeezed her thighs around his waist and let her feet strike his ass as he spilled everything he had into her. His hips pounded into her as his heavy dick drained all his passion deep into her womb. It took him several pumps to finish and when he was through, he collapsed and couldn't move for a long time. Only his haggard breathing let her know he was still alive. She chuckled and stroked his scalp.

When he was able to drag himself off of her, his dick was still hard.

"I can tell you right now, my ancestors felt that nut," he said, and Califia howled.

"That is a terrible thing to say!" She rolled her eyes at him.

"No, it isn't. Shit. I almost passed out. I can tell you right now, your ass is pregnant."

She giggled and he kissed her.

"Look at this shit. My dick is still hard."

They both stared at his length.

"That pussy has my shit bewitched, goddamn, girl."

When he recovered, he made her sit on his face. His tongue fucked her good and she came all over his mouth. Lifting her up, he sat her on his dick again, making her face him.

"Ride me," he demanded.

She clung to his shoulders as he lifted her ass up and down. "Bounce for, Daddy."

He watched her dominate him, her tits jiggling the way she knew he liked. She threw back her shoulders so they could bounce more for him and the groan that came from within his throat made her cum fast and hard on him again.

"Oh fuck…Jobu…oh fuck—"

"Yes, baby. It's all for you-!"

She saw his mouth fly open as his eyes hypnotized her.

"I'm about to make your pussy sloppy," he growled. His hips snapped up into her and his release made her clit throb again.

By the time the candles had burned down and out, N'Jobu had flooded her pussy to the point that her opening looked like Niagara Falls with cum spilling out in a great deluge. They were hot, sweaty, and very content with one another.

With his head on her chest, she felt him stroke her stomach, his fingers warm on her tattoo of his name.

Three weeks after N'Jobu left for Wakanda, Califia stood in their kitchen and made herself a big pot of chicken tortilla soup. As she cut up fresh cilantro, she felt the membranes in her nose sting something awful. She stopped cutting the cilantro and went to a separate cutting board to prepare the chicken. Pulling back the plastic on the pre-cut chicken strips and rinsing the meat, she switched out knives and then stopped. The odors were getting to her.

She stared down at the food she was prepping and put down the knife. Everything smelled pungent and her nose crinkled. She remembered this feeling. She remembered this reaction.

She didn't need to pee on a stick to know.

Taking a step back from the cutting board, she palmed her stomach and took a deep breath.

There was no doubt in her mind.

She was pregnant.

Chapter 7 HERE.

youtube

#njobu #n'jobu #black panther #blackpanther #eriklives #babyerikgetsmade

17 notes · View notes

chiseler · 6 years

Text

FATS WALLER: Baby Elephant Patter

Was Fats Waller put on this earth to send up inane pop songs, or did Tin Pan Alley busy itself churning out an endless supply of vapid tunes just to feed his enormous appetite for ridicule? Either way, it wasn’t a bad deal: while he was irrepressible in his vocal shenanigans and merciless in his mockery of cornball lyrics, Waller also bestowed on assembly-line songs unwarranted beauty. His touch on the piano was like a hummingbird’s wings, like sunlight scattering on moving water. The great clown of jazz, Thomas “Fats” Waller belongs, with Oliver Hardy and Roscoe Arbuckle, to that brotherhood of fat men whose girth serves to counterpoint their buoyant grace and delicacy. His music is at once thundering, voluminous, and dainty, like the “baby elephant patter,” he invokes in “Your Feets Too Big,” or like one of Disney’s hippo ballerinas twirling on pointe.

Waller’s own compositions are subtle and elegant, never hard-selling their melodies, but floating with insouciant ease and lingering like a complex perfume. His best songs were written with lyricist Andy Razaf, whose full—indeed overflowing—name was Andreamenentania Paul Razafinkerierfo, and whose great-aunt was the queen of Madagascar. Razaf’s lyrics for “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose” fit the tunes so well that the words and music seem to be born from a single thought. He also wrote the bitter lyrics for “(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue?” which started as the complaint of a dark-skinned woman over men’s preference for lighter complexions (“All the race fellows crave high yellows”), but which Louis Armstrong stripped down and turned into an angry lament about being judged by one’s skin color. This transformation wouldn’t have worked so well if Waller’s melody hadn’t had the depth and authority of the blues.

Fats Waller is often accused of having wasted his vast composing talents, and he never earned a full place in the Great American Songbook despite the popularity of his two best-known songs. But he turned out a lot more delightful if too little known songs, from catchy toe-tappers like “Crazy ‘Bout My Baby” and “Aintcha Glad?” to lovely, softer tunes with a pensive touch, like “Blue Turning Grey Over You” and “I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling.” It is proper to lament that he didn’t record more instrumentals displaying his full musical talents, and that he was forced by the commercial demands of his record label to be instead an entertainer and comedian—but his comic performances are so marvelous that I can’t put my heart into such a complaint. After all, great musical comedians are rarer than great pianists.

The triteness and sentimentality that plagued popular song of the jazz age was Waller’s unfailing spring of humor. (The glories of Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hart et al. rose above this morass, but Waller rarely got to sing any great songs besides his own.) Once you’ve heard him make light of a shopworn lyric, you will never again be able to hear a straight rendition without snickering. Above all, he gleefully skewers the melodramatic hyperbole larded into love songs: if you break my heart I’ll die. In “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,” Fats updates this to, “If you break my heart I’ll break your jaw and then I’ll die,” and in “Stay,” a duet with a female singer, when she sighs lugubriously, “And please believe me / Without you I would die,” he interjects, “’Course, I ain’t gonna let her die—no, I might kill her lightly…” He salvages (and savages) “The Curse of an Aching Heart,” a self-pitying bit of rubbish, with a spoken introduction: “Yeah, this is me—look at me, look at me! I look like something the cats had in the alley last night…” Then he sings the rest of the song like a drunken Pagliacci. Listen to a lot of Waller’s recordings, and the whole enterprise of the love song teeters on its throne, raising the question of whether passion can coexist with a lively sense of the absurd. (Irving Berlin wrote a song on this subject, lamenting, “I want to be romantic, but I haven’t a chance, / You’ve got a sense of humor, and humor is death to romance.”)

Alfred Appel, Jr. justly titled Waller the “King of Razz.”

All this clowning can’t conceal the iridescent brilliance of his playing, with its springy stride rhythm and gossamer arpeggios. No other pianist gave a more accurate demonstration of “tickling the ivories.” Occasionally, as though giving voice to his piano, he would cry, “Aw, the ticklin’ is so terrific!” He punctuates instrumental sections with exhortations to the band, a six-piece ensemble dubbed His Rhythm: conversing with the soloists (“Boy, would you plunk them strings? Plunk ‘em, plunk ‘em!”), and the instruments, as when he demands of a disgruntled-sounding muted trombone: “Who is you growlin’ at, woman?” He knowingly and sarcastically uses this kind of fractured grammar, so offensively imitated by white lyricists like Berlin (“It’s just the bestest band what am, honey lamb”), then turns it on its head by translating “your feets too big” into the peerlessly pompous, “Your pedal extremities are colossal.”

All the interjections, wordplay and verbal slapstick were ad-libbed, as he plowed through piles of mostly mediocre or worse songs he’d never seen before in marathon recording sessions for RCA Victor, fueled by sandwiches and gin. He veers into a prissy, whining falsetto or a goofy operatic basso profundo; scats, baby talks, reacts with surprise to the lyrics he’s singing, and enacts little spoken dramas in the background. But for all his hamming and volcanic spirit of ridicule, his teasing is never mean-spirited, and now and then he gives a straightforward, tender rendition that elevates a potentially cloying song like, “My Very Good Friend, the Milkman,” or reveals an unexpected gem like the charming tribute to a liberated woman, “A Little Bit Independent.” Despite his comic bent, Waller’s singing has far more heart and warmth than reptilian crooners like Rudy Vallee put into their high-pitched drone of seduction.

He made far fewer film appearances than one would wish, since his facial expressions are as finely calibrated for comedy as his voice. In Stormy Weather (1943) he does a duet with Ada Brown, accompanying her as she belts out a low-down blues and slipping in hilarious asides in response to her allegations of mistreatment (“Suffer, excess baggage, suffer!”), while his chubby features rearrange themselves into a mask of supercilious disdain or flinch in fastidious dismay.

Even his eyebrows had rhythm. Thick, black and extravagantly arched, they had the springy calligraphy of Hirschfeld’s pen-strokes, and when he sang they waggled up and down, saucy as chorus girls’ hips. His face was moon-shaped and, in black-and-white film, almost moon-pale, a striking backdrop for the eyebrows, the huge mouth daintily outlined with a mustache, and the round black eyes, which rolled dramatically or narrowed to sleepy, mischievous slits. A derby tilted over one eye completed this cartoon-like, yet minutely expressive face.

Alas, he died in 1943, not yet 40, at the height of his popularity. The cause was pneumonia, but his system was worn down from too much touring, too much eating, too much drinking, and the stress of legal wrangling over alimony payments. He was the son of respectable, strait-laced parents, his father a Baptist minister; young Thomas used to accompany his services on the organ, which remained his favorite instrument. As a teenager he played in movie theaters, and his recordings on the pipe organ use its vast palette to surprisingly light and graceful effect, creating watercolor-like washes of sound that still swing. His vocal mannerisms often show the influence of preaching, with call-and-response patterns and shouts of soul-fired joy. Predictably, his parents were opposed to his becoming a musician, no doubt predicting he would fall into evil company—as he did if the story can be believed that he was once kidnapped at gun-point and made to give a command performance at a birthday party for Al Capone. If true, this speaks well of Capone’s taste. It’s something to imagine, this meeting of two men who were both, in their very different ways, experts at misbehaving.

by Imogen Sara Smith

#Imogen Sara Smith #Fats Waller #The Chiseler

8 notes · View notes

valenshawke · 6 years

Note

Identity Ask- 1&3!

identity asks… oh shit

3. list your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

I’m limiting myself to five.

Claymore - Clare

Death Parade - Chiyuki

My Hero Academia - Izuku Midoriya

Violet Evergarden - Violet

And not to be an anime/manga-cliche-riddled-mess

Deadwood - Al Swearengen

1. if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

I’m answering these as to what I was watching/reading/listening to during my late teens/early adulthood as they either proto-formed most of political and social ideology while other things better informed me later. But without these, probably would have turned out different.

Watch: Uh… man… this is gunna be terrible. But probably watch The X-Files, Law & Order, and the first two seasons of The West Wing. The X-Files kinda got me somewhat deep into conspiracy theory circles for a bunch of years before the right wing really got deep into it and it became a mess of fascist white supremacy. Law & Order cause I wanted to be Jack McCoy for a lot of years and he is an influence as to how I lectured when I was teaching. Plus, his righteous sanctimony is something identify with since people do consider a sanctimonious prima donna and drama queen. The West Wing is probably a shocker because that show first about 4 seasons (when Sorkin wrote it) was fucking idealistic as hell and a nice counterbalance to the Bush administration. I’ll also toss in Stargate SG-1 because I loved that show and it replaced The X-Files as must-see-TV after the movie.

