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#it's just interesting that this happens. & it happens all the time. 'all american schools require learning another language' no the frick
lokigodofaces · 2 years
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being an american on here is wild because i keep seeing posts from other americans that describe things they've experienced and say that it is universal among americans and it'll be stuff i've either never heard of or know for a fact isn't true. maybe it's pretty common in your state or the states surrounding you, but there's so much stuff i see that i can not relate to whatsoever, and i've never left the states.
#liv won't shut up#i saw something about insurance today#said that optometry is never covered by health insurance#& i'm sitting here like dude the insurance my dad gets from work benefits (so it's not the best in a lot of ways) has covered our optometry#costs for 3 people for years. & actually idk the specifics but it seems like its not that bad of a plan. we usually buy more than a years#supply of contacts for me (only like a month more) and our insurance covers pretty much all the costs. i have to choose contacts or glasses#every year but my prescription has been very stable so i only have to get new glasses if they're damaged beyond repair#again it's not my insurance i'm covered by my parents & they dont tell me all the details so idk how much theyre paying for it. might be a#lot & we're doing it bc it's one of my dads benefits. but any way the point is that so many americans will say things like every single#person living in america understands & 90% of the time i have no frickin clue what they're on about or i have experienced the exact opposit#it's just interesting that this happens. & it happens all the time. 'all american schools require learning another language' no the frick#they do not. lots do (and this may be a state requirement thing wouldnt be surprised) but not all. wasnt required for me it was just highly#encouraged & i got a different type of diploma for my world lang classes (my hs had a few types of diplomas based on different classes/#grades/etc idk if thats a common thing or not). another good example are train posts actually. i can tell theres a divide between beliefs#on trains based on state & thats bc public transportation is not as feasible in some states. i've spent a good portion of my life living in#small towns or visiting small towns (family) & yeah public transportation in middle of nowhere wyoming and middle of nowhere idaho is a lot#less feasible than the east coast. those are places of vast nothingness other than a few towns every once in a while never exceeding 20000#(ID) or 500 (WY). & even in larger towns it seems like a lot of western states are more spread out. so a subway or other train isnt very#helpful (unless you want to do long distance trains then those could maybe work the issue is that costs money & idk if itd be used enough#to make it worth it for a gov/actually work well) & this is more of a rural/urban issue but that aligns with states as well in a lot of way#oh another one is about facs classes. so in a lot of places facs is being defunded or removed from curriculum. same with arts classes. &#this is becoming a problem in many places! but when ppl are like 'these classes are being taken away everywhere in america' i just sit#there thinking about my state requiring facs in middlie & high school (i believe but things could have changed) plus i had to take like 3#semesters of art (idk if thats state or school or district required) & thereve been talks of raising that requirement. & they add more opt#every year. i was helping my younger brother with his schedule & theres all sorts of stuff that wasnt there before. he has way more options#to fulfill that requirement than i did. & i'm not saying that this isnt a problem it is a problem most places but every state has different#legislation on this so for now at least lots of schools are required to have these classes. & i've probably lost my point by now but it is#odd that i see this so often. that most of posts about america i see are different from what i've experienced. idk maybe the states i've#lived in are weird but youd think that this wouldnt happen to me a lot would you? like sometimes yeah but this happens a lot.#my guess is that a lot of these things are very true if you talk about a specific region or state. but then ppl assume its an american
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whaleofatjme1920 · 4 months
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My Version of Eyeless Jack
So, there's no cohesive narrative here I just wanted to infodump a bunch of stuff about how I write my EJ. I'll put it in headcanon form but know whenever you read my newer EJ fics (or whenever I get an inkling to talk about him), this is exactly how I envision him and want him to be seen as.
EJ grew up in a Polish somewhat American household. He's a second generation, with his parents both being from Poland and most of their extended family in the old country. His mother is from a smaller city in the southwest, and his father from Krakow. His mother instilled in him a deep love of the natural world, and a hunger for learning.
Jack's obsession for medicine and whatnot came up because his father was just a bit insane about keeping him healthy. Any cough or sneeze was instantly investigated. He was a bit sheltered in that sense, and was prone to sneaking out to experience a normal adolescence and whatnot as he grew up.
While Jack is not averse to getting his hands dirty and doing jobs no one else would even THINK of, he's still gotta go through a full cleansing and decontamination when he's done.
I like to think that, as a kid, he was deeply in love with Slavic mythology and he was, surprise surprise, really into Chernobog. That wasn't Chernobog whispering in his ear he was just always interested whether he realized it or not. This kinda faded out around 12 years old but as a guy that's literally possessed by him now, fused to make an entirely new being, he finds it just a hair ironic.
Yeah, he did have to go to Polish school on the weekends. Sometimes he loved it, other times not at all.
He was his parents only child so he was kind of under a magnifying glass from them both.
He was actually quite close with his grandmothers!
Jack has always had a biting, sarcastic wit. He can balance professionalism with clinical sarcasm fantastically. His humor is very deadpan and he'll dupe you multiple times if you're not careful.
Jack doesn't always understand why people insist on social politeness. He actually favors bluntness, but will be polite if the situation calls for it.
He has three tongues. Yes, he's choked on them before. This mostly happened in the beginning when he was first getting used to his new body.
He doesn't like sweet foods, but certain organs are sweeter to him than others. He can't quite explain that, but he favors certain parts of people over others.
He can eat human food, but it's like junk food for him. He will always need to feast on humans from time to time to keep himself well. Also this is NOT a constant thing with him. He has like a major feeding once or twice a month, and smaller feedings ever 7-10 days. He can get by just fine, he's not always starving.
Most of his work is him just preparing in case he's in a situation he can't hunt.
His body can heal at an accelerated rate!
Because he's possessed by/permanently fused with Chernobog, he has 'starfish' tendencies. Meaning, if he loses a finger, in about 6 months he'll have a new one. Anything bigger might take years but he's never been in a situation where that's needed to happen. This does not mean he's invincible.
Slender Man, who has been around for way longer than any of us can conceive, finds it funny that Chernobog is fused with a socially awkward young man who couldn't even ask a girl out normally and forewent his survival instinct just to hang out with her.
Slender Man, when just with Jack, will speak with him in Polish or older forms of Slavic languages when more directly addressing Chernobog.
Jack is physically HUGE. He's like 6'8, because his merging made him bigger. He was already tall at 5'10, but Chernobog required a bigger vessel. So, he painfully grew bigger. He's quite muscular, not overtly so but you know he has physical strength.
He's,,,,, human-like in appearance. Gives off uncanny valley at times.
He's actually quite funny and does take some joy in making people laugh.
He's not besties with Jeff but they are, more often than not, together doing things.
He actually prefers Jane's company!
It takes so, so long to gain his actual trust. He has varying levels of it, like anyone else, but it's difficult to even breach his first layer.
Has a deep fondness for birds, specifically vultures.
Doesn't like dogs. He has never liked dogs. Smile is his one and only exception. Does like cats.
His body has a stupid tattoo on his thigh he got when drunk one night at uni. He's still mildly embarrassed by it.
He occasionally smokes weed.
He won't admit it, but anyone that looks like Jenny brings back terrible, terrible memories. When he was younger, those types of women used to trigger panic attacks. He's much better now, but seeing women that look like her make him very uncomfortable.
He doesn't enjoy strong smelling perfumes or colognes. He thinks the scents themselves are nice, but they give him migraines. His sense of smell is very strong and well.
He can actually function quite well in normal society, he just doesn't physically fit the image. And even using his glamour-he sticks out from his height alone.
Jack wouldn't say this to anyone, but he sometimes hangs around in his glamour just to remember what he used to look like before. It's not a 100% match, but he sees himself as older. A bit more jaded and weathered. He wonders what would have happened if he listened to his roommate and didn't go.
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thekingofwinterblog · 2 months
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There is one detail were I think I need a second opinion on:
So during the manga ending, there is that detail of supposedly Lord Death, with his "madness of order" being able to control everyone on earth - basically being able to solve all crime/evil things from happening.
The fact that he doesnt use this power is presented as a positive thing, basically an indirect way of answering the problem of evil with "actually God gives us free will and thats why evil happens, because denying us the free will would be more evil than anything else"
So ok, what is the sticking point to me? Well Lord Death was kinda hinted as being deeply flawed, and even his death at the end is framed as tragic but as the time necessary and a positive thing, a new generiation taking over creating a better wolrd, ect.
But isn't including such a huge revelation - a revelation that only makes sense with an All Good, kinda absolute God?
Basically, maybe I'm just looking for nitpicks, but to me these two things clash - like the story and Ohkubo couldnt decide between if Lord Death was holding the world back and needed to pass the torch or if he actually was the wacky all knowing force for good all along -
Like if instead it was revealed that Lord Death was pressured to make Kid be an automaton to avoid an Asura situation, but he refused because he didnt sucumb to the despair of failure and had hope in humanity and freedom, it could work as "wow Lord Death had past sins and couldnt steer the world into the future, but here is an action that proved that the flame of his vision was still good and know Kid will be his resurection, like that old NAS song"
Idk, maybe this is all just nonsense to normal people but to me its the best example of Soul Eaters (more the mangas) unwillingness to commit to the "Death is not all good thing" - like the whole WMD's parrelel and shit seems even more out of place and ironically as a way to say "well Bush made mistakes, but American imperialism is a good thing overall!"
(Ok i probably shouldnt have included "politics" here lol)
Anyway I think the anime in the end was better with its more simplistic worldview - cause atleat it didnt break itself - the shadyness of Death was worked into Kids isuess of trust and accepting that he isnt perfect and can place his trust in his partners and is more simmilar to his father in this way etc.
So yeah, if you are still reading and didnt delete it out of boredom, Im interested in a response, cause I'll admit I'm not sure about it 100 percent myself so if you go and say "Nah, thats wrong cause-" I'll probably open to listening
Eh, i'd say that you're looking at this from a wrong perspective.
Shinigami was a good, if very flawed individual, but the thing is that the reason why he could not lead the new age was not because be was flawed... It was because in chasing perfection, he made an error so great that he could never recover from it.
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That error being the way he created his first son, not to create a successor, but instead as a byproduct of ripping his fear out of his own self in order to become a "better" God of order, a desciaion that had enormous consequences in that it laid the groundwork for the first Kishin, but also because it left him utterly incapable of feeling fear, and thus incapable of feeling bravery either, and drastically affecting his descision making.
