#i think the thing is that i’ve conditioned myself to write in a collaborative sense. with constant feedback / working off another person

[mrbingley]

i am white knuckle resisting the urge to ask if anyone wants a sneak peek at my unfinished existential horror interactive/online fiction story b/c i want constant validation but i am forbidding myself from asking this b/c i know it’ll delay me finishing the story b/c the possible compliments would sustain me for days.

[pixelsareforsquares]

To Become with Others

A reflection on the importance of intra-action in my performance practice.

I am sitting.

I am sitting in a rehearsal space.

It’s a big space.

And it’s mostly empty.

I could…

I could…

I could do a lot of things,

here

in this big open space.

I stand up.

I walk across the room.

I try moving my body a bit.

It feels good but it’s not what I’m looking for.

I try filling the void with my voice, which feels good too, but…

But

The stakes are low.

I try writing things on big pieces of paper. I hope it will fill the vastness around me, but...

But all it does is echo the expanse of my mind. So I try moving these big pieces of paper around, my generous handwriting seems flimsy against their broadness. And sitting somewhere in all this space is the thing I’ve tried so hard to bat away, with my body or with my voice or with my writing. Thinking if I fill it, it won’t have the space to exist.

“But if I were a real artist I would know what to do."

What am I supposed to do here?

How can I best use this space for my research?

What can I uncover?

Here.

Alone.

Who am I without anyone else?

via Somatic_based_content_only on Instagram. 19.04.21

This scenario repeated itself during a workshop with Dagmar Slagmolen, director of the Amsterdam-based music theatre company, Via Berlin. Over the past few months my research has focused on vulnerability and its role in audience participation. My aim is to create a method for accessing and utilizing my own emotional vulnerability to better connect with my audience in order to enhance and expand the participatory experience. In our initial meetings, Dagmar was very excited about this project, particularly my interest in the links between shame and vulnerability. The piece I am creating in order to explore some of these techniques, focuses around my personal sexual history and hopes to buff out some of the shame which is so deeply ingrained in the patriarchal narratives surrounding sexuality in western society. In the days prior to the physical workshop, I discussed my work with Dagmar and the three other workshop participants, which helped me condense and clarify my research so far. I was then given the task of continuing to think about and experiment with vulnerability during the workshop.. Therefore, after a brief talk with Dagmar upon arriving in the studio, I was left with, none other than….. space and time to experiment.

Spaces which I had time to experiment in

Sitting in this studio, I became increasingly aware of a considerable obstacle. Explore vulnerability with who? Myself? Can one even be vulnerable with one’s self? Vulnerability is an act of revealing, an act of (emotional) exposure (Brown 2012). I find this an impossibility considering the omnipresence of the self. At least for me personally, the idea of exposing my self to myself seems nonsensical, as my emotional vulnerabilities exist in relation to others. This notion of impossibility seems to parallel the more ambiguous feeling that I described in the introduction, which creeps in whenever I undergo a solo studio practice in order to create work. The work I make is not only the presentation of a skill or story or technique, but the intra-action of space, time, set parameters and most importantly, other people. While I may use studio time to learn or refine certain physical techniques, this is usually a small element of my practice. Just as I cannot experiment or rehearse my vulnerability alone due to the fact that the very notion of my vulnerability is conditional to the presence of others, so is it impossible for me to experiment or rehearse a performance which is reliant on inter and intra-actions with people around me.

Pieces of paper, large and small

If all the world’s a stage, then when and where do we rehearse? When and where do we experiment? According to performance scholar Richard Schechner, the extended childhood particular to humans is a rehearsal, where we learn the behaviours which we ‘restore’ each day in our performance as adults (2013, 29). However, as restored behaviour may be combined and adjusted in a multitude of ways, and as our co-performers, sets and scenery are invariably interchanged, one’s performances of restored behaviour are thus in eternal flux. The performance of everyday interactions is a constant improvisation structured through certain social parameters. Each experience becomes the rehearsal for the next. It is an act of becoming, an intra-action of the players, the space, the audience etc. Scholar and physicist Karan Barad defines intra-action as “a mutual constitution of entangled agencies” (2007, 33). As I understand intra-action, it negates the idea that anything can be independent from anything else. If I think about it in the context of interactions with others, I understand that my presence and actions do not come from a self that is independent of those around me, but instead materializes through my relationships with others. Moreover, because of the multiplicitous constellations of people, places and things that come into contact throughout daily life, this diffracts into exponential infinity.

As much of my practice relies on such intra-action between myself and the other persons in the performance space, I must then question the where, how and why’s of rehearsal in my practice. Improvisation has always been wildly fulfilling to me, and even more so when I have an audience. This overused saying of ‘dance like no one's watching’ has never made sense to me. It is the eyes of others that grant me the ability to take the risks that make for an exhilarating performance. It is here where I get an embodied sense of intra-action between the audience, and myself where our relationship invokes a disassembly of any and all facades of self.

Some reflections on my relationship to improvisation as a 14-year-old

As I better understand this relationship, it also becomes clear as to why cabaret has remained at the heart of my practice. While I may wear the same costume and perform to the same music for any given act, the stage which I step on is always different, anywhere from a small piece of cleared floor with an audience member given a light with which to illuminate it, to a circus tent in the middle of a music festival as swarms of drunk people wander in after a headliner rock band. I have given myself the same task and the same tools in each however, I must remain nimble and responsive to my audience’s and surroundings. In an interview with José Esteban Muñoz, Nao Bustamante, describes a similar working method “It’s very important for me to maintain a fresh space.. I have these 12 positions that I hit within the piece… and then within those 12 positions anything can happen, and I just allow myself to watch myself, watch the audience, watch the interaction, focus on that particular moment or balance” (2002). My performance is not one of set actions, but a response (to a response to a response…) within a microcosm of intertwined energies in a room. In speaking about the work of Bustamente, Jack Halberstam writes, ‘Her body must respond on the spot and in the moment of performance to the new configurations of space and uncertainty" (2011, 144). As I have noted in previous reflections on my practice, a frequent piece of feedback I receive is along the lines of ‘It was so great to watch you when everything went wrong’. This is usually in reference to some technical difficulties that I’ve had to fix before or during a performance, crouching awkwardly on the floor in whatever absurd costume I’m wearing. These moments are moments of failure in which holes of uncertainty are pulled and stretched and the audience engages in a different way than they have rehearsed. We are together in a liminal space of both watching and non-watching. I think that the reason why I seem to be adept at such moments is because I invite my audience to continue to engage with me as I make plain my failure. “It’s those moments of failure that also build empathy for the character” (Bustamante 2002). The intra-action between myself, the audience, the liminal space of performance/not performance and failure coalesce to create a space of vulnerability and empathy that is near impossible to recreate alone with myself in a rehearsal space.

“For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist.” (Nabokov, 2011, 118).

A phrase I have repeated many times in collaborations over the years is, ‘It’s not about me’, which is both entirely true and entirely not all at once. It is, of course, always about me. I am always present, inescapable even, as the protagonist of my own life story. However, I am also unsure, as indicated by Nabokov above, and in relation to Barad’s concept of intra-action, if there is any essence of self that is able to exist independently of the world and the people in it. A friend from many years ago always talked about how everyone we encountered was only a reflection of ourselves, which is something I still ponder on often. In contrast, the artist, Ann Liv Young, under the guise of her persona Sherry (whose work I investigated recently in relation to my own) suggests that the opposite is true. She is a reflection of others, rather than vice-versa. Sherry is a highly confrontational and contradictory semi-autobiographical character which Young uses to create improvisational participatory work. During performances, she maintains that Sherry is merely a reflection of her audience, making statements such as, “I only work with what’s in the room. I am very boring. I am essentially a mirror” (Good Sherry, 2018). These proclamations are used particularly at moments when her audience seems uncomfortable with what Sherry is saying or doing. Young and I are both interested in using vulnerability in our work, however I find that Young as Sherry wants to draw out vulnerability from her audience, while using Sherry to deflect her own vulnerability. Whereas the methodology of my approach is more about creating space and leading by example. However, when one uses intra-action to examine these relationships we see that they may both exist concurrently or not at all. One is both a reflection and reflects others. If everyone we encounter is standing with a metaphorical mirror in order to call into our existence, then we too must be holding a mirror to realize all other’s existences. Similarly to the elusivity of an objective truth, the idea of a self, independent of the world around it, slips from the realm of possibility. The self is in a continual flux of intra-actions with what is outside of us. Thus, as I explore my practice and how I might better engage with vulnerability within it, I understand the centrality of intra-action, particularly with other human beings and come to understand how important the methods of performance-as-research and performance-as-practice are to my work. Moreover, while I may have engaged with both of these methods in my practice for many years, it is an element which I have often wished I could pull back from. However, by switching my focus in order to better understand how and why I use performance-as-practice, I will be able to explore the full depth and range of how performance-as practice might be used to its full potential within my practice.

Reflective reflections. Some props I acquired.

....becoming something with others.

Barad, K. M. (2007) Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke University Press. Brown, B. (2012) Listening to shame. (TED2012). Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame (Accessed: 15 November 2020). Felden Krisis (@somatic_based_content_only) • Instagram photos and videos (no date). Available at: https://www.instagram.com/somatic_based_content_only/ (Accessed: 25 April 2021). Halberstam, J. (2011) The queer art of failure. Durham: Duke University Press. Muñoz, J. E. (2006) ‘The Vulnerability Artist: Nao Bustamante And the Sad Beauty of Reparation’, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, 16(2), pp. 191–200. doi: 10.1080/07407700600744386. Nabokov, V. V. and Nabokov, D. (2011) The eye. New York: Vintage International/Vintage Books. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=722896 (Accessed: 25 April 2021). Schechner, R. and Brady, S. (2013) Performance studies: an introduction. 3. ed. London: Routledge. Tactical Aesthetics (2019) Ann Liv Young: Everybody has a responsibility to respond (excerpt from ‘Good Sherry’). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqEJyWxWzzs&ab_channel=MGM (Accessed: 3 March 2021). Video: Interview with Nao Bustamante [videorecording]. (2002). Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2333.1/5dv41nv8 (Accessed: 25 April 2021).

[misrihalek]

This is for one person in particular. Well, maybe two people. 

...I wasn’t good for you, was I? 

You found me at a pretty low point of my life, I’ve said that before. I was trying to do what the world told me, trying to be a good little boy, get that job, earn my place in the world and...I failed. I was lying on a bed in a house in the suburbs, flatmates fighting in the ungodly hours of the morning, desperately trying to escape from the world. That was how you found me and for some reason you saw something worth a damn. 

And then I proceeded to bleed you dry. I didn’t know how to get myself out of my hole and so I just started dragging you down with me, using you as just another means of escape and demanding so much of you...far too much. How many times did you lament that your love wasn’t enough to help me stand on my own two feet? How many times did you think that you were inferior because of it? Did I make you hate yourself because of my failures? 

That’s not to say that it was all bad: we wouldn’t have lasted as long as we did if we didn’t click on some level, after all. The talks we had, the things we shared between us...it would be disrespectful to say that they meant nothing: maybe their value to us makes this whole thing worse in retrospect, who knows. What I do know is that, even if only ashes remain now, you were the best friend I ever had: you were kind, funny and passionate and your presence in this world stood in defiance of the forces that sought to bring you low. You fought for your right to exist, so maybe it makes sense that you waited for so long for me to do the same. I’m sorry I let you down. 

That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it: why didn’t I leave that hole that I found myself in? I can blame outside forces (and I often did), but the fact of the matter is that I just didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to be the person that the world demanded of me and no-one seemed to be able to tell me, so somewhere along the way I just grew comfortable in that wretched hole, at home in my misery. I started pantomiming my own life, living as if death would never come and not really living in the process, and it was this awful piece of theatre that you ended up being an unwilling part of: despairing about the future that I couldn’t see and slowly wearing yourself away. I imagine the tipping point came after those three weeks together ended and you saw how little things had changed. 

Those three weeks...before long it will have been two years since that trip to see you and it’s...weird to think about. I know that time has lost a bit of its meaning since then, but even then it’s hard to believe that it was really that long ago. I still remember the elevator up to your apartment, walking to the tramlines and going to that one tea shop - and you bet your ass I remember that hike uphill to the castle. The emotions have faded over time, but I have no qualms in saying that those were quite literally the best days of my life: I know that the word “literally” has kinda lost its meaning in this day and age, but I can confidently say that no experience before or since has compared. So why didn’t it change anything? Why did I go right back into my hole when I got back? 

I don’t think either of us knew at the time, but come a few months later it didn’t matter all that much anyway. You found someone else and left and, now that I look back, I really can’t blame you for trying to find a less bleak fate than what was in store for you. I remember you saying to me how scared you were of a future where you had to support the both of us: why wouldn’t you be? I had demonstrated no ability to be a functioning human being and I would have inevitably become a burden...well, more of a burden. What kind of future is that, for either of us? And so you left to find a brighter one. 

It was ugly and painful and I have no doubt that it still hurts you, just like it does me. For a decent amount of time I was blinded by my own pain and I said things that I can no longer stand by in good conscience: I blamed you for how things had gone and eventually cut you out of my life so I could best deal with my wrenching sorrow. To some degree that action has proved successful: being able to live without having reminders of my failures at the forefront of my mind has let me claw back pieces of myself and move forward with my life, even if it has taken some time. I cannot however defend the reasons why I did it though, born as they were from an inability to reflect on my own deficiencies. 

It turns out that there might’ve been a reason for that inability, actually. You remember me talking about my Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis? It was something that I got told about as I was growing up and it was basically conveyed to me as a low-strength form of autism, something fairly surmountable in comparison to the more traditional forms. Last year though, I found media that suggested that Asperger’s Syndrome was a less-than-credible condition from a doctor that quite literally collaborated with Nazis and further research revealed that the term was no longer in official use. I talked to my mother about this and she casually dropped into conversation that I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. 

ADHD! So many goddamn things clicked into place once she said that and I imagine that the same might be happening for you right now. No wonder I had so much difficulty functioning in that job, how infuriating it was to focus on things, how I would sally forth into different trains of thought mid-conversation. My mother’s general mistrust of the medical system also meant that I’d been dealing with these things all my life without any sort of medication, the usual way that other people with ADHD make themselves co-operate with the strictures of society. No wonder things went to fucking pieces the moment I stepped into the real world. 

I’ve had to do some serious thinking since then, not least of all about my future. I tried to keep on the jobsearching grind for a while after that bombshell dropped, but after months of no luck I snapped and decided to take an alternate route, one that I couldn’t consider while we were together. Since then I’ve moved away from home and I’m studying to maybe one day be a social worker: to one day have the tools to help people like me, people stuck in their own holes and unable to get out without the helping hand of someone who understands what they’re going though. No doubt you’d say that you’re happy for me and I don’t doubt that statement: you’re a better person that I was and even through all this you’ve wished no ill towards me. You’re a good person like that. 

These days I’m doing decently okay: I’m living with 3 flatmates who I get along with pretty well and my studies are progressing as they should. I’m trying to write a bit more as well, although about the only thing I’ve done lately of any tangibility has been...well, this. Even with the progress I’ve made, what happened between us still bobs to the surface from time to time and I have to process things all over again: it gets easier as time marches onwards, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. That probably explains why I reacted so violently to the message you sent me, among other things. 

What I said there was true: I can’t face you while things are the way they are. I’m not strong enough to watch you be happy with someone else, because it’s a reminder that I can no longer elicit that same joy from you: a reminder that our time has passed because of my failures. It’s knowledge that hollows me out from the inside. I tried to be strong - tried to ignore that hollowing out and remain friends - and failed over and over, coming close enough to nothingness to feel it encroaching on my soul, so now I put up my walls to protect it.

I need to be okay. And I can’t do that with you around. It’s an awful thing to say and you don’t deserve it, but it’s the truth. Once more you suffer for my deficiencies as a human being. 

I’m sorry that I couldn’t be the person that you needed: I guess the deck was kinda stacked against us from the beginning, considering what I didn’t know about myself and, y’know, the whole long-distance thing, so don’t go thinking that any of this was your fault. You remain one of the best people I have ever met and I am eternally grateful for the time we shared together: do not doubt that you are worthy of love, even in your lowest moments. You’re a damn good human being and you deserve to have good things happen to you, better things than me. 

I imagine you’re expecting me to say this, but oh well: I’d prefer it if you don’t send me a response to what I have written here. Beyond just safeguarding my own wellbeing, I’ve been meaning to write this for a long time now and what you see is pretty much every single thing that I can conceivably say in regards to all that has transpired between us. I don’t really have anything else to say and after this I will hopefully not think about this so much anymore and get on with my life. I would implore you to do the same. 

I wish you all the best. 

...

...there’s a small piece of me that doubles back on what I’ve written here, seeing if it can instill its will within the paragraphs wherein it can wend its way to you. It’s the piece of me that still loves you, that holds out hope that I may one day see you again and that we can rediscover what was lost. It tells me to leave my heart open to the opportunity, to hope against hope that things change. This last paragraph is my concession to it in the vain hope that it’ll finally fucking shut up.