Listen: Metallica. If you’re a male, and you like heavy metal, at some point… you listened to Metallica a lot (or Megadeth if you hated Metallica and thought Dave Mustaine was the superior guitarist and songwriter). This WAS the band of my high school years. And Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and … And Justice for All were all great in terms of social commentary on politics, corruptions, religion. I listened to Metallica a lot, and I mean a lot, while I was reading what I’m going to talk about in a bit.

The Black Album also means a lot to me since my first girlfriend in high school actually introduced me to the band and told me her all time favorite song was “The Unforgiven.” I listened to it and it’s still my all time favorite song by Metallica and, AND, I got to see them play it live in December. A moment I will never forget (I also recorded it and bought the official live recording of that concert).

Read: I give this answer a lot but it’s been awhile and I’ll give a why on what someone would read: Dune, specifically the Dune Chronicles. The original six books. I was actually going through my replies one night and someone @thetwistedmentat asked my thoughts on the fourth book, God Emperor of Dune. So I’ll try to cover it all briefly here…

Still going under a cut.

When I was 16 and read the first four books, it really did change how I viewed the world. About 2.5 years earlier, I became an atheist, which went over real well in Catholic school. I was already the ostracized kid in Catholic school, so this added to it. I guess I had a lot of questions on morality and how things really were.

When I read the first book, it really opened my eyes. No, I didn’t get the subtlety or all the commentary the first time I read it, but I got the broad strokes and I got older and learned more, I started to understand the references and the complexity of what Frank Herbert was saying.

Messianic figures are, by-in-large, a bad idea. Either because they become a prisoner to their ideas and mission or don’t have the courage to do what it is needed if they’re smart enough to realize, “Hey, being a single ruler with religious devotion is a terrible thing.”

Dependency on a single resource to move a system’s economy is… a terrible thing as well.

Social engineering (a more complex and devious form of socialization) is a terrible thing and can lead to terrible outcomes.

Religion and government being one and the same… is a terrible thing with terrible outcomes.

Cultural and evolutionary stagnation is… A terrible thing.

Complacency is… A terrible thing.

The ecology of a planet can give us clues and inform us of what a society holds sacred or important. Which also ties into #2.

People tend to drop Dune after the second book or criticize the first book for pretty much the same reason. Dune has been criticized as a colonial white-man’s fantasy because the “hero” wins at the end of the first book. As one gets closer to the end, Paul Atreides makes more more comments about a terrible decision he has to make, a Jihad that is coming, and billions that will die. People will die under and because of his name. When you get to book 2… Frank Herbert takes a wrecking ball to the entire notion that Paul is a hero. Paul compares himself to Hitler for love of Teresa of the Faint Smile. And no, this isn’t Frank Herbert was a Nazi or a sympathizer. For Frank Herbert, this was the clearest way for him to say Paul Atreides was evil, a coward, and weak. Frank Herbert literally said Paul is someone who “thinks he is God. “

And he leaves those terrible decisions to his son, Leto Atreides II.

In the third book, Leto and his twin sister, Ghanima, have the same power Paul had, the ability to see the future and the ability to tap into both sides of their genetic memory and Leto struggles with the decision to take on the skin of the Sandworm.

What is the decision? Save humanity. Because on it’s current path as outlined by points 1, 2, 3, 4, & 6… humanity will meet its end. Again this is a galactic empire but it can be controlled by one person who controls one resource.

Which actually leads into the second criticism I actually read very recently. That the books still fall into the strong-man political leader/fascist leader to solve the problems. And I’ll admit, that is a strong criticism if you discount the nuances Frank Herbert brings and the ultimate goal Frank Herbert apparently had in mind (According to Norman Spinrad, Frank Herbert actually detested the royalist politics he wrote about, which is pretty clear, and that the universe would eventually move to some kind of true democratic confederation).

Yes, both Paul and Leto (especially Leto) were strong man/fascist dictators for all intents and purposes. But both clearly could see into the future and had pretty much all of human history in their heads to realize humanity, as a group of people, naturally fall into the trap of charismatic leadership and authority. It’s actually rather easy to do if you examine just how Paul becomes a messiah to the Fremen (which is an explicit criticism of the Catholic Church and its role in European Colonialism).

And this gets into an overall theme in many of Frank Herbert’s work: Harsh social and environmental conditions can produce genius or people able to survive. At the micro-level, you have the Fremen, who can best the imperial militaries best.

At the big, macro-level, Leto’s oppression is meant to foment rebellion, is meant to make people angry generation after generation, is meant for people that want freedom, to never be under the rule of one person ever again, is meant to make him the ultimate symbol of evil everyone can agree upon (sound familiar anime fans?). They must call him Shaitan. He must be remembered as a Tyrant. As evil. He must die in a certain way. The problem with humanity, and you can see it to this day, is we forget the mistakes of the past. Leto’s goal:

“When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak, they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. If they find their quiet security, they squirm in it. How boring they find it. Look at them now. Look at what they do while I record these words. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the memory of Leto’s peace shall abide with them forever. They will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation.” - Leto Atreides, The God Emperor of the Known Universe.

It only takes 3500+ years.

There’s also just a lot of gems about leadership, bureaucracy, and the idiotic repetition of history in God Emperor of Dune. The Dune Chronicles aren’t very action-based, there aren’t prolonged battles that are written out. Dune ends with a duel, Dune Messiah has a few moments of violence with stone burners, and a few deaths at the end, Children of Dune has a very sad written death of one of my favorite characters. God Emperor of Dune probably is the closest something heartpounding as Leto’s goal is ultimately achieved. Heretics of Dune again has some moments of violence. Chapterhouse: Dune actually has a battle sequence written out. After that, there are no more Dune books.

“But-”

THERE. ARE. NO. MORE. DUNE. BOOKS.

Why I became a sociologist? Why I ended up reading Marx & Lenin? Why I’m so critical of the intersection of politics, economics, and religion? Here you go.

This isn’t to say stuff HASN’T influenced me later. I’d also suggest reading books by Mira Grant and Ann Leckie, as well as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and mangas such as Claymore by Norihiro Yagi and Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa or watch Code Geass, M*A*S*H, and The Wire. Just that the Dune Chronicles was the first, and probably, most important step.

#long post #An Anon drives by...#ValensHawke gets asked #ValensHawke answers

3 notes · View notes

stormecloudyy-blog · 7 years

Text

Summer Solistice

The stench, the stench of summer sex And CK eternity, oh, hell, yes - Fall Out Boy

Just some summer type vibes Shawn Mendes smut.

Placing my sunglasses over my face, I scan the beach to see if he is around. Instead, there are just a few random people enjoying the hot August day, paying no mind to nothing except the endless sunshine and the salty promise of the ocean beckoning oh so sweetly just yards away. Perhaps it is too early for the beach to be more crowded, but I anticipate the respite I am finding is going to end the moment he makes his appearance. A part of me should be angry knowing my peace will end, but I am accustomed to the adjustments I must make in order to make what we have work out.

He always tells me, “This is how the world works, just part of being famous.” He says it all nonchalant and humble, like he is talking about something so simple. Like being famous isn’t a big deal at all, and I still can’t comprehend how he doesn’t see being famous as a big deal. But who can fully understand the complex inner workings of the mind of Shawn Mendes? No one, that is whom. Hence, I have learned to acclimate to his personality the best I can while not changing who I am. Love is compromise, he tells me, not changing completely. Otherwise, I would not be the same person he fell so deeply in love with.

My iPhone pings to indicate I have a new message. Suppressing the urge to chuck the damn thing in the ocean, I scan the message over my sunglasses to see yet another message from my best friend to see what I am up to. I send her a quick shot of the beach and toss my phone back onto the blanket beside me.

“You are the most stunning person I have ever seen on a beach in my whole life.”

I look up at the shadow cast over me by Shawn, grinning at me with a mischievous glint and sinewy arms resting on his hips.

“You have a lot of pretty words, but can you back up that talk with actions?” I tease biting my lip and raising my eyebrows at him in challenge.

He chuckles before dropping to his knees in the sand, reaching for my legs with his long fingers and pulling me to him. He wraps my legs around his waist and puts his arms on my shoulders like we don’t look like some weirdos being all tangled up on the beach. But he never seems to care. When it is just us, he looks at me like I am the only one in the world for him.

“Is that better?” he whispers against my neck, his breath warm and slightly ticklish to me. I can smell the ocean and sun against his skin, one of my favorite scents of the moment to commemorate the first time we made love on the beach late at night when we were all alone. But then again, every memory with him is going to be my favorite.

“Maybe,” I tease. I kiss him with a mwah sound and laugh.

“I found a nice little spot on the beach I think you may want to check out right now,” he informs me, sliding one of his hands to the top of my hip where it meets the waist band of the shorts I am wearing. He lingers there for a moment before grazing his fingers lower and stopping right between my legs. “I need you so much and right now.”

My breathe hitches, feeling his fingers teasing me in such a public manner. “I-”

“Let’s go. Now.” He pulls away from me, setting me down and then helping me to stand. He picks up the blanket I was sitting on and tosses it over his shoulder, walking in the direction of this secret place while expecting me to just follow. I quickly grab my phone and rush after him, noticing the way a few women are giving him appreciative glances. He doesn’t notice any of them since he is too focused on his destination. I stick my tongue out at one girl giving me a death glare and place my hand on Shawn’s back to just say he is mine and she can fuck off.

We walk for a little bit before we are right near the same place we were last night, but this is more secluded. There is a small cropping of rocks that keep the view from the beach hidden, and we are far enough from the hotel it doesn’t seem likely someone is going to stumble upon us easily.

Shawn throws the blanket down without caring and then turns to me with a smirk on his face. “We are all alone here... what could we possibly do?”

"Shawn, we should probably figure out some kind of..." I am stumbling over my words, not sure what I was trying to say or if my words are even making sense at this point.

Shawn leans in close and buries his face in my neck. He breathes me in and begins to run his fingers up and down my arm. Shudders run up and down my spine. He grabs my hand and pulls me so we are face to face.

"What do you think we should figure out at this very moment?" He speaks in a low voice, beginning to kiss up and down my neck. He is doing a wonderful job at making me forget what I was supposed to be saying. All I can focus on is the way his lips are making my body want him so much. Shawn is kissing me, and I could not help but shudder again. He pulls me down next to him on the blanket with a cute little grin.

This boy has an impact on me, and I am positive there was no way I could ever say no to anything he wanted from me. Not when he kisses like that... I cannot resist and I let myself kiss him back. I climb on top of him, kissing him with everything I had. This is all I want to focus on right now. Straddling Shawn and kissing him like my life depended on it.

The kissing between us becomes more forceful. I took his shirt off of him and removed my tank top quickly. We are a tangle of lips and limbs, unable to get enough of one another. His hands run up and down my thighs, clasping my behind and returning up to my chest.

I lean in and kiss his neck, biting the skin and running my tongue along his jaw. He responds by cupping my breasts with his hands. I shiver.

His hands carefully play with my breasts, very gentle and sweet. He knows what he is doing. Shawn runs his hands over my breasts, watching my nipples grow hard from his touch. I respond by leaning into him, kissing him with force and enjoying the way his hands caress the sensitive part of my body. Then he almost puts me over the edge by taking my nipple in his mouth, biting and sucking.

"Mmm...oh, my god" I moan, shocked the noises of pleasure were coming from me.

