#posts that would make a middle aged man have an aneurysm

[blessyouhawkeye]

trapper and margaret are butch4butch lesbians

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Final Fantasy VII Review

 Year: 1997

Original Platform: PlayStation One

Also available on: PC, PlayStation Store

Version I Played: PlayStation One

Synopsis:

The Shinra Electric Power Company rules over the city of Midgar, and the eco-terrorists AVALANCHE stop at nothing to try and prevent the life essence of the planet from being used as energy. Barrett, leader of AVALANCHE, hires a mercenary named Cloud Strife for their bombing mission on a Shinra Mako Reactor. Cloud doesn’t care much for the greater cause and only wants his pay. But then, after a mission goes awry, he meets Aerith, a flower girl who is the descendant of the Ancients. He quickly finds himself wrapped up in the greater conflict against Shinra.

 Gameplay:

Final Fanatasy VII utilizes magic spells via Materia – little orbs that come in a variety of colors pertaining to the natural elements. You can mix and match them on your weapons and equipment, which gives you access to different spells and stats. All your equipment varies with the number of slots for how many Materia orbs you can put in. Leveling up not only upgrades the character but the equipped Materia as well.

 Final Fantasy VII also uses an ATB system but is known for introducing Limit Breaks – finishing moves that build up after the character gets hit over time. Final Fantasy VI had a prototype called Desperation Attack – but it was very rare as it only appeared when your character had 1/8 of their total HP, and there was a 1 in 6 chance of performing the Desperation Attack after selecting Attack. I actually had no idea that was a thing until long after I finished the game, and never experienced it when I played Final Fantasy VI.

Graphics:

Out of all the Final Fantasy games, I have to say that this one has not aged well. It has the worst graphics of the entire series. The battle and cinematic graphics are passable.

(Most of the graphics power seemed to be put in Tifa’s, uh, bosom.)

But the characters in towns, the overworld, and in-game cutscenes are incredibly blocky. PC versions are supposedly sharper, but the PlayStation One version makes it nigh impossible to see any facial expressions. 

The graphics are definitely a product of its time. I always say that the beginning of 3D gaming was essentially like puberty – awkward and full of zits. It wasn’t yet at that stage where it could be aesthetically pleasing. We marveled about it when it was first released, yes, but then we cringed in retrospect.

The environment backdrops however are probably the strongest points, where they capture the industrial nature of Midgar, the reactors and other such buildings.

Story:

Final Fantasy VII became legendary the minute Square released it. Every aspect was memorable. Part of it could be due to the fact that it was the first Final Fantasy game to enter the 3D realm. Another part was Tetsuya Nomura’s character designs, which hit the cool meter to the point of sub-zero.

 The cinematics blew our minds. The opening action scene with Cloud, Barrett, and the rest of AVALANCHE attacking Shinra’s mako reactor is the most memorable opening to a Final Fantasy game. Period. Final Fantasy games really do know how to start at the right spot, no matter how good or bad the overall game is. The opening is always the best part.

Then there was the motorcycle chase. Cid’s airship. The gun fights. Battles with Sephiroth. The extra stuff to find, like summons and extra bosses. So much was jam-packed into the game.

 But the story was the primary factor in making VII famous. It’s definitely one of the better ones. Man, the story became so famous that even gamers who haven’t touched a Final Fantasy game knew the major spoilers. It is the equivalent to knowing Darth Vader’s line, “I am your father” without having actually watched Star Wars.

Aerith (Aeris in the English releases) Gainsborough – the innocent flower girl who holds the secrets of the Ancients – develops a romance with Cloud and fucking dies at the end of Disc 1 by the main villain – Sephiroth. The scene shocked everyone and practically made headlines. Everybody has seen the horrible image in one way or another.

It seems to me that since Final Fantasy V, the stories have gotten more and more used to main character deaths, ultimately transforming into a heavy-hitting TV series rather than simply a video game series. In other words – it matured. Looking back, Final Fantasy IV appears to be child’s play and a prototype of later dramatic storylines with fully realized worlds.

 Final Fantasy VII was also the first Final Fantasy game to create a world much like ours – one with cars and trains and airplanes and machine guns and even cellphones. The main city of Midgar reflects industrialization at its worst, with miles of slums and claustrophobic cities. Shinra Electric Power Company is a reflection of capitalism at its worst - a single entity in charge of so much that it’s pretty much the government. For the first time in a Final Fantasy game, you play as characters who dance between the morally ambiguous line of terrorism and activism. Funny enough, the theme of neglecting the planet resonates with us now more than ever. This game ended up being rather prophetic about the uncontrollable growth of corporations.

While the story is memorable with many intriguing elements, the plot itself is a tangled web. In my opinion, they really hashed in so many things that it’s easy to forget crucial details. It’s not straightforward, but at the same time everything does connect by the end. While Shinra is the driving force as a whole as the villain, Sephiroth takes over, then you learn about his backstory and then with the evil scientist Hojo and the extra-terrestrial Jenova and then “Weapon” and then the planet’s history and this and that and the other thing.

If I were to put Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII together and contrast them, as many gamers do, I would find that Final Fantasy VII is the summer blockbuster and Final Fantasy VI is the Oscar winner. Final Fantasy VII started introducing the sappy romance subplot to the series. A love triangle forms among Aerith, Cloud, and Cloud’s childhood friend Tifa. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a love triangle, the writing is like watching middle schoolers trying to express their feelings. Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy IV treated any romance with dignity and realism.

But maybe I’m being a bit harsh. After all, Cloud Strife did go through some suffering as an adolescent. His backstory clearly drives his antisocial behavior, so that becomes a good arc. 

The goofiest but memorable part of the story deals with Don Corneo and Wall Market and running around store to store doing tasks in order to free Tifa from Don Corneo. It ends with Cloud needing to cross-dress as a woman to get inside Don’s mansion. Because, you know, it’s not like Cloud can just break in with his sword and Aerith’s magic or anything like that. But whatever. It’s anime.

The recent Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PS4 seems to streamline the story, and actually enhances the emotions they were trying to deliver in the original. I will be talking about the remake in a separate post altogether since I’m almost done with it at the time of this writing. But there’s a lot that I want to say about comparing and contrasting the remake and the original.

The latter half of the plot takes a couple weird turns. At one point, Cloud became catatonic and confined to a wheelchair.

That part of the game became the sluggish part for me. Sephiroth also tries to confuse Cloud, which confused me. Cloud apparently suffers from some alternate subconscious mumbo-jumbo and like. . .ungh. I get an aneurysm thinking about it sometimes.

Complicated plotlines like Final Fantasy VII start showing up from here on out in the Final Fantasy series. The trend of bishonen characters also begin here, bishonen being the Japanese term for “beautiful boy.” Cloud and Sephiroth have that look. The series starts hashing in sappier romances and much more of an anime feel.

Final Fantasy VII ultimately marked the start of a new era for the series – introducing both cool and overused tropes.

Music:

Hands down the best Final Fantasy soundtrack of all.

