#this has actually renewed a bit of my faith in the next book

[camelspit]

(spoilers for the marella short story)

i think we need to actually consider the importance of canon marellinh, if that truly is what shannon meant to do (this does have to be taken with a grain of salt, since shannon is known for accidental queercoding.) after all these years of joking about the seemingly implied queer shit between the characters, to actually get something canonical? especially when a lot of us on tumblr are lgbtq+ in some way? it means so much and I genuinley cannot describe my feelings on it. to be in this fandom for years and all of a sudden have this? holy shit. even more insane when you consider a large part of the fandom is christian, many of whom are or have parents who are homophobic. this is a big move from shannon, and I genuinley cannot wait to see if it was intentional.

[aion-rsa]

Riverdale Creates Its Own Church Because Why Not?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Riverdale review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 16

“Being canonized has always been one of my life’s goals.”

And so it came to pass that Cheryl Blossom turned water into maple syrup.

Goddamn Riverdale is glorious trash.

In what is either very subtle marketing for The Eyes of Tammy Faye or just the best direction this show has taken since everyone was hopped up on Jingle Jangle, the Blossom family’s “Church of Jason” antics came into sharp focus this week. Although relegated to a B or C plot, this plotline — which works equally well as a satire on hip religions that popped up out of nowhere (see also: last week’s The Other Two) or as Cheryl’s latest brush with divine darkness.

The focal point of this episode was clearly supposed to be Archie getting justice for his fallen comrades, but how can one be expected to pay attention to military intrigue when a line like “for I am Cheryl Blossom, Queen of the Bees” is delivered by Madelaine Petsch without a hint of insincerity? Disjointed as this season is, there’s been a clear effort on the part of the writing to staff to give the show’s secondary characters more to do. (Due to Petsch’s constant scene-stealing it’s easy to forget that she was previously a supporting character before the series’ producers made the wise decision to become an ensemble piece instead of focusing primarily on Archie, Veronica, Betty and Jughead). As a result, Cheryl has shone brighter than ever.

While Penelope clearly sees the Church of Jason as another shady enterprise, for Cheryl it has become a, well, bona fide religious experience. Since breaking up with Toni she has become, in the immortal words of The Lemonheads, “a ship without a rudder.” The Church of Jason gives her a purpose, even if it is only to satisfy her carnivorous desire for validation. Although this has some unexpected side effects, namely that her false divinity unexpectedly gave rise to an actual miracle when she controlled the bees and use them to dispel Penelope from the Church. “Something inside me has shifted,” she tells Kevin afterwards, “something powerful.” More than just quasi-literally becoming a Queen Bee, Cheryl has undergone a true religious awakening and tapped into a power inside of herself. How will this manifest? And what ramifications will it have for her and all of Riverdale itself?

Cheryl has always been more of a persona than a character, reliably outrageous with hints of an inner depth that go undeveloped as the series’ tears through its storytelling. I’d like to think that whatever is happening here is going to correct that wrong and give Cheryl the ability to be fleshed out more. Seeing how self-aware Riverdale has been of late (i.e. Josie’s takedown of the entire gang last week), there is a renewed effort to strengthen sidelined characters. Let’s see how Cheryl benefits from this in the few remaining episodes of the season.

Speaking of sidelined characters, there is none more so than Casey Cott’s Kevin Keller. Five seasons in and Kevin can be boiled down to “loves musicals and cruising for anonymous sex,” which doesn’t exactly befit the character’s GLAAD-award comic book counterpart. The continual lack of depth for Kevin and the show’s reliance on stereotyping him remains an absolute downer. Where are his multitudes? At least by pairing him with Cheryl he isn’t out in Fox Forest all the time. Again though, he remains sidelined without any clear definition. I give the series credit for not following the cliched “Bury Your Gays” trope, but by continually mishandling Keller the argument could be made that his lack of dimensions are a fate worse than death. I’m hoping that the show finally figures out what to do with him, as Cott and Keller — who was Archie’s first openly gay character — deserve much better.

The Church of Jason’s actual goals are unclear, and the miracles on display here were pretty much sacrilegious. Now that something has shifted in Cheryl, expect her to transform the religion into something based on her past trauma (and her mother’s scheming) into something entirely different, and perhaps dark. For now though, I’m willing to go on faith that the Church of Jason, and Riverdale itself, has some entertaining miracles up its gloriously bonkers sleeve.

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Riverdale Rundown

Like last week’s excellent installment, this episode was directed by Robin Givens, who is rapidly becoming one of this series’ best helmers.

I for one would have loved to have seen Cheryl and Kevin’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat medley. Thanks Penelope.

A nice bit of meta humor appeared when Jason was referred to as “a man of few words” as we have yet to see the character utter even a pre-death flashback syllable.

K.J. Apa’s hair seems to be rebelling against the red hair dye more and more each week.

This episode’s main plot was about Archie’s attempts to bring General Taylor to justice, but it is so disconnected from the other storylines that it ultimately results in a major shrug. Even the show seems uninterested in this, with the climatic tribunal — which would have at least provided some A Few Good Men pastiching — happening off screen.

Before it was cancelled, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina‘s next season was supposed to be a massive Riverdale crossover involving witches. One can only wonder if Cheryl’s new abilities are somehow tied into this abandoned event.

We learn that Reggie and Hermosa had “a thing,” and one that Veronica seems both revolted (and perhaps a bit jealous?) of.

Hiram Lodge storing his palladium in model of So-Dale is very on brand.

The book Jughead initially passes off as his own before coming to his senses is “Rules of Distraction,” (an obvious riff on The Rules of Attraction) written by the very Riverdale-named Cora Carter.

Jughead’s agent is named Samm, and this is perhaps not so coincidental. One of the greatest-ever Archie artists was Samm Schwartz, who has best known for his work on the Jughead solo comic. By giving the character fluid movement and hilarious facial expressions, Schwartz’s gag-packed panels remain the most pleasing take on the character in Archie’s 80-year history.

Copter Cab, a rideshare company that takes one-percenters to exclusive events via helicopter is such a douchey idea that I’m generally shocked it doesn’t exist in real life.

Jughead gets one of the best lines of the week when he remarks to Betty that she “solved like eight mysteries in high school and were still valedictorian.”

What with Archie’s crusade for justice, Veronica generally kicking ass in her battle to detach from Chad and regain her She-Wolf of Wall Street Mojo, all the aforementioned magic of Cheryl and Kevin, and Jughead’s attempt to get his life back on track, Betty’s search for the Lonely Highway Trucker didn’t get much screentime until the end of the episode. By pairing with Tabitha Tate on the road, she has a new ally, and I can’t wait to see these two trying to solve crimes together.

Speaking of, the Lonely Highway Killer has to be TBK, right?

It’s interesting that the past two episodes have worked overtime to make Mr. Lodge seem small and foolish. I’m not quite sure where this is leading, but it’s satisfying to see him get some comeuppance at last.

Fake brands this week include the Boysenberry pager and The Wall Beat Journal.

Now that Jughead’s The Lost Weekend-ing seems to be headed towards the backburner, I’m excited for next week’s installment which promises the return of Mothmen. Finally.

The post Riverdale Creates Its Own Church Because Why Not? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3tMpkNl

[firstumcschenectady]

"God, Stress, and Abundant Lives” based on 1 Kings 19:4-8

I'm mad. Mad that we – the big collective we – might have beaten this virus if we trusted our experts and prioritized collective well-being. Mad that we “can't have nice things” still, EVEN THOUGH science provided amazing vaccines in an unbelievably short time. Mad that I have to make decisions no one– including me – likes because the first rule of John Wesley is “first do no harm” and I really believe we have to do that.

But, a friend sent an article this week that pointed out that I'm not mad. I just think I'm mad. Or, more so, that anger is a secondary emotion that works well to mask primary emotions. The article said the emotion that I'm actually feeling is fear. (Note: do not try this at home. Do not tell someone what they're “really feeling” when they tell you what they ARE feeling. Really, truly. DO NOT DO THIS. The article got away with it by taking about generic people and I personalized.) The article speaks about people choosing not to be vaccinated and vaccinated people's anger responses:

Though this new flavor of outrage might look and sound like righteous indignation, mental health professionals say that what’s behind it is fear.

“It’s scary to admit that somebody else has power over you and you’re at their mercy and you’re afraid of them, but showing that is not a very American ideal,” said David Rosmarin, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a clinician at McLean Hospital. “Instead of expressing that fear, it’s a lot more comfortable to blame somebody else.”

Anger is what people in his profession refer to as a “secondary emotion.” It’s a feeling that arises in response to a more primal emotion, like fear and anxiety over having some aspect of your life threatened. “The reality is that there are millions of people who are miseducated about something, they’re making a big mistake that will have massive consequences that might affect you and your family and that makes you scared,” Rosmarin said. “But nobody is saying that.”1

That article also says that part of what people are struggling with is that this was always going to be a “long war” but we didn't get that message from the outset. That fits for me too, I deal better when I have my expectations set correctly.

Two years ago I preached on this passage from 1 Kings 19, and afterwards several of you mentioned that you could hear in it my yearning for a break. (It was fairly soon before my renewal leave.) I hadn't meant to be that transparent then, and it makes me want to be a little bit cautious now, but....the story hasn't changed.

This remains a story of Elijah, prophet of God who has worked diligently for what he believed God wanted him to do. The response to his faithfulness has been a threat of murder that came directly from the palace.

Elijah is too tired to fight anymore. He fled for his life, but in the midst of the flight he lost even the will to live.

He prays, asking God to let him die, which would at least be less violent than the death otherwise planned for him. He'd walked into the desert for a day, and when he prayed he sat under a single broom tree, the only bit of respite he could find. The Bible seems to suggest this is a particularly sad story, it is the same one told of Hagar, having walked into the desert, exhausted her provisions, sat under a broom, and prepared to die. Just like with Hagar though, God meets Elijah there.

You may already know how much I love this story. He falls asleep, and wakes up when provisions have arrived. He eats, he drinks, he falls back asleep. When he awakes, provisions have arrived. He eats, he drinks, AND THEN he was able to go on.

I really love that he needs to sleep, eat, drink, sleep, eat, and drink before he can rouse himself. He has gone far beyond the “have a cup of coffee and keep going” point. He is exhausted. He is out of will power. He is out of a will to LIVE. If I were writing this story though, I'd add in some breathing. “He took intentional deep breathes until he was able to slow his body enough to sleep...” and then the rest of the story. It would make it just a smidge better.

Probably because of the book I just read, I'm noticing that the story as written (and more so as adapted), Elijah is given the chance to “complete the stress cycle” in this story. The book is “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” written by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. In their opening chapter, they distinguish between stressors and stress. They point out that we need to complete the stress cycle, no matter what is happening with the stressors. And they name, concretely, how to do that. The first and best option is to “do literally anything to move your body enough to get you breathing deeply” for 20-60 minutes a day.2 Elijah walking into the desert for an entire day seems to qualify.

The Nagoski sisters offer 6 other ways to complete the cycle though: 1. “deep, slow breaths down regulate the stress response”3, 2. positive social encounters (even causal ones), 3. laughter – but the real deep belly laughter kind, 4. physical affection from someone you trust (they suggest a 6 second kiss between partners or a 20 second hug with someone you like, snuggling a pet), 5. crying, and 6. creative expression. In other chapters they also talk about meditation and spiritual connection, so I'm going to add a #7 – whatever prayer practices work for you. They're suggesting that we do at least one of these, and better many of these, every day. Because the stressors keep coming at us. And their book was written in 2019, so it is WAY MORE TRUE today.

So Elijah. He took a long walk (check), I'm all for pretending he took some slow breaths, he maybe had a positive encounter with the angel? (does that count??), and I'm quite sure he cried a lot, the Bible just forgot to mention it. He also took care of his bodily needs for rest, nourishment, and hydration. (Chapter 7 of their book is all about rest.) He also named his despair to God, and naming emotions has a lot of power too.

This little story has a lot of good responses to despair and burnout. Which is good, because many of us are in despair and/or burnout in at least some aspects of our lives.

The pandemic has challenged all of us. The challenges have differed, because we're different, but we've all been challenged. Having another wave is definitely not helping anybody. We're mad, whether or not that's a primary emotion, sad, fearful, and maybe even detached. We're exhausted.

And most of us are comfort seeking. We want things to be easier. We NEED things to be easier. We're looking for things that sooth, ease, comfort, and console. Often, we're looking for things to be “back to normal,” familiar, and make sense like we're used to. We're human. That's how we work.

Another facet of how we work is that when we're in high stress, we revert to earlier and lower levels of emotional functioning. We blame. We over react. We fight. We flee. We gossip. We triangulate. We take all our anxiety and we try to get rid of it by sharing it with others or throwing it at them. This too is human. It is how we work.

No one I know is operating at their best right now. We can't.

What we can do is seek to complete the stress cycles – we can't change most of the stressors, but we can give ourselves the best possible chance to change the stress. Our bodies, minds, and spirits are all connected, they're all “us.” When we care for each of them, we give all of them a chance to do better.

I believe that God calls us all to life abundant. To full, meaningful, connected lives. To spiritual depth and work that matters and relationships that give life. Elijah went from that broom tree to the Mount of Horeb where he deepened his relationship with God, and then on to meet his protege Elisha and started to pass on his labor to the next generation. It wasn't God's intention that Elijah struggle alone, or burn himself out. It isn't God's will that we struggle alone nor burn ourselves out either. God wishes for full, abundant lives for us all. That's part of why we take care of each other, and share love in the world. So, dear ones, I encourage you to complete your stress cycles, name your emotions, connect with your dear ones, engage in prayer, and live life as abundantly as you can. God wants it for us, we want it for each other, and the world needs us as healthy as we can be! May God help us. Amen

1 https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/02/belated-realization-that-covid-will-be-a-long-war-sparks-anger-denial/

2 Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski Burnout: The Secret to Unlokcing the Stress Cycle (New York: Ballantine Books, 2019) p. 14.

3 Nagoski, 15.

[raisingsupergirl]

Wreaking Award-Winning Havok at Realm Makers

Here I am again, sitting on my back porch—possibly for the last time since we’re closing on our new house this week (yikes!). My mind and body are exhausted, but my heart is full. Full because I didn’t quit. Full because I surrounded myself with men and women who could match my excitement and exceed my talent. Full because I just got back from the Realm Makers annual conference with some renewed validation that I really needed—what I’m doing matters.

The conference started off in typical fashion: barreling in on a Thursday, freaking out (in a good way) as All the Awesome People I Know Mostly From Internets greeted me on my way to my hotel room, rushing down to the conference bookstore to drop off all the Havok swag/decorations with some amazing Hivers (the endearing name for Havok staff), rushing back out to pick up my friend/roommate Arpit from the airport, rushing back to the hotel to check on the Hivers only to find that they’d already done the hard work and made our book table look fan-freaking-tastic, and then sitting down, taking a deep breath, and realizing that I’d actually arrived, and it had been FAR too long.