As such, he was incapable of decisively defeating his son, and had to resort to sealing him away, something that also required him to stay in one place forever afterwards.
The school that he founded afterwards to replace his team of immensely powerfull warriors that Asura and Excalibur was a part of, came as a consequence of his own failures shattering that group, and with him no longer being able to move around, he couldn't even uphold his actual purpose in the world.
And thats withouth taking into account how much getting ridd of his own fear screwed him up as a person. Through the series, shinigami is utterly incapable of showing real, true fear, no matter how dire things get. All of his angry moments happens in the moment, as things are happening around him.
He was incapable of truly feeling any sense of urgency when Asura was about to escape, and only after he is free is he able to confront the very real consequences on an emotional level.
Similarily at the end of the series he isnt actually afraid of the witches betraying them despite thinking this is the likely outcome, but when he thinks they do, he flies off the handle to reveal just how much hate he truly has for them.
Hia philosophy debate with his son near the end of the anime is all about exploring how these two family members are unable to feel fear and by extention understand bravery.
Ultimately what Shinigami came to realise and finally accept, is that as a consequence of chasing utter perfection, he ironically made himself too fundamentally broken to lead the way, both as a person, and as a king/god who should be leading his organization by example, rather than being trapped in his city.
Fundamentally Shinigami was a good person... But by his own actions, while chasing perfection he crossed a line that he was never able to uncross. Very much like his son, he believed that if he was the strongest, withouth "flaws", he would be able to see his vision through. Only where Asura wanted to feel completely out of any possible danger, Shinigami wanted keep the word orderly and safe for the good people of the planet.
A good goal. But as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Interview to JPJ
(by Steven Rosen, Guitar Player - July 1977, Chicago)
It was shared on ultimate-guitar.com by Steven Rosen himself (link). I suggest going to read the introduction because there's a bit of angry JPJ which is quite surprising (to me at least). Enjoy!
What was the impetus behind becoming a bass player?
I used to play piano when I was younger, and there was a rock and roll band forming at school when I was fourteen, but they didn't want a piano player, all they wanted was drums or bass. I thought, I can't get the drums on the bus, bass looked easy, four strings, no chords, easy so I took it up. And it was easy; it wasn't too bad at all. I took it up before guitar, which I suppose is sort of interesting. Before I got a real 4-string, my father had a ukulele banjo, a little one, and I had that strung up like a bass, but it didn't quite have the bottom that was required. Actually my father didn't want to have to sign a guarant or to back me in the payments for a bass. He said, ‘Don't bother with it; take up the tenor saxophone. In two years the bass guitar will never be heard of again.’ I said, ‘No Dad, I really want one, there's work for me.’ He said, ‘Ah, there's work?’ And I got a bass right away.
What was your first bass?
Oh, it was a pig; it had a neck like a tree trunk. It was a solid body Dallas bass guitar with a single cutaway. It sounded all right though, and it was good for me because I developed very strong fingers. I had no idea about setting instruments up then, so I just took it home from the shop. I had an amplifier with a 10 speaker... Oh, it was awful. It made all kinds of farting noises. And then I had a converted television; you know one of those big old stand-up televisions with the amp in the bottom and a speaker where the screen should be. I ended up giving myself double hernias. Bass players always had the hardest time because they always had to cope with the biggest piece of equipment. It never occurred to me when I was deciding between that and drums that I'd had to lug a bass amp.
What kind of music were you playing in that first band?
Shadows, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis stuff. I started doubling on piano. We didn't have a drummer at first, because we never could find one. That happened to another bass player, Larry Graham, Sly Stone's bass player. He started off in a band with no drummer, which is how he got that percussive style. You've got a lot to make up for once the lead guitar takes a solo because there's only you left. You've got to make a lot of noise. We got a drummer after a while whom I taught, would you believe. I've never played drums in my life.
That must have definitely had an influence on your playing.
I suppose it must have. I don't like bass players that go boppity boppity bop all over the neck; you should stay around the bottom and provide the end of the group. I work very closely with the drummer; it's very important.
How long did that first band last?
Not very long. I found a band with a drummer. This band also came along with really nice looking guitars, and I thought, ‘Oh, they must be great!’ They had Burns guitars so I got myself one, too. The one with the three pickups and a Tru-Voice amplifier. We all had purple band jackets and white shoes, and I thought, ‘This is it, this is the big time.’ But as soon as I got out of school I played at American Air Force bases, which was good training, plus they always had great records in the jukebox. That was my introduction to the black music scene, when very heavy gentlemen would come up insisting on Night Train eight times an hour.
What was the first really professional band you were in?
It was with Jet Harris and Tony Meehan (bassist and drummer with The Shadows). That was when I was seventeen, I suppose. And those were the days when they used to scream all the way through the show. It was just like now, really, where you have to make a dash for the limos at the end of the night make a sort of terrible gauntlet. In the days before roadies, you'd have to drag around your own gear, so we all invested in a roadie. We thought we owed it to ourselves, and this bloke was marvelous. He did everything, he drove the wagon, he lugged the gear, he did the lights... the whole thing.
What kind of bass were you using with Harris and Meehan?
Oh, I got my first Fender then. I lusted after this Jazz bass in Lewisham, and it cost me about $250, I think. It was the new one. They'd just changed the controls, and I used that bass up until last (1975) tour, and then she had to go. She was getting unreliable and rattling a lot, and I just had to leave her home this time.
What followed your working with that band?
I got into sessions. I thought, ‘I've had enough of the road’, bought myself a dog and didn't work for six months. Then I did start up again. I played in other silly bands. I remember that Jet Harris and Tony Meehan band, John McLaughlin joined on rhythm guitar. It was the first time I'd met him and it was hilarious. Here he was sitting there all night going Dm to G to Am. That was my first introduction to jazz when he came along, because we'd all get to the gig early and have a blow. Oh, that was something, first meeting him. And then I joined a couple of other bands with him for a while, rhythm and blues bands.
Do you remember the first session that you ever did?
No, I don't think so; it was in Decca Number 2 (studio in London). I was late, and I suddenly realized how bad my reading was. There was another bass player there, a stand-up bass, and I was just there to provide the click. It was nearly my last session.
Who were some of the people you were doing sessions with?
All kinds of silly people: used to do calls with Tom Jones, Cathy Kirby, Dusty Springfield.
The Rolling Stones and Donovan, too, didn't you?
I only did one Stones session, really. I just did the strings, they already had the track down. It was ‘She's A Rainbow’. And then the first Donovan session was a shambles, it was awful. It was ‘Sunshine Superman’ and the arranger had got it all wrong, so I thought, being the opportunist that I was, ‘I can do better than that’ and actually went up to the producer. He came around and said, ‘Is there anything we can do to sort of save the session?’ And I piped up, ‘Well, look how about if I play it straight?’ because I had a part which went sort of ooowooooo (imitates a slide up the neck) every now and again, and the other bass player sort of did wooooo (imitates downwards slide) down below, and then there was some funny congas that were in and out of time. And I said, ‘How about if we just sort of play it straight; get the drummer to do this and that?’
How did the session go?
The session came off, and I was immediately hired as the arranger by Mickie Most whom I loved working with; he was a clever man. I used to do Herman's Hermits and all that. I mean they were never there; you could do a whole album in a day. And it was great fun and a lot of laughs. I did all of Lulu's stuff and all his artists. I did one Jeff Beck single, and he's never spoken to me since. It was ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’. I did the arrangement for it and I played bass. Then we had ‘Mellow Yellow’ for Donovan, which we argued about for hours because they didn't like my arrangement at all, not at all. Mickie stood by me. He said, ‘I like the arrangement, I think it's good’. It wasn't Donovan. He didn't mind either but he had so many people around him saying, ‘Hey, this isn't you.’ But he sold a couple of a million on it, didn't he?
Was the Hurdy Gurdy Man session when you first met Jimmy Page?
No. I'd met Jimmy on sessions before. It was always Big Jim and little Jim. Big Jim Sullivan and little Jim and myself and the drummer. Apart from group sessions where he'd play solos and stuff like that, Page always ended up on rhythm guitar because he couldn't read too well. He could read chord symbols and stuff, but he'd have to do anything they'd ask when he walked into a session. But I used to see a lot of him just sitting there with an acoustic guitar sort of raking out chords. I always thought the bass player's life was much more interesting in those days, because nobody knew how to write for bass, so they used to say, ‘We'll give you the chord sheet and get on with it.’ So even on the worst sessions you could have a little runaround. But that was good; I would have hated to have sat there on acoustic guitar.
How long did you do sessions?
Three or four years, on and off. Then I thought I was going to get into arranging because it seemed that sessions and running about was much too silly. I started running about and arranging about forty or fifty things a month. I ended up just putting a blank piece of score paper in front of me and just sitting there and staring at it. Then I joined Led Zeppelin, I suppose, after my missus said to me, ‘Will you stop moping around the house; why don't you join a band or something?’ And I said, ‘There are no bands I want to join, what are you talking about?’ And she said, ‘Well, look, I think it was in Disc, Jimmy Page is forming a group’, he'd just left the Yardbirds ‘why don't you give him a ring?’ So I rang him up and said, ‘Jim, how you doing? Have you got a group yet?’ He said, ‘I haven't got anybody yet.’ And I said, ‘Well, if you want a bass player, give me a ring.’ And he said, ‘All right, I'm going up to see this singer Terry Reid told me about, and he might know a drummer as well. I'll call you when I've seen what they're like.’ He went up there, saw Robert Plant, and said, ‘This guy is really something.’ We started under the name the New Yardbirds because nobody would book us under anything else. We rehearsed an act, an album, and a tour in about three weeks, and it took off. The first time, we all met in this little room just to see if we could even stand each other. It was wall-to-wall amplifiers and terrible, all old. Robert (Plant) had heard I was a session man, and he was wondering what was going to turn up some old bloke with a pipe? So Jimmy said, ‘We're all here, what are we going to play?’ And I said, ‘I don't know, what do you know?’ And Jimmy said, ‘Do you know a number called, The Train Kept A Rollin'?’ I told him, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘It's easy, just G to A.’ he counted it out, and the room just exploded, and we said, ‘Right. We're on, this is it, this is going to work!’ And we just sort of built it up from there. ‘Dazed And Confused’ came in because Jimmy knew that, but I could never get the sequence right for years; it kept changing all the time with different parts, and I was never used to that. I used to having the music there, could never remember. In fact, I'm still the worst in the band remembering anything. And the group jokes about it, ‘Jonesy always gets the titles wrong and the sequences wrong.’ Even now I have a piece of paper I stuck on top of the Mellotron which says: ‘Kashmir remember the coda!’