[shemakesmusic-uk]

Alt-pop newcomer LVRA (pronounced loo-rah, real name Rachel Lu) has shared her first new track of 2021, ‘DEAD’. Following up on 2020’s debut EP LVCID, she explains: “There’s a unique power you gain when you stop caring about what people think of you. It’s an ongoing battle, though, and ‘DEAD’ is about the conflict between the fantasy of not caring and how you feel in reality. The video captures that, with a version of myself who has her shit together and another that is fighting to survive.The use of red represents fear in the human condition, but in Chinese culture it also symbolises happiness. One rarely comes without the other.” The track – a cultural mix that matches LVRA’s heritage with bleeding edge ultra HD pop – is the first taster of a second EP, which is set to follow later this summer. You can check out an Oscar McNab (Lacuna Common, Oscar Lang). directed video above. [via Dork]

Los Angeles artist Wallice follows debut single 'Punching Bag' with new coming of age anthem, '23'. Wallice finds herself caught between two places on fresh cut, '23'. “Too old to be a runaway”, but also too young to consider herself as grown up, the 22-year old yearns for a past that still has not happened yet. Working with producer David Marinelli since her return to California, Wallice has crafted a sound that is unique without taking itself too seriously. An angst-driven remonstration at the powerlessness of her age, '23' is also the clearest stamp of her musical identity to date. The expression of this purgatory is a cathartic garage-rock headbanger complemented beautifully by Wallice’s playful lyrics. “I just can't wait to be / all grown up and 23,” she admits in the song’s irresistible chorus. “Tell me what is wrong with me / I miss my Ohio fake ID”. In artfully portraying the limbo state of the age, Wallice describes the events in her life that have led to her own disaffection. “It’s hard not to compare your own professional success to that of your similarly aged peers. I dropped out of university in New York after studying Jazz Voice for a year, and my dad was VERY disappointed, to say the least, so it was hard not to feel like a loser in that sense. “The specific age 23 doesn’t have any milestones associated with it, but it’s more the idea of just looking forward to the future,” Wallice continues on the meaning of the track. "Much like how people ‘reset’ every new year, it’s comparable to be ‘older and wiser’ with each birthday, but instead of constantly looking to the future, it is important to be happy with where you are”. [via Line Of Best Fit]

Coach Party have shared their new single 'Everybody Hates Me'. The Isle of Wight group are gearing up to release their incoming EP, with After Party pitting their potent indie pop influences against bittersweet lyricism. Out shortly, the EP is teased by new thumper 'Everybody Hates Me', with Coach Party adding a neat gloss to their guitar pop sound. Out now, 'Everybody Hates Me' comes equipped with a neat video steered by Daniel Broadley. Vocalist Jess Eastwood comments: “‘Everybody Hates Me’ isn’t a metaphor for anything; it’s literally about those times when you convince yourself that everyone, including your best friends don’t actually like you, and your self-confidence is so low that you don’t even blame them. Disguise that sentiment in an up-beat singalong, and there you have the third single from our new record. The video is a direct extension of the song. It swings between the insecurities of feeling like you’re not good enough amongst your friends, and the sense of unity you get from those same people when you finally wake up from your rut. Everyone feels that way from time to time, but you gotta remember that sometimes your irrational self is going to take over. And when it does, try to remember that you’re awesome, and your friends really are your friends.” [via Clash]

Pussy Riot have gone hyperpop on their latest song 'Toxic'. The Dorian Electra collaboration features glitched out production by Dylan Brady of 100 gecs and tackles a relationship gone bad. Written, directed, and edited by Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, the music video features jarring, bloody imagery matching Brady’s production. “Care about yourself, cherish your mental health, and stay away from relationships that poison you!” Tolokonnikova writes in the YouTube description. “Amen.” In the song’s lyrics, Tolokonnikova tells off an ex. “You are my daily poison so annoying,” she sings. “You’re even more toxic than my employer.” The hook continues the theme. “This combo is deadly — ’cause we used to be friendly,” Electra laments. “And now my heart is a weapon / You made me… toxic.” [via Consequence of Sound]

Baby Queen has dropped a brand new track, ‘These Drugs’. Bella Latham’s second new track of the year – following up on the anthemic ‘Raw Thoughts’ – she explains in an Instagram post: “This is a story I really needed to tell you and I didn’t know how to for a long time. When I first wrote this song, I honestly didn’t think I was going to be allowed to release it or that releasing it would be a particularly good idea. It just felt really important and that’s all I’ve ever wanted music to be; so I knew I had to share it with you.I was in a very bad place at the time… very depressed and convinced I wasn’t a good person and didn’t deserve good things. Life is different now. I’m happy. I’ve learnt that the antidote to my misery is gratitude and caring about myself even when I don’t want to, until it becomes a habit. It’s natural to look for escapism but there’s more freedom in working to build a life you like… and by that I literally just mean learning to love yourself. You, with all your scars and all your regrets, are home to an actual life! You’ve been through so much and you’ve come out the other side stronger because of it – it’s remarkable really. You’ve got to invite the sad parts of yourself in to have a tea party with you. Don’t ignore them and cover them up. If you don’t look at them, they’ll make themselves seen! You are so worthy of love and I hope that if you don’t see that yet, you will learn to in time. Anyways guys,” she finishes, “this is all very intense. I love you very much and I hope you can understand and relate in some way.” [via Dork]

Greentea Peng has shared her new single 'Nah It Ain’t The Same'. The UK neo-soul voice is an outstanding talent, someone who pushes herself further into that hip-hop / jazz nexus with each release. Produced by Earbuds, new single 'Nah It Ain't The Same' is out now, one that reflects the chemistry she has with her live band The Seng Seng Family. Dipping into drum 'n' bass, her vocals have a calming, beatific feel, with 'Nah It Ain't The Same' tugging at matters personal. She comments: “Deliberations of a (hu) MAN, subject to the pendulum's swing, I give you ‘Nah It Aint The Same’ off my album MAN MADE. An expression and exploration of my utter confusion and inner conflicts amidst shifting paradigms.” Greentea Peng stars in the new video, with Machine Operated sculpting the video. [via Clash]

renforshort has debuted a brand new single, ‘virtual reality’. The first taster of a forthcoming second EP, the track sees her “connect” with Kellen Pomeranz (Pom Pom), Jesse Fink and Beabadoobee collaborator Pete Robertson. “’virtual reality’ is a song that tackles many topics. But at its core, it really is about anxiety, routine, boredom, isolation, loneliness, and fear,” she explains. “I think a lot of people have a very unhealthy relationship with technology because it’s never really been restricted enough to consider mental health and overall health, and that has fucked so many people up, now more than ever. Ever since I was young, social media has played a major role in my mental wellbeing, and I became so accustomed to it, it became a part of my routine and it came before everything else. The moment I wake up, almost instinctively, I check my phone. Depending on what I see in the morning, basically determines how I’m gonna feel for the rest of the day. I hate it. But I can’t stop. And what’s most ironic about this all is you’re likely going to read this on social media or listen to the song on some sort of electronic device…” [via Dork]

Flock of Dimes has shared the second single from her forthcoming album Head of Roses, out April 2 via Sub Pop. Following recent single, 'Two', 'Price of Blue' is another standout from Wasner’s second solo LP, an album that showcases her ability to embrace new levels of vulnerability, honesty and openness, combined with the self-assuredness that comes with a decade-plus career as a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and prolific collaborator. It comes accompanied by an unearthly new video filmed in black and white, co-directed by Wasner with Graham Tolbert. Wasner says: “This song is about trying, and failing, to connect. It’s about the ways in which, despite our best efforts, we misunderstand each other, and become so attached to stories that we’re unable to see the truth that’s right in front of us. And it’s about the invisible mark that another person can leave on your body, heart and mind long after their absence. It can be difficult to make sense of the memory of your experience when the reality on the surface is always shifting—when the story you’re telling, or the story you’ve been told, unravels, leaving you with a handful of pieces and no idea how they used to fit together.”

Berlin-based indie-soul five-piece, People Club, announce their new EP Take Me Home, which is due May 7 and the band are sharing the title-track and new video. The title track 'Take Me Home' is a song about the realisation of mortality in old age and the cynicism that often plights the elderly after losing their loved ones and being left alone with their regrets. It is accompanied by a music video shot by long standing collaborator, Felix Spitta. Speaking of the process the band say, “Once again we worked with our very talented friend, Felix Spitta, who also shot the video for our last single Francine.  We basically spent a day fooling around at his house with a smoke machine and an old tape TV camera with a red filter.  The result is hazy and disorientating, just like this year has been so far.”

Introducing MARY., the dreamy alter-ego of musician and songwriter Stef T. The self-produced debut track, ‘Day to Day’, interlaces elements of electro-pop and R&B with a voice that enchants, along with an official video filmed, edited and directed by David Risdon and Charlie Rose Creative. Reading like a page in a diary, ‘Day to Day’ offers a candid and emotionally raw glance at being overlooked as a woman in a man’s world. She is put together, glamorous and poised on the outside, but on the inside she is simmering like a pot ready to boil over, fed-up and on the brink of snapping. Speaking of the track, Stef T explains, “’Day to Day’ is a reflection on what it is to be a woman in a role where you are always unseen; constantly giving yet never receiving. As woman, we are often undervalued for our day to day work in all aspects - as mothers, in relationships, in our careers; having to push extra hard to get the basic recognition and thanks that we are entitled to. This song is a commentary of a large part of my life where I settled, sacrificed and worked, only to be used and taken for granted. It is about learning to survive a toxic relationship, discover your own individual worth again and reclaim the power that you gave away to someone else. Producing this song myself is the only thing that made sense in context with the intention of MARY. as a project. She is an entirely self made, independent woman, who does it all and doesn't need a man to confirm that she's doing a good job. This is something I have personally struggled with, so I created the MARY. persona to feel more empowered in my storytelling as an artist, in an industry without a large visible number of female-identifying producers.”

Los Angeles based dream pop trio Tashaki Miyaki have just released a single and video of the title song from their forthcoming second album, Castaway, which will be released on April 23 via Metropolis Records. Singer, drummer and producer Paige Stark states that the song “is about the challenges of romantic love and how we are all bad at it in one way or another. The idea of a castaway in all this is that no one understands the relationship except the people in it, so you really are stuck on an island alone together there. Maybe you make it back to the mainland, or maybe you stay on the island.” Stark also shot the Sofia Coppola-inspired video on film, adding: "I wanted to tap into all the feelings that can come up in love relationships: anger, sadness, loneliness, vulnerability, stillness, joy, romance, longing. The actress in it has a beautifully expressive face and I've known her for a long time. I knew we would be able to create those moments together. I wanted it to feel like the camera was her lover, capturing her in various private moments, moods and feelings.”

With her Vanilla Shell EP celebrating its one-year anniversary last month, Danish-Chilean composer Molina is back with another abbreviated record in the form of the new single 'Cold,' featuring vocalist Jonas Bjerre, arriving with a pair of B-sides. The brief collection of songs continues her simultaneous journey inward toward the roots of Chilean music and outward into her own unique vision of the future. The project lands with a video for the A-side, which dreams up bizarre fantasy iconography in the tradition of Grimes and Björk to complement her subdued take on these artists’ out-there recordings. Blending ambiguous electronic sounds with the familiar drone of cello and Bjerre’s backing vocals, the track’s distinct persona may have more in common with the experimental soundscapes of artists like Jenny Hval or Julia Holter. [via Flood]

Maisie Peters has debuted her brand new single, ‘John Hughes Movie’. Described as the first single from her soon to be announced debut album, it’s a song about unrequited love, inspired by the legendary film producer and his classic coming-of-age teen comedies like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. The track comes alongside a video co-written by Maisie and director Louis Bhose (Loyle Carner, Arlo Parks, Lewis Capaldi). Maisie explains: “I wrote ‘John Hughes Movie’ when I was 17 about a house party that I had gone to. It’s a really honest depiction of being a hopeless, melodramatic teenager, being awkward and drunk and getting your heart broken by people you don’t even remember anymore. John Hughes films encapsulate that foolish romantic energy of high school and everything that I, a small town English wannabe Molly Ringwald wanted to be, but was not.” [via Dork]

Chloe x Halle have shared the music video for their song 'Ungodly Hour.' The video was debuted on Wedneday night's episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and shows the Bailey sisters going underwater for a sci-fi-style visual filled with choreography and elaborate adventures at the bottom of the ocean. Watch the Alfred Marroquín-directed video above. [via The FADER]

South London's Josie Man has returned with sentimental new single 'Cuts & Bruise', marking her first release of 2021. 'Cuts & Bruises' follows October 2020's 'Grow' single, and is accompanied by a Andrea Mae-directed video that shows couples enjoying tender moments, including Josie Man and her boyfriend. [via Line Of Best Fit]

Jessie Ware has shared a new short film for her song 'Remember Where You Are'. Her album What's Your Pleasure? arrived last year, a disco-fuelled missile that presented some much-needed good vibes amid lockdown. The songwriter returns to the record for her song 'Remember Where You Are', a soulful and uplifting slice of UK songwriting. There's now a full video for the song and it's steered by BAFTA winning director Dominic Savage. Starring British actress Gemma Arterton, it opens on Valentine's Day and finds the star wandering through deserted London streets. A glimpse of hope and renewal, it taps into the growing feeling that this time, lockdown might be coming to a permanent end. "It was a real pleasure to collaborate with Jessie and Gemma on this short film that is inspired by Jessie Ware’s beautiful music. It was also inspired by the real feeling that was felt when we filmed in the deserted streets of eerily strange lockdown London on a Saturday night/Sunday morning,” Dominic said. “The feelings and emotions in the film are a true reflection of what that felt like, and what this time invokes. Sadness, nostalgia, pain and defiance. But when we climbed Primrose Hill and the sun started to rise above the city, there was real hope and joy for a future that will surely be ours. Listening to Jessie’s music. There is no doubt of that." Jessie adds... "This song has always meant a lot to me and I was determined for other people to hear it and for it to be single. I am so touched by how many people have embraced this song, particularly when it's one of your favourite actresses and an acclaimed film director. Working with Gemma, Dominic and their team has been an absolute joy. To have them realise my song with a beautiful ode to London and the longing for human touch and interaction couldn't be more of a compliment. It's a truly cherished piece of work." [via Clash]

Jaguar Jonze has shared her new single and video 'CURLED IN' ahead of the release of her second EP ANTIHERO on April 16, both via Nettwerk Records. 'CURLED IN' presents all her best qualities at its outset. From the track’s rip-roaring, slicing guitar to her perfectly forceful, omnipresent vocals, 'CURLED IN' is a pure cathartic release. "Tear me apart, just tear me apart," she all but demands: "I've never seen wrong be done right." She's fulfilling her simplest needs, and it's freeing. "It's a bit of a twist for me to be a masochist." As a survivor of abuse, these words' unafraid power is all too apparent and an engaging statement to hear expressed.

Following the release of eclectic and impressive debut singles 'ASOS,' 'Right Time,' and 'Papercut,' rising left-of-center pop singer and songwriter Dava returns with a fresh and bold new single 'New Ceilings' available now via Sony Music's Disruptor Records. The moody anti-pop record was co-written by Dava and Mike Adubato (Del Water Gap, Grace VanderWaal) who also produced the track, and is the latest off the Los Angeles-based musician's forthcoming debut EP, Sticky, due out later this year. On the inspiration behind her new single, Dava shares, "This song was written about survival and staying true to yourself. I was having a hard time financially after moving to LA and my phone was shut off while on my way to this session. I was upset with myself for prioritizing music when I really needed the money from driving Uber to stay afloat." She continues, "The day I wrote 'New Ceilings' I was angry and I wanted a song that felt empowering and validated all the work I had put in up to that point. I ended up choosing different songs for my project but when I revisited this one year later, I felt it needed to be heard because of how authentically it embodies my struggle."

London-based Fifi Rong, a multi-talented avant-pop songstress, has shared the video for her stunning single, ‘Another Me’. Directed by Rok Pat, the video for ‘Another Me’ is stylistically simplistic, as Fifi Rong uses her own body as a medium of art, painting herself and inviting the simple imagery of waterside reeds and plants. A tranquil mysticism embraces the single as Fifi Rong acts as a gentle siren, luring the unsuspecting in yet known the inevitable outcome of the relationship. Speaking of the concept behind the single and video, Fifi Rong tells us: “In any doomed romance, timing is always mysteriously wrong. This is my first full CGI music video and it visually portrays the elusive nature of the character surrounding the key message: 'you won't find another me'. The undertone of the song displays a sense of pride and confidence in the character’s melancholy. Dressed in nothing but petals, I wanted my character to symbolise purity, nature, truthfulness, vulnerability and the divine feminine form. Acting as a rotating statue, I wanted to mark the passing of time and seasons as if a unique and lonely piece of art on display.”

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💕 Love Day Love Story Series 💕

(AN: These two have my entire heart 🥺 I also deviated from the original question format for this one because it was necessary for storytelling purposes - also, this one is LONGGGGG cause there was a helluva lot of information to tell, hence the deviation from the OG question format.) 

Reece & Stacie

How did you meet?

[Reece] “I was really young when I realised my love of programming after volunteering to help with the A/V team one year at Family Bible Camp, when we got back I enrolled in a programming course through my home church. After certification I was able to take on jobs and help around more at camp, I even became the official family technician with my main job being installing and maintaining different censorship software onto our computers at home. At camp I was also made an official member of the A/V team, and helped out at the different, smaller conferences that my parents travelled to. I first met Stacie at a conference in Windenburg that my parents were speaking at, she was volunteering with both the admin team and the children’s program at the time. For me it definitely was an immediate crush, but I had to focus on my work at the conference meaning that we didn’t get much time to talk during the program itself, but I did snag a chance to meet her parents and introduce myself as they were talking to mine. I think my mother saw right through me, cause on the way home she was ‘informing me’ about the Shelton family; she’d heard that different members of their (very small) home-church and others in the area were praying for the father to get a job so that they wouldn’t be in so much financial distress, for her father to be guided so that he can lead their family back into harmony. Basically, the deal was that the family was struggling quite a bit, but I didn’t want to judge Stacie on her father’s actions since what I saw was all very good, so I convinced my parents to let me ask her dad to court her and they agreed - but if they felt the Lord was leading us elsewhere then they had the power to end it, we were both teenagers at the time so it made sense.”

[Stacie] “So, to be brutally honest, life at home growing up wasn’t so fun. Dad had a horrible gambling problem and so we struggled basically all the time, he wouldn’t allow my mother to get a job so she had to be creative with ways to make money by baking goods to sell, selling things she grew in our garden and other things so that bills (and various loan sharks) could be paid - all while homeschooling us because dad said so. We went to church every sunday where dad would put on this show that made it seem that everything was alright, when in reality he did everything that the pulpit preached against - he drank and smoked in addition to his gambling, and when he wasn’t at the bar he was at home yelling and just being plain mean. My sister and I would always volunteer at church events just so that we could be out of the house, and so when we heard about a conference being hosted by a local church we volunteered right away. I put my name in for the children’s program, but then I heard that the admin team needed help too so I volunteered there too, and that’s where I first met Reece. Whilst it’s probably every girl's dream to get married, if my father was to be the one picking my husband (the way he said he would) then I think I would’ve preferred to remain single, and my father was very big on us and “not besmirching his good name”, so my sister and I had little to no interactions with guys. Reece was so nice, and it definitely was an instant crush for me too, but everyone in the local area already knew about our family so I knew that the Collinses eventually be told, meaning that by the end of the conference Reece would want to have nothing to do with me.”

How did you end up courting?

[Reece] “The hard part was getting my parents to agree, the easy part was asking Stacie’s dad if I could get to know her more. He was all for it, but like my parents, he said that if he didn’t feel right about it then he had the power to veto. On the last day of the conference I got the chance to ask her dad if I could spend more time with her, and he agreed on the condition that there was no physical contact between us - I didn’t mind it, because at least he agreed. Since Windenburg is so far away, we had to really plan out trips to see each other, but we did start emailing each other and writing each other letters right away (which were read by both our parents, and we cc’d them in on the emails) When we did get to see one another (my parents had me pay for half of their airplane tickets), her sister always came as a chaperone meaning I didn’t need to bring my own [laughs]. Since Maggie started courting a bit before I did, we’d double date whenever Shane and Stacie were in town at the same time, which was fun as it gave Stacie a chance to get to know more people.”

[Stacie] “When Reece asked my dad if he could get to know me, my dad was ecstatic - the Collinses are so well known by everyone that he was over the moon to have a chance at being linked with their family. But he’s the kind of person that always needs to feel like he’s in control of the situation, so for the entirety of our courtship we couldn’t have any physical contact. I didn’t mind that though, the fact that Reece was such a nice person and actually wanted to get to know me meant that I’d agree to whatever my dad said (as if I had the option to disagree but anyway) 

Ever since I was young I’ve loved being on the computer, our mother would take us to the library for our homeschool lessons that needed a computer, and every time I was allowed a turn on the computer it was so much fun. Volunteering at the admin office for the conference gave me a chance to use the computer too because we don’t have one at home, Reece telling me about his love of programming was like an answered prayer because then I could pick his brain for information about tech since I had no real way to access it. And what’s even better, is that he wasn’t even annoyed by it! Reece gladly told me everything I wanted to know, but we did have to wait for conversations in person since my dad didn’t think that a girl should be learning “useless things that won’t help you get a husband” - looking back at it, the irony in that statement is not lost on me.”