You see, I don’t know if anyone told you, but 2020 was kind of a strange year. And one aspect of that was the shutdown of, well, pretty much everything. And some of those things were writing conferences. And contrary to popular belief, writers actually do get lonely from time to time, so connecting with other writers, geeking out, talking shop, and generally reminding each other why we do what we do is actually pretty important. No, strike that. It’s REALLY important. And it’s of that weird kind of importance that we’ve all experienced this past year-point-five that we don’t fully understand until it’s returned to us. In its place, there’s an insidious uneasiness, a creeping aimlessness, a cancerous doubt. Elusive and tricksy, these little gremlins have stolen our hope and our self-worth. They’ve clawed at our relationships and obscured our dreams. But thanks to Scott and Becky Minor—and the Army of Amazingness they’ve rallied to their cause—a few hundred of us lucky souls have taken up arms together and beaten back the Enemy. What follows is how experience looked for me this past weekend.

I’m a bit of an over-committer. Maybe you are, too. I mean, it’s hard not to when there’s so much worth doing, right? Well, as per tradition, the first commitment of the weekend was a little skit to kick off the conference. Also per tradition, I waited until the last minute to write said skit and get it to my co-actor, Sarah. So, of course, we were both freaking out about learning it all in time, and we both assumed we’d freeze, stumble, fall, and be generally shamed out of the conference at the very start. Of course, that didn’t happen. I arrived on stage with a bang, the geeky lip-service and writerly inspiration started rolling, and the crowd ate up every minute of it. People were commending us for the rest of the weekend on our Oscar-worthy performance. And with that terrifying obstacle behind me, it was time to sit back and relax… Okay, not really.

The second thing I committed to was opening up my entire schedule to mentor and critique appointments, fully expecting that no one would want to sit down and pick the brain of a middle-aged fraud. Wrong. Twenty-five appointments. That’s what I ended up with. Two full days of my butt stuck in a chair, back and legs aching, eyes burning, introverted energy leaking out all over the floor, and dozens of starry-eyed writers spilling their hopes, dreams, fears, and questions to little old me. And I’m here to tell you, it was an experience I’ll never forget. Not because I got to pretend I was an authority or because I snagged some editing clients out of the deal (though those were some nice perks). No, it was because of the priceless tangible value that these people brought to my daily grind these past two years.

I need an entire hand to count how many people started crying during our meetings. Not because I crushed their dreams or because they lamented wasting their mentor appointment on me. No, it was because they were so deeply grateful for the work that Havok is doing. The chances at publication. The editorial feedback that has allowed them to grow in their writing journey. The sense of community they’ve experienced since becoming part of the Havok family. Remember when I said writers get lonely? Yeah, it runs deep. I can’t tell you how many times this past weekend I declared, “This past year, every single writer who’s not deeply established has experienced a crisis of faith. We’ve all wondered if we’re just wasting our time.” And every time I said it, I was met with a solemn nod. Each time I watched as the individual across from me realized that they were not alone—that their brothers and sisters were hurting along with them, that the despair in their hearts might not actually be a reflection of their own failure. That maybe their calling in life was still legitimate. And every time a meeting ended, I sat there in a brief moment of silence, thanking God for the opportunity to do exactly what I was doing. And then, at the awards banquet, Havok became an award-winning publication, twice over.

The categories of “flash fiction” and “audio short” were at the very end of the awards ceremony, so it was tempting to check out for the rest of it. Thankfully, the energy in the room was contagious as author after author walked onto that stage, thanking God and country for the opportunity to share their creations with the world. And by the time the first Havok story was called (congratulations, Ronnell!), my feet were barely touching the ground. And then, the silky voice of Magnus Carellson echoed over the loudspeakers as he read “Why God Made Beer,” and my heart exploded. Havok acquired that story by A.C. Williams. I helped edit it. We published it and marketed it. Magnus narrated it in brilliant fashion. And then the rest of the writing community took notice. They accepted it. Praised it. Embraced it. And as I said, everything I’d doubted—everything I’d almost given up on countless times—suddenly had deeper meaning than I could have ever hoped.

More congratulatory high-fives. More tear-filled thank-yous. More awe-struck realization. And back at the Havok book table, our anthologies were making their way into the hands of ravenous readers. All-told, we sold forty-eight books (and a big ole pile of kick-butt t-shirts). Havok is now in forty-eight more households being read by who knows how many more people. People who are telling their friends about these little flash fiction stories from an ever-growing publishing company that runs on volunteer-fuel and gives all its money back to its ridiculously talented authors.

The thing is, we’re not doing anything all that crazy over at Havok. We’re acquiring stories, editing, and publishing, just like countless other companies. But we’re not giving up just because we haven’t seen overnight success. We’re showing kindness and respect to new and established authors. We’re serving a community and a need. We’re showing up and doing our best work. We’re supporting each other and giving space for dreams to unfold, one tiny act of compassion at a time. It’s what God called us all to do—what the world has tried so hard to make us forget. We’re playing our part in the fight against fear, anger, and hopelessness. We’ve been doing it for years, and people are starting to take notice. And no matter where we go from here, I’ll be forever grateful to Realm Makers and its community for reflecting that kindness and respect back on me. Y’all are amazing. Never forget it.

Until next year, Realmies. I’ll see ya on the Internets!

[warwaged-archive]

The first time Tyrande is mentioned in the book, and most notable other than the two scenes she actually appears in, is this one:

Tyrande and Malfurion had fled to Nordrassil, and all of his missives went unread. A messenger had returned that morning with his letter to them unopened. The man looked shaken, more so when Anduin told him firmly to leave, return to Nordrassil, and try again.

Which is only confirmation of what we already knew of her by the end of BFA rather than new information, both in that Tyrande does not accept the peace treaty and is not really in agreeable terms with Anduin

Anduin: The armistice is signed. At long last, the Fourth War is over. Tyrande: No. Not while the Black Moon still cries out for vengeance. Not until the Horde has answered for its treachery. Anduin: Further bloodshed will not bring back the fallen. We must renew our hope and forge a future for those who survived. Tyrande: And when the next warchief musters an army, will hope save you if it is Stormwind that burns? Anduin: I know it's difficult to trust, but there are signs of change within the Horde. Anduin: In place of a warchief, there is now a council led by Baine, Thrall, and the others. I believe they can-- Tyrande: Your faith is naive, lion son. I will sign no treaty unless it is written in the Banshee's blood!

and that she’s left for Nordrassil, as she notes she will do in a conversation with Shandris following the above one

Shandris: You spoke harshly to King Anduin, Tyrande. The kaldorei can ill afford to shun the Alliance. They have provided aid and comfort to us in these dark times. Tyrande: The young king is foolish to trust our enemies. Harsh words should be the least of his fears. Shandris: The Banshee Queen no longer leads the Horde. Those who do seem more inclined toward peace than war. Tyrande: If the wolf is rabid, it matters not who rides it. Sooner or later, the beast will bare its fangs. Shandris: You are dearest to my heart, Tyrande. I beg you, let go of the Black Moon's rage and embrace the mother's light once again. I could not bear to lose you to darkness. Tyrande: Know this. My hunger for vengeance will not be sated so long as Sylvanas Windrunner remains free--and until I know why Elune abandoned her children. Shandris: Tyrande! Do not say such-- Tyrande: I will tarry no longer in this city of men. Let us leave for the boughs of Nordrassil. Tyrande: From there we will dispatch the Sentinels to every corner of Azeroth. Let no one rest until the Banshee is found!

What happens with Anduin by the beginning of Shadows Rising, then, feels only like a natural continuity from that, in that he’s trying to reach out but she’s uninterested and won’t hear of it. In my opinion, that’s not only coherent, but also justified; she feels like the Alliance has failed her people, repeatedly -- both in denying them help in Darkshore, and now in agreeing to peace before giving them justice -- all the while uniting their forces to aid the Horde solve their problems with the Warchief. 

We don’t hear from her again until Thrall is discussing a visit to Nordrassil, in order to investigate the unrest the shaman are feeling with the spirits. Yukha, who’s been negotiating the meeting, tells him she agrees on the condition Thrall “must bring what is owed” and that he would know what she means. He doesn’t. Not entirely. He knows Tyrande and Malfurion will want retribution for Teldrassil, but he doesn’t know what he can give them, but he goes anyway, choosing to bring Baine and Calia with him. And then, when he actually goes, we finally see Tyrande. (And I liked a part of this one so much ! For the most part I liked it initially -- except for the very ending).  

Tyrande is there, sitting with Malfurion, Maiev and Shandris behind them. While Malfurion stands upon the Horde’s arrival, Tyrande does not. Thrall and company bow and he begins to speak of what brought them there, and he’s rather unsettled by the cold reception and lack of response, noting that Tyrande locked eyes with him and did not look away, and that as he spoke, none of them did even blink. He starts to feel impatient and insulted (lol thrall) and tries to hold back from answering poorly.

He looked into Tyrande’s eyes once more, into the hypnotizing aura of darkness in the never-cool embers of her eyes. That moment in Nagrand returned to him, when he tasted smoke and sensed a far-off pain. That pain was not so far off for her, it was constant and as potent as the day Teldrassil burned.

I like this quote in particular a lot, in spite of it apparently being a tiny thing. It brings to light how although those close and far may have felt sorrow and pain when the World Tree burned, Tyrande carries it with her the entire time. Others may be moving on, concerned with other matters, but she isn’t, and how could she? It may have been a day or three hundred, it is still recent to her, still fresh, constantly fresh, not something she can set aside, not something she can let go of, and not something she would let go of, given the choice --- it is what she owes those who burned, and it is what she owes those who lived. I like this bit, and the initial part with Baine, Calia and Thrall arriving, because to me it did a good job of showing that. To everyone, it’s a great tragedy, it’s horrible, but they’ve moved on. Calia and Baine arrive there taken by the natural beauty surrounding the World Tree, and are initially quite insensitive to the aura of mourning still surrounding the Night Elves. To them that pain is still real. It isn’t something they can just let go of, specially when they have yet to get any justice that may give them some closure.

“I brought what you wanted, what is owed,” Thrall said, and at last he saw a spark of life in her eyes. “I bring you the sincere apology of the Horde. We are not a single voice now spoken through the mouth of a warchief, but a whole host of voices. We have formed a council, so that never again will one take power and abuse it as Sylvanas did. As…as Sylvanas used that power to slaughter your people.”

Then Thrall says he brought her what was owed, and Tyrande demonstrates some interest, but what he brings is apologies and excuses and a bunch of “we’re trying to do better” stuff that isn’t what the Night Elves deserve after what they suffered. He speaks of Baine opposing Sylvanas, of Calia and Lilian trying to do better by the Forsaken, but throughout it all, Tyrande is unmoved.

Was he speaking to a wall? Would nothing move Tyrande? Even Malfurion gave him the smallest nod of understanding, perhaps only indicating that he was listening.

Although Malfurion’s willingness to in the least hear shows (and side note: I do appreciate how in this moment and later on Malfurion is portrayed as, while no less imposing, considerably gentler, because that’s what I’m here for), it is Shandris who then removes her helmet and speaks to Thrall and tells him it’s hard not to be distrusting of promises when even allies have failed to come through with them. Maiev, then, is her counterpoint, proceeding to tell her to listen at her peril, because she’ll end with daggers on her back. 

Although Tyrande doesn’t speak, Maiev is clearly more of her voice, here. It is when she says that that Tyrande shows some reaction again, an almost smile that suggests she’s in great agreement with Maiev’s distrust, with the voiced believe no matter what the Horde will end up betraying them again, hurting them again.

Maiev makes some very valid points, after that. That Sylvanas did not, in fact, act alone; that she acted for the Horde and spoke for them, that they are trying to disperse the blame and “hiding behind cowardly revisions of a history that will not be forgotten". This will be important later on, in comparison to Tyrande’s own stance on the matter.

The Horde gives the “mUsT iNnOcEnTs DiE fOr It To Be JuStIcE tO yOu” excuses a bit, although Thrall acknowledges Saurfang did indeed take part in planning the attack, if not burning the World Tree, but he is now dead by Sylvanas’ own hand and there’s nothing they can do in that regard. I like that it is at very least acknowledged, though, after we spent so long ignoring he had anything to do with it and blaming everything on Sylvanas aksjndfkajsndfkj

Shandris continues to be the most moderate voice from the Kaldorei side, suggesting they do not absolve the Horde for their crimes, but make a temporary understanding as to deal with the more urgent matters. Maiev continues to argue against her. Then we have this:

Tyrande, it seemed, still did not care to speak. 

The elf began plucking her lute again, but Tyrande slammed her hand down on the owl-shaped arm of the bench, demanding a return to silence. Had the moon grown bigger in the sky? Was it somehow closer? Threatening? 

“It was not yet time.” Malfurion’s grave baritone filled the clearing. He leaned down toward his wife, placing a furred, clawed hand on her shoulder. “This was folly. Let them go.” 

Tyrande uncrossed her legs and sat back on the bench, shaking off her husband’s hand with a tight grimace.

Here we have what I mentioned before, of Malfurion being portrayed as gentler of the two. When he notices her reaction, he tries to appease her even before Tyrande has indeed said anything, intervening on behalf of letting the Horde people go, but she’s clearly displeased by then, and very much unwilling to listen even to him, as her reaction shows. And then we have the very best part:

And then, all at once, she cared very much to speak. 

“When you have washed the bodies of a thousand kaldorei burned and broken, when you have fallen to your knees and kissed the feet of a thousand mourning souls, when you look into their eyes and tell them ‘our Horde has changed’ and they believe you, only then will I accept your apology and treat you as my equal.” Tyrande’s voice, edged as steel, pulled the air out of the clearing. “My brethren here may be willing to entertain your empty pledges of justice and aid, but I know better. I have learned better.” 

Then she stood, and Thrall worried that the moon might truly fall from the heavens and crush them at Tyrande’s command. Her eyes, though black, somehow glowed, Elune’s fury blazing colder and brighter along her skin with each word. The glade itself grew gray and almost dead, as if by her will she had sapped the life out of everything around them, withering the trees and obliterating the flowers and grass to dust.

“How many orphans did your Horde create that day?” Tyrande sliced the flat of her hand diagonally across her body. “Those children will grow, they will wake each morning tasting ash, and one day they will come for you. Oh, they will come for you, and they will make you taste that same ash, and then you will know their justice.” She sat down again, as if winded. Light returned to the clearing, and the plants around them were green and vibrant once more. 

“Quickly,” Yukha muttered, trying to gather them. “We must go. This was a mistake; I should not have brought you here.” 

Baine and Calia allowed Yukha to corral them back toward the path of glittering solid water. Thrall remained, only taking slow, careful steps, never showing Tyrande his back. For his trouble, Tyrande directed her final words to him and only him. 

“You will find that justice less sweet than the sorry excuse for punishment you faced, and when this justice comes, there will be no armistice to save you.”

Again, I love how it’s done because of how clearly it portrays that there is no healing for the Kaldorei as is, but I like Tyrande’s words most of all because of how they clearly say “You don’t get to decide what is enough justice. The victims are the only ones who can decide what is enough for them.” Apologies mean nothing to her, because she has no reason to believe they will hold true, and because even if they do, is it enough for those who suffered? Is it enough for those who survived, damaged and broken, their loved ones gone? Is it enough for those who burned? It may all be very honorable and just in theory, but what about practice? What did the Horde’s honor do to stop Sylvanas’ decision to burn the World Tree? If her own allies failed to heed her request for aid, why should Tyrande believe the promises of those who stood on Sylvanas’ side, and turned only when her actions begun to harm the Horde itself?