What were some of your early amplifiers?
I've used everything from a lousy made-up job, to a great huge top valve (tube) amp. We started off in a deal with Rickenbacker where we had these awful Rickenbacker amps; they were so bad. Our first tour was a shambles. For about a year I never even heard the bass. They said, ‘We've designed this speaker cabinet for you’, and I said, ‘Let me see it, what's it got in it?’ It had one 30 speaker! I said, ‘All right, stand it up there alongside whatever else I've got, and I'll use it.’ I plugged it in, and in a matter of five seconds it blew up. I thought the bloke was having me on; I said, ‘There's no such thing as a 30 speaker!’ And I had to take the back off because I couldn't believe it. Then we met the guy from Univox, and he came up with a bass stack, which unfortunately didn't last the night. But while it was going, it was the most unbelievable sound I've ever heard. It was at the Nassau Coliseum in New York, I remember, and the bass filled the hall. It was so big, it couldn't have lasted. I don't think I'll come across anything that sounded like that. But as I said, three numbers and wheel the Acoustics out again. I used two or three 360 standard Acoustics for quite a long time. They served me well.
You used the Jazz bass until just recently?
Yeah. Oh, I got a hold of a very nice Gibson violin bass (pictured in the little cut out wheel on the cover of Led Zeppelin III). That was nice, too, it's not stage worthy, but it gives a beautiful warm sound. I don't like Gibson basses generally because they feel all rubbery; I like something you can get your teeth into. But the violin bass was the only Gibson that was as heavy as a Fender to play, but still had that fine Gibson sound. I used it on Led Zeppelin III, and I've used it every now and again, usually when I'm tracking a bass after I've done keyboards for the main track. The one I have went through Little Richard's band and then through James Brown's band, and it arrived in England. In fact, I saw it in an old movie clip of Little Richard. It was probably about a '48 or '50 or something like that; it was the original one. Actually, I've also got an old '52 Telecaster bass. I used that on stage for a while, for ‘Black Dog’ and things like that.
Do you ever use a pick when you play?
Yes, when the situation demands it; on the 8-string it's awful messy with your fingers. On ‘The Song Remains The Same’ I use a pick to get that snap out of the instrument. It's fun, you play different. If I was just playing straight bass, I'd use fingers. When I first started I always used my fingers.
How has playing with Jimmy Page for the last nine years styled your playing?
That's hard. I play a lot looser than I used to. For instance somebody like John Entwistle is more of a lead instrument man than I am. I tend to work closer with Bonzo I think. But then again I don't play that much bass on-stage anymore, what with the pianos and the Mellotron. I'll always say I'm a bass player, though.
How do you develop a bass part?
You put in what's correct and what's necessary. I always did like a good tune in the bass. For example, listen to’ What Is And What Should Never Be’ (on Led Zeppelin II). The role of a bassist is hard to define. You can't play chords so you have a harmonic role; picking and timing notes. You'll suggest a melodic or harmonic pattern, but I seem to be changing anyway toward more of a lead style. The Alembic bass is doing it; I play differently on it. But I try to never forget my role as a bass player: to play the bass and not mess around too much up at the top all the time. You've got to have somebody down there, and that's the most important thing. The numbers must sound right, they must work right, they must be balanced.
You just picked a track from the second album, but there was something so gloriously unique about the first Zep record.
I know what people mean when they say the first Zeppelin album was the best. It was the first. I don't know what it was; we could never recreate those conditions it was recorded in. It was done in about thirty hours, recorded and mastered. There was a lot of energy in those days. But I liked (Physical Graffiti). I liked most of them actually. The funny thing was about the first album, when we got to about the third album (Led Zeppelin III) and started using acoustics everyone was saying, ‘Ahhh, Led Zeppelin has gone acoustic. They've changed their style.’ What everybody forgets is there were two acoustic numbers on the first album. Right? ‘Babe I'm Gonna Leave You’ and ‘Black Mountain Side’. The funny thing is people try to pigeon-hole you with all that heavy metal stuff. And if they ever listened to the fucking albums they'd realize it was never riff after riff after riff. It never was like that, you know? Peculiar... oh, well.
Do you practice?
In a word, no. I fool around on piano, but bass I never practice. Although again, with the Alembic, I'm beginning to feel, ‘Wouldn't it be nice to have it in the room?’ It really makes you want to play more, which is fantastic.
The band has always had a strange relationship with the press.
There is an amount of professionalism which must be retained. You can't go around canceling gigs and things like that. After Robert's accident there were rumors of, ‘Oh, they're afraid to come out’ and this and that which was really hard on us because we've always tried to be as professional as possible. And we take a pride in this. We've tried to turn up on time but it gets hard moving this amount of people. And that sort of thing hurts. Robert was in a wheelchair and we had to wait until he was healed. And then we were all ready to go and he got tonsillitis on this '77 tour. And he must have felt so bad. I tell you if this band ever drops from favor with the public, a load of people are going to come down on our asses so fucking hard. They're just waiting for us to drop. I don't know why, I honestly don't know. I always remember the first review of our first album in Rolling Stone and the bloke dismissed it out of hand. I don't even think he would listen to it and said as much. Then they dismissed us as hype.
Who do you listen to?
I don't. I used to listen to a lot of jazz bass players once, but jazz has changed so much now, it's hardly recognizable. I listened to a lot of tenor sax players: Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and all those people. Bass players? Scott La Faro, who died. He used to be with (jazz pianist) Paul Chambers. Ray Brown and Charlie Mingus, of course. I'm not too keen on the lead bass style of some players. Paul McCartney, I've always respected; he puts the notes in the right place at the right time. He knows what he's about.
Who don't you listen to?
Ian [Anderson] is a pain in the ass. We toured with Jethro Dull [sic] once and I think he probably spoke three words to Jimmy or I at any one time. The band was nice but he was such a funny fucker. His music bores the pants off me, it's awful. Page came up with the greatest line about them. He had a title for a live album when Jethro was playing in Los Angeles: ‘Bore 'Em at The Forum’. (Ritchie) Blackmore is another guy I don't like. He was supposed to have been a big session man but he must have done demos because he was never a regular session man. I'm getting out all my pet hates.
There's nothing you'd like to do outside of Zeppelin in an instrumental context?
I always get the feeling I'd like to write a symphony. I like all music. I like classical music a lot. Ravel, Bach, of course, Mozart I could never stand, though to play it on the piano is great fun. If Bach had ever come across the bass guitar, he would have loved it. Rock and roll is the only music left where you can improvise. I don't really know what's happened to jazz; it has really disappointed me. I guess they started playing rock and roll.
So you're able to continually experiment in Zeppelin and expand your playing?
Yes, absolutely. I wouldn't be without Zeppelin for the world. What's it like being in Led Zeppelin? I don't know. It is a peculiar feeling; it intrigues me.
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respectthepetty · 9 months
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Reading the (Visual) Rainbow 101
Lesson 6 - Cultural Awareness
Because I get so many asks about colors, I decided the best way to celebrate Pride is to educate anyone who is interested in how to better Read the (Visual) Rainbow and simultaneously allow myself to appreciate queer media.
With each lesson, we've been working through how to read visual messages, but what if the message is in another language, literally or figuratively? What happens when you Just. Don't. Get. It?
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This will be the toughest lesson because it requires active engagement with the media you consume, so let's get to work!
Basics
Ethnocentrism is the practice of evaluating other cultures based on the expectations of your culture. When you do this, you misinterpret messages and place value on concepts that aren't important to that culture.
Cultural Literacy is the capability to understand one's culture as well as others while appreciating the similarities and differences.
Way back in Lesson 1, rhetorical situations were mentioned. Within a rhetorical situation, we must think about the work's creator and its intended audience because sometimes, the intended audience isn't YOU and you cannot relate to the creator. So what do you do?
All of the video examples I have suggested up until now are from American artists or artists whose country predominantly speaks English. Language and culture are closely connected, but language isn't the only aspect of culture. However, for time's sake, think about how not knowing a language hinders us from understanding a culture. If we can't understand what people are saying (literally), we won't understand what they are trying to say (figuratively).
Which means we have to actively investigate the media we consume.
Video Examples
Much like Hayley Kiyoko's "She" music video, where we needed to understand the cultural reference for "This Coke is a Fanta" to understand its purpose within the video, the two videos suggested in the previous lesson require cultural understanding. Both were from cishet men yet dealt with trans rights, but if you were unfamiliar with the cultural context, you probably missed it.
Sweden
Avicii's "Silhouette" is a song about progress and self-realization. The video reflects this. We see a masc-presenting person wake up in the morning. The video shifts to a fem-presenting person waking up later in the day. The transition between cool lighting to warm lighting lets us know this isn't simply a difference in day or two different people, but an evolution of ONE person, a concept we learned in Lesson 2. We see similar bottles next to the clocks, with two additions later in the day.
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If you didn't realize these characters are the same person, go back and notice the use of red. While the first person is being operated on, we see red blood mixed with shots of the second person in red.
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So how is this about trans right? We can see it is about a trans woman, but we have to think about the rhetorical situation to understand the rest.
The creator is Avicii who was a Swedish DJ and producer. The audience would be other Swedes. In 2012, when the video was released, the Swedish government debated whether to amend its transgender laws. The most significant being forced sterilization, which was a requirement if a person underwent gender affirmation surgery. A person also had to be unmarried. People were loud about this.
In the video, right before the masc-presenting person is about to undergo surgery, the song stops as the older doctor's CD player begins to skip. He hits the player several times while cursing, "Does it have to be so fucking difficult?"
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When the song comes back on, the lyrics pick back up at:
Straight ahead on the path we have before us Day by day, soon the change will come Don't you know we took a big step forward Just lead the way and we pull the trigger And we will never get back to To the old school To the old rounds, it's all about the newfound We are the newborn, the world knew all about us (We are the future and we're here to stay) We've come a long way since that day And we will never look back, at the faded silhouette
If you weren't a Swede in 2012, you probably missed how significant this video was, and it's because you don't understand most of the context in which is was made (rhetorical situation) since you weren't the intended audience.