" Say my name. Fucking say it" Shawn demands as I moans. He begins to suck and bite harder, making me feel like I was going to melt into a puddle of pleasure. Which is cliché, but true.

"Shawn... Shawn... Shawn..." I keep saying his name, loving the way he is making me feel.

"Babe…"

He unbuttoned the button on my shorts and pulled them down. I wiggle out of them and pull them down the rest of the way before climbing back on top of him seductively and kiss him without restraint. His hands return to inner thighs and he teases my aching pussy, a wet spot forming. He presses the edge of his thumb where my cleft is. His thumb begins to draw these lip circles and he is kissing me like he has no cares in the world at all.

"Shawn, please…" I feel myself leaning into his touch and wanting more, more, more.

"Tell me what you want," he demands, pulling down my panties. He presses his thumb harder, adding more force and using his other fingers. He is teasing me and I feel like I am about to lose my mind from what he is doing to me.

I scream as he plays with his middle finger inside of me. “You are so fucking tight.”

"Please Shawn-"

His mouth left my lips to kiss my stomach, teasing my waist. Finally his mouth is hovering above my ready core. He takes his fingers out of me, but then sticks his tongue in and out of my tight cunt. He licks the folds, his tongue darting in and out with ease. Shawn makes me scream by doing this until he returns to kissing my stomach and back up to my lips. His hands resume their action, plunging two of his fingers inside of me, moving faster and kissing my neck. He is tracing patterns and muttering about how tight I am. I can feel Shawn moaning against my lips and almost scream again when he adds three fingers. It is really tight, but it feels amazing. The way he goes in and out with his fingers. He keeps, making me wetter until he says, "I think you are going to finish ..."

I moan, feeling the juices slip out of me and onto his finger. I collapse from the pleasure and closed my eyes for a long moment.

Shawn stares at me with those tawny eyes full of desire, pulling me back to him and taking off his own shorts. He hovers above me, teasing my pulsating cunt with the tip of his dick before he slides into the slick folds with ease. he kisses along my collarbone before letting his lips trail down to my breasts. His mouth envelops my nipple in his mouth, sucking and biting gently.

His mouth keeps suckling gently as his other hand pinches my other nipple in his fingers, causing me to gasp out at the mixed feeling of pain and pleasure at the same time.

“Good girl,” he whispers against my skin, taking his mouth away. “I want you on top.”

He lays down on the blanket, staring at me expectantly.

Climbing on top of him, my legs lock on either side of him to keep myself steady. I trail my fingers along his chest and up his jaw before tilting my head to kiss him softly, nibbling his bottom lip.

He slides his hand between my thighs, slipping a finger inside to feel how wet I am for him. It causes me to moan, probing him to keep going even.

“Shawn...fuck…”

In response, my hand slides around his length and I lick my hand to tease him, sliding up and down his shaft. He groans at the feeling, moving his finger faster.

“Fuck yes…” he says.

I position myself so his length is right at my entrance, teasing him for a moment before allowing him to slide inside of me.

He closes his eyes in bliss, his hips pressing against mine and his hands finding their resting spot at my waist.

I grinned down at him, wasting no time on finding the right place. I start out slow to get a rhythm going and to adjust to the feeling of his large member being inside of me, but there is no way I want to stay moving gently. Once I know I am able to stay on top, I start moving quicker, my hips meeting his and my breasts bouncing up and down as I ride him.

He seems pleased with my actions, his hands on my hips as he watches me with a look of pure contentment upon his face.

Once the pace is set, he groans each time my hips meet his and he smacks my ass to lt me know I am doing well.

“You are so fucking loud,” I teased him, sliding my fingers through my hair as I looked down at him.

“But you’re just so fucking good,” he replied, moving his hands up to cup my breasts in both hands and leaning up to bite at my nipple for a second to garner another gasp of pleasure from me.

He grabs my hips with both hands, slamming into me roughly as he swears beneath his breath and finds the spot he seems to be looking for because my mouth forms an “o” and I scream out his name, almost losing my balance on top of him.

Without giving me a chance to really find my composure again, Shawn shifts the control to him so he is on top of me and thrusting deeply. His hands hold onto my thighs as he rolls his hips against mine, moving in and out of me with very deep concentration. He keeps hitting the spot just so, and I know that I am going to climax very soon.

“Cum for me, babe,” he whispers in my ear hoarsely, showing how close he is to reaching his own peak.

My toes curl into the sheets as he snakes his hand down to massage my clit as he continues to thrust in and out of me quickly. I can’t hold in the moans either, feeling it building from deep within as he goads me with on with his ministrations

“Shawn…” his name is the only words on my lips as I feel myself coming undone, my body succumbing to the pleasure completely

“Fuck!” he cries out, his body shuddering against mine as he cums inside of me.

Trying to catch his breath and let us both recuperate from what just conspired, Shawn just brushes a kiss against my temple as we bask in the post coital afterglow or whatever this could be considered.

“You have such a dirty mouth,” I playfully tell him.

Shawn pulls out of me, giving me a dirty look and leaning back against the blanket.

He winds around my waist and pulls me against his bare torso for cuddling. “You don’t think you can just get away from me that easily, do you?”

I raise my eyebrows at him, not really sure how to respond. “I thought you would probably have other plans I was keeping you from, and I didn’t want to be rude and impose.”

He shook his head at me, placing another kiss against my forehead. “My only plans for tonight are doing that again and again with you, just so you are aware.”

I bite my lip and give him my most flirtatious smile, “Nothing like the stench of summer sex, eh?”

#shawn mendes #shawn peter raul mendes #shawn mendes writing #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes smut #smut #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes stories #shawn mendes imagines #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes story #shawn mendes x reader #mendes army #writing #mine #summer solstice

171 notes · View notes

roominthecastle · 7 years

Text

Okay but Sting’s Desert Rosé... I am officially fixated on this one

bc Cheers!!!!

bc I’m almost sure it’s Michael’s handiwork. He has the ability to construct such things + a history of hiding puns in them, e.g. “Strangers Under the Train” & “Bend It Like Bentham” can be spotted in the background in his trolley problem simulation (TPS)) + Janet doesn’t leave the tape room

bc it specifies that the bar serving as a framework for this (forbidden) meeting w/ Eleanor is named after Sting’s Desert Rose which Sting described as a song of romantic-sexual longing placed within a larger philosophical context - “romantic love as an analog for the greater love of God” [x] and thus redemption (see the “Redeem Yourself” poster on the wall by the door).

Now overthinking/reading into things is my forte, and that’s exactly what’s happening behind the cut, so beware:

The puns in Michael’s TPS have direct relevance not only to the “practical nature” of the simulation at hand (strangers are literally under the trolley as they keep mowing them down amidst spurting blood and flying body chunks that “curiously” only hit poor Chidi despite Eleanor’s close proximity), but also cleverly hint at Michael’s own feelings on the issue that won’t get revealed until later. Bentham’s famous “greatest-happiness principle” governs his actions when he chooses to sacrifice himself to give Eleanor & the others a chance to secure passage to the real Good Place where eternal happiness awaits. He “bends it like Bentham”.

IF we can take TPS as precedent (and that’s a big if, I know, but it’s fun), then Sting’s Desert Rosé is also likely to be more than just a simple pun. Then it is both relevant to the practicalities of the situation at hand (it is a bar that serves wine) and to feelings which have not been articulated yet and will come into play later. Michael’s solution to the trolley problem (self-sacrifice) develops silently and remains in the background until a situation demands its disclosure. The implication of Sting’s Desert Rosé is a feeling of deep longing for the love of a woman and even that of a higher being (God) - a painful desire to return to the “good place” (or the “pre-fall” condition).

Michael is already invested in how Eleanor sees him and he also wished to follow them to the real Good Place, but since he is still a demon, gaining both her & (the show’s version of) God’s love (=entry) must feel like a long shot at best. I think he became painfully aware of this as a result of those ethics lessons and his billion failed attempts to sneak into the Good Place. All this likely informed his trolley problem solution, too. Being made aware of how fundamentally disqualified he is hasn’t enabled him to change it, it just made him feel miserable since the longing is still there, a longing no other “sane” demon has. Yet it doesn’t stop him from trying to help the others, which makes me wanna wrap him in an eternal hug.

If we look at the lyrics and compare/contrast them w/ the show, several thematic similarities emerge. (ofc these could be entirely accidental and/or irrelevant, but they are still there, imo)

“I am looking for myself and my loved one”

The Algerian Arabic intro (which sounds almost like a prayer) sums up Michael’s journey of discovering what it means/feels to be human. Such a journey inevitably involves the pains & pleasures of choice, of identity forging, and the experience of love (returned or otherwise). Janet started out as an anthropomorphized mainframe and now, after a social “evolution” induced by environment interacting w/ some unique “susceptibility”, she is questioning what/who she is. Michael is in the same boat: he started out as an office drone demon but that’s not quite what/who he is anymore. Both were obedient workers “pre-programmed” to serve but now they make their own paths separate from their kind. They threw out the rulebook and are actively choosing the recipients of their devotion, even when those recipients can no longer remember them.

“I dream of love as time runs through my hand those dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire My life is for you”

Janet gravitates toward Jason and Michael toward Eleanor in particular. They have to let them go at the end of S2 as another round of experiment kicks off, but one connection, in form of ticker tapes, remains and we can see them holding and reading these w/ unwavering commitment. It’s likely just a coincidence but a very nice one still, so I am going there: the word “ticker” can refer to a watch (and thus time), the heart, and the machine connecting Michael and Janet to Eleanor and Jason respectively.

The titular desert rose is not without concrete relevance, either. All her life Eleanor lived in Arizona which is home to several deserts (Sonoran, Mojave, Chihuahuan). This is at the core of one of my favorite gags where Michael keeps asking the freshly rebooted Janet for Eleanor’s file, and she keeps handing him cacti instead. Then, when she finally produces the file, it still has a bunch of cactus pictures in them. If we roll w/ this desert connection, then Eleanor = desert rose def works too (+ she is wearing red in the bar scene)

“This memory of Eden haunts us all This desert flower This rare perfume, is the sweet intoxication of the fall”

The fall and Eden are key elements in Genesis. Eve shares the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil w/ Adam and they get booted from paradise. Something similar happens in the show, too, albeit w/ some neat twists. Eleanor insists that Michael attend Chidi’s ethics lessons (=“tree”) where they acquire knowledge (=“fruit”) of, yes, good and evil. She shares it w/ him and it changes Michael, which leads to his disobedience or “fall” and ultimate banishment as their “good place” gets completely disassembled.

Michael has a spark of deviance in him from the get-go, an innate urge to color outside the lines, but he starts to cross them in earnest only after Eleanor enters the picture. First, it’s in the form of 802 reboots, which is 800 more than he is authorized for, but he gets fixated on besting her. The 2nd big moment is when he takes his senior staff pin (the very symbol of everything he ever wanted) and pins it on her, irrevocably betraying everything he previously stood for. He pulls a sort of “reverse Lucifer” (his “rebellion” takes place in the show’s approximation of hell and is driven not by pride but by humbling himself) but it’s patterned on the fall of man. This mix of demonic and human heritage would be very in-keeping w/ his character: a demon longing to experience what it’s like to be human.

“No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this.”