What was it like when you got engaged?

[R] “Eventually (not that long in reality) I realised that I loved Stacie, and that if we wanted the relationship to progress then the only was was marriage - not that I minded. One day when I was in Windenburg with my sister Zoe as chaperone, I sat down with Mr. Shelton and asked him if I could propose to Stacie, that’s when he told me that in their family, engagement was essentially a ceremony where you asked the girls father in front of everybody and he gave you the go ahead to put the ring on her finger, so we planned for it to happen at a dinner at my house with both of our families there. I had been hoping to propose while in Windenburg, so I had to rethink my plans, but i did manage to make it special for us. Whilst my parents raised me to be obedient to my elders, I realised a few weeks into our courtship that Stacie’s dad didn’t always have what was best for her in mind, she’d mentioned her parents relationship to me and told me that she’d always dreamed of having a proposal rather than the engagement ceremony - so that she could be the one to say yes herself rather than her father. 

So, this next part of the story has a teeny tiny bit of deceit in it. 

Since I was already there, I said bye to Mr Shelton to make him think I’d left and was on my way home, and by this time I already knew his evening schedule, meaning that he’d be heading out to the (what I now know to be) the bar and wouldn’t be back until late. I had Nina come out and light a lamp in their garden to let me know when it was clear to come back inside the house, so I went in and surprised Stacie when she was on the couch reading a book - I was able to propose to her in the way she had always dreamed of, and it was actually a surprise to her which I loved being able to do too. I couldn’t leave her with the ring because that would be a dead giveaway, but we did get to hold hands whilst I did the proposing which is something that we kept as ‘our secret’. Her mother then came in and said that I had to go because Mr Shelton sometimes had his ‘friends’ from the bar watch the house, and she didn’t want anything to jeopardise our relationship. I went home after, but I told my parents about the ‘engagement dinner’ and they were alright with it, so we went ahead and planned it. The dinner turned out okay, her dad gave us a one-off to hold hands in the moment which was great, but we knew we had the ‘real’ proposal to cherish in our hearts. Planning the wedding was done by my mother and sisters in collaboration with Stacie, her mother, and her sister. They did a great job I have to say, but you’ll forgive me if I was focused on something else [laughs]

[S] “Well, I’d explained to Reece the whole ‘engagement ceremony’ and how I wasn’t keen on it - the whole thing started with how my parents met and got married. My dad approached my grandfather (my mother’s father) about courting and then marrying my mother, and my grandpa accepted on her behalf. Whilst I recognised that I was under my father’s authority, I did want to at least be able to say yes to a proposal, which is something I communicated to Reece. What I didn’t know is that he’d actually manage to make it happen. He was in Windenburg for a visit and I thought he’d left to head home after saying his goodbyes to all of us at the house. My usual routine in the evenings when dad is out depends on what work I’m doing at the time, and on this specific night I was sitting on the couch reading a library book as I was trying to finish my schoolwork for winter break, when Reece walked in. I was surprised cause we’d already said bye and everything, so in my head I’m trying to draft the next email I would send him when he walks in and music starts playing in the background, he then sits next to me, and asks me:

“Remember how you said you wanted a proper proposal?”

And in my head I’m still trying to comprehend the fact that he was still here, so it took me a while to answer; he then grabs by hands (queue internal shrieking for joy), repeats it again and he says:

“Stacie, I asked your dad if I could marry you earlier today, but I wanted to ask you now before we meet at my house for dinner. So, Stacie Shelton, will you marry me?”

I turned to look around trying to confirm if I was seeing things, but when my mother and sister started mouthing at me to say yes is when I came back down to earth and said yes! I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I was speechless for a bit after; he put the ring on my finger to let me see how it looked (and whether it fit) but he obviously had to take it back with him so he could ‘officially’ give it to me later on. I couldn’t tell you what happened between that night and the engagement dinner, but I was riding an emotional high that nothing could phase me - I couldn’t show all my emotion though because I didn’t want to give away our secret to my dad. After the dinner we dove headfirst into getting me all done with school and wedding planning, and boy was it stressful. Even though went to a home-church, and have churches in our area that we could have used, my father saw this as his chance at the spotlight, so he insisted on us having the ceremony at this massive church in the (what I call) ‘rich people neighbourhood’. Reece’s dad knew people on the board for the church, so we were graciously allowed to use it, my dad was annoyingly determined to be involved with the wedding planning to add his own demands that it took everything in me not to melt into a puddle - but if it got me to the end of the aisle with a ring on my finger, I tried not to dwell on it too much. Our wedding was a magical day, even though a blizzard happened to rip through the city meaning that we couldn’t take any pictures outside, everything was a dream from beginning to end.”

How’s married life?

[Reece] “Well, it’s pretty different for the both of us. I work as a freelance programmer, so we moved to the city to be closer to job opportunities. It's great for us as we get to go to the same church as my aunt Harley and her husband, as well as Shane and Maggie, so we aren't lonely. When we were still courting, the subject of children came up, and we said that we’d be open to any that the Lord felt necessary to bless us with, but when we didn’t have children for the first year or so we decided to not wait around and be productive with our time. Stacie had mentioned always wanting to properly learn how to program, so she enrolled in a course and loved it. We were married for a while before Stacie got pregnant with Liam, so we got some time to ourselves before we expanded our family. It was when she got pregnant that we learnt that she needed injections twice a day, for every day of her pregnancy - it was definitely a steep learning curve as I learnt how to give her the shots she needed. Since the pregnancy was high risk I also evolved to become her nursemaid, I didn’t mind it though, gave us even more bonding time before the baby came and changed everything. I definitely didn’t think that this was going to be my future, but now all I can do is thank the Lord for his goodness and for my determination. I don’t even mind the bumps in the road, I’d do it all over again if it meant that I could marry Stacie at the end.”

[Stacie] “Everyday I wake up and thank the Lord for everything he’s done in my life, growing up we didn’t have much money to travel but now I live in the city and have seen more of the world, and I realise that I would never have this if Reece hadn’t thought to take a chance on me against all oddswhen I wasn’t even willing to give myself a chance. A while after we got married, I guess my father kept doing his thing - the drinking, smoking, gambling - and he wasn’t careful one night when walking home and fell into a frozen lake windenburg one night, and was unable to save himself. Whilst it’s sad that he’s gone, I won’t pretend that the lives of my mother and sister haven’t changed. Now that my mother doesn’t have to homeschool the both of us, she has so much more time for baking, and since we own our house she only needs to pay the mortgage and utilities, which is easier for her now that she doesn’t have several loans of my fathers’ to pay back. In the first few years of our marriage, Reece was gracious enough to pay for me to do a programming course, so I was able to do projects and send that money home to help them out. My sister Nina was able to save up and go to college, so she’s now working as a teacher at a local preschool after getting her degree in education. Getting pregnant with Liam revealed the need for daily injections, which were painful but I appreciated because they kept him safe and healthy whilst he was in my belly. The pregnancy also made me fall in love with Reece all over again, he was so eager to learn how to give me my shots, and basically banned me from doing any work that required me lifting more than a plate [laughs] He’d talk to me belly sometimes early in the morning when he didn’t think I was awake, and he was the one to bug me when it came time to decorate the nursery [giggles] He carved time out of his day to make sure I got the recommended amount of exercise every other day, and seeing him as a father shows me everyday that I am so blessed. I can’t wait to see what the rest of my life brings, as long as I’m with my boys I don’t think I’ll mind too much.”

[tinyshe]

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COVID-19 Injection Campaign Violates Bioethics Laws 

Story at-a-glance

Safety data analysis and reporting in clinical trials of the COVID jabs appear to have been manipulated in at least some cases. One method for manipulating randomized clinical trial safety data is to only analyze the “per protocol” treatment group (those who completed all doses and were fully compliant with the study design) as opposed to “intent to treat” which would include all patients that have signed informed consent

For example, if a participant only accepted one dose and trial protocol called for two, under a “per protocol” analysis, adverse events they experienced would be dismissed and not included in the safety analysis. This is a classic way to manipulate safety data in clinical research, and it's usually forbidden

Since the COVID shots only have emergency use authorization, they are experimental products and, as such, they are not authorized for marketing

Bioethics are written into federal law. As an experimental trial participant, you have the right to receive full disclosure of any adverse event risks. Full disclosure of risks is not being done, and in fact is being suppressed

Adverse event risks must also be communicated in a way that you can comprehend what the risks are, and the acceptance of an experimental product must be fully voluntary and uncoerced. Enticement is strictly forbidden

As the inventor of the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine platform, Dr. Robert Malone is one of the most qualified individuals to opine on the benefits and potential risks of this technology.

His background includes a medical degree from Northwestern University, a master's degree from Salk Institute, a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from UC Davis, a Giannini fellowship in pathology and a post-graduate fellowship in global clinical research at Harvard.

He taught pathology to medical students for about a decade at the University of Maryland and the University of California Davis, and then became an associate professor of surgery at Uniformed Services, University of the Health Sciences, where he launched a major research institute focused on breast cancer and high-throughput screening in genomics for breast cancer.

After that, he helped found a company called Inovio, which has brought forth a number of gene therapy discoveries, including vaccines, and the use of pulsed electrical fields as a delivery method. After 9/11, a colleague at the University of Maryland's department of business and economic development connected him with Dynport Vaccine Company, a startup that had received a DoD contract to manage its biodefense products.

"That's when I transitioned from being more of an academic to the advanced development world of clinical research, regulatory affairs, project management, compliance, quality assurance — all of that stuff that goes into actually making a product," Malone explains.

"It was a huge epiphany that the world really didn't need more academic thought leaders and [that] I was wasting my time focusing on that. What the world really needed was that people understood the underlying technology and the discovery research world, but also understood advanced development, which is that drug development is a highly-regulated world. And there aren't very many of those.

So, I set out to become really expert in that latter part and worked with the government, particularly in biodefense and vaccine development, for a couple of decades. And that brings me to the present.

I've captured a couple of billion dollars in grants and contracts for companies that I've worked with, and clients from the government, from BARDA [Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority], from the Department of Defense and others."

COVID-19 'Vaccines' Are Gene Therapy

I've been accused of falsely stating that these COVID shots are not vaccines but gene modifying interventions. However, even Malone agrees with this statement, and as the inventor of the technology, he should know. He points out that in Germany, by law you cannot refer to this technology as a genetic vaccine or gene therapy vaccine. "The German government has specifically outlawed the use of gene therapy-based vaccine as a term," he says.

With his background, and having received the COVID shot himself, he can hardly be called an "anti-vaxxer" and/or someone who doesn't believe in gene therapies. Yet, he recently went public with concerns about the safety of rolling out this kind of technology on a mass scale, and the unethical ways in which they're being promoted.

As has become the trend, he was immediately censored. Wikileaks even went so far as to erase him from the historical section of the mRNA vaccine page and his own personal Wikipedia page was removed. All references to Malone inventing the mRNA technology were removed and attributed to a variety of institutions instead.

Blowing the Whistle

Malone's public involvement with the COVID jab issue began with a short essay1 reflecting on the bioethics of the current campaign to get a needle in every arm. This essay grew out of a conversation he'd had with a Canadian physician. Malone's essay catalyzed an interview with Bret Weinstein in June 2021 on the DarkHorse Podcast.

This isn't the first time Malone has spoken out against unethical behavior in science. He was also a whistleblower in the Jesse Gelsinger death case,2 back in 1999. Gelsinger was a young man who had a rare metabolic disorder called ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency syndrome (OTCD), where dangerous amounts of ammonia build up in your blood.

He'd been diagnosed at the age of 2, and was managing his condition with a regimen of nearly 50 drugs a day. At 17, Gelsinger signed up for an investigational gene therapy. Like the COVID shots, the therapy involved injecting a gene attached to an adenovirus, which would be integrated into his DNA to permanently produce an enzyme that prevents ammonia buildup.

Gelsinger was the 18th person to receive the gene therapy, and while the others had only experienced mild side effects, Gelsinger had a severe response after scientists at the University of Pennsylvania administered adenoviruses doses that were far above what had been approved by the corresponding safety committee.

Gelsinger became disoriented and developed jaundice and acute inflammation, followed by a rare blood clotting disorder and multi-organ failure. He was dead within days. Even a decade later, Gelsinger's death is still considered the biggest setback for gene therapy.3

"When the Jesse Gelsinger events happened, I also had long been a deep insider in the gene therapy space, so I had specific knowledge of what had happened at Penn — the ethical transgressions, shall we say, that occurred — and had awareness, again, just like now, of the technology," Malone says. "So, I was able to make sense of things that otherwise were obscure for journalists and even other scientists."

After speaking out about the ethical transgressions that contributed to Gelsinger's death (dosing which exceeded approved levels), Malone became a "persona non-grata" in the gene therapy community. In other words, he was blacklisted by his peers and prevented from participating in gene therapy research.

"That's part of why I went in a different direction with my career and focused on government work and biodefense, supporting the Department of Defense," Malone says. "The lesson learned for me is that I'm able to be resilient, together with my wife's support.

Another key lesson was that your friends will support you through times of crisis if you behave with integrity and maintain your friendships and treat people with respect. I also had a lot of support for having spoken out and taken an ethical high road on that and not compromised myself …

It's part of why I'm comfortable [speaking out now]. People tell me that I come across as balanced and calm. But yes, this is a little bit frightening and once again, [I'm] putting my career on the line. But once again many of my colleagues in the government are grateful that I'm speaking this way. They are not able to have a voice because of their jobs and government policies about speaking out."

Public Responses to Censorship Make a Difference

As explained by Malone, he's been heavily censored since his three-hour interview with Brett Weinstein. LinkedIn even deleted his account. However, LinkedIn users all around the world canceled their accounts in protest and wrote the company, explaining their cancellations were in protest of Malone being censored.

The social media uproar culminated in a major news article in a mainstream Italian paper, which appears to have pushed LinkedIn over the edge. LinkedIn eventually reinstated Malone's account and even sent him a letter of apology.

"I don't think I've ever heard of a company writing a letter of apology after delisting and deleting somebody," he says. "My sins were 'profound,'" he says sarcastically, "They were that I outed the chairman of the board of directors of Reuters who is also sitting on the board of Pfizer, for cross-posting the Wall Street Journal article on vaccine toxicity risks, and well, basically for complaining about censorship.

So, they sent me my list of sins with six different posts that were to pretty much anybody's eye innocuous, which I then took and cross-posted onto Twitter. So, that revealed the absurdity of that … The note [of apology] that I received basically said, 'Look, we don't have the expertise to censor you, but if you cross the line, we have the right to summarily delete you again and so mind your manners.'"

The Repurposing of Drugs to Combat Pandemics

In recent years, Malone has been involved in yet another startup company (Atheric Pharmaceuticals), in collaboration with the DoD, that focused on repurposing drugs to combat Zika infection. That company went bankrupt for lack of investor interest in repurposing drugs for treating infectious diseases.

When the COVID-19 outbreak began, he got a call from a colleague who works in the intelligence community in Wuhan, China, who urged him to put together a team to investigate the possibility of repurposing old drugs against COVID.

His team is currently about to enter clinical trials for a number of licensed off-patent drugs. That said, his biggest contribution so far is probably his commentary on the bioethics of what is going on.

"Both my wife and I are deeply ethical people," he says. "We're high school sweethearts. We try really hard to live ethical lives and to help our fellow man as well as the animals in our lives. So that's just the place we come from. It's bedrock. We're not rich people.

I recall a long telephone call with the Canadian physician that poured his heart out about the situation in Canada that he's encountering, both with vaccine administration in primary practice, and also in administering alternative therapies to outpatients, which generally have no therapies available.

I mean, the position is a bit shocking — in the emergency rooms all across the world. Basically, you go to the ER and if your O2 sets are down, pushing towards 80, they say, 'Well, go [home] and come back when your lips are blue.' And that's the essence of it. They don't really offer anything.

So many physicians, including this gentleman in Canada, have been seeking alternative strategies and they've tested and administered these various agents. We've heard of fluvoxamine, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine. There are many, many others now, including those that we're working with (famotidine and celecoxib) that seem to have therapeutic benefit when administered early to shut down this hyperinflammatory response.

So, he shared this and the stories of multiple reports of vaccine adverse events that in his clinical judgment were clearly vaccine related, some of them quite serious, and that the Canadian government would summarily dispose of those as non-related even though in his clinical judgment, they clearly were related.

He spoke about the enticement of children in Canada with ice cream and the willingness of the Canadian government to administer vaccine to children without their parents or guardians consent after enticing them with ice cream cones, and some of the other things that I just found shocking ...

It mirrors what we're seeing across the world, where governments are taking liberties with people's health and their rights without real legislative authorization to do so in most cases."

Core Bioethical Principles Are Being Violated

Malone and his wife Jill are both trained in bioethics, so after listening to this Canadian colleague, he decided he could help by writing a lay press opinion piece about the bioethics of experimental vaccines under emergency use authorization.

"I have intimate knowledge of not only the emergency use authorization legislation, the FDA policies behind it, I even know the people that wrote it," Malone says.

"So, we dove in, refreshed our memories on the whole history of the modern bioethics construct that briefly runs from Nuremberg Trials to the Nuremberg Code, to Helsinki Accord, to the Belmont Report in the United States, and to the common rule that exists in the code of federal regulations."

In summary, since the COVID shots only have emergency use authorization status, they are experimental products, and as such, they are not authorized for marketing. The core bioethical principles that apply therefore involve three key components:

1. Bioethics are written into federal law — As an experimental trial participant, which is what everyone is at the moment who accepts a COVID shot, you have the right to receive full disclosure of any adverse event risks. Based on that disclosure, you then have the right to decide whether you want to participate.

Adverse event risk disclosure should be provided at the level of detail disclosed in any drug package insert. However, the COVID shots have no such insert or detailed disclosure, and adverse event reports are even being suppressed and censored from the public.

Instead, as explained by the FDA,4 since the COVID shots are not yet licensed,5 rather than providing a package insert, the FDA directs health care providers to access a lengthy, online "fact sheet" that lists both clinical trial adverse events and ongoing updates of adverse events reported after EUA administration to the public.

A shorter, separate, online fact sheet with far less information in it is available for patients — but, provider or patient, you still have to know where to look up each of the three EUA vaccines separately on the FDA website to access those fact sheets.6

2. Adverse event risks must be communicated in a way that you can comprehend what the risks are — This means the disclosure must be written in eighth grade language. In clinical trials, researchers must actually verify participants' comprehension of the risks.

3. The acceptance of an experimental product must be fully voluntary and uncoerced — enticement is forbidden. "I argue that all of this public messaging that we've all been bombarded with … constitutes coercion," Malone says.

"The most egregious example of this that I've ever seen, is the federal government identifying 12 people … and labeling them as the dirty dozen, [saying] that they are responsible for causing death because they are disseminating what the government has determined to be misleading information about vaccines. This is mind boggling to me and to most of my colleagues."

How Falsehoods Are Getting Top Billing

As you probably know, I am on that "disinformation dozen" list. The irony of this situation is that government officials are really the ones contributing to the deaths by not adhering to bioethical principles that are enshrined in law. It's a classic case of 1984 Orwellian doublespeak.