But even then, Tyrande’s mindset and her words are never about herself. It isn’t about her. Of course she mourns, and of course it wounded her; she is the leader of the Night Elves, and she failed to protect them. It is them, her people, her charges, they who matter --- those she failed, be it because they are dead or be it the survivors left with an everlasting mark and everlasting absences. 

And because of them, because she cannot fail them like that again, because she’s so hellbent on doing right by them now, apologies just won’t do it.

I love how the atmosphere surrounding them reflects Tyrande’s feelings, the moon closer and fiercer, her tone so sharp as to take the air from the clearing, her fury so searing as to appear to suck all life from a place previously praised by its nature and vitality. 

What she speaks next still carries very much the intent behind her former words. How can she accept apologies? Will apologies soothe those children who lived through it but lost so much and will have to live their entire lives with the memory of an unspeakable horror such as that? It won’t leave them. Apologies aren’t enough that they won’t remember the torment of hot flames, the taste of the ashes in their mouths. Apologies do not give them justice; but they’ll never stop wanting for it, needing it, to be able to, indeed, move on and perhaps heal. Until justice is done, however, that can’t be done. They can’t heal without it. There’s no moving on without it. And apologies are not justice. Promises of change are not justice.

She’s not making a threat. In a way, it is a promise, but not a threat. She’s not vowing to kill them all; she’s promising that they can pretend it’s all well and fine and they’ve done enough, but they haven’t and eventually that will catch up to them. 

And it will, Tyrande has no doubt of that. A council instead of a Warchief may prevent the same of happening again, but it doesn’t change what was done, it doesn’t erase it, it isn’t paying for what was done and doesn’t give them compensation in any way. Calia and Lilian leading the Forsaken in a different way may mean a different future for the Forsaken, but it doesn’t help the Kaldorei’s future, it doesn’t help them heal, it isn’t paying for what was done, it doesn’t give them compensation in any way. Baine trying to oppose Sylvanas well after Teldrassil burned may have been a step on the right direction, but it doesn’t change that when Sylvanas gave the order, that the Horde burned the World Tree, that they stood by her even after, that they only changed sides later on; it isn’t paying for what was done and it doesn’t give them compensation in any way. The Horde thinks it did enough, punishing the loyalists and setting up the means to prevent it from happening again, but to the victims at Teldrassil, how can that be justice? The Horde deciding the punishment their own should face, the victims having no voice, the victims receiving no compensation in any way, nothing that would give them closure? Of course it won’t be enough. Of course there won’t be closure. And of course they’ll eventually try to take it themselves, armistice or no.

Lastly, we have the scene closing with this exchange, that follows Thrall’s realization he was (an idiot) wrong to think apologies would be enough:

“I will bring what is owed, then. I will not bring words or promises, I will bring you the head of Sylvanas Windrunner.” 

The faintest trace of a smile appeared on Tyrande Whisperwind’s face. “Do it, then, or never seek to speak with me again.”

I don’t like it, because Thrall isn’t the one who has to kill Sylvanas. And here, I think it’s off that Tyrande would agree to these terms when it’s clear all throughout the previous part that it is important to her that the victims acknowledge it as justice, or it won’t truly be justice, and that the Horde doing it themselves isn’t it. Still, I don’t think her being agreeable is what’s wrong; I think it’s very much in accord to her stance throughout it, that she’d be agreeable to a promise she actually, truly acknowledges as possible justice for her people. If Thrall had promised her Sylvanas would face the Kaldorei’s justice, that he wouldn’t return empty handed not because he’d bring her head, but because he’d give the Kaldorei the opportunity to take it, then I think it’d be more coherent that Tyrande agrees to it.

And imo, if he really does it, meh. He shouldn’t be the one to do it, if Sylvanas does die. Nevertheless, my disagreement on that aside, Tyrande’s agreement is important: it shows she’s not unreasonable. She’s not refusing all compromise, refusing all chance to talk, vowing not to rest until every single Horde member is dead. She’s angry, and rightfully so; she’s terrifying, but she never threatened the Horde group there. She’s resentful and distrusting, and she does want blood, but she’s not after innocents, and she’s not even after those who could be implied alongside Sylvanas. Maiev earlier argued that Sylvanas didn’t act alone, and while I think she’s right, and while I think Tyrande thinks she’s right, Tyrande never voices that. Her desire for justice focuses on those who are to blame and unrepentant; spoken or not, this denotes she acknowledges the Horde’s attempt to change, in spite of her disbelief, and instead of focusing on the entire Horde as being guilty, she seeks justice to be taken from those who were direct cause, and who have taken no steps to make amends.

And I think that speaks a lot of her not being oblivious to Shandris’ point, that they need to not lose themselves, and that they need to heal. Tyrande is relentless in her pursuit for justice, and unwilling to let go of it, because that’s what the Kaldorei need. But her agreement that Sylvanas paying for it should be enough for her to be willing to talk to Thrall denotes that she knows they can’t pursue vengeance forever, that blood isn’t always the answer, that they need justice to heal but once it’s done they need to, indeed, try to move on and heal. (And I’m not talking about forgiving here, but merely turning away from bloodshed to focus on mending their own wounds).

Tyrande appears again in one more scene, by the end of the book, after the battle is done, and the Horde captures Sira, who Thrall then sends to Tyrande. It’s funny that here, he does pretty much what I said I think he should have promised in regards to Sylvanas: he captured her, yes, but he didn’t impose the Horde’s justice, and instead gave her to Tyrande so Tyrande did with her what she thought was suitable.  

But yeah, she gets to Stormwind with Maiev and Shandris, who “had insisted on coming along, perhaps sensing that Tyrande should not be left alone" which I think it’s pretty understandable since they didn’t know what the ‘gift from the Horde’ was, and what reaction it may cause, specially when in spite of not being unreasonable before, there is something of volatile in her now, perhaps due to how the power she has received impacts so heavily Tyrande but also her surroundings. 

They get there, see Sira, Tyrande recalls Thrall’s letter saying it isn’t yet what was owed but he hopes it’s a start, Sira rages and says Tyrande is a coward who does nothing even with the Night Warrior’s rage and power.

“I wish I could have done more to protect you,” Tyrande said, cold. “But some natures prove too evil to curb. Too ambitious to abide. Sylvanas has such a nature, and I will not forget that. You are her servant now, Sira, I have not forgotten that, either.”

This is a very important point because everyone else does not, apparently, care that Sira chose to serve Sylvanas.

Before I move on to that, it’s nice to notice that Tyrande shows no guilt in regards to Sira’s fate, which, in my opinion, is entirely understandable because of the before mentioned reason. She’s failed Sira, yes, and she wishes she could have protected her, yes, but Sira chose to side with the one who caused them all of that in the first place. She knew the horrors Sylvanas had already done, and she still followed. She knew her crimes were unforgivable, and she worked to further her plans. And because of that, Tyrande has no pity left for her, even though she was one of them before, even though she regrets her inability to have aided her in time. 

But Maiev and Shandris disagree and have plenty of pity left for Sira, and both make a plea for Tyrande’s compassion, Maiev citing an occasion when she had witnessed it before, accompanied by her stubbornness to give up on something she believed could still be saved. Tyrande replies she failed.

“How long did you try?” Maiev asked. “And would you try again? If you continue down this path, Tyrande, you will find yourself no better than Sira. She is in pain, can you not see it? She is in agony. The only relief comes from spilling blood. Is this what you want? To find your only comfort in the suffering of others?”

“And so I should do nothing?” Tyrande seethed. 

“That is not what I suggest and you know it. Listen, Tyrande.” Maiev went to stand beside Sira, a warden she had considered more than a friend. A sister. “I have lived as one consumed, and though there is no great love between us, Tyrande, I would not see you become what I was. What Sira is now. You are more than just rage and vengeance, you are more than simply the Night Warrior: you are a priestess and a leader. Can you not, as a priestess, take pity on this creature?”

I think Maiev throughout that scene sounds off, in that not only there’s this gentleness I have no idea where came from but just overall she definitely doesn’t sound like Maiev and her dynamics with Tyrande are also??? but other than Maiev, I have several issues with how this is played. The plea for compassion becomes a comparison between Tyrande and Sira, as if it was somehow comparable that this is the path she’s in, when the previous scene the book showed us, the meeting with Thrall, does not speak of it at all. Like I said, then she’s not portrayed as unreasonable, she’s portrayed as relentless in her pursuit of justice, disillusioned with promises, unwilling to forget, filled with righteous anger, but never unreasonable and lost to a dark path of blood and vengeance. Here, somehow, Maiev and Shandris argue that she is, because of her initial choice to end Sira --- ignoring that Sira, although a fallen comrade, became a willing follower of the one who initially caused them so much misery, the one they wish to bring justice to, the one who caused Sira to be what she became. Sira shows no remorse at all throughout the book, and is, in fact, considerably vicious and bloodthirsty, delighting in cruelty for the sake of it, only wishing for the death toll to be as high as possible (much more so than, for example, Nathanos, who should wish for it if only for how it strengthens Sylvanas, but never goes out of his way for the sake of killing or cruelty). 

She doesn’t kill Sira, but she gives her a cut, and we have this:

She was the Night Warrior, revenge made flesh, but now with that one shallow cut, she felt suddenly, horribly alive again.

Which is???????? I don’t even know, given that the book itself shows Tyrande is clearly feeling, and not simply anger. How isn’t she, when you have Thrall himself notice her pain for Teldrassil never left, that is is as fresh as when the World Tree burned?

I think the pleading her for mercy, specially coming from Shandris, could be valid. I think Shandris showing concern that Tyrande is losing the softer side of her would be very valid, if it was coherent with what we saw of Tyrande so far speaking of it also. Speaking to her, asking her to look at things as a priestess, to remember how compassionate she was, would all be very valid; I just think this wasn’t the situation to do it, not how it was done, and not with the previous scene. Towards someone different, I may agree, but Sira has plenty of crimes of her own, beyond the fate she didn’t chose, and to say Tyrande’s decision here accounts for her loss of compassion doesn’t seem fitting at all, specially when the other scene has her willing to talk to a representative of the Horde and accept his offer of justice (no matter how much I disagree with that). 

In spite of it, she shows herself very much capable of mercy still, and doesn’t strike Sira down. Again, her attitude is not that of one lost to a dark path of vengeance; she heeds those that are with her and ask her to be compassionate, even if her first impulse is not to be. She allows Shandris to take away her weapon, and ultimately turns away from the prisoner. 

And given there is reason for her to feel about Sira as she does, I don’t know to which point her reaction can be blamed on her being the Night Warrior. Maiev remembers her compassion, in that scene, but forgets her ruthlessness; Tyrande has never hesitated to shed blood, specially in defense of her people or commitment to the course of action she believes right. 

[catholicartistsnyc]

Meet CA-based Screenwriter Rebecca Christian

REBECCA CHRISTIAN is a screenwriter and filmmaker based in San Diego, CA.  To contact her, email rebeccaechristian [at] gmail [dot] com, or visit her forthcoming website at www.rebeccachristian.com.

Check out her pilot for NO NERDS HERE, a mockumentary web series following the exploits of three former "Mighty Rangers" as they attend a weekend fan convention.

CATHOLIC ARTIST CONNECTION: Where are you from originally, and what brought you to your current city?

REBECCA: I was born and raised in San Diego. I went to film school at Loyola Marymount University and bounce back and forth between here and LA as needed. I was actually planning to move back to LA this year, and then the pandemic hit and I decided to remain in my hometown with my family for the foreseeable future. 

How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist?

I don't think of myself as a "Catholic writer" in the sense that I desire to be in held in some sort of esteem within the respectable Catholic canon (i.e. Tolkien, Chesterton, O'Connor, etc). However, I do acknowledge how my faith is the foundation of how I understand the world in my sense of right and wrong, the need for redemption and the possibility of it. I always want my work to have a sense of hope in the immutable Christian sense, even if what I'm writing is darker in nature. I do think "Catholic art" should be life-giving, whatever that means to the particular artist.

Where have you found support in the Church for your vocation as an artist?

I used to be active on the core team of Catholic Underground LA, which was an apostolate of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal dedicated to showcasing art of all kinds. I joined when I was still in college, and it was really formational for me at the time when I was still nascent in my reversion to be around actors, writers, musicians, etc. who were all trying to express themselves and grow in their faith.

Where have you found support among your fellow artists for your Catholic faith?

I have a love/hate relationship with social media, but I've met and built friendships with several Catholic artists through it. 

How can the Church be more welcoming to artists?

Expanding what is considered "Catholic art" in the first place. I'm thinking of the lack of acknowledgement of a titan like Toni Morrison, who was a convert and whose exploration of humanity and suffering was certainly Catholic, and hang my head in shame about how her legacy has not been celebrated within Catholic circles.

How can the artistic world be more welcoming to artists of faith?

This is always an interesting question to me because I've never really faced ridicule as a person of faith in artistic circles. I think it's because I'm Black and a woman, so people express more of a curiosity about how someone like me could possibly believe in anything "traditional." I've had some wonderful conversations with people, and generally speaking I think artists are far more open to having these sorts of conversations than Catholics are, to be honest.  

Where in your city do you regularly find spiritual fulfillment?

I have a regular practice of going to adoration in a little 24-hr chapel near my house, which I've been unable to go to since the pandemic. It's been really hard for me in a certain sense, but my Lenten sacrifice this year was praying the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the day and maintaining that has been really helpful. I'm a member at St. Anne's, which is an FSSP parish saying the Extraordinary Form of the mass in San Diego. I'm not super involved in parish life anymore due large in part to my work schedule, but I used to host a women's group and occasionally get that group together again for brunch. 

Where do you go to get inspired?

I'm in a number of writing classes/groups online.

How have you found or built community as a Catholic artist in your city?

I haven't really done this specifically in SD but I probably should.

What is your daily spiritual practice?

At the moment, it's Liturgy of the Hours + a regular habit of yoga and meditation.

What is your daily artistic practice? And what are your recommendations to other artists for practicing their craft daily?

I try to write every day, even if it's just free writing. It's been difficult to keep up with during the pandemic, but I've finally found my groove again in the last couple of months. I'm not the type of writer that can wait for inspiration, or else I would never get anything completed, so if that sounds like you I'd recommend putting aside time daily to work on your craft. 

Describe a recent day in which you were most completely living out your vocation as an artist.

I developed a short film script with a production company earlier this year that featured a religious sister as a one of the main characters. The script's themes weren't religious at all, she was just one of the characters. It was interesting getting notes and feedback in the vein of, "Would a nun do that? Would a nun be friends with this other character?" It was clear that the producers had never really interacted with religious sisters before, and I had to gently explain that well, religious people are actually people too. They have friends, hobbies, needs, wants, and desires. It was comical for me to watch them assimilate that information throughout the development process, and I'm glad I was able to evangelize if even just a tiny bit.

How do you afford housing as an artist?

I rent a house with my mom in SD and when I come to LA for meetings I usually stay with friends. There are Catholic groups on FB to find roommates, couches, etc. I highly recommend using social media to find non-crazy roommates if and when you move.

