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henryss · 2 years

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Alpha Brain Reviews “2022 Update” Ingredients, Advantage, Price & Buy?

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Would you like to upgrade your brain function?

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It's the most remarkable and viable method for creating alpha waves in your mind to at last improve your concentration, memory, and in general mental capacities.

Alpha Brain is comprised of a blend of nutrients, minerals, spices that are intended to work synergistically to deliver ideal outcomes for the client with regards to improving their smartness.

Assuming that you need improved results from your exercises or more inspiration for considering or work then this is most certainly something that would merit testing!

So moving right along, we should simply get straight into it, will we?

What is Alpha Brain?

Alpha Brain is a notable nootropic brand that has ascended to unmistakable quality only a couple of years after its commencement in 2011, because of jokester Joe Rogan, who possesses the brand.

Alpha Brain is comprised of a blend of nutrients, minerals, and natural concentrates.

They are explicitly intended to work synergistically to create the most ideal outcomes.

This item is altogether normal also so you need to stress over no kind of incidental effects all things considered!

Alpha Brain works by expanding your degrees of acetylcholine which improves both memory and learning skills.

This supplement likewise attempts to work on your in general mental clearness and center which fixes things such that extraordinary for individuals that are attempting to study or take care of business!

It's nothing unexpected that Onnit Alpha Brain is quite possibly of the most well known savvy drug on the planet.

With its moderateness and openness, this nootropic has had the option to catch a huge continuing in the two fans with serious biohacking needs or only searching for an edge at work!

How Does Alpha Brain Function?

As momentarily referenced previously, the manner in which Alpha Brain works is by expanding your degrees of acetylcholine.

Acetylcholine is a synapse that is liable for correspondence between nerve cells.

It's additionally accountable for things like memory, learning, and muscle withdrawal.

So by expanding your degrees of it, you're basically giving your mental capacities a lift!

Alpha Brain likewise assists you with getting 'into the zone' by supporting Alpha Brain waves.

The cerebrum produces alpha waves when we are in a loose or quiet state. Many individuals experience these waves during pressure alleviating exercises like reflection and yoga.

Alpha Brain waves are likewise connected with worked on mental lucidity, concentration, and inventiveness.

So by enhancing with Alpha Brain, you're basically giving yourself a method for hacking into that perspective at whatever point you really want it!

What amount of time Does It Require For Alpha Brain to Work?

The impacts of Alpha Brain can fluctuate contingent upon the person.

As indicated by most clients, and from my own insight, the impacts of Alpha Brain are normally seen inside 1-2 hours and can endure as long as 3 hours.

That being said, it merits bringing up that Alpha Brain may not create a conspicuous 'outcome' for certain individuals, even following seven days of taking it everyday.

Yet, this doesn't imply that it's any less successful.

The absence of recognizable impacts straight away can be brought about by the individual taking too low portions or utilizing it erroneously.

With regards to nootropics, and Alpha Brain, specifically, certain individuals are simply more delicate with the impacts than others.

In the event that you observe that you're not seeing any impacts following half a month, I suggest continuously expanding your dose until you figure out the perfect balance for you.

...Yet, more on dose later!

What Is Alpha Brain Utilized For?

Alpha Brain is most usually utilized as a mental enhancer.

It's frequently required by understudies during test investment or by business experts that should be 'on their game' for significant introductions.

Be that as it may, it can likewise be utilized basically as a method for working on your spotlight and fixation levels consistently.

I've actually observed that Alpha Brain is perfect for when I really want to finish work yet find it hard to center.

You know, those days where you just apparently can't get moving regardless of how enthusiastically you attempt!

In these circumstances, Alpha Brain has forever had the option to give me the psychological edge I really want to get past and finish things, without throwing down espresso like it's becoming unfashionable.

It's likewise been demonstrated to be compelling in further developing memory review, so in the event that you're searching for a method for working on your memory, Alpha Brain could be a fantastic choice for you!

A speedy outline of what Alpha Brain is utilized for:

To work on mental capability

To upgrade memory review

To expand concentration and focus

To help you 'get into the zone'

As a review help

For further developed work execution

Now that we discover somewhat more about what Alpha Brain is and the way in which it works, we should investigate the dose, advantages, and secondary effects in somewhat more detail.

Alpha Brain Fixings

Alpha Brain comprises of 3 restrictive mixes which are:

The Stream Mix: This mix advances Alpha wave union and comprises of L-theanine, L-Tyrosine, and Phosphatidylserine.

The Center Mix: This mix animates the creation of Acetylcholine and comprises of Bacopa Monnieri, Huperzia Serrata, and Alpha GPC.

The Fuel Mix: This mix advances synapse equilibrium and comprises of L-Leucine, Pterostilbene, and Vincopetine.

As may be obvious, the blend of fixings in Alpha Brain is very powerful at delivering results.

So, we should investigate every fixing separately.

L-theanine

L-theanine is gotten from green tea and attempts to further develop your temperament which makes it incredible for those that are worried.

It is likewise known to work on your imagination and center which is the reason it's remembered for this enhancement.

L-theanine works by expanding levels of GABA and dopamine in your mind which causes you to feel more loose.

It likewise has the additional advantage of expanding alpha waves in your cerebrum which attempts to further develop memory, concentration, and in general mental capability!

Bacopa Monnieri

This home grown remove starts from India and is known for its strong cell reinforcement properties.

It's likewise been displayed to further develop memory and perception which is the reason it was remembered forAlpha Brain.

Bacopa Monnieri works by expanding levels of serotonin, dopamine, GABA, and noradrenaline in your brain.

These synapses are known for decidedly affecting both learning and temperament consequently making Bacopa a successful fixing.

Huperzia Serrata

This home grown separate is gotten from a greenery found in India and has been utilized for many years to treat various illnesses including asthma, stiffness, migraines, and even snake nibbles!

It's likewise a compelling nootropic that can upgrade mental capability which is the reason it was remembered for Alpha Brain.

Huperzia works by expanding acetylcholine levels which upgrades memory and learning capacities while additionally animating the development of new neurons in your cerebrum!

Alpha GPC

This fixing is gotten from soy lecithin and goes about as a forerunner to Acetylcholine, one of our principal synapses.

It is likewise known to further develop memory and learning capacities which makes it a viable nootropic in Alpha Brain!

It is a choline contributor which implies it works by switching over completely to acetylcholine in your cerebrum.

This upgrades memory, learning abilities, and generally mental capability!

Oat Straw Concentrate

This fixing is gotten from natural oats and attempts to work on your temperament and memory.

It likewise assists with the decrease of weakness which makes it a compelling nootropic in Alpha Brain!

Oat Straw Concentrate works by expanding serotonin levels in our minds which works on in general temperament while additionally diminishing uneasiness, stress, and strain.

It has calming and cancer prevention agent properties that advance generally mind wellbeing!

Vinpocetine

This fixing is gotten from the periwinkle plant and attempts to invigorate the development of Acetylcholine which further develops memory, learning capacities, and mental capability.

It likewise assists with center which makes it a compelling nootropic in Alpha Mind!

Vinpocetine works by expanding levels of synapses in the cerebrum which improve memory, learning abilities, and mind-set!

Phosphatidylserine

This fixing is gotten from soy and attempts to further develop memory by means of brain adaptability.

It additionally assists with center which makes it a successful nootropic in Alpha Cerebrum!

Phosphatidylserine works by expanding levels of synapses including serotonin, dopamine, GABA, and noradrenaline in the cerebrum.

These synthetic substances are known for usefully affecting mind-set, concentration, and learning capacities!

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

#the green knight #the green knight meta #sir gawain and the green knight #medieval literature #medieval history #this meta is goddamn 5.2k words #and has its own reading list #i uh #said i had a lot of thoughts?

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imbellarosa · 4 years

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Let’s Talk Calm-ly about Two Loves

OR: When you’re a grown man who writes stories for a living, you definitely wrote your own weird bedtime story, too.

The TLDR here is that H has taken one specific listener around the globe, notably to Tokyo and Jamaica. He quotes an old Victorian Poet who was an awful human but who’s lasting legacy is the phrase “a love that dare not speak its name” which is - you guessed it - a reference to queer love. He also is super excited to spend what seems like the foreseeable future with this listener and has bought a little house with a garden of daisies with them and it’s very sweet and domestic. Anyways this is a wild time and it’s all under a cut because it’s...really a lot.

Anyways I think the people I owe thank yous this times around to are @queenlokibeth who had to listen to me scream about this for a while, Astrid, who screamed with me when this came out, and “M” who convinced me to finally get to work in this fandom. And, of course, all of the lovely people tagged below who’s work I used to build my argument.

1.) Who Wrote “Dream With Me”?

Well, not H, or so the story goes. Two other people (Steve Cleverly and Sanj Sen) did! I mean, right, okay, for a while I was like...that seems like an odd choice for a man who didn’t want to hand Two Ghosts over to his own band because it seemed too personal. He wrote on every song in both albums’ he’s released thus far, because he seems to be passionate about telling the stories he wants to tell (even if he won’t tell you explicitly what they’re about). But for a while, I was totally going with the flow there, and the rest of this analysis would still stand: the writer of this story definitely referenced a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas and Harry’s own songs.

However, I then read this fun quote from the Co-founder and CEO of Calm:

“Well,” he said, “The the Harry Styles one is interesting because that came purely from Harry Styles himself...we took the approach of creating a sort of musical epic poem – he doesn’t sing, it’s spoken with poetry, but there’s a sort of musical sound bed to it and it’s pulling on things and themes that Harry’s fans really adore about him and associate with him. So his story was driven really by him – we really created a concept around him.”

- Chris Advansun, July 7th, 2020 via @hlupdate

And I thought, hmmm. This does not sound like a project that he was not involved in creating. From this point on (July, 7th 2020), I began to think of it as a three way co-collaboration between him and the other two authors. But this confused me a bit, because there was largely a nonreaction from the fandom. I was waiting for an actual transcript, because I always fall asleep to these meditation stories, but it was being referenced to as some sort of Y/N fic, which was...honestly not what I expected, but also not implausible, thanks to the ~lovely~ image this man has had since the age of sixteen. But also, twitter seemed to be concerned by other things at the moment, and no one was analyzing the story. .

In fact, I messaged a friend the day that this story dropped, because it had been kind of a shit show day on Twitter. Rumors were sort of flying about everyone and everything: had Liam shaved his head? Was he engaged? Had he and Maya broken up? Were Zayn and Gigi engaged? Had they broken up? Did Niall have a girlfriend? (this one was true lol). Were Elounor engaged? Were they pregnant? Had they broken up??? My personal fav was the bald Liam rumor, which he promptly put to rest in LP Act 1 by...having a huge mane of hair.

So then I thought - huh. Why has today looked like this? I’m not saying that there aren’t days that twitter goes wild because of boredom, because there definitely is - the articles about secret meetings in Italy that are coming out this week (8/12/2020) are proof positive. So that definitely does happen, but it doesn’t usually happen on the days that there’s a lot of content. And maybe I’ve just been starved for content in this fandom, but I would consider a 40 minute video quite a bit of content.

Then the transcript dropped. I’m using two as references - this one on Wattpad and also @carl-and-pearl ‘s version here (thank you so much for the transcript!!). We’re going to get into a more detailed description of what’s going on in the story, but the first thing I recognized immediately is that it was first person POV. I knew that going in, based on the number of Y/N jokes going around on twitter. Then I read it aloud, and I realized that it read like a letter. Like an experience specific to the writer and the reader. And while that’s not super uncommon to write about an experience from the author’s POV - I listen to a podcast called Nothing Much Happens: bedtime stories for adults which has a similar concept - I thought it was odd that they were trying to include both the author and the listener. I completely understood why the y/n jokes were pertinent. But at the same time, it felt like something had snagged in my mind - like a particularly annoying splinter.

The conversations I was having around this story - completely based on the content, concept, and my own instinct - was that this story contained specific references to one person. I thought that it did read like a love letter, and that most identifying features would have been taken out, but the essence remained. Which, once I thought about it, was something that H excelled at doing. Think about Sunflower Vol 6 and Adore You and Canyon Moon and even Watermelon Sugar and Golden. Ask yourself, What do I know about the person they are about? They have skin that browns, they have a secret, they have mesmerizing eyes, they’re willing to dance in the kitchen with him (to dancehall), they have a belly, they’ve been through hard times, they’re witty, they have an accent, and they have lips. I know - super specific right?