As I mention in the interview, the "misinformation dozen" list is the creation of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a shady organization funded by dark money that sprung up less than two years ago.

"Yeah, you don't even have to go to dark money. It's out in the open. There's this Trusted News Initiative led by the BBC. They announced … last fall that they have integrated Big Tech, Big Media and new media, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et cetera, into an organization that was intended to control false narratives relating to elections, but they decided to turn it on what they perceived as false narratives for vaccines," Malone says.

"As if that wasn't enough, the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have announced initiatives where they're making block grants to Facebook, which is then funding these new pop-up fact-checker organizations … [that] are employing methods to smear people and to ban information …

What happens is these fact-checker organizations will make their pseudo fact check, like what I experienced with Reuters — which was transparently false, their fact check — and then the media will recycle the fact check. So that moves up in the Google ranking and they're citing themselves. That's what's going on. And it's sponsored by the likes of Wellcome Trust and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and they're quite proud of it."

Why Target Children and Pregnant Women?

Considering the unknown risks involved, why are governments and vaccine makers pushing so hard for children and pregnant women to participate in this experiment? Both have an extremely low risk for complications from COVID-19, which makes adverse effects of the vaccine all the more unacceptable, if not all together intolerable.

There's the appearance that there was manipulation of safety data analysis and reporting in the Phase 1, 2, 3 clinical trials … by focusing on patients who had completed the study per protocol, as opposed to those that entered the study as intended to treat. [If] you've only accepted one dose of vaccine under those clinical trial protocols and you have an adverse event … that information about the adverse event … is lost. It's not included in the safety analysis. This is a classic way to manipulate safety data in clinical research, and it's strictly forbidden. ~ Dr. Robert Malone

Making matters worse, there's no process in place to capture all side effects. Somehow, this was left out, and there's evidence to suggest this was done intentionally.

"I think it's important for the listenership to recognize that what we have is still an emerging understanding of what the adverse events are," Malone says. "I could tell you the story of how the cardiotoxicity adverse event was recognized, and it was not through official channels. There is [also] the appearance that the CDC is deliberately under-reporting adverse events to the public.

And there's the appearance that there was manipulation of safety data analysis and reporting in the Phase 1, 2, 3 clinical trials for some of these products by focusing on patients who had completed the study per protocol, as opposed to those that entered the study as intended to treat.

That's a subtle distinction, but what it means is that if you've only accepted one dose of vaccine under those clinical trial protocols and you have an adverse event, and you decide to drop it out, or they gently suggest that you shouldn't take the second dose, that information about the adverse events that you received — which would have made you at even higher risk for the second dose — is lost. It's not included in the safety analysis.

This is a classic way to manipulate safety data in clinical research, and it's strictly forbidden. So, the FDA is onto that trick. Normally, if I was to do that, I would get slapped down immediately. Why they allow these large drug companies to do this (if, in fact they did) — and you can't claim that Pfizer didn't know what they were doing — is beyond me.

Now that we know about the adverse events associated with the cardiotoxicity in adolescents and the damage to the heart and the deaths associated with that, people can start to do calculations based on official CDC data, [but] those data are flawed.

They probably under-report the true adverse event rate by about a 100-fold if you're relying on the various historic analysis information. But you can look at those data. And if you're a data scientist, you can do the calculations that the CDC is not doing and not disclosing to us about risk benefit.

The ones that I've seen done by well-trained and highly experienced specialists, people that work for the insurance industry that do this for a living … come out literally upside down."

If the clinical trials did not include patients dropped after Dose 1 in the safety analysis, this would indicate a "per protocol" safety analysis was performed, and therefore that the safety data analyses leading to the emergency use authorizations were not based on rigorous safety assessments.

Multiple patients claiming to have been included in COVID-19 clinical trials have also reported on social media that their reports were excluded from final safety analyses, although this cannot be verified.

Risks Significantly Outweigh Benefits

A study7 posted July 7, 2021, which looked at deaths occurring in children in the U.K. during the first 12 months of the pandemic, found 99.995% of children diagnosed with COVID-19 survived.

By July 19, 2021, in the United States, a total of 335 children under 18 had died with a COVID-19 diagnosis on their death certificate.8 An analysis by Marty Makary and colleagues at Johns Hopkins, together with FAIR Health, showed none of the children under 18 who died and were diagnosed with COVID-19 between April and August 2020 were free of preexisting medical conditions such as cancer.9

Now, while the average healthy child has a minuscule chance of dying from COVID-19, and their risk of developing heart inflammation from the COVID jab is also quite low, the risk associated with the injection is still significantly greater than any risk associated with the natural infection. As explained by Malone:

"That ratio comes out suggesting that there will be more lives lost to receipt of the 'vaccine' in a universal vaccine campaign than there would be if all those kids were infected by SARS-CoV-2. This upside-down ratio appears to extend or very close to equivalent at least up to the age of 30.

So, we're in a position where the data that we have are admittedly flawed. Is that by intent or what? From my standpoint, the data are the data, so I can't smoke out what somebody within health and human services intended to do, but I can look at the data, and others can.

And the data absolutely do not support a positive risk-benefit ratio for vaccination of infants through young adults, based on any normal criteria. So then why are they doing this crazy stuff? It seems to all be wrapped around the axle of the need to justify universal vaccination.

I argue that this is actually a mid-century policy that goes back to the '50s and the '60s polio vaccine campaign, when the government and world health authorities established a position that it was OK to lie, to withhold information about risk for vaccines, because to have the full spectrum of information about the risks of vaccines would cause people to not accept the vaccine.

So, 'Shut up, we know it's best for you and don't question us' is a firmly authoritarian position. It is intrinsically authoritarian and paternalistic. It's exactly the kind of stuff that George Orwell wrote about in his book '1984.' It was a warning … of how governments and authoritarian structures will behave and do behave."

Denial of Vaccine Dangers Has Been Federal Policy Since 1984

Ironically, Malone points out that in the 1984 Federal Register,10 it's stated that posting information into the federal register about vaccine risks that jeopardizes vaccine I uptake shall be suppressed.

"So, it's a clear federal policy going back to 1984," Malone says. "This is the way they're going to handle things. And they're going to handle it with the noble lie of saying, 'No, there are no risks and what we're doing is fully justified' …

I don't think we have to go to imagining some grand conspiracy at Davos between certain individuals. I think this is an emergent phenomena of the intersection of old-school thinking about information management and new-school capabilities and technologies.

I think the CDC, HHS, WHO, and Wellcome Trust or Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, etcetera, have just grossly misread the population, certainly in the United States. And so now we're in a position where before, according to Del Bigtree, there was about 1% to 2% of people that self-identified as anti-vaxxers, and we're now [above] 40%. Clearly, about 40 to 50% of the population are just dug in. They're not going to accept these vaccines.

The White House now finds it necessary to have a special group to identify and target 12 American citizens for what they believe to be vaccine disinformation, and to make a big public press announcement about it. Don't they have anything else to do? It seems like the world has got bigger problems than Dr. Mercola, but what do I know?

The whole thing is mind-bending. And a lot of people, including many Europeans, are really lit up over this. They remember. European intellectuals are very aware of the dynamics that happened in Germany in the 1930s … I think this could be a turning point in a lot of things."

The Powers That Be Have Been Given Free Reign

While Malone is not interested in speculating about the intentions behind all this malfeasance, he's intimately familiar with the power of Big Pharma to manipulate governments. As detailed in other articles, several of the COVID injection makers have a rich history of illegal activity and unethical behavior, and now they have been given free reign to do as they please.

They're been completely absolved from liability if and when something goes wrong with these injections, and governments are enticing and bullying citizens to participate in Big Pharma's experiment.

"If you give that kind of liberty and power to a global multinational and absolve them of any accountability, they will serve their stockholders," Malone says. "They are not geared to serving the rest of us, whatever they may say in their press releases.

That's just how big pharma behaves, and we've chosen this model. Messaging having to do with alternative treatments and the importance of wellness, those are not consistent with the 'Take this pill, pay your price and shut up' kind of business model.

Personally, I think that Mr. Gates and his foundation have done enormous irreparable harm to world health community through his actions and his own personal biases. He has really distorted global public health. At some point, there will be books written about this, and I'm sure an enormous number of Ph.D. theses will be granted. But meanwhile, we all have to live with it."

[easilydistractedbyfanfic]

I’ve been thinking about that scene in False God’s when Raven locked Murphy in the containment room and at least there is a silver lining: If you look at DNR and how Raven told murphy to survive and he replied with “that’s what cockroaches do”, it could be argued that is what Raven meant to. In her telling him to “go be a cockroach” it was really her stubborn, emotionally repressed way of saying “I *need* you to survive this”. I don’t like the cockroach thing except for when it’s between them!

Hey friend! So I’ve been sitting on this response because I’ve been really still so unsure exactly what I think about this scene & comment. I started to answer a coupla times but then I just erased it because I didn’t feel like I was explaining myself well.

Ever since I started writing fanfic for Raven & Murphy, I spend a decent chunk of time picking apart their motivations and personalities, both in canon and when I write them in an AU. Especially when canon eps don’t give us a lot of insights to why they say something or react in certain ways, and yeah - sometimes even seem OOC for plot or for laughs or whatever.

So, I’ve thought a lot about this. Let’s dive in!

It seems likely that the radiation scenes were meant to call back to s4, both in terms of plot (radiation, nightblood, who is going to take the risk vs will someone be forced vs will someone volunteer), as well as with Raven telling Murphy to go & be a cockroach, as you point out. They’ve shuffled all the positions up, but there is a lot to be said about how they each might FEEL about these new roles. For example, Murphy and Em0ri fought against being given/forced into nightblood in s4, and now they both have it due to voluntarily agreeing to it. I actually dive into this with regard to Murphy’s feelings on how it’s his fault that they have nightblood and that if he hadn’t made some of his choices in s6, then Raven would never have asked them to go into the radiation chamber to begin with (see link below). Anyway, yes, s4 parallels ARE here.

Despite the lack of clarity in the line of “go, be a cockroach” (WHY she says it), there’s absolutely no way she ever wanted Murphy to die. She wants him to survive, both in order to fix the pipe so they don’t all blow up but also because she cares about him. This is an established relationship over multiple seasons. So yes, it could be her way of telling him to survive, or it could have been her way of lashing out at him because of the hurtful things he said to her prior to that scene. It’s... rather amorphous, isn’t it? I don’t think the writers did a good job with it UNLESS they want us to feel off-kilter with it, because there’s many interpretations that have been made. The scene should both tell & show the audience how we ought to respond and overall, I would rate these scenes as confusing because they don’t make it clear.

You’ve got Raven & Murphy both anxious and frustrated but they’ve proven that they actually work pretty well together in the past in these conditions - see s4 (him helping her figure out how to land the Vesta in the water), s5 (them working together on Eligius IV, scrapping plans at the last minute for new ones, and trying to keep each other safe/rescue each other when they’re caught), and in s6 (Raven wants to storm off with her own plans after learning about the Primes, Murphy calms her down and reminds her of facts and she accepts his plan. Then she backs him & his plan in the burning at the stake scene). They work well under pressure, together. Shown multiple times.

But, the addition of Em0ri being actively involved throws them off, I think. The dynamics shift too much. Maybe I am in the minority because I know some fans are all like ohhh memoraven, but all the scenes I know of with the 3 of them, I always think that they don’t work out so well. Think of the 3 of them in scenes in s4, s5, and s6 - they never collaborate, in fact when the 3 are together, often arguments happen or someone storms off. There’s only the s6 end hug which is like .08 seconds and duh they do all care about each other and are glad the others aren’t dead.

So, Raven works great with just Em0ri (and vice versa), and Raven works great with just Murphy (and vice versa). But all together? Nope, imho. Anyway, let me not get too off track and just say that there’s plenty of snapping between the 3 of them in these radiation scenes, including Raven saying the “moral anchor” line, which didn’t make sense to me at the time but now I’m wondering some stuff.

Okay but staying on topic, I do think Raven & Murphy were BOTH at the limits of their fear and frustration and anxiety and this is part of why they lashed out at each other AND why things escalated between them. I think Raven probably said the line and locked him in out of anger, fear and worry - especially because Murphy was already shown being willing to help. And yes, I think you’re right that they wanted the words as a s4 parallel even though they don’t quite make as much sense in this particular situation.

If you are interested in a deeper look at what I mean, then please read my latest fic, which is all about what Murphy was thinking in 7x09 and those radiation scenes too.

Hope this at least sort of answers your question, Murven friend! Thanks for the ask!

[helenarasmussen87]

Writing Asks

This the post where I know no one is going to ask me anyway.

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Something that is like a “Oh hey, what happens if we do THIS!” and go from there. Usually ends up having loads of emotions, comfort, angst, introspection, loads of kitchen sink dialogues, not too much action. Families, happy endings.

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Fluffy stuff and humourous stuff. I am a little too serious for either one and my humour is drier than the desert and very odd. So no.

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

Teacher and Student relationships. Necrophilia, abuse of all sorts, underage. Just not my thing. I’ve gotten unable to stomach a lot of grimdark and super dark stuff as I get older so I won’t write it. But go ahead if that’s your thing.

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Two, since I can’t have more than two on the burner. Learned THAT early on and they’re Terror AU’s One is a fixit, but with health complications and angst. The other is a Modern Day AU which has two professors falling in love after one gets injured and the other worked as an EMT and helps to take care of him and they fall in love.

5. Share one of your strengths.

I can offer insights on what flows and what doesn’t. I can also happily shred my own drafts if they don’t work. 

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

Action. I work at it, but it’s not my favourite. Or war writing. 

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“Danny had to turn his head away to hide his smile, because he knew that it was a legitimate concern for Jose. Most of the time, he had jumped into bed with his partners first and then did the mating dance. 

Although extremely smart in other aspects, dating and social interactions were always a bit skewed, because he was always second-guessing himself and nervous as hell.

“That’s actually how things work out in these situations. At least it did for me and my ex and for me and Claude.” Danny explained calmly, making Jose nod and take another pull of his slurpee.

“So what do I do? Like is there a time when I bring up the possibility of us sleeping together?” Jose asked, the words slightly mumbled as he chewed on the straw.

“You don’t bring it up. You’ll just know when the time is right for it to happen. Sex isn’t what a relationship should be built on. Yes, it’s nice and it’s part of it, but it’s not the end all to be all. Trust me on this. It will happen if it’s meant to happen.” Danny explained, hoping that he had put it all in the plainest and simplest terms he could for his friend.

I am proud of this because it was majorly borrowing from life and I can see the difference from earlier writing. 

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“Sergio laughed shortly. “I’ve already done enough of that, and look at where it’s gotten you. Yeah, legally I hold claim over you. I could make the club buy out your contract and sit at home all day, having litter after litter.”

Iker’s blood froze at that and he turned to look at Sergio to see if he really meant it, but Sergio’s face gave nothing away.

“Or I could sign your rights to the club and let them sell you wherever or to whomever. Take you out of Spain, or sell you to Getafe or Malaga. All of these things I could do. The club actually did bring it up at that meeting you didn’t show up for.”

Iker blinked, his hands going numb as Sergio’s wickedly honed words hit home.

“I’m not telling you this to hurt you. Or make you feel indebted. I’m telling this to you because you’re this close to losing your spot and that’s the last thing I want for you. But there’s only so much I can do for you.”

He sighed and looked at Iker dead in the eyes.

“I miss him too, Iker. I miss Antonio every fucking day. And I miss you.”

Iker swallowed hard as Sergio abruptly turned and left, slamming the front door and freeing him from the command so suddenly that Iker fell onto the couch and curled up in it.

He had no energy to do anything else. Not when he was all too aware he’d fucked up and fucked up big and needed to fix it.

Borrowed from life again and it was more of a dialogue that needed to be had when you finally realize how much you fucked up and how much you need to stop coasting and make it right. 

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

ALL OF THEM! Kidding. I want to say the one I’m working on right now. I was lucky enough I got a ton of help fleshing it out. I can see the end of the 1st chapter and I am having a hell of a time writing Goodsir’s chunk. He’s turned out more emo and romantic than I was expecting. 

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

The QuiObi prompts for the prompt week. Took me like two hours to knock them off and post. 

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

Its a passion and a hobby. It helped me through a lot of rough patches and keeps me sane. 

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

Mostly music or a change in life. I tend to write when everything is in flux with me.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Just write. Worry about editing later. Once you have something on the paper, fixing it up becomes easier. 

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Edit as you write. You don’t get anything done.

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Oooh. I think it’s a toss up between my Qui-Gon/Jango fic in a pastoral setting where they have put their pasts behind and are farmers on Concord Dawn. Or the Werewolf fic I wrote during my RPF phase.

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Bloody hard. I would have to say Fitzier (Commander Fitzjames/Captain Crozier)

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Depends. Sometimes I go straight from beginning to end and sometimes I end up writing the middle and not figuring it out until later.

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

Outlines. I have notebooks I jot down point form notes about the characters and the plot.

18. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

Mine is a librarian or an alchemist trying to figure out answers and how things fit in.

19. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

A good playlist. Alone, in my room.

20. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

I revise it along the way when I sit down to write. Then before I post, I give it a once over to make sure it flows and makes sense. 

21. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

All my old fics are honestly gone so I’m skipping this one. 

22. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

Honestly? The Duo and Heero one I wrote about them being in an abusive relationship where they split up, then got back together again. I was again writing from life, and I have seen couples who did overcome it, but looking back, I think I should have written it that they separated and went their own ways. 

Keep in mind I was very young when I wrote this, and I was in an abusive relationship myself and didn’t realise it at the time. He hit me once, apologised and never did it again. But he did end up manipulating me, gaslighting me, and emotionally abusing me until I finally had enough and left. 

23. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

Yes. Loads of them due to me not wanting to finish them. Or the hosting sites going under. 

24. What do you look for in a beta?

Someone who is honest, someone who knows the way I write, and has suggestions to fix those said things. But someone who is themselves is the best. Because they know what they want. Same here. 

25. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I do, simply due to lack of steady betas. Flow and story telling, but I also look for syntax and formatting as well as grammar. I will miss typos, so I run spell-check too. I mostly use a mental rubric. Teacher training.

26. How do you feel about collaborations?

I haven’t had a successful one due to the second person always deciding that they can’t follow through or up and disappearing. So I don’t do them.

27. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Oh my God! I read so much and so many different people that I can’t pinpoint three. I usually end up reading a fic or two, so I can’t say why I read the author.

28. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I haven’t done that. I do admit to having inspired by fics. I wouldn’t ever presume to do that. It just feels like a snub.

29. Do you accept prompts?

Not really. I can’t tailor write stuff consistently. 

30. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

Oh always! I end up liking the characters that somehow never make it until the end. And in the Terror, unless you want to write angst all the time, you HAVE to ignore canon. And I mean BOTH the book and the show, since the book is nasty. The show is amazing, but oh my god is it depressing.

31. How do you feel about smut?

Yes damned please!

32. How do you feel about crack?

Depends on how well it’s done. Sometimes it is needed. Sometimes it’s like “Why?”

33. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

A bit tricky. I don’t mind non-con, but it has to be handled well. Dub-con, especially in A/B/O happens within context and it is usually dealt with. So I can tolerate that more than the first. Outright abuse, no.

34. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Yes. Not often thought. But yes. I usually try and keep as many alive as I can though.

35. Which is your favorite site to post fic?

AO3, its a wild place and I love it for that reason.

36. Talk about your current wips.

It’s an AU where two professors that live in the same building and work in different faculties get thrown together and start to get to know each other. Due to circumstance, one gets injured and the other kind of volunteers to help take care of him, where they fall in love. The others in the vicinity do also. There’s Canadian shenanigans and baking. 

37. Talk about a review that made your day.

That they really liked how I wrote Frank Randall and would like to see more with his son, an OC I created for the story.

38. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

I either delete, or give a generic reply and leave it. I’ve got stuff to do.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

Nope. It just doesn’t work for me.

*somewhere I fucked up on the number but here you are*

Whoever wants to do this.

[blackgirlblues]

Being A Black Girl: And Chasing Your Dreams.. Yikes.

Hi, 

It’s me, your resident black girl back with some new shit to rant about. I’ve been posting a few screenshots of short poems and paragraphs I’ve been writing on my phone as a way to heal and get over Capricorn boy from my last post on here and I see you guys like and reblog. Thank you for showing love, although it makes me sad that so many of you seem to be going through the same range of emotions I am. I’m sorry. 

I know it’s a lonely place to be in. 

But, on the bright side, I’ve got a lot of new followers joining the diary/manual/rant page that is blackgirlology and it’s nice cause I think it’s becoming a little bit of a community. So, in a way, were never really going through any of these emotions alone. If you’ve found this page-you’re part of a community. Bask in it. 

Anyways, that aside, a lot has happened since I last spoke to you. I don’t know if any of you may remember, and for some new people this will be a surprise. But I’m actually a singer songwriter from Ireland. Moved to London a year and a half ago to pursue my music dream and that’s how I met Capricorn boy whos been the source of all my poems. 

Throughout this time in between, I’ve been trying to chase my dreams, and chase them relentlessly. and this summer i did just that, let me tell you, what im about to tell you guys, is to put it simply, wild. I’ll just cut to the chase. 

It all started in July. I’d been in London for quite a long time now, over a year and now have a manager who’s my best friend first and foremost. We’ll call her Maya. I met her in my first week of moving to London in the student halls I was staying at and we became best friends pretty quick. She studies music business, so it made sense and she just naturally ended up taking up the role as my music manager. Shes seen everything. The songs I wrote about Capricorn boy, the tears, everything. And she saw everything this summer. 

I saw an ad for a record label opportunity in London. It was advertised on my university facebook page; a new indie label, looking for demo submissions for a competition they were setting up to find their new signee. I sent a screenshot to Maya who agreed I should send my stuff in. I did, they liked it, I got a meeting, we were sent terms and conditions for the competition. We signed it, the rest was supposed to be history. 

Big yikes. 

There’s so many layers to this story that I will be shortening it, just because it can get very draining for me to talk about or even write about. I’ve healed from it i think, but I still want to put it here and write it about to finally close that chapter and be done with my feelings about what happened to me and my music. 

Basically, the whole competition, the record label, the dickhead CEO, it was all a scam. I had accidentally signed away the master rights to my new song to a record label started by a fake CEO who was committing fraud and known for tricking young artists into handing over their master rights so he could profit off of them, for power. 

It was a mess. Another contestant told me and Maya when we were outside of their office. Just minutes before we were under the impression that I was doing an interview for Billboard Magazine. Honestly, I never truly believed it. Shit was too good to be true. 

But she told us everything. How he was actually a run away from Spain, where he was caught and exposed for doing the exact same thing to artists there, how he didn’t have any money to fund the competition he had somehow roped all of us into, how he was illegally avoiding paying his team, how none of the creatives we had collaborated with for photoshoots etc were paid, how everything was a lie, how he didnt have any connections, and how he was trying to convince me specifically to sign a 360 deal with his label. 

Which, guys, I’m not stupid. After the first week of being with the label for the competition and letting my song live through their disastrous marketing campaign, Maya and I long decided that regardless of what they said, I would not under any circumstances be signing anything with any entity of their company. 

After being told the truth, I had to sit down. You see, when I came across this opportunity, I thought this was finally the life I’d been manifesting coming true. I had begun to grow in my spirituality and start journaling, writing down my manifestations, and getting to work with a record label who would later offer me a fair contract before I turn 20 was one of the manifestations I had written down every night before I went to bed. However, what I’d gotten was the exact opposite. 

I remember, me, Maya, and 2 of the girls from the competition all stood around in a circle outside of their new office that the CEO also hadnt paid for wondering what our next move would be with this new information. There was still 2 other contestants inside who had no idea what was really going on was an elaborate scam. One of them wanted to go in and expose them on the spot. I said no, we had to go in and pretend like everything was normal until we figured out what to do afterwards. 

So in I went, plastering the fakest smile on my face and pretended like I still thought I was about to be speaking with Billboard Magazine. Once I got out, I broke down in Maya’s arms. 

I went home to my flatmates, Ellie and Bea and cried for hours before I had to go work a 7 hour shift at a pizza place. 

I stayed in bed, and cried, and cried. and cried again. I didn’t get out of bed unless I needed too. The only people I talked too were my flatmates E and B and Maya. 

Everything was sorted out eventually, a lot more happened, but as I’ve been writing this article for you guys, I realised that all of that stuff is no longer relevant to my journey and isnt something I want to bring back into my energetic circle because I’ve made peace with the fact that a lot of people who betrayed me when I was at my lowest, peace with the fact that these contestants who wanted to “work together” to get out of this mess, actually wanted to save their own asses and leave me in the cold. 

But I still got out of it and I’m still here. 

I nearly got sued by a man with less than 20 pound to his company account online, but hey, I’m here.

I guess why I’m telling you guys this really short account of my summer is to both record it for myself but also to say its okay to flop, its okay to fail. I did both this summer. and thank god i did. it was the best thing that ever happened to me. 

following your dreams is scary, doing it as a black girl is terrifying because society has already kind of set you up to fail. there’s already misconceptions about what you do, who you are, where you come from and how good you’re going to be at what you do. its almost like we cant fail and we need to work 10 times harder to obtain half of what the average white person will get. and sometimes it can feel like we dont have any space to fail or make mistakes because of this but let me tell you thats not true. 

if anything, the universe will put you in places that will force you to grow through the mistakes you make. and thats exactly what happened to me this summer. 

i chased my dream so relentlessly i ended up in an environment i thought i manifested, i thought was good for me, only for the universe to show me that that specific environment i’d been wishing to be in is the furthest from what i need right now in my life. 

this so called failure showed me that not everybody who smiles can be trusted, and that people can be way more deceiving than i ever thought, especially when push comes to shove and they need to save themselves. you start to see the real them when it starts to get tense. the people who seem to be around you when you’re doing good will most likely dissapear when things start to go south, including some of your oldest friends. you will get radio silence on their end. be upset. cry. but after that be glad that this situation revealed their true colours. 

and then never put any more energy into them again. 

this failure showed me how fucking strong i am. how resilient and kind i am even in the face of disrespect and actual evil. it showed me how much i can care for someone who i believe is at a risk of losing it all, and showed me that this will not always be reciprocated. and for a while i thought that meant that i had to harden myself up and grow a shell. but i dont think so. i will not allow the things ive been through to make me into a hard person when i was born soft. i mean now, im a little rough around the edges, jagged enough to cut anyone who comes too close with some of that bad energy, but soft enough to hold myself tight and glue myself back together when i need to. soft enough to hold the people who held me this summer. soft enough to help people who i know deserve it. 

im a good person in a shitty world, i don’t need to match the world and become a shitty person to survive. 

after all of this happened, i stopped writing music. 

i haven’t written anything properly or produced anything in months and sometimes i get worried that ive completely lost my talent. but thats another thing that this failure taught me, i can never truly lose whats meant to be mine. i know that i was put on this earth to create change, to inspire, to be an activist and a voice for people who dont have one. i know i was put here to do it through a creative medium and right now i still think that is music. 

i think i just need to stop being so scared to start again, to learn my craft again.

i used to be so scared of failure but now i am so thankful for it and the lessons its taught me. i had so much hurt and pain and hatred in my heart for the universe for, in my head, doing this to me. but then i realised that the universe never does anything to you, it does it for you. all of this happened in my best interest and while i definitely didnt understand at the time, i get it now.

thank you universe for the worst summer of my life. 

and my black ass will be continuing to chase my dreams relentlessly, failing, tripping and falling on my ass until i get to the very top. 

besides, if everything had just gone right, that wouldnt have been very interesting, would it?

[letsdiscoverkitty]

Residential Visit November 2019

I am not even sure what to say or where to even start… Yesterday was an incredibly long day (I left the house before 8am and was not getting back until gone 5pm), most of the day was taken up by travelling (trains were sadly v delayed/some cancelled). Luckily we still got there in time and spent around 2 hours with two senior members of staff. There was A LOT of information to take in, most of which I am still trying to process.

In short, I am not sure whether this is the right sort of approach for me. I can definitely see how the unit can be helpful/fills a gap, however it does not sound like it would benefit me/help me move forward (I really don’t want to sound ungrateful or up myself or anything like that). It is hard to explain and my head is still all over the place but I will write down some of the notes that I made whilst I was there below to help summarise it a bit more….

Some general bits and bobs:

There are two “houses” as such; one that has 6 beds and the other 4 beds (however they are currently renovating the 4 bed to be another 6 bed house)

She defined it as a service for “severe and enduring eating disorder” patients who have become revolving doors/lots of admissions and are not able to sustain anything as outpatients - so it is essentially a midway point between IP and OP

Their team is small but so it should be with very few patients. They have quite a lot of ‘senior’ staff, as well as 2OTs, a dietitian and an art therapist (no single “therapist” however the senior staff members are all trained in talking therapies I believe) as well as a number of HCAs

The minimum length of admission is 1 year

You have to commit to going there for at least this length of time and commit to not losing weight whilst there

They are not like inpatient in that they will not push people but aim to work collaboratively in order to help give the person a better quality of life/reintegrate back into society whilst keeping an eye on their risk and stability etc.

The service is NOT a step-up service from outpatient care and they will only take referrals from Inpatient (this is not something my team was aware of and so my EDP that came with me was quite shocked by this)

Funding can be an issue and they take on a “first comes, first served” basis in that whoever gets access to funding first gets the bed that is available.

That being said apparently the average wait for funding to be approved is generally 3 months

Due to the very nature of the set-up there can be very long waits for beds to come up (they could not say what the waiting list was like but they apparently have one bed at the moment and then they are hopefully getting two more finished by January and expect to be full by the end of January)

They said that looking at how the set up is right now, it could then be YEARS before the next bed comes up once they are full.

There is quite often a need for people to be readmitted to inpatient facilities in order to have a “top up” if they are struggling at the house

Everyone has their own individual plans etc. but you have to be stable to be accepted. Your IP consultant also has to agree with them a weight band/BMI for you have so that there are perimeters around when a short admission might be necessary/when they need to intervene (which they said is not a bad thing as hiccups happen, so you would not lose the bed automatically so could come back to it after said top up)

They said that they work WITH the patient in order to help them begin to grow and find themselves again as people usually come in “100% anorexia” in their heads and they aim to help slice away at that and help you find your goals/interests etc

There are no groups (maybe one a week on a sunday evening doing crafts)

You get 1:1 sessions with your key worker and the dietitian weekly

The consultant visits monthly 

There are lots of step down strategies e.g. you go in with staff in control of cooking your food/medication etc but then you can go down the stages until you are eventually cooking your own food and eating it without supervision and are responsible for your medication.

Often people work towards getting jobs in the local area or have support with going back to education

They are very aware that people often do not want to get better and that is where they can help support and then slowly nudge people, so very different to IP. They will not let you stay stuck but they will not force anything upon you - it is a collaboration. 

They try to help you to understand your personal struggles and see how best to support you with where you are and where you want to be going

So, in quite a number of senses it does not seem to be very recovery focused, but is instead about managing conditions and helping people to stay out of hospital?? - which, like I said at the beginning of this, is where there is a huge gap and I can see exactly how it can slot in, but at the same time it is not what i want??? It is great that they work so individually and there are definitely elements of the service that I can see would be really helpful/beneficial for me, however overall I am not getting the best of vibes…

I’ve obviously got time to think about things and no decisions are being made right now. My EDP said that she would start writing things up so that it is there so that we are not ruling out options as funding can take a long time if I were to choose to try and go down this route. She was v surprised that they had not told her beforehand that they only take referrals from people who are in IP, and I am not really sure where we stand on that side of things/what her thoughts were, but as we were leaving the person we had been with said that I was the type of person they help so *shrugs*

My mind is a complete whirlwind/mess. Sleep was very mixed last night.

There is a lot for me to think about/consider/take in 

I am not really sure what else there is to say at this very moment in time. I am Sorry for the slight “mind dump” of this post, I just wanted to try to get my notes down before I “forget” them. I really hope that I don’t sound ungrateful or like I am “too good” for xyz as I really can see some benefits and how it could be helpful, however at the same time I don’t want to be stuck/trapped in a state of quasi-recovery/life forever and I fear that this is what the service offers.

[shaunswain]

Looking Back at 2019 (And Having 2019 Look Back at Me)

Someone stole the ‘D’ from the Hollywoo sign

What Is This?

This is not a usual thing for me. While I’m all for introspection and retrospection, until this year, it hasn’t often been aloud. I have a tendency to fall down rabbit holes and tangents that steal away my attention in a direction I feel is probably more pertinent.   To me, I don’t ever feel like I’m able to fit in the whole picture. This year I’ve learned (and I’m happy to say you’re going to have to get used to that sentence if you decide to read further) that it’s not always the whole picture that’s needed. Of course, when it comes to leaving friends and family for an entire year, living in a city that’s much bigger than I’m used to, meeting people with profiles I’ve only ever heard about to the point they’d become deified amongst the people that speak about them, learning far more than I’d ever imagined learning, and living in conditions I didn’t know I could - it gets to the point that being asked “How’s your year been?” can be incredibly incredibly draining to think about.   But I’ve thought about it all. This year has been nothing but thinking about everything as it happens and as it will happen, or should have happened, or shouldn’t have happened, or should happen again, and so on. This year has been a strange, disturbing, enlightening, fulfilling, and draining cycle of thought patterns, broken patterns, fixed patterns; plenty of thoughtlines that move forward, back, up, down, and around.   I’m writing this as part journal entry, part chronicle of my experience of the year, part update on life in general. It will get a little stream-of-consciousnessesque and I don’t feel the need to change that. If you’re interested in reading, go ahead. But while I’m making this public, this is also intensely personal. This is my very long answer to the question: “So, Shaun, how was your year?”

Part One: Living on a Prayer

  Let’s set the scene. 2019 has just begun. I’ve packed up and shipped out to Auckland with the massive crowd of supportive friends and family waving goodbye. While I knew at the time I’d miss Dunedin, I knew I wanted to leave. I had to leave. I’d saved up what little money I could for the move, and had massive assistance with two final shows, the tremendous donations of people from a GiveALitle, and final work payouts (plus a few more refunds and payouts on the way.)

  I knew that whatever I was doing was damn risky, and what I was essentially doing was putting everything I had on the line. My sense of security, safety, and support was to be thrown to the wind. Not forever, mind you, just for now. In retrospect it was all probably a little too careless. But there was probably not going to be an opportunity like this for a good long while, I didn’t have any intention of sitting around waiting for the next one. An impatient, young idiot who wants to grow up and leave home.

  I was not entirely out alone, of course. There’s the obvious other person that would be there with me, with whom I had made arrangements to live. Plus two others from The South(TM) that I was more than happy to live with for a year. Although the initial few months of living arrangements were shaky, it was all going to work out in the long-term.   This was, of course, another instance of recklessness, and probably the biggest one. But I’ll elaborate on that in a moment. I didn’t expect to be greeted at what I thought had been agreed upon to be my temporary first home in the big smoke, with:

“So where are you staying tonight?”

  Not going to lie, it was a bit of a heart-sinking moment, filled with confusion, and a little bit of anger. But it was fine. It will all work out. Just gotta quickly come up with an answer. Luckily, my dear Uncle and Auntie lived in the shore. It’s a small home, and quite far away from school, but that’s alright. I was able to stay with them for a short while while more permanent living arrangements were being sought for. At the same time, the wonderful Laith Bayan also had a home with a couch I could crash on.

  Even if it is a couch, or an armchair, or a rug on the floor with a few blankets piled on it, with whatever funds I had very quickly dropping into nothingness. It was all worth it. I remember feeling perpetually energised, excited, and ready for the next day. Never in my life could I have felt so empowered simply by the feeling of hope. This little road bump surely wasn’t going to last long, and if it was I didn’t give a fuck, it wasn’t going to stop me. Not by a long shot.

Part Two: One Month Later

  So one month had passed. The groundwork had been laid down at school - the year was to be all about identifying, working out, and expressing my directorial style. This would involve looking back at my previous works, thinking about key similar aspects of them, and working out how do I not only pitch this style to future collaborators, but also to myself. It’s a hefty thing to wonder, but so important. I think it’s important for any artist to work out what makes them ‘them.’ To some people that might seem obvious, and while it seemed obvious to me, the actual specifics of what one ‘is’ and how does one know what one is is actually a damn difficult thing to really explain until you’ve already done it.

  It turns out my stint with living nowhere with nothing to my name lasted longer than I anticipated. I had deleted Facebook shortly after arriving in Auckland, and one thing I had learnt when falling into a 9-5 routine with little to no interactions with people outside of that routine is that your sense of time can get seriously fucked up. I hadn’t learned how dependent on social media I was for seeing how the world is and how it’s changing and how everyone else in the world is changing until I cut that aspect out. It was, to say the least, very disorienting. Especially in a massive city filled with people I don’t know. It didn’t make the unexpected culture shock any more digestible. But, I sucked it up. I didn’t have time to worry about how everyone else is doing - I needed to know how I was doing.

  The time spent lying on a rug, reading a play a day, and combing through the filmography of several film directors kept my mind at ease until we finally found a permanent home for the year. A massive, terrifying, white, probably haunted house incredibly close to the city. School/town was a walk away, or if I’m lazy, a cheap bus ride away. Dominos was literally next door, and the only other people in the area were industrial buildings, parking lots, cafes, all of which closed relatively early. It was an eerie kind of a quiet. The kind where you can hear plenty cars whizzing down (or jamming up) along the road in the distance, but in the immediate vicinity of the house, there was a dark nothingness. Pipes leaked, stairs creaked (and thumped, and thumped, and thumped) and the lounge was composed of two lounges facing each other.

  One of the lounges had the perfect space for a projector.

Plenty of the lights and plug sockets didn’t work, the lights were in very strange spots, and the light switches in even weirder ones. There were a lot of additions built onto the house that gave the entire environment a very surreal feel. Like a bunch of houses crammed together. I had one of the actors in The Program, whom I was fortunate to have already known down in Dunedin describe the flat as “permanently feeling like its 4am in Dunedin.” And I am inclined to agree. The main counterpoint to that statement is, no matter where I looked, I could see that giant fucking heroin needle called The Sky Tower. I would later grow to massively resent seeing that thing everywhere.

  I’d grow to resent a lot of things around me. I felt that resentment shining right back at me.