How do you financially support yourself as an artist?

Some background on this -- I just started writing again in 2019 after taking about 3 years away from the industry entirely. I have a "day job" in the form of my doula practice. I really love it, and it allows me to build my schedule out to accommodate projects. I took an entire month off this year to finish a script that is currently in the final round of contention at the Sundance Development Track. There's a growing number of fellowships and paid development programs for screenwriters. Twitter is a great place for screenwriters (and other writers) to network. I don't have a manager currently (that's next on my list), but I've booked meetings and had my work read purely from networking there. There's no magic bullet, but putting yourself out there has been fruitful for me, and despite the changes in the industry being inflicted by the pandemic, I'm really excited about 2021.

What other practical resources would you recommend to a Catholic artist living in your city?

I really believe strongly in cultivating practices of self-care and spirituality. You can't pour out into your work if nothing is filling you up.

What are your top 3 pieces of advice for Catholic artists post-graduation?

Realize that "success" is going to take some time. Find your worth in who God says you are, not in what you do. Be genuinely kind to people and remember to network laterally! (Not just with people "higher up" that you admire.)

[jungwooisms]

pairing: kim jungwoo x female!reader genre: fluff warnings: minor swearing  word count: 1.9k summary: A sedentary walk to remember, to greet and mourn a childhood transitioned into young adulthood. Though some things, some people, never change and you couldn’t be more thankful for that. requested!

The air is cool, washing over your skin like a renewal from Mother Earth herself, allowing gooseflesh to run up your arms and down your spine as you press yourself even closer to your partner. Jungwoo’s voice is soft, sedate, as he reads the verses, your hand intertwined with his free one as you walk. The wooded area isn’t large enough for his voice to reverberate throughout the trees, but it draws the sunlight to shine ever so dutifully through the leaves above. It’s almost like stars, the way the sun’s rays twinkle in through the thick canopy, a small universe hidden away in the dimness of the wild.

“As virtuous men pass mildly away,   And whisper to their souls to go Whilst some of their sad friends do say   The breath goes now, and some say, No:”

So let us melt, and make no noise,   No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys   To tell the laity our love.”

Dead leaves crackling and crunching underfoot as the two of you trapeze your way through thickets of greenery and mazes of roots. A particularly muddy patch puts you in the forefront, making Jungwoo release you from his grasp as his hand reaches out to graze the ends of your jacket’s sleeve as you brush past him. He stops to watch you walk for a moment, only beginning to move again once you turn around at the lack of noise coming from his direction. A soft smile, emphasized with his cheekbones urging you to move forwards, to follow your own path. He’s light of step, ethereal in the morning sun as his eyes skim over the next few lines.

“Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears   Men reckon what it did, and meant; But trepidation of the spheres,   Though greater far, is innocent.”

His voice picks up, swaying gently just as the branches do overhead. It’s when you stop in your tracks, eyes peering over the short drop off into a small brook below, that he closes the paperback. Feet edging on the horizon of a land unknown, yet childishly familiar you hesitate to cross. It wasn’t momentous, you’d done a leap like this hundreds, if not thousands of times as a child. What was holding you back?

A blur, a jump and a thud as the taller lands on the other side of the embankment. He wobbles, hand reaching out to steady himself on a nearby sapling. There’s a small laugh as he notices your uncertainty, book cracked open with one hand, he begins to pace the small shore, reading aloud once again. It’s not a mocking tone, just veering onto a teasing playfulness as he catches your eye.

“Dull sublunary lovers' love,   Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove   Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,   That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind,   Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.”

Hands clenched, nails digging into your palms you stiffen as you begin to brace yourself for the landing. “Just take my hand already,” Eyes moving away from staring at the trickling water and towards Jungwoo, his hand lies in wait for yours, aching to be held and to help you overcome your apprehension. Once a hint of a smug smirk now washed away and a more endeared, soft fondness exuding from him.

Your own leap of faith taken when your hand grasps his, the comforting warmth back in your palm you breathe a sigh of contentedness before you do physically cross the stream. Soaring through the air for a brief second before your feet hit land on the other side, Jungwoo’s other hand coming in aid to help steady yourself on the uneven earth. The smell of soil rising up from the upturned ground where your steps had landed you, Jungwoo’s hand moving from your side as the other gave your hand a gentle squeeze. And so you would wander forwards.

“Thank you,” you smile at him as he bends downwards to pick up the paperback he’d discarded when helping you cross. He fans the book, bits of soil and leaves falling from its pages as the pair of you ventured forth into your great unknown. “Do you think you’ll have your lines memorized by next Thursday?”

Jungwoo doesn’t open the book again, instead he ponders for a moment, tucking the book under his arm as he finds his words. “I think so,” a mounting confidence as he nods his head, tilting it ever so slightly to the right to dodge a thin branch of a tree. It brushes against his hair, causing the dark mahogany strands to stand askew. “If I don’t then,” shoulders shrugging as he bites his lower lip, “I guess I don’t.”

Now your turn to laugh, “Do you even know what you’re reciting?” You turn as you walk, brushing the hair back into place, before falling back into line with him.

“Vaguely,” His eyes glance down to the book for a moment before returning his gaze to the clearing slowly coming into view. Subconsciously to him, his pace quickens with the anticipation of arriving to the small meadow. Your eyes trail along the ground, the every odd bloom of color from the flowers dotting the landscape capturing your attention as you try to keep pace. “It’s about love, obviously,” Jungwoo says as you break through the wall of trees into the more sunlit pasture.

This time it’s he who releases you as he nearly runs forward, the sunlight washing across his skin as if he sought to absorb it all. In sate silence you watch with a smile on your lips as he falls into the flowers and long grass, sweeping him under their blanket of morning dew. He doesn’t mind the chill, beckoning you over when his bearings were straight once again. With a shake of your head and roll of your eyes you join him, sitting next to him as he looks up at the gilded forenoon sky.

“It’s about not worrying if your partner leaves you for a little bit, if you’d read it already you’d know that,” He was supposed to have this memorized by now, but it’d be a little hypocritical of you to remind him of his lackadaisical attitude when you had one to match it.

“Our two souls therefore, which are one,   Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion,   Like gold to airy thinness beat,”

You hadn’t realized the book was held in front of his face, the condensation of the morning beginning to curl the pages as he spoke. “Doesn’t this all sound a little,” he thinks for a moment, pulling the book away, sunlight falling back onto his face, as he looks to you, “soapy to you?”

A shrug of your shoulders as you look away to the oncoming horizon spanning out in front of you. You’d never wondered why there was such a large field encapsulated by a forest; but nature wasn’t the type to answer such questions. “It’s old poetry Jungwoo, all they had to worry about was love and not dying from consumption.”

“What’s consumption?” Eyes widened his props himself up on his elbow, eyebrows pert, “You can’t get that from eating too much, can you?”

A short puff of air leaving you in a laugh, “No, you can’t. It’s an old-timey word for TB.”  A wash of relief across Jungwoo’s face as he falls back into the grass with a ‘Thank god’. “Although, if you really want to ace your audition maybe you should work on your ye olde pronunciation and you’ll blow them out of the park.”

“It’s a college production of Hamlet, I’m not too sure that it has to be too historically correct, right?” A small frown as he looks at the cover of the book, “Also, why have us read Donne instead of actual scenes from the play?”

Shoulders sagging as you read along the spine of the paperback, “Maybe to test your versatility?”

Sigh escaping him, “Maybe.” Hands opening the book once more he begins,

“If they be two, they are two so   As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show   To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,   Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it,   And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,   Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just,   And makes me end where I begun.”

As he reads you close your eyes, slipping downwards until you lie next to him, feeling the warmth of the sun on your face contrast with the cool of the earth on your back. Fingers brushing along the tufts of long grass as the subtle echo of his voice now resounds gently across the soft slopes of the terrain around you. It’s almost enough to make you doze off, even when you’d only awoken an hour or so earlier from sleep.

“What if we just don’t go back? Stay here like when we were kids, not coming home until your mom sent your older brother out to get us.” Rousing from your dreamlike state you crack open an eye and turn towards Jungwoo. His voice wistful, wandering, “I don’t want summer to end.”

The elephant in the room beginning to stir as you feel the dull strings of your heart begin to pull. The pair of you had avoided this conversation like the plague for the past handful of weeks, the tryst of the break beginning to lose its sheen once more, as it did every time the season transitioned into autumn.

“Seeing as Johnny’s not even in the country I think we’d be out here for a long time,” You try to joke but you see and feel the bitter-sweetness oozing from him. “I’ll be back for Christmas, I’ll only be abroad for a semester, Jungwoo.”

“I’ll miss having you here though,” A frown tinting his lips as he looks to you, a longing that was all too familiar behind the brightness of his eyes. “Even if you were still going back to your school you’d be here on breaks. What am I supposed to do? Live boringly without you?”

A short laugh, “Or maybe torment Mark some more, I think he really enjoyed the last time you cornered him at that party.”

“You think so?” eyes looking at the gray-blue sky in contemplation, probably thinking about future plans to tease the younger.

Your hand finds his, rubbing small circles on his skyward facing palm with your index finger as you think. He didn’t want you to feel guilty for leaving, he was just processing it in his own way. If you could stick him into your suitcase and take him with you, you probably would, albeit it would be a hard time trying to bring that through the TSA.

“Promise me something though?” You ask, turning to also look at the heavens.

“Yes?”

“Try to memorize your lines- I really want to see you up on that stage when I’m back.”

“Alright, alright,” Hand pulling away from yours he sighs, pushing himself off of the ground and then offering you a hand. “I’ll learn my lines, ace the audition and be the best damn Hamlet you’ve ever seen.” A nod of his head as he pulls you to your feet.

“Promise?” You ask, brushing a few strands of hair away from your face.

“Promise,” he smiles, leaning forward to put a kiss atop your head. “As for right now though, can we get breakfast? I woke up super early to catch the sunrise and only had two pieces of toast and an apple, oh- and some eggs.”

Already aware of his eating habits you give him a nod, “Of course you can.” You begin to turn back to the forest, only to shout back to him once you were far enough away as he’d gone back to retrieve his poetry, “But you’re paying, it’s going to be my going away present!”

[shenlongshao]

GG Strive Thoughts: Part 3

Welcome to the last part of my Guilty Gear Strive thoughts!^_^ I'll be focusing on the art-style and character designs, so there will be lots of pictures in this post. I hope you enjoy reading!

Art-Style & Graphics ---------------

Guilty Gear's visuals always had a detailed, Sci-Fi fantasy anime look with creativity of the 1990s and early 2000s. This mostly stayed the same until Xrd SIGN, which introduced 3D cel-shaded graphics in a new way. The art-style also changed a bit from previous games, although it has kept its creativity.

GG Xrd SIGN and the following games(Revelator and Revelator 2) look beautiful, but it took me a while to get used to the art-style because of those dreaded chins. The characters should've just used their chins to fight cause of how long and pointy they are; just go "SLLASSHHHH!" XD  Certain features of characters were exaggerated like Sol's shoulders being a bit too wide for his body or how Baiken's hair is thicker and spikier. Some people say it's "too anime", but that isn't the right word for it. I would say "whimsical" is main trait from the art-style, which is fitting for how funny the interactions are in-game and lighter tone in story.

Guilty Gear Strive keeps the cel-shaded 3D graphics, but manages to expand it further. Instead of its presentation akin to an anime TV series, it's now akin to a high-budget anime movie with detail given to both the characters and the environments. It's less whimsical this time, giving the impression the story will be darker in tone. I'm really happy the art-style was changed to being closer to the older GG games like X2; no more ice-cream cone chins!XD  The characters also got redesigned to match the essence of the new game. I'll be talking about eachone in order from least to most in terms of design changes. I'll also rate them in Guilty Gear style grade form. POTEMKIN ------------------- There seems to be mixed reactions when Potemkin got revealed for GG Strive. Some were happy he looked generally the same while others were a little disappointed and asked, "How come he didn't get a huge redesign like the other characters?!" The answer is he already did; this is how Potemkin originally looked like in the GG series.

This design relates to Potemkin's story in the beginning. The Zepp empire in the past was a very corrupted, technology advanced nation. It contained battle-slaves with strength enhancement steriods and bound them with a special limiter. Potemkin was one of these battle-slaves with his huge, red metal color being the limiter. If he ever took it off, it would explode. However, Zepp was changed when Gabriel became President and freed all the Zeppian slaves, including Potemkin. He now serves as Gabriel's bodyguard out of genuine loyalty, gratitude, and care for his mentor and the renewed Zepp.

Judging on his old design by itself, I think he looked average(based on what he's wearing). His features definitely fit the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" because Potemkin is actually a gentle giant who's very intelligent. But the way he looks(except when interacting with certain characters), it's like he wants to break someone's bones, lol.

In the concept artwork in Guilty Gear X Plus(Japanese exclusive game), it hinted of what Potemkin will eventually developed into look-wise and story-wise. Even the pose from this pic was used later in Xrd SIGN. I really wish the design of the boots was used instead those weird looking ones he's wearing now, XD.

Now to look at Potemkin's design in Xrd SIGN.

This is Potemkin's drastic redesign needed because of the changes in his life and his resolve being tested. I love this design so much because it accurately portrays Potemkin's personality. The first is his steel helmet with a spike at the top, accented with the Zepp symbol at the center of his forehead. His face is mostly shrouded in darkness except for the glowing lens. The yellow ponytail fur attached adds to the essence of a modern steel knight. Next is the black collar having spikes at the front; he also has on spiked shoulder plates to emphasis his strength. The power part is also in the round-shaped limiters attached to the upper parts of his uniform and glove compartment of his gauntlets. The design of his gauntlets is derived from the GGX Plus concept art, except the gloves completely cover his fingers and has a robotic aesthetic to it. I notice green is the most dominant color in Potemkin's design and there's a reason why besides it being Zepp's uniform.

Here is the Green Personality taken from Color Psychology (https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-green.html):

You are a practical, down-to-earth person with a love of nature. You are stable and well balanced or are striving for balance - in seeking this balance, you can at times become unsettled and anxious. Having a personality color green means you are kind, generous and compassionate - good to have around during a crisis as you remain calm and take control of the situation until it is resolved.

You are caring and nurturing to others - however you must be careful not to neglect your own needs while giving to others. You are intelligent and love to learn - you are quick to understand new concepts. You are a good citizen and like to be involved in community groups. You have high moral standards and doing the right thing is important to you.

There is more, but I only taken pieces that describe Potemkin's personality, showing why green is his main color. Now onto his look in GG Strive starting with his helmet.

On the forehead of the helmet, the Zepp symbol is no longer a design mark, but an carved symbol with the words "Armor-clad faith" underneath. Instead of just darkness on his face, it accentuates the robotic aesthetic with the gears and the lens having an orange tint. Next is a full body screenshot of Potemkin.

The spiked shoulder plates is less noticeable and his uniform is more formal. There's now a maroon-red collar with white trim and yellow buttons. The spikes on the black collar part of his outfit is gone, there's thick pockets on the lower part of his suit and has a brown belt instead of black. His boots is also brown instead of black and the plates around his feet is orange instead of red. There's additional limiters on his upper back that is revealed when doing certain attacks, showing his power has grown more. His muscle mass has also gotten super HUGE to the point I wouldn't be surprised if he reached Sentinel(X-Men) size, XD.