Puerto Rico
The other suggested video was Bad Bunny's "Yo Perreo Sola" which translates to "I twerk alone." It's a feminist anthem about a woman not wanting to be harassed while dancing by herself rather than for the attention of men. However, it's also about trans rights.
We begin the video with Bad Bunny as a fem-presenting character in red with X's in the doorway. We see him in various scenes like the pink room surrounded by pink flowers and chained up by women as he continues to push against the ideas of masculinity.
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All are important, but the most significant is the scene where his two characters meet and dance with each other.
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The neon signs read "Las Mujeres Mandan" (women rule) and "Ni Una Menos" (not one *woman* less). These two signs are layered historical messages.
The first started as the title of an old Mexican movie about a man who left his wife and kids for his mistress (shenanigans follow), but the famous Mexican musician Paquita la del Barrio popularized the saying by turning it into a feminist anthem about demanding respect from men. It's on the level of Aretha Franklin's "Respect."
The second sign is a fourth-wave feminist saying popularized in Argentina regarding femicide and other gender-based violence. Its message demands that not one more woman be the victim of this violence.
Now, to start connecting the dots: Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican. His audience would be other Puerto Ricans and, largerly, Spanish-speakers in Latin American countries. That's a lot of people who understand these two messages. But also, Bad Bunny placing himself as a feminine character emphasizes that trans women are included in these messages. Trans women are women, so they too rule, and we should also be concerned for their safety. This video was his way of commenting on the murder of Alexa Negrón Luciano, a Puerto Rican trans woman.
The murder rate for trans individual is high in PR, especially for trans women. A month after releasing this video, two Puerto Rican men were charged with the murders of two trans women. Puerto Rico is a United States' territory; therefore, it abides by US federal laws, yet this was the FIRST time Puerto Rico charged a person with a hate crime. Advocates have long been vocal about the need for change and should not be brushed aside, but having an internationally famous musician approach the topic helped people see the need for this type of law, but if you weren't the intended audience, you might have simply believed his video to be a fun journey through gender expression and gender performance.
What can you do?
Because most of us are watching our favorite shows with English subtitles, we tend to associate what is happening on our screen with our culture, but we must always remember, for a majority of us, this isn't our culture; therefore we must be aware of the disconnect. Awareness is the first step. Education is the second.
For example, Thai shows might include coordinated colored outfits because Thai culture associates certain colors with days of the week. Depending on the day of the week, there is a good and a bad color to wear. Make a mental note of it, and you'll start noticing it in other shows.
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A show might mention a historical event or a holiday in passing that the intended audience would understand, but as an outsider, you might know nothing about. Look it up!
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Or the show might touch on current events like unarmed protestors being beaten and arrested. LOOK! IT! UP!
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There is no easy way to gain knowledge. Media is a great way to be exposed to other cultures, but you have to be willing to do a little extra work and actually learn about the culture and the issues you are seeing depicted on your screen.
It can be as simple as looking up a book shown.
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Or what the characters are eating.
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If you want to be a better reader of the visual rainbow, you have to look up cultural references you are unfamiliar with. You don't have to know everything, but you should be curious enough to look up something because you are watching a visual form of media from another country, and the visuals are important to the overall story.
Activity
Watch both videos and notice their similarities and differences. Note any symbolic objects and, of course, the colors.
Lady Gaga x Ariana Grande "Rain On Me" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoAm4om0wTs
Naomi Watanabe x Yuriyan Retriever "Rain On Me" parody - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psSdawz69kc
See you for Lesson 6 - It Could All Mean Nothing!
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thetidemice · 7 months
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PLEASE watch summercamp island its so good its so silly its got that thang where random stuff in the first season is built upon and makes a complex lore, theres a he/him lesbian, mini stories, all sorts of stuff. i still have to find where to watch the last season because hbo max nixed it before it released, but its so good
!!! it sounds so lovely!!! i cant believe i put off watching it a few years ago (some guy called it ugly.. not even true. i love looking at it i think the way they developed julia pott's style for animation is really cute and charming. same thing happened for clarence but now sometimes i see clips of it and its genuinely funny idk what the hate was for). i watched some episodes last night and the pacing is so light and refreshing and nonserious and sincere all at once.. it's a nice breath of fresh air since i havent watched cartoons in a while. it reminds me so much of adventure time and over the garden wall (particularly the animal school and greg's dreams! super whimsical and offbeat and straightforward. how we see the world when we're children)
and thank god:
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i felt a hyperfixation forming for this show before i even watched it but i've seen how many people love susie and she does deserve it. my first impression was that she was a kind of over-it 20-something who just wants the kids at her camp to not die but she is perpetually 15 and an utter bitch (who genuinely thinks her meanness is charming) god bless. i believe it's also julia pott who voices her and she does a brilliant job. her voice stands out where most of the main cast are american (and because i'm an accent freak i find hers interesting it's sort of a mix of a standard london accent but instead of pronouncing the t in a word like "better" or dropping it for "be' er" she uses a slightly more american "bedder" while still not swapping the -uh sound on the end for a more rhotic -err). anyway she's the high-maintenance butch representation we need in media, i LOVE her eyebrows, & i cant wait to see her get more complex and sympathetic as time goes on.
going back to the main characters, oscar and hedgehog are the best protagonists!! he's incredibly nervous! she's an academic weapon! they grew up together and are the perfect vessel for these silly stories to be told. i appreciate your wisdom and i will definitely be watching more of it!! i will have more to say about it and might end up doing some art for it because the charm of this show is irresistible.
as for places to watch... i heard they got major fucked over by HBO max.. even if it was all on there i wouldnt be able to watch since i'm in the uk. i wish i could stream it somewhere where i could fully support it, but for situations like this, these two are my secret weapons - there are little to no adverts and none of them are gross or for nsfw sites. they're both clean and they WORK:
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iamacolor · 2 months
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Is there a reason no one talks about swing kids (2018)? I feel like it should almost be required viewing for foreigners (especially American) to recontextualize koreas recent history like yes both koreas are so much more than what the Americans did there but when the extent of media about the Korean War is quirky American medical sitcoms from the 70s and everyone and their mom is watching kdramas these days, it was very eye opening to see. A lot of dramas talk about the effect of Japanese occupation but the American occupation is very much still going on and rarely do we get commentary on it in mainstream Korean media
omg anon I love swing kids!!! truth be told I've only watched it once because it made me cry soooo much but yes it was very eye opening as I had no idea at the time I watched it that the us had had such presence and authority in korea (and I also found it interesting that it depicted a solidarity between korean prisoners in their own country and a black soldier living in a segregated society). btw the camp that the movie is set in was a real camp which saw many uprisings from prisoners happening (led by communists prisoners) that were violently repressed by the us military and it was really turned into memorial camp (as you see in the last scene of the movie when the us soldier comes back as an all man and puts his hand on the stage where they old danced together and he's the only survivor - I was bawling my eyes out at this point).
it's mainly by following @commajade that I was introduced to the reality of the us presence in Korea (historically and today) because as you said it's just never discussed wether it's western medias or kdramas. I really recommend going through their korean politics tag as you'll find many ressources on the us role in the peninsula (from the violence during the height of the korean war, to the support of the dictatorship regime, to blocking the peace negotiations between the two koreas and even their role before the japanese occupation), the massacres committed by the us army (and how they tried to erase them from history) and on the reality of the us having military bases on korean soil. as they explain, it informed the various wars that the us took part in afterwards. I was pretty shocked to learn how strong the US authority still is over the korean army (for example the singer Youngk from the band Day6 did his mandatory military service in a unit working for the US army to fill in various positions)
Discussing the reality of what the us did in korea would mean recognising that they are not indeed, and have never been, a great exemple of democracy and defendor of freedom, it goes against the core of their national storytelling concept (which was disproved, not just in korea, over the decades and is very much disproved by their current support of Israel in its destruction of the palestinian people - but they still get to present a narrative in which their violence is justified against savagery and only they know the truth of what the world needs bla bla bla) may the us regime rot. I don't know what Americans are taught about the war and their role in korea (probably something about how they saved the country and brought democracy) but in France, we barely talked about the korean war at school (I think it was mentioned as part of the lessons in the cold war? like the various ongoing conflicts between the west and the east although we did talk a little bit about the japanese occupation linked to the end of ww2 but it was a long time ago so my memory is definitely fuzzy) and it was actually through a korean friends that I learned that french soldiers had been involved and their actions were still commemorateed today in korea
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bluerosesburnblue · 10 months
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What do you think is the best way for someone to get into Twisted Wonderland?
Honestly? Probably just downloading the app and playing it yourself if you can. Unfortunately, it's not out in some countries and there's not a lot of people out there making full video playthroughs of it, either, so there's really no other good way to go about it if you can't download the game for whatever reason, which is a real shame
If you can play, though, the game itself is very newcomer friendly. You can really take it at whatever pace you want; main story content is always available and does not cost any in-game energy to access. There is an energy system, but it's for leveling up your characters and is incredibly passive. All you need to do is select the class you want, select your characters, hit start, set it to loop, and you're good to go, no other input required until the next time your energy is charged up. Even when I started the game, it was pretty easy to just go through the story with underleveled characters because you always take in a borrowed one from another player and most people are very kind and put up their best ones, so you always have a plethora to choose from
The one thing that you do miss out on would be the story events because they're only archived if you completed them, but even then the North American server has been doing a really good job at rerunning old events (except the Culinary Crucibles, RIP Chef Silver card, I want it so bad). I've even noticed that if the NA server runs what would be considered "sequel" events to previous ones that they did, then you can usually access the scenes for the first one in the archives as long as the sequel is running. Some people do complain that the NA server does events too fast/often, but the reason for this seems to be that they're trying to get it up to date with the Japanese server
Speaking of events, this month after the current combat-focused event (the Joint Exam) ends on June 8th, the NA server will be getting a rerun of The Phantom Bride, a story event where a ghostly noble who died before finding her true love returns to the school hoping to finally fulfill her dream of finding a husband. When she selects one of the students and the others find out that the marriage would bring him to the afterlife, they set out to do what they can to save him. Then, later on in the month, we'll be getting the second Camp Vargas event. In the first event (which reran last month), Coach Vargas took all of the sports clubs out into the woods for a weekend training camp that ended up getting more intense than expect. Now, he looks to do the same for the boys in the art and culture clubs, too. So if either of those sound interesting, now might be a good time to hop in!