The entire soundtrack of this game is memorable. The opening tune, with its light twinkle when the stars show up, is enough to make any gamer know exactly what that’s from.

With a story set in a more modern world, we have music that is more modern. After Final Fantasy VI had a more serious and operatic score, Uematsu displayed his love of progressive rock here. The motorcycle chase incorporates a lot of synth, which was fitting for zipping through the streets of Midgar. However, Final Fantasy VII is the first Final Fantasy game without that familiar starting bassline for the battle them. The battle theme is instantly recognizable but also radically different from its predecessors. It’s dramatic and displays danger.

Meanwhile, the boss theme is one of the best boss themes in the series, or any video game really. It’s an electrifying progressive rock piece, and it’s my personal favorite boss theme.

 The more instrumental pieces are somber, given the dreary atmosphere of the planet. The world map music is very different from its predecessors. It’s romantic one moment, soaring the next, and then dips into foreboding terror. I guess that sums up the story of Final Fantasy VII.

And we cannot leave out One-Winged Angel, which I will talk about below.

Notable Theme:

Without a doubt, One-Winged Angel – played during the terrifying final battle against Sephiroth – is the most memorable piece of music in Final Fantasy VII.

It may very well be the most popular song of the entire series. Nobuo Uematsu was inspired by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. It’s a whopping 30 something minute classical piece. If you look it up on YouTube and browse through it, you can definitely note the similarities. However, Uematsu didn’t want some boring classical introduction to the piece. He wanted to add the destructive impact of rock. The theme has a very distinct stamping-your-foot-down quality to it.

I had noticed a certain piece-by-piece feel of the song and that’s exactly how Uematsu composed it. This is the only song that Uematsu has composed where he created several tunes in his head and then rearranged them to make a single comprehensive song.

If you want to get technical, One-Winged Angel is the first Final Fantasy song with lyrics. The chorus sings in Latin about Sephiroth’s burning anger, with some lyrics actually taken from the medieval poem Carmina Burana. It sounds fantastic when fully orchestrated.

In Advent Children, the animated sequel to Final Fantasy VII, the music is accompanied by hardcore metal. This new rendition really illustrates the destructive power of Sephiroth. Uematsu changed the lyrics for Advent Children. They are more original now. I specifically noticed the lyrics “Veni, veni, mi fili”, which translates to “Come, come, my son.” Sephiroth is inviting you so he can kill you.

 Uematsu has stated that the original orchestration didn’t sit well with him. As I suspected, Advent Children’s hardcore metal version is the one he preferred, the one he would have composed had he the technology at the time of Final Fantasy VII.

Verdict:

Another must-play for any RPG fan, even if you think it’s overrated. It’s a must-play because of its popularity, in the same way that people are wide-eyed when you say you haven’t seen Star Wars or such-and-such other popular movie. It’s a whole lot of fun, especially in the scenes that involve other forms of gameplay, such as the motorcycle chase and even a battlefield strategy game in protecting Fort Condor. 

Direct Sequel?

Yes – first there was the CGI movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

I actually watched Advent Children before playing Final Fantasy VII. I had already known most of what happened in the game and Advent Children became a monumental craze when it first came out. Everybody was talking about it. Watching the sequel before playing the game skewers your interpretation of things. My first impression of Cloud was that he was always whiny and angsty, and meanwhile Tifa kept nagging him to move on. I felt really bad for Cloud losing Aerith.

Then when I actually played Final Fantasy VII, I saw that Cloud starts as this badass mercenary. Tifa is spunky and clearly is the better choice (IMO) but Cloud is enamored by Aerith after only meeting her briefly. WHAT? Cloud. Bro. Make a move on Tifa, you nitwit. Tifa is AMAZING.

 Square Enix then continued the story with Dirge of Cerberus – Final Fantasy VII. This video game sequel focuses on Vincent Valentine, a fan favorite of the original game.

Let me remind you about something – the original game revealed Shinra’s inner deep secret experiments, namely with Sephiroth and Jenova. Dirge of Cerberus introduces an even deeper research team within Shinra called Deepground. I don’t know about you, but it already sounds like the start of a terribly redundant string of sequels, like how the Jason Bourne movies keep revealing an even deeper level of conspiracy theories. Vincent’s mysterious background is now fully revealed. He is defined by – guess what? – another angsty lost lover story, this time with a woman named Lucrecia. Now, okay, look, maybe I’m just being a dick about these types of love stories. But when it keeps popping up within the same series in the same manner, I start asking if you have anything else to offer on your menu.

Lastly, there is the prequel for the PSP – Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Of all the games in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core has received the most positive reception. If anything, play that after playing Final Fantasy VII before bothering with anything else.

 Oh, and of course there is the Final Fantasy VII Remake, which we thought wasn’t going to happen for the longest time but they finally released it in April 2020. More on that later after I finish it, and after I post my entire series of Final Fantasy reviews!

[nevtelenwriting]

Drabble: BAU Bar Shenanigans

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a thing and this is part of a longer fic I’m writing, but hey, words!

Yes I’m Criminal Minds trash now wHOOPS. I own nothiinng, I just like writing funsies.

Charas: All the BAU peeps, Pre-Season 3

Pairing: implied one-sided Hotch/Reid, but more Reid with unfortunate crushes on random people at any given time

Rating: M, for adults with teenage humor

Word Count: 1300~

Summary: The BAU started a really awful game of uh, “profiling” when they go drinking together, aka, Name the Kink. Shenanigans ensue

--

Emily pointed to a man lining up a shot of pool. He didn’t lean over the whole way, and when a team member walked behind him he abruptly straightened.

“Him?”

Morgan scoffed and looked away from the guy at the table.

“Easy. Panties.”

Garcia’s smile went so wide he thought it would break her face, “Oh really?”

JJ snorted part of her drink and Morgan howled as he patted her back.

“That’s my girl!”

“Which one?” Reid drawled.

Reid didn’t know when the game started. After Reid confided in Morgan about his difficulties after Tobias, he suddenly found himself being dragged out for more group nights, sometimes physically dragged when it came to Garcia. They tried to have a group outing once a quarter before this, for holidays and happy hours. Since Reid, and JJ’s, close encounter, the group drinking occurred now once a month, with himself, JJ, Garcia, Prentiss, and Morgan, and then even occasionally Hotch and Gideon.

The game started innocently enough; figure out quirks of the people around the bar. It was a clean, easy exercise to continue honing their profiling expertise. The routine of profiling yet another homicidal sadist became monotonous after a time, turning into the same cookie-cutter summary of what to expect with vague hints as to a specific person. Gideon could accurately guess stutters and tics, could predict sometimes where a person grew up, and they all aspired to reach that level. They also were all competitive bastards. So they turned to the strangers around them, seeking out quirks though they had no way of knowing it was true. It usually turned into a debate, and it was good enough to justify certain traits.

When this version of the game started, Reid couldn’t say. In all likelihood, it was a dangerous mix of Prentiss and Morgan’s sibling-esque rivalry, Garcia’s lascivious remarks, and Reid’s own admitted inability to back down from a dare.