It is one of the greatest sources of irony in the show how the torture master ends up tormenting himself with and within the very framework he constructed for others. At the end of those 802 reboots, nobody is suffering more than Michael. His subordinates may be frustrated but they eagerly turn his failures to their advantage while the ultimate responsibility still rests w/ Michael who, already after the 2nd failed reboot, runs the very real risk of dying the only death his kind is able: the eternal shriek. The four humans endure a measure of psychological-emotional torture, but they forget all but the last week of their afterlife due to rebooting, whereas Michael remembers everything. He has to endure failure over and over again bc Eleanor keeps figuring him out, upping the pressure w/ each reboot, and, finally, exposing him to blackmail by his own underlings. This is when he reaches complete isolation which is a special kind of hell even within hell.

This 1st type of torture Eleanor (unwittingly) puts him through is mental in nature. She repeatedly hits him where it hurts the most at that time - his sense of intellectual superiority -, gradually evicting him from a life he’s known since forever. The direct continuation of this process is when she makes attendance of Chidi’s lessons compulsory, which again forces him to fully confront the fact that he’s not always the smartest guy in the room, not always in control, and - most importantly - that it’s okay bc the others are there to help and guide him when he’s in need.

This breakthrough gives way to the 2nd, more complex phase that involves (social) emotions that tend to develop as a result of cooperation (esp the kind Team Cockroach engaged in). We can already see their effect creep in when e.g. Michael is plagued by fear at the possibility of losing his friends or when he experiences the first sharp pangs of remorse. He is no longer immune to the full palette of “human suffering” bc he cares and even loves now, and it all stems from and loops back to Eleanor. She is the one he desperately clutches after the dangers pass, it’s her disappointment that slices through him even though he let the rest of them down too, and it’s her “progress reports” that fill his life after they have to part ways.

In this new phase he is forbidden to help or have any kind of contact, but when he can no longer stand doing nothing, he has to risk everything again in exchange for a few minutes w/ her. He could have easily nudged her in the right direction w/o revealing himself - the way he did when he saved her life. But no, this time he shows himself, prompts her to just ramble on about Kangaroo Jack, which, objectively speaking, is an insane risk to take when you can get caught every second, so you know Michael only took his feelings w/ him and left objectivity behind, and, at the end of it all, she still looks at him and sees a total stranger bc this is the only way for her to gain entry to paradise.

Now that’s some exquisite torture in a bar named after a song of romantic-sexual longing placed within a larger philosophical context.

#michael x eleanor #speculation #musings #tgp wank #q

62 notes · View notes

avknight-blog1 · 7 years

Text

Character Personality Test

First off, I love doing personality tests for my characters. Always have. But for a long time, the tests were less about getting to know my characters better and more about procrastination.

However, I'm a firm believer that when there's something about the writing process that you love, you should find a way to incorporate it into your routine. For me, that meant finding a test that was smart enough to actually tell me something about my characters but didn't need several days of extensive research before the test made got useful or made sense. (I'm looking at you, MBTI.)

Hands down, no questions asked, the Clifton StrengthsFinder is my favorite personality test for writing. For me, it hits that sweet spot between effective and efficient. StrengthsFinder does exactly what it sounds like: categorizing people according to their strengths. The test defines strengths as someone's "naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior."

Translation: a 'strength' is the way a person inherently looks at or interacts with the world. The more dominant a strength is in a person, the greater the impact of that strength on their behavior. So a person who ranks high on Adaptability -- another thing that's exactly what it sounds like -- is naturally good at going with the flow and dealing with problems as they arise. These strengths help define the way your characters approach the world and show how they'll deal with all conflict that you're throwing at them.

Because people are complicated, every person or character will have multiple strengths. Some of these strengths dovetail together nicely, and others seem like they juxtapose. Sometimes characters push those strengths too far and turn them into flaws. And as we all know, just because something is a strength for that character, that doesn't mean it's a strength for the situation you're putting them in.

So I present to you: The Masterlist of Strengths. I have short summaries listed and a quick character example for each for clarification. Personally, I like to narrow down my character to 3-5 of the strengths that I think determine their patterns of behavior.

(Want an example? hop over here to watch how I apply this to our good friends Harry, Ron, and Hermione.)

Achiever

Get 'er done.

Achievers have stamina and work hard. They like defined progress and tangible outcomes so they can feel like they're moving forward and getting things done. This means they can give themselves too much to do and have a hard time taking a day off. A day without a completed to-do list is a day wasted

e.g., Jack Crawford, Hannibal

Activator

Turning thoughts into action.

Once you've made your decision, act on it. There's no wasting time contemplating other options or potential fallout. If that means the decision is the wrong one, then they correct it on the move. They're not exactly hasty, but they're more concerned with forward progress then debating all the potential outcomes.

e.g., Harry Potter, Harry Potter

Adaptability

Go with the flow.

They live in the now and respond to things as they arise. They can put aside the plan when it stops working and create something new. They're great on the fly, but everyday monotony and everything going to plan can drive them crazy. All that living for what arises in the moment can mean they don't plan for the future.

e.g., Jason Bourne, Jason Bourne

Analytical

Just the facts, ma'am.

Prefer objective and dispassionate facts about a situation, and then use that agenda-free data to figure out the causes and patterns of a situation. They don't act until all the data is compiled, and then use those facts to cut through other people's faulty logic and wishful thinking to get to the truth. The trick is keeping that logic from sounding too brutal to the wishers.

e.g., Spock, Star Trek

Arranger

Flexible organization.

Manage all the variables until everything comes together in the best way possible. Change to your plans isn't bad, it's just a chance to make things more efficient. To them, nothing is ever truly settled because there might always be a better way to discover. Mindless routine is the bane of their existence.

e.g., Hannibal Smith, The A-Team

Belief

Core values.

Core values are unchanging, and those values give life meaning and direction. Believers are dependable because you can always count on them act in accordance with those values, no matter how difficult it might be. Generally, this makes them family-oriented, altruistic, and value ethics in themselves and others.

e.g., Chidi Anagonye, The Good Place

Command

In control.

Take a stand on something and get restless until they've moved everyone else in that direction. They don't mind confrontation because they know they're right, though that certainty doesn't make them persuasive. They confront unpleasantness and believe they're helping other people face the truth.

e.g., Daenerys Targaryen, Game of Thrones

Communication

Turn thoughts into words.

Explain, describe, host, speak in public, and write. They're concerned not just about sharing information, but about commanding people's attention so that their information survives and drives people to act. They give dry ideas life and often are good conversationalists and presenters.

e.g., Jed Bartlett, The West Wing

Competition

I win.

Aware of other people's performance and measure their progress and success against those other people. It's not about meeting goals or trying hard, it's about competing with someone else and winning. Though the competition is invigorating, eventually they avoid situations where they don't think they can 'win'.

e.g., Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, The Big Bang Theory

Connectedness

Everything has a reason.

We are all connected to each other. We all have free will, but we're part of something bigger. There are few coincidences and everything has a reason, so we're responsible to do what's best for everyone. Whether they call it collective unconscious or life force, knowing that we're not isolated provides comfort and confidence.

e.g., Pocahontas, Pocahontas

Consistency

Fairness.

They treat everyone the same to the point that nepotism and special connections are offensive to them. The rules are the rules and should be applied to everyone equally without being tipped for or against any one person. Believe that people do best where things are predictable and evenhanded.

e.g., Mad-Eye Moody, Harry Potter

Context

Learn from the past.

The future is a jumble and the present is unstable, so they figure out what's going on by understanding how we got here. They need to understand the original plans and the underlying structure to make decisions about the present. That means taking time to orient themselves in the past before they can go forward.

e.g., Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter

Deliberative

Walk with care.

Rather than ignore risks, they identify, assess, and reduce them. They plan ahead to anticipate what obstacles there might be. They are careful when they select paths to take, topics to discuss, and people to trust. Life is a minefield, so they identify the dangers, weigh their impact, and place their feet with care.

e.g., Batman

Developer

No one is fully formed.

They see the potential in others and trust that everyone can turn into something better. We're all works in progress and they can help that along. They look for ways challenge people, making them stretch and grow until their potential is realized. Like to see people take baby steps forward, watching potential become realized.

e.g., Gandalf, Lord of the Rings

Disciplined

Order and planning.

Need predictability, so they impose structure on everything. They believe in order, timelines, routines, and efficiency. They don't like surprises and get frustrated with errors. Life is messy, and they like to feel in control. Can come across as controlling, but they see it as maintaining productivity in the face of life's messiness.

e.g., Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

Empathy

Ability to understand.

Sense the emotions of the people around them, letting them see the world through other people's eyes and share their perspective. They might not agree or sympathize, but they understand where people are coming from. Strong intuition about how people are going to behave. Can help others express themselves.

e.g., William Graham, Hannibal

Focus

Stay on target.

Follow a clear destination and use that to filter out everything that doesn't help them move towards their goals. They're efficient and get frustrated with delays, obstacles, and whatever person or thing isn't moving them forward. So goal-oriented that without a clear focus to work towards, life becomes frustrating.

e.g., Dean Winchester, Supernatural

Futuristic

Wouldn't it be great if…

See visions of what the world might be and all that the future might hold. This potential energizes them, and they have the ability to paint that picture for others and pull them into tomorrow too. They're not motivated by living in today, but by a detailed picture of what they want to be over the horizon.

e.g., young Luke Skywalker, Star Wars

Harmony

Can't we all get along?

Don't see the value of conflict or friction. They believe everything is more productive when we look for consensus rather than trying to impose our views on others. This means they'd rather talk about practical, down-to-earth topics that we might actually be able to agree on. Common ground is better than conflict.

e.g., early Daniel Jackson, Stargate: SG1

Ideation

Enlightening.

Revel in discovering the simple concepts that lurk beneath complexity. The explain why things are the way they are. They're always looking for connections and love it when disparate things come together elegantly. They like twisting normal things around and viewing them from a creative, conceptual, and original angle.

e.g., Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher, Phineas and Ferb

Includer

Widen the circle.

Want to include as many people as possible and make them feel a part of the group. They're instinctively accepting, and believe that fundamentally we are all the same and all just as important as one another. Everyone should feel like they're part of the group. Yes, everyone.

e.g., Rapunzel, Tangled

Individualization

Everyone is unique.

Intrigued by the unique qualities of each person. They like to accentuate these differences and focus on what makes each person distinct. There are no 'types' of people, there are individuals with things that are special and distinct about each of them. They draw out the best in each person.

e.g., Dr. Who

Input

The Inquisition.

Collect things and information just because it interests them, and they find many things interesting. They don't have a particular purpose for their new information and maybe they never will, but they find it interesting enough to research, and that's reason enough.

e.g., Stiles Stilinski, Teen Wolf

Intellection

Mental gymnastics.

They like to think and stretch their mental muscles in multiple directions. This doesn't mean they like to think about specific things in particular, but just that they like to think. They enjoy alone time because it's time for musing and reflection. Although, sometimes they get worried about not doing enough with those thoughts.

e.g., Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock

Learner

Excuse me while I research.

Drawn to the process of learning more than they are the content or result of that learning. They like the journey from ignorance to competence, no matter what they're busy learning. Not about becoming an expert or achieving a goal, but more about the process.

e.g., Rory Gilmore, Gilmore Girls

Maximizer

Accentuate the positive.