If you do get into it, anon, I hope you enjoy! The game has a lot of things to love about it. Not only do I love pretty much all of the characters, but I find that the game is really respectful towards classic Disney works and their stories, and does a fantastic job working that into the characters and even the worldbuilding, which pulls double-duty not only inventing a mythos where all of the Disney movies happened in the same world, but imagining what those locations would look in modern times. The game also leans into the "magic boarding school with different houses the students are sorted into" idea (for anyone looking for a Harry Potter alternative), while taking the concept in a more mature direction since, with a handful of exceptions, the main cast are all ages 16-18. I think it's safe to say that it's actually one of my favorite pieces of fiction at the moment, so I'm very flattered that you asked me for advice on getting into it and I hope this helped out a bit!
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boligrafoestudios · 2 years
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✨ summer 2022 goals ✨
Summer has finally arrived (sort of, still have a couple loose ends from this past semester to tie up) and I wanted to lay out some of my goals to maybe hold myself accountable, but also because writing things out usually eases my stress a little, and impending grad school applications are definitely making that stress pique.
THESIS
Source of the Day
I love this system and highly recommend for folks trying to move on from that initial research phase of collecting potential sources
Every day, read and write an annotated bibliography entry for one source from my thesis project in NoodleTools
This may feel like a daunting pace to keep up with given I do include weekends lol, but I’ve got a lot of blogs and listicles that I can and want to clear out rather quickly so I can move on to the things I know I need to work with more in depth. Also it’s totally okay to skip a day sometimes, it really is of no consequence
Read at least one of the novels I plan to use
At the moment I’ve got two novels of particular interest, both of them things I would honestly pick up if I were just reading for fun, and I know this fall is going to end up being a really reading heavy semester, so I want to be able to devote myself to these things the way they deserve while I can
Take notes while reading, of course
Draft an initial outline of an analysis based in the theory I’m using as my lens. And try to get at least 5-10 pages of a paper that can be expanded into a chapter and writing sample in the fall
Revisit my abstract
GRAD APPS
Begin drafting personal statements and statements of purpose
This is definitely one of the more daunting parts of the application process to me, so just getting anything, no matter how rough, on paper so it’s not completely ruining my life when we hit November and December would be great
Add to-do list columns to planning spreadsheet
Easy thing I can do and have done and feel accomplished about
Finish looking into potential advisors
Finish filling out notes in planning spreadsheet
Draft emails
Reach out in August
MISC SCHOOL THINGS
Turn in last blog comments for this past semester
This is something that needs to get done this week, hopefully today
Fill out Latin American studies course permission request form
This is actually super cool, I made a whole new course happen just because I asked a question no one ever had before! Big reminder that “you get some of what you ask for and none of what you don’t” will always ring true. But uh... yeah, need to get that form filled out at some point.
Write letter in support of my professor who’s up for promotion
Due July 15th
I’m not going to do any however many days of productivity challenge or anything, given I’ve got a lot of traveling going on this summer and a lot of unpredictability, but I will be posting updates as I go for sure, so come follow along! 🥰
(Also if you are someone who is in grad school for a foreign language atm and you’ve got any tips on the application process, please, I am all ears. Every time I think about the 20 page writing sample one of my applications requires I will admit I do cry, so all advice or words of encouragement are appreciated lol)
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zodiacoracle7 · 2 years
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DJ# 6: Siren
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Age: 26 Blood type: A Born: Los Angeles, USA Likes: Electro House, hot dogs  Character Voice: Hideki Tasaka Born and raised in Los Angeles. A somewhat gaudy American who carefully grooms his beard every morning. He wanted to be an actor in Hollywood, but somehow he ended up playing a supporting role in a drama series in Japan. When he is off-set he works at an English school called "DOVA" as a teacher. Siren is quite popular among his students, and on his time off likes to play IIDX at the arcade to relieve stress from his work. He prefers house music, a popular genre in older releases of the game. At home he lives with the lethargic Nix who was dishonorably discharged from the military (What could have happened?) and Eiri, a biker who was traveling around the country and temporarily forced his way into Siren's home. Nix works alongside Siren as an English teacher at "DOVA" while Eiri work's part-time at a gas station. Despite this, neither ever seem to have enough money to pay for their living expenses. Nix tends to waste the air-conditioning and heating systems by using them at all times and Eiri, a gluttonous eater, enjoys buying strange foods to try at home. Despite the stressful home environment, the three are getting used to living together (and possibly getting along?). Siren also has an interest in Japanese history and culture, such as samurai and ninja, and tends to visit cultural museums with Duel. On the occasional day off, he goes to "ROOTS26" to look for clothes but always feels a chill running down his spine as if he is being watched when he is there. During one instance, while discussing with Hihumi about Japanese culture, one of the store clerks (Lilith) with a rabbit in her arms(?) gifted him a homemade jelly with a suspicious color. However, he has no recollection of what happened after eating it and occasionally wonders what could have happened that day.
Conversation dialogue:   ~One day in Tahata, A main street near the arcade in Shogyo~
Celica: Ugh... What should I do...? Erika: I don't know... You just have to try, yeah? Celica: It's now or never I guess. Ah... Siren: Oh, is that...? Celica: Ah- Teacher, good timing! Did you just come back from DOVA? Siren: Yeah. Ah... are you two returning from the arcade? Erika: We tried, Ms. Nyah was beating Mr. Yuz again. Celica: Yeah, pretty much everyone was there. Siren: I wish I could have been there to see that~. Celica: By the way teacher, do you have time right now? Siren: Sure, I was in charge of class until evening today. Celica: Lucky~ Teacher, please teach me English~! Erika: This girl is going to fail her required English credits. Siren: Ah, it's a college class. Celica: That's right. There was a super mean trick test... I have to take a follow-up exam. Siren: Ah, hmm... Let's do it at my place then. Erika: Are you sure...? Aren't you tired from work...? Siren: Nono, if the lady asks, it's alright. Celica: Wow Thank you, Mr. Ren~! Well then, let's go! Siren: Yes, yes you're invited, I'd be happy to help. Erika: Hmm... Ah, Siren, you haven't eaten yet, have you? I'll cook dinner today in return for helping Celi. Though I'll need to go shopping first. Siren: Oh-! That would be great! I'm looking forward to it~. Celica: Thanks Eri~! But are you going to be okay by yourself? Erika: Ah, it's okay. I'm sure the arcade would have been a distraction anyways. You go on ahead, you don't have much time. Celica: Uu...... I'll remember this favor... I won't forget this for 3 days~! Farewell...! Erika: Yes, yes. (What a realistic number!) ~20 minutes later at Siren's house~
Siren: (clatter) I'm home. Celica: Good evening. (door closes) Nix, (in a kotatsu): (creeps...) That's...? Eiri: Ah... Celica? Celica: Good evening. Excuse me, I was wondering if Mr. Ren could teach me English. Eiri: Oh, I see. Welcome. Nix: Well, make yourself at home. Do you want to get in the kotatsu? Eiri: Yes, yes! Make yourself at home. Siren: Do... Do you know whose house this is? Nix, Eiri: Tch... Celica: Ahaha... We've both been here for a while now. Sorry, I'll leave you guys alone. Siren: Don't worry about it. Right, we are going to study English seriously now. Both of you, go to the next room, and take the kotatsu with you. Celica: No, it's okay, we can go to the room next door. Sorry for making it feel like I'm kicking you two out. Siren: No can do, you're both in my way. Nix: Ah-, Celica says it's fine so I'll stay put. Hey Celica, do you want some oranges? Celica: It's okay, and don't worry about it. Can I put my things here? Siren: Sure, go ahead... Ah, by the way Nix, aren't you in charge of the evening class for DOVA today...? Nix: (Ack!) Eiri: Skipping. He's skipping today. Nix: Ack! N-No I'm not... See, I have a stomachache... Celica: Oh... You have a stomachache? Then you won't be able to eat Eri's cooking tonight... Siren: Ah, yes, that's right. Nix: Eh- WHAAAT!? ERIKA'S COOKING!? Celica: Huhuhu- It's super yummy~ Eiri: Ah, it's okay, it's okay. I'll just eat his share Siren: That's right, it can't be helped if you have a stomachache. Nix: Oya... Oh..? I was in the kotatsu, and I suddenly feel better? Siren, Eiri, Celica: ............ Wow.
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kob131 · 1 year
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https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/y1k434/rwby_its_fandom_and_the_unduly_idolization_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
So, I dunno what Dextixer was thinking when he decided to argue about authority to a primarily American fanbase but guess we’re doing this.
A. We know “What”, the question is “Why”.
So the first part is all about defining authority, detailing examples of it and such. With a little bit about rebelling against ‘unjust authority’.
And right there, Dex crashes into a wall.
The issue he presents is not about a misunderstanding of what authority is- it’s about what constitutes ‘unjust authority’. People call James supporters ‘bootlickers’ not because they don’t know what authority is but because they see them as supporting a vastly UNJUST authority.
And Dex doesn’t fine what it means to be ‘just’ and ‘unjust’, which is gonna bite him in the ass.
To save us some confusion, I’ll do his job for him. 
To quickly define ‘unjust authority’ without going into a long tangent about the philosophical/practical responsibilities of an authority- it’s when an authority does not act in the interests of their people. Emphasis on ‘their’ because we’d also consider sending foreign aid during a time of crisis in the home country.
This is pretty god damn important given that Dex is fighting an uphill battle here. RWBY is an American show with a majority American fanbase. Americans, by our nature as Americans, do not respect authority and glorify rebellion. That’s what happens when your country is founded by one of the few successful rebellions in history with very heavy libertarian principles. I myself have a rather intense disdain for any authority trying to rule over me without my trust for example. He should know this by now or done his research.
Dex kneecapped himself before he even truly began.
B. If Robyn is bad, James is worse.
The first argument boils down to “We never see Robyn doing any good and she’s actively hindering Amity so she’s bad!”
Problem is- Robyn has theoretical bad actions. James has OBSERVABLE bad actions.