So the game of find the quirk turned into a challenge between Reid and Morgan to find the kink.

“Okay okay,” Emily pointed to a red-head at the bar. “Her.”

She was wearing a form fitting dress, confident, but not revealing, so more conservative. A careful choice in a bar to appear attractive without being too much brash. An intelligent choice, Reid noted.

Morgan made a face, “Nah, she looks run of the mill. Blindfolds, at most.”

Reid clicked his tongue, “No no, look again.”

Morgan studied her, where she was flirting with someone almost her age, maybe younger. The guy flustered at a comment she made and the woman grinned.

“Dammit,” Morgan hissed.

“Yep.” Reid popped the last letter, “Blindfolds, but she’s the one doing the cuffing.”

“Reid, you absolute hound,” Garcia crooned, and Reid scrunched his brow.

“Human sexual behavior is just as nuanced and particular as the people we—”

Emily yawned long and loud, “Next.”

At that moment there was a laugh, nearly unrecognizable, and the whole team looked over. Hotch, who was still beside Gideon and Haley, had a huge grin on his face, creasing big lines across his cheeks. He was absolutely glowing from whatever they said. Tonight was one of the rare outings Hotch and Gideon actually came, but despite Hotch only being a few years older, he sequestered himself to the mature table with himself, Haley, and Gideon, quietly chatting away while the rest of the group devolved into fraternity level intoxication.

“Aw.” JJ pouted her lip out. “They’re cute.”

“That’s it, that’s the one,” Garcia pointed. “What about them?”

Morgan raised both hands up from the wall he was leaning again, “Noo no no, we’re not doing this, profilers don’t profile other—”

Emily lifted up a hand, “Then you forfeit. Reid?”

Reid made a show of curling his fingers over his chin with a contemplative hum. JJ, Garcia, and Emily all leaned forward while Morgan rolled his eyes up.

Then Reid looked over his shoulder to them and counted off, one by one, “Pegging, lingerie, spanking.”

Emily squeaked and slapped a hand over her mouth while JJ’s eyes went so wide Reid thought she’d had an aneurysm. Morgan and Garcia both looked like they broke a blood vessel holding back their laughter.

“You are not allowed to make jokes like that!” Emily wheezed.

Reid turned back around and arched a brow. “I don’t joke.”

“Oh my god.”

Garcia rolled her eyes, “Lingerie is barely kinky.”

Reid arched both brows. “Depends on who it’s on.”

There was a moment of silence where Reid got to bask in the widening eyes.

“Oh.” Garcia whooshed out the same moment JJ sounded like she was going to have an existential crisis.

“Oh my god.”

Emily spluttered, “Who is who?”

Reid scoffed, “I’m not the only profiler here.”

Morgan lost it then, hand over his mouth to hold back his howl of laughter. JJ’s eyes widened, “Oh god, it’s in my head.”

Garcia’s mouth curled up, “Does Gideon even have a freak side? Does Hotch?”

Morgan laughed, “You’re screwing with us!”

Reid would never tell. Instead he kept a raised brow on Morgan, and Morgan did not call the bluff.

“I’ll be damned.”

“Hotch is text-book confident male,” Emily blew a raspberry, “He has to. Right?”

Garcia’s brows rose, but she nodded, and stared off into the middle-distance with a borderline lecherous smile. “That man’s got a secret animal side.”

“I mean, probably?”

JJ groaned and covered her face.

“He’s probably the freakiest of us all.” Morgan piped in between wheezes for breath. It was cut off by Morgan’s eyes widened to a point above Reid’s head, and Garcia bit down on both lips.

Reid snorted, his brain not caught up to the shift in energy. “Hotch is definitely the worst of us all.”

“Worst of you all in what?” Hotch asked.

Morgan shot upright where he’d been leaning against the wall, at attention like a cadet and Emily almost tipped over her drink setting it down. Reid on the other hand, who had nerves made of jelly for jump-scares, screamed.

Their table was curved in the corner, most of their backs turned, except for Morgan, JJ—currently incapacitated—and Garcia who were facing out and supposed to be on look out. Traitors.

Reid craned his head up and looked at his boss with wide, wide eyes, and gave him a not-all-that-remorseful grin.

Hotch cocked a brow. “Do I want to know?”

“No,” Emily rushed out, “No you don’t sir.”

“Sir, please, they’re holding me hostage.” Morgan lamented.

Reid had no voice; mostly because Hotch was looming over him, arms crossed all authoritative and disapproving so Reid could feel the edge of his forearm brushing over his hair, and Hotch’s warm sepia eyes were sort of sparkling in the low light. It was an extremely unfair position.

Hotch blinked at the group of them, and turned on his heel. “I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing.”

Garcia gasped, “A Sergeant Shultz reference? I’m in love!”

Hotch almost, almost, stumbled walking away.

As soon as Hotch was out of earshot, Reid looked back at the group with eyes still like dinner plates, and bit down hard on his lip. The team broke into peals of laughter.

The rest of the night they spent absolutely no time focusing on the two senior agents, instead went back to the more innocent version of the game that ended up escalating to JJ, Garcia, and Morgan’s rendition of Mariah Carrey’s We Belong Together. They all needed to call cabs.

As they filed out of the bar, Gideon tapped Reid on the shoulder to stop him. “Hey, Reid?”

Reid, none the wiser in his inebriated state, looked to Gideon expectantly. “Yeah, what is it?”

“Just thought that eidetic memory of yours could use the reminder.” He smiled at Reid. “I can read lips.”

He patted him on his frozen shoulder, walking to his car on his own while Reid bit his lips on a squeak.

[amplesalty]

TV Binging: Pushing Daisies (2007-2009)

The facts were these...

At the risk of immediately dating this entry, the entire world is in the grip of a certain public health crisis right now and it seems everyone is taking that time to learn a new language, plunder their local supermarket for baking ingredients or just dive into that long neglected Netflix watchlist for something to pass the seemingly never-ending lockdown hours. For unknown reasons, my brain turned to the late noughties sensation of Pushing Daisies. Maybe because it’s relatively short, only two seasons totaling 22 episodes, or maybe it was a means of finally putting it to bed after two previous failed attempts to watch it all.

For the uninitiated, the show centers around Ned, a small business owner with the unique ability of being able to bring the dead back to life with just a touch of his finger, albeit with a few asterisks attached. Chief amongst them is that if he touches that person or thing again, they go back to being dead, permanently. And, if that person or things stays living for longer than sixty seconds then the power of the Universe, the Grim Reaper or Final Destination kicks in and takes something else in its place. This was something Ned learned at a very young age when his mother died suddenly of a brain aneurysm and in the act of bringing her back to life, he inadvertently killed the father of his neighbour and childhood sweetheart, Charlotte ‘Chuck’ Charles.

Cut to 20 years in the future, or 19 years, 34 weeks, 1 day and 59 minutes later as the narrator so handily informs us, young Ned has become ‘the pie-maker’, running The Pie Hole where he’s able to massively slash his overheads by being able to make delicious pies by simply bringing rotting fruit back to life to serve as his ingredients. It’s amazing the profits you can turn when you can entirely cut out the middle man of fruit suppliers isn’t it?