They don't focus on what they lack, they focus on making their good traits better. It's more fun and more productive to refine those strengths and turn them into excellence then it is to turn something bad into a good. They capitalize on the gifts that they already have rather than fix the places they're lacking.

e.g., Tony Stark, Iron Man

Positivity

Always look on the bright side.

Generous with praise and on the lookout for the positive. Their enthusiasm is enough to make the world better. They have the energy to lighten spirits and make everything, no matter how dull, more vivid. They believe it's good to be alive and that no matter what trouble happens, you can still smile.

e.g., Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter

Relator

Relationship creator.

Take casual acquaintances and deepen them into real friendships. Comfortable with intimacy because relationships only have value if they're genuine. Willing to share with people and take risks together in order to forge a genuine bond. Take pride it turning strangers into friends.

e.g., Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables

Responsibility

Utterly dependable.

Take ownership of anything they commit to and follow it through. When they make a mistake, an apology or a rationalization isn't enough. They have to make it right. This ends up with impeccable ethics and a drive to make sure things are done right. Should be careful not to take on too much since they have to follow through.

e.g., Captain America, Winter Soldier

Restorative

Problem solver.

Enjoy analyzing symptoms, figuring out what's wrong, and finding the solution. Know that without their intervention this thing, technique, person, or company might have ended without them. The kind of problems they might prefer revolve around other traits and life experiences, but they all want to bring things back to life.

e.g., Gregory House, House

Self-Assurance

Certainty.

Have faith in their strengths and their ability not just to get things done, but to do them in the right way. They know what the right decision is and trust their own judgment above all. Other people can suggest, but they alone have final accountability for their life and know what the right choice for them must be.

e.g., Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock

Significance

Stand out.

Value being recognized and be heard. They bring things to the table and they want to be appreciated for them. Different traits mean they focus on being acknowledged for different things, but it drives them to be exceptional rather than mediocre. FIlled with goals, achievements, or qualifications they crave.

e.g., Bonnie Plunkett, Mom

Strategic

Find the best route.

Sort through all the clutter and find patterns where other people see only complexity. They ask themselves 'what if this happened?' again and again, until they find their path. They shuck off the wrong options until they find the right path and start forward.

e.g., Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock

Woo

Winning others over.

Like the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like them. They're rarely at a loss for words and like forging new connections. Once those connections are made, they move on to make more new ones. Can put people at ease, but struggle to turn it into a stable relationship.

e.g., Neal Caffrey, White Collar

#personality test #writing #character #characterization #Clifton StrengthsFinder #StrengthsFinder #Strengths

5 notes · View notes

chaos-in-pandoras-box · 7 years

Text

Spirit Keeping Basics (according to Chaos in Pandora’s Box)

What is Spirit Keeping/ Companionship? ~Spirit keeping, or Spirit Companionship, as we prefer to put it, is the act of creating a link between a human being and an astral being or spirit so that the two can interact on a frequent basis. This is done through conjuration (the summoning of spirits) and binding (the act of creating ethereal ties between the companion and their spirits.) The spirits cover a wide range of beings. Basically, if it's been imagined, it's in the astral, to some extent. All those creatures you've been told are just your imagination? Yeah, they're totally real. You're not crazy for believing in them. What is a vessel? ~For those of you new to the concept of spirit keeping, you may be wondering what the heck a "vessel" is. Well, in short terms, a vessel is an object that's used to link the human companion's energies with their spiritual friend's energies. It's not a prison, as some people would have you believe, nor is it the only way to interact with a spirit companion. Any legitimate conjurer would never dream of imprisoning a spirit in an object. A vessel is a conduit, nothing more and nothing less. Now, as to what a vessel can be, the limit is your imagination! I've seen paintings used, as well as dolls, jewelry (most common). gemstones, writing utensils, power tools, you name it, it can be a vessel. The only thing not recommended for use as a vessel is food, because it's perishable and won't last very long. What does "binding" mean? ~This is something important to discuss, because there's a lot of negativity surrounding this word in the Spirit Keeping community. Many people think the work "binding" automatically means "slavery" and this is not the case with reputable sellers. I have covered this in a forum post, but I'll recap here. A binding is the forming of an energetic tie from one energy source to another. (In the most basic definition) It's done with full consent of the parties (purchasing a spirit binding implies consent on the part of the human companion) Bindings often include safeguards for both the human and the spirit or entity. There are certain rules implied, but they vary from conjurer to conjurer. At the core, a binding will ensure that the spirit or entity is never able to harm their keeper, directly or indirectly. How do I bond with my spirits? ~There are countless ways to welcome a new companion into your home. We recommend finding some quiet time where you can be alone. Hold the spirit's vessel in one hand, close your eyes, and call their name a few times. Pay close attention to your body and the atmosphere around you. What changes? Even the most subtle changes can be your spirit manifesting. When you're first starting out we recommend that you take anything out of the ordinary as a sign from your spirit. Keep these observations close to your heart, write them down, and gradually you'll learn the difference between "Oh, that was just an everyday freak happening" and "Oh! It was a sign from my companion." Sometimes announcing a manifestation to the world can spoil its sacredness. Make sure you have permission from your companion before sharing it. As far as offerings go, you can give them to your spirit as often or infrequently as you choose. It's polite to give them some sort of offering if you're tasking them to do something, because that's an energy exchange. Put yourself in their shoes. What do you think they'd like to have as a small gift? You can just set the offering near their vessel for a few hours. If it's food, you can either eat it afterwards, or throw it away. (Up to you.) If it's crystals you can recharge the crystals and use them again. Waste not, want not! And don't be afraid to get creative. Write letters, listen to music they like, invite them into your everyday lives. I can't feel my spirit. What should I do? ~This one, as I'm sure you can imagine, comes up A LOT. Number one: DO NOT FREAK OUT. Spirits move back and forth between their realms and ours frequently. They may have just popped off to their realm for a bit. However, it's also important to remember that these beings are sentient energies, and as such they all have personalities just as diverse and varied as humans. Some are quiet and prefer keeping to themselves, whereas others are social butterflies and will floor you with their manifestations. It is easy to lose hope if you can no longer feel a companion. Believe me I've been there, I know. When I first started buying vessels from other sellers, I had a complete blackout in communication. One week I could feel them as strongly as ever, and then a week with nada. Not even a twitch. And I stayed on this roller coaster for a while. Full communication, blackout. Full communication, blackout. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on. Then I started to notice a pattern. During each blackout, I had something else going on in my life that I should have been paying attention to. My emotions were out of balance and were creating major blockages. So if you're experiencing a blackout, it's time to look away from your companions and work on yourself. They won't get upset, they won't get exasperated, and they won't hate you for taking a break. Matter of fact, I've had more than one spirit tell me I'm too hard on myself. So in short, don't panic if you're feeling a blackout. If you felt something at the start, then never fear, it is there. They will come back stronger, provided you work on yourself first. Do I need to open my third eye more? ~Short answer: No...and yes. Long answer: Your chakras are a bit more complex than you think. When people refer to the "third eye," usually they're referring to the psychically sensitive space between your eyes and a little above your nose. Just like many other points on our body it is a chakra space, and one that is attuned to psychic vibrations. However, strengthening your third eye chakra can throw your other chakras out of whack. As with everything else, there needs to be a balance. So all those "third eye" improvement spells and attunements? I personally haven't had one work for me unless is strengthens the other chakras at the same time. Now I know there may be some controversy surrounding this post, so I'd like to remind you all that this is my opinion, not the gospel truth Instead of focusing JUST on your third eye, why not raise the vibrations of all your chakras? What if I've been spiritually deaf all my life? Can I still keep companions? ~In short: Yes. You may hear of many people who have been sensitive to spirits most of their lives coming into the spirit keeping community, but there are those who haven't even believed in spirits before joining the community as well. Truth be told, we all sort of start over when we join this community. For those of us that have interacted with unbounds most of our lives, the concept of binding may be new. Or it may not. It all depends on the individual. If you've been "spiritually deaf" for most of your life, you may just have to work a little harder for what comes naturally to some other keepers. But the fact that you're here in this community and have a strong desire to learn speaks volumes. If you are ready and willing, you will find yourself opening up to possibilities you'd never thought of before. And don't be afraid to reach out to others who have been "spiritually deaf" when they first started out. You never have to feel alone. I've seen this especially with those very new to Spirit Keeping. They want everything to be a manifestation, so it is. But then the day after nothing out of the ordinary happens, so they complain. This roller coaster is pretty common when someone first starts out. What people need to remember as well is that everything moves in cycles. Their spirits may have spend a ton of energy one day to manifest, and the next day they're recovering. The problem is with people posting like that, they lack the patience to work with their spirits long term. They have to realize that there may be times of a blackout in communication, and that's okay. It's normal. What they shouldn't do is freak out about it. What's the difference between spirits, entities, thoughtforms, and servitors? ~There's not a lot of decisive information on this matter, but here's how we classify these different beings: Thoughtforms are collections of energy that our subconscious creates when we use our imagination. They can be sentient or non-sentient. Beings like Slenderman, Jeff the Killer, and the Doctor are all examples of thoughtforms, born from someone's imagination. They're usually short lived unless they're fed from multiple sources. Spirits, on the other hand, are the energy left behind after an entity dies and their soul moves onto the next life. All of their thoughts and energies remain behind, forming the Spirit of who they were during their life. They still have ties to the Soul, or the core of their being. They're like echoes. Servitors are sentient or nonsentient thoughtforms that are deliberately created by someone (usually a practitioner) to fulfill a specific purpose. They can look like anything, from a small butterfly to your favorite pokemon, an anime girl or boy, any TV character, and anything in between. Finally, entities are beings that live on a different plane than humans do, but they're still living and active as we humans are. What manifestations can I expect from my spirits? ~This is a big subject when people are getting into spirit keeping, because of course everyone wants tangible proof that their spirits do in fact exist and they're not just imagining things. But where to start? What to look for? This is the time when most people either give up keeping altogether, or despair because they think they aren't "advanced" enough to experience their spirits fully. This is a tricky business, because everyone walks the razor's edge with manifestations. On the one side there is the true manifestations of the spirits, and on the other side is the imagined signs of spirits that our minds conjure up. So how do we walk this fine line? Number one, confirm any manifestations you think you receive through different methods of divination. Tarot, pendulum, spirit boards, bibliomancy, and so on. If you still doubt yourself, feel free to ask the conjurer or another trusted professional for advice. And my biggest advice for this? Remove yourself emotionally from the situation. If you cannot approach manifestations with calm logic and are emotionally charged, that's when a lot of people trip. If you want something to happen badly enough, you can make it happen. However, that may not be your spirits, it might just be you. That's why I encourage you to check different sources for your answers. So when you experience something, ask yourself if you were looking for a manifestation at the time or wanted something to happen. Most of the physical manifestations I experience happen when I'm not expecting them. Why? I don't know yet, I just know that that's my experience. Now, onto what to look for in manifestations. Honestly, they can be just about anything. A general list may be orbs, streaks of unexplained light, dark shadows flickering in the corner of your vision, thoughts that seem out of character for you, cravings for things you don't normally enjoy, a certain color you keep noticing everywhere, numbers that repeat themselves, words that repeat themselves, things in nature that look slightly out of place, the way frost creeps over a window, temperature changes around your body or the spirit's vessel, etc etc. You get the idea And as to the repeating colors, words, or numbers, I'll share my personal experiences there. I almost never notice the repeat the first couple of times. It takes a bit for my slow brain to catch up, but if something keeps popping up more than three or four times, I know it's a sign. When first starting out, I wouldn't recommend expecting fireworks. Even with more advanced keepers I know of only a select few who have experienced a full on physical manifestation. If you keep looking for the big bang manifestations, you might be missing all the tiny cues that happen around you every day. How can I conjure? ~Number one: Belief. It's my personally held belief that everyone starts out knowing how to conjure. When we're young, we have "imaginary" friends and so on, but as we grow up society smashes that ability and we lose the confidence in ourselves to keep those friends close. If you want to be able to conjure, step one is to actually believe you can do it. If you doubt spirit keeping or if you doubt yourself, I wouldn't recommend setting foot on this path. Number two: Research. Ask other sellers how they started. Ask them if they have tips. Look into the different styles of conjuring. Take classes if they're offered. Learn everything you can about the subject. Now keep in mind sellers may not share their methods with you, and that's okay. People tend to keep their methods private to keep others from stealing their ideas. Number Three: Figure out your style. Do you like big, flashy rituals or the simple, quiet ones? Will you speak aloud or do everything silently? What protection will you have in place? How will you be able to tell the difference between a trickster and a genuine spirit? What sort of circle will you draw? Will you have candles, incense, and all the bells and whistles, or something simpler? Number Four: Did I mention PRACTICE? Probably the most important part of conjuring is to practice. Whatever your method is, repeat it over and over. If you don't have anything at first, keep trying. Now these are all basic steps that could be applied to anything, really. If you truly wish to learn to conjure, I'd recommend first and foremost to talk to a trusted professional. Learn from their mistakes. Find your individual style. And this is going to sound like a sex ad, but ALWAYS USE PROTECTION! Never ever, under any circumstances, conjure without wards and protections in place. Doing this would invite in chaos that I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't be equipped to deal with. And that's another thing; don't get in over your head. Don't start out conjuring all those sexy demons you see in the shops just because they appeal to you. Conjure what works best with your energies. It may be an angel, it may be a demon, it may be a shifter, etc etc. You know what's best for you in the end. Don't conjure just because you want a certain spirit. You may end up with more than you can handle. What should I ask a seller to see if they're reputable/ethical or not? ~The Meta world is full of minefields. People telling you to do this or that, people telling you to buy this or that. It's understandable why a lot of new people get totally confused. I've seen people get so paranoid that they shun anything from the Para world because there's just too much of a risk that they'll get cheated out of something. And then there are those that get burned time and time again because they stumble into the dishonest sellers. So...how are they supposed to protect themselves? Well, I'm not an expert, but I have seen a few trends that I can speak out about. 1. Prices are not an indicator of skill. This is a big one that I think trips a lot of people up. Almost everything from conjurers is self-priced. There's no "standard" that anyone has to hold up to, because each working is different. However, there's some common sense to keep in mind-Just because a seller's prices are low doesn't mean that they're not reputable or legitimate. On the opposite end, just because a seller's prices are through the roof doesn't mean they're any more legitimate than someone with low prices. Matter of fact, from what I've seen many of the higher-priced conjures have had some not-so-impressive results. But anyway, my point is this: don't panic if you see quite the price difference between sellers. There's many different things to take into account: The cost of the vessel itself, the amount of energy and work that goes into the conjuration and binding of a spirit or entity, shipping, and so on. And it's also important to look at whether conjuring is the person's only source of income. If it is, then their prices may be a little higher because they're using the money to support themselves. Those that have other jobs can perhaps afford to have their prices a little lower. (Mind you, this is a general statement and may not be true for everyone.) 2. A conjurer/seller is not validated by anything they say. They are validated by their customers. I don't care if they've had ten years' experience or ten days. Here's a saying I live by: Results matter. Someone can have all the experience in the world and even they may slip up from time to time. Or a newbie could do everything right from the word "Go." The important thing to do here is pay attention to your gut. Does a seller's bragging about their experience put you off? Does someone's bashing of a seller intrigue you? Intuition doesn't lie. People may misinterpret it from time to time and come to an incorrect conclusion, but I like to think that it never lies. 3. Of course, both the above points lead to this one: Ask questions of the seller. If you're looking at someone new, pepper them with questions. If they answer you readily, and their answers are verified by others, pretty sure it's safe to say that that's a green light. If they stall or give you answers that don't seem to jive with what you've read about them, then something's up. Here's a few questions you can ask sellers: What does your binding consist of? (Now keep in mind they may not answer fully, because each conjurer prefers to keep some secrets close, but they should be able to get you a general idea of what they do.) How do you conjure/What are the protections you put in place to make sure that you're conjuring the right spirit? (Again they may not share everything, but they should be able to give you a general idea) When did you conjure your first spirit? What was it like? Which Arts do you work with the most? White, Grey, Dark, or Black? What are some safeguards you have in place to buffer the Companion from their spirit if they're feeling overwhelmed? What is your return policy for a spirit and Companion that just doesn't connect well on an energetic level? And this is a big one: What do you think of other sellers? (You can name specific sellers here, or just leave it general.) This question will give you a feel for the conjurer's personality. Have you had issues with customers in the past concerning your conjures? How did you resolve the issue? Can I follow up with you after I purchase a binding/How available are you after our transaction is completed? If anyone else thinks of some other questions, let me know. My point here being, for the newbies at least, is don't be afraid to ask questions. If a conjurer doesn't get back to you right away, ask anyone here. A lot of us have been around the block a few times, and we've seen conjurers and shops come and go. (All information was compiled from the Newbie Station on MetaSpirit and is originally Pandora's.)