Whereas Robyn’s actions are negative in the case of Amity going up in the future, James’ actions directly affect the people in the present. Robyn didn’t make the people of Mantle distrust James, James and his actions did. Robyn didn’t fail to update the security in Mantle which let Watts manipulate events, James did. Robyn didn’t abuse her power which led to her fellows distrusting her in a plan that REQUIRES their trust, James did. Robyn didn’t preach about the virtues of fighting the impossible and self-sacrifice to her people then betray those same principles that united them in order to leave her people to die, James did.
By just about any metric you could give for judging an authority to be just or not, James would 
C. James abandoned his duty
Now, if you were to elect someone to the position of ‘General’ to a standing army meant to protect the people of your kingdom- Would you consider them a good General if they decided to ditch said people?
No, you would court marshall his ass at the speed of light. To make him an example so the people could continue to trust the government which is ESSENTIAL in its function.
That is what James was trying to do: ditch his people and leave them to die. Which is not only going to destroy any trust the Atlas people had in their government, thus undermining James’ attempts at saving them- it also completely went against what HE preached to Team RWBY and co. You know, the whole speech about-
Ironwood: You fought for your school and your friends at Beacon. You fought for the world and the innocent at Haven Academy and beyond. You faced down terrors people can't even fathom. That's not the behavior of students. It's the behavior… of Huntsmen and Huntresses.
All Team RWBY did was follow the standards James set beforehand.
Once again, James proved himself an unjust authority. And ironically, even if I were to accept your standards that seem twisted to absolve James of responsibility- You said that Robyn was bad for undermining the Amity project. James outright ditched it AND tried removing Atlas from the rest of Remnant, thus weakening everyone’s chances at surviving. So even by your standards, James is an unjust authority.
D. Parroting Cordovon.
It’s the fucking airship thing again. And yet again-
“But Weiss could go-”
To Jacques?
Cordovin: (sighs) If Miss Schnee has truly come to her senses and wishes to return to her family, then, of course, the Atlas military will escort her home. But the kingdom will not be responsible for her "friends" of... questionable character. (glances at Blake specifically upon saying her last statement)
Who is AGAINST James even by the end of Volume 4, thus she would have no means of meeting with him?
Glad we could shoot this shit dead and not beg the question for the thousandth time.
E. Hypocrisy...just not the way you think.
... This needs to be read.
And what needs the most discussion is the hypocricy that can be perceived in the fandom over this opposition to authority. Previously i have stated that some people seem to only dislike authority when it challenges the protagonists, and i believe that to be the case due to how many other anti-authority figures are treated in the show itself.
The best example of this being the White Fang. During the entirety of Volumes 1-3 the White Fang have been the main enemies of out protagonists. We know that Faunus in the lore of the show have been long abused by humans and White Fang was the result. And what do our heroes do?
They beat down people resisting human opression. And do the protagonists challenge the authority of the kingdoms? Never, no.
The only time that our protagonists challenge the authority of the kingdoms is Atlas, when that authority impedes them and their actions. But not before.
Many people in the fandom have been even outright demonized for daring to point this point out and how badly the White Fang and the Faunus racism arc was writen. Even more if one points out that our protagonists are the ones writen to be in the center of it, establishing and keeping the status quo.
I would say that it is not only the fanbase but also the writers that have dropped the ball on this one, even unintentionally. There seems to be a large ammount of bias to be held in regards to the protagonits.
This makes it even harder for the critics to accept when the protagonists seemingly rail and reject authority. They never did before, until it personally affected them.
They even slowly are taking on the qualities of the authority figures that they previously railed against, most often shown with them learning to lie just like Ozpin did. But that is not really acknowledged, now is it? Strange how such a quality that lead to Ozpin to be demonized by the fandom in V6 is kept quiet about or justified when the protagonists did it, for the same reasons as Ozpin did.
Yeah so-
A. The WF actually shows a consistency with the show- in that it disdains when MURDER is involved. Because the reason why the heroes oppose the WF and James is the same- they’re trying to kill people. And that KIND OF goes against their morals.
B. You’re a fucking self-described progressive Dex. This just looks like you throwing a fit over the show not sucking your cock.
C. What bias? Given that the SHOW ITSELF and the commentary tracks indicate that Team RWBY were meant to be wrong in Volume 7- the only bias here is you crying about James being treated the same way.
D. You know, that smarmy accusation of hypocrisy kind of falls apart when you engage in it yourself.
Closing Thoughts
Dextixer never once explains what makes James’ authority justified. He tries to argue that ‘Amity good therefore James good!’ but that doesn’t cover his blatant abuses of power, something Dex himself has admitted to, which would make James an unjust authority. Especially given that by his metrics or his opponent’s. James has failed in the narrative. 
Yeah I know he says it’s his opinion...but he’s also acting like this is at all consistent. Which it isn’t.
All you’ve done is make a case that calling you a ‘bootlicker’ is giving you too much credit.
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idiot-party · 1 year
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Any more info about werewolf hunter guy?
Here is what there is so far:
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Ulysses Male 6'2" ft (188 cm) 35 years old
Has hunted game for food, resources, and sport ever since he was old enough to learn how to operate a gun. Straight out of high school he enlisted into the US Army and was in there for over a decade. Planned to keep going until retirement, but then he saw God in a near-death multi-catastrophic experience and decided not to re-enlist when that contract ended.
Despite choosing to not go back into the army, he had a hard time readjusting to normal life. Has taken up slaying werewolves for fun to keep the boredom at bay, and also because he doesn't like that there are people who would willingly reject the blessing of being a human homo sapiens sapiens to be some animal. He doesn't find the werewolf thing scary, but he finds it distasteful.
Although I had drawn him aiming with a scope, now I believe that he prefers not to use one. Scopes can reflect light and give away your position and he'd rather not have that going on.
As someone who was never able to use the internet much, he was pretty lonely as a kid because he didn't have any knowledge of whatever trend or challenge or influencer or product was hot at the hour. Socialized best with weirdly sheltered Christian kids who were more likely than others to be as offline as he is.
Worldposting below the cut (it's all setting information, no character info)
The temporal setting he resides in takes place some decades in the future. Death control technology has not been invented yet, but neofeudal hypercorporations have become sovereign and are able to challenge countries for political power. Everything is at home and online, including your vacations. Country borders are under attack by monied interests and may be changing. Unless you are born with money/born with connections/can make connections, you can't really get anywhere in the economy except lower. A job of McDonald's cashier requires a college degree and college degrees cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But there is a way around this: The M.I.C. has taken advantage of the horrendous economy by promoting military enlistment as a way to build a comfortable life. Get in, complete your contracts, come out with your GI benefits and veterans discounts forever, everyone says "Thank you for your service" to you. Military enlistment skyrockets and eventually becomes a normal step in the life of an American, as normal as going to college.
Gods (including the Christian God) exist and they move in mysterious ways, I don't elaborate too much on them because the more I do the lamer they get. Jesus 2 hasn't happened yet.
Werewolves have existed for many hundreds of years. They weren't generally a big problem until an epidemic broke out in the last couple decades, causing chaos due to a sudden outpour of werewolves eating people, eating livestock, destroying property and infrastructure, shitting everywhere, pissing everywhere, fucking everywhere, etc every full moon and new moon. Lycanthropy was caused by a disease that could be spread not only by being bitten by a werewolf, but also by being bitten by an animal that carries the disease.
At first werewolves in wolf form were just shot and killed to mitigate damages, and this was how they were dealt with for the first years of the epidemic. Seen as a tragedy. For a human to completely lose everything it means to be human every month and then have to live with the carnage once they come back. This was the case until the US military came out with a vaccine and a cure. A miracle. Lycanthropy is then curable and preventable.
However, some people choose not to take the vaccine nor the cure, for whatever reason. Usually the reason is that they like being a werewolf or want to become a werewolf, but sometimes it is because they are anti-vax or something else.
There are no laws whatsoever related to killing werewolves while they are in their wolf form. It is neither legal nor illegal. If someone is killed as a werewolf, the common attitude is "Sad. Should have taken the cure". People at large only care about the death if it's someone famous but they still have the attitude of "What a shame. If they had taken the cure this wouldn't have happened".
To keep the werewolf epidemic contained, the US government sometimes issues a bounty on specific known werewolves, demanding them alive (Legal penalties for killing them, because they wanted them alive, not dead). The most promising tactic of theirs involves microchipping captured werewolves to track their movement and whether they have connections to any other werewolves. Once enough data is collected, werewolf gatherings are raided and everyone is forcibly cured.
If the person they captured was a loner werewolf, they are just captured again and cured when some amount of time has passed and no link to any werewolf society has been established.
There is a different sort of bounty. Private bounties posted either by companies or by people, demanding the killing of a specified werewolf or werewolves.
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sweetfirebird · 2 years
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Sometimes I think I should do a sekrit side blog focused on passing on historical information across several branches of study and interest, so that people in places where information is censored (like American schools, as one example) or without access to libraries can learn stuff. Like, not just articles on "this is John Brown" or "The Spanish Inquisition: it was about the money" or whatever, but also, "the history of sex ed" or... honestly just sex ed in general. And also stuff on critical thinking/reading skills because...whew boy.
But then I think, I do not have the sort of voice that lends itself to popular posts, and also... while technically I do have the time right now... I am also like... struggling to make my brain work these days. So.
(My Spanish Inquisition pieces would absolutely include a gif a Mel Brooks spinning the wheel to get all the gold. That is required because he summed it up in like a five second clip.)
You're like, that is a whole high school/university's job to do that... and correct. But also... that either isn't happening or costs a fortune.