Plus he makes a little money on the side by helping a local PI named Emerson Cod. Why do all the hard work of investigating a crime when you can simply have a corpse brought back to life for sixty seconds, long enough to ask them who killed them.

It’s through this little business arrangement that Ned stumbles upon the unfortunate news that Chuck’s body was fished from the sea after she seemingly fell overboard on a cruise. With the prospect of a $50,000 reward for information on her passing, Cod is quick to get on the case but in the heat of the moment, Ned has other motives than money and neglects to re-dead his childhood crush.

Thus the series blossoms into what I would describe as a murder mystery meets fairy tale type show, with Chuck now tagging along as one of the Scooby Gang as they solve a new case every week. That’s probably a pretty apt comparison too considering Ned’s dog is often around too, a dog that he also brought back to life and has been keeping around for twenty years. Though, Ned isn’t a massive stoner and Cod doesn’t wear an ascot. He does have a couple of knitted gun holsters though if you want to equate that as his ‘fruity’ accessory.

The reward is something that feels a little shoehorned in early on, they always seem to go out of their way to make a point of saying something like ‘police are baffled and are offering a reward that leads to an arrest’ just so there’s a reason for Cod to get involved. It does eventually settle into someone coming to Cod directly to hire his services, whether that be a grieving widow or family member of a falsely accused wanting to clear their relatives name. That just made a bit more sense to me. You kinda have to look past the fact that the police never seem to be actively involved in any of these cases as well, allowing Cod and co to just swan around doing their thing until they’re able to turn in the real killer at the end of the episode and cash their reward. It always seems that they have a knack of turning up like two minutes too later to someones murder. They do make a point of turning this on its head in one episode though when they find Ned at a murder scene and figure him as the killer.

And maybe it’s just me being a chauvinistic pig but good lord you cannot escape boobs in this show. Or maybe not just me, punch ‘Pushing Daisies cleavage’ into Google dot com and it looks like a few people were talking about this at the time. It felt like one of those things that, once I noticed it, I just couldn’t unsee it. Women always leaning over or camera shots from above looking down their dresses. Just cleavage everywhere. It seems to come up at slightly inappropriate times, like Chuck’s aunts who are socially repressed and virtual shut ins but are stilled dressed up the nines, boobs pushed up and spilling out.

It kinda makes sense for Olive though, waitress at the Pie Hole and with a thing for Ned so she’s just trying to seduce him but without much luck. Doesn’t mean they don’t go out of their way to show off the twins outside the restaurant though such as when Olive takes ownership of the swimming costumes that Chuck’s aunts used to use as part of their synchronized swimming stage show.

Speaking of Kristin Chenoweth’s set of lungs, she gets to show off her musical background a few times throughout the show by breaking into song . It feels a little out of place as there isn’t any other musical acts in the show but she does a great job.

A more family friendly point of design is just how beautiful this show looks at times. Like, pretty much the first thing you see in episode one is young Ned and his dog running through down a vast hillside of flowers. It’s a really vibrant use of colour that runs throughout the whole show, whether it’s sets or costumes, and really adds to this whole fantasy vibe aided by the fantastical nature of Ned’s special power.

Businesses that pop up as part of the story have these grand, bespoke designed buildings that seem like they would never logically exist in the real world like this honey business with a beehive theme...

...and interior decorations  centered around hexagons.

Even something as clinical as the city morgue almost leaps off the screen with a bold red and white striped building. Though, I feel having an entrance labelled ‘deliveries’ brings back a little bit of the coldness you would expect. They might be dead but give them some dignity, they’re not pizzas.

You occasionally get these childhood fantasy sequences as well from when Ned and Chuck would play together as kids, imagining the world in claymation before they would inevitably destroy it as they pictured themselves as giant monsters.

It ties into the characters as well, everyone wearing very colourful clothes except for Ned who only ever seem to dress in blacks or greys.

Except for when he has to act under false pretenses, pretending to be someone else in order to get information from someone or to distract a suspect. To play amateur psychologist for a moment, with someone neurotic as Ned, it’s like a visual representation of his inner self no longer confined, no longer suppressed under the weight of the problems he’s bottling up and pushing deep down within himself. For a brief moment he’s able to break free from the shackles of his black and white world and into rich and living colour. It’s like a strange inverse of how things might usually work where a splash of colour would make someone or something stand out amongst an otherwise drab background. Somehow Ned’s lack of colour draws the eye.

On a more technical level, it is often quite obvious how superimposed the actors are against the fancy backgrounds and that can be a tad distracting. The editing between scenes can sometimes lend to the creative feel of the series, there are a few episodes where instead of the usual wipes you get something more appropriate to the story of the episode. For instance, in one episode centered around a magic theatre show, the transitions are the closing and opening of the stage curtains. It’s a little touch but it adds to the whimsy.

It all adds up to what might the most cutest, adorable thing I’ve ever seen, for the first few episodes at least. Maybe it’s a case of getting used to the whole thing but early on there’s a bit of a feeling out process (or non feeling as the case may be) between Ned and Chuck, the smiles they share or the ways they have to vicariously show their affection by hugging Cod. Him being the unwilling third party in this unconventional relationship doesn’t help take the edge of what might be a saccharine affair. There is a slight sense of ‘will they, wont they’ about Ned and Chuck,, subverting the usual TV payoff of a big kiss by doing so through plastic wrap.Makes you wonder how they explore their other urges under these circumstances. Or maybe that’s just the lockdown thirst kicking in again...

I think the distance they have plays with your head a little bit. There’ a coyness to it that puts you in mind of a bunch of awkward kids at a school dance too nervous to dance with each other. Or maybe Ned standing two feet away from Chuck, holding his own hand and pretending it’s Chuck’s is just an eerie glimpse into the post apocalyptic world we’ll have to enter at some point and all our conventions of greetings and physical contact have been shattered.

For the rotating cast of peripheral characters the show goes through as each investigation comes and goes, it’s nice that a few a started to re-appear now and again, such as Paul Rubens’ Oscar, Christine Adams’ Simone or David Arquette’s Randy Mann. That last one is a name, not a description (a Randy Man, a Macho Savage). It helps build this broader world and story elements, albeit I’m torn on the latter. Oscar, for instance, suspects something is not quite right about Chuck and she worries that he’s going to uncover her secret. It never really goes anywhere though and, whilst you could argue that like any good mystery there is the odd red herring along the way, it still feels like a little bit of a bait and switch considering that are other things in the story that don’t get paid off.

I’ll have to look into the timeline for how the series came to a close because it definitely seems like they knew considering there’s a very tacked on epilogue to the final episode that tries to tie up some of the loose ends, but there are still some left that aren’t. Namely the presence of Ned’s father that he had thought had been long gone for some twenty years but had been closer than he thought the entire time, with the show giving periodical teases of him sitting in the Pie Hole or a more thrilling cameo as he sweeps in to rescue Ned and Olive from their untimely deaths as they cling to a branch on the edge of a cliff.