#spirit keeping basics #chaos in pandora's box #FAQ

167 notes · View notes

second-tolast-blog · 8 years

Text

My Favorite Movies of 2016 in Nine Digestible Categories

Every year it is the same story. As the year happens, people bemoan the state of movies. Then by the end of the year, and people compile their end of the year lists, we realize that movies are not a dying medium, slowly being replaced by television. Studios just succumb to the antiquated model of old release patterns. Movies vying for Oscars has to come out late in the year for momentum and blockbusters must be released in the dead heat of the summer. Both “20th Century Women” and “Why Him?” were close to sell outs last weekend as I attended my local multiplex. “Lion,” although only playing in two theaters in New York, sold out a 560-seat theater and its highest billed actor was Dev Patel.

Sure, those films were helped by the holiday bump and limited releases, causing the demand to look greater due to the lack of supply, but people are still going to the movies. And if not, the means of production has allowed for filmmakers to make $20 million indies with sources of output like Amazon Prime and Netflix along with the traditional studios to distribute to a wider net of audiences. With emerging voices like Barry Jenkins and Damien Chazelle and returning veterans and legends like Jarmusch and Scorsese releasing films this year, it is hard to begin eulogizing cinema.

So, it is my job to highlight 20 of my favorite films of the year. And to not succumb to the usual listicle, this list will be broken down to ten categories because all these films deserve to be watched.

Best Movies of the Year where Mahershala Ali Plays an Untraditional Father Figure for about 10 minutes of the movie

Moonlight, Kicks

Thank god for “Moonlight,” a film that has been written about so much that I do not know what I can bring to the conversation at this point. Without it, people may be left to try to salvage Nate Parker’s ill-begotten “Birth of a Nation,” as the obligatory black film of the year that it was positioned as at Sundance back in January of last year. But, “Moonlight” should not be considered a token of a film. Its rise to the top through think pieces and word-of-mouth speaks to how it was able to naturally build its base of spectators. “Birth of a Nation,” on the other hand, struggled to connect partially due to its controversy but also to its haphazard “Braveheart” style hero narrative and questionable use of victimhood especially that of rape. “Moonlight” is cinema at its best. It is a passport to a world, a mindset, an experience that is not readily available. It is empathy.

While “Moonlight” has dominated the conversation, Justin Tipping’s “Kicks” has been barely touched upon. It has been spoken so little of that since I saw it I have questioned my love of this small film. Tipping riffs on “Bicycle Thieves,” in which an African American teen, Brandon, gets his brand-new sneakers stolen in a city right on the outskirts of Oakland. This allows for Tipping to breeze through the neighborhood as Brandon and his two buddies searches for the men who stole his shoes. It’s a small film that screams that this is a first feature, but the style is so assured. Tipping is not afraid to take risks, allowing for flourishes of style and metaphors (there is a motif of an astronaut that aggressively highlights Brandon’s alienation for the things around him) that many more conservative filmmakers would not bother to entertain. Like “Bicycle Thieves” the plot is simply an excuse to explore a post-world II Italy, the plot here is an excuse for Tipping to explore the neighborhoods that has been forgotten about in film since the early 90’s. These characters are so richly drawn beyond what could easily be caricatures. If “Boyz in the Hood” gave a glimpse to life in “the hood,” “Kicks” is a portraiture. Also, best Mahershala Ali performance this year.

Best Movies of the Year where the Central Theme is that Grief is a Motherfucker

Manchester by the Sea, Jackie

There are horror movies which relies on jump scares. Like a roller coaster these momentary jumps are fun but ultimately has no lingering effects except for a scratchy throat. That is exactly the same way I feel about tearjerkers. Movies like “Lion” or “Beaches” live on sentimentality and tears. Like a superficial thrill ride, these films have a purpose and place. But, then there is a film like “Manchester by the Sea.” The film is filled with little moments that prove that Kenneth Lonergan is one of the great humane dramatist working today. Sadness and grief seeps into you like water slowly draining into the ground. But, what is so illuminating about the film is how the film portrays people dealing with grief; with anger, ambivalence. These characters are simply living. I have a friend, unfamiliar with Lonergan’s works and what struck as well was how funny the film was. That’s because even when our closest love ones are gone that does not mean that life stops going.

What happens, though, if someone’s life is defined by a person who dies? Pablo Larrain is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. In “Jackie,” he takes what could have been a maudlin drama and with an incredible score by Mica Levi, creates a horror film. The monster for Jackie Kennedy is the weight of legacy, purpose and the American ideal. Is this what the real Jackie Kennedy went through in the immediate aftermath of JFK’s assassination? Probably not. But, what historical fiction does is to draw a parallel with these pristine historical figures with everyday living. What struck me most with “Jackie” was the amount of decisions that had to be made immediately after the tragedy. The same with “Manchester.” Jackie Kennedy mourns while also keeping up appearances in a role that has been bestowed upon her. She is the first lady of America, after all. She can’t be seen too sad, angry, or drunk. The real-life piece that is written about her weeks after JFK’s funeral which is fictionalized here as a framing device, was instrumental in sculpting that image. It sculpted a Camelot.