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whumpshaped · 11 months
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So cool! Eh happens to all of us! I'm glad you enjoy it! horses are so amazing and I love them so much. Might be hard to believe but I started riding when I was 5 and I'm turning 21 in september. About 16 years of riding and the longest break I had was a ten week break after a leg surgery. (if you're interested dm me)
haha it sounds amazing! (probably colder than california lol) the lead rope if it's one and reigns if two. Reigns are usually leather or nylon. That sounds like so much fun! Kinda like the fairs here but the animals are probably treated better.
it is insane from an american standpoint but also fascinating cos the midterms and finals are required by law and how often they happen depends on the schedule like trimester/ quarter. But they also limit a max of 6 classes at once (and still bankrupt ppl)
that makes sense. I cant keep up with more than one or t3wo with my health unfortunately but I'm happy you seem to have a hold on it most of the time! that's a ton of exams but sometimes slacking is needed? I think. don't know how to explain it. Do you enjoy learning?
thats a lot of years... thats kinda how many yrs i have of writing ig. having started as soon as i learned to spell at 4 and im 21 now. hobbies r cool. experience is cool. i wish to have that much experience in drawing too so i can draw cool stuff like my friends... also sorry abt ur leg :(
iiii enjoy learning in general. i love learning abt random stuff. it gets tiring and boring and horrible once its mandated. and once i have to learn all these stupid fucking laws by letter for no reason (LITERALLY NO REASON WE HAVE THE CRIMINAL CODE WRITTEN DOWN FOR A REASON. SO PPL CAN LOOK IT UP. THERES NO REASON-). but whatever i guess thats school i'll just get thru it. its still the most leisurely 5 yrs i'll ever have
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luuurien · 2 years
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Ethel Cain - Preacher’s Daughter
(Singer/Songwriter, Gothic Country, Americana)
Hayden Anhedönia's debut album under the Ethel Cain name is a breathtaking piece of modern Americana, placing her as one of the most heartfelt and visceral songwriters of our time. Preacher's Daughter is a long, uncompromising album that utilizes every second to Anhedönia's advantage, telling the story of Ethel Cain with its many traumas, beauties and horrors with the gravity and respect it completely deserves.
☆☆☆☆☆
Ethel Cain is dead. The character Hayden Anhedönia's music has revolved around since she conceptualized the character back in high school is murdered in the four-minute instrumental piece August Underground, her abusive partner chasing her relentlessly through the forest before finally catching and killing her in cold blood, mangled vocal loops and Grouper-esque ambiance soaked in blood and buried in distortion. Knowing that, listening to Preacher's Daughter requires the same kind of empathy and respect we give to the dead, to treat the album as the last words of a woman who will never return to Anhedönia's music the same way again. Now, Anhedönia's music is chiefly about her own experiences: her time spent as a kid deeply entrenched in a Southern Baptist church in the humid heat of Perry, Florida, her experiences coming out and being ostracized from that community while maintaining some of her connection to it to this day, the abuse and violence and repression inherent to many of its values, but she uses Ethel Cain (I'll be referring to Anhedönia and Cain as separate individuals to make it easier to tell when I'm discussing the artist herself and the events that happen to Ethel Cain the character throughout the album) as a vessel for her experiences to be run through ("She is the mirrored version of what my life would be like if I chose not to get better,” Anhedönia said in a May interview with Billboard), the resulting music exploring the darkest and most visceral parts of her mind and her history. From all that, it's no surprise that Preacher's Daughter is a massive album: thirteen long and dense ballads - only three of the album's songs are less than four minutes and two of those are instrumental interludes - but Anhedönia uses this hour and fifteen minutes to her complete advantage, creating an immersive and truly frightening world where every instance of Cain's self-determination and potential happiness is defied by fate, be it God himself or the people in her life who took every chance to make it worse for her. But simultaneously, it is an album of genuine grace and beauty, taking all of Anhedönia's influences from 90's Christian synthpop to Mazzy Star and Def Leppard and bringing them together for an all-American masterpiece, Preacher's Daughter primed for full dissection and analysis while packing so many ideas into it that it's difficult to even figure out where to start. But just like the characters within Anhedönia's music, that's part of the point - you're never going to get a simple answer from her. Now, Anhedönia makes that analysis project a bit easier by splitting the album up into two separate acts, the first running from Family Tree (Intro) to the chilly banjo waltz Hard Times, and the second from ten-minute centerpiece Thoroughfare all the way to the final track Strangers, and while talking about the album in chronological order might seem the most logical way to go about things, I've never enjoyed writing that way and find it much more interesting to first touch on the way Anhedönia makes her songs. She's oft been compared to similarly gothic artists with an strong writing arm and America-centric writing style - think Lana Del Rey or Lingua Ignota - but where Lana Del Rey's music grounds itself by embracing the romanticized vision of America everyone grows up with while subtly subverting its expectations, and Lingua Ignota's vicious neoclassical/industrial blends brings out the darkness and anger she has towards the world and the people who abused her, Anhedönia's work is much more comparable to the works of writers like Flannery O'Connor or the mid-90s work of Lisa Germano, more reliant on concepts and characters and the ideas of what we are owed and the ways in which we are both accepted and rejected by the world around us at once. Combine this with the less than approachable design of Preacher's Daughter's songs, and makes the album feel more cinematic and immersive than near any other album to come out this year, Anhedönia fully rejecting the idea of Ethel Cain as a tortured pop songstress that arose after the release of her Inbred EP back in April of last year. Kicking off the release cycle for Preacher's Daughter with Gibson Girl, a languid and doomy blues rock jam about sexual dynamics and substance abuse as Cain is pimped out and hooked on drugs, immediately made it clear that Anhedönia wasn't fucking around when she said she was sick of being called a pop star. With the rest of Preacher's Daughter now out to the world, it's no surprise that Anhedönia's done everything possible to stray away from the expectations others have put on her, releasing an album that is unashamedly dark, instrumentally gorgeous, and lyrically powerful like few other artists out there. Getting into the acts of Preacher's Daughter, the first is the more adventurous of the two as it begins to build Cain's backstory and establish many of the themes the album carries forward through the rest of the songs. After the terrific Family Tree (Intro) where Anhedönia finds religion following her every step and hints as Cain's eventual death (Jesus can always reject his father / But he cannot escape his mother's blood / He'll scream and try to wash it off of his fingers / But he'll never escape what he's made up of" is one of this year's best verses, full stop), the heartland rocker and final album single American Teenager appears, bringing back Anhedönia's pop sound one single time to show that she's still an absolute boss in that part of her world while not sacrificing the depth in her writing, detailing many of the ideas the rest of Preacher's Daughter develops on - losing faith as you grow up ("Putting too much faith in the make-believe / And another high school football team), dying for a country that didn't care much about you in the first place ("The neighbor's brother came home in a box / But he wanted to go, so maybe it was his fault / Another red heart taken by the American dream"), begging to find salvation in Jesus to no avail ("And Jesus, if you're there, why do I feel alone in this room / With you?") - and with that the rest of the album begins to reveal itself. While all these songs are long, gloomy ballads whose shape is often quite predictable and commonplace for music in this style, that doesn't mean Anhedönia doesn't do a fantastic job with it: the swirling piano progression on Western Nights that rings out like they're playing in the darkness of a midnight gathering as Cain devotes herself to a troubled man ("I’d hold the gun if you asked me to / But if you love me like you say you do / Would you ask me to," the way Hard Times uses the country ambiance of insects and electricity to give Anhedönia all the space she needs to recount the sexual abused Cain suffered at her father's hands ("In the corner / On my birthday / You watched me / Dancing right there in the grass / I was too young / To notice / That some typеs of love could be bad") over reverb-coated banjo that makes for a perfect and heartbreaking end to the first half of Preacher's Daughter, how Family Tree utilize a more post-rock inspired build to show the intensity, fear and excitement that comes with the rigid expectations put on both Anhedönia and Cain by religion; despite these stories been incredibly tough to listen to at times, Anhedönia's musicality ensures that these songs always have something more to them. The crown jewel of the first act, A House In Nebraska, has been around for quite a few years now, but on Preacher's Daughter it serves a whole new purpose, Cain devastated over a lost relationship and visiting the abandoned home they imagined was theirs, Cain using Nebraska as her beacon of potential freedom from everything the world's thrown at her before a cathartic electric guitar solo shines like tormented sunlight before burning out, just like the romance Cain had with the man she would do anything to get back ("And it hurts to miss you / But it's worse to know / That I'm the reason / You won't come home"). Rarely is an album able to be this uncompromising with its form and maintain such a stunning level of thoughtfulness and care, let alone the first half of an album, but here Anhedönia does it with ease, proving Preacher's Daughter's self-produced nature was absolutely the right move for her, nobody able to get in the way of her goals as an artist here. The second side of Preacher's Daughter, in comparison, is much darker and colder, slowly approaching the end of Cain's life and bringing out some of the richest textures and atmospheres on the entire album. The ten-minute centerpiece Thoroughfare is such a red herring with its songwriting and sound, opening with breathable acoustic guitar as Cain finds a new love out on the road and travels with him to the coast, the chance for a new lease on life found in the beautiful and slow instrumental build as Anhedönia holds back the climax as long as she can, the explosive blues guitar solo over dark backing chords feels like the one true moment of celebration on the entirety of Preacher's Daughter - hell, she even throws in a fun little jam band session the last two minutes of the track with hand drums and soft electric guitar as Anhedönia quietly scats on top of it all, it's the peak of her storytelling that helps make the rest of the album click if you didn't quite understand why it was designed that way beforehand. But, as things always seem to go for Cain, this love doesn't last for long: when she does reach California with her new love, all that romance and acceptance she thought was there all turned out to be a lie, the three-song trilogy of Gibson Girl, Ptolemaea, and August Underground, Cain's last moments on Earth before her untimely demise. Out of the three, Ptolemaea is the clear winner, the album's best song by far with its incredibly unnerving spoken-word passage and heartbeat-like drugs, as if you're in Cain's mind while she's under the effects of whatever her lover's got her hooked on, but under the effect of those drugs she finally confronts the darkness, and it is not pretty in the slightest. It is one of the most tense, blood-curdling, horrifying songs I have ever heard, every moment of the song building up to a brutal scream that sounds like it could have come out of an exorcism before falling into huge, slimy doom metal guitars before closing out in a pool of distortion and a prayer. It is like absolutely nothing else you will hear this year, and sandwiched in between the sensual Gibson Girl and anxious ambient piece August Underground it works even better. From there, Anhedönia closes the album out in the afterlife, another instrumental piece Televangelism absolutely heavenly even when bits of distortion and pitch shifting begin to contort Cain's ascent to Heaven, but things aren't any easier for her up there. On Sun Bleached Flies, she reflects on everything that happened in her life, a glorious seven minutes that once again subvert expectations as Cain closes the song out still wanting to return to the man who first showed her what love could be in A House in Nebraska, and in the final track Strangers, she says goodbye to her mother one final time as the man who murdered her decides to cannibalize her, one more wrong done to Cain as she consoles her mother through Anhedönia's use of traditional afterlife imagery makes for a truly touching end to this chapter of the Ethel Cain story ("Don't worry about me and these green eyes / Mama, just know that I love you (I do) / And I'll see you when you get here"). Combined with the majesty of the album's first act, the 75 minutes of Preacher's Daughter are so well done and utterly spellbinding that you can feel every moment of Cain's life along with her, the closest any album this year has gotten to making your world one with the music. Preacher's Daughter is an album that could be talked about for so much longer than this - it feels like an album primed for the kind of in-depth discussions and thematic analysis you'd get in a college class - but the best thing you can get out of the album is a connection to Ethel Cain and Anhedönia's music that is truly unforgettable. Anhedönia doesn't hold anything back here, and if you can get yourself in sync with the unusual structures and sound of Preacher's Daughter, lean heavily into the songwriting and let these dreamy ballads take you into Cain's chilling Americana story, it's such a sublime listen that you only want to know what's next for Cain and her family when the album ends. Anhedönia's still connected with her family - she's stated she's shared the album with her mother and is very open and empathetic to the ways in which the generations before her were hurt and shaped the same ways she was in their hands - but never softens any of Preacher's Daughter's blows because of that, completely taking the power back into her own hands and used her music to tell the story of someone she could have been if things were only a little bit different. In every note, in every verse, in every breath, you can hear how much Preacher's Daughter means to her, how the years spent making this album kept her alive and what it means to her now that the rest of the world can experience it, too. Recently, Anhedönia said "I’m in a much more positive place in my life now because I was able to kind of exorcise these feelings into this record." With how much power and passion is behind these 13 magnificent songs, I believe her every word.