  On that point I’d like to discuss my first major instance of recklessness. It didn’t start this year, it started several years ago. As a few of you may know I used to drink a lot. That’s kind of the thing around Dunedin. Dunedin has a horrendous drinking culture, it took me going stone cold sober and leaving the place to really notice it for what it is - a tragic cycle of people who don’t want to remember anything, encouraging other people to forget. And I had forgotten a lot, and suddenly I found myself in the vicinity of a perpetual reminder of one of my biggest mistakes - or rather, it was the fact that I forgot that was the mistake itself. Now, I’m a strong advocate of forgiveness, but sometimes there are limits to forgiveness. Forgiveness implies trust. Trust that whatever has been done can be learned from. But one of the harsh realities that this year presented was the fact that some people are incapable of learning from, or perhaps even incapable of remembering hurtful and terrible acts that they commit. At which point you can do one of two things: Pity them, or leave them.

Renaye Tamtati and Hamish Annan

  Foolishly, despite taking far too long to remember, when I did remember, I chose to pity and provide benefit of the doubt. This is the double-edged sword of living on hope. You can’t hope for things that will never change to change. You can’t change the past, and you can’t pretend that certain things never actually happened when they did.

  In truth, I never forgot. I just really wanted to. I didn’t want to complicate things by speaking out. I thought it would be easier to pretend certain things never actually happened. I chose to live in a situation where I was reminded of several mistakes that were made. I thought it would be worth it all in the long run. But if the run itself is long, it really does start to make me wonder: “Am I worth this constant feeling of unease?"

  I was always aware of the warning signs arranging this year when and how I did. I had constant questions of “are you sure?” ; “Won’t it be weird?” But I ignored them. I realise this is all quite vague, but this is not the platform for specifics. But if you’re still reading this, and you’re a close friend of mine, then you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. To those people: I am so sorry. I really should have listened. I should have cut out the people that were never ever going to change, because why should they when people like me aren’t willing to call people out? Even now, I still have so much unwarranted guilt, and difficulty putting to words the things I should have said a long time ago. I’ve spent a long time feeling like the situation has been my fault, and when I’ve willingly ignored the gravity of the situation, it makes it even harder to turn around and face it all for what it is.

Don’t ever ignore the warning signs. Really stop and think about what friends and family are saying. No-one should live in a place where they feel unsafe.

Part Three: “Now Is The Winter of Our Discontent”

My good friend Laith Bayan told me something that stuck with me deeply, when discussing how cold our flat might be in Winter. He said:

“Winter in Auckland doesn’t chill your bones like in Dunedin. The cold here is psychological.”

I can’t say he didn’t warn me. But also I can’t overstate how much he warmed me too. Before I get too down in the dumps, I want to take a moment to express gratitude for the tremendous support Laith offered me this year. I honestly do not think I would have survived this year without him. I can’t imagine the intense toll I, or perhaps the living situation we found ourselves in took on him. But I know he’s knocking Cyprus out of the ballpark (is that a saying? It is now), and I could not be happier for him. He introduced me to two funky cool cats that I’m more than happy to say are some of my closest friends. I know that wherever Laith is (again, it’s Cyprus, please stop asking me where he is I’ve told you a million times), he’s fighting the good fight.

Good Boys Laith and Zeus Bayan

In addition to living with as great a pal as Laith, I’ve also had a pretty awesome job. Rialto Cinemas. It was a little comforting knowing I had moved from a three minutes walk to one of the only two Rialto Cinemas in New Zealand... to... a three minute walk to one of the only two Rialto Cinemas in New Zealand.

It has been a fantastic place to work in. It offered nighttime hours so I could study in the day and work at night in order to pay for said study, I could see it from my house, and it offered craptonnes to do since it’s regularly packed out with corporate events. It also helped me capitalise on the shocking discovery I made earlier in the year while working at Hallensteins in Dunedin: I, like all humans, am a social creature! Even worse: I’m possibly quite extraverted and loving talking to people. Disgusting, I know.

That said, studying 9-5, then working 5-12 in a cinema, can really mess up one’s sense of time. I get all the movies and all their starts and end times written down on a sheet of paper. At first glance, it’s an incomprehensible grid of numbers. Things start and finish in quick succession, and there is only 10 minutes max to clean up the refuse of inconsiderate public, per cinema. Time moves really really fast when you are back to back with time limits. You get used to it. Then you quickly dash in and out of the starts of each film to make sure it’s all running okay. So I’ve had the benefit of seeing the starts and ends of loads of films, so I can decide whether or not it’s worth going in to see the rest for free.

I’ve always found cinemas to be such interesting places in terms of how they can mess up your sense of time and place. They’re dark boxes that take you on little journeys, the only sense of time you have is whatever the movie tells you. Then you come out and it turns out two hours have passed. Imagine that, but over and over again.

A great deal of this year is difficult for me to remember linearly, especially in my depressive period. It felt like it lasted forever and yet in an instant; like a black hole that, when gravitating towards, makes all time cease to exist and yet exist at a single point. In the grand scheme of things, and the infinity of the universe, everything happens immediately yet indefinitely and inescapably. I’d lie in bed in my haunted as hell house. Clocks ticking were substituted with the rampant stomps of flatmates above me and the pulsating of my heartbeat in my ear on the pillow. I’d lie fixed to my bed, not asleep, not awake, paralysed. Face to face with an old mentor giving me discerning looks, questioning every single facet of my integrity while I would have no strength to respond adequately. A former friend would sit at the end of a table, looking away from me. Looking to the wall. Walls of grey and white. Walls to lean against and faint on.

Look up, breathe. Try my hardest not to faint for a third time. Leave the bathroom and move to my post. File through faces and names, cross out times, tear off pieces of paper. Circle numbers, fill out, cross out, throw away and print grids. Everything is in grids. Everything is numbers. TIme. Money. Blood. Numbers numbers numbers. I felt numb. Idle. Yet always moving. Moving up moving down stairs. Staying at a flat level, walking fast nowhere. Walking fast everywhere. Sitting on cramped or desolate buses. I remember a man glaring at me at the other end of the bus. Doesn’t matter. I was passing my stop. Days passed. Weeks passed. Months passed. Everything was the same. I stayed calm. Breathed. I earnestly jotted down every bit of information. Did I eat? Did I sleep? Did I do anything? What have I done?  It doesn’t matter. Keep moving. Keep breathing. Filter feed like the bottom feeder you are. Pick up scraps to stay alive. Pinch your pennies. Keep walking up and down and up and down and up and down and don’t you ever stop. You can’t afford to. Keep rolling through. Row row row your boat gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Twin Peaks: The Return Spoilers

You’re being told that your focus is all over the place. No shit. Are you sure you made the right decision coming here? The fuck does that mean? Fuck off. Take a good hard look at yourself.

And I did.

I looked at myself in a mirror and noticed I’d gotten quite thin. Not just weight-wise. I’d turned almost zombie-like. That explains all the comments regarding working on appearances. Everything is optics. Everything is exactly what it looks like, and if it isn’t, then no-one will know what it is. If you can’t express what’s on your mind, then you’ve probably failed as an artist. I thought I had failed. I thought I was a failure. I knew I was.

For a good long while I felt nothing. I said nothing. I did absolutely nothing but move from place to place. I literally thought I was dying and I kind of didn’t care. Hey at least the things I did will be looked at in retrospect as something “full of potential,” I’ll die a vessel for infinite possibilities rather than something that lived to accomplish absolutely nothing.

Going back to my ham-fisted Twin Peaks reference, I really truly felt like Dougie Jones from Season 3. I was numb, repeated what people said to me in order to give some semblance of humanity and registration of what was being said before I awkwardly fumbled into the next scene. If I felt like I was not going to make the next payment, or survive to the next paycheck, another convenient little ‘thing’ would pop up and I’d get the exact amount I needed. Little burning windows into the Black Lodge over a slot-machine, and I was Mr. Jackpots. I cannot overstate how eerily perfectly timed each month I would get a request or an inquiry for something that’d pay me exactly what I needed. I survived on miracles this year. Perfectly scheduled miracles. But even though these wonderful things kept happening, i felt like I was still doing nothing. Shuffling around like a zombie.

It was around this period of absolute nothingness that something hit me like a wave. I remember idly walking down the street. I don’t remember if it was early morning, or late in the day. But I remember going down the street then suddenly I felt something tackle me. I didn’t fall. It jumped right through me. The blood rushed to my head and I felt dizzy. A smile jumped on my face as all these thoughts just came rushing in. I think they call it inspiration. I didn’t realise how visceral something so non-physical could be. But that was entirely it. It has to be visceral or else it can’t be seen or felt. Optics is everything. Seeing is believing. It literally doesn’t matter how I feel, it’s what I’m doing. It’s what people are doing.

I staged a scene from Macbeth, with the audience scattered around a room while Macbeth (Joshua Crammond) and Lady Macbeth (Natasha Daniel) scurried around and towards each other dealing with the aftermath of killing King Duncan. I was like a ghost and knocked on the walls, clicking in their ears, and whispering echoes of the scene as, in my mind, their nightmares started creeping on their backs no matter where they went. It was a liberating, exciting moment. I realised what I was here for. To do something. Anything. Just make something that can be seen and felt.

There is tremendous power in dreams. All stories are dreams crafted from the dreamers heads and put onto a page, or a stage, or a screen, or whatever. There may or may not be logic by a conventional sense, but there’s always logic according to the dream’s sense. The dream has a world that may not be completely understood by the dreamer, but it’s there, and everything bows down to it. When I made this realisation I learned what “a vision” is. It’s the logic of the dream. If you can get everyone dreaming, then the dream will take over. The dream has already taken over, you just need to know that you’re in one.

Even though I had this stint of inspiration, I don’t think I had necessarily ‘woken up.’ Not just yet. But I was getting close.

I had to go through an awkward phase of being handed a skeleton camera crew to film a 15 minute film. Which definitely happened, I just didn’t quite know what I was doing yet. Still shambling around. (And yes I will be editing it properly, especially now that I know a little bit more about filmmaking, I promise.)

Lucas Haugh and Carla Newton in “Glass Streets”

I’m definitely happy with the result, just felt a little strange with my presence in the room. My amateurish lack of confidence was quite startling to me. However,  it started ringing a lot of bells that perhaps a lot of the scripts I’ve written are really just “films in the closet” with a bit too much dialogue. It was definitely nice being thrown in the deep end, wallowing in cluelessness. It was another pressure point that I’d have to learn from, grow from, and run away with. There was something exciting and alluring finally getting into the meat of the cinematic medium.

In all honesty, when asked “why have I chosen theatre as my career choice,” I’d say that ultimately it’s because it’s the only feasible thing I could ever see myself contributing to society. I’m happy doing anything so long as it’s building up something through a process of collaboration and communication. But that’s all well and good, but on a base level, what drew me to theatre was film. Theatre, however, was what was much more readily accessible growing up in Rotorua/Invercargill/Dunedin. Sure, we’ve all got cameras on us now, but theatre was, for lack of a better word, ‘easier.’ And what I mean by easier, I mean there’s been a lower monetary threshold to produce quality content. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the difference between film and theatre - I dealt with enough of that in my honours year, but to cut a long story short, this has been a year of learning the difference much more viscerally. ‘Seeing is believing’ and so on. But now, I have the proof right in front of me - something I can see; something I believe. Something tangible to hold onto and come back to shore.

Side Note: Donning The Tin Hat

The Labyrinthine Fire Exits of Rialto Cinema 

As I said before, I temporarily disabled my Facebook. I knew it would unnecessarily divide my attention. I’m ultimately grateful I did this. Though this came with some unexpected side effects. Firstly, when living under a rock of work-school-work-school, it was damn impossible to know when things were happening, where they were happening, or even if they were happening. I had to go off of hearsay, and when you’ve isolated yourself to a routine and socially removed yourself by virtue of being a fucking nutjob it’s very hard to gauge where the world is at. It was rather telling how reliant I had become on social media. It took me painfully too late to learn about a certain national tragedy that took place earlier in the year until I heard the disheartened and noble venting of the situation by my dear friend. I had no idea what day it was at any given point. Every day melted in the next, and made for some very very strange conversations. One such conversation included a warning regarding the information and misinformation surrounding the tragedy, which also included a “helpful” prayer that had been posted and regurgitated by someone in the group. This was to aid the grieving process of all whom had been bombarded with information surrounding it. I don’t want to go too far into this section of the year because it’s incredibly cyclical and still upsets me deeply. But I started to become hyper-aware of ‘the algorithm.’ Everything we look at, search for, say aloud, type, produce, reproduce, share, ‘like/dislike,’ argue, and consume is added to an ever-growing system that refines and filters every subsequent thing we see, consumer, and prosume. It becomes, for many people, the means of interacting and seeing the outside world and all the goings-on in it. But it is is all curated according to subjective interests. A reliance on it creates an emotional dependence on it. Suddenly emotional responses, logical arguments, and ideological beliefs are dictated by a machine. Not by any person, but a machine that literally watches you every single second of the day and reflects what it thinks you want to see. When I started realising how dependent I became on it, it only made me more terrified of going back to it, like a drunk ex-boyfriend asking for the machine to take me back at 4am. Unfortunately, Facebook is a commonly employed tool of the trade I chose, and so I came crawling back. But with every single face-scanning device masquerading as a quirky instagram filter telling you which randomly assembled photo of a Disney character you best suit, it is hard to forget that we are feeding a machine that is completely incapable of any unique individual thought, only a hideous monstrous juxtaposition of every bit of information forced into it. It probably didn’t help that I also read Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” during this time as well. But the point still stands, everything is bite-sized memes. In short: We Live In A Society etc. etc. And that scares the shit out of me.

Part Four: Waking Up

“Capping Show faces!” - Me. (’Two Gentlemen of Verona;’ Pop-Up Globe Youth Company) with Jake Fanstone, Annikki Lehtola, Shervonne Grierson, and Tanya Corpuz

At the end of Term Two, I was incredibly incredibly fortunate to come on board the Pop-Up Globe Youth Company’s first show as a Directing Assistant Intern. This slotted in perfectly with the Program’s holiday period. In this time, I got to go back to what I knew I loved: Shakespeare; Young Aspiring Actors; Farcical Comedy; Large Ensembles. While my role in the production was relatively minimal I effectively acted as hype-man and occasional consultant on directorial decisions, as well as occasional helper for songs, dances, and taking away and workshopping the odd scene or two. Three of the actors in the show would later come on board to help with my work in the program, two of which became part of my final stage project of the year.

Needless to say this was a tremendous opportunity on many fronts. It was a reason to continue waking up at a reasonable time, it was a place to go, and it was a nice and promising peek into what I could contribute to the theatre scene at the end of a relatively disheartening period. I cannot thank The Globe enough.

It also meant I would be sliding into the following term anew, with a fair bit more gumption and empowerment than before. We looked into the specifics of TV Show writing and pitching, which suddenly gave me a massive positive change of attitude towards TV work. Then we moved back into film drill weeks. This shift in attitude started to reflect itself in the film work.

Katherine Kennedy with Ryan Delieu (Off-Screen) in “Strange Case”

I felt comfortable to play around, experiment, and most importantly, be willing to fight for what I want to do and how I’m doing it. There was still definitely work to be done in the way of technical language and refining how I communicate what I need to crew and how to capitulate a vision not just on set, but also in the script. If my plays were films in the closet, I still needed to find a way to make them “come out.”

George Maunsell and Louis Flavell-Birch in “I Hope it Rains in Melbourne”

However, that’s a whole other skill to sharpen and hone. It was through trial and error, and through throwing oneself into those trials, figuring out what works, what doesn’t, and most importantly what I think works that helps sharpen everything involved. It’s very strange, trying to see both the big picture and every single detail it’s composed of at the same time. It’s a matter of not necessarily thinking “what am I seeing” but more “what am I not seeing, and why am I not seeing it?” A selective blindness of sorts.

It reminds me of dreams; fragments of memories your brain picks apart and jumbles together seemingly at random. Of course it’s not exactly random. There is a strange reason behind all of it. It’s the stuff that is going through your head while you’re awake and then is reshuffled and compartmentalized in your subconscious. So the question is: what am I thinking about? What have I been thinking about? What is on my mind? How do I get across what I’m thinking? How do I think? 

I think through feeling, through sensations. Every bit of information taken in by me, or the algorithm, or anyone else, is through the absorption of everything in the tangible physical world. Thoughts and feelings don’t come out of nowhere, dreams aren’t constructed by going to sleep. Everything that goes into a dream is taken from what we see and hear and feel and smell and taste while we’re awake. So I couldn’t expect to piece together any bit of information into a bigger picture until I had material for it. I had to wake up. I had to wake up. I had to wake up.

Part Five: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Sleep Paralysis Demon

No, Seriously. These Fire Exits Are Terrifying

And yet. Every time I tried to wake up, I’d be frozen in place.

On average, I had sleep paralysis at least twice a week. It was probably to do with my terribly askew sleep schedule, a routine lack of sleep, a lack of eating, stress, and an overabundance of caffeine and (to fight off hunger pains) a copious amount of nicotine. For whatever the reason, I’d wake up regularly several times a night, and once more in the early morning to be greeted with a fixed view of either my bookcase, or my suit jackets hung up on the curtain rail which, in the dark, unfortunately looks like the upper torso of a person.

Luckily I very rarely had any run-ins with monsters save for the occasional person lying in bed with me, floating torso in the distance, or scalped man peeking out from the side of the bed. No, instead I’d regularly find myself trying to move, feel myself move, see myself move, and yet not actually be moving at all. I’d get frustrated, then notice I’m not actually breathing, try and breathe, then either hyperventilate or just think I’m hyperventilating until I’d faint. Of course I wouldn't actually know I’ve fainted, in my mind I’d think I had successfully woken up, start my day, then wake up again and start all over in my bed until I finally willed myself to move, feeling mentally and physically drained afterwards. The fear wore out pretty quickly, eventually it was just fucking annoying.

However, as the year progressed, I started feeling and hearing people over me. Being one to not want to scare myself more than necessary I’d neglect to look in the direction of whoever was holding me down, each time getting harder and harder to do so. (There’s not a lot one can do in terms of mobility when you’re paralysed). Eventually I woke up face to “face” with a man covered in tar, dripping oil over my face. Suddenly my hyperventilation was real and one of panic. There was nothing I could do. Then a cat jumped into my lap. It was my dear cat, the late Medusa.

RIP Beautiful Queen (2001-2018)

As soon as she appeared I calmed down and the oily man slinked away. She hissed at it, and he vanished. I let her under my blankets, and her and I fell asleep. In the morning I woke up calmly, and much more energized. I opened up my bedsheets to greet my cat, but she was gone. In an instant, another wave of inspiration hit me.

And

I

Woke

Up

I rushed into school, manic, energised, and beat out a 15 page script for a film titled “Rat,” this went through several rewrites, each time shorter and shorter both to fit the guidelines of the Program’s final film calling card project and to concentrate the beats of the film. With every rewrite I’d filter everything into it’s finest point. Finally, with the help of my dear muse whom I had been reunited with I had myself a calling card. Something to demonstrate my style, and an exercise in what I want to see, how I want to put it together, and to assess the change I’d undergone throughout the year. I was proud of it. Not just because of what it is, but what it means for me extending beyond that. To me, it’s a display of where I was, and where I’m going. I am the oily man, glaring down at the withered shadow of myself saying “go the fuck back to sleep, you can get to work when you’re rested.”