Design Rating: S++(Fantastic!) SOL BADGUY ------------ ---------- Sol Badguy is the main protagonist, so there was never a worry or surprise of his GG Strive design. There's also the fact his design isn't really new; it's heavily derived from the artwork of Guilty Gear 2:Overture. But first is looking at Sol's most iconic design from the GG series.

I'll always love this design because I think it's stylish, cool, and timeless. He's handsome in the traditional tough-guy way and perfectly fits the anti-hero type. His metal red headband acts as a limiter for his Gear powers and has the words "Rock You" in the center of his forehead. Besides it symbolizing his love for Queen's "Sheer Heart Attack" music album and controlling his Gear powers, it also symbolizes how he keeps his inner thoughts to himself and close-mindedness. He wears a black undershirt layered with a sleeveless, chest-length red jacket with a buckle strap. This style is very unconventional, which is exactly Sol is; he doesn't follow typical conventions. His red and black gloves conveys his toughness while his belt with the "FREE" tells of his philosophy. This also hints complexity to his nature since the belt is from when he was in the Holy Order, an aspect of his past. This shows he's inwardly caring and values the people in life along with his experiences. Lastly, is his white pants accented with buckles and red shoes.

The GG2:Overture Short Stories goes into some detail of the events before the game like how he was entrusted to raise Sin(Ky & Dizzy's son), etc. The major difference with Sol's design from the short stories is he's wearing a sensible red jacket similar to his old one, but its design still has traits of being its own style. His black undershirt is slightly different with a small V-shape cut-out in the middle, longer sleeves, and slightly loose around his stomach instead of fitted. His gloves has more of a biker vibe to them and no aspect of red nor buckles within them. He still wears red shoes on his feet, though tweaked in its looks. While this did hinted of Sol's character development, it wasn't a large factor because alot of the huge events at the time and before were placed on him rather than him confronting it by himself. It's why for Xrd SIGN, he primary reverted to his iconic look, though his GG2:Overture Short Stories look did get tweaked and used within the game's Story Mode. Now for his GG Strive look.

His GG Strive design blends both his GG2:Overture Short Stories look and aspects of his iconic design, which I really like. The red jacket with black trim conveys his free-spirited persona, yet also comfortable and relaxed. There's also a little bit more white seen on the cuffs of his jacket, meaning his heart is more open. This relates to his character development of finally confronting his past, his feelings, and his relationships. But he's still Sol Badguy and there's much for him to find out and explore, especially since red and black is still his main colors. There is deep meaning to this too.

Red Personality(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-red.html):

You are action oriented and physically active - sex is a necessity to you - you have strong survival instincts. Lovers of red are the explorers and pioneers of the world, the entrepreneurs and builders who like to be first in discovering new physical realms. You are always in a hurry, wanting to do everything right now. Patience is not one of your strong points. Red people can be aggressive and easy to anger, often exhibiting a violent temper - this is negative passion and energy. You flare up instantaneously but calm down quite quickly once you get it out of your system and then forget it ever happened. You have a strong need for power and control which is connected to your basic survival instincts.

Black Personality(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-black.html):

You are independent, strong-willed and determined and like to be in control of yourself and situations. You may appear intimidating to even your closest colleagues and friends, with an authoritarian, demanding and dictatorial attitude. You hold things inside and are not good at sharing yourself with others, possibly out of fear. You may be retreating behind black during a difficult time in your life such as a serious illness or a period of grief - black protects, allowing for a deep inner healing without interference from others. I'll add traits of the color White since there's a noticeable amount on Sol.(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-white.html): Positive traits of White: Simplicity, self-efficient, growth/new beginnings, open, equality, rescuer, and sense of completion. These traits describe Sol. Overall, I like the design and feel it suits him well. Design Rating: S+++(Perfect!) MAY ----------- So far, May is the only female character revealed for the initial roster of GG Strive. There's mixed reactions with May's redesign for the new game. Some are happy she finally looks like she's in her early to mid teens(like 14 or 16) instead like a little girl. But others aren't happy with the changes to her outfit, saying it's bland. Let's look at May's iconic design. 

In my opinion, May is the coolest looking child character. Her open-sides style coat with side slits layered with a skin-tight bodysuit blends both cute and stylish. Adding to it is the tricon pirate hat, silver plating on her wrists and neckline, and orange short boots with black trim. Lastly, a black belt is around her waist while buckles accents her orange coat. This shows she's spunky, cheerful, and deceptively strong. In the story, her origins was unknown at the time, which perfectly fits due to there's black as part of color scheme(one of the meaning for black is mystery). Story-wise, May's development gradually grows from finding Johnny and later recruiting Dizzy as a member of the crew. Her curiosity of her heritage surfaces, causing some changes in her design.

In Xrd SIGN, Her skin-tight bodysuit is gone and replaced with just a black, fitted tank underneath her orange overalls. Her pants is loose-fitting along with having a big buckle around her waist and different boots still in orange with black trim. She doesn't have the silver plating collar, but other aspects of her iconic look like her pirate hat is kept. May finally finds out she's Japanese and dealing a mysterious condition that (currently) can't be cured. This is a huge story development for May that leads to be expanded further and another redesign. First is looking up the facial shot of May for Guilty Gear Strive.

May's facial features is the first noticeable difference. The art-style is a strong factor in this, but May looks physically older. She still has big, cute brown eyes, though not as large as in Xrd SIGN. This makes her face appear a little longer face to convey a hint of maturity. Yet, she still hasn't escaped being just cute in an innocent way. Another difference is her hair is slightly shorten to halfway to her back instead to her waist. It's also loose instead of a thick ponytail within her pirate hat, which I think it's a nice little change. Her hat is shaped more round instead of oversized tricon while still retaining the pirate skull at the front. The anchor design on the sides makes it both simple, yet stylish. Now to see the full body of May's new look!

.....Lol, May is wearing a dumb orange hoodie, XD. What's worse is the hoodie has no special designs pertaining to May's personality or style; it's overly casual. There's also no shape, making her look like a fat fish. The skin-tight black short-shorts doesn't help with how oversized the hoodie is, which if it weren't for certain angles, it gives the illusion she isn't wearing anything on her lower body. It looks like lounge wear meant to be worn around the house instead of clothing a person would wear going on an adventure. Speaking of adventure, she has a backpack.

The backpack itself is cute because it's Chimaki(mascot of GG) and do see the the letter J with a heart; meaning love for Johnny. But other than this, this backpack also doesn't really relate to May. Besides being the mascot for the series, Chimaki is specific to Sin because it's favorite toy. None of May's official art ever showed her having a Chimaki toy or accessory. The casual look gives me the impression she quit the Jellyfish Pirates, but her winning animation of her saying "Jellyfish victory!" and Leap(the elderly lady who cooks) being there disproves this theory. Besides the hat, the only things kept from her iconic look is her gloves and boots. There's a heart on one of her thighs; a fitting aspect for a pirate.

Now to look at the Orange personality since it's May's main color(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-orange.html): 

With orange as your favorite color, you are warm, optimistic, extroverted and often flamboyant. You are friendly, good-natured and a generally agreeable person. You are assertive and determined rather than aggressive - having a personality color orange means you are more light-hearted and less intense than those who love red. You thrive on human social contact and social gatherings, bringing all types together.

You live your life based on your 'gut reactions'. You are an adventurer - you love the outdoor life, camping, climbing mountains and indulging in adventurous sports such as sky diving and hang gliding. You are the daredevil, always looking towards your next challenge, your next great adventure. 

This definitely fits May's nature. My impression of her simpler look probably hints of May is unsure of herself and trying to figure something out. Her expression in her new character portrait has this too; it's the first one of her not smiling. But I still think this new look for May is bad(except for the hat,  the boots, and the gloves). Her design should've been something like this picture link below.

https://imgur.com/Ue1XdhT The top would need to cover her stomach, but this design perfectly fits with May's nature and role as a Jellyfish Pirate. It also conveys she's adventurous and can easily implemented the backpack as part of the design. But it wasn't used... I'm nicknaming her May of the Jelly-Fat, lol. Worst design so far(and hopefully the only one). Design Rating:D(for Derailed) KY KISKE ----------------- Ky's radical redesign for GG Strive was such a huge shock to everyone. At first, people thought it was Sin(Ky's son) until examining him closely. It's funny how many people are saying "Ky's handsome now" and saying he has an athletic body when in reality, he always did, XD. It isn't the first time Ky got big changes to his look based on the events in his life, but I'm going to focus on Ky's iconic design.

Ky is the opposite of Sol; the traditional knight-in-shining-armor type hero. This is another design I'll call timeless and my personal favorite look for Ky. He's very handsome in a princely way, which is fitting since Ky is a French noble. He wears a white shoulder cape containing a high collar with blue trim. It's attached to the blue knight-tunic with black trim in the front, accented with a white, trench-coat like detail. There's twin belts attached to his blue and black gloves while one is on his matching boots. Layered underneath his uniform is his black and white, sleeveless turtle neck and fitted detached sleeves. The belt around his waist with "HOPE" conveys Ky's philosophy. This attire is the Holy Order uniform, which conveys how strongly Ky holds onto the teachings and experiences he had during those times. His story at the time was about fulfilling his duty and doing what he knows and believes is right. Blue and white has always been Ky's main colors, which tells alot about his personality.

Meaning of White Personality(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-white.html): 

Having a personality color white means you are neat and immaculate in your appearance, in the presentation of your home and in your car, almost to the point of being fanatical. You are far-sighted, with a positive and optimistic nature. You are well-balanced, sensible, discreet and wise. You think carefully before acting - you are definitely not prone to impulsive behavior. You tend to have a great deal of self control. You may appear to be shy, but you do have strong beliefs about most things and love the opportunity to air those beliefs. The challenge for you is to be open-minded and flexible and to communicate your needs and desires. Meaning of Blue Personality(https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-blue.html):   You are conservative, reliable and trustworthy - you are quite trusting of others although you are very wary in the beginning until you are sure of the other person. At the same time, you also have a deep need to be trusted. You are not impulsive or spontaneous - you always think before you speak and act and do everything at your own pace in your own time. You take time to process and share your feelings. You are genuine and sincere, and you take your responsibilities seriously. Having a personality color blue means you have a deep need for peace and harmony in your everyday life - you don't like having your feathers ruffled. You would benefit from daily meditation and quiet time for reflection, introspection and self-discovery.

You appear to be confident and self-controlled, but may be hiding your vulnerable side. Being a personality color blue means you are generally fairly even-tempered, unless your emotions take over - then you can become either moody and over-emotional, or cool and indifferent. You are sensitive to the needs of others and caring with your close circle of friends. While you are friendly and sociable, you prefer the company of your own close group of friends.

You are a rescuer and love to be needed but one of your lessons is to learn to love yourself first - you live from your heart and are always busy putting the needs of others first. You can be rigid - you like to stick to what is familiar to you and it is hard to sway you from your path - you stubbornly do things your way even if there is a better way. You need to have direction & order in your living and work spaces - untidiness and unpredictability overwhelm you.

You are approachable and friendly, always making people feel welcome in your life. You have a thirst for knowledge in order to gain wisdom and appear knowledgeable in whatever area interests you. You are spiritual or religious with a high degree of devotion to family, God, or other causes that are important to you. If reacting negatively, you are prone to self-pity. These perfectly fit Ky's personality and has mostly stayed with him throughout his character development. Now to look at his GG Strive redesign beginning with the head.

One of the obvious difference is Ky's hair is short, reminiscent of his iconic look. But it raises the question of how since according to the story, it's stated his hair grows rapidly no matter how many times he tries to cut it(due to heavily implying he's part Gear). I'm guessing either Ky followed Sin's method of cutting his hair every 3 days or he found a special hair product to prevent rapid growth, XD. I notice the style of his hair is a bit different; the strands of his bangs is shorter and thicker. It creates a boyish look instead of a young man, which doesn't fit Ky. It doesn't seem noticeable during gameplay, but cutscene-like sequences it's the opposite. His hair should've been exactly like GGX2.

His facial structure and eyes in GG Strive is exactly like in GGX2 except for one part; his chin. While Ky's chin was never wide like most male characters, it usually isn't this narrow either. The narrower chin makes him look younger and with how the hair is styled, it gives the impression it's Ky from an earlier timeline. If his chin was similar to how it was in GG X2, it will improve his look alot and show he's mature and sophisticated. Next is examining the full body picture of his new look.

This is a huge departure in many ways. The only aspect inspired from his iconic design is the shoulder cape, but it lacks the blue trim around the helms and collar. Instead, there's black trim at the helms and hints of blue at the back with the words "Illyrium". His semi-fingerless gloves with fingernail plating is something he doesn't usually wear, but the back of his hands does have plating saying "Nothing can be done without hope". It shows he still generally has the same philosophy and key traits he's known for. The fact his "HOPE" belt is replaced with 2 standard belts(one black and the other brown) implies his mindset he carried from the Holy Order is gone and became open-minded. His open, V-neckline shirt with a single sleeve is inspired from this.

I do find it interesting how this reveals(pun intended) a different side of him, XD. It adds a sense of sensuality that leading men from romantic novels have and obviously it being sexy. Next is his fitted pants accented with blue crosses at the front then his boots with blue trim at the bottom. The most significant change is how Ky's dominant color is now black, which has important meaning to his character development.

Positive traits of Black: Include protection and comfort, strong, contained, formal, sophisticated, seductive, mysterious, endings & beginnings.

Negative traits of Black: Depressing and pessimistic, secretive and withholding, conservative and serious, power & control, sadness and negativity.

All of these fit Ky and since he's wearing alot of black instead of blue and white, this implies he has or going to have an internal struggle. I haved mixed feelings about his new design.

I love the concept of it and think it's nice to see Ky wear something different as his main attire. By itself the outfit is good and easy to adjust to, it's just not as unique as his original design. The design of blue crosses from his GG Accent Core Plus ending should've been implemented in the new design and add some gold trim to balance out all the black. I think his gloves should be changed to be more stylish along with the silver plating. If it had these tweaks, Ky's new design would be perfect.  

Design Rating: A(Great!) CHIPP ZANUFF ------------------------ The reveal of Chipp's redesign has mostly been positive, but all of us immediately said "He is so BUFF!" People say he looks handsome now and have joked he worked out at the same gym as Chris Redfield, XD. Let's look at Chipp's previous design!

Chipp's iconic look definitely displays the street-punk style and rowdy persona. This perfectly fits with his dark past of being a former biochemical drug dealer and addict. He has wild spiky hair, small red earrings, and a leather choker around his neck. The fishnet undershirt is both punk-style and those who practice ninjitsu wears. He has fingerless gloves with silver, square-shaped plating. This aspect is also on his belt and short-length boots. There's two leather buckles strapped around the right leg of his white pants and has on a loose-fitting ninja vest with silver buttons. This highlights his newly adopted values he got from his mentor and father-like figure Master Tsuyoshi. Chipp even has on black eyeliner around his eyes to emphasizes the punk look. Since he primarily wears black and white with hints of red, this tells about his personality. Black and white together obviously means viewing things in a straightforward way instead of complex like gray. Red conveys of his hot-headed masculinity, passion, and impatient nature. Combined with the other colors, it shows Chipp's other side of having pure intentions, even though it doesn't always come across right.