The Best Movies of the Year Where Coming-of-age is Manifested as a Monster

Closet Monster, The Fits

Not enough movies talk about how scary it is to become an adult. I’m in my early twenties, on the precipice of doing adult things like getting a full-time career and job and I still go to sleep at night in the fetal position. So, it is no wonder that puberty, adulthood and burgeoning sexuality has been portrayed in films as some sort of monstrosity. “Closet Monster,” a small Canadian film that I do not know anyone who saw, creates a monster in a teenager who is discovering his sexuality for the first time as he goes off to college. But, the complexity of this film from first time director, Stephen Dunn, comes from the fact that he is not defined by his burgeoning sexuality. Rather, this stress is compounded by the facts of adolescence. Pressure come from his single-parent father, whose self-destruction comes from the loosening of his grasp of his child, his artistic ambitions while confined in a small Canadian suburb, and the trauma from the abandonment of his mother. The monster in the on-the-nose title is not just one of repressed sexuality, but rather repression in all fronts. It’s no wonder that the violent act that occurs in this film is not because of sexuality at all.

The monster in “The Fits,” another small film by a first-time filmmaker, Anna Rose Holmer, also rides the line of imagined or real. Her characters are on the precipice of teen-hood. This is the time when divisional lines are truly cemented, especially gender norms. Her protagonist starts off in a boxing gym, filled with males but is drawn across the hall to an all-female dance troupe. Insecurities are never immediately present especially from those who are feeling it. It usually comes with a look. Especially for a teenager, there is no greater currency than a sense of belonging. “The Fits’s” ability to hone in on that central need in a way that is not pedantic really creates a powerful image. The final shot of bliss as Royalty Hightower finally embraces the monster that would make her belong is one of the great cinematic images of 2016.

The Best Horror Movies Where the Little Girl is the Most Terrifying Things about It

The Wailing, The Eyes of My Mother

To be fair, little girls are terrifying. It probably has something to do with the corrupting of something innocent that gets into the crawl of everyone’s skin. “The Wailing” is a Korean epic of a possession movie. And like the best Korean films, there is fluidity with genre in this film. The film readily goes from horror to police procedural mystery to comedy. Horror films are best when it comes from an assured hand and Na Hong-Jin is certainly assured in his skill and style. He slowly paces out the film with mood, atmosphere and uncertainty. At 2 ½ hours, each layer is lovingly paced. Not all the best movies have something to say in the undercurrent of the film. Some can just be plain scary and fun.

From the epic nature of “The Wailing,” comes the efficiency of “The Eyes of My Mother.” Nicolas Pesce’s first feature runs at a little under an hour and 20 minutes, and will undoubtedly become a cult film in which high schoolers show their friends to revel in how fucked up it is. Once again, this film thrives on the assured hand of Pesce’s direction. The black and white photography, the loving reconstruction of a minimalist household and the combination of aspects of image, costuming and setting creates a total cinematic experience. This film is informed by many in the past. The black and white images is reminiscent of early David Lynch and the economy of violence reminds me of the European art-house horror from Bunuel to Franju. Eyes plays a big role in horror films. It is scary to not be able to see and sight is connected to something so fragile and disposable. The camera is our eyes to this particular world. And the film works with the whole image. In one scene, we saw our hero/monster washing dishes and it is what we see through the window that is grotesque and haunting. These are images, that will not escape anybody who will eventually discover this film.

The Best Movies Where the Traditional Notions of How We Fall in Love is Questioned

The Lobster, The Love Witch

Love is overrated. Well, the way most people think about love is overrated. “The Lobster,” from Greek satirist Yorgos Lathimos, skewers our societal pressure on people to find a partner. The film’s dystopic setting strips away all that feels human so that all that is left is a kaleidoscope view of human interactions. Here, people decide that they are perfect for each other because of the most artificial of reason; short-sightedness, nose bleeds and beautiful hair. Everything is played pitched perfectly to dry deliveries anchored by Colin Ferrell at his best. Oh, and if I was had to be turned into an animal I would be a turtle. They have a portable shelter and could be proficient on both land and water.

I took a B-movie class at SUNY (Inset NY state city here) and the films we saw was a mish mash of exploitation with some rising to the top with subtle feminist’s ideology. But, for most of them, they are pure sexploitation of the woman’s body. Anne Biller lovingly recreates this subgenre of 60’s sexploitation film to create the defining feminist statement of the year. Everything is so acutely detailed that you might get distracted by the immersion into the world. The colors are in technicolor splendor, the clothes are beautifully retro and the acting is purposefully stilted that requires levels of acting that Brad Pitt will never reach. Yet, underlying all this is a story of a woman, a witch, who because of societal pressures keeps changing to what a man wants. She is the fantasy of every man but no man ever becomes the subject of her fantasy. In a genre that is often defined by superficial satisfactions of the id, Biller is able to create a nuanced film while not only embracing all the idiosyncrasies of a form from a bygone age, but by upending them.

Movies that follows the day in the life of its protagonists that eventually leads to drunken screaming and crying

Blue Jay, Krisha

The way people get excited about Marvel Movies is the way I get excited by the latest Mark Duplass joint. His latest film is a micro-budget film with Sarah Paulson that follows the familiar trope of two people walking and talking for a day that had been perfected by Linklater in the “Before Trilogy.” But, what it does with that trope is create an intimate film about lost love that becomes unpredictable. You question why are two central characters are doing what they are doing until the end makes it crystal clear. “Blue Jay” deserves to be watched twice just for the nuances that Paulson is able to portray that will not be clear the first time through. As if anyone needs any reminder that Sarah Paulson was a great actress.

In another micro-budget indie, Trey Edward Shults’ first feature does not even have any actors of note in it. In fact, everyone in the film is played by members of his own family about a story that is based on events from his life. “Krisha” is truly a family affair. Everyone knows the anxiety of coming back home for a big family dinner. Here, Shults films it as if it was a sweeping epic film. The way Terrence Malick films the fields in “Days of Heaven,” is how Shults moves his camera through the big open house as Krisha comes back home after stints in rehab. To call Krisha self-destructive will be an understatement. Here Stults captures moments of family that feels too close to home. With specificity comes relatability; Krisha prepares herself before she goes into the house, children running around with no care for the adult conversations, courtesy small talks with family members who no one cares for. In the end, it is the conflict of hope and shame family has for Krisha that makes the film unforgettable.

Movies in which Adam Driver plays a character who is unsure of himself

Silence, Paterson

Quentin Tarantino has always said that he was afraid about the complacency old age might bring him with his directing. Well, Martin Scorsese has not grown complacent. With “Silence,” Scorsese proves to be as vibrant, self-reflexive and edgy as he was in the 70’s. This film will be the definitive mark of his greatness. “Silence,” is the nearly three-hour epic about Jesuit priests facing persecution for their faith in Japan. The film becomes a meditation of faith in all kinds of obstacles. And as an early-twenties American living in the 21st century with no religion to call my own, I identified with the plight of the people longing for Catholicism and the priests that bring them. Scorsese creates a total cinema that is more sensory than any artificial 4D can create. The theater melts away and you become immersed in 17th century Japan. The first two hours are physically brutal but the genius is with the emotionally brutal last hour when the form of storytelling changes, ending in a beautiful final shot.

Best dog of the year goes to the now departed Marvin, whose presence in “Paterson” puts him in the pantheon of great dogs in cinema alongside Toto and Uggie from “The Artist.” I don’t know how to explain this film to people except to say that it is the exactly what you expect from Jim Jarmusch. He has not made a film like this in a while; a poetic meditation of a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey. Much of this film was influenced by the poetry of William Carlos Williams and the film moves like a poem. There is a structure but not a traditional story structure. The film ambles along like a NJ Transit bus and characters move in and out. Adam Driver as Paterson warns at one point, before he reads his poems, that it does not rhyme. I feel like I have to preface this film the same way. But, I like my films like that. Jarmusch instead populates the film with colorful characters, including a couple that cyclically fights and breaks up and a gang in a convertible warning about dog-jackers.

Documentaries that subvert the form

Kate Plays Christine, Cameraperson

I love meta explorations into the form of films and why we watch them. So, to see Robert Greene continue to question why people watch film while also making his audiences question what is real brings me pure bliss. Here, Greene follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she prepares to play Christine Chubbuck, a real-life reporter who committed suicide on live television in the 70’s. There is no role for Sheil, just the process. But, through the process in which we see her try to get into the head of a person who suffered through manic depression, Greene and Sheil begin to question our obsession with these figures. Chubbuck fought against the increasing exploitation of violence on the news and her senseless violence has since made her into a cult figure that has seen people desperately searching for the video of her death like it is the holy grail. It’s unclear what parts of “Kate Plays Christine” is real but the questions certainly are.

What we learn from that film and “Cameraperson” is the camera is inherently subjective. We see what the camera person wants us to see. And we know based on what images are put together and what sequence they come in. Kristen Johnson has been a longtime cinematographer for some of the greatest documentarians from Michael Moore to Laura Poitras. Through those films, she has saved plenty of footage and compiled a film that is a diary of sorts. Through the montage of out of context footage, we get a story of who Johnson is, despite the fact that we barely see Johnson. The only times we do is when she shows footage of her mom and she documents her struggles through Alzheimer’s. It is an amazing way of presenting self and highlighting the power of the form. Also, it is strangely satisfying to see the philosopher, Derrida, casually crossing a street in Manhattan.

Movies in which little trinkets given to the main character serves as important character development

Kubo and the Two Strings, American Honey

Laika takes a Studio Ghibli approach to filmmaking. Their films take time and persistence to make, not just because of their intricate animation style but because so much attention is put to little humane moments. Animation has the distinct advantage of being able to do the impossible, but the best of animation comes when the human moments are recreated amongst the impossible. “Kubo” is Laika’s crowning achievement in their young history and it is a shame that more people did not see it. It’s an exploration of grief and how people deal with it but it never stops being a children’s film. It achieves the sublime beauty of storytelling and art. This the type of movie that kids will be drawn to because of its beauty and action and watch again to realize the complexity of emotions it is tackling with. Here as an unnecessary dig, “Kubo and the Two Strings” does more for the genre of animation than all of Illumination films combine.

Rhianna is the soundtrack of youth. Last year the French film, “Girlhood” had the best use of “Diamonds” is a film when four young French girls lip-sync to it bathed in neon lights. Now, a bunch of runaways in Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey” does the same to “We Found Love” in a Midwestern grocery store. Rhianna is freedom. And “American Honey” is the truth. A somewhat divisive film, the film follows a magazine crew, a mish mash of reckless youths selling overpriced magazine subscriptions. Our protagonist is Star, played by a future star in Sasha Lane, as she decides to leave her constrained life to freedom with this band of merry people led by Riley Keough and Shia LaBeouf. The film wanders along with this crew who has no destination. Rather, the destination is a journey for Star as she achieves self-actualization through wandering across the American landscape. This is a life unknown to me, a pleasure to be in, and an aftertaste sweet as Tennessee honey.

18 notes · View notes

drumpfwatch · 5 years

Text

The Parasite is Now the Host

When I first started this insanity, one of the first articles I wrote was about those who would stay behind Trump. I basically said that people who supported Trump in the election - and really, Republicans as a whole - were left with a choice. Reject Trump, or become a party to his bad nature.

It’s been two, maybe three years now. I think it’s time I come back to that, especially because I now get to give a nice and fun “HA HA HA I WAS RIGHT”.

Who knew we’d end up here, in this crazy upside down world where the insane has become mundane. There are so many ways to explore that, but I think my favorite is the revelation from twitter on why it isn’t using its tech to block white Supremacists.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, a bit of backstory. Twitter is a company, and as a company they have a certain desire to prevent their platform from being used for hate speech. Part of their commitment to this is an algorithm they invented, the sole purpose of which is to check tweets for certain patterns of speech. Specifically, it looks for buzzwords, statistics, and phrases that are used by a certain group, and if it finds YOU using them, it will more or less auto-decide that you need to be banned. This technology is used to monitor say, Desh fighters, who are spreading their hateful messages and threats on the platform and to keep them under control.