Everything I’d gone through, experienced, and learned was grueling, hard-hitting, and overall so very very very very important. It was like running up a mountain, it’s hard to admire the view until you actually make the climb. Sure, my limbs are hurting like hell, but it’s so damn worth it.

Look back at it all, and putting it into words, it’s so hard to describe it all without making it seem like it’s been a year full of suffering. But it hasn’t. Not really. It’s easy to throw out the ol’ “character building” adage, but the funny thing is that’s kind of exactly what the year has been - character building. No pain, no gain. And I have gained a lot from 2019. The amount that I’ve learned and experienced, while lacking in terms of “living” and healthily appreciating myself, far exceeds what I’ve put up with over the course of the year. While I’ve probably definitely irrevocably shortened my lifespan a couple years, I have the confidence and willingness to acknowledge that I am worth the care and love that I’ve neglected to give myself.

My only regret is that I needed so harsh a wake-up call to realise that.

Epilogue: 2020

So, what’s in store?

Well for one I’m definitely in love with making film (again; we might get into my history with that at a later date), so I’ll be getting more into that.

More tangibly I’ve got a couple shows in the horizon (Bermuda and No Exit) in Dunedin, and a couple others to be confirmed in Auckland (and beyond). I’ll be living a relatively nomadic lifestyle and I couldn’t be more excited. I’m excited to leave this city for a wee while, then come back and properly actually “live” in it.

This is the beginning of the rest of my life. It’s time for me to live. To make. To see what I want to see in the world.

It’s time to keep on moving, with both eyes wide open. Alive. Awake.

(Also please let me know if you’d like more posts like these. I promise they won’t be anywhere near as long.).

[crescentmoonrider]

Fics I sorta want to write, sorta don’t want to, probably never will (a non-exhaustive list)

A:tla/LoK

Of the inequality of palindromes

What it is : A canon divergence in which Noatak and Tarrlok leave together, build the Equalists much earlier, and the world once more descends into war. Avatar Aang is killed, Equalists occupy most of Earth Kingdom and spread the mercy of the Spirits-sent brothers who will make all equal, and a young Korra is raised behind the walls of the Northern Water Tribe. Also Jet is here, somehow, and would probably be one of the PoV characters, maybe along with Tarrlok ?

Why I want to write it : Lots of potential here for a lot of stuff, I’ve always loved Tarrlok and Noatak’s story, I already made a few sketches after the inciting dream and I kind of like what this all looks like. Lots of situations, lots of characters, lots of trauma. I feel like it could work with a non-chronological storytelling - or at least less chronological than A viper-lizard’s tales - and I’m curious to see how I would go about structuring that.

Why I don’t want to : The Timeline Is Fucked !!! I seriously have no idea what would be going on with the dates and ages of most characters and just trying to figure out and make sense of that stuff is killing me. Also, it would be Long, and Viper-lizard will probably have exhausted me by the time I finish it, so starting another long fic would be. HHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Ace Attorney

I will fill your thermos with Worcester sauce or so help me

What it is : A canon divergence in which bratty prosecutor Miles Edgeworth and Diego “I think I am a good person but I’m barely there” Armando somehow join forces to take down Dahlia. They’re both douchebags who despise each other. It’s a great collaboration. They meet one young and innocent Phoenix Wright at the legal library and it’s all downhill from there.

Why I want to write it : Douchebag duo !! Reluctantly working together !! I want these two to interact and to barely resist kicking each other in the shins like the little brats they are. And well, I’ve already made Content(TM) for this, so I’d say it speaks to how much I like the idea. There is a scenario somewhere in my mind and in the sketches I did.

Why I don’t want to : I’m barely in this fandom anymore (if I ever really was) and I don’t like research. What the fuck is a legalese and do I need to know it to write about lawyers ? Whatever the answer may be, I’ll have to look shit up, and it will take time, and I’ll get distracted, and the fic will never write itself.

Hannibal (NBC)

Ode au pêcheur (long ver.)

What it is : A role-reversal AU, in which Hannibal is not a cannibal but still a psychiatrist, and Will is a teacher and profiler with a, uh, taste for uncommon meats. They still meet during the Shrike case, which is what the current Ode au pêcheur is about, and this would be the following events.

Why I want to write it : For one, I already wrote a short piece for this verse, so jot that down. But also I want to explore the change in dynamics, and also Hannibal being completely fucked up but in a different way. And writing Will as this kind of mysterious and fascinating being through Hannibal’s eyes... yeah, that’d be good.

Why I don’t want to : I spent hours reading the scripts, deciding what I would and would not keep, how to phrase it, for a 878 words standalone. I do Not want to know what I’d do with a long fic.

Six Sibylline Books (oracles willfully blind)

What it is : A Psycho Pass AU, with Will as an Enforcer specializing in profiling, having been declared a Latent Criminal since he was 6, because of his high empathy. He lives in fear of the day his Coefficient will reach 300. Hannibal is, of course, criminally asymptomatic, and working as a therapist for the government.

Why I want to write it : Let’s be honest, these two in the Sibyl System would be a fucking mess, and I for one am here for it. Mostly I want to see Will struggle with his place in this world, and watch what his Becoming would be like. Hannibal as a worse version of Makishima who just does shit for fun is terrible too, I love it. He probably wouldn’t even try to do a revolution and pretend to help people, the asshole.

Why I don’t want to : I Would Die. Two very complicated shows with literary references and philosophy mixed in just about every sentence, and a very well-rounded world as the setting ? Instant death. Or a very slow one, induced by the constant need to reference every little detail.

Kekkai Sensen

Fallen Hellsalem

What it is : A noir AU in which Daniel Law is a hardboiled detective who has been looking for answers regarding the disappearance of his younger twin brother for the past three years. A two-parters (by which I mean, two fics of consequent length, or a Huge fic with two very long main arcs), with the first case introducing the world through Steven A Starphase being accused of murder and needing Daniel’s help to find the real culprit. Turns out he didn’t do This murder but is also a crime lord involved in the disappearance of many other people, reigniting Daniel’s quest for answers. The second case is actually much more focused on the actual investigation surrounding Marcus’ disappearance, with Daniel gaining an apprentice in the person of Leonardo Watch, and learning to let go of the past a little.

Why I want to write it : I made a 5 page comic of the very first scene in 20 days. I just really like the noir aesthetics, and also Daniel. I have something resembling the beginning of an actual plot. I love Daniel. Did I mention I love Daniel ? It would be very interesting to have to actually think things in advance and build a case that makes sense.

Why I don’t want to : It would be so much work !! Two parts ?? Two fics for one story ? Or even just a Mega Fic - I would just fucking die. Also, while having to figure out how to build a case that makes sense is a fine challenge, it’s also a Lot of work, especially when I’m more the type of writer to figure stuff out as it comes, or to plan for Big Emotional moments and then turn the plot around it so that it all works organically. I’m not really a planner of plots, more of scenes. Plots kinda just happen. And that doesn’t fly for detective stories if you want it to be decent.

----------

Psycho Pass

The blind Sibylla (long ver.)

What it is : A canon divergence directly following the events of The blind Sibylla (in which Akane shot Makishima during episode 11). Makishima didn’t die but is injured, still somehow escapes ; meanwhile Akane is kind of scouted by Sibyl because she shot a guy with the intention to kill him and her Crime Coefficient didn’t rise, and she considers the offer. Kogami gets a phone call that leaves him sick to his stomach, and he too has to make a choice.

Why I want to write it : I mean, I already wrote two short chapters on impulse, so it’s more of “why I want to continue it”. Anyway the answer is that I’ve got ideas and I want to see where they go. Also if I can get Kagari and Choe Gu Sung to stay alive that would be swell.

Why I don’t want to : Psycho Pass Is Complicated. The worldbuilding is on point, but that also means fucking it up is incredibly easy. Also the literary references. It would be a lot more work than I am used to putting into my writing and I really don’t feel like memorizing the wiki and constantly rewatching the series just to get everything as accurate as possible.

Reborn

The illusion of love and the reality of hate

What it is : A TYL 186918 story about Hibari and Mukuro navigating their hate-relationship and trying to make it work. Especially after Mukuro was thought to have been killed by Byakuran. Would involve Mukuro asking Ryohei for advice because he is literally the only person in a stable relationship who has any idea what he’s doing, and also he knows what Hibari is like. A contract is drafted. I’m not saying Mukuro and Hibari get hate-married but. They get hate-married. Kind of.

Why I want to write it : I’ve wanted to explore a full-blown, healthy blackrom for a while now, and these two are one of my oldest ships, and also one I’ve written a lot for in the past. Love me a good mix of fucked up shit and humor. And boy would there be fucked up shit between these two.

Why I don’t want to : Two words : Sex Scenes. I can’t imagine this story (or this relationship, for that matter) without sex, as it would be one of the most primal way they have of communicating with each other, along with fighting. But I’ve never written smut in my life. Also I barely remember the TYL arc (better than the later ones, but not by much) so I’d have to look that up again, and probably more (likely re-reading the whole thing), but that’s a minor issue.

Red Raven

Cave Canem

What it is : An early canon divergence in which Ricardo gets lost in the panic of the five days of blood and is believed to be dead, while Walter meets Calogero at Castor Arte and decides to follow him around out of a mutual hatred of the Scaggs. Anyway Ricardo joins the Red Ravens because he believes he was abandoned and can’t trust the mafia anymore, while Walter more or less gets adopted by Calogero and becomes Laura’s right hand.

Why I want to write it : I just. I love this manga so goddamn much,,,,,,, Also Walter and Ricardo are very similar while being pretty different, and the changes in dynamics a switch would make are. Pretty darn interesting. I made sketches. I want to see what would stay the same and what would go differently. I want to send more Red Raven content into this world.

Why I don’t want to : This fandom is comprised of three people and a crow, and I know myself well enough to be certain I’ll have trouble staying motivated in these conditions. Also this would be Long, I can feel it. And I don’t really have a scenario planned, so that’s that.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle

Snow blossoms

What it is : A canon divergence (?) in which Fai (the dead one, not our Fye) is a dream-walker and meets child Kurogane a few times this way. At one point, Kurogane promises to find Fai and Yui and to help them, no matter what. Later, the then grown Kurogane is eternally confused by Fye’s presence for one more reason.

Why I want to write it : It’s an old headcanon of mine that Fai is a dream-walker, I figured I might as well do something with it. Also I want to write this kid !! Give him some life !! And of course the KuroFye angst might just triple from this. Also, the truth is that I started this one (in January 2018...), and it looks promising. I already have a structure for the first arc, so that’s neat.

Why I don’t want to : For one, it would be Long, and as mentioned earlier in this post, I don’t think I’d have the strength to go through this again. For two, TRC is a cool story that I like a lot, but I hardly think about it anymore most of the time.

W.I.T.C.H.

Whispers under my skin

What it is : A canon divergence in which Cedric (still in his kind librarian skin) seduces Matt as a way to get to Will, and it backfires horribly when he realizes he is loved by this human and Phobos will never love him like that, and he will never get what he really wants. So at the final battle in Meridian, instead of going full Super Saiyan Lizard, he betrays Phobos. He gets badly injured, but he also gains a half-freedom as thanks from Kandrakar, in the way of a human life (plus some minor magic if the girls allow him to) and a duty to help the Guardians in their mission.

Why I want to write it : Like many of my dream-inspired things, it is very weird, and for once I think it’s a very good thing. Yes I had a dream in which Matt and Cedric had A Thing, no don’t ask me how that happened I don’t control my brain. Anyway, I’ve always liked Cedric and I want to explore his character, and the dynamics he could form with the girls in such different circumstances. Also, I’d get to play around with the magic system, which is very cool.

Why I don’t want to : I re-read my w.i.t.c.h. comics maybe once every two years, and while some of them still make me cry (why did you have to die you filthy lizard man), it’s probably not enough of a basis to start a Long Fic. Also it would be Long and I am tired. And ! I don’t have nearly enough references at home and that means I’d have to look shit up, and the wiki is Not Great, from what I’ve seen.

[gibsonmusicart]

The Many Benefits of the Songwriting Process

By Del Boland

I think we've all heard that we should enjoy the journey. This may be applied to many things including life itself. However, this adage is particularly true in the process of songwriting.

Songwriting has been an enjoyable avocation for me. Of course, there are ultimate goals that I would like to achieve, but there is also the everyday enjoyment that comes from learning and creating something new. Besides, we all have a choice. We can rush through the songwriting process to make millions of dollars, or we can enjoy every step along the way with better probabilities for retaining what we learn. Taking the process one step at a time allows us to truly appreciate songwriting as an art and it teaches us the more important reasons for writing songs in the first place. That is, we can find fulfillment from songwriting even when the songs do not produce income. It is a wonderful form of expression, but there are many examples of great songs that never received the attention they deserved so there are no guarantees. It makes a lot of sense to me that we, as songwriters, should sit back and enjoy the process and build on the elements of songwriting. In the process of learning, you can build musical collateral for the future.

In my foray into songwriting, I developed a better understanding of the music business environment. I think it is very important to understand the roles of publishers, A&R professionals, labels, producers, agents, managers, song-pluggers, and recording engineers. In addition, I continue to learn about the various types of songwriting contracts as well as better understand the various organizations that support songwriters such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and The Harry Fox Agency.

I believe success is part inspiration, preparation, perspiration, and opportunity, but it is also somewhat dependent on the order. We sometimes take our preparation for granted when it is in the context of growing up, but, as kids, we are in preparation for our respective careers from the day that we are born. In essence, a true opportunity cannot exist unless we are ready, willing, and able to take full advantage of it. For example, an executive interview with a Fortune 500 company would provide no particular value to a toddler. Additionally, some events can be characterized by our state of readiness at the time that it occurs. If I had met Paul Simon when I was 10 years old, for instance, it would most likely fall into the inspiration category. If I met Paul Simon today, I would like to think it might fall into the opportunity category.

This leads very nicely into the element of developing relationships. We should learn the importance of developing relationships along the way. You never know when you might be talking to someone that can help you get your big break, so it makes a lot of sense to treat everyone you meet with respect. It is difficult to see clearly through the haze of uncertainty during these times, but it pays to give consideration to every aspect of the music business and not develop harsh opinions too quickly. Unfortunately, there are a lot of negative opinions about recording labels today. While there is greed and excess found in all industries, the recording labels are taking a beating as some artists have found success outside the influence and control of the labels. It still makes sense to maintain all options and to consider any opportunities that might be presented without harboring ill feelings or preconceived notions. While the labels are certainly struggling, they still have strong relationships in the areas of mass media, marketing, and distribution.

Some folks believe that the new music paradigm is a road to success for ALL independents, and it is simply not true. This problem has not changed over the past 50 years. The problem is getting mass media exposure. The Internet is great, but it is vast and still somewhat random in nature. Stated differently, if everyone knew your name or the name of one of your songs, they would be able to find you. However, if everyone knew your name or the name of one of your songs, you would have already achieved your goal. It remains necessary for independent artists to be discovered and then promoted in a mass media setting. Word of mouth is certainly a viable alternative, but you must have a product that grabs the attention of a large audience which is not so different than the more traditional forms of media exposure when you think about it.

So far, I have concentrated on the surrounding elements, but it is also possible to experience more direct personal gains. For example, as a self taught musician, I find myself frequently searching for new techniques and opportunities for development. I was surprised to find songwriting as an opportunity for improving as a guitarist.

In short, I have learned a lot from the necessity for producing the very same sounds with my guitar that I can sometimes hear in my mind. It has proven beneficial beyond any other traditional forms of learning such as guitar lessons, articles, methods, video tapes, or techniques. For me it was a wonderful discovery to find this particular benefit as an extra bonus while continuing to learn about songwriting. Learning more about the guitar is only one example of my particular songwriting journey. Obviously, each learning opportunity will be different for each individual.

Songwriting has opened doors for me in other areas as well. Before I began my journey into songwriting, I found it very difficult to express myself lyrically and musically. It was like a barrier existed between me and the ability to write songs. The songs were very fuzzy to me and not particularly well defined during that time. I knew the songs were there, but I did not know how to tap into this creative yet seemingly elusive resource. After reading books and taking some courses, I managed to find some valuable resources and I am now in the process of "finding my voice". In the meantime, I am finding new doors to open and new areas to explore.

One of the benefits I discovered in this process of learning was building confidence in my ability to write songs. After writing a few songs, I found it easier to write even more songs. The more I write, the more I write. I am now taking a little more time to address specific elements, so I haven't been quite as prolific, but I know what I am able to accomplish.

Perhaps the greatest single benefit that I've discovered is the ability to express myself without fear. Yes, it does get me in trouble from time to time, but it is also important to know when NOT to express our innermost thoughts. For an aspiring songwriter, this ability to express oneself is a desirable trait. That is, a songwriter must be comfortable enough to express many thoughts and emotions that we as humans have learned to suppress. However, an additional word of caution may be necessary. Similar to our relationships with people, our songwriting success is dependent on our ability to provide a point of view with which many others may be able to relate. Alternatively, as a form of art, we may be at liberty to create points of view that are difficult to understand but we are also at risk of not finding an audience when we fail to appeal to the general public. Such songs exist, but many of these songs may be categorized as "lost art", as it is unlikely that a lot of people will hear songs that do not speak universally to their unique sets of circumstances. For the pure songwriter, it is almost impossible to get an "artsy" song published or recorded.

Of course, singer songwriters have the distinct advantage of playing their own songs, which allows them to jump over the barriers that exist for pure songwriters. That is, performing artists and producers, set apart from singer-songwriters, are very selective in the songs (written by others) they include as part of their CD or compilation. This brings up yet another possible benefit of the songwriting process. That is, folks who feel very strongly about their art might be less likely to adjust to the rather narrow market for songs. This creates the necessity to develop as a singer songwriter. It makes sense for the singer-songwriter to also find opportunities to perform in front of an audience. Of course, becoming a singer songwriter may satisfy one condition for this particular group, but it also makes it twice as unlikely to breakout. In particular, the artist must now write songs that connect with a significant portion of the listening public and have a sound, as an artist, that is appealing as well. Playing in front of an audience provides feedback that can be very useful for "developing a voice" for this group of songwriters.

I have learned the importance of communicating thoughts very efficiently. Songwriting generally gives us about 3.5 minutes to convey a thought or an idea. This is the reason why you don't hear songs that explain how to build the space shuttle. It is not possible to convey thoughts that are too complex in a limited amount of time, so decisions must be made. This process involves organizing my thoughts and making the best use of the time available, which requires me to select my words carefully.

I have learned how to work together with others in a creative environment. Collaborating can be very rewarding for songwriters as it provides an opportunity to learn from others. It also provides the opportunity to lend a particular strength to a collaborative effort that may have a greater chance for success. For example, a great lyricist can sometimes find a great composer. Perhaps the lyricist and composer may also find someone with a great voice to help capture the attention of an A&R professional. With the availability of inexpensive recording equipment and the ease with which files are transferred, this can now be done long distance via the Internet.