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The Secret Life Of Money
It may seem strange to talk about the secret life of money when a lot of people devote their lives to it. It’s not really when you consider the same thing has been happening around God for many millennia. Human beings have a propensity for this sort of thing, it seems. Money has a secret life because most of us do not understand what it is and how it actually works. Modern economies on the national scale are very large and complex things. Macro economics does not operate in the same manner as our own individual financial set up functions. This is why most people struggle to grasp how money and the economy as a whole really work.
Secrets About Money In America
Did you know that the US Federal Reserve, America’s central bank pumped $29 trillion into the economy post-GFC? This was not made public, as the Federal Reserve is under no compunction to declare its hand. Americans were jumping up and down about the $800 billion the US Government put in under the Obama administration to bail out the banks, but the real amount was far, far greater. The thing about sovereign currencies in the modern era is that countries and their central banks can just push buttons to virtually print more money. There is no constraint on this ability. Nations like the US cannot run out of their own currency and go broke. Australia is in the same position. So all this negative talk about such worries is political BS. The debt ceiling in America is an artificial constraint imposed by Congress and can be extended (as it so often has been) and could be removed. The deficit will not economically bring down the country directly– it is a political farrago of lies, mistruths, and misunderstanding. “The extraordinary scope and magnitude of the recent financial crisis of 2007–09 required an extraordinary response by the Fed in the fulfillment of its lender-of-last-resort function. The purpose of this paper is to provide a descriptive account of the Fed’s response to the recent financial crisis. It begins with a brief summary of the methodology, then outlines the unconventional facilities and programs aimed at stabilizing the existing financial structure. The paper concludes with a summary of the scope and magnitude of the Fed’s crisis response. The bottom line: a Federal Reserve bailout commitment in excess of $29 trillion.” - (https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_698.pdf) Photo by Anna Nekrashevich on Pexels.com
Money & Its Clandestine Roots
The thing about money is that many of us don’t understand where it came from in the first place. Therefore, we have basic misunderstandings as to its nature and purpose. Money did not primarily emerge out of some Robinson Crusoe like barter system, as is taught in schools around the world. There is no archaeological evidence for this anywhere. Rather, assumptions and origin stories have been made up over time and by those with vested interests in having people see it this way. The evidence in the ancient world points toward ‘wergild’ or blood money being the main culprit in the evolution of money. This was the price paid to families of those you may have transgressed against by killing or maiming one of their members. Eventually, this debt payment would be owed to the state instead of the aggrieved family, which is where we find ourselves today. The state fines folks for petty crimes and sends them to prison for more serious one’s. Money grew out of this need to pay what is owed to the state. Taxes are the main thing that citizens are required to give over to the state. Money and taxes are inextricably linked on this basis. The important takeaway here is that money is a state invention and operates as an IOU from the state today. The state owns the money via its central bank. Philosophically, this acknowledgement may change things for some people. Money, the thing that they have been striving for their entire lives, is what links them to the state. Photo by Sharefaith on Pexels.com The Financial System The US financial system is being driven by private equity, by the pension funds and their money managers. It is their might and power which propels the economy in different directions. Where and how that volume of money is invested makes waves. The GFC came about because of securitization, the bundling up of securities into financial products to be bought and sold and bet upon. The enormous appetite for risk, which equates to big returns on investment, and the lax oversight in the mortgage sector produced a perfect storm. This was turned into a tsunami when the major players stopped bankrolling the investment banks and it flattened the global economy. “What actually happened is that default rates on risky mortgage loans rose sharply while home prices plateaued. Megabanks took a look at their balance sheets and realized they were not only holding trashy mortgage products, but also lots of liabilities of other mega financial institutions. It suddenly dawned on them that all the others probably had balance sheets as bad as theirs, so they refused to roll-over those short-term 7 liabilities. And since the Leviathans were highly interconnected, when they stopped lending to one another the whole Ponzi pyramid scheme collapsed.” - (https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_681.pdf) Photo by David McBee on Pexels.com Of course, something motivated those in the sector to behave in the ways that they did, which set up this house of cards to fall so spectacularly. Greed is an old fashioned word, but this was structurally inserted into the compensation equation for those in the financial sector. “In 1990 the equity-based share of total compensation for senior managers of U.S. corporations was 20%. By 2007 it had risen to 70%. Meanwhile, the investment management industry has been transformed by the rise of private equity firms and hedge funds, both of which prominently feature market-based compensation as the basis of their supposed virtue. The norm at these funds is the “2 and 20” rule, whereby compensation is tied to the size of assets being managed (the 2%) and to managers’ performance as measured by the financial markets (the 20%, or “carried interest”). As detailed below, the rise of the alternative-assets industry has altered behavior through much of the financial sector. Financial-markets-based compensation has become the norm in modern American capitalism.” - (https://hbr.org/2012/03/the-incentive-bubble) The secret life of money beats at the heart of our financial institutions and drives the lives of all those who work within them. It is a measuring stick for success everywhere you look. It is meanly carved out at the micro level where you and I have to make a living. In contrast to this, it is churned out en masse at government levels via central banks, as if they were channelling oceans or bodies of water. In nations with tens or hundreds of millions of people the amounts considered are in the billions and trillions. It is very hard for individuals to comprehend such sums. Macro economics is rarely understood by the general populace. Politicians make use of this ignorance to stir up trouble for their opponents by suggesting stuff like national bankruptcy and other awful fates, which cannot really happen. Applying personal fears and anxieties to these things provides them with political leverage in the polls. Government debt is compared to personal debts in the mind’s of the voter, which do not actually correlate. You and I cannot print our own money without going to prison if caught, whereas national governments with a sovereign currency can. Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com Inflation & Secret Money Inflation is the echo of the travails of secret money, in some instances. The creation of money via quantitative easing, where the central bank injects new funds into the economy by purchasing government bonds does not, generally, result in higher inflation. This is because it is all about how the new money enters the economy. Often it just sits on the balance books and does not make spending waves within the economy. The hard and fast rule is that too much money supply chasing too few things pushes the prices up of those things. This can, then, trigger inflationary spirals as the players within the economy chase each other’s tails to meet the demands of higher prices. During times of high inflation governments can employ fiscal policies of lowering spending and raising taxes to dampen demand within the economy. The latter strategy is politically unpopular and so, reducing government spending is more often employed. Central banks raise the cash interest rate as their main monetary policy lever to combat high inflationary times. Sticky Inflation & High Migration Intake Levels “The most important way in which a booming population is affecting inflation, however, is via the rental market. CBA’s Ottley points out the vacancy rate in capital cities fell to a record low of 0.9 per cent last month, which is causing advertised rents to surge by about 10 per cent and feeding into higher inflation generally. House prices aren’t part of the consumer price index, but they, too, are being pushed higher by the combination of fast population growth and a lack of supply of new homes. Economists, who were wrong-footed by the surprising strength of house prices despite rapid interest rate rises, are pointing to the migration surge as a key reason for the market’s buoyancy. So in economic jargon, the surge in population growth is having some big impacts on both the supply and demand sides of the economy. Migration has eased skills shortages and there are signs it is causing parts of the labour market to loosen. That should ultimately flow into lower inflation as wage costs ease, but it’s a gradual process. In the shorter term, the population boom is boosting demand.” - (https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/booming-population-is-part-of-our-sticky-inflation-dilemma-20231102-p5egyo.html) Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com Governments like the influx of new migrants because they are cashed up to spend, which improves bottom line productivity in the economy. Many of them also have the skills in demand by the businesses within the economy. It is a dance really with multiple pros and cons being triggered within the economy. The housing and rental crisis is stretching things for the working poor, as they cannot afford to live where they work. The cost of living, high inflationary period is also stripping them of their savings. Meanwhile, the government has to remain committed to lowering its spending. The poor always get shafted during these challenging economic times, it seems. Money is the government’s IOU to its citizens and that is in short supply during this high inflationary period. Getting by on the smell of an oily rag is hard too because of the high petrol prices thanks to Russia invading Ukraine and now the Israeli war in Gaza. Energy prices are very high too with the price of gas and electricity in the upper reaches due to similar global issues and the transition to renewables required by the economy. It is expensive to live in a modern economy in the 21C at the moment. The secret life of money is a real thing because we are born into systems that we don’t truly understand and most of us just go along with what is happening. Most human beings are unquestioning about stuff like money and God. These things are seen as too big to take apart; and we are encouraged by our parents and the status quo to shut up and get working. Security is very much tied up with money and probably God too, especially as we get a lot older. Not understanding how the economy functions is not advantageous. Indeed, there will come a time in everybody’s life when not knowing this stuff will bite and bite hard. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom.  ©MidasWord Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Read the full article
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