In Xrd SIGN, only minor tweaks were made such as adding a red sash attached to his belt, extra detail on his pants and boots, and slightly thicker eyeliner. Ever since becoming president of a (currently) unofficial nation dubbed "Eastern Chipp Kingdom", Chipp's personality seemed to have mellowed some, though still has his impulsive tendencies. Chipp has been through alot of character development since the beginning. Now for his redesign for GG Strive starting with his face.

One of the things I notice about Chipp's face is while it's still narrow, it's a little fuller and smoother with slightly higher cheek bones. His chin is also about an inch or 2 wider than how it was in the Xrd series. His eyes still has the same defined shape, but the eyeliner isn't as thick. These tweaks to his facial features makes him look handsome and approachable instead of angry and rough. But his fiesty side is still there because besides his eye shape, his upper teeth now has some small fangs. Now to see a full body picture...

Chipp's hair also got tweaked; tt's still spiky, but more stylish instead of wild. Instead of strands of hair rest on his forehead, he has noticeable asymmetrical bangs. Besides his red earrings, Chipp's 2 main colors(black and white) is kept along with a little more red from the strings attached to his ninja gauntlets and strapped sandals. He still has the red sash attached to his belt, though this time he has a thick, rope belt(I think it's called "Obi"). His white pants is very loose-fitting and no longer has twin buckle straps, but does have a little more detail with the side silver buttons. On his upper body, Chipp has on a leather vest with a form-fitting, sleeveless turtleneck. The height of the collar covers his mouth and contains buckle straps. This look is inspired from his design in "The Butterfly and Her Gale".

It has aspects of the high collar, gauntlets, and boots, even though the boots was tweaked to be sandals. This redesign shows Chipp fully embraces Japanese culture and the ways of ninjitsu. I think it may also hint of him being or becoming a master himself and training others, especially with how he's gotten so muscular. The way they mixed old and new with Chipp's redesign is amazing and love the tweaks to his face and hair. I do think his pants maybe a bit too wide along with the rope-belt, but other than that his look is perfect.

Design Rating: S++(Awesome!) AXL LOW ------------------- "Axl got PANTS!" is the main reaction people had when he got revealed and the majority agree it's a much needed upgrade. This is the 3rd time Axl has gotten major design changes since GG:The Missing Link. His look from GGX and onwards greatly emphasizes he's heavily inspired from real-life singer Axl Rose. For Axl, I'm going look at his redesign for Xrd SIGN.

In comparison to the others, Axl's design was never high-fantasy or elaborate, but it makes sense he's from the 20th century. His look in Xrd mixes aspects from the 1st GG and GGX, which conveys his easy-going nature and trying to adapt to the future he's in while maintaining his values of the past. He still has his signature UK cap, brown fingerless gloves, and matching shoes. His white shirt has a unique black zipper tie that adds a hint of contemporary along with his blue jacket. Attached to his black belt on the hips is cloths of the UK flag and has on blue shorts. Red and blue has mostly been his main colors(with some white) that tells of his peaceful, friendly, and passionate nature. In the story, Axl is finally confronted about why he time-skips and must make a hard decision that forever change his life. The choice he made leads him to major character development along with what role he will play in the story, so he needed another redesign to reflect this.

This design shows Axl has embraced the current timeline while maintaining his love for his country. His fingerless gloves is a lighter brown along with his ankle-length boots. He wears a red plaid jacket with white sleeves and black with orange trim at the helms. Underneath is his a sleeveless, form-fitting tank with 3 zippers at the front and a brown buckle at the mid-section. On his lower body is a belt with a UK buckle and fitted, detailed black pants with zippers on the side. This look is inspired by the concept art.

I notice his new design as a mixture of colors compared to before, though it seems black is the most dominant color. One of the meanings for black is power and control, which fits with how Axl now has control over his Time powers. He also has an aura of confidence compared to his uncertainty in the past games. This is the perfect design for Axl because he looks amazing and conveys his personality well.

Design Rating: S+++(Perfect!)

Thank you for reading this! I'll make a series of this as more characters of the game are revealed in the future!^_^

[ebaeschnbliah]

KILLING  THE  BEST   FRIEND

________________________________________________________________

After the events shown in Sherlock BBCs ‘The Final Problem’ it really looks like the connections between ‘the skull’, the ‘best friend’ and ‘sacrifying/killing the best friend’ are one of the most important components of the whole story. If not the most important at all. And on a metaphorical level it makes all the sense in the world too.

If you like, enjoy this idea under the cut …

Four cases, four characters, four different stories and each one circles round ‘the death of a best friend’.

a scientist (Frankland)

a detective (Sherlock)

a friend (anonym)

a sister (Eurus)

The Hounds of Baskerville

Little Henry witnesses how his father is murdered by Bob Frankland, his best friend. The scientist and Henry’s father are compared to Sherlock and John.

HENRY: Well, mates are mates, aren’t they? I mean, look at you and John.

For a subtext-reading I recommend @sagestreet ‘s ‘Follow the dog’ meta.

The Reichenbach Fall

JIM: Your friends will die if you don’t. SHERLOCK: John.

The showdown on Bart’s roof leaves two ‘dead’ men behind. Each of them forced the other one to commit suicide. And by doing this, Sherlock kills John’s best friend …. himself.

The Abominable Bride

EMELIA: Swiftly now. No Tears.

A ‘faithful sister’ asks an anonymous friend to kill her. This starts a war which divides ‘the world’ and lets loose invisible armies, raging furies, a monstrous regiment, a mysterieous cult ... subdued for a long time and not allowed to raise their voices. 

The Final Problem

There are no dog bones in the well as expected. What emerges out of the water of the well is the skull of little Victor, who once had been Sherlock’s best friend. 

In TFP the human skull in the hands of Sherlock’s best friend John, closes the circle backwards 

to the skull on the mantlepiece in the living room of 221b Baker Street

to Sherlock, who introduces that skull as ‘friend of mine.’ and

to John’s question ‘So I’m basically filling in for your skull?’  

The ‘skull’ and the ‘friend’ are merging into one another …. thereby connecting Victor, John and RedBeard.   (More on that topic X)

And then, there is Eurus, the ‘other one’, the sister who supposedly put the skull/the friend in the well. Eurus, who wears a knitted cardigan very similar to John’s jumper. Another connection.

The ghost and the skull

a sister can be called a nun

a headless nun is a sister without a head, without a face, without a skull

Sherlock once had a case … code word ‘headless nun’

a headless nun can be a very effective ingredient of a ghost story

Sherlock accuses Mycroft … ‘You turned my sister into a ghost story:’

Sherrinford is the abode of ‘ghost sister’ Eurus

and in the well at Musgrave Hall lies a skull … 

A headless ghost sister and a skull without a body. This still untold story seems to be all about some dramatic division in the past and because of that it almost screams for an end with a ‘reunion’ of skull and body. Of head and transport? Of intellect and emotions? Because ‘just a head’ - even the most cleverest one - isn’t able to exist on its own forever? And eventually the neglected ghost of a body, treated like transport, necessary but annoying, for far too long ….. awakens, begins to stir and demands to be heard. 

In other words: .... a snowcaped mountain starts rumbling, becaus it actually is a volcano ….

“Sherlock Holmes, again, must have sexual impulses because human beings tend to -- most human beings, not absolutely all, but that's the majority. The fact is, he decides to put all that in an iron box to make his brain work better. Of course, the fact that that iron box bounces around and shakes and bangs from the inside is what makes the story interesting. He wants to rise above us like a snowcapped mountain, but he's actually a volcano, and that's where the story is. That's where the story is. You know, you shove Irene Adler in front of him, and he just falls apart like most men would.”

Steven Moffat on Sherlock (IGN interview, February 2014)

On a metaphorical level, what does Irene represent in this story? Sexuality. Irene is Mrs. Sex.  I wrote about it in ‘Explosive ... it’s more me’.  Jim Moriarty - Mr. Sex - represents Sherlock’s very own sex drive. Irene and Jim, both are gay and it looks very much like both are returning by the end of TFP.

Experimenting with  metaphors

The metaphor creates the world - the time and place; the who, what, when, where and why. Metaphor literally means to "carry over," to substitute one thing for another. To describe one thing by means of another. To describe something that is unknown by the use of things that are known.  (Metaphors in story writing and moviemaking)

Exploring the story told in Sherlock BBC has always fascinated me. And this fascination multiplied since the day I started to suspect that there’s maybe more to discover in it than the already highly interesting, coded subtext …. that even the surface level of that story might consist of carefully crafted metaphors used by the creators to paint a picture. The picture of Sherlock painting a picture inside of his own mind. A picture of himself.

SHERLOCK: Oh, hello again, Archie. What’s your theory? Get this right and there’s a headless nun in it for you. ARCHIE: The invisible man could do it. SHERLOCK: The who, the what, the why, the when, the where?  (TSOT)

That this story isn’t only told from Sherlock’s POV but - for the first time in history - Sherlock Holmes himself has become the storyteller. And all the stories he creates and tells himself inside his head - on a mind stage - are presented through Sherlock’s own metaphors, acted out by different characters, clothed in varying costumes, hidden behind masks, some distorted, some made visble by mirrors. 

The truth of the matter is that the underlying universal structures of great stories hide some amazing bits of wisdom concerning who we really are and who we were really meant to be, and what we can do to become fully realized human beings - but to keep these amazing hidden bits of truth potent and relevant, the metaphors that express them have to be constantly renewed and kept fresh - i.e. the underlying story and message stays the same but the costumes and other outer trappings have to keep changing with the times.  (Metaphors in story writing and moviemaking)

Metaphors in storytelling have been used since humans are telling their stories. And inventing, creating or rewriting stories can also have a great healing effect that should not be underestimated. 

In oral and written language, using the medium of picture imagery, metaphor speaks directly to our imaginative faculties, bypassing our rational brain. Such metaphoric byways and pathways enable us to explore the ideas, forces, and powers that lie behind or beyond our rational thought. Metaphors reach deep into our soul imagination and, simply stated, “touch our heart.”  ... In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book The Little Prince we learn a simple secret from the fox:  “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye.”   (Therapeutic Storytelling)

Basically, this is the advice that Ella Thopson, the changeable therapist, gives at the beginning of the story, in PILOT/ASIP:  “.... and it will help so much to write about everything that’s happening to you.”

Metaphors of ‘change’

There exist some key metaphors to express change and inner transformations, that are present in the literature of all world cultures (X).

Transitioning from caterpillar to butterfly

Awakening from the dream of reality

Uncovering the veils of illusion

Moving from captivity to liberation

Purification by inner fire

Going from darkness to light

Moving from fragmentation into wholeness

Moving through life events as a journey or path

Returning to the source

Dying and being reborn

Unfolding the tree of our life

It seems that more than one of those examples can be discovered in Sherlock BBC. 

The metaphorical killing of the ‘best friend’

As the saying goes: ‘Old skin has to be shed before the new one can come’. Before any significant change can happen, traditional opinions and views must be challenged, altered and overcome. In The Big Question I tried to work out the core problem Sherlock seems to be dealing with:

There is friendship and there is love, between Holmes and Watson. Ever has been … unchanged … for more than hundred years. I guess no one would deny that. But a loving friendship is not the same as a romantic and sexual relationship.  

If the traditional relationship between Dr. John Watson, the ‘fixed point in a changing age’, the eternal ‘best friend’ of Sherlock Holmes should change into a romantic and sexuell relationship, it makes sense that on a metaphorical level:

first the facade needs to go

then the ‘best friend’ can be killed

to finally make way for the ‘lover’

And if this change comes to pass through Sherlock’s own investigations, deductions and conclusions, it makes also sense that it is Sherlock who sacrifices himself in his role as Mary/facade and then shoots John/best friend in his incarntion as Elsa/Eurus …. just as it happens at the end of TST and TLD.

Sherlock’s ‘I love you’ confession in front of a mirror, directed at a mirror, followed a little later by the statement of his former facade ‘I know you two; and if I’m gone, I know what you could become’ ... happens in the very next episode. 

A fitting and promising developement of a story that deals with the reunion of intellect and emotion and the metamorphosis from ‘best friend’ to ‘lover’.

Nonetheless, S5 would be highly appreciated at this point. :)))

I leave you to your own deductions. Thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.

January, 2019

@gosherlocked @raggedyblue @sarahthecoat @possiblyimbiassed @spenglernot  @loveismyrevolution @sherlockshadow @sagestreet

​

[neighbours-kid]

Count Your Blessings

I had this moment of....realisation of how lucky I am, a while ago, and after watching Shazam! last night and talking about Zac with my friend, it really hit me again. 

You know, I don‘t really remember much of, well, I guess you could call it my personality, from when I was a child? I know that I liked certain things and disliked others, I know who my friends were and stuff I did on a more or less regular basis. But I don‘t really know what kind of person I was when I was younger.

As a kid, I liked reading, I liked the Harry Potter books. I know I liked playing board and card games with my family, I know I liked playing video games with my brother. I know I liked Pokémon and that I watched both anime and cartoons on TV. I know I liked playing outside with my friends, climbing on trees, playing football, just doing stuff in nature.

I remember liking some TV shows when I got older, liking going to the movies with family and friends. I remember going over to a friend‘s house to play video games.

I remember these things about my life but I don‘t remember who I was within those things. That sort of changes around and after sixth grade. I know that by the time I went to another school after my compulsory education, I quickly became known as the nerd. The kid who knows way too much about movies and tv shows and actors, who can recall dubbing voices and what the guy in the movie you‘re watching is best known for.

I‘ve always liked knowing things and knowing a lot about the actors that starred in my favourite movies and the shows just became part of that. It became so much part of it that one of my friends just had to turn around to look at me while we watched Wilde in class for me to immediately go “Jude Law. Watson to RDJ’s Holmes. The other guy at the beginning was Orlando Bloom. Lord of the Rings. Pirates of the Caribbean.” and she just turned back as if that had been the most normal interaction in the entire world. People became surprised when I didn’t know things.

To this day, I have people who met me during the start of that time, people who I barely see and barely know, come up to me whenever I meet them, and ask me if there’s anything worth watching right now. To so many people, both close friends and people I see maybe once a year, if at all, I have become a walking movie and tv show encyclopedia.

And to be honest, for a while I got really fed up with that, because I knew that this part of my personality was not all there is. I wanted to tell people, I am more than just that! And yeah, I am more than just that. But fuck yeah, I talk about movies a shit ton and I fucking love it.

So when, the other day, I was talking about seeing Shazam! this Friday with someone using the words “gotta see my dude being a superstar”, and upon them asking who the actor is, went through the spiel of “you know the show Chuck? You know Thor’s friend Fandral in the second two Thor movies?” and, when they started googling him, also, for some reason, mentioned his birthday and zodiac sign, I got a face I hadn’t seen in a long while. That of surprise, maybe a bit of confused shock, and wonder. I hadn’t heard the question “how on earth do you know that?” in so long, because it just became normal for people to assume I knew that.