So, someone had the bright idea to ask “Hey, if you have this technology, why aren’t you using it to curtail white supremecist speech on your platform?” Twitter’s response was that there are too many important people in high levels of government who would be affected by it. That it would essentially silence the free speech and communication network between actual officials who are literally employed by the United States and their constituents.

Let’s, for the moment, ignore the fact this is a total freaking mess of ethics. We’ll get back to that. I want to focus right now on the revelation itself.

Think about this for a moment. Twitter has basically said that algorithmically banning white supremacists isn’t an option. The signs that would be used to tell if someone is a Neo-Nazi - the banter, the subtle winks and nods, the talking points - are so prevelant among the Right at the moment that a computer program would be taking down enough politicans that it would cause Twitter some concern.

Now, to be fair. It is possible the problem isn’t as big as Twitter is saying. It’s possible that the person interviewed misrepresented the situation - though I doubt it. It’s also possible that Twitter is also run by Nazis and this is their secret way of letting their message slip through the cracks. I doubt that as well. Mostly because I’ve actually seen this. I have seen right wing politicians blowing Racist Dog Whistles, whether or not they actually believe in them for “legitimate reasons” or the actual ones. Frankly, this is a thing that’s been going on for a long goddamn time now, so it really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

Why it matters - why I keep bringing it up - is because that’s how we know this party has been taken over. Like a strain of cordyceps that infected an ant and managed to burst in the hive, the disease has spread and the uninfected now have important decisions to make.

And that brings us back to the metaphorical Republican to whom the first article was addressed. What was once the noble Party of Lincoln has become a part of racists and fools. People who don’t understand the difference between socialism and communism and who, frankly, don’t care to learn it. They treat words in and of themselves as bad, without consideration for context, and almost revel in their ignorance.

Regardless of whether or not you personally are aligned with the hate, regardless of whether or not you personally believe it, if you are Republican, you now are faced with the uncomfortable truth: The infection of white supremicists that wormed its way into your party is now the party. The parasite is now the host. Fear not though, loyal Lincolnite...or Reganite, if you still think that’s a good thing. You have some choices.

The first is to, of course, abandon the party. Leave the Republican party. Go somewhere else - not the democratic party even, just somewhere else. Do what the Whigs did in the first place to make the Republican party and make your own god damned party. I’m sure there are enough of you sane republicans out there that the ensuing upset would at least get some attention and could spiral out from there. I already know a good number of Republicans who have left the GoP because of Trump and what his cronies have done. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the Tea Party became the sane one while the Republican party became the broken one?

Another idea is to rebuild the party from the ground up. Start over completely new, and then see how many of the racists want to hang on - or are even able to.

Finally, you could also try and take out the trash. Kick all of the racists and filth out of your party. That way they won’t get their voices out there and you guys can have your party back. And that actually leads me to the last point.

Twitter doing this. I said before it was an ethical nightmare, and it kinda is. It is absolutely true that Freedom of Speech is a right guaranteed in the United States of America, but a lot of people misunderstand what that means. Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean you can just say whatever you want, without consequence or recourse. Freedom of Speech means the government cannot stop you from saying what you want. It doesn’t mean that the person across the street can’t call you out for your racism, and it certainly doesn’t mean that the company Twitter is not entitled to put conduct codes in its EULA that mean if you say certain things that can get your ass booted out.

Let’s also remember that the government has put limits on free speech before. The most famous example is not being allowed to shout “Fire!” in a crowded building. It was decided that the damage caused by that action far, FAR outweighed the weight of the speech in and of itself being censored.

So that’s the question we have to ask ourselves, and Twitter had to ask itself. Is it ethical to bring down the hammer of censorship on actual politicians, and frankly, is it even legal?

I can’t blame Twitter for the decision it made. One possible way to interpret banning politicians from the platform is political censorship - a company attempting to squelch political views it doesn’t like. That’s both illegal and very easy to dislike.

That said, I personally am for the utter and complete deplatforming of any Neo-Nazi. Not that I think they should be legally punished whenever they say Neo-Nazi things, or should not be allowed to assemble. But there should be no body in this country that should allow them to speak. Nazis get their power by pretending to be for free speech and “open debate” and then immediately silencing anyone who would try and stop them with threats and actual physical violence. They pretend to be interested in debate but to them, debate is simply a tool to spread their propaganda. They have already decided that Jews and Blacks and Latinos and others are bad people and must be eliminated and they will never be convinced to the contrary, so debating them is pointless and letting them speak only serves to incite more violence.

And that’s the clincher. That’s why I personally may not have done it if I were in charge of the Twitter, and why I believe punching Nazis is self defense. No matter what I do or say, these cowards will call me a bad person regardless and demand I leave or die. They incite violence with their words, and the only conclusion of their ideology is my death.

That said, I understand the complexities of the situation. Silencing honest to god seated politicians would cause ethical and legal problems that we could spend all day arguing about and I can see both sides. Frankly, though they’re secondary. As I said before, my primary concern is that the Republican Party has people who use enough Nazi buzzwords among them that a computer would identify them as Nazis and ban them.

That should be concerning to every single one of you, unless you’re a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer.

#Wednesday Essays #by Phoenix #TheDrumpfWatch

0 notes

dorianducksworth · 7 years

Text

3/30

"Chimes of Freedom" is actually one of my favorite songs by Bob Dylan. Part of the enormous power of Chimes of Freedom is that even 3 years after first hearing it some of the lines can still hit me right in the heart and take me back to when I first heard it. Lines like And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe can really have an impact. Indeed I feel it is one of the most powerful of all the Dylan songs, perhaps it is the most powerful of them all. It was written in 1964 and was released on Another Side, and is said to be influenced by Dylan’s interest symbolism or (for Heylin and one or two others), the assassination of Kennedy. Now Heylin plays a trick quite regularly in his books of acknowledging Dylan’s rejection of a viewpoint, and then telling us that Dylan is wrong and he (Heylin) knows best. Chimes of Freedom is a typical piece of this nature as Heylin examines every scrap of paper to produce his point which reaches its climax with the Dylan comment “The whole thing about my reactions to the assassination is overplayed,” before Heylin dismisses this with the line “Pages and pages of poems on the subject in the Margolis and Moss manuscripts belie this assertion.” The problem is that Heylin, as he reveals repeatedly through his work, knows nothing of music per se, nor anything about the expressive process. His works are primarily reportage, pulling together facts and detail, not expressing in depth in miniatures (which is what songs in essence are). Of course I don’t know how Dylan works, beyond what I’ve read, but as a person who has written some 70 odd books and maybe a couple of thousand texts of adverts (the two arenas where my desire for greatness led me in the end), and as a person who has inevitably met and chatted with other minor writers, I know that most of us play with words, change things around and around, start writing about x and end up writing about y. That’s how it goes. As the artist sketches his drawings so the writer and composer sketches phrases, endlessly playing with words and ideas. Indeed this little review has a whole section chopped because it seemed to go round in a circle as I tried to deal with Dylan, Rimbaud, symbolism, Bohemianism and a feeling for the underdog. But Heylin sees himself as Sherlock Holmes I think, able to look at the evidence and unravel the truth no matter how complex the reality might be. Unfortunately Holmes was a fiction no one can really see what another person is thinking and what their motivations were or are, and very very few people who have not earned their living from a specific creative process. (Conan Doyle was careful to keep Sherlock Holmes well away from highly creative artists most of the time). Certainly the central element of the song is symbolism representing via the images the raising of the humble and the ordinary to a height above the idealised world of beauty and great thinking. Everyone can potentially see the beauty of the universe in a grain of sand we just need to be lifted up and shown how. Dylan speaks out for the ordinary, the regular people doing regular things and being down trodden as a reward for not being rich and powerful. Whether it is true that Dylan was also looking to follow the world of the wild 19th century poet Arthur Rimbaud and the other poets of the symbolist era, who can say. Certainly his life was taking off in all directions, and in the music that followed Dylan’s move into rock there is a strong sense of surrealism (just think of where he had got to by the time of singing, “The reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse.”) So symbolism is dominant in the song, speaking about the ordinary world, and here not a life moving into the wildness of that of Rimbaud and thought patterns moving into the world of surrealism… that was to come later. The image of the Chimes of Freedom is powerful enough, the fact they are flashing gives us an extra dimension which when combined with the certainty of some of the other lines that we have hope that yes, things can change. We are, most of us, just ordinary regular folk, but we can aspire to a glimpse of heaven in the flashes of the chimes. Indeed when seen in that light the symbolism is almost Taoist in nature. So Dylan stands in the doorway, waiting for the storm to pass. The symbolism makes him almost a poet of the Norsemen feeling that Thor, the god of thunder, is expressing his feeling for the oppressed. (As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds is very Thor like, although I don’t think Thor actually cared too much about the weak.) In a sense Chimes of Freedom is a bridge between the vision of the future in the song The Times They Are A Changing, and the visions of the present that pervade much of the rest of that album as it considers lives in which times are very much not a-changing. In Chimes of Freedom Dylan offers hope to Hollis Brown and his fellows that times might be able to change. That things can change. Thus a significant part of the masterpiece of this work is the combination of sympathy and hope for the oppressed, and for those struggling to express themselves – to make their voices heard amid the tyranny of contemporary life, as with “the countless confused, accused, misused, strung out ones and worse.” To say that everyday life is intolerable and impossible for some individuals had been a Dylan theme from the start. But now he is saying it is intolerable and impossible for one hell of a load of people. He’s saying this is a problem of our society – this is (as he would much later say) a world gone wrong. We’ve given control of the world to the wrong people. And worse, in the midst of this impossible society these people with power are now endlessly wanting to tell us what to do and what to think. They are the “guardians and protectors of the mind.” The Big Brother of 1984. While Rimbaud might scream “my mind does not need a guardian” (he didn’t say it but it is easy to imagine him so doing), Dylan leaves the image hanging in the air. He might almost have been talking to Heylin! (Incidentally and in passing I should add that the “protectors of the mind” line is musically the one that Dylan took from “Chimes of Trinity” – the melody is identical at that point.) As for the music two things stand out. One is that the song is in triple time with each strong pulse divided into three very unusual in contemporary popular and folk music. I think if writing the piece out in conventional notation it would have to be in 12/8 (meaning four groups of three quavers in each bar.) Confusingly Dylan likes to start the song with a bit of guitar strumming in four beats in a bar, before moving into the singing. We are told that when recording the classic version of the song Dylan had to take about half a dozen attempts to get it right. Because Heylin is no musician, he doesn’t tell us what went wrong each time but I suspect it was this shift from four beats in a bar to four groups of three beats in a bar. It is hard to pull off. But it is this pulsing in threes which gives a real emphasis to the words, and as there are so many images in the piece that this helps bring out specific words. If we take the line about Dylan’s favourite character the drifter who wanders from town to town Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting the power comes into this line by the emphasis provided by the triple beat. This constitutes two bars one of the four strong words, and one which ends the final word exists alone

0 notes