Finally, like the adage "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step", it is important to begin the process. I'm not an expert on psychology and building momentum, but it seems likely to me that the moment we commit ourselves to accomplish a goal, then the burden of the initial decision making process is usually set behind us. It also seems reasonable that our own acceptance of a desired goal is key to success. Taking the first step requires that we accept the task or project in which we have selected. This act alone can provide sufficient motivation to begin the process because we have convinced ourselves of the potential value for starting such a journey.

Source: EzineArticles .com

[exalted-rebel]

About this translation:

1.)     Free to use. Free to translate/retranslate. Free to copy/repost. Free to alter. Free to save. Free to print. Free to adapt to any medium. No need to notify me. No need to ask my permission. Only two stipulations: Please DO NOT sell it in any way, shape, or form. By doing so under the conditions of international copyright law, you risk dooming us all. And second: I like to be given credit for what portion of the work I have done. Please link back to this site.

2.)     This is a “transformative MTL.” I initially use machine translation (plus consultation with some friends who study Mandarin when I don’t understand a portion of the text), then I essentially regurgitate all the semantic knowledge I’ve acquired for each paragraph into English sentences concocted by my brain. I also utilize beta readers, who are credited for their labor alongside my translation consultants in my acknowledgements at the end of every chapter. This is in many ways a collaborative effort.

3.)     To put to rest any accusations of plagiarism: I DO read other translations of this series and openly use the ExiledRebels translation as a reference- Not for plagiarism, but rather, to avoid it. I consult the ExiledRebels translation regularly to try to make sure what I’m providing is substantially different from the past translator, K’s, attempt. However, sometimes my MTL or other translators have simply already struck upon the best English phrasing for a sentence, in which case I typically opt to keep it as is. No need to reinvent the wheel, in my opinion. I also consider other translators’ work a means of fact-checking my own interpretations of lines to seek an accurate consensus. I highly value the work of those who went before me and would like to give credit where credit is due.

4.)     My intent is to write a translation that reads as fun and effortlessly as any popular English language fantasy novel that one would consume at a Barnes n Noble coffee shop. To this end: I fundamentally do not care if MXTX has been “problematic” in some sense with her word choices or anything of the sort in the original work. I don’t sit down and argue with myself during the translation process about what MXTX really meant or intended with certain words because my first priority is not pinpoint accuracy, but rather creating something that will be enjoyable to my audience. I don’t intend to translate in a way that professes to be wholly accurate to MXTX’s vision. This would be impossible. I don’t know her mind. Translation is inherently a transformative act- and I choose to lean into this. Instead of mulling over MXTX’s intent, I will always choose the path that reads most favorably to me and my beta readers.

5.)     I am not an expert in Chinese culture. This is an obvious detriment with regards to my own comprehension of the original text and means I spend additional time not only translating chapters line by line but painstakingly researching the cultural context of certain phrases, references, and concepts. In some ways however, this can be a benefit to my goals as a translator rather than a detriment. I believe my own baseline ignorance can be beneficial in the sense that I can use myself as a good gauge of what an average Western audience member does or does not know and what doesn’t translate across culture- and I can therefore provide additional explanation in-text after research and consult to help fill in the gaps and make a more seamless reading experience. I aim to make something that is approachable to Western audiences by letting my audience learn with me rather than erasing culture to substitute a more easily understood Western equivalent in the place of foreign concepts.

6.)     I am a bisexual man. I filter the contents of the novel through my own experience as a queer man, and I write with an English-speaking LGBTQ+ (especially mlm) audience explicitly in mind. There’s an argument to be made that danmei as a genre exists for heterosexual women, but part of what draws me to MDZS is its international relevance to the queer community (because hey! This is breaking through a lot of societal barriers regarding censorship of mlm relationships! And the representation is overwhelmingly positive! The main couple actually gets married and raises a child; that’s great!) and because I genuinely, genuinely enjoy the source material as a queer person. When I was first exposed to MDZS, I saw Wei Wuxian as a morally ambiguous figure with glowing red eyes, billowing robes, a haunting flute, and a horde of zombies at his command- he was powerful and cool- …AND ALSO bisexual. In Western culture, a lot of “representation” written by cishet people unintentionally marginalizes us by casting us as either villains, sassy friends of the protagonists, or victims of tragedy- and a lot of popular queer media, in retaliation, attempts to humanize us by making us “strong” but nonthreatening and seeks to create stories that are as “unproblematic” as possible. In my opinion, both approaches have their problems and essentially deny us the full spectrum of our own humanity by imposing limitations on what roles we are allowed to play. Upon seeing Wei Wuxian, in my mind, I thought, “Yeah, this is the kind of representation I want! Just a straight-forwardly cool character, who also isn’t straight! A queer character who is fully allowed to have moral ambiguity, imperfections, sins, and depth.”

There’s also, as a queer reader, a certain wish fulfillment and schadenfreude in watching WWX on the loose. After his reincarnation, he’s in the body of an already openly queer man who is perceived by his peers to be a “lunatic.” WWX has no propriety or status to lose, and thus he gets to just do and say whatever he wants. For anyone who has had to be closeted out of necessity, this can make watching WWX troll homophobic characters with his open sexual proclivity and knowledge of what will offend their sensibilities really enjoyable. Some of the past translation work by ExiledRebels however does not exactly live up to this euphoric experience that I project onto the novel and can be interpreted as homophobic. As a translator, the devil’s in the details to construct a translation wherein rhetorical decisions allow queer readers to be in on the joke rather than the butt of the joke. And for the most part- I do feel uniquely positioned to make a stronger attempt at achieving this than my predecessors.

7.)     I’m invested in MDZS because I think the source material is genuinely strong. The main character is interesting and fun to watch. The main couple is extremely compelling and appeals to a lot of popular romantic tropes. The plot is startling and dramatic. The underlying themes of the novel itself with the duality of “light” and “dark” and how the concepts of “good” and “evil” are socially constructed are great. I’m struck by how much potential there is for this novel to be a sensation among Western audiences, and I feel one of the things preventing that has simply been the absence of an open-access, compelling, professional translation.

- Mod Achilles.

[bnhco]

The Creative + The Chaos

FINDING BALANCE IN THE HUSTLE AND BUSTLE OF MODERN LIFE, AND PRIORITIZING ARTISTIC PURSUITS

Creative personalities certainly prefer to spend precious time pursuing passions and mastering our craft, than to be busied with the likes of cleaning and organization. Meanwhile, the supposed real-world tasks may continue to pile up around us, and that’s ok! Finding a good balance in our daily living is significant to the creative process.

I hope to highlight a few general areas of the workflow to explore, where we may be able to tighten up our practice as artists and creators. This is where my process is currently, but even the process itself may change later on. I may have to adapt to my personal needs from day to day. Adjustments are always good to keep your awareness and skillset agile. I accept every step of the journey. I strongly encourage everyone to seek out and tune in to a system that flows best with your personal rhythm.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…” ~ Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

A starting point, with some semblance of a finish line is most helpful.

We must begin with the intent to win and commit to it.

DESIGNATE : SPACE

Do you have a designated space in your home where you can comfortably create? A craft corner? Garage workshop? Art studio? Is it truly your own or shared space?

There is a red wooden desk in our living room with a computer hooked up to it that mostly my son uses for online school distance learning. It used to be my desk, but I had to relocate. I found a new-to-me refurbished antique roll-top desk and set it up in the large back room of the house, with enough space to share it with the washer, dryer and folding table… and a mountain of laundry piled high. I hung an opaque curtain to divide the room in half and voila, I’ve made a private corner for myself. Works for me!

It’s important to claim a creative space as your own, so you know there is a spot just for you to freely work your magic, like a wizard behind the curtain.

Do you have a lot of clutter to dig through, burying all your supplies, making it difficult to get into a steady rhythm of productivity? How could you create an environment that is most conducive to your style or creativity? What does that look like for you?

“There’s a method to the madness, I swear!”

~  Famous Line by Any/All of Us

Let the clutter eliminate itself. The best way to get rid of the trinkets and nonsense items unnecessarily laying around, is to envision how you want your creation station set up, then arrange it as such! Think of it like staging and propping up a showroom. You are essentially creating it. You will remove the articles and particles that no longer serve a purpose in your creative space. It may be difficult to let go of the knick-knacks and bric-a-brac, I know, because I am totally guilty of possessing so many trinket treasures! Items that can be re-homed would be happily accepted at your local donation centers. It really is a good idea to refresh and tidy up your space from time to time. Reset it. Doing so clears up any dense or stagnant energy, and helps to keep the flow moving. You might even catch a glimpse of inspiration coming in.

Everything in its right place…

When you have your own creation station set up, it provides a sense of ease. It doesn’t have to be spotless and perfect, that’s not the true aim. Lived-in is still a good status.

Having all the conditions to be right or ripe is not necessary to begin creating.

If the sparks of ideas and inspiration are shooting fireworks for you, fly with it!

No question, just go!

Let’s consider that we are creating our inner landscape and mirroring that internal process outwardly to our external spheres. Whatever is going on within ourselves becomes what is projected out to the world. Why not try it the other way around? Meaning we could even try making adjustments or changing our physical surroundings — our home, office, studio space — to see if that has a good influence on our mental clarity and focus. I believe so. Finding this crossing where the mental and physical spaces meet is key in keeping a balance in all our activities. It’s a point of calibration. Be in your center, spruce it up, move things around, Fengh Shui and enjoy creating that designated space!

DEDICATE : TIME

Ask yourself if you are truly committed to honing your craft. Have you allotted the time slots in your schedule to fit your practice? Do you engage in collaborative conversations with peers, other artists? Are you dedicated to investing in yourself? What are the barriers you believe are holding you back?

If you are a dancer, dance hard! If you are a painter, splash paint! A singer, sing your heart out!

As individual artists it is important to take the time to check-in with ourselves and reflect on how we value our own work, which ultimately is most important. If thoughts of doubt or uncertainty come into the frame, it would behoove you to examine why and where that perspective could stem from. We are our personal best worst critics after all. Even so, it is good practice to assess our creations with healthy feedback.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” ~ Book of Proverbs

Being within a community of artists would certainly be valuable in gaining more insight on different disciplines, processes, and pure exposure to what wonders we all create for the world. At first it may be intimidating to open up to a new network of people for fear of judgement. Though when you do find that circle that is warm, welcoming, and feels right, the set becomes fertile soil for the artist to be able to root down, grow and eventually blossom into their own. It’s beautiful when the vibes are tuned in harmony and the hive mind arises.

How can we maximize the hours of the day to make the most with our creativity?

So the dirty dishes in the sink begin to rink a stink. The laundry is a mountain to sort through, or you are totally out of undies for today. Way to go, commando!

Of course, we would rather spend our free time doing all the things that light us up, as we damn well please and should. For some, maybe the demanding day job gets in the way. Others, a full family schedule with children, parents and partners to take care of. Or other obligations, what have you. Option D: All of the above…

We each have unique stations in life that call us to duty. It is understandable how this may lead to seemingly less and less time to be able to dig our hands deep in our creative flow. However, it isn’t impossible to accomplish all that we desire to do.

Carve out the time. Look over your calendar, morning, noon, night, anywhere in between, and work in time to practice, even when you feel uninspired or unmotivated. Build the muscle memory needed to advance your skills. This applies in any practice. All the great masters did not attain their levels without putting forth the effort and energy. Forming good habits will carry you and your craft forward and up to the next degree. Here I am stretching my rusty writing muscles to see what my baseline is at this phase. It’s been a while. After long periods of not using muscle groups, they will begin to atrophy and waste. Get the motion going and the circulation flowing.

Start at any point… the point is just start.

DRIVE : FAR OUT

“I AM THE VEHICLE FOR CHANGE.” ~ Me/YouDRIVE!

The open road is calling and ready for new adventures to be created!

…

This part is entirely up to YOU.

Your Art. …

Seeing beauty in every moment of creation is the essence of why art exists.

To authentically embody and express through art form is the pinnacle.

I desire to capture those moments caught in my perception, so I can feel like I am holding on to life much longer than it takes for it to dissipate through my senses. I aim to turn around and translate it with the tools I have on hand, hoping another being will see what I see. It is certainly worth all the trials.

Keep a journal. Document. Photograph. Record it. Commit it to memory.

There is an infinite supply of good ideas floating in the collective ether. When inspiration lands in our midst, it would be wise to court it with intent to bring the fantastic idea to life.

Connect…

DESIGNATE : SPACE DEDICATE : TIME DRIVE : FAR OUT

Sending us off with good intent, that we find our groove again. May this be a space of inspiration, growth and development, and collective regeneration. Thank You for Being Here. Peace + Love. rjx

[baddly-well-done-translations]

Garbage: Shirley’s year |Interview by Yves Bongarcon (Rock Sound Magazine N°11, year 1998)

  Saying that Garbage’s new album had created expectation is a true euphemism. Four million of their first album sold with a discorcenting easyness, a star status in many countries and an irritant custom of releasing almost perfect singles; had contributed on putting the group of Shirley Manson and Butch Vig in this year’s viewpoint.

  With “Version 2.0” and their first single, “Push It”, the chalenge of the post “Stupid Girl” stage has been archived with success, establishing themselves, even in Spain, as a golden album group. Before their next concerts the days 10 and 11 of February, in Barcelona and Madrid is an hour for making balance. And what better way than starting the year next to the redhead Shirley Manson?

  When meeting you, one has the sensation that you have a big humility. Almost as if you were musicians that didn’t take themselves seriously. What do you think?

  “No. Sincerely, I believe we consider ourselves real musicians, or in other case, people that are music passionate. But the difference could lie in the fact that we aren’t arrogant musicians. We limit ourselves to be musicians, no other ostentation in the middle. But it could be you think that way because in the new album we play with classical musicians, a string trio, and that we have said everywhere... that we had played with “true” musicians! (Laughs) The truth is that we had to work hard with people like them, who dominate an instrument perfectly… Next to them, in some sense, we’re simple afficionates that play a bit of everything… But we don’t do the same work they do, that’s clear”.

USA 1 - Europe 1

  We were afraid that with “Version 2.0”, Garbage settled in its proposal and got turned into an american rock band, which would be a pity, right?

  “All of us are, in certain ways, influenced by European music, especially british ones. And it has nothing to do with nationality, well yes, but only a part. We can’t forget that the three Americans of the group grew up listening to The Beatles and seventies European music (laughs)”.

  Before it came out, a very techno orientated album was announced. Anyways, apart of tracks as “Dumb” or “Hammering in my Head”, which are machine bassed, the rest of the album is still “Garbage pop”.

  “Our first worry is, after all, writing pop songs, let’s not forget it. We’ve always considered ourselves a rock group, We’ve never pretended being a techno or electronic music one. However, we have open minds and not a single scruple in borrowing some jungle or drum n bass elements that look interesting for use in a song.

  With this new album, a lot of people thought we were going to do what Madonna did, an ambient techno album. Something that wouldn’t look sincere to us from the group’s viewpoint. In truth, Garbage is a melting pot which, over a rock identity, integrates and recicles diverse styles and genres. From jungle to blues, from pop to metal, this is the group's reason of being. Seeing it that way, “Version 2.0” was, in some way, the result of the multiplicity of its composition’s textures”.

Internal pressure

  Were the gestation and birth of “Version 2.0” painful processes?

  “No, not for me. “Version 2.0” was a lot less painful for me than the first one. I believe I was more secure of myself, I had more confidence in my own possibilities. With the first album, saying that I wasn’t very comfortable would be very little (smiles)”.

  What’s the true key of Garbage, what makes you function so well together?

  “Humor sense and some kind of irony. We’ve lived many things individually so we could watch ourselves from the outside. We’re the actors and public of Garbage at the same time. I could use the words “microns” and “participants” (smiles). Our secret, if we even have one, resides in our capacity of mixing passion and distantment, surrender and withdrawal in the interior of our own reality. That's the motor of our growing”.

  “Version 2.0”, that title which remembers us of an informatic program… Is it maybe the direct application of your peculiar sense of humor?

  “No (laughs). Yes, of course! It represented the album, for which the computer that governs any recording studio nowadays has been omnipresent; and it allows us to take a funny and without pretension perspective of our work”

The Shirley mention

  In “version 2.0” there are constant references to the Beach Boys. It is even said that you acredited your “Don’t Worry Baby” to Brian Wilson so he autorizated you to use that tense in the album. Why this seventies obsesion?

  “I believe it’s a pretty old obsession for any of us but also some kind of reaction to what is heard nowadays: ‘Rock is dead’, ‘pop is dead’, etc. especially since techno’s emergence. It was our way of saying that things follow a continuity, there aren’t ruptures and it’s totally possible mixing music from different ages without having to denigrate any of them. It’s very easy taking some old fashioned elements and actualizing them”.

  Shirley, from where does the confidence that you’ve acquired at voice level came?

  “That came scentialy from the work I’ve effectuated but also the fact that I’ve finally found my register and tonality. Before, I used to adapt to the music, now the music adapts to me. It’s infinitely confier this way”.

  Now that you’ve experienced it for a second time, do you know what success is?

  “Money, glory or fame are nothing more than some of the resulting possibilities of a functionable creative process. After all, our goal is making music, not money, let’s not forget this. But above all, I believe that the true success is simply being happy. And that is not such a hard thing to achieve. I think that, even when I was younger, I never conceived success as an instrument of power or a simple accumulation of properties. Around us there are a lot of people which have everything: money, fame, and however they’re extremely unhappy. What sense does success have in these conditions? What sense does it have if you aren’t happy?”

  Could you imagine your life without this thing called Garbage?

  “We aren’t teenagers who believe a band can go all their lives. Personally, I know Garbage will end. Maybe one day I’ll have a family and kids, that will make me see things another way. I suppose in that moment, recording and touring won’t be my priority. However, nowadays I live in the present and taste the today”.

  As in the first album, the universe that involves around “Version 2.0” looks very conceptual. Is that really the group’s desire?

  “First, everything is decided inside of the group. But after that we see ourselves forced to ask for specific things to determinated specialists. For the videos, we always try to work with people who we believe, correspond to our views. It’s something extremely important. You have to think that nowadays people will see your video before listening to your music on the radio. Therefore you have to act consequently. More than wisdom, it’s an absolute necessity, a priority. For “Push It”, the first single, we decided to work with Andrea Giaccobi, an Italian who’s a true image artist. He’s at the same time, photograph and cineast, so he embellished the video a lot. He achieved giving a lot of style to his movie while respecting our music and then we noticed he proceeded with image the same way we do with music: working simultaneously over different materials, using and mixing the old and new things, etc. It was an authentic collaboration”.

Reality house

  According to you, is Garbage’s music connected with reality?

  “A song, because of its own nature, rarely can be based in reality. Music is, in essence, a method for escaping this world and it’s reality. How is it even possible to express any reality in four minutes fifty seconds? You can express a feeling: fury, love, angst, quietness. Not reality. As an example “Only Happy When it Rains” ironiced over the feeling of self-pityness of a lot of people in my generation, but didn’t pretend being a complete photo”.

  Of what are you prouder in which it refers to Garbage?

  “Of the almost perfect chemistry we’ve achieved in the group. This complicity is very rare. Sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you can archive it with a family or lover. But in a group, there’s a one million possibility of it working this way. It’s still difficult to believe it. After all, that could be what’s special in Garbage”.