And when I recalled that I had met Zac at SDCC, told a bit about that experience and then jokingly mentioned that I could also tell them about his fashion choices — a necklace in particular —, I felt that surge of gratitude again that had hit me weeks before when I saw Zac wearing the necklace while on the cover of a magazine.

So when I watched Shazam! last night, saw the big pop-up display for the movie, the posters, and his big ol’ face all over the place, it just really hit me again.

You know, I’m not oblivious to the fact that he is a celebrity, even if I hate that word. I know that he has a massive fanbase and that I am only one of many who admire him. I am not trying to put him on a pedestal, and I sure as hell don’t have delusions that I know who he is in private, that I can say I know him as a person. All I know is who he is publicly, in interviews, interaction with fans and stuff like that.

But…having met him twice? Having seen him interact with people in front of me, how he talks to people, listens to people? Having been able to sit down with him for a moment, tell him the story behind the necklace and the reason why I wanted him to have it, and knowing that he got it? Having interacted with him, I know that who he seems to be to the public, is to a very large degree, not just a facade. I am sure that he has some things he hides away from the public, but that’s entirely fair. I don’t believe there is any person in the public eye — may that be actors, politicians, musicians, or even the fucking weather person — who does not, to a certain degree, play a part while out and about. They are just people like you and me, they have lives, bad days and good days. Hell, even I play a part sometimes.

But what I have always felt with him, through watching interviews and experiencing him in actual, real life, seeing him around fans, friends, and even family, I have only ever gotten a feeling of a deep genuineness, a sincere honesty.

I have no illusions about meaning anything to him beyond the “fan” bit, but it sure means a hell lot to me that he wears that necklace, understands its meaning. And it feels kinda nice too, when you’re told that something you’ve written has been read, or when you can see recognition on his face a year after you met the first time. And I am incredibly grateful for that, and so humbled that I got to experience that, and that I get to keep experiencing that. I am incredibly blessed.

This year is a culmination of a lot of things, in a lot of ways. Not just with Shazam! and its incredible success and the fact that people all over the world are going to see what a star Zac is, what we have known to be true all along, but also in regards to Avengers: Endgame coming out. I started down this rabbit hole of a journey seven years ago, when the first Avengers movie came out. In 2012 I really, truly became that movie obsessed weirdo that I am today, and it all started with that movie, really. It was through Avengers that I discovered my love for Loki, and thus my admiration for Tom Hiddleston, and it was through Hiddleston that I became aware of San Diego Comic-Con. And it was through both these things that I found NerdHQ and ultimately yer man Zac Levi.

God works in mysterious ways, guys. And it’s funny, because I often get this question from my mom or people at my church— if I’m so obsessed and pre-occupied with movies and tv shows and actors, do I still have time for God? And it’s funny, because they don’t understand, that this is how I find God, how I see him and his work, every day. Movies is how I have, ultimately, found renewed belief and faith. God has used both Hiddleston and Zac in ways that they can’t see, it seems. I am a kinder, more loving person, a more generous and caring human being than I was seven years ago, because I found those movies, those stories, and those people.

Huh. I am honestly just sitting here, still only barely grasping how incredibly lucky I’ve been, how blessed I am. I have made so many incredible memories, found so many great friends through this world of movies and this nerdy environment, I have seen many places and wonderful things because of it. And sitting in that cinema seat yesterday watching my dude on screen being a fucking superhero and being fantastic at it, just hit that home for me.

I am so lucky.

I am so blessed.

And it’s not just the past, either. I’ve somehow managed to find out that Zac would be at CCXP in Cologne, Germany, on the very last day of early bird sales for that event, and I had the money to book that trip. And now, without any of my doing, the opportunity to work has come up, and with that money I’ll be able to balance these expenses right out again. How fucking lucky is that?

You know, sometimes I go full Freddie Mercury and ask myself, is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy? But it is in those moments that I see the post-cards on my wall with faces on them that prove that this is real life. It is in those moments that I open instagram and see a post of Zac’s and the gold chain of that necklace pokes out of the collar of his shirt. I open twitter and I see my friends from all over the globe interacting with each other, loving each other. And I get to be part of that. How fucking cool is that?

I am so lucky. I haven’t always had it easy, I’ve gone through some shit, am still going through some shit. Life is hard, you know. But I have been so incredibly blessed and I can see so much more of that on the horizon.

I said this to my friend yesterday, but, dude, life is short.

Do the cool shit. Spend your money on concert tickets, trips to foreign countries, opportunities to see your favourite actors, musicians, authors in actual real life. Meet your heroes! They could be dead the very next day. Life is weird and complicated and short. So make the best out of it.

Fuck what other people think! Go make yourself happy.

And with that, I only have one last thing to say, to ask. Go see Shazam! Do yourself that favour. Go see it. It doesn’t matter if you’re not into superhero movies or if you don’t like DC, or whatever. Go see it. You’ll thank yourself later.

I love you, people. Be good, be kind.

.

.

.

(Thank you, Zac. Thank you for this.)

[codyfernaesthetic]

Dichotomy

Part 18

Summary:

An unexpected visitor brings unexpected news

Four crawling months passed as Michael and Mallory hid in Robicheaux’s; they renewed the protection spell each month, hoping that it would be strong enough to keep them safe until they could think of... something, anything to change fate. But how do you fight God? How do you outsmart Satan?

An unstoppable force was encroaching, but they didn’t know how to be immovable objects.

In this dread, they were thankful beyond measure for each other.

Michael fought everyday against his urges of violence and hatred. Warred against his desire to slaughter the witches right under his grasp; to watch Cordelia suffer for taking away his Ms. Mead. He would feel his blood pulse with fire, balling his hand into a tight fist, ruminating over twitching a finger and ending them all.

He would feel delicate fingers lay atop his fist, a gentle, pervading warmth that soothes his anger. He would look into those big, dark eyes, full of compassion and understanding. Her soft, sweet lips set in a smile, silently saying, “I know you’re trying. I see how hard you’re trying. You’re not alone, I will stay by your side. I love you.”

He chose her over his destiny everyday.

Mallory would have nightmares; frightening, vivid visions of blood and corpses. Her friends, the only people she loved in the world dying just out of her reach. Michael would hold her, humming vintage tunes Constance would sing to him as a baby. She cried nearly everyday, as if the sorrow of the world was crashing on her; the burden of a savior.

In her sadness, Michael’s devoted touch would ground her to the earth. His kiss was an anchor. Every word from his mouth was assuring, brimming with encouragement. I’m so proud of you. You are the strongest woman I know. I have no more room in my heart, it is so full of love for you.

She had the strength for another step in his arms.

That morning Mallory found him in the library quietly reading, sitting in his black double breasted suit, his golden hair perfectly curled and grown just passed the nape of his neck. She walked up to him, planting a soft kiss on his head.

“What’re you reading?”

He reached up, brushing hair behind her ear, admiring her golden headband nestled in her dark locks.

My angel…

She was dressed in a white lace dress, a rose choker clasped around her neck.

He gently pulled her to him, capturing her lips with his own. She was the sun, warmth and light and intoxicating life. Yet he could gaze at her like the moon, gorgeous, gentle, embracing him in silver wisps.

He pulled back, blushing, “Sorry, I just...had to taste you.”

She took his hand, “I wouldn’t dare ask for you to stop.”

His other hand lay atop the open book.

“I got wrapped up in this story collection. Flannery ‘O Connor?”

She grinned, sitting next to him, “I love Flannery ‘O Connor.”

He nodded, “She has such a pithy, quick style. It’s like she takes a scalpel to human nature.”

“She’s brilliant. I feel like I’m being let in on secrets of the human mind,” she said, her eyes lighting up.

He returned her smile.

They were disturbed by Zoe who walked to them with evident confusion and fear on her face. She stopped in front of them, hesitating.

“What’s wrong?” Mallory asked, standing.

“Someone’s here to see the both of you.”

Michael furrowed his brows, “Who?”

Zoe shrugged, “She didn’t give me a name, but…” she paused, unsure how to phrase it, “I don’t think she’s...human.”

Michael and Mallory glanced at each other, before following Zoe to the front entrance. A woman stood facing away from them, waiting. Upon hearing the trio’s entrance, she turned and approached.

The tall, slim woman made slow deliberate steps toward them; her boots clacking along with a thin black cane with an ornate silver topper, gripped by her thin digits in violet leather fingerless gloves, black fur around the wrist. She was regaled in a black wrap coat, a deep purple cape around the shoulders; an A-line black skirt rigidly moving with her stilted gait. A black squire top hat with purple flowers and ribbon crowned auburn hair; deep purple lipstick painting her lips and mauve swiped into the crease of her eyes.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Mallory commented with an exasperated sigh.

Wilhelmina Venable smiled in that condescending way that Mallory had been glad to be rid of, “It’s a pleasure to see you again as well, Mallory,” she turned her head to Michael, who had his hand around Mallory’s waist protectively, “Mr. Langdon,” she looked between the two of them, “May we have a chat?”

The three of them sat in the foyer, away from the prying eyes and ears of the other witches. Venable interlaced her fingers over her knees and told them with a smug smile, “I won’t mince words. You two fucked up the system.”

Michael and Mallory looked at each other, prompting her to continue, “Actually, that’s a bit unfair. Your parents fucked up the system when they created you.”

She leaned back, smoothing the imaginary wrinkles in her skirt, “Reality is a finely tuned machine, every cog, every spring is meticulously placed for optimization. Even chaos is a planned mechanism. Since the beginning, the dichotomy of this machine has been orchestrated and run by two opposite, yet equal forces,” she waved both of her hands, “Good and Evil. God and Satan. Balance has always been the key to keeping reality intact. And for millennia things have been running smoothly, for the most part, with spikes of either energy here or there,” she sighed, “And then your parents decided to have a pissing contest.” She shrugged, “Now, who started the fight, I don’t know, but the end result was a full blown war between what once were tentative partners. My responsibility is to flush out the things that are keeping the world in imbalance. They decided to get uppity and now we have you two lovebirds. Which, honestly I couldn’t be more happy with. Because if you two get along, my job is easier.”

Michael remained eerily silent.

“What is your job?” Mallory interrogated, “Who are you?”

She looked up in thought, answering slowly, “There’s always a bigger fish.”

She continued before Mallory could get out another word, “Now we don’t have time to unpack all of that, but the main thing you need to recognize is that you two are the prime candidates in the running for new God and new Satan.”

Nothing could have prepared the two for that statement. It hung in the air overhead, as if waiting to drop and hit them like a ton of bricks.

Venable held up her hand, “I know, the responsibility is immense, and your existence is unprecedented and unplanned, but we are making adjustments and nipping this problem in the bud as best we can.”

Mallory shook her head, “How could we possibly-“

“Like I said, my job is damage control. The damage being your parents, namely. They have become obstacles to balance. But luckily, the old saying remains, ‘The King is dead, long live the King,’” She said with a tight smile, “You two have been watched your entire lives, inspected, prodded, tested, and we have found you worthy of this task.”

Michael was unmoving, but finally spoke up, “How do we defeat them?”

She gave him an unreadable look, “Wait it out.”

“What?” Mallory countered.

“They’re fading. They already poured a significant portion of their power into creating you two,” she finished as if it were a comforting thought, “Death is coming for them.”

“Will it be the same for us?”

She giggled, a crackly, inhuman sound, “Not if you’re good at your jobs. Which I have the utmost confidence in; a rare mood for me, so I’d be flattered if I were you. Mallory, your care and love for the earth and its population, your undying faith in all that is good; you create the perfect contrast to Mr. Langdon,” her steely gaze met his, her tone indicating her awe, “I have seen the spark of creation that formed the universe. But I must admit, Mr. Langdon, you managed to shake me to my core. You will bring exquisite darkness,” her eyes went back to Mallory, “And you brilliant light. You’re already far exceeding our expectations as far as powers you display. The very fact that I’m talking to you 3 years in the past is evidence of that.”

Michael started off quiet, his hand gripping the arm of the couch, “There’s nothing you can do to help? We’re hiding out like scared rats and you’re saying all we can do is wait?” He leaned forward, growing more indignant, “What happens if they find us? What makes you think they won’t tear the world apart to play their game? I’m sure you saw what happened to the Sanctuary.”

Venable was unphased, “The only reason I’ve come to you at all was out of courtesy. I am allowing the system to purge itself, the impurities will be flushed out. Like I told you, they are already weakening.”

He stood, a snide grimace twisting his face, “Are all of you cosmic bureaucrats so far up your own asses you can’t see what’s happening? The universe that you’re supposedly taking care of is being torn to shreds.”

Her composure remained, her voice even and steady, “We step in when necessary. But we’re not a charity,” she looked between the two of them once more, her eyes lingering a bit too long on Mallory, “Take care of yourselves.”

In a blink, Venable was gone; leaving the two of them alone and in turmoil.

[howlingwind]

ORIEL who strongly resembles SOPHIE COOKSON, has been spotted in Pandæmonium. The CISFEMALE is a 27/1000+ year old ANGEL (SERAPHIM), and has been in Pandæmonium for SIX MONTHS. I hear she’s INQUISITIVE & ENDEARING and SOCIALLY AWKWARD & EASILY CONFUSED. If you’re lucky you may catch her working at NEXT LEVEL FITNESS as a COACH & FITNESS INSTRUCTOR (AEROBICS). 

my socially challenged angel child (think castiel-ish)

used to be really close, like sisters with logan marcoux-nystrom before she fell from heaven and was really conflicted about how she should feel toward her

when logan fell, despite her anger, ori went down and claimed logan’s vessel’s sister, lea monaco, as her own vessel for any potential visits to earth in the future; she offered to renew the girl’s youth every ten years on the condition that when ori finally chose to inhabit her, she’d hand over the reigns without protest. lea monaco ended up living for many fulfilling lifetimes.

ori has only been on earth for about 15 years and is still trying to fit in completely

has faith in “god’s plan” for her and all angels — but no, thankfully she’s not one of those annoying people that’s constantly trying to force faith and stuff on others. she actually doesn’t talk about it much at all

believes falling in with alessia ryder and the rest of their roommates/band was in god’s plan for her

learned how to play bass in two hours so she could be part of the band. she also plays a mean triangle and electric keyboard, but those don’t come in handy much for the type of music zerø effect plays.

can sing pretty well, and enjoys it in private and in the shower, but it’s like pulling teeth trying to get her to sing in front of people. with the copious amounts of cognac (her fave) it takes to get her drunk, though...

during the height of zerø effect‘s popularity, when they were touring and ‘kind of a big deal’™ was when she learned the most about humanity, being surrounded by so many different people from so many different walks of life and being exposed to so many different experiences.

stuck with ryder when the band broke up and eventually moved to pandemonium with her

spends a lotta time at seven devils because it’s the best place to find booze and booty.

angel on the streets, godly in the sheets. she is not a puritan ok

often ends up trying to hook up with the same girls as brody halliwell.

adores all things 80s, it’s not even funny. 80s music, books, movies, & tv, 80s video games, slap bracelets, leg warmers. it’s not even because they’re things that were popular in the 80s, she just happens to love all that stuff.

her favorite movie is weird science, with coming to america as a close second.

her favorite songs are livin’ on a prayer by bon jovi, died in your arms by cutting crew, jump by van halen, and only you by yazoo

her favorite books are the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley, and the witches by roald dahl.

she’s really kind of a geek too. she likes comics and video games (retro ones especially!), but her favorite thing ever is dnd. too bad she can never get anyone to play with her. she has seriously considered praying to god to get people to party up with her. she was also part of a larp group for a while.

her dnd oc is a female aasimar named winona who was shunned by her people then fell in with a group of dwarves.

unironically wears those 80s leotards to teach her aerobics classes. these classes are unbelievably popular for some reason, but ori is a bit oblivious as to why, but she’s happy about the job security.