So the splinter grew into a thorn - what was I missing? And then - when I was looking for something completely different - I stumbled upon this old interview Harry did with Zach Sang and the Gang Show back in 2017. For context, he was being asked about Sweet Creature. As you can imagine, it’s hard for people to believe he wrote such a beautiful love song when he hadn’t ever really had a long term relationship (two hearts in one home?? Who did you move in with, you can imagine them asking. When did you have time?). So what did he have to say about this?

"In my opinion,” he explained, “I think most songs are written for one listener. Maybe there's one thing in there that only they'll notice about them.... It's so much easier to say something in a song than it is to say it to someone and I think it's really amazing to be able to communicate through that and be able to wrap up everything that you want to say in three and a half minutes and say it in a song."

- HS, May 3 2017

By this time, please believe that I was screeching. Seeing this felt like he put into words the exact feeling I had about “Dream With Me”. It felt like a nod to someone that I didn’t know, which made the story hard to listen to, tbh. Although, I will say that when I did finally listen to it, it knocked me out and gave me odd dreams so. Once was enough for me haha!

So my new operating theory is exactly what Advansun said: I think that H was the primary writer/the driving force behind the story. Because of the references I’m about to run through, because it feels like the way he tells stories, and because they admitted to him being more involved than they originally claimed. That’s going to be how I write the rest of the analysis - under the impression that H had a direct hand in the story that was being put forth. However, I think that the analysis itself would stand whether or not he wrote any of it. It would just be a more tenuous reflection of him than I believe it to be.

2.) How Do I Love Thee? In Two Ways.

Before I jump into the story, let’s talk a little about the poem that I want to compare it to: Two Loves, by Lord Alfred Douglas. Let’s be clear this is not at all a defense of who Bosie was - he was a terrible person, particularly in his later years, when he’d converted to Catholicism and turned his back on his younger self, and his partner, Oscar Wilde. He was violently anti-Semitic, and turned his back on his own community. I want to get this out of the way because I very much believe that we should examine artists for who they are. That is, after all, what I am trying to do here.

But his poem Two Loves has often been used - much to his disappointment, I’m sure - as an exploration of queer love in Victorian times. A line that I will be exploring more deeply in a second was in fact used against Oscar Wilde in his trail for indecency . He attempted - unsuccessfully - to explain it away, but it was too blatantly about their relationship for even the British Victorian society to ignore. I really, really recommend a read of this poem, because it is - despite it’s author - a good piece of work, which explores the themes of shame and love and longing between two men in that time.

I’m going to start with my own background, as someone who’s analyzed fandoms before. I first came across this poem in the Sherlock fandom, with this analysis by @the-7-percent-solution, when I was running in that fandom, and she explains the poem brilliantly in just a few lines. I’m going to take a little longer to run through it, but if you want a concise explanation and a brilliant meta, I encourage you to run to their blog and check it out. That fandom taught me most everything I know about catching symbols and recurring themes and “clueing for looks” and I love it desperately, still.

But we’re here to talk about this fandom, so on with the poem! Essentially, the poem outlines a dream the speaker had: In his dream, he’s standing in a field with flowers - beautiful ones of all kind - and he meets this young man with clear blue eyes and bright red lips and they kiss a bit and have a picnic, and it’s all lovely. If you think I’m kidding, I’m really not. Please, read it for yourself.

Anyways, after they did they did the whole picnic thing, the speaker and his date go on a walk in this field, where they come across two figures. The first is described as,

“...fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy, His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy; And in his hand he held an ivory lute With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were.”

- Two Loves, 1894

The speaker, however, was drawn to the second figure:

“He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame..”

- Two Loves, 1984

Of course, the speaker immediately asks the second man who he is. The second man says, “My name is Love”. The first man corrects him quickly:

“ He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.”

-Two Loves, 1984

The second man sighs and acquiesces, “Have thy will. I am the love that dare not speak its name.”

It was, of course, this last line that really gave the meaning of the poem away. It was the line that was put to Oscar Wilde as proof of a romantic relationship, it was the line that went down in history as a way to refer to queer love, and it was the line that first stuck out to me when I was reading “Dream With Me”.

The reading here is clearly that “Love” is the love that is acceptable to society - easy, sweet, and cherished. “Shame” is the love that happens in secret - beautiful, alluring to the speaker, passionate, anxious ( as can be seen in the clenching and unclenching of his hands), and proud. He refuses to call himself as anything but what he is. The first man may call him Shame, but he refuses the name, and instead, offers a qualifier to his own descriptor. He is still love, he is just the love that can’t be spoken about.

3.) Walking in Golden Fields of Sunflowers

Now let’s talk about “Dream With Me”. I’m ignoring the first few stanzas (from the line “Have you ever wondered” to “What the two of us can find”.) because those are pretty standard introductory paragraphs to a guided meditation. So we start with the line “Let’s travel now to moonlit valleys...”.

I’m going to do the same thing I did with “Two Loves” first. I am going to describe literally, in general terms, what happens in the story. Warning, I change pronouns from “they” to “you” because the whole thing confuses me, but note that I’m always talking about the speaker and the listener:

So after doing the standard intro, the speaker and the listener take a walk through the woods enjoying nature, particularly the grass, the trees, and the blue sky above. You’re already clearly in love. Then you’re magically on a raft, with cherry blossoms all around you. If you want a good visual for that, here’s a site that has pictures from a boat rental in Tokyo where you can snuggle on a raft in the Chidorigafuchi moat. And then suddenly it starts raining, and they (you) watch the rain for a hot second, and then the scene magically shifts again, and you’re under a porch (although I guess it could be the boat rental’s porch. They do usually have covered areas).

Kind of furthering that theory, they then lounge by the shoreline, skipping stones and hanging out, looking at the snow capped mountains. In case you’re curious, because at this point I sure was, you can see mountains from certain areas in the city of Tokyo.

Anyways, then it’s snowing, and you’re magically in a cabin, just chilling by the fire, and you fall asleep again. You wake up somewhere else.

Where are you now? Well, you’re on a tropical island filled with palm trees. As an American, my mind immediately jumps to the Caribbean, but I suppose it could absolutely be in the Mediterranean as well. The island has white beaches, mangroves, a turquoise ocean, and a gorgeous, peaceful atmosphere.

If you’re curious as to what a mangrove looks like - and I certainly was - they are a group of trees and shrubs that live in the coastal intertidal zone and Jamaica is doing a massive restoration project involving primary school children to regrow this vital part of their ecosystem. More interestingly, there currently exist no mangrove forests in the Mediterranean, so my initial feeling that this scene would take place in the Caribbean was correct. On that note - again, because I was curious - Jamaica has gorgeous white sand beaches with turquoise oceans.

But I’ve gone off topic again! After you’re minds are “in tune” once more (trying to find a heartbeat, anyone?), you reappear in a meadow, with beautiful flowers of all kind, where you are now walking hand in hand through a field of sunflowers, which give the feeling a “warm and golden hue”. Then you come across a little farmhouse with daisies poking out (clearly I have no way of locating this anywhere in the world, but I assume that the UK has both sunflowers and daisies). It’s an empty house which was loved and left because of the passage of time, which inspires my favorite line in the poem: “ The thought of passing time inspires/A feeling that grows stronger”. It’s just...really sweet to me.

So, of course, they do what anyone would do when they come across an empty farmhouse, they go inside. And there, they begin to fall asleep, reflecting on all they have just seen, referencing other scenes of the poem: “ Moonlit valleys, Burdened forests, Gazing at the ocean. Summer meadows, Tranquil sunsets steeped in emotion”.

The next few stanzas are just going to be copy-pasted, and then I’ll go into them a bit, but this is the end of the poem, so they’re the final reflections;

“The tenderness we feel When we are close Two minds as one Surrounds us and connects us But we’ve only just begun.

For now we dream together Of all there is to follow. And know that sleep will keep us safe From now until tomorrow.

Maybe all the memories That we’ve gathered here tonight Are all dreams now remembered Or wishes in plain sight.

No matter what They’re with us now. For this night and forever. And every time we close our eyes They’re yours and mine to treasure.”

- HS, Dream With Me, via @carl-and-pearl

And that’s it! The literal story, in short, is that you started in a forest, then went to Tokyo (maybe) and then Jamaica (perhaps) and then back to a field of sunflowers and daisies in the UK (which is also a guess, it could be Italy or France or Idaho for all I know, but let’s call it an educated guess).

4.) My Dream Journal

So now that we know what happens in the story, how do we interpret this? Well, There are a few lines in the poem that I want to draw your attention to: the first takes place in the first part of this story, when you’re still in the forest. This is, I must say, the most direct reference to Two Loves in the whole poem/song/story. Both works are describing a walk in the woods with your loved one, and, in a fun reference in the middle of the story, Dream With Me says

The shimmering reflection Shows us smiling from above. But what we think But dare not speak is L-O-V-E love.

-Dream With Me, 2020

Remember that line I mentioned before? I am the love that dare not speak its name. Right, so that’s almost a direct quote. It also has a really fun nod to “I Would” (Would he say he’s in L-O-V-E?/Well if it was me then I would), but I digress.

This first part of the narrative, I feel, really sets up what the rest of it will look and feel like, in the same way that “Golden” sets the tone for Fine Line. (You didn’t think I was going to make a post about Harry and NOT mention Golden, did you?? If you did, I’m disappointed!!). So let’s take a look at what’s happening, and the language he’s using to describe it.

One of the best things about this poem is how vivid it feels. Of course, I’m about to argue that it’s vivid because it was based in reality, but let’s talk about the sheer amount of detail he uses to describe the place he’s walking through. The valley (canyon lmao) is moonlit, the grass and the leaves make mosaics of green, you’re walking by the heather (the symbolism of heather is good luck, admiration, and protection), the sepia sunlight breaks through the trees.

You know what it kind of sounds like? Sweet Creature. You’re about to roll your eyes at me! I can feel it! But listen, okay?

“Sweet creature Running through the garden Oh, where nothing bothered us But we're still young I always think about you and how we don't speak enough”

Which, to be honest, sounds like what they’re doing. They’re walking through the garden in the sun, not daring to speak about the Love that he (they both) feel, and instead refering to it in veiled Victorian terms.

And then we head to Tokyo! I know that you’re about to ask me why I think it’s Tokyo versus...idk, anywhere else? Well, for one, he went to Tokyo (to let it go) publicly in 2019. He was there for a few months, and there are some great pictures of that time:

Look! Here he is with his club owner friend and his dog, and a fun red bandanna! But let’s be honest, the dog really steals the show here. But wait! there’s more! More dog content, too!

This was on Jan 31st, 2019, and he’s taking the dog for a walk! Very cute! If nothing else, he spent a lot of time with dogs in Tokyo! And the city fits the description of the story. So I feel rather comfortable with my interpretation that this first date is a memory of this trip - or another - to Tokyo.

So what did “you both”do in Tokyo? Well, chill on a raft while the cherry blossoms flutter around you, clearly. You also refocused your purpose. What did he do in Tokyo in 2019? Well, he took time to think about and write songs for the album he was about to go record. Kind of like refocusing on what’s next, right? And then, in the story when “you both” had time to think amongst the lake and the water and the rain and the moon, and you’d come to the conclusions you needed to, you left. What did he do when he did the things he needed to? Well, he left, too.

And where did he go? Well, in real life, I suppose he went to do his job. But, in the story, you’re meant to be falling deeper and deeper into sleep, so it’s sort of like traveling backwards, you see? Like counting down to one. So you end up on this island with turquoise ocean and mangrove forests. I’m calling this Jamaica. Why? Well, the description fits, for one, down to the four types of mangroves that exists within its ecosystem.

And - probably the biggest reason - I can place him there, too. Here’s him in 2017:

I added this picture because the water around him....looks rather turquoise, doesn’t it? Kind of like he’s enjoying his time on a tropical island by the beach?? Oh, and here’s another one!:

The red bandanna makes a comeback!

So what are you doing in Jamaica, according to the story? Well, you’re hanging out, basically. Enjoying the beach and each other, of course! What else? To be exact, “[Your] thoughts dovetail and unify/ In tune two minds together”. I’m so glad that you’re tuned like an old guitar now! Congrats! Really happy for you!

What was he doing in Jamaica three years ago? Why, he was recording his first album, or so the story goes. I’ll tell you something: finding press for that album was literally the most difficult part of this whole analysis. I got a fair bit of the tattoo roulette with Kendall Jenner, and some things about Carolina, but the interview with Zach Sang took me like an hour and a half to find again to link. The fact that a lot of it has been buried is...not great, for posterity purposes. He’s going to want that one day.

But I’ve gotten off track again! We gotta go back and finish our story, right? What happens now? Well, this does:

hahahaha okay, I’m really sorry, but I had to. I’m not, actually, making it up though! According to the story:

“ As minutes turn to hours We drift off somewhere new. And visualize a stairway To a door we now walk through”

- Dream With Me, 2020

So maybe Louis was just...demonstrating for you.

Anyways! Where do you walk out to? A golden field full of sunflowers. You walk for a minute, then come across an old house with daisies popping up out of the garden. And that’s where the story ends. I guess you’ve made that farmhouse feel like home.

Now to the little reflection he does on the outro. The lines I want to bring your attention are: “The tenderness we feel when we are close two minds as one surrounds us and connects us but we’ve only just begun” and “Maybe all the memories that we’ve gathered here tonight are all dreams now remembered or wishes in plain sight.”

Let’s talk about the first sentence first. In the context of finding a home that could be a shared home, and a future, this is very much an “end of the story, beginning of our lives” sort of thing. You’re back from all over, and it’s time to settle down, and see what’s next.

And now the second sentence. I think this is the one that really drives my point about this story being a collection of memories he has - that’s what he calls it. The story is “gathered memories” that might also be called “remembered dreams” (think of how people say of vacations, “oh it was a dream!”) or you might call it “wishes in plain sight”. This feels in line with the rest of the story. In this stanza, he’s sort of letting you in a bit. If I’ve read this right - and I really think that I have - he’s giving the larger context for the story. It’s a collection of memories he’s had with someone he loves.

5.) Cool! Can you prove it?

I mean, I’d argue that if you read this far, I have proved it, but let’s make some more links, shall we? This was called a “muscial epic” that was “driven by him”. I’d argue that if I know my Victorian literature (thank you, Sherlock!), then he definitely does. Then there’s the fact that he quoted it, so. That did happen. And he knows what it means. And even if he didn’t, there were two other people on the story. Someone was more than capable of catching that one, and the fact that they didn’t speaks to intent. They want you to think of that phrase when you read this poem. They want you to think of that walk in the woods while you’re going on this one.

And, as for my assumption that this is for and about one person, well. Think about it. He said that he writes his songs for a single listener. I’m not saying it’s the same listener each time, let’s get that right, but it is always just for one person. With that, and with the assumption that he’s been involved in the writing of this story, I’d say that the same rule applies. He went with someone to Japan and Jamaica (J^2 haha). And, if I had to guess, it was the same person.

Why, you ask? Well, for one, if that weren’t the case, then this poem would no longer be for one listener, it would be for multiple. And, for another, imagine how awkward it would be to listen to it with his current partner and have to explain “oh, yeah that was the super romantic vacation I took with someone else” . And, I suppose that because I think that attitude of “refocusing” and “dovetailing” and “tuning” and getting excited about imagining all of the tomorrows with your partner speaks to a long term relationship breathing easily, you know?

I’m also going to argue that describing the aura around the house as “golden” was intentional, especially when paired with the location - in the middle of a field of sunflowers. Those are both direct references to his songs. And those two songs are particularly linked by the number 28. The third song that features 28 is Fine Line the song, but that’s a different story. Anywho! “Golden”’s bridge just repeats the word ‘golden’ twenty eight times (if you go here , you can count the bridge) and “Sunflower Vol. 6″ ends the song with 28 “boops” (believe me, I wish I was making this up. I’m not.). So then, once again, you’ve linked a story to two already linked songs.

And, even if you don’t buy the intentional repetition, they’re linked another way, aren’t they? The color scheme and the sun symbol. Sunflowers were named because of their sun-like appearance. They turn to face it. They symbolize loyalty and adoration. And then, of course, the sun is - say it with me - golden. And it - like the person in golden - waits in the sky, beautiful and dangerous and constant. And here that symbol is, in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. At home.

This whole story feels like you’re taking the time to find that heartbeat that you think you might have lost, and sort of coming back to a space where you understand that this is what you want, now and forever. It feels like finding a home that could be yours forever, and it feels like walking through some of the moments that remind him of that.

It really is rather lovely, if you think about it, especially since he has a tendency to attribute “home” to people rather than place, in his songs. So it’s like. Going all around the world and always being at home.

#harry styles #calm #dream with me #two loves #honestly man #im happy for you #but ewww #be less sappy please #i mean #SOME OF US DONT HAVE THAT YET HAROLD #hahahaha i think im funny #long post ts #idk how else to tag this but im really proud of it #okay now i'll do the penguin song #promise hahaha

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clockworkouroboros · 4 years

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I’m in a The Amazing Devil Discord server and have been going wild with crazy insane theories about just about everything, drawing connections that probably don’t actually exist, and generally losing my mind over both Love Run and The Horror and the Wild. That being said, I do have a theory about THatW that, if it’s not true, at least merits me a tinfoil hat, I think. Just be warned, this post will be long, and yes, I will include receipts.

So here’s this theory and Joey, if you read this, just know that I’m impressed either at how much thought was put into this, or the sheer number of coincidences that make this work if it wasn’t planned. It’s turned me into a conspiracy theorist for the past four days or so? And it’s severely affected the amount of sleep I’ve been getting.

My basic theory here is that Joey and Madeleine aren’t singing as themselves throughout this album, they’re playing characters, and those characters are old gods. Joey is the Wild, Madeleine is Time. (Alternatively, she’s Horror, fitting with the album title, but as she’s never explicitly referred to as such, I’m not insisting on that point.)

Now, where am I getting this silly idea from? None other than the title track, of course, in which Joey sings, “witness me, old man, I am the Wild, and Madeleine sings, “And I am Time itself.” And yes, they are both capitalized like that in the lyrics.

So they explicitly refer to themselves as such. But Emily, you might be saying (or not, depending on how much you care), that’s one song! This is hardly an album’s worth of proof! Sure, they might be gods in this song, but what about the other eight? To which I say, hoo boy, I’m just getting started.

Before I continue, I’d like to add something about how their characters are depicted throughout the album: Joey is more cheerful, Madeleine is not. (see: Wild Blue Yonder, Marbles, Battle Cries.) Joey is whimsical, Madeleine is practical. (See Battle Cries especially, but you can also see this in Wild Blue Yonder.) Madeleine is referred to multiple times as being stronger than Joey, and appears to assume a more protective role over Joey’s childlike. This fits in with my theory, by the way, in a roundabout sort of way that involves some squinting. Joey is the Wild, which is...well, wild. Think of little kids: cheerful, whimsical, in need of protection. Madeleine is Time. She knows what has been, what is, and what will be. Of course she’s going to be more mature, practical, and pessimistic.

And why is this important? Well, it’s kind of how I’m tying together a lot of the rest of the album. (Not all of it; Farewell Wanderlust is a notable outlier in many ways, and some of my connections are tenuous at best, but we’re going to ignore that and pretend it’s all rock-solid. Rockrose-solid. I’m sorry, I’m very tired.) I’m ignoring The Rockrose and the Thistle a little bit in this post, not because I dislike it (it’s gorgeous), but because it’s stubbornly eluding my attempts to tie it into anything other than Elsa’s Song, which isn’t even part of this album.

The vast majority of what you need to know about these two characters is in The Horror and the Wild (the song), so I’m gonna copy/paste some lyrics, and go through them. (Actually, the copy/pasting is nonexistent, these lyrics are imprinted on my brain at this point. That being said, if there are errors, lmk and I will edit the post and fix them!)

So we’ve got Madeleine starting, singing about Joey, with “You were raised by wolves and voices, every night I hear them howling deep beneath your bed, they said it all comes down to you.” Aside from the fact that I have no clue why “it all” comes down to Joey, or anything with that last bit, maybe a few more late nights with a tinfoil hat will do the trick. That being said, the first line of the song references childhood specifically in relation to Joey. Notice also how wolves are referenced in Wild Blue Yonder (“we don’t know what’s out there/could be wolves”) and That Unwanted Animal (“‘What’s the time, Mr. Wolf,’ but you, you’re blind, you bleat, you bear your claws”). The whole “howling” thing and “deep beneath your bed” both pop up in That Unwanted Animal, too: “and on the wind it howls,” for one. And for the other, there’s “you [presumably Joey] make the bed up silent on the floor so no one hears us,” later followed later in the song by “and the door below us splinters, and the creature creeps inside.”

Following this, Joey sings about Madeleine: “you’re the daughter of silent watching stones, you watch the stars hurl all their fundaments, in wonderment at you and yours, forever asking more.” First of all, I’m gonna say that this is Joey’s point of view; later on, Madeleine will refute the daughter thing (“I’m not a drunkard, a daughter, a preacher”.) Anyway, “silent watching stones” could reference Wild Blue Yonder: “every stone you threw, I stood on to better see the view.” The view being the stars hurling all their fundaments?

(Incidentally, I knew vaguely what “fundament” meant, but I looked it up to make sure I had it right, and learned that, among its other meanings, “fundament” can mean “butt.” But I don’t think that’s what Joey had in mind with this. I just think y’all should appreciate it.)

Anyway, we’ve also got in Battle Cries, “With you I could summon the gods and the stars, make them dance out the plays that we wrote from the heart, and we’d laugh at the ghosts of our fears,” with Madeleine singing, “Come on, love, please don’t start, sing your notes play your part,” and then the part that gets me every time: M: “we were gods,” J: “we were kids.” Which is a whole other can of worms involving their personalities, which I’ve already briefly outlined. My point is the whole “gods and the stars” bit.

I could (and have, on Discord) done a full, in-depth analysis of this track, and I don’t want to go all over it again, but “I promise you, they’ll sing of every Time you passed your fingers through my hair and called me child, witness me, old man, I am the Wild” has both Time and Wild as proper nouns in the lyrics, plus reinforces Time’s view of the Wild as a child. No clue who the old man is, though.

In verse two, Madeleine sings, “you [Joey] are the son of every dressing-up box, and I am Time itself, I slow and let you play, I steal the hours, and turn the night into day.” Again, this reinforces Joey’s childlike aspects (which will later be hinted at in That Unwanted Animal, with the “god-child,” who’s clearly Joey), but also shows, as in the refrain, the fact that Time has a sense of protectiveness over the Wild, at least sometimes.

That being said, although I’ve obviously referenced other songs, I still have mostly focused on the title track. So. I’m going to go through some of the other songs real quick.

The songs on the album (again, excepting Rockrose, because my attempts to tie it in have been frustrating and not gone anywhere, Mr. Batey please explain) can be grouped into categories: songs outright referencing gods (THatW, Farewell Wanderlust, That Unwanted Animal, Battle Cries), songs about their relationship, (arguably all of them, although Welly Boots is a bit confusing), and songs that refuse to allow me to classify them (Rockrose).

I would argue that this entire album is about the relationship of two old gods, but I’m not quite sure what the chronology is of the album, because it seems like it can’t be straightforward. (Farewell Wanderlust, although its placement makes sense in the setup of the album, doesn’t make sense in the chronology of this theory.) Another important note in some way is that every song on the album, with the exception of Farewell Wanderlust, is about being there for someone, or steadfastness in some capacity, while Farewell Wanderlust is about abandonment. It’s an outlier in a lot of ways. (Though not as many ways as frickin Rockrose.)

I have been talking about this at great length (and almost incessantly) on Discord, so unless you want this post to get even longer, I’m going to run by some lyrics real quick to try and show a little bit my thought process.

- “He watches her get dressed as though she’s hurtling through time” (Fair)

- “And she is stronger than he has ever been, he knows” (Fair) versus “Without you, I’m stronger, I’m no longer filled with wonder. How wrong you were” (Wild Blue Yonder, Welly Boots)

- J: “Place your hand in mine” M: “Hold the hand of the god-child, they said, as he falls from the sky” (That Unwanted Animal)

- “I’m the saint of the paint that was left in the pot, I’m your angel ellipsis, your devil of dots” (Farewell Wanderlust)

- “the fluttering of all your wings” (The Horror and the Wild) versus “when you think about him, my wings start to flap” (Farewell Wanderlust)

- “come, devil, come, she sang, call out my name. Let’s take this outside, ‘cos we’re one and the same. Our gods have abandoned us, left us, instead, take up arms, take my hand, let us waltz for the dead” (Farewell Wanderlust)

There are even more lyrics, and I’m going to be completely honest with you, I’ve gone totally insane with all of this, but this post is way too long already, so just let me know if you want any clarification or something.

Tldr: The Amazing Devil’s album The Horror and the Wild is about two old gods, one being Time, and the other being the Wild, or the god-child. The album is primarily about their relationship and steadfastness they show each other, even in tumultuous circumstances.

Now go excuse me while I attempt to take off this tinfoil hat that appears to be stuck on my head.

#music #the amazing devil #joey batey #madeleine hyland #the horror and the wild #long post #i’m...so sorry #i needed some sort of record #because enough conversation has passed on discord that those posts are now lost to time #anyway here y’all go #man joey if you read this pls don’t judge me too hard

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kitsoa · 3 years

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So, about your Theory ...

So, we talked on Reddit a while ago, Kitsoa, and I have some more thoughts about your theory. It’s more rambling and longer than what I previously intended – my apologies for this.

Kitsoa- Hello again! I’ll reply in brief through quotes though I’m not interested in doing a solid defense of my theory. Mostly it’s a lot of creative stretching using the crumbs of the narrative and I’m not feeling particularly impassioned to bring out the counter citations nor do I think it necessary.

Also: I have written and re-iterated upon this meta theory of mine multiple times so if I am not referencing the correct Original Post in question that’s probably because I never bothered to do a big manifesto and I will take the fall for that confusion.

It’s certainly very interesting but parts of it seem to not only be unsupported but outright contradicted by the games. For instance, take your surmise that Xehanort’s villainy is motivated by his knowledge of the KH world as fictional and his self-knowledge that he has to play the role of the villain to create a conflict and thus sustain the universe. His actual speech in Re:Mind after Dark Road’s world tour points to something else:

“All around the world people live seemingly peaceful lives. They believe themselves to be moral and virtuous, but it’s all an act. Darkness lurks in the pit of everyone’s heart. Their light is a total farce. Those who are weak, and who desire greater power, simply strip the strong of their power, and convince themselves they’ve earned it. That’s how people become tainted by darkness. They believe what they want them to believe, using hollow reasons as justification. They repeat this cycle, and their darkness grows. No, its better they be ruled by darkness. People carry delusions of having power, but it’s a lie. They are but sheep pretending to be wolves. Though I can admit, I can understand why.”

This edgy little diatribe isn’t about the nature of the universe or Xehanort’s own origin … it’s about his view of human (or talking animal, w/e) nature. It’s a similar theme to his final speech in KH3, and ends not with him concluding that he needs to play the role of a villain to create conflict ,,, but that to prevent the KH universe collapsing into chaos, he needs to become its absolute godlike ruler. Which is what sets up the conflict, yes, but his goal isn’t explicitly to create conflict to keep the universe going.

Re: Xehanorts motive aligning with a meta-awareness on his ‘role’ as a villain. This is a theme I was definitely playing with. Xehanort is clearly symbolic of the corrupting pursuit of knowledge and we have a god-like encounter spark stranger behavior yet. It’s a fascinating trope yes? Corrupted by the Truth. Saving the world by sacrificing the world. That was my angle. The World Tour from Re:mind had him summarizing his villainous disdain and I’ll agree that it gives him no direction towards a ‘role’. But I also take note of the fact that this enlightenment comes directly from the actions of the chessmaster MoM who could feasibly manipulate Xehanort towards a conflict-sparking war. If Xehanort isn’t directly and consciously responsible for fulfilling the metacontextual requirements for a ‘story’ then MoM is. And as I’ve stated it probably comes from a more experimental god-mode type motive.

And again, your argument that time doesn’t really exist in the Disney worlds until Sora arrives and this is related to them literally being stories that he’s diving into. I don’t know where you get this from, at all. We go into Disney worlds and experience plots unrelated to the films (KH1 Olympus, Halloween Town); we go into Disney worlds in medias res (too many to count); we go into Disney worlds before the movie’s events take place (BBS Deep Space, Neverland); we even go into Disney worlds in-between or after the movies’ events (KH3 Toy Box, San Fransokyo). Which rather gets in the way of a simplistic “Sora arrives in the Disney world, time starts flowing forward and the movie starts” look at things. You’d previously characterized this as “every world has its unique story” which IMO would be a more reasonable way to look at things rather than the stronger “the worlds literally are the stories and nothing else”.

I’ll defend this a little. The entire concept of the Worlds as Stories demands only that we recognize a higher reality. A reader/audience/ creator relationship with the happenings. When I say ‘time doesn’t exist’ I’m saying it doesn’t matter. The only thing that does matter is the time spent there by Sora (or his subsidiaries). Time is going to move between visits but not at a pace that runs independently of Sora (and co). And all of the events within those worlds are unique to the source material-- on the virtue of having Sora. But when I say the worlds are the stories, I mean it... metaphysically. The relationship between the greater kh multi-verse (and no greater) and these literal planet world island things is that of stories given form. Most all of my KH musings come from the very simple concept that formless metaphysical concepts like love, bonds, imagination, memories etc are literal, tangible things. Tangible. In this, Worlds are not so much another universe equal to other universes. They are a story, fictional and potentially subservient to a greater reality. It’s only from that understanding that I add the extra layer upon KH (and Quadratum by later extension) itself.

The exact logic behind this reasoning is cyclic. KH is a fictional story to the literal higher reality (us) and seeing how there's a parallel within the narrative, I just applied that logic within the universe and used my understanding of the ‘literal metaphysics’ theme going on with other lore concepts.

Power of Waking ejecting Sora into “real reality”: This analysis is based on the idea that Sora is “waking himself up” out of dream states until he “wakes up” out of KH reality into “real reality”. But YMX tells him (and implicitly us, via the conventions of this kind of villainous exposition) that Sora is repeating the same error he made in 3D and sending himself into the abyss at the bottom of the Realm of Darkness, not doing the opposite thing and “waking himself up” out of KH reality.

I’ll just punt Power of Waking stuff. There is a lot of stuff with the power but I take most of the speculation from the name and the results. There’s a big interweave of darkness that can support or deny my thoughts within the next sentence and I’m electing now to wait and see. Sora abuses the power of waking-- ends up in another reality. Waking--> realities--> dreams--> sleep. Run with the word association. I like to think the ambiguity with sleep and the darkness of abyss has more to say about the nature of reality as a whole ergo: “everything is a dream” concepts that are hard to swallow. What is waking up, if you find yourself deeper in sleep? Nonesense stuff like that.

MoM as Creator of the KH universe/Quadratum as the “higher reality”: Not only is he presented as a clear villain figure; given that the rest of the Foretellers are based on the Seven Deadly Sins, MoM as their leader would clearly represent the sin of pride. We also have him saying in Back Cover that he “might” disappear from the KH world, suggesting that it was beyond his control; and Luxu’s report suggests that the KH3 Keyblade War was engineered to open a means for him to return to the KH universe, presumably via Sora going to where he is in Quadratum/”unreality”.

I believe strongly in this still. MoM can be a villainous figure and at the mercy of universal laws while still being the Creator and denizen of a higher plane. I try not to dig into scenarios too much but follow me here: Creator of the world, literally self-inserts himself into a world of his own creation. He’s a verified Mad Scientist who of course likes to experiment and test his creations and he does so directly, physically, to them. There, he put them on auto-pilot and is watching Characterization carry on. I am not claiming that he is breaking the rules of his own universe and traveling in and out with ease. Nor am I saying if he is exercising any sort of Creator-granted power over their will. He’s there, he’s interacting with them, and he’s watching them. I find it to be an intentional obstaining of power. Self imposed limitations OR an understood sacrifice for this meddling (think, giving up ‘divine’ form to live amongst his ‘mortal’ creations in divine parallel. he is at the will of his universe but not out of control.)

When he says he ‘might’ disappear not only is he being vague on purpose to terrorize his high-strung apprentices but he’s made no indication that it’s something against his intention. And the actions taken by Luxu in formulating his return mean nothing to his plan or his ability or his potential Creator status. I can’t stress how Long Game I perceive MoM’s actions to be. All in the effort to observe, toy, and curate the perfect... something. And since I am talking about the literal nature of stories, I mean the ‘perfect’ story.

Also, we may note that if it was truly a “higher reality”, Quadratum wouldn’t be noted as the fictional Verum Rex video game in KH3 – there’d be no explicit sign at all of its existence, as it would be the higher reality generating the lower one. Which suggests that what may actually be the case, if the series is going meta, is that KH-verse and Quadratum view each other as fictional – in which case MoM would be somebody falsely claiming or believing to be the Creator, which makes sense in relation to the sin he represents.

Not that I’m saying KH-verse isn’t generated by a higher reality/being; but I don’t feel that the higher reality is Quadratum or that the higher being is MoM. There was a fairly interesting post on Reddit comparing KH to Plato’s world of the forms; in which case Kingdom Hearts would be the higher reality from which both regular KH-verse and Quadratum are generated. Or “unreality” really is a “lower reality” than the regular KH-verse, which TBF seems a bit less likely than “’reg. KH-verse’ and ‘unreality’ view each other as mutually fictional but are actually ontologically equal”.

I think my theory posts predate most of the Quadratum reveal so the details of the reveal haven’t been accounted for in my words but I did call it when breaking down Remind’s Yozora scenario. That said yes, I think there is a higher reality and I feel like you mentioned it outright. I see KH and Quadratum as equal fictional realities, segregated but connected through creator. Some of my earlier meta posts before re:mind saw Quadratum as the “higher reality” (or like “host reality”) until the presence of an author between them became apparent enough. We can potentially consider MoM=the author as a separate subject in this respect as it’s not entirely dependant on that reveal. Ultimately, my point in this caveat of the theory is that the relationship between KH and Quadratum strikes an intentionally meta-referential parallel to the actual creator Nomura. That’s an angle that is very audacious and I have full understanding in the denial but it’s my supporting evidence to a higher power within the re:mind secret episode alone. As for the ‘unreality’ I literally think that is just a way for them to say ‘fictional’ without saying the word, not necessarily an indication of ‘rank’ (for lack of a better word). I use a little reverse logic on the reveal in Melody of Memory when I claim they are ‘equal fictional realities’. No one thinks to assume that they themselves are also “fake” so it;s not a stretch to believe that the reverse assumption could be true. This putting KH and Quadratum on the same level and almost guaranteeing a connection through a mutual creator.

Now, you also talk about the Whispers in FF7R, but in that they’re in-universe contextualised as “guardians of destiny”, essentially manifestations of the Will of the Planet. Which just goes to show what I talked about earlier – the meta-level of a story can’t exist without a surface-level narrative. We know that the Whispers out-of-universe represent fan anger at changes to the plotline; but they’re presented as something in-universe, which can be defeated by in-universe forces (another reason I doubt it as it seems to leave no room for our heroes’ victory in the confrontation with MoM that’s being teased as the next saga).

I bring up the Whispers to note a synonymous use of the words ‘destiny’ and ‘fate’ to ‘story and ‘narrative’ Not explicitly of course, that would break the 4th wall, but its a subtext that's easier seen in a ‘remake’ because of direct references and deviations being drawn. I think the same synonymous use can be applied when brought up in KH because of their common creative entity.

Finally: How do you see this “metapocalypse” of yours playing out as an actual KH game? We know the conventions well enough by now – a trip through Disney worlds fighting monsters and villains in flashy shonen-style combat, being stalked and looked over ominously from afar by a council of villains with mysterious schemes. Then an invasion of the villains’ lair by the heroes with a final serving of flashy, SFX-heavy boss battles, a number of dramatic plot twists and arc resolutions, and an ending with the villains’ schemes having been at least forestalled. Then we get the ending credits; with an epilogue, a superboss and a secret ending all hinting at more to come.

Well I’m glad you asked! Honestly, I’m basically writing a fanfiction about it. I’m writing the story in part to engage some of these theories/speculations into a serviceable game narrative. So I’ll be vague:

Thematically: This breaking the 4th wall has the power to thematically drive home concepts of free will, defining your personhood and defying expectations. Furthermore, you have questions like... what makes something real? What makes it matter and what’s important? With growing up and the sanctity of youth being a constant struggle as the series and the characters age, the reverence in imagination and growing connections to things that aren’t stereotypically ‘real’ is a strong concept. If I were to break down the big message simply: As long as it’s real in your heart it doesn’t matter.

Overall, the reveal doesn’t really have to impact the basic formula. You can have Disney World Hopping and Villainous characters scheming and manipulating a greater force. I personally think the world-hopping parallel can become more direct with the context of it being movies/stories adding a different understanding of the process of visiting those worlds and meeting those characters. The episodes can be more about fate and predestination and can speak directly to the importance of the connections to those worlds. And the dramatic stakes are the literal threads of reality and godhood!

If I am to be more detailed and imaginative (without substantial evidence) I might say... MoM’s experiments in manipulating his own created world(s) are aiming to shape Sora (or 2nd favorite son Yozora) into some kind of perfect conduit for the marraige of reality and fiction and the success or failure of that process might weaponize his ability to connect with other hearts... real and not, all to the greater ascention of one chessmaster.

(That’s not even mentioning how I have a personal reason to dislike it as it reminds me of an old theory that the KH plot was actually SRK imagining it all up in their childhood games or to put a darker twist on that idea, Sora dreaming it all up in a coma or while dying. I hated reading those ideas when I was younger and still do.)

I’m gonna sympathize hard with this. I hate ‘it was all just a dream’ theories. They are cheap and they trivialize the journey. That is not what this theory is saying. There is a higher reality in this concept and that is used as a proxy for our relationship with the series. The imagery of dreams is only a small facet of the reality/unreality theme so there is no ‘waking up’ or ‘end of story, goodbye’ attitude. The commentary is broader and it can potentially speak on the power of dreams and reality. The ‘realness’ of fake things. I’m sort of calling out KH for what it is: an imaginative story that expands upon what it means to truly experience stories. Anyway, I rambled more than I thought. I haven’t written anything about KH in months so this was a little caffine shot for me. I’m not gonna be too stuck in the details and nor do I care exactly. I’m a story teller first and I just so happened to have predicted some things not so much because of the hints being dropped but because I understand some of the thematic intent behind the lore and certain narrative beats. The rest is just me having fun and finding the best reading. Sometimes I’m right.

#kingdom hearts #kh meta #submissions #kh speculation #kh theory #long post #submission

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antinonymous · 3 years

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The Punk Rock in Marxist-Leninism

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always hated punk rock; the reasons why having changed significantly. I heavily identified as Right-wing throughout my childhood through early adolescence, so punk rock was a piece of culture that I quickly realized was not for me, with its far-left anarchist aesthetic. If you’d shown and explained to me something like Holiday in Cambodia I wouldn’t have cared in the slightest. Anti-fascists often forget about how the far-right rarely considers the vast and vapid categorizations of different leftists and other anti-fascist types. Anarchists are just as anti-American as Stalinists; anarchists just don’t have a plan (besides the occasional riot) so they’re more docile and easier to ignore. They’re just extra annoying and snobby. The sonic elements of punk mixed in with the political atmosphere sealed it for me. I thought this entire genre of music sounded like some twerp in class who says shit about America just to ‘piss off the system’. Childish, really.

In high school, the first punk band I didn’t immediately hate was neo-Nazi band Skrewdriver. I was introduced to them on a bus for school, with only one black kid on the whole bus, having the song White Power being shown explicitly to them. I remember referencing it to him later in conversation and he said he hated that experience. To me though? Finally, I thought, some punk rock where I can very easily say ‘well I like the music, but I don’t like their politics’ and it isn’t SJW crap. If I were to say stuff like that about other punk rock bands that’d be blasphemy, so I avoided the leftists and found more Nazi punk, where the bad politics were more obvious.

As someone who’s always been into music, my childhood had a specific opinion that I now understand to be just a simple analysis- namely, that politically left-wing music doesn’t do anything to change the system whatsoever. On an open-mic day in my high school the buses had already arrived and then my band got to play Killing in The Name. The school, the ‘system’, allotted us more time because they wanted to hear a cool song. Nobody was inspired by that song that day to think critically about the condition of militarized police in America or how the Klan’s ideology controls the majority of America’s police. I know I didn’t. Frankly, I thought putting politics in music was a waste of time Right or Left. And I found more Rightist music later on, namely in black metal.

Black metal is a mirror image of punk, if that mirror were on two ends of a horseshoe. Both started out as what we today label ‘edgy’, yet generally non-political, and then got somewhat overtaken by the far right and far left. Black metal was firmly cemented in Nazi ideology by the mid-90s with Burzum and the history of the Norwegian second wave, as well as later bands like Germany’s Absurd to solidify National Socialist Black Metal as its own genre. Then there’re wackos like Peste Noire, who, with the help of figures like Anthony Fantano, are somewhat normalized and mainstream while also having deep French nationalist roots. But what makes black metal also similar to punk is the later insurgency movements from either political side into the other genre. Nazi punk distinguishes itself not by its members being skinheads, for skinheads began as a far-left movement, but rather with aesthetics like white and red shoelaces (wrapped straight) and, of course, swastikas. In the mid/late 2010s an anti-fascist black metal scene emerged in response to the atrocities of the Obama administration and Trump’s election victory. This was spearheaded by bands like Gaylord and Neckbeard Death Camp as well as others from Bandcamp and Soundcloud. It didn’t try to distinguish itself at all, in a crypto-anti-fascism directly proselytizing. Nazi punk and anti-fascist black metal are similar in that they, like all music as we’ll be seeing, also don’t achieve anything, but are specifically trying to change the strata of their own genre’s political associations. As my own father put it, there’s only two kinds of Oi – racist and non-racist.

Left-wing black metal was obvious folly that I participated in anyway. But even when I eventually started putting personal politics into my music from 2016 through 2019, I still avoided major bands like Rage and punk rock (besides Bad Religion, which I only liked because I saw a live cover). It was actually Peste Noire who showed me the wonder of sampling in music; yet another far-right appropriation of musical technique, sadly. It was only in late 2019 and 2020 that I listened to bands like Rage and Dead Kennedys, and seeing the amount of effort they put in their messaging left me cynically giggling. Paraphrasing other commentators, music has no effect on political change no matter how radical. Far-left Marxist, Bolshevik, anarchist and Social-Democratic musical compositions have existed since the nineteenth century and were plentiful in the entirety of the 20th century, albeit with significant change after the World Wars. But music is too individualistic to be politically effective as every individual person’s preferences are different. This is how Rage and anarchist punk rock sold so well in America and how I continued to enjoy Peste Noire long after I left the Right.

My music was also inspired by industrial metal band Rammstein, and I’ve since learned that, generally speaking, politically provocative art is an integral part of industrial music generally, which easily puts off someone not paying careful attention to the music. To paraphrase Žižek, artists like Rammstein and Laibach use fascistic language and imagery in a controlled way that lifts various signs from their associations of authoritarianism, leaving them inoffensive enough to gain mainstream credibility. Case in point, Slovenia’s Laibach has caused numerous controversies over their 41-year-career with their overtly militaristic theme, prolific German lyrics, and for having been branded as dissidents by the Yugoslav government, yet they are the only foreign band that has ever performed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. They were invited to play in 2015 to celebrate the 70-year-anniversary of the fall of imperial Japanese rule on National Liberation Day. The government would clearly know better than to invite a legitimate fascist band; in their minds that would most certainly create an immediate attempt to try to cause some type of western imperialist unrest. One would wonder why they’d invite anyone at all. But nothing malevolent came about from it; the show went fine, and clips of it are on YouTube. I won’t try to make any comment on any individual in the DPRK or anywhere else, but it’s fascinating to think of what happens when Laibach is played through North Korean speakers, interpreted by those who have few else in common with the band other than they both have experience living under a régime inspired by Marx.

It must be a different experience from, say, the experience of Anarchy in the UK by Sex Pistols as sung on North Korean karaoke by VICE journalist Sam Smith. This leads me to my current gripes with punk rock, specifically in the year 2021.

Sex Pistols are the origin of punk rock’s association with anarchism due to the song mentioned above, but they are also the origin of punk rock’s association with Nazism due to Sid Vicious’ use of a swastika t-shirt. This is no paradox. Both are a result of Liberal nihilism, of having no true political leaning other than blind offensiveness and ideological motivation without one ever needing sincerity in belief. Either that or punk rock bands are explicitly Liberal/conservative, which is a discourse I remember from my childhood. Post-90s punk was too commercial, liberal, gay, et cetera, with bands such as Green Day having been seen as a perversion of the solidarity of the mostly cisgender heteronormative anarchist community of people who actually listen to punk rock. John Lydon is an open Trump-supporter. After the far-right January 6th attack on the Capitol, Dead Kennedys retweeted many Liberal commentators and politicians, including Republicans Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I see not a problem with individual people and artists but a problem with punk rock as artistic expression; it has terminal hollow conformity. Overall, its association with petit bourgeois ideology leaves punk rock with little to give it credibility. Punk rock has always had an insincere, two-faced nature. ‘Punk’s not dead’ is the anti-fascist equivalent of ‘return to tradition’…or is it anti-fascist? Depends on who’s saying it, where’s being said, and who hears it.

Where to turn? Marxist-Leninists (and sometimes even anarchists) will argue that social bureaucracies such as Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam and the DPRK provide an alternative to American global homogeny. Considering the American military spent over $700,000,000,000 on its military last year, and that many bases are specifically placed around those listed countries, their arguments aren’t entirely unconvincing. They also argue that because Marxist-Leninist politicians provided industrialization and progress for their nations without what Marxist-Leninists would personally term “imperialist war”, they should be praised, as well as the fact that many of the problems commonly associated with those countries are explicitly from American intervention to stop ‘the spread of Marxism’ and to keep them subordinated to western authority. However, as Bordiga writes in Characteristic Theses of the Party, the integral realization of socialism within the limits of one country is inconceivable and the socialist transformation cannot be carried out without insuccess and momentary set-backs. The defence of the proletarian regime against the ever-present dangers of degeneration is possible only if the proletarian State is always solidary with the international struggle of the working class of each country against its own bourgeoisie, its State and its army; this struggle permits of no respite even in wartime. This co-ordination can only be secured if the world communist Party controls the politics and programme of the States where the working class has vanquished.

Am I arguing for left unity, left solidarity, the whole “anarchists and Marxist-Leninists are going for the same communist goal” argument? No, I’m not talking about that. This has been said before but, historically speaking, there’s usually only one correct way to pilot a vehicle and thousands of wrong ways. But I’m talking about music. And I bring up Marxist-Leninism for what could be seen as a superficial reason; that the potency of Musikbolschewismus is greater than the potency of traditional anarchist punk rock. If we’re just talking about music to ‘piss people off’, which is what punk rock culturally amounts to, punk rock could be Marxist-Leninist in that that ideology has more of the nihilistic punk rock mentality than any band you could name. Because Marxist-Leninism can indeed be quite nihilistic, with Russian Bolshevik minority rule in foreign countries paralleling the worst aspects of American imperialism and its related apologia. As for industrialization, the USSR demobilized its military to a lesser extent than other European countries, organized more strictly than NATO. Their industrialization in question was related to impersonal and heavily regulated bureaucratic trade, the aforementioned occupation of eastern Europe and elsewhere, and warcraft: firearms, lightweight tanks, and thousands of nuclear weapons. In 2021, the history of Marxist-Leninist music is both far more potent and plentiful than anarchist punk rock; if a bit old-school, boringly classical, and used in the justification of unjust countries.

What I’m trying to say is this: what is the difference between an English band that wears swastika and MAGA t-shirts singing about how anarchy is good and another band that wears sickle and hammer shirts singing about how the USSR and the PRC are good? Both are nonsense but the latter is sincere with what they say… or are they? Considering punk rock’s edgy, yet ultimately cowardly and insincere anti-authority outlook, I can’t help but wonder what would be if Marxist-Leninism were to ever embrace the potentiality of its status and flaws and make annoying, loud guitar music. It wouldn’t be hard since, comparatively, the bad politics are more obvious. And once it gets started, it’d create a new cycle of the entirety of political thought in music; easily being able to be superior to Right-Libertarian punk rock and all the washed-up bands of the 70s-00s.

What’s the actual transgressive music we have today? Rap music has been mostly dominated by black Americans since the 80s, with a lot of rappers now being women. It is held to a different esteem than even the antisemitic ‘satanic panic’ of the 80s against heavy metal, since legal cases referring to rap lyrics are not unheard of and can even lead to conviction in modern times. It is much closer to the struggles of the global afro-diasporic community than with European writers from 80+ years ago. Punk rock never had, never could, and never will, have a scene of that calibre.

In conclusion, I hope I have provided a cynical pseudo-rehabilitation of punk rock through the example of Marxist-Leninism in a specific manner related to the overall creation of and interpretation of music, which is an important piece of international culture. I know Marxist-Leninist States to be corrupt and are not socialist, but to the eyes of an American, and to the ears of the average punk rock normie, Marxist-Leninism is just as anti-US government as the anarchists, only scarier, because they actually have a plan! So why can’t it be punk? The PRC’s State-sanctioned abductions are certainly not what Bordiga had in mind in regards to a proletarian government being against its own bourgeoisie. Internationality is the way forward. But it almost sounds like it’s against the system if one has that kind of understanding of ‘the system’. Who’s to say there isn’t an obscure 80s punk demo labelled Kidnapping Billionaires somewhere? Punk rock is nothing more than vapid noise to piss of conservatives. That’s it. It has no heart, spirit nor philosophy. The PRC even saying they would like socialism is too far for American conservative wormpeople, and legitimate reasons to criticize the PRC and other social bureaucracies get overshadowed by imperialist greed and racism. Music is not nearly the kind of tool of radicalism Zack de la Rocha thought it was, but with the internationality of Laibach we see it can do more than one can normally expect. It all depends on whether people can distinguish/separate the instrumentation from the proselytization.

#punks not dead #yes it is thank goodness #writing shit #music shit #nazis #racism #black metal #industrial #LAIBACH #rage against the machine

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torturedpoetemotions · 4 years

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Supernatural has always been very heavily Christianity-influenced in its lore, especially with regards to the big bads. Over the years they've almost all been angels or demons in a configuration of the universe that's very Christianity canon compliant up to a point--if a bit irreverent to that religion’s beliefs.

Not that I’m complaining per se. As a recovering Christian myself, a lot of Supernatural reads like the nightmares of a formerly-fundy agnostic with some Things to work out, which can be...therapeutic? But I digress.

The last few episodes have got me thinking about Jack, and Billie, and how the show has heavily called into question everything Billie has told the Winchesters so far about defeating Chuck and Jack’s role in doing so.

Not only did she withhold--and have Jack withhold--that her plan will kill him, but there’s also the lingering question of whether the world can exist without Chuck, whether Amara truly needs to die as well, etc. Amara also expressed some distrust for Death, which...say whatever you want about Amara if you must, but she’s never lied or been less than forthcoming about her desires and intentions. And she seems to have some level of disdain for dishonesty and deception as well. There’s also the fact that looking back, she told us exactly what Chuck was like in season 11, long before he revealed himself to be a villain. So if she expresses mistrust in someone, I’m damn well going to pay attention.

It seems an awfully convenient setup, from Death’s perspective, to have the Winchesters--consistent thorns in Death’s side--working to take out the only beings that could possibly rival (or limit) Death’s own power. The previously Death certainly did not enjoy having his ring co-opted by Lucifer, and I doubt Billie is any happier about the threat God, Amara, and the one remaining archangel might pose.

It’s also concerning to me that no one has yet asked what Billie has in store for the Winchesters (for whom she has repeatedly expressed animosity) once the sole reason she professes to be over trying to reap them is over and done with. And while I’m at it...with Amara released, what is Death’s role in the universe? If Chuck is creation and Amara is destruction, Chuck is light and Amara is darkness, why does Death matter? Sure, Reapers help usher the souls of the dead to either Heaven or Hell, but what does Death themself...do? Presumably nothing that couldn’t be done without for a solid year between Dean killing the original Death and Cas killing Billie...

Additionally, this isn't the first time Jack has been framed in a very, uh, Jesus-y way. For one thing, numerous parallels have been drawn by Christian theologians between the story of Jesus and the story of Isaac. And if you recall, this whole Evil!Chuck storyline got started with the episode "Moriah,” a.k.a. the name of the mountain where Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac--a story referenced explicitly by Chuck when he was urging Dean to kill Jack.

But even discounting that, the notion of savior-hood has surrounded Jack since before his birth. Everyone from the Princes of Hell to his own mother believed he could save the world at one point--they all had very different ideas of what that meant, but the idea was still there. Cas was convinced enough to betray not only Sam and Dean but literal eons of belief that Nephilim were fundamentally evil creatures that should not exist.

Now, we have Billie urging Jack to sacrifice himself to save all of humanity from God’s wrath--another direct parallel to Jesus. What interests me, however, is that what Jesus triumphs over in the Bible is not God, or even Lucifer explicitly.

Have a verse from the Christian bible, 1 Corinthians 15:26:

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

So with that in mind...and with all the parallels between Jack and Jesus and all the questions I now have about the veracity of Billie’s information and her true intentions...I have to wonder if God isn’t the final boss after all. Will Death be the enemy the Winchesters must face at last? And if so, what will that even look like?

#supernatural #spn spoilers #by this point we know better than to trust any cosmic entity with a grand plan...right?#RIGHT?!#spn final season #spn meta #lizawords

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loreolympians · 4 years

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How To Publish Well (What These Tags & Warnings Even Mean)

In order to publish to Archive of Our Own (AO3), you must fill out several data fields for each piece of fan fiction. Beyond improving your fic’s searchability, these data points are important for a more crucial reason - your readers’ safety.

Too Long; Didn’t Read (TLDR):

TAG WITH THE READER IN MIND: Try to get outside your head as the writer and put the readers’ potential triggers, preferences, and experience first. Take the time to learn the details below. Once you know them, it’s hard to forget.

USE A CLEAR WARNING: Think twice before keeping the default “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings.” If your story has no graphic violence, major death, rape/non-con, or underage sexual activity, go with “No Archive Warnings Apply.”

BREVITY IS THE SOUL OF WIT: Keep your summaries & tags brief to be easily digestible to the reader.

Category

This designates the romantic relationships present. Most fanfic involves romance, so for the few who don’t, your ‘category’ is “Gen/General” - For all others, read on:

F/F & F/M & M/M - Female/Female, Female/Male, and/or Male/Male romantic relationship, respectively.

Multi - More than one kind of romantic relationship, or a relationship with multiple partners.

Other - Romantic relationships that do not fall in the above. This is RARE. Do not tag family relationships with this. You will confuse/alarm your readers.

Gen/General: Either no romantic or sexual relationships or relationships are not the main focus of the work.

Relationships

Very simply, a: / (slash) indicates a ROMANTIC relationship - Jill/Joan are getting sexy & (ampersand) indicates a PLATONIC relationship (friend/family) Jill & Joan are best buds

Note: I beg of you (as a lover of side character ships) to only list those relationships that are SIGNIFICANT to the story. If two people are together or friends but their relationship has no change or spotlight in the fic, please do NOT include their relationship tag. Your story will populate when people search for that couple and irritate readers (such as myself) who find the coupling has no significant ‘story’ to tell. Readers are also learning to use a new “otp= true” search functionality which may limit your reach. If people are looking for just a story about H+P but you include 3 other relationships, you wouldn’t show up in that search.

Characters:

Self-explanatory. List all the characters in the story that are important enough to name (more than a brief flash of them in the background).

Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply - Reader doesn’t need any warnings as there is NO graphic violence, major character death, rape/non-con, or underage sexual activity.

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings - One of the warnings below apply, but you don’t want to tell the reader.

Note: This the DEFAULT. Please consider other options, as this is very vague and many readers, like myself, avoid fics with this tag because it sounds like it's saying “The writer should warn you about something awful but is choosing not to.”

Graphic Depictions Of Violence - Gory, graphic, explicitly described violence.

Major Character Death - A central character to your story dies.

Rape/Non-Con - Non-consensual interactions, often sexual, are present in your story.

Underage - Characters under age 18 engage in sexual activity (doesn’t include kissing or vague references).

Rating:

Not Rated - Default. This is treated the same as mature/explicit re: warnings since the site cannot detect what content is in your work. Please avoid this and be clear!

General - Suitable for all ages that can read. Should have no disturbing content.

Teen And Up - Appropriate for ages 13 and up. Can have romance but not explicit whatsoever

Mature - 18+ Adult themes present (sex, violence, etc), but not overly graphic or taking up a large portion of the story. Like a rated R movie.

Explicit - 18+ The story revolves around adult themes (erotica-level sex, very graphic violence and/or disturbing imagery).

Additional Tags

This is where it gets interesting. Ideally, tags are simple ways to inform the reader about the content. However, the way you use tags can either be super helpful to your reader, kinda funny, or come across as annoying (even callous/harmful). My suggestions:

KISS - Keep it Simple, Stupid. Stick to the tags that truly represent the fic. Help readers search and find it based on the content. Don’t go overboard.

Look over the most popular tags and pick a handful that fit. Ask your beta reader or other writers for ideas on good tags to use! As of May 2020, these were the most frequently used tags in the Lore Olympus fandom: Fluff, Romance, Smut, Oral Sex, Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Fluff and Smut, Fluff and Angst, Not Beta Read, Shameless Smut

If you have to make a joke with a tag, please limit to a couple. Many people make their tags humorous, though hearing from backend (unpaid) AO3 staff, this becomes a hassle for them to clean up down the road. If you do make humorous tags, please be mindful and perhaps pare down their use.

Why is tagging/warning/rating important?

The better you tag/code your fiction, the better AO3 as a search engine operates. See “How to Search AO3.”

More importantly, your fiction affects your reader. We hope positively, but some content can be triggering or harmful. The beautiful thing about AO3 is its rating, warning, and tagging system, but it’s only good if the writers utilize it.

Many readers will seek out your fics based on how well you categorize. Perhaps they are seeking out a long-form angst with a Mature/Explicit rating.

Other readers will avoid your fics for the same reason (to protect themselves). Perhaps they explicitly avoid angst, sexual content, abuse and violence (to not trigger their own trauma).

Treat your readers kindly. Be transparent about your work (don’t try to trick people to read by avoiding tags/warnings). Warnings and tags should not be seen as “spoilers” but rather a necessary precaution to keep the reader informed and safe.

Part of a Series or Chapters?

Deciding whether you want your multi-part fan fiction to be one “work” with multiple chapters or separate pieces that are part of a “series” is a tough one. This is just a suggestion and not always the case:

One fic with multiple chapters - There is one main story. The first chapter and last chapter form a cohesive journey, and each piece cannot really be read (enjoyably) alone.

A series with multiple parts - The reader could read one part and be satisfied. They could even jump into part 2, 5, or 12 and read it without much context and find the story enjoyable and with its own individual, unique arc.

Summary

Give the reader a sense for the story in 2-4 sentences (think of it like an ad copy tweet for your favorite book).

Maybe include a short quote to entice or give a sense for your voice. Short being the operative word.

Avoid self-indulgent apologies or overly personal context. Chapter Notes (which you can place either before or after a chapter) are designed more for these personal messages, such as if you’re nervous because it’s your first fic or what it was that inspired you or saying thanks to a friend/beta reader.

There is more to AO3, such as co-authors, challenges, collections, etc. But that’s enough for now :)

Sources: This excellent Tumblr post, AO3’s lengthy FAQ section, and personal trial and error as both a reader and writer.

#Guide #Writing Tips #Writers Guide #fanfic #ao3 writer #ao3 #how to

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irisbleufic · 5 years

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hi, i hope this is okay to ask! I know you have an extensive cast of trans and intersex OCs in your good omens fic, who I love, but I was wondering if you’ve ever considered writing Aziraphale and Crowley as living a more explicitly trans experience in your fic? I know you’ve written meta on the subject, but I haven’t seen it in your published fic. Or other canon characters! thanks for all your work in this fandom and I hope you’re having a good day.

My answer to this might be slightly disorganized, as I’ve been thinking it over from a number of angles since you sent it many hours ago. Your primary concern seems to be that I haven’t written any of the main canon characters in Good Omens as what you consider to be “explicitly” trans. I’m going to look at CoT as a primary example, since that’s the one I’ve worked on consistently for years, which also holds quite a large proportion of my overall GO-fic wordcount.

My original-character version of Raphael inhabits an intersex-variant human body; he’s genderfluid as far as his expression via clothing and adornment from day to day, but still prefers he/him/his pronouns. I feel very strongly about depicting nonbinary and genderqueer characters who still prefer masculine pronouns, as I feel like that’s been relegated to the sidelines a lot of the time in spite of the number of people I know for whom being nonbinary and preferring he/him/his is a reality (this shows very strongly in my Gotham fanfiction, too). Madame Tracy’s niece, Petula, who never appears onscreen, but who is referenced quite a number of times in conversation is explicitly shown, in my text, to be trans. There’s also my original-character version of Asmodai, who in his ethereal form goes by he/him/his, but inhabits a human body and uses she/her/hers pronouns to execute a particular directive on earth. I started writing this work before I understood just how deep the rabbit-hole of my own queerness went; namely, I knew I was bi (pan, I’m never sure which label I most prefer) in my early twenties and that something unusual had been up with my biological-sex related bodily experience since forever, but I did not yet know I was intersex or understand that my unease with being called a woman had everything to do with being nonbinary/neutrois. So, the depiction of main cast in Good Omens was not, at the time, a priority due to limited experience in the world and limited self-understanding. I felt safer executing representation in the form of OCs and canon side-characters, to test the water.

When it comes to main-cast characters in some of my other fandoms, though, things written in, let’s say, the past 7 - 10 years? I’ve written plenty of them as intersex, nonbinary, and trans (and various intersections of those identities). My Great Gatsby and Gotham fic are the best examples I can point to off the top of my head. My Pacific Rim fic, to an extent, is the best place to find they/them/their-preferring nonbinary characters, although a lot of them are also OCs and secondary cast. This is because I was writing PR fic in a painful transitional period where I finally knew everything about myself, but was with an emotionally abusive who didn’t want me to be open about those things. From about 2013-2015, I was desperately working it into my PR fic in any way I could. Said partner tended to read my fic even though they weren’t in fandom; I realize now how intensely monitored I was, how deep the unspoken threats ran.

Now, I’m going to switch back to the matter of Aziraphale and Crowley in the novel, and the essay I co-wrote with @trans-aziraphale. As the text presents them, and as I have always understood it, they have cultivated their queer masculine identities (whether the authors intended it or not) with as much care as any trans-masculine human I know. While I’m not undergoing any kind of medically-assisted transition beyond having had top surgery, I am a more strongly trans-masculine leaning nonbinary individual (even though I still tolerate she/her/hers pronouns alongside my preferred they/them/theirs; this is complicated, and it applies mostly to the people who met me when she/her/hers were still the pronouns I predominantly used, or have known me since birth). I’m speaking from some lived experience in addition to the way the text leads me to read it; I think it’s important to have that in the equation.

Depending on how you look at it within the fictional framework of Good Omens, gender is either a) not innate to angels and demons, or b) angels and demons do have gender, but it’s inexpressible in human terms. When an ethereal creature (henceforth both angels and demons will be referred to this way) inhabits a human body, we can assume they don’t generally identify with it deeply, or even prefer to express a human gender while they’re at it. Aziraphale and Crowley, as the essay covers in more depth, break every one of these norms. They actively prefer being man-shaped; they do nothing to disabuse humans of the notion that they’re a) queer and b) together, at every turn in the text where it becomes an issue (and the answer to that is “many times”).

If it’s bodily configuration, so to speak, that you’re most concerned about, I’m going to touch on that for a second, too. The way I handle scenes involving physical with them has always been somewhat a step apart from how I handle intimacy between humans, and my readers over the years have consistently remarked upon this. Regardless what genitalia or other biological-sex characteristics their bodies have, they are navigating a kind of attraction and intimacy that does not come instinctively to their kind. If I were to give one or both of them genitalia/characteristics different from the ones they have in my stories, it would make very little difference to the way I handle their experience of intimacy. It’s alien and wonderful and strange, and far more about the emotional closeness amplified and cultivated by the act.

For me, their experience is already trans, and trans enough, even if it’s a fictional variety of transness. There is nothing I could possibly do to make their experience more explicitly what it already is. Might I have chosen to put them in differently-configured bodies if I had known myself as gender-nonconforming and intersex at an earlier date? Will I ever write them in differently-configured bodies in future? Maybe, but what does it matter now? My perception of them is set, and I know them well, and I love them as they are. What is literature for, if not to reflect our hard-won realities in terms of the fantastical?

#good omens #fanfiction #lit crit #lgbtqia+#transgender

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earlgreytea68 · 5 years

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The Fall Out Boy Lawsuit

OKAY. I’m writing this up very slowly and painfully because I was really looking forward to writing this up SO I PERSIST DESPITE MY COMPUTER’S DEATH. I got so many followers after my Omegaverse lawsuit post and I was like, “Oh, no, they’re going to be very disappointed that this blog is just a bunch of pictures of Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump” and THEN FALL OUT BOY GOT SUED FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND I WAS LIKE, “MY TIME HAS COME.”

In all seriousness, though, this is an incredibly interesting case, because here is what it boils down to:

I am pretty sure Fall Out Boy thought they commissioned a couple of costumes to do whatever they wanted with.

The creator of the puppets is alleging that Fall Out Boy actually licensed a copyrighted work for a very limited purpose.

Okay, so let’s dig into this.

Once upon a time, Fall Out Boy (probably Pete, let’s face it) was like, “Hey, you know what we need more of in our lives? HUGE LLAMA COSTUMES.” (actually the allegation is the puppet studio came up with the llama idea, but someone on the FOB side decided they needed to be used a lot, so.) Even though many other people might not have felt this gaping hole in their lives from lack of llamas, Fall Out Boy was here for us and gave us what we didn’t know we wanted: SO MANY LLAMAS. These llamas were ev. er. y. where. The complaint has pages and pages and pages dedicated to FOB’s use of these llamas in promoting Mania (I can’t keep up with whatever weird way they expect us to style the name of the album, sorry).

Okay, so we’ve got these costumes, and if you have been at all aware of Mania-era Fall Out Boy, you’ve seen these costumes. According to the complaint, Fall Out Boy commissioned these costumes. A production studio got in touch with Furry Puppet Studio to order “wearable puppets” for use in the “Young and Menace” music video. They provided Furry Puppet Studio with the music video’s storyboard and some references to give them an idea what they were looking for. Furry Puppet Studio alleges that they didn’t use any of these inspiration photos, and it’s true that the puppets look absolutely nothing like what the FOB team sent to them. Instead, Furry Puppet Studio decided to use a llama monster they’d already created, together with a matching new llama monster. They gave the costumes to FOB with an implied license, they allege, that they only be used in the “Young and Menace” music video.

Implied licenses happen, of course, but the fact that nothing about this transaction appears to be written down is why I can say that I’m not sure Fall Out Boy was viewing this as a copyright matter. You can have implied licenses regarding copyrighted works, but you want your copyright licensing to be in writing. That is much preferred; it obviously makes everything much clearer. When I first saw the news article about this case, I immediately wanted to see the written contract about the puppets, and come to find out: there is none. That doesn’t mean this isn’t a copyright matter, but it does say to me that I bet it wasn’t being treated as one by the Fall Out Boy side of things. (Or, Idk, maybe they totally knew this was a copyright issue, they just didn’t think to paper it. I can’t get a feel for how often and early lawyers were involved with the puppets.)

You might be wondering why we care about any of this. There is no dispute that Fall Out Boy bought and paid for the costumes. Why can’t they do anything they want after that? Because, if the puppets are copyrighted, when you buy a copyrighted work, that doesn’t give you carte blanche to do whatever you want with it. If you buy a book, you’re not allowed to copy it and hand it out at Target. If you buy a painting, you’re not allowed to feature it in a television show without permission. You’ve bought a physical copy, but the exclusive rights of copyright (like reproduction and public display) stay with the copyright holder, in this case Furry Puppet Studio, unless you have negotiated otherwise. Fall Out Boy did not negotiate otherwise (probably, I suspect, because no one raised the issue that the costumes might be copyrighted works, but again, Idk).

Fall Out Boy loves art. They’re on the record as sharing a love of art and collecting art. I bet they do indeed know what they get when they buy physical art. I just suspect that none of them stopped to think that the costumes might be art.

Crux of the case:

Therefore, the entire case hinges on (1) whether the costumes are copyrighted; and (2) whether the implied license granted to use these copyrighted works was limited to the “Young and Menace” video.

As to the first part, Furry Puppet has copyright registrations, although they’re dated October 2018, which I only mention because if everyone knew they were dealing with copyrighted works, it seems like they would have been registered pretty quickly, instead of over a year after they were created. Sometimes, though, it takes you a while to get around to registration. And while some cases have been dubious about the copyrightability of costumes, the trend has been toward allowing them to be copyrighted, especially after a recent Supreme Court case basically seemed to make most clothing design copyrightable (the cases holding costumes not to be copyrightable tended to find they were “useful articles,” a doctrine usually used to prevent the copyrighting of clothing design, but that doctrine is...a morass right now, to put it mildly).

As to the second part:

I bet it’s definitely true that Rubrik only mentioned the “Young and Menace” video when it commissioned the puppets. The argument is going to be whether that therefore implied that they could not use the puppets for anything else. Because the contract is all implied, the court is going to have to spend a lot of time interpreting the parties’ intentions in their agreement with each other regarding the costumes.

This part of the interaction is probably going to end up being important:

The “Young and Menace” video was done, as Furry Puppet Studio admits. It was posted on YouTube in April. Months later, copies of the costumes were requested by October 15, because of the Mania tour starting on that date. Furry Puppet Studio reacts to FOB’s team’s request as follows:

The FOB team contact replied:

And then everyone moved on.

So a lot of the case is probably going to revolve around what that interaction reveals about the scope of the implied license regarding the copyrighted costumes and what could be done with them.

As an aside to this central case, the complaint references this:

I was like, ...what are they referencing that Fall Out Boy has done this before? I really wanted to know! Especially because a few weeks ago I actually looked for Fall Out Boy lawsuits (THE THINGS LAWYERS DO FOR FUN) and couldn’t find any. So then we get to this:

I tried to look into this and there is not much out there, so let me know if you know more. The stuff I could find called it an “out-of-court settlement,” which I initially took to mean there was a case that settled and some of the sources explicitly reference a lawsuit, but I’m pretty sure there was never a case, I just can’t find any lawsuit being filed. I could only find interviews with Eisold discussing this, very briefly (none with FOB), and he’s basically like, “It wasn’t a big thing, it was blown out of proportion.” It sounds to me like he raised the issue and they gave him writing credit, quickly enough that no lawsuit ever happened.

(source: https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/cold-caves-wesley-eisold-talks-dance-music-his-hardcore-past-and-that-fall-out-boy-lawsuit-6596823)

I tried to find what they were fighting over, i.e., what Pete copied, but it genuinely seems like they wrote the songs together, so it wasn’t something existing that Pete copied so much as lyrics Eisold actively provided to them for the song. This does seem like the co-writer credit being left off was an oversight, which maybe indicates that Fall Out Boy has a tendency toward “forgetting” proper copyright acknowledgment, although it only happening once a decade ago isn’t that much of a pattern.

What I really take away from the Eisold thing, though, is how easily and quickly it seems to have been handled. Eisold even says he’s still friendly with the band (that could obviously be a lie). But he had an issue, he or someone got in touch with the band, and a deal was worked out, quickly enough that no lawsuit was ever even filed. It makes me wonder what happened with this situation. There’s nothing in the complaint about Furry Puppet Studio contacting FOB to be like, “Hey, don’t use our puppets like this,” although that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And complaints don’t necessarily have to be filed right away. The Supreme Court, again, has recently found that you can wait until it’s worth your while to sue, so I guess that’s what the studio was doing. It’s just tragic to me because it seems like there were plenty of points where this confusion about the puppets and the copyrights and the license could have been brought up, and instead the Mania tour is over and the album’s promotion is mostly done and now this is happening, when the copyright harm that has happened is as bad as it could be.

Again, totally possible this was all raised months and months ago and couldn’t get resolved without a lawsuit. I have no idea.

Side note: the complaint doesn’t list the parties and jurisdiction/venue allegations until almost 60 pages in. I’ve seldom seen a complaint set up that way. Those allegations are usually right at the front. Anyone know if this is a new thing?

#fall out boy #bandom #law #long post

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emilywatchescursedshow · 3 years

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Spn Season 1 Review

Hoboy

First, the live blogs of the last 4 episodes were done in a haze of jetlag depression so were less specific to what was actually happening in the episodes than normal and contained no extraneous information. HOWMEVER. I will get into those episodes more in this recap because:

1. I do not feel like the season really Led Up to this finale. Part of that could be because I took a bit of a break halfway through, but I think also the groundwork for the Sam/John parallel they tell us about was not really set up in previous episodes. 2. I think that the characterization of the brothers and their relationship to John is really Interesting in these episodes and the drama of that is a big part of the show as a whole, so the last several episodes are pretty relevant here.

THEMING The theme of season 1 is more or less: family. How do you handle family trauma and loss? How do you as a parent protect your children vs let them have independent lives (or just suck major ass)? To what extent is your family holding you back? Etc. The two sort of relationship dynamics this plays in is the Sam/Dean dynamic and the John/sons dynamic.

DEAN Dean’s characterization through this theme remains pretty consistent: he wants to be with his family. He showed up to get Sam at the beginning of the season, and he wants to keep them all alive at the end of the season instead of sacrificing John to kill the demon. The irony is that the season ends with them all “dying” (I know they’re not dead, but right now that’s what the show wants us to believe) and Dean’s insistence on family unity is what ends up getting them all killed.

Dean’s story line throughout has been one of responsibility assumed too early. After their mom died, his dad basically made him co-parent. Dean had to give up his ambitions to bend to his dad’s wishes while also trying to protect Sam from John and various monsters. It makes sense for him, given that backstory, that keeping the family together is his highest priority: he has been forced to give up all sense of self to keep his family safe, so if they die then he literally has nothing. I think it’s interesting that Dean is the only one of him or Sam who actually knew their mother, and yet Sam is the one who gets a mother-relevant character arc.

That might be because of the next aspect of Dean’s character we see: he likes to have sex with women. I tend to be pretty sensitive to misogyny/mistreatment of women on screen, so either I’ve lost my mind or I’m already watching this show through a very queer lens because Dean’s treatment of women throughout the season Did Not Bother Me. The only thing that really rang sour was at the beginning of Provenance when Dean is lying to women about his job to get into bed with them, but even then, like, eh? The whole scene (and all the other such scenes) are depicted with a lightheartedness that is hard to read malice into, and Jackles plays that part with such a wide-eyed “Wow! I get to have sex now!” that it’s hard not to feel anything but happy for the guy. I do suspect that Dean is supposed to be characterized as “treating women like whores/expendable” and so does not have an attachment to his mother in this season because he’s not allowed to have a complex relationship with a woman.

SAM Uh boy. So Sam’s arc begins with his girlfriend getting immolated - we learn later that Sam wanted to propose to her and so she was getting in the way of the demon’s plans for “kids like him.” Whatever that means - the show does not communicate its stakes to us AT ALL, more on that later. Sam gets some episodes of characterization throughout. The only two I can remember are the one with the abused psychic and the one where a woman decides she’s in love with him within seconds of meeting him. In neither episode to I really feel like I understand Sam as a character. We are told at various points that he really loved Jessica and her death has affected him greatly. At the beginning of the season, he dreams about it often, but these dreams end up being psychic in nature (I think?) and fall off by mid season. He doesn’t have a keepsake of hers to gaze at longingly or any other way of showing he’s having trouble letting go. Dean basically lets him off the leash to go kiss Sarah in Provenance, which he seems pretty happy to do and has no real guilt over after. Sam’s characterization is carried out very directly - we are told what he is feeling or had felt, instead of some combination of saying it via dialogue and reading it from his actions. I’ve mentioned that I don’t think Jarp is especially strong as an actor, but I have to chalk this up to both weaknesses in writing and acting because scenes that communicate Sam’s internal world are largely nonexistent IMO.

We are told that the connection between their mother’s death and Jess’s death has had a great impact on Sam. He believes that he is cursed so that the “people he loves” (read, women) will die. While in a broad sense this might be true as the demon does admit to have targeted Sam, the supposed “curse” is not really dealt with by Sam except as a barrier in his journey to move on from lost love. Jess’s death served as Sam’s call to adventure at the beginning of the season and should give some emotional connection to Sam’s continued commitment to hunting, but until the final episodes Sam’s involvement in the monster world is continually explained as “wants to find dad” and not “wants to break curse.” In these episodes, Sam’s Jess backstory comes back and we are told that his desire to kill the demon makes him “like John.” Which. Is. Stupid. Let me explain.

In terms of the theming, Sam’s wanting to kill the demon even though it might cost the lives of any number of the Winchesters makes sense because of his established relationship with his family. He wanted to have a normal life which alienated him from Dean and John. Sam has very negative memories of John, and has little brother blindness to the stuff Dean did for him growing up and is largely unhappy with Dean as well. Thus it is not surprising that to Sam, a Winchester dying is not as large a price to pay if it means that Sam gets to have a normal life.

HOWEVER. I am giving the show a LOT of credit here because they DO NOT make that connection, instead going for the stupid “Sam is like John” parallel which is treated almost like a surprise reveal. John’s reasons for killing the demon are NOT Sam’s reasons for killing the demon. John is motivated by revenge to an insane degree: it has consumed his life and the lives of both of his sons. Sam is not revenge motivated. He moves on from Jess’s death in literally THE EPISODE before the finale run starts. Sam is motivated by what he has always been motivated by: his desire for a normal life, including a wife who wont burst into flames. So on a thematic level, short-handing these character conflicts as “Sam is like John” (which is explicitly stated multiple times throughout these episodes) does not work because these characters are approaching family from a very different place even if they end up with the same goal.

I do want to mention that I think Sam’s backstory of wanting a normal life could have been set up better; the show does a good job with Dean’s “too much responsibility too young” child stand-in, but Sam does not get a “I just wanted to go to prom” child stand-in. Which I miss because that would be HILARIOUS. I think the issue the show has here with Sam is, in short, that Sam wanting to be normal is Very Boring, whereas the world of monsters and how Tortured and Jaded everyone is is much Sexier.

JOHN The text of the show is pretty unabashed about telling us things that John did that a reasonable audience member could interpret as being Very Bad. In the brief moments he has on the show, the dynamic between him and his sons is mixed. There are plenty of heartfelt family moments, and there are plenty of fights. I think the show is definitely weakest when it is following John by himself. I do not care about John except as he relates to Sam and Dean, and really if he is in any sort of danger I just want him to die based on how awful he is as a person, so the suspense does not swing the way the writers maybe wanted it to.

I think the twist at the end, where Dean realizes the demon has possessed their dad because he’s acting nicer, just b a r e l y works based on what they’ve set up. Honestly, I think the real problem is that John Winchester’s actor does not, to me, read as having any onscreen charisma. In the altercations that he has with Sam, I don’t really feel a threat from him. There isn’t any explosive or destructive energy, just sort of “your mom is mad you ate the last of her ice cream” energy. I’ve literally BEEN a more intimidating fake drill sergeant than John Winchester and I’m 5 feet tall and 110 lbs. John has big sad wet dog energy. He can get mad, but not in a way that’s actually intimidating. Thus, him telling Dean that he’s proud is sort of like “yeah, I bet this milksop is proud or whatever” and not “wow I would have expected that character to be a lot more upset right now.” I get that family dynamics can be complicated and a parent can cause you Bone Pain with just a look that to anyone else would seem harmless, but this is a television show where things have to read on screen. One Look Bone Pain is a lot more nuanced to construct. I think John being Big Mean Drill Sergeant is what they’re trying for, but in my opinion he's mostly just annoying.

Anyway John sucks.

WHAT’S NOT THERE The above talks a lot about what *is* in the show vis. the family theme. But Emily, this is a monster show. What about the monsters? Well. What about them indeed.

This first season of Supernatural is very clearly referencing the tradition of The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A lot of former X-Files people are credited on the season and they mention BTVS by name in an episode that is clearly themed around season 6 Buffy villains. Howmever. Both TXF and BTVS have a very important thing that Supernatural does not. STAKES. And not just ones meant for vamps that then get ignored by SPNs stupid vamp lore voice over.

Both BTVS and TXF handle their monsters very differently. BTVS is a universe where the main character has been fully initiated into the world of monsters so that, throughout the course of the episode, it is reasonable for her to detail pretty specifically what the monster is and what it is capable of. On the other hand, the characters in TXF must always be kept on the edge of the monster world, getting faint glimpses here and there. Usually, Mulder has an expository scene giving information on “what is known” at the beginning of the episode and then further monstrosity is communicated to the audience via interstitial scenes that tell the audience what the monster is and where it’s going, introducing dramatic tension: AA NO SCULLY DON’T TOUCH THAT IT’S SUPER GROSS. Both avenues successfully communicate to the audience what the monsters are (approximately), what they can do, and what their motivations are. This means that in the climactic scene, the audience knows what the STAKES are. They know what might be lost of the main characters fail, they know what the characters need to overcome to succeed, and they know what the monster is trying to accomplish.

Now. Some of the MOTW episodes in Supernatural do communicate what the monster is and what it wants. Scarecrow and Bugs are two that come to mind that both do this. Tellingly, both of these episodes also seem very modeled on TXF (compare/contrast Bugs with the trash golem episode of TXF where Mulder hip thrusts after sticking a flamingo in the yard, essay for another time).

Home is the first Supernatural episode that I identified as being extremely plot-oriented after the pilot. It’s also the first episode after the pilot to give sole writing credit to Kripke. There are interstitial scenes wherein the audience sees spooky stuff happening. However, these scenes do not further the audience’s understanding of the monster - we already know the house is evil and trying to kill people, and that’s pretty much all those scenes show. Moreover, Sam and Dean do not learn more about the monster in the house during this episode; their arc is basically just “Wow, isn’t it strange that the house is spooky now? Our mom died here!” The resolution at the end is borderline incomprehensible and their mother just sort of. Appears. Out of nowhere and then vanishes again with very little emotional weight given to this occurrence later in the episode or in the next episode. My summary of Home was pretty much “I did not like this and don’t want to be mean.” I talked about how I like monsters in monster shows, whereas Supernatural is more of a soap opera.

And yeah, the finale of Supernatural (written by Kripke) basically follows that track as well. I don’t know what these demons are or what they want. I don’t know what they can do besides possess people. When Meg confronts people and talks all big it’s hard for me to take seriously because I don’t know what she wants or what she is capable of, except in that one scene where she wanted to fuck Sam which. gross!

This is what I mean by saying that Supernatural does not have stakes. When the choice between losing a family member verses not defeating the monster is posited, the only reason I as an audience member feel engaged is the family conflict that has been established. There is no tension about the monster because I just have to assume that it will do whatever the writers decide it should do. I’m not weighing the odds of the Winchesters winning, I’m just watching them point guns at each other and hoping for the best.

CONCLUSION Jensen Ackles does a good job of playing Dean and he should get an award especially for his performances in the last two episodes of the show. IMO, he basically carried the emotional weight of the conflict and really made us root for Sam to not shoot his dad which is HARD because of how badly John sucks. I’m going to keep watching this show because of Jensen Ackles playing Dean Winchester. Fight me about it.

I think season 1 of Supernatural felt like watching two different shows with the same main characters. On the one hand, you have the MOTW episodes which invariably begin with “Here’s why we’re not tracking down our dad, even though that’s our stated motivation” and then tell a nice monster mystery with some good character beats. On the other hand, you have the series arc episodes, which are soap operas with demonic elements. I’m fine with it - because of Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester. I’m interested to see what season 2 is like.

#supernatural #season 1 review #spn

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henryss · 2 years

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Alpha Brain : Price for Sale & Website- Real or Scam?