The fact that he does so whilst wearing a mask and wearing gloves is more of a way to lead Ned towards certain conclusions on the identity of this mystery man but I can’t help but wonder what the implications are on the gloves in particular. The mechanics of Ned’s power seem to be that contact in order to bring the dead back to life has to be made skin to skin, so maybe Ned inherited this power from his father and his father brought Ned back to life at some point? Maybe him abandoning Ned at a young age was done to eliminate any risk of him accidentally touching him again and making death permanent? I’m not sure that would hold up considering he later walks out on his new family and twin boys so this would require three different people to all have seemingly no memory of their own near death experience. Maybe it’s all been repressed, that wouldn’t be surprising considering all the childhood angst present in this show.

You know what else I’m confused on? The distance between Coeur d’Couers, where Chuck’s aunts live, and the Pie Hole. Maybe I’m misremembering or misheard but I’m sure in one episode the narrator mentions that they’re 161 miles apart, yet characters seem to go between the two like they’re five minutes away. One of the aunts arranges a secret date at the Pie Hole later on in the same night but that’s a pretty massive distance to cover considering they make a point that they’re only traveling on buses. I know travel is all relative to American’s considering the massive size of their country but that’s a pretty ridiculous distance to cover for a slice of pie.

[feelingfolegandros]

Day 7 - Day 13: November 2 - 7 2020

Greetings from the end of November. 

I hate the feeling of falling behind… It makes me feel like I’m back at school c. 2012 and I’ve been procrastinating on readings, or studying, or research, and all of a sudden it’s the end of semester and I have to cram everything into hours that are becoming scarcer and scarcer when really all I want to do is go to a warehouse party with my friends and split my soul up into a billion pieces with lord knows what and 

Alas, I am the master of my own fate; the captain of my own soul, so fuck all of that. There were things that happened this month that I couldn’t write about right away. And then after all that I needed some time to just LIVE and recalibrate and watch Love After Lockup and meet new unexpected friends and get an exciting project with an exciting company and then days later experience said opportunity evade my grasp like sand through my fingers.

I feel like being dramatic this evening, as I “catch up” on the last month of my “life.” Henceforth, I am banning myself from using the word “dramatic” as it was already used in my previous post. Expect everything through a lens of drama or something like that from now on. 

There was an interesting echo of the beginning of November, November 2 to be exact, on November 17. A man died on the island. I don’t think anyone thought he would. If I understood correctly, he had a brain aneurysm and / or stroke on or near a beach. He was 65. Decisions were made about whether or not he needed a helicopter to Athens, but perhaps not fast enough. According to a local source, there is some controversy over the speed at which he was helped. Maybe if a helicopter picked him up sooner, he’d still be alive. Who knows? What we all know for sure here is that not having a hospital on the island comes with consequences, and the stakes are extra high when someone has an accident or sudden thing go haywire in their body.  So on Monday, November 2, B.W. had a sudden thing go haywire in her body. I will not go into details, but it was something outside the expertise and capability of the island’s doctor, who is a kind, brilliant woman around the age of B.W. and I (late 20s, early 30s). She waited in pain for hours before the emergency boat ambulance arrived. To me, the boat ambulance appeared to be a small yacht that otherwise transported rich tourists c. 2008. Later that night into the next morning, we took an “air ambulance,” which, in a similar vein, was a private jet for rich tourists c. 2008. I remember joking with B.W. that we were on a private jet. It feels crazy, not to mention insensitive, to say much more about this situation. Most importantly, B.W. was fine in the end, and she is back in Germany now. She spent from Monday - Friday in a clinic, first in Santorini and then Athens. I was with her the whole time, running around, trying to figure things out and support her however I could. Greece was going back into lockdown that week, a lockdown I have half-lovingly, half-jokingly nicknamed “Lockdown 2.0.” In Athens, I could only get takeaway food, and masks were mandatory everywhere, even walking outside in the streets. It all felt so surreal… There were many layers of surreality. The first night / morning in Athens, I let the clinic staff help me book a hotel. I booked this fancy one that was 15 minutes from the clinic by foot. I remember drawing a bath at 5am and listening to the new Salem album (Fires in Heaven, highly recommended) in its entirety. Mere hours later, I went up to the breakfast buffet. It was on the top of the hotel, a decently high building. The view was gorgeous but the day was grey. Of course, the buffet was no longer self-serve so you had to ask the staff to put things on your plate. (“More pineapple… yep, still more, please”) 

Once we were pretty sure of the day B.W. would be allowed to leave the clinic, I planned my boat back to Folegandros, leaving that Saturday, November 7. Hours after I picked up my ticket in person from a vendor, I had to go back and change it. The Prime Minister announced a lockdown restricting travel between islands. Because I’m not Greek and have no business being in this country right now, quite frankly, my boyfriend Z.X. urged me to leave before Saturday, otherwise I might not be able to get back. I walked back to the ticket office and changed it to one leaving the next day, Friday… from a nearby port town of Lavrio. 

Friday, November 6… The weather wasn’t so great in the morning. I took a cab to Lavrio from Mona Stiraki in Athens. When I arrived, admittedly unnecessarily early for the boat, there was a rainstorm. I huddled under a not-so-sheltery shelter until I could board the boat. There were two main interior spaces. One was outfitted with grey vinyl seats, the other with red velvet ones. I opted for red velvet, and camped out in a corner that seemed like it would be quiet. As I mentioned, the weather wasn’t so great. If you’ve been paying attention, this phenomenon will likely correlate to a nauseating boat ride. And indeed, it did! After 3,4,5, who knows how many hours - a crew member told me we had to stop in Syros for the night, the boat would not be able to go on to any of the other destinations until maybe tomorrow, maybe Sunday depending on the weather. I explained my situation, not hiding my fear of having to go back to Athens and lord knows where after that because of the lockdown, but homeboy assured me it’ll be okay. He even said I could stay on the boat. No thank you! My frustration and heightened panic legible in my texts, Z.X. booked me a really nice hotel for the night. Thank God. I sometimes wonder what I’ve done to deserve this man, but really, everyone deserves a partner who will hold them down, especially in crazy travel situations in the middle of a global pandemic.

The hotel had a beautiful view of the water, which added to my ambient anxiety as I could see the boat and the incredibly choppy waves anytime I looked outside. The balcony was amazing, but the wind was smoking my cigarette faster than I could, reminding me of the very real possibility (to my panicked brain in that moment) that I would have to stay on Syros forever. 

I remember walking around Syros that night, stumbling into a giant store filled with cheap goods. There were Christmas decorations, clothes, pots, pans, electronics, various weird objects. I felt like I was in a daze. I almost bought socks, but I don’t think I wanted any sort of souvenir of my time there. I think I just ordered room service to eat? A club sandwich with fries. The boat was there the next morning, and left on time. The wind was so strong that it knocked the fresh juice in a plastic cup out of my hand, spilling onto my backpack. My hat also fell off. I just wanted to get on the fucking boat and get back onto Folegandros. After another nauseating journey, although not quite as nauseating as the previous day, I finally made it to the island. Because of the strong winds, I practically had to jump off the boat onto the dock. It felt like something out of a movie. I was so relieved to be back, to see familiar faces, especially Z.X’s. “I’m not going anywhere for a really long time,” I said to him. Z.X. was sweet and tried to convey the romance and excitement in our situation, comparing it to a movie he suggested I write. There was a part of me, an internal compass or something, that was so confused that my body had taken a boat yet again, so soon, from Athens to Folegandros. Weeks later, that part has been soothed but is still feeling the effects of being uprooted and swirled around...Alas! 

I will stop here, but continue with writing about the past weeks immediately! I promise.

Thank you for reading, wherever you are!

[gibsongirlselections]

The Most Cynical Campaign In History

With the Democratic convention history and the Republican one lurching forward, excitement among voters ranges from lukewarm to semi-lukewarm. Political cynicism scrapes at the nation like a sleeping man being shaved by a drunk barber.

Both conventions make one thing clear as a slug trail: the Democratic candidate is Not Trump. Just vote for the one named “Trump” or the one named “Not Trump.” It’s easy. In fact 60 percent of Biden voters say their support is more against Trump than for Joe. It’s easy to imagine most of the rest will vote Biden confused after the convention, thinking Obama is running again.

Meanwhile Trump is Trump is Trump. Seriously, if any one is not sure what they think of the guy by now they need to be exposed to 24 hours of Twitter with their eyes pegged open like the dude in A Clockwork Orange. If you liked the last four years, here comes more of it.

It gets more complicated on the other side. See, the Not Trump candidate is an old white man, but don’t pay attention to age, gender, or race even though he’s the same as Trump. The Democratic vice presidential candidate is younger, blacker, and less male so in her case age, gender, and race are very important. Kamala Harris exists as a lure to get a few depressed prog voters to bite on Ol’ Man Not Trump. That primary voters rejected her and five other decent women candidates illustrates the cynicism here.

For four years Trump delivered daily steaming piles of exactly what he said he would. You got what you voted for, no better no worse, like the all-you-can-eat buffet that’s mostly carbs. The base figured out early most of it was just rhetoric to inflame the libs, while the liberals took the bait every time.

Democrats on the other hand chummed the water with talk about progressive issues like free healthcare, free college, college loan forgiveness, you know, the Bernie stuff. Despite Bernie coming in second place twice in two primary campaigns his ideas are going to have as much influence on Biden as they are on Trump. Same for all the others hyped along the way to keep everyone’s attention, Beto, Pete, Stacey Adams, AOC, and Warren. Nothing new; the sideshow acts always were used to bring the rubes into the tent and once they paid their money it didn’t matter if the Bearded Lady was a fraud.

That the Democrats featured John “I Lost the Primary, Too” Kasich, the abandoned Colin “Liar” Powell, John “Sell Out” Kerry, and the ghostly Widow McCain at the convention made it clear how little the party really cares about the POC and young people it purported to groom for the last years. They ran out of old Democrats to feature and had to resort to bringing in old Republicans. Viewers might have expected the whole thing to shift into an infomercial for reverse mortgages at some point featuring hologrammed spokesman John McCain himself. Nonetheless, you better vote Not Trump even knowing you’re being played for the sucker.

The Republicans on the other hand crafted raised middle finger performance art from their speakers. You got BLM? We got the ultimate angry white people, Patricia and Mark McCloskey, who aimed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Louis.

As for election strategy, both campaigns seem to center on… the post office. Dems need you to believe the greatest election conspiracy in the history of democracy is unfolding inside the place. Yes, that post office, where grandpa buys those things he calls stamps. That place will likely end democracy because this election will have so many mail-in ballots and Democrats believe all those mail-in ballots will be for them and each requires its own blue corner mailbox. So Trump wins because Republicans will vote by magic laser beam or something. Diabolical plans which can be thwarted simply by voting early, or in person, are kinda weak. Kinda like Hillary in her convention speech cynically telling people winning the Electoral College was some kind of sneaky trick on Trump’s part.

What neither side will be talking about is President Bone Spurs. Yep, his pug faced rich daddy got a doctor to pretend little Donny had bone spurs and so was exempt from dying in Vietnam. Well, fuggedaboutit.

See when Uncle Joey was younger he too did not go to Vietnam. Joey got five student draft deferments during the Vietnam War, same as Trump. And in 1968, when his Joe’s student status was wrapping up, he was medically reclassified as “not available” due to asthma. Asthma can be nasty stuff or it can be a bone spur. In his autobiography Joe described his active youth as a lifeguard and high school football player, and lied (note to fact-checkers doing their research: Biden lies are called gaffes) about being on the University of Delaware football team. His vice presidential physicals mention multiple aneurysms. Asthma, no.

#MeToo was fun for awhile too, but Biden’s hands-on treatment of women means it’s now a no-touch zone. Google “Anita Hill.” Same for Tara Reade, who has been telling people since the 1990‘s Biden stuck his fingers in her private place unwanted, which is the same as Trump “grabbing them by the pussy.” This will all get a little harder to pretend away when CNN spends the autumn replaying Kamala being fierce and nasty pounding #BelieveWomen into Americans’ skulls and tearing into Brett Kavanaugh for being a high school kid but Dems pulled it off with Bill Clinton and can do it again.

Corruption used to be a safe one to use against Trump. Unfortunately, after leaving the Obama White House, Joe and his wife made more than $15 million, mostly via sweetheart book deals. In fact, they made nearly twice as much in 2017 as they did in the previous 19 years combined. The University of Pennsylvania gave Joe $775,000 to teach, and then was nice enough to offer him indefinite leave of absence from actually teaching. And sure, Biden charges the Secret Service $2,200 a month rent for a cottage on his property so they can protect him, which sounds like Trump. And there’s all that business with Joe and his son in Ukraine, and Joe and his son in China. Best to talk about Beau, the dead soldier son.

And even though it was individual state governors, mostly Democrats, who overreacted and closed your schools, threw you out of work, closed the bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, stores, beaches, gyms, and churches, and banned football, graduations, funerals, last visits with terminally ill loved ones, fathers at their child’s birth, and interstate travel while allowing BLM protests, the Dems need everyone to blame Trump.

In contrast to the shoulder shrug stance of yeah, it’s me, suck on it, presented by Trump, the 2020 Democratic vision is the most cynical of any in American history. It says “we have no vision” but you all need to square up and vote for a mediocre candidate with an AI-chosen running mate anyway. No real details of betterment through policy, no hope and change, no American dream, but a threat. As Michelle Obama said at the convention “If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can.” Her hubby echoed the dark theme the next evening, claiming democracy itself is imperiled. In other words, vote for us or else. Strange Trump is ending democracy but we can somehow just vote no on that and it’s over. Whatever.

We’re about to really find out whether anyone would be better than Trump. The Dems dangled Bernie and Warren then delivered a candidate from when Luke married Laura in the same voice a waitress uses to say, “Um, sorry, out of Coke. Diet Mr. Pibb OK?” Joe Biden is so old he’s lost the race for president twice already and comes off like grandpa putting himself out there for one last fling after Grandma Obama passed away. But think how hard this all was; the Democrats only had four years and couldn’t even get rid of Hillary in that time.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent.

The post The Most Cynical Campaign In History appeared first on The American Conservative.

[dmmowers]

No Condemnation

No Condemnation A sermon for Trinity Episcopal Church, Baraboo, Wis. Sixth Sunday After Pentecost | Year A, Track 2 | July 16, 2017 Isaiah 55:10-13 | Psalm 65 | Romans 8:1-11 | Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

My father died six years ago next month. He had a brain aneurysm at age 57 and lived three weeks after that, but never made it out of ICU. That episode, in the middle of 2011, is a significant milestone along the path to finding myself here as your Rector. That's another story. The reason I bring this up this morning is that in the aftermath of his death, I carried his work cell phone around for a couple of days. It was the old kind of flip phone. Raise the antenna, flip it open, tiny screen. I remember my surprise the first time I opened his phone and turned it on. There was space on the top of the screen for a short line of text that my dad had customized, and it said "Romans 8:1". I didn't know what Romans 8:1 was. I had loved the Bible for a number of years, and at times had posted Bible verses around in prominent places where I could see them. Romans 8:1, though, was not one of those verses. So I went and looked it up: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

My father was a good man, but a sinner like the rest of us. He took his failings hard, maybe harder than most people - a trait that I am certain I have inherited from him. More than once growing up my dad would lose his temper, or be short or curt with someone in our family, and then he would go away and come back later and apologize, and I could tell -- even as a teenager who was maybe not so inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt -- that he felt badly about whatever it was he was apologizing for. As a pastor, now, with a lot of experience with this sort of thing, I can look back and guess that the time between when he would walk away and when he would come back and apologize was filled with a lot of voices in his head, berating him for not being good enough as a parent, as a spouse, as a Christian.

And so, when we began to attend the Pentecostal Church where I was formed in high school, the place where I and my dad both learned to love Scripture, I can only imagine the joy that overtook him when he first ran across our passage from Paul's Letter to the Romans this morning. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I. This is the good news that we have from God: even though we on our own were unable to cope with the power of Sin and death, God has been faithful to set us free from slavery to sin. We've heard a lot over the last five weeks about the Power of Sin - how it was at work in the world to destroy us, to condemn us, how it came into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As a response, God chose Abraham to be the father of a chosen people, Israel, who would receive the Law and live according to it so that they would be a blessing to all nations. But Israel failed over and over to live according to the Law, because the Law was used by the Power of Sin to exploit the weakness of human beings. When you tell a toddler not to touch a stove, the first thing they think is that they should see about touching the stove. That is the same weakness that prevented the Law from achieving its purpose and setting people free from the Power of Sin.  

All of this provokes theological questions for some people. If choosing Abraham and his descendants as his people was God's response to sin, doesn't Israel's disobedience mean that God's plan has failed? In other words, if God's solution for the sin that entered the world through humanity was to call Israel and give them the Law, didn't that solution fail? And do we really want to follow a God whose solutions fail?

Other people wonder about Jesus' death. Questions like, "Why did Jesus have to die, anyway? Couldn't God have just gotten out his magic wand and made sin go away some other way? Why did Jesus have to offer himself on the cross in order to condemn sin? If Jesus' death really did conquer sin, then why is the world such a cruel place? Wouldn't it have made more of a difference if Jesus had actually dealt with sin in the flesh?

II. 

And finally, if Jesus' death really means that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, why do we still experience so much condemnation? We have a political culture that no longer debates ideas but rather throws around personal insults as if that is the best way to ensure that the government continues to function. Baraboo and Sauk County are not immune from this political culture: go read the comments in the News Republic about the county board chairman, or about investigations into the highway department, or the roundabout in front of St. Vinny's, or a dozen other things, and you will see that we are so often a people who do not debate ideas, but rather who call people names and condemn each other. 

I'm sorry to say that in my experience Christians fare little better on condemning other people than the general population. This week, Religion News Service ran an interview with the famous pastor and writer Eugene Peterson. Peterson is best known for The Message paraphrase of the Bible, but he was a pastor to a church in Bel Air, Maryland for 50 years prior to his retirement a few years ago. He has recently published When Kingfishers Catch Fire, which he has said will be his final book. I have a number of his books on my shelves and have found him to be a wise pastor to me, as well as a faithful, interesting reader of Scripture. Now, at age 84, he is retiring from public life and will no longer write or speak, and so agreed to be interviewed by RNS. At the end of the interview, Peterson was asked if he was still pastoring today, and a couple of the same sex came to him to ask him to marry them, whether he would do it. He answered, Yes. The next day, the internet exploded. Headlines blared about this famous pastor's change of heart. People who support the Church's recognition of same sex marriage fell all over themselves to praise Peterson. On the other side, blogs pulsed with rage over Peterson's thin reasoning and abandonment of biblical principles. The following day, Peterson published a retraction, stating that he had been taken off guard by the question and that he had been confused. He now said that he supported the church only recognizing marriage between men and women, but that he loved the gay people he pastored and that they had been and would always be welcome at his table. The internet exploded again. Headlines blared that Peterson had been pressured into retracting his change of mind. Blogs raged over how Peterson couldn't give a clear answer and so could no longer be trusted. The people who had rushed to praise him yesterday now condemned him.

This is what happens when we treat people as collections of positions, as a set of viewpoints. When we fail to attribute the best motives towards those whom we disagree with, when we fail to give our opponents on hard issues the benefit of the doubt, we are often doing so because we need to be right more than we need to care about the person with whom we're talking. We want to win arguments, to be heard without having to listen, to convince others without having to do the hard work of understanding what they are saying. We fail to give grace to others, and that leads us to fail to give grace to ourselves. If you're anything like me, the loudest voices of condemnation you hear come from inside your own head. Maybe you think about what others think of you. Maybe you think about your unemployment, or how small your paycheck is, or that you got too sick to work and had to retire, and the voice in your head is there to tell you, "You're worthless. Your life is over. Give up." 

Condemnation is rampant in our world, and in our own community. How can we, Trinity Church, make a difference for people in our community who only hear voices of condemnation? As I have lived among you as your Rector for these last four months, I know many of us care deeply about these people. My hope for this community is that we would become known as a place that does not let people sit in the darkness of condemnation, a people that goes out to the hurting so that they might be comforted. God would have us be a presence in this community that would tell the brokenhearted that in Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation, that the Power of Sin no longer has the final word, that they can be set free by the Spirit of Life. 

III.

But that doesn't stop us from wrestling with hard theological questions. In fact, the amount of condemnation in our world propels us to ask hard questions. If Jesus' death conquered the realm of the flesh and the power of sin, why is there so much condemnation in the world and inside our own heads? Why did Jesus have to die? Did God fail when he gave the Law to Israel? Why couldn't God have done something about sin without the crucifixion?

God's plan didn't fail. From the creation of the world, he knew that the command to Adam and Eve would be broken, that the Law would be misused by the power of sin. He knew that people would be bound up by the power of Sin, that the people of Israel would never keep the Law, and what's more, especially when they DID manage to keep the Law, it was not enough to deal with the power of Sin. God was at war, engaged in a cosmic struggle against the Power of Sin and Death, against Satan. Something decisive would need to be done to break them of their power. Sin had latched onto the creation God loved, onto the people God loved like an infectious disease sickening everything and everyone it touched. Such a strong illness required strong medicine.

So God came to Earth as a human being, Jesus Christ, to do something about sin. He was the person from outside, apart from the universal force of sin, who could do something about sin in the flesh. In coming to Earth as a human being, submitting to the most degrading death imaginable, Jesus conquered the Power of Sin. He became the Lord over sin. In conquering death, Jesus has submitted himself to the judgment that the Power of Sin rightfully deserved. He has heard the Father pronounce the death sentence over the Power of Sin and he offered himself as Jewish Messiah and Suffering Servant to take that sentence in his own body, and then the Spirit of life raised him from the dead, opening for us a new way of living and the hope that at the end of time, we will be raised from the dead just as he was. Because Jesus Christ invaded Earth, there is now a new possibility is open to us, a possibility that is without condemnation: living life in the power of the Spirit.

Everything depends on the pardon that God has extended to us through Jesus Christ. Everything depends on whether that word of no condemnation is spoken to each of us and that we also hear it. If that word of no condemnation is addressed to us and we hear it, we know that there is no longer a judgment to be feared - not from God, not from anyone else - because Jesus has taken the judgment onto himself. (Barth, CD II/1, 403)

The Father sent the Son as Messiah to offer himself to conquer sin, so that his death could defeat death and offer to us eternal life. IV.

That eternal life begins right now. For those of us who struggle with the voices in our own heads, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You lose a job and don't find another one immediately and tell yourself that you are a failure? There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Your house is messy and your lawn isn't mowed, and you just know that your mother would be flipping in her grave if she could see your house now? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You missed a payment on a bill and it feels like your life is just a pile of second notices? There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You don't make it to church very much and you feel guilty every time you do for all the times that you're not here? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The life that Jesus offers us is a life where we are free to be ourselves without fear of being condemned by others, a life where we admit to God and to each other that we are broken, that we need help, that we need the Spirit of Life to transform us, to make us new, to undo the effects of the Power of Sin in our lives. 

I yearn for us here at Trinity to be sharing our lives together deeply so that we can experience the faithfulness of Jesus through each other. I yearn for us to be able to share our faults, our struggles, our real-life problems with each other, and for our community to be a place where we can do that without fear of condemnation. I yearn for us to study the Scriptures together, to pray together, to eat together so that our life as a community following Jesus will be deeply compelling to those who observe it. May Baraboo know that we are Christians, not because of our rush to condemn people who disagree with us, but because of the ways in which we love each other. And remember, as I like to say from time to time: love is an action verb, not a feeling. Jesus' death has made this kind of community life possible because we are not in the flesh, we are not bound to the law of sin and death any longer. If Christ is in us, we have life because of his righteousness. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

[junker-town]

Actually, Rihanna won the NBA Finals

She also Crying Jordaned herself.

Look, I don’t know what you do on Instagram. Maybe you post that impressive dinner you made, or a gym selfie where you pretend you don’t know you look good, but you really do know you look good. Perhaps you put up photos of your kids, or your dog, or your face, or your stupid acai bowl (no offense, acai bowls), or your new shoes.

Whatever. Nothing you do on Instagram matters, because there’s not a single thing you could be doing on that would be better than what Rihanna is doing. Look what LeBron James’ biggest fan posted after the Warriors demolished the Cavs in the NBA Finals:

#LongLiveTheKing #KingisStillKingBitch (whispers congrats to KD, cause....ROCNation) BUT: me and @mdollas11 beefing all summer!!

A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Jun 13, 2017 at 3:28am PDT

I’ve watched this probably, oh, 30 times. But if you don’t have the luxury, let me tell you that this piece of cinematic majesty is a short film adaption of The Lion King, featuring Rihanna as Simba, LeBron as Mustafa, and Kevin Durant as Scar.

The scene in question is the one where Scar throws Mustafa, his own goddamn brother, off a cliff right after Mustafa saved his son Simba, then manages to crawl his way out of the herd of thundering wildebeest. Simba watches as Scar lets Mustafa plummet back into the stampede and is trampled to death. If you’re able to view this scene without crying, you’re the Tin Man.

Watching Kevin Scarant push his brother LeBronstafa off a cliff while Ririmba looks on isn’t something you know you need until it comes into your life. I must say, it’s very moving. So is the accompanying caption and hashtags: #LongLiveTheKing and #KingIsStillKingBitch. Rihanna even gives a nice nod to fellow Roc Nation celebrity Kevin Durant: “(whispers congrats to KD, cause....ROCNation)”. Although she makes it very clear where her loyalties lie.

Oh, she also posted this.

#childish

A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Jun 13, 2017 at 4:08am PDT

Yup, that’s right. Rihanna Crying Jordaned a picture of herself after the Cavs lost. Notice that LeBron’s number is written on her stomach in sunscreen. She even thought to photoshop some sunglasses onto Jordan’s cryin’ face, seeing as she’s lying in the sun and everything.

Rihanna was all-in on the Finals. She sat court side at Game 1 in Oakland, and almost gave Jeff Van Gundy an aneurysm when she walked by him. He screamed, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” as she made her way to her seat, and I’ve never identified with a middle-aged, ex-NBA, current NBA analyst more.

During Game 1, Rihanna bowed to LeBron, then turned around to dab on the fans who told her to sit down. Her friend and assistant Jenn Rosales, who was sitting next to Rihanna, yelled out, “BRIIIICK” during a Durant free-throw. The next time Durant sank a three he seemed to turn around and glare at Rihanna.

After the game, Durant wouldn’t comment on whether Rihanna completely invaded his brain space, which seems like something someone pretending Rihanna didn’t completely invade his brain space would do. Steph Curry also tried to brush her presence off, saying that her music has never been on a Warriors locker-room playlist.

LOL. Yeah, right. Forget crooked refs, here’s my NBA conspiracy theory: Of course the Warriors have played Rihanna in the locker room before. Who hasn’t played Rihanna in a locker room before? If you haven’t showered to “Umbrella” as a group after a game, did the game even happen? If you haven’t let ANTI loop as you put your sneakers on, did you even wear them?

The Warriors might be champions, but Rihanna won the Finals.

So, what can we expect moving forward? I don’t know, perhaps a summer of LeBron and Rihanna partying together in an attempt to heal both of their broken sports hearts, if we’re lucky. At the very least, hopefully we’ll Rihanna will grace us with more short films. Long live Rihanna.