[ournewoverlords]

Some thoughts on Ted Chiang’s Exhalation (2019) - Part I

Ted Chiang is such an interesting writer to me. His stories have such a neutral, impersonal tone — “thinky” scifi, theoretical what-if experiments far from our own space and time — and yet they wrestle with such “base” human questions at their core. I was surprised at how emotional I felt after reading some of them — not during the reading but days afterwards, when I’d watch a kid play in the park and think about the main character in “The Lifecycle of Software Objects”, who’d tried very hard to give her digital-child-pet a life in a society that didn’t consider it worthy of one. There’s something about his stories that have an impact on you a long time later, like a stone dropped too clean to make an initial splash, but whose ripples keep echoing in you for a long time after.

Some of these questions are very familiar, if you’ve read his previous collections, most famously Stories of Your Life and Others: how much free will do we really have; how do we go on in a world without it; how the instruments we use (language and writing, as much as any other tech) changes the way we think, feel, and relate to each other; the purpose of science and the purpose of stories, and the lines where they cross, the spaces where they meet. Is it the actual, physical, objective-laws world that shapes who we are, or the stories we tell ourselves about it? What is an individual — a single, measly person, whose only contribution might be to write a good account of the advent of a piece of tech, not even the inventor but a bystander — to the clockwork machinery of the universe? Why are we, in the cosmic scheme of things?

Maybe it’s all the Black-Mirror/Hunger-Games type stuff that’s been so en vogue in the last decade (not to mention a certain orange-y harbinger of the apocalypse sitting in the White House, and the impending existential dread of climate change), but I found this to be a very “hopeful” collection. Optimistic may be too strong a word for it, but it grapples with these dystopian concepts and comes out the other side with the sense that just as the world grows and changes, we will find a way to grow and change, and whether time turns all our great pyramids and gods to dust we are still a species worth saving. The time machines, robots, parallel universes, and knowledge that we have no destiny except the final entropy of all living things will challenge who we are, but not the missive to be kind to one another. Even if our fate is already set, we can still choose what kind of person we will be when we meet it.

In that way, perhaps the way the narrators, men and women and nameless alike, are so detached and analytical in the way they observe the world reflects not a limitation of Chiang’s character range, but a purposeful choice by the author. They’re scientists, struggling with a crisis of faith: whether they’ve made the correct diagnosis, drawn the correct conclusion, stuck to the right course, let go at the right time. Watches, who’ve met their watchmaker. Yet what makes this collection particularly beautiful — particularly scifi — to me is how these mechanical people become not gods in the future, but simply more human.

Some thoughts on the individual stories under the cut, warning for spoilers. I’m splitting this into two parts because I'm a rambler, so this one is the first half, going up to The Lifecyle of Software Objects:

The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate

“Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.”

I think it’s so fitting that a short-story collection about the meaning of stories opens with a scifi retelling of Scheherazade’s One Thousand and One Nights, the most famous short-story collection of all. It’s not just the ancient Middle East setting that’s familiar, but the structure: like those fables, this is a nested story-within-a-story, a series of morality tales told to a narrator who has his own secret not yet revealed to the audience. The scifi piece here is the time-machine gate, which, like Arrival, raises questions about the nature of time and free will — what if the future were an unchangeable scroll, the script set in ink before your birth? What does coming to know that future do to the knower?

Some, naturally, use it to enrich themselves, the classic time-travel trope of traveling to the past to give yourself the stock picks (note: buy Apple). Another underestimates the trickery of fate, while the wife uses it to rescue her future husband. But what’s interesting here is that in all these cases, no one actually changes the future; nor did they actually change the past, because the past *must* have happened for the future to happen. The characters merely make the future that was going to happen happen, much as Arrival’s Louise felt obligated “to act precisely as she knew would.”

It’s a theme that Chiang is clearly very interested in, with his most famous demonstration in Stories of Your Life / Arrival.  If we already know the future, and we can’t change it no matter what we do, that implies that we don’t have free will. The narrator’s attempt then, to change his future by changing his past must fail: a harsh word spoken and a wife lost can’t be taken back, unless it was meant to be.

But the fact that the narrator tried, I think, and went to great lengths trying, is the human element of this fantasy story. That his first instinct was to try to save his wife says something about him; the fact that it was all futile in the end doesn’t negate the meaning of his attempt. I keep remembering this Vonnegut quote about Lot’s wife, who was warned not to look back at the burning city, and yet couldn’t help doing so as she fled: “but she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.” The merchant didn’t do the wise thing, but he did the human thing — isn’t that the part that hurts?

The one issue I had with this story is that I’m always completely frustrated by time-travel-paradox stories — it doesn’t make sense to me that a universe wouldn’t branch off, so to speak, the moment you step back in time, so I don’t understand *why* both our past and future can’t be changed. I had the same issue with Arrival, where I couldn’t explain to myself why Louise HAD to walk the future she saw. (It doesn’t help that I’ve been watching a lot of Future Man, which has a lot of fun jumping around and sticking its fingers up the timey-wimey stuff.) But I also believe that the technical puzzle really isn’t the point of this story — accepting the premise that the past and future are unchangeable even if we can see them, the idea is that we still have to live them anyways, and it’s through those experiences that we change, grow, become different people. If the merchant hadn’t tried to rescue his wife, would he have found his atonement at the end? Or are there things we have to do anyways, even if we already know the answer?

Exhalation

“But in truth the source of life is a difference in air pressure, the flow of air from spaces where it is thick to those where it is thin.”

A slim little story, with a steampunk texture and some lovely little flourishes of prose in between extremely in-depth explanations of what I can only describe as “mechanical stuff” (you can see the technical writer in Chiang here — he really likes describing machinery). But the thing I really like about his work is that even as he’s a geek fascinated by the technology itself, he’s even more interested in its impact on the people and societies that find themselves confronting it. “How the world works” affects how people think about themselves, and that philosophical bent gives his stories more depth than “wouldn’t it be cool if…” thought experiments to me.

On the one level, “air” here could be a direct substitution for “energy”, where the second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system can only go up, never down. Every breath we take adds another little bit of disorder into the universe. That makes sense: none of us are renewable machines, all our civilizations have finite lifespans, and the way we’re treating the planet doesn’t exactly bode well for at least extending what time we have. Hell, we’re literally screwing our own oxygen, and unlike the narrator’s species we don’t need the laws of physics to do it for us.

What I thought was particularly interesting, though, was reading this on a more metaphorical level. I’m stretching it here, but it’s the idea that people don’t really live on the materia itself, but on the immaterial ebbs and flows between them; that it’s the passing of thoughts, energy, love, emotion between us that keeps us alive. When that exchange dies — whether because we all became the same, or because we’ve lost interest in seeking that exchange — so too do we as a species.

Is it language that keeps us alive, or having another person hear it? Is it the having of food, or having someone with whom to share it?

What’s Expected of Us

“My message to you is this: Pretend that you have free will.”

Oh ho — I had a thought after reading this that the order of the stories in this collection is really deliberate, because this book is in tension to itself. That is, one story will set out one hypothesis/POV, and then the next will straight-up rebut it, a kind of self-conflict that reminds me both of the history of science and the way I think most conflicts occur in real life: not as wrong vs right, but as different POVs that can all be true at once without being the whole of the answer, if there is one at all.

The previous story ends with a spirited declaration that “the buildings we have erected, the art and music and verse we have composed, the very lives we’ve led: none of them could have been predicted, because none of them was inevitable.” This one states exactly the opposite: everything HAS been predicted and you have no choice at all. And unlike the first story, which had the same deterministic view, the conclusion here is not to accept fate but to fight it. (Not that you can choose whether to fight it or not - it’s all been predetermined!)

First of all, this is based on a real, ongoing debate. I was really interested in neuroscience (and in particular, its impact on ethics and law) back in college and it reminded me instantly of those experiments showing that our subconscious brain makes a decision before we become conscious of making it (see Neuroscience of free will), and I’m sure experiments like Libet’s were the inspiration behind the Predictor device here.

The fact that no one’s reacted the same way people do here is probably because we have such a strong perception of our own free will that it just seems too obviously ludicrous, and the experiments so far are nowhere near as iron-tight and replicable as the Predictor. Even so, though, think about all those factors you didn’t have control over that have such an impact on where you are today: where you were born (living at the poverty level in the U.S. still puts you at the top 14% worldwide!), your parents, your genetic temperament, much of your health and innate interests and talents. There’s a lot of that vaunted genetics-plus-environment explanation for behavior that is out of our hands, and what’s left over is all the most interesting — and hardest to define — stuff.

I’m not saying that Chiang is making a social critique here, but I think that’s what this whole collection is grappling with: “the stuff that’s left over.” Keep in mind the narrator’s two assertions at the end that will pop over and over again: the idea that civilization depends on “self-deception” — or what others might call “stories” — and that “some of you will succumb and some of you won’t, and my sending this warning won’t alter those proportions”. Because in the last story, following the narrator’s command to believe in the lie is exactly what alters them.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects

Confession: I’m rarely blown away by Chiang’s prose. It does the job but it doesn’t get me swooning over a sentence or a particularly striking piece of imagery. Reading TLoSO, the piece of fiction I kept thinking of was Philip K Dick’s Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep, a novella whose wordcraft I also thought was workmanly — and yet, I fucking love that book, and this was my favorite story in Exhalation.

I can’t fully articulate why, but it’s the one that’s stuck with me the longest, even as I think The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling is more original and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom is more satisfying. It’s one of the most “conventional” stories here, along with Anxiety (perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s these two that are being adapted for Hollywood) — actual characters, with actual story arcs, and things happening and people making difficult choices. It has a cinematic vision and a fully-realized world that spans decades in the lives of those characters. It even has bad guys, and an interesting conceit: what if we had these digital pets called “digients” that could learn how to talk, and play, and maybe even learn up to the level of a adolescent while looking like these adorable baby animals that you’ll never have to feed, clean, or scoop poop after? You can just “suspend” them when you’re tired of playing with them; they’re cuter than robots, less pressure than children, and less work than pets!

The length and conventionality of the narrative structure makes it easier to relate to, I think, but it’s not why I love it and keep juxtaposing it by the Philip K Dick book. Like Androids, at the heart of it I think this is a story about empathy. It’s a story about the inherent terror, sorrow, and joy of parenting, of being in charge of another life with no guardrails or handbook on how to do it. It’s about being an adult, with jobs, responsibilities, and obligations to others in constant competition with values inside yourself, and never knowing if you got that balance right.

It’s about being a parent in a society where you’re in constant negotiation with it about the value of that life: where the only worth your child has is how much money they can make someone, how intelligent they are (and therefore how much money they can make someone), how much utility they have as an academic exercise or as a sex partner. No matter how much you love your kid, the only thing the world cares about is whether they have some “use”, and this story is all about that feeling: the heartache of justifying an existence you don’t feel should need justifying. Because whether the digients are actually robots, children, pets, or replicants — that’s probably never going to be proven, in the same way we’ll never know if Deckard really is a replicant, but that’s not really what matters here. What matters is whether you choose to believe these digital-pet-things deserve to be treated like they have value, the kind of value that makes torturing them evil, discarding them cruel, and keeping promises to them matter.

Ana and Derek choose to believe. They’re one of the very few who do, and they raise their digients as children, teaching them how to read, finding them play partners, taking joy in their successes, wrestling with how to discipline their mischief. When disaster strikes — Blue Gamma goes bankrupt, Data Earth becomes obsolete, making obsolete their first-gen digients with it — they shield them from the “finances”, much as many parents do. Then they throw themselves into the only mission that matters anymore: finding a way to give them some semblance of a good life.

Hope after hope turns them down, until at last, there’s only a startup called Binary Desire, who proposes to make the digients sex bots, in the most reasonable language: they won’t be sex slaves, this is a voluntary modification to their circuits plus careful training that will make them genuinely fall in love with their chosen partner. A kind of directed puberty, if you will — after all, none of us asked for our hormones and crushes, right? How is this different from being born with the oxytocin to connect to our family, or Blue Gamma’s initial breeding of the digients to be cute and cuddly? How is it different from being born with a certain set of genes that might predispose us to like certain people — isn’t that even the whole concept of “soul mates” in the first place, an innate connection?

But there’s something so particularly awful about Binary Desire’s proposal, as nicely as they couch it as completely consensual. First of all, as Ana and Derek argue, the digients are still child-like (though this is partly because of Derek’s and especially Ana’s own protectiveness). But even if they had the consciousness and experience of full adults, it’d still feel wrong to me, and I think it’s because of this: forcing a being to remake themselves just for our own convenience feels instinctively wrong. Binary Desire’s customers could find real, living, actually-consensual partners — but they don’t want to, they’d rather pay for a bot hardwired to fall in love with them, and delude themselves that this is “ultimate sexual fulfillment” for both parties.

That’s what feels so wrong about the way the digients are treated in the society of TLoSO in general: it’s not that people are actively torturing the bots a la the Kubrick/Spielberg movie A.I., it’s just that they’re always doing whatever is most convenient for themselves. There’s no friction, no “cost” — and therefore, no weight to any of their relationships either. It’s not that they’re selfish people, any more than us fast-swiping Tinder and all those other dating apps whose entire goal was to remove friction from “the dating market” — the point is that technology has made these options available that were never there before.

What if you could push a button and make your child perfect? What if you could pay a few bucks and make someone love you forever? Binary Sense even tries to get around that by demanding the relationship be built up over months rather than a cheap-and-quick hormonal hit because people want “real” relationships not slaves — but that friction is still artificial, just like how Ana tells Derek at the beginning that it’s weirder to pretend the digients are real animals. Getting things easy, getting things without having to pay any emotional price or sacrificing anything of yourself — that cheapens you.

I think that’s the answer to Binary Desire’s question that tortures Ana: “why can nonsexual relationships with them [like yours and Derek’s] be healthy, while sexual ones can’t?” It’s not really about nonsexual vs sexual — it’s about investing in a relationship honestly, vs trying to take shortcuts. Binary Desire’s emotional training program to get the digient to fall in love is still a shortcut, just a different kind of shortcut. People are always looking for certainty, the certainty that they’ve made the right choice — certain profit, certain success, certain returns for their investment. But relationships aren’t about certainty; at every moment, you might be fucking this all up forever, but it’s that discomfort that you makes you human. It’s about knowing that you might have nothing left to show at the end of years of effort and being willing to make that effort anyway.

The people in Ana and Dereks’ society suck because they’re unwilling to take the risