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aphrmoosun · 3 months

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What can we expect from the upcoming apes movies??

The success of the new Planet of the Apes movie is obvious, it far exceeds what was expected at the box office and the critics are very positive. The only thing missing is the official confirmation of the fifth installment of the saga but seeing the numbers it has done, we should trust that we are going to have apes for a while.

So we can create our own ideas of what we think will come in the future of the saga.

Noa's first film in the saga opens up endless possibilities, we can also follow the clues given during the Caesar triology. And it is obvious that the new saga is not only inspired by the original saga from the 70s but also presents stories and ideas that were made known to us in those films. It was Cornelius himself who told us the story about Caesar who at that time called Aldo. So it is unreasonable for us to expect that, as happened in the Caesar films, the main ideas that were implemented in the films of the 70s will continue.

In the films of the 2010s we were already introduced to the idea of astronauts and although I think that the second film would be too hasty to present them, I do think that they could appear at the end of this film or in a kind of post-credits for the third film of Noah. Travels in the time? World's End? Humans destroying the planet? These are arguments that I still see as feasible in the movies. If the casting team is looking for an actor to be human in the next film, it gives me to understand that he could be the villain of the second film. And not Mae as many theorize.

It is true that she was the first human that is introduced to us in the new story and that her ideals direct her to be an antagonist. I don't doubt that that could be the case, but that Mae is a gray character is clear from the final scene of the movie. At one point Mae is going to lose her way and will surely find herself against Noa, but she is a character who screams to redeem herself. Noa and Mae are going to work together in the future, as an ape and a human.

Noa and Mae are clearly the same. They follow the same path: Noa does not know what the Echos are until Raka tells him about them. And Mae? She probably hasn't met an ape before either. Ignorance is mostly what separates us from ideals. And they both take the same path of getting to know each other. But just because they understood that, doesn't mean that everyone does. We already saw Proximus Caesar in the first film, who represents an ideal contrary to what Caesar represented. And very likely in the next movie we will see the humans in the bunkers who can take two arguments. The war against the apes or the search for a cure or becoming immune to the ape virus.

That's why we can theorize about the second movie. It has already been made clear to us that Noa and Mae are the protagonists of this story, and so far we have seen a lot of Noa and very little of Mae. If we come to any conclusion with the end of the movie, it is that Noa wants to follow Caesar's ideal and the one that Raka taught him when he hands the necklace to Mae. Because Raka gives him the necklace so that Noa remembers in the worst moments what was important. And now it's time for Mae to understand it too. I know that the next movie will be difficult for her and that she will also have to make difficult decisions, and that is the reason why Noa gives her the necklace.

I would especially like to mention Tim Burton's film from the 2000s. It is the film with the worst reviews in the saga and yet I see a lot of similarity between that film and the new one from 2024. I don't think they dare as much as in that film or that have some creative freedom to do some of the things they did in that one. And I'm talking about the romance within the movie. In the 2024 movie it is not very important and presents us with relationships that go beyond that interest but the relationship between Ari and Leo in that movie has been highly criticized by the general public and that could affect any attempt at a human/ape relationship that they would like to experience. So I don't see intermediate points, either they give us a story of enemies to lovers between Noa and Mae or I don't think it is very important for the story, because if they end up putting Noa and Soona together (which I doubt) it will not be important in the plot.

I don't want to make it longer so at another time I will develop it because I think they have thrown the stone into the river of a possible relationship between Noa and Mae hoping to see the public's reaction and because I think it would be a good idea to continue developing it.

To summarize, I think that the next movie will introduce us to a human villain and it will be the first time that Noa has to face one.

Human culture and how they have been living until now is also important and the reason why Mae lives isolated and away from humans. If she is immune but can still infect humans, no one will want to get close to her unless she is immune too. How does Noa and Mae's story continue to develop? Noa's clan taking a more leading role and getting to know Anaya and Soona more deeply. etc

I'm excited to see how it continues.

#noa #mae #anaya #soona #eagle clan #kotpota #pota #kingdom of the planet of the apes #planet of the apes #theory #nomae #noa x mae #apes #future of pota #creative art #wes ball

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princess-polls · 2 months

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Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender) VS Mamoru Chiba/Prince Endymion (Sailor Moon)

Utena Tenjou (Revolutionary Girl Utena) VS Vegeta (Dragon Ball Z)

Li Shang (Mulan) VS Prince Charmont (Ella Enchanted)

Prince Charming (Shrek) VS Legolas (Lord of the Rings)

Phillip (Sleeping Beauty) VS Prince Humperdinck (The Princess Bride)

Christopher Rupert Windermere Vladimir Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman Gregory James (Cinderella 1997) VS Prince Lir (The Last Unicorn)

Arthur Pendragon (BBC Merlin) VS T'Challa (Marvel)

Prince Cornelius (Thumbelina) VS Ben (Descendants)

Xie Lian (Heaven Official's Blessing) VS Derek (The Swan Princess)

Cavendish (One Piece) VS Atem (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Yuu Kashima (Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun) VS Kanata (Go Princess Precure)

Romeo Montague (Romeo x Juliet) VS Yusuke Urameshi (Yu Yu Hakusho)

Zen Wistalia (Snow White with the Red Hair) VS Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke)

Mytho (Princess Tutu) VS Soma Asman Kadar (Black Butler)

Sidon (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) VS The Beast/Adam (Beauty and the Beast)

Flynn Rider/Eugene Fitzherbert (Tangled) VS Eric (The Little Mermaid)

Leona Kingscholar (Twisted Wonderland) VS Prince Fluff (Kirby's Epic Yarn)

Prince Peasley (Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga) VS PrinceMamemon (Digimon)

Olivert Reise Arnor (Trails Series) VS Arthur D. Lawrence (Rune Factory 4)

The Blind Prince (The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince) VS Alain (Unicorn Overlord)

Alcryst (Fire Emblem Engage) VS Zagreus (Hades)

Jak (Jak and Daxter) VS Lancer (Deltarune)

Asriel Dreemurr (Undertale) VS Goro (Mortal Kombat)

Roman Sanders (Sanders Sides) VS Dirk Strider (Homestuck)

Turtle (Wings of Fire) VS Krel Tarron (Tales of Arcadia)

Box Prince (Adventure Time) VS Lotor (Voltron Legendary Defender)

Bowser Jr (Mario Franchise) VS Manaphy (Pokémon)

Callisto Regulus (Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess) VS Prince Gerard of Greenleigh (Dimension 20: Neverafter)

Kiriona Gaia (The Locked Tomb) VS The Little Prince (The Little Prince)

Tedros (The School for Good and Evil) VS Cardan Greenbriar (The Folk of the Air)

Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor (Red, White & Royal Blue) VS Kaito (The Lunar Chronicles)

Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia) VS Hamlet (Hamlet)

#round 1 #tumblr bracket

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wolves-against-the-world · 10 months

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Lycanthropy and the Body in Medieval Europe

Sourced from: Riddarvold, Stian (2023): Medieval perceptions of the Other in an extranormal community: The Case of Cornelius Vogelsang. Journal of Lycanthropic History, 2(3).

The perception of Monstrosity and Otherness in Medieval Europe has been analyzed in literature from the Icelandic sagas (Merkelbach, 2014) to Beowolf (Fahey, 2019; Cavell, 2014). [...] The Army of the Night (Exercitus noctis) is not documented well, many documents being destroyed upon its dissolution in the 1300s. Despite this, there has been a recent uptick in research about this unique military and social structure. Exclusively consisting of lycanthropes, it was still largely governed by medieval perceptions of monstrousness contingent with human society. This study will examine the norms surrounding monstrosity and the body in a lycanthropic context and their enforcement through the documented court case against Cornelius Vogelsang. Additionally, interviews were conducted with three werewolves who witnessed the trial, which will be referred to as P, Z, and M.

The Army of the Night was a military unit founded and led by Emicho VI., also known as Emicho the Crusader (ca. 1050-2020), to aid the crusades. The Army of the Night is only scarcely documented in official church records, though Emicho appears frequently in the Gesta Francorum and Historia Francorum. He is described as a capable, if ruthless, military leader building a strike force apart from the main, i.e. human, crusaders. While the lycanthropic nature of that force is not named directly, Gesta Francorum indicates a level of disconnect between the fighting units, describing the Army of the Night as simply "strange" (prodigiosus). After the failure of the first crusade, there is a large hole in the documentation, with Emicho and his troops only appearing in fragments. For a more general overview see Vanderbilt, 1989.

Monstrosity and Monstrousness in the Army of the Night

In the Middle Ages, monstrousness was a metaphor as well as a real state inherently linked to the soul. Monstrousness as a whole was heavily confounded with race, disability, and marginalization in literature and was heavily linked to the body. It was assumed that wickedness or sin would show on the body, the damnation of the soul made flesh here and in the afterlife. Unlike in many Christian faiths today, the soul was not seen as separate from the body. The state of the soul was reflected on the body and vice versa. Another important component was the mind: Reasoning ability was assumed to be inherently human, while the monstrous only followed instincts. The damned were thus made monstrous by the rejection of their very existence as a thinking being.

In the period of the Army's assembly and operations, monstrousness was not seen as inherently damning, as in, it was reversible. Repentance could still save the soul.

As eldritch lycanthropes change on a molecular level, they were permanently made monstrous, and were thus damned by merely existing. However, the visible signs of lycanthropy progress with age, giving rise to the idea that there was a timeframe in which one could still reverse the process. (see document B26-3682)

[Fragment of latin text describing a transformation and the idea that there is a way to "save" a werewolf]

The timeframes vary between 30-100 years, which correlates with the lifespans of werewolves in the Army of the Night as estimated by my interview partners (transcripts in Appendix A-C).

Werewolf P was a high-ranking officer in the Army and worked closely with Emicho VI. In regard to the Army's concept of salvation, he stated:

"If they [the chosen recruits] survived the turning, they were brought into the camp. They were told it was a punishment for their sins - that it came directly from God instead of, hm, that they were just unlucky I suppose. [...] It was a sin to be a werewolf, and you became a werewolf by sinning, so unless you were saved before the beast took over completely, you would be damned forever. Of course people figured out that it was Emicho and his officers who were turning people, but the fear kept them in line. Turning someone without permission and hiding it was also punishable by death. Not that most lived very long. They thought dying for the cause could save them."

This idea was reinforced by a lycanthropic trait that has not been studied outside of folklore until the modern day. When dying, the body will take the shape that is most aligned with the phase of the moon. Calculating the moonphase for recorded battles shows that most were fought during half or new moon. A dying wolf would thus turn back to humanoid form and seemingly confirm that they had been saved. This of course was only true for wolves young enough to not show outward signs that a medieval person could pick up on. Once again, this reinforced the time pressure the recruits faced.

Burial, too, was contingent on their body's and thus soul's state.

[...]

The case of Cornelius Vogelsang

To show how monstrousness informed social relationships even within an extranormal community, I will now examine the court case against Cornelius Vogelsang, a member of the Army of the Night that was executed on the fifth of March 1218 on account of sodomy and heresy. What makes this case interesting is that it is the only one still preserved in some detail.

The person in question first appears as either Hussein ibn al-Rahmud or Hassan ibn al-Rahmad in the list of new recruits on the retreat after the disastrous loss at Hattin (1187). He was recorded to be 20 years old, which is not out of place in the Army of the Night. (See document A34-3442)

A supplementary interview with the werewolf Z confirmed that Vogelsang had likely grow up Muslim, but "he didn't like to speak of it". (Appendix B) The name Cornelius Vogelsang appears first in the Army's 1188 census alongside the older name. He seemed to have christianized his name in order to fit in with the Europeans. The appendix "Vogelsang" was apparently given in reference to his singing prowess. In between his recruitment and sentencing there is no surviving documentation of his existence or actions.

The trial commenced in early February 1218. The town cannot be identified conclusively due to damage to the parchment, but the record was found in the abbey of St. John in Alzey. While this abbey was only founded in 1290, it still points towards the trial taking place in the region.

Vogelsang was indicted on charges of heresy and sodomy. He was accused of preaching heresies to young recruits, such as lycanthropy not being a reversible curse, but a natural state of being. In a second charge he was also accused of sodomy with an unknown man that could not be identified in the course of the trial. Document A44-3448 describes the other person involved as "indictus" (unnamed), which implies that the identity was known, but the person was not to be charged.

[Scan and transcript of the page detaiing the court proceedings.]

Sodomy in this period was defined as any sexual act not intended for procreation. In the Army of the Night, this rule extended to all sexual activity, as siring children while monstrous was perceived as a major threat both theologically and realistically. This did not mean the werewolves did not seek out women, but by the decree of 1123, any offspring was to be killed as soon as possible. [...] The primary affront of homosexual acts was not its usually recreational nature, but the "perversion of natural law" of one person taking on the role of the opposite sex. (Hart, 1990) [...]

Vogelsang was described as a "large, blue man" with "shoulders like oxen and hands like shovels". Blue in this context refers to all darker colors and was often used in texts to also denote wickedness, possibly with a racialized undertone (Sigurdsdottír, 2018). The description of his strength also marks him as threatening. In the following paragraph, he is described as wearing his hair in the style of a woman, and his "beard [does] not hide his weakness". This description makes sense when connected with the accusations of an unknown witness, who claims to have found Vogelsang "subdued and taking the part of the woman", i.e. being the receiving partner.

Vogelsang was sentenced to death by burning, and his eyes were gouged out as to forbid him from seeing God's splendor. This sentence is notably brutal, as most other documented death sentences were either executed through beheading or a silver dagger to the heart. It is not too far-fetched to assume the sentence was meant to be a deterrent. The destruction of the body was a highly symbolic act. It proclaimed Vogelsang to be beyond salvation, thus he was considered to have lost his soul and the privilege of burial.

Assuming all accusations are true, Cornelius Vogelsang knew that the soldiers were being lied to, and tried to disprove or at least challenge the reigning narrative. With said narrative as his primary tool, Emicho had good reason to fear an erosion of his power.

Vogelsang's identity (in the modern sense) also made him vulnerable: While race was not conceptualized the way it is today, being Middle Eastern could have been a visible reminder of his status as a convert. Z, who described himself as a "half-gypsy", recounted several instances of prejudice because of his appearance being used to challenge his status as a Christian.

The last of my three interview partners, M, added a completely new and unknown perspective. According to him, while there certainly was "some political shit going on", the sodomy accusation had actually resulted from jealousy. The accuser had previously been rejected by Vogelsang, and the accusation had been revenge. (see Appendix C)

The only defending voice in the trial came from an unnamed officer, whose description has been erased, seemingly on purpose.

[Scan of a document that had an entire paragraph scratched out]

The remaining account merely states that he protested the sentence and was silenced by his superior, one Bishop Anghelescu. Despite the intervention, the officer was sentenced to whipping and being marked by claw, i.e. having a visible part of his body scarred. The nature of this punishment served to make his monstrousness - in this case supporting a sinner - physically apparent.

Monstrousness as a state of damnation-until-saved informed both the social structures of the Army and the identity of werewolves within the group. At the same time, these concepts were used by Emicho VI. and the Catholic church as a whole to enact control upon a highly organized and effective strike force. Monstrousness was tied to gender, sexuality, religion, and race. Deviations both voluntary and involuntary could be cause for punishment including death. The case Vogelsang illustrates this use of theology in the name of control and power, as enacted by Emicho VI.

#lycanthrope #werewolf #wolves against the world #worldbuilding #original character #academia #cornelius vogelsang #i rote this instead of my actual uni stuff

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furasims · 11 months

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SCLC mega recap!

Welcome to the dramatic and ever-changing world of the Pessoa family—a swirling cauldron of dreams, struggles, and unexpected love affairs! We left Viola (the Second Gen heir) as a no ordinary single mom; she's a comedy queen and sitcom star who climbed her way to the top, all while managing a household full of twins. A sim-life superhero, if you ask me.

Her daughter Octavia became a mysterious teen who embraced her vampire lineage to delve into a life of nocturnal adventures with her father Caleb and her intriguing aunt Lilith. What darkness and light have they unlocked in Forgotten Hollow?

Cornelius, Octavia's twin brother, is the epitome of resilience! He battled the chaos of youth, aced his way through college, and decided to change the world.

Now a top-notch politician, he's married to the fabulous Mezquite, and they have two dynamic children: Sara and Devante.

Devante, the explorer, ventured into university and sprinted off to Selvadorada, the mecca of archeological treasures. From ancient ruins to vibrant cultures, his postcards are more than mere paper; they're slices of his soul.

Sara, our Oasis Springs artisan, turned her green thumb into a crafting empire, filling homes with handmade furniture that's to die for. But oh, the drama! Her marriage crumbled when Ella Jr, her high school sweetheart, fell under the spell of the ageless vampire, Auntie Octavia.

Thrown into emotional turmoil, Sara's kids navigated the chaos in their own unique ways. Rhys, a gentle soul, found refuge in the serenity of nature, while Adeline ignited her passion for eco-activism, becoming Sulani's youngest crusader. Now Adeline is on the verge of adulthood, and the air is thick with anticipation.

So, grab your popcorn and brace yourselves, because Adeline's coming-of-age promises to bring a whole new wave of drama to this already sensational family saga!

#scl #such colorful lives challenge #recap #oasis springs #sims 4 #sims 4 challenge #ts4 #ts4 legacy challenge #Viola Pessoa #Sara Pessoa #Adeline Pessoa #Rhys Pessoa #Devante Pessoa #Cornelius Pessoa #Octavia Pessoa #Ella Lum Junior

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cantsayidont · 11 months

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1999 and 2004. Inspired by Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius, Nicholas Roeg, and METAL HURLANT, Bryan Talbot's LUTHER ARKWRIGHT saga is a psychedelic adventure story about a dimension-shifting psychic assassin who becomes a kind of reluctant cosmic messiah. His initial adventures focused primarily on his role in resolving an English Civil War on a parallel Earth where the tyrannical descendants of Oliver Cromwell still rule England in the early 1980s.

Talbot drew the character's earliest stories in 1978, but later retooled the original saga, in much more accomplished form, in the late '80s:

Intricately drawn, complex, and full of big philosophical ideas (and not a little adolescent wish fulfillment, like Luther's multidimensional girlfriend Rose Wylde), THE ADVENTURES OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT is not unlike the later work of Grant Morrison: It's sometimes compelling and sometimes full of shit, but even at its most indulgent, there's always something worth attention, not least Talbot's magnificent art.

There have been two sequels: HEART OF EMPIRE, in the '90s, about Luther's daughter, and the more recent THE LEGEND OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT, which I'm not crazy about. The original ADVENTURES, however, is a foundational work of ambitious English-language comics.

#comics #the adventures of luther arkwright #luther arkwright #bryan talbot #heart of empire has gorgeous color artwork #but ultimately feels a bit anticlimactic #and the way the more recent sequel treats its nonbinary villain is uneasy

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themoomoorn · 2 years

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LA SAGA DE BAGUETTE PART DEUX: BIENVENUE A CHILI'S

It's time to balance our blossoming war with activity micromanagement on a magical, overloaded airship-fortress-sports bar. Y'know, as you do.

The Somniel may not have a Chili's, but they better have a Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie in that kitchen anyway!

...what do you mean Chili's doesn't make it anymore!?

Emblème, Engager!

This enchanted doggo poops out Bond Shards if you feed and pet it. That's nice and all, but can it also poop out Happy Hour priced custom margaritas? Didn't think so.

Yeah, not weird at all /s

Also, can we please just have a normal war camp again??? I'm siding with the Tellius fandom on that one.

After getting acquainted with the Somniel, we begin our journey proper by getting a set of rings from Firene, the perpetual springtime kingdom and also the most peaceful and religious of the lot. Their current monarch is Ève, and her heir is Prince Alfred. We meet him his sister, Princess Céline, and their respective retainer duos after finding out that a local town is being sacked by Corrupted.

Per Lumera, Lythos kept two rings and the other countries got two to three apiece. She kept the ring for Sigurd, and Alear had Marth's on during their epic millenium-spanning post-con crash. For Firene, they have the rings for Celica and Micaiah (the latter we find for ourselves later on, as it's in a shrine at the border).

Here I have Alfred Engaged with Sigurd, and Céline will always enter combat in this Chapter with Celica in tow. Both of them rock their respective outfits well and are also good fits for their respective skillsets. I do find it odd that Sigurd's Engaged hair color is a vibrant lilac though.

I wonder if this crystal is made of trix yogurt?

Here we meet Veyle, our Mysterious Fragile Female Waif-type. As you can see by the BDSM choker and the chains on her legs, she will presumably continue the Great Shouzou Kaga's legacy of women being too "pure" and "innocent" to be evil. As these interviews show, the guy presumably needed to have his teeth pulled out with pliers to even conceive a character like Jugdral's Queen Hilda of Chronos.

This game continues the trend of NPCs having banger designs, and for Firene, this includes a lot of floral prints. I love the dresses, and I'd love a button-up with a pattern like it. The item shopkeeper is also really pretty!

Framme is the only character who sorta responds positively to being gifted horse manure. Sigh.

"Alear has that sadness and longing in his eyes that you only see in eastern European gay porn."

Exercise mini-games, which offer a temporary stat boost. Here we have Alear doing push-ups in improper form. Most of the Somniel activities are more valuable for grinding up Bond Fragments more than the activity itself, although fishing is a nice extra spot for cooking ingredients.

In contrast to her daughter's absurd gown, Queen Ève's is nicer, and also has a prettier color palette.

We are introduced to our smex appeal female henchman of the game, Zephia. I will be inevitably disappointed when we are forced to see her sob backstory and be forced to sympathize with her.

She's also voiced by Elizabeth Maxwell in English, and while I know she's had many, many roles, I still mainly hear P5's Sae Niijima, which in this case is kind of hilarious.

This line is actually pretty funny. And hey, if Alfred actually didn't have the capacity of trampling over people like Sigurd himself did, lance abilities, or a workout routine that would presumably fit right in on TikTok, then Nelucce would have a leg to stand on!

Hopefully his passing was uneventful and not the stuff of nightmares, like poor Cornelius.

...Is Vander a cat???

In good old Post-2012 FE fashion, we have a Paralogue off the beaten path to do before running to the border to get Micaiah's ring. And in said same fashion, this map is where we recruit our steroid-injected child who presumably got Tommy John surgery at the age of seven under the pretense that it would allegedly enhance their performance. Yes, I do like baseball actually.

Anyway, our trainee unit for this game is Jean, and he is my new fictional son. I love him. I also love his hot dad and his drip.

Alear raids a farm at night and steals a nice, light, feathery cock. Kinda shocked we don't have more memes of Alear hoarding animals for the Somniel's farm.

Hiyah Papaya, it's time to meet Yunaka, who's actually one of the best characters AND units in this game, despite having one of my least favorite designs, but that's also the power of a good story and good voiceover work (Laura Post in this case) for you.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Emblem Micaiah, who, like some of the other Emblems, is presented here in sanitized fashion. Yunaka enters the scene Engaged with her, which is convenient as Micaiah's Shine tome lights up this Fog of War Map.

Also, Fog of War maps are back. Sweet.

Veyle is back. Another plot trinket is bestowed upon us. The vivid red shade presumably denotes that it's eeeeeeviiiiilllll.

Another Paralogue before we wrap things up and head to Brodia, and it's Anna's. We get a refreshing change of pace with a female bandit boss and some female bandits, which is pretty cool actually. She even has a 9/10 design.

The remaining 1 point was knocked off for the micro hot pants.

I didn't bother with screenshots, but Anna is a viable playable unit after being completely shitty in 3H. She's a pretty mixed bag in terms of stats, but her Personal Skill is extremely useful providing her Luck levels up (She can plunder 500 gold from an enemy she defeats off a percentage of her base Luck stat). This also might be the most likable Anna so far...not that that's a very high hurdle to clear.

Her being 11 in this game is also still odd, but she got a far better and less rotten English VA out of it in the end.

And that wraps up the Firene Arc. Next time, we head to Brodia, the testosterone-poisoned Sparta analogue. What rings will their royals have, and will they be as inoffensive and mild as -

...wait.

I hear rattling.

Rolling along the grass, over there...

Is that...a bracelet...?

...oh no.

ALEAR NO -

#fire emblem engage #fe disengage #alear fire emblem #moomoorn plays viddie games #moomoo's dumb opinions #long post #alfred fire emblem

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caltropspress · 1 year

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RAPS + CRAFTS #13: Algernon Cornelius

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

I’m Algernon Cornelius, producer/rapper based in Manchester (UK). A lot of my early work consists of instrumental beat-tapes (which can be found on my bandcamp), along with collaborative works like Mortal Deck, as well as some side-projects like Philip K. Dickhead. I wrote my first rap in 1993 (co-written with my Dad tbf), but didn’t start writing properly until 2003. Around the same time I started producing by making pause tapes in a little cassette recorder and then by the same process but with cheap CD turntables into an Archos Gmini 402 mp4 player. I started using Cubase in 2005 and then moved on to Ableton in 2014.

Somewhere along this path I briefly let go of rapping to focus more on beat-making, that is until about 2016 when I made the song “Zero Hour Contract” (the vocals were recorded on a dictaphone). That return to writing was most likely sparked by hearing ELUCID’s Valley Of Grace record. I followed that up with another single: “Witchita”.

There are multiple stories you can choose to follow when you explore my discography. Perhaps the easiest route is through the rap time-line, which is as follows…

Neither Gloaming Nor Argent: Both Before And After The Dark (2020)

The Miraculous Weapons of Clarkus_Dark (2021)

Me No Sen You No Come (2022)

SEGUNDO (2023) NGNA is a compilation of singles I recorded before, during and after the making of MWxxCD (think 13 Songs by Fugazi or The Sagas Of… by Klashnekoff). MWxxCD is my debut album. MNSYNC is an EP, and SEGUNDO is my 2nd album.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I wish I did write on a daily basis, but most of the time I just ponder about living my life being busy or procrastinating, until something hits me. Usually it’s one line that sounds interesting or funny to me. There have been times when I’ve tried to be more disciplined and write something every day. These bursts typically happen in the new year and then eventually fade away, in that respect being undisciplined is my discipline. But when it comes to it I can be anywhere. For this album specifically I went back home to the house I grew up in while my parents were away and just wrote for 10 days straight (probably helped that I got covid and couldn’t leave). I set everything up in the dining room and had the mic in one hand to record demos as I wrote with the other. I’ve never really written in that way before, but it was definitely good for me. Being alone, and having a mission, and knowing exactly how my voice would sound as I was writing. I can’t do that in my current living situation because I live with other people and I’m very self-conscious. I think being in a space I knew well and felt comfortable in really helped too.

I don’t write everyday, but ideas are usually always kicking around. I like to leave room for experiences to write about.

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

It used to be a pen and sheets of A4 white paper. Then it became lined notebooks. Then it was my laptop. In the past five years or so it has been in the notes app on my phone, and then typed up in a Google doc where it can be edited and refined. I can’t keep new lyrics in my head for long because they tend to metamorphosise into something else very quickly, so they have to be preserved outside the brain. I’ll then rehearse over and over until I know it off-top and it becomes muscle memory, because I would rather not be reading off something in the booth (that isn’t always possible with last minute rewrites). The best way is if I can play it live a few times because then I really get a feel for it and know what the energy is like and I have more confidence behind the flow, I know what the pockets should feel like.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

Oh it’s very disorganised. But then again that can depend on the beat. Some songs encourage more free-form structure.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

I think when I feel uncomfortable or cringe is when I know it’s not working. I know you have to kill the part of you that cringes but that’s 100 gecs' job. You really have to feel genuine with what you’re saying, and that’s an integrity that keeps you grounded in who you are as an artist. That gets a lot easier as you get older and you don’t have to put on a voice or adopt certain language.

My line of thinking is that it begins with a jump-off, so the first line is the provocateur. The attention grabber. Often this may not have anything to do with the rest of the verse, but it’s integral to getting to the rest of it. The big bang. In this way my verses probably tend to make more sense towards the end.

I try to keep everything, and this is why I would like to move back to writing on paper. I kept everything on paper. In a Google Doc it’s very easy to erase history. With SEGUNDO I tried to not be scared of the rewrite. I can be very precious about my work, but I had to give the mic to the voice that says “you can do better”.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

I have loved writing since forever. I was always writing stories as a kid and got a lot of encouragement from my English teachers at school. I still somewhat regret not taking English Literature at 6th Form (age 16-18 in the UK). I’ve been writing a lot more poetry recently and have sketched out some ideas for short sci-fi stories, and at some point want to go into script writing and learn to make films. I used to write about music a lot, for a few blogs and some larger platforms that shall remain nameless. I don’t know if that’s influenced my songwriting because rap is what got me into playing with language, so that informs everything else.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I am trying to edit more. That was a key thing in the making of these last two records. I take ages to start things but once I get going it’s very quick, so it’s more like a stream of consciousness ting. You can end up trying to cram in too many ideas that way, and with SEGUNDO specifically I wanted to introduce more space in my rhymes, so I would cut some things to make that happen. Songs like “...AND THE LIVING” happened very quickly, but with “WHERE WE ARE” and “PLAGUES” there were several different versions I made until it sounded right. When something happens quickly I often have no memory of how it happened, it feels like it comes from another place (manic brain memory loss).

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

I go through different waves. When I’m not writing for a project I just stream a load of bars out and have them all in a document. Most of the time these can’t fit to any of the music that I write, but I can nick certain lines that fit. “I Am Not The Moon” from Miraculous Weapons used a lot of lyrics from a couple of verses I wrote over a loop of The Wanton Song by Led Zeppelin when I was 18. I carry several verses around in my head that can’t really squish into a typical song format. I keep them there in case there was ever a situation where I got into a cypher and needed to prove something. As yet this has never happened, and may never will, perhaps this only happens in movies. I will just keep reciting them in the shower until that day comes. But when it’s for a project the beats always come first, so I’m gonna sit down and go through in sequential order and write like that. Doing it that way you’re carving out a route so the listener can follow your path (that is of course if they listen to albums front to back in one sitting and not on shuffle).

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

The music, first and foremost. That’s always the mood setter. That’s why the stuff I write without music tends to be more random and glitchy. In fact I have a load of stuff like this which I’m planning to release as a poetry book later this year called The Glitch and the Goof. But when I’m working on a record I make all the beats first and then sequence the album because it has to make sense musically, the instrumentals dictate the journey you’re gonna go on. Also whatever I name the instrumental when I export it, that usually informs the direction. I should probably be more careful with that. Although “Stress” was originally called “Night Goat” (after the Melvins song) and there was no mention of goats in that. There aren’t many of my songs that stick to one subject (Kool Moe Dee definitely would’ve scored me low for sticking to themes). On “DUNKEL” I do and that’s because of the sample, which is literally saying “dark” so that was the direction I gave Val and myself. “DECEMBER 25” is obviously one of the most focused theme-wise because I’m trying to tell a very specific story and it’s perhaps the most clear and personal I’ve been on a track. Funnily enough that song came about because I was working a temp job at a University and my fellow temp comrade (the only other black guy who worked there, it’s actually incredible they allowed 2 of us to work on the front desk at the same time now that I think about it), anyway we were chatting about white English reactions to diaspora foods, like having rice with your Sunday roast and how kids in school thought that was weird, but it was normal for us. We laughed about it and then I thought about it for a minute and wrote down “rice in my roast, what the whites will never know”. That’s the jump-off line right there. And as I already had the loop I wanted to sample for it in my head on rotation (it had been stuck in my head for almost 2 years), by the time I was on the bus home I just continued writing on my phone. The mood was already set and I just started thinking about this story I wanted to tell. I got home and immediately looped that shit up and then worked more lyrics around it, following the bassline.

In terms of being constrained by the rhymes, I think yes this can happen, but then it’s all about vocab and finding ways back home if you go too far out. The patterns you weave doing that can be beautiful. That’s like looking at a brain-scan create an Etch-a-Sketch. Having that constraint can pull out some wild juxtapositions and create a really interesting image.

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

Absolutely. I always think about Method Man, especially on his earlier records, where he basically switches up the flow almost every line. That’s the stuff that got me so excited as a kid. As a rapper you are just an instrument, so as you would with drums or a bassline or a keyboard, you can switch it up to take the song somewhere. It’s always about what’s best for the song for me. I don’t like to get too self-indulgent as an emcee. I am no better than the beat really, I’m part of an ensemble cast, and we’re all working for the song. I don’t tend to think about my rhyme schemes as methodically as I used to, perhaps because it comes more naturally to me now, but I remember for a while I was experimenting with reverse compound structures where the 2nd line would be close enough to a phonetic reverse of the previous line. I have a crude example from an unreleased song where I say: “High-hitting hats when I relapse into narcosis / Whenever I’m focused you can tell where I have been at with my hidden eye” Maybe I will go back to getting more scientific with ideas like this.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

On SEGUNDO I think “DECEMBER 25” obviously because it took a lot for me to get there. I mean really that’s one of the reasons why it’s the last track on the album. I don’t think there’s been a time where I’ve listened back to that song and I haven’t cried, so it did what it was supposed to do. That was a similar case with “Adieu” from NGNA. “CLOY ROYSTER” because that’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to a true freestyle (I can’t freestyle for shit). The 2nd verse of “Tentative”, which originally I left open for a guest but then I ended up surpassing my own expectations (I originally gave the beat to R.A.P. Ferreira but then ended up using it on my album, then he came back with “No Word For Wack” which ended up on the Ruby Yacht album). ”Lightning Bolt” as well, that was a real one. I wrote the lyrics, made the beat, recorded it and then posted it on bandcamp maybe all within 2 hours. Extremely raw shit. (It’s called "Lightning Bolt" because that’s who I was going to see play a gig that night). That’s actually an example of where I wrote it all out on a piece of paper first and then made it fit to the beat, and I mean it helps that the beat doesn’t have any drums, it’s just six pads of noise. “Notes On A Native Sound” was written from a dream I had the same night I made the beat and I feel that’s maybe one of the most synergetic songs in terms of the music and lyrics. It all came out of two sides of the same trip.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

“Flexi disc under the x-ray / Mexican death day / Haters wanna flex I slip their disc and press play (…AND THE LIVING)

Like I don’t care if anyone rates that or not, for me it always makes me feel like this and that’s all I ever wanna do for myself. I had that line in my head for time, just a silly little boast innit? But with some very niche deep Wikipedia level references. Also me and my peers have very serious concerns about back pain. “Become a man before the onus is on the shoulders of the taurus / And the horns begin to grow again, blow through them / The tone of brass bones does not atone for intonation" (The Flood)

Men go a bit weird in their late 20’s, you ever notice that? This was sort of a way of saying check yourself before you wreck yourself. I used 3 zodiac signs for Miraculous Weapons; the Bull (Taurus), Snake and Crab (Cancer), and they all work as points of reference across the album. A lot of it is to do with ideas of fate, determinism and essentialism and trying to escape that (which actually I've just realised that’s at the core of most of my work). The titular Clarkus_Dark is basically the bad character (as Lord Quas might say). My dad used to have this Shofar in the house which I used to play with (he was a religious studies teacher) so that’s probably where I got that imagery. I also used to play trombone so there’s your brass bones, and you can hear some trombone at the end of “How Good’s The Funeral?”. It’s all tied together. Now that I think of it this was also one where I wrote the lyrics before the music and then made it fit afterwards too. Cat, who is the first person you hear whisper “SEGUNDO” at the start of the album, I wrote that in her living room in the middle of a crisis.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

Punching-in I have no qualms about. Like I said before it’s about what’s best for the song. There are cases when a punch-in can fuck up the flow, there are cases where cutting out a breath can make it sound too clinical. Just depends on what you want out of the recording. I’m getting better at editing stuff down in the writing so it’s about clarity and rhythm. I’ll preface this with the fact that I’m old enough where I’m going to use Big Daddy Kane as an example…but you know when you’re starting out you just wanna show off and fit as many syllables in a line as possible (yeah, like Big Daddy Kane)? Well when you play live you come to the compromise, because I have so much energy I need to get off I can’t be running about and do all that, especially as I get older. No matter how much I push I have to understand my body has limits, so then it becomes a choice of what you’re trying to give. Is it lyrical-miracle virtuosity? Or clarity? What is going to connect with your audience? Because at the end of the day that’s what you’re trying to do, you have to make a connection otherwise there’s no point.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

Definitely films. For SEGUNDO there were things about Spike Lee joints that informed the feeling in songs like “PLAGUES” and “CURRY MILE”, in particular his use of the double dolly technique. I wanted to do that with music. When I was writing I rinsed seasons 3 and 4 of Top Boy, the Andy Warhol documentary on Netflix, The Power of the Dog, Call My Agent! and Fast & the Furious 9. Obviously I’m not sure how that last one had any effect on me, but the hook in SEGUNDO was inspired by Basquiat in the Warhol doc.

I’d never really dipped that heavily into the work of David Lynch before, and I had wondered if it was just too late for me. Like is all the weirdo shit I already like just jacked from Uncle DL? But I saw Mulholland Drive for the first time and it shook me pretty deep, like really got right inside me in a very particular way that I don’t know how to put into words, and there’s not that many films that have done that. That kind of made me think differently about the structure of SEGUNDO and what it meant, because to be honest the meaning was missing for me for a long time and it felt like the process of making this album was almost in search of that, and then towards the end it started to make sense, but as if the answer had always been there. The lyrics to “SLOW WOUND” are mostly inspired by Mulholland Drive if you look closely enough.

I’m always inspired by food, I’m always thinking about that. It’s so tied to memory. Sometimes I can’t remember the details of a certain trip somewhere but I can tell you exactly what I ate and what it tasted like and how it made me feel.

A lot of SEGUNDO was inspired by nature. Again it’s about space but in many forms. The pandemic is what set that off, everything became still and empty, internally and externally. I was locked down in Manchester so I ended up taking huge walks out to anything that remotely resembled a bit of countryside, a park or a bit of woodland surrounded by a highway. I grew up right in the middle of the North Yorkshire Dales and Moors, there was so much expansive space there, your mind could just wander off into the distance. Can’t see shit for terrace houses here in Old Trafford, it’s like being trapped on the set of Coronation Street (I wrote this and then afterwards took a walk to the shop for some caraway seeds and the sun was beaming and the red bricks look so gorgeous in the light, so it’s not always so gloomy to be fair)

When some of the lockdown restrictions were lifted, me and my girlfriend’s first trip was to a remote converted farmhouse on the side of a mountain in North Wales. Some days you’d be trapped indoors because a huge rain cloud had engulfed everything, but on sunny days you could see as far as the Lake District and the Isle of Man. You’d set off on a walk and you’d maybe meet 1 or 2 people all day, unless you walked 5 miles to the nearest village pub. There were more wild ponies and sheep than people. That was a really important time for me where I could have the space to think while the music of SEGUNDO circled in my head.

Another trip like that was when we went up to the Scottish highlands (to stay with my girlfriend’s friend (Sarah Bernstein who is also a writer), again very remote. You’d wake up one morning and see a pod of dolphins making their way across the bay. It was in September so all the purple heather was in bloom. I was getting high just looking at all that purple, it looked like them Richard Mosse photographs of The Congo. That’s what inspired the autotuned part in CURRY MILE. It may have been born in south Manchester, and then settled in Snowdonia, but it grew wings in the highlands. I think there’s more of a nature sound on this record, it’s like halfway between the concrete streets and nature. Like there’s earth, air, ice, water, moss and a small fire trying to stay alight under it all.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

I constantly have self-doubt. I’d argue that’s what keeps me in check, but if there’s too much of it it becomes a real hindrance. I love my own shit but I have had to work for it. I always think of myself as someone to whom rapping does not come naturally. First off I’m from this cursed island of britain, and not even the happening part. There was no culture where I grew up, you had to get it all from television and radio, or movies and magazines. I was the only person I knew who wrote raps or was even into Hip-Hop (apart from Joanne from school who also liked Dizzee Rascal). If I ever came across another rapper it’d be the white kids who were into spitting over Makina and New Monkey type beats. So what I'm saying is I’ve taken many years to find my voice, and being quite isolated from any sort of rap scene has been both a good thing and a bad thing. Maybe my sword would be sharper if I was dueling on the daily. Maybe it’s ok to be a quirked-up country boy curry goated with the sauce busting it down Supreme Clientele style (we’ll get to that later). Either way I've put myself out there on the line and learnt a lot.

When I was 15 I sent my first demo to DJ Excalibah who was doing the late night slot for underground and UK rap on BBC radio 1Xtra (he’s now an acclaimed theatre director), he gave me very honest constructive feedback. Something to the effect of the recording quality was bad (which it was) and I needed to work on my flow and my voice (tell me about it), but that my writing was up there with the best of them. That last part was enough for me to keep going. Meeting people like Moor Mother who was one of the first people to tell me she liked my voice really gave me encouragement to not doubt myself. I try to remember moments like this and do the same for others when they’re out here.

It’s also having good honest mates around you, like Claudia (featured on the final reprise of MAKE THE SUN tagged on the end of CLOY ROYSTER), she suffers from a rare disease where she cannot lie to people, so that’s helpful in knowing what’s good. When James from the band Yard Act started demoing stuff with me for Miraculous Weapons he made a few suggestions to change a couple of lyrics because they were too on the nose, and usually I’m really stubborn and defensive about stuff like that but I trusted his opinion and he was right to be fair. Trust the people that know you.

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

Ghostface is my anchor. My all time favourite rapper. He gave me the blueprint for my style of free-association. I even did an art project in school based on his verse on "Daytona 500." Him and DOOM (and probably Pos from De La Soul) basically show up in my life when I’m 14/15 and show me how beautiful and fun language can be. So while I may not imitate them per se, they gave me a key to unlock something in myself to put my own spin on how I see the world. Another key rapper I would say is Danny Brown, and that’s mainly because he’s such an anglophile. He bridges the gap between Grime and American rap. He could do a whole album spitting over 140 bpm beats (I mean he does this so effortlessly over Benga’s "26 Basslines"). You can hear that influence on “WHERE WE ARE” for sure. I love Mos Def so much and that’s probably why I gravitated towards Mach-Hommy, it’s the tone and melody they bring. I’m one of those rappers who secretly wishes they were a singer. I’ve always been really big on Dancehall emcees with really gruff voices too. I started doing this growl which I mostly do live, which is partly inspired by more doomy sludgey bands, but you listen to BackRoad Gee and he’s doing something really interesting with it. I played with Sons of Kemet one time and while I was backstage I could hear Shabaka practicing his horn coming through the vent in the next room, and he was listening to drill music and playing along to it. That’s what it is, the voice is an instrument and he shows you that through his music, he’s playing certain lines and I’m immediately thrown back to my living room after school watching emcees on Channel U, he makes very specific references to certain grime flows.

I’d like to think that I have so many influences that they all get mangled together to form something different, or that my bad impressions become a new voice altogether, at least I hope.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

At the most basic level I just need something to rap over. I feel something and I wanna say something, so I make something, and then I try to make you feel what I felt. Now with that comes connection, but also unintended misinterpretation. And really the latter is what keeps this whole ting spinning. Evolution is just endless mistakes. Failure upon failure until it works for the moment and then until it doesn’t again. Hip-Hop is all about the flip, not just in terms of flipping samples but shifting perspective, I hope I can do that in my own way to some degree. I also want to just show people how connected they are, bring people together that wouldn’t be able to otherwise. It’s mad when I think of all the people I know and how most of them don’t know each other. You just gotta be a node and keep vibrating higher innit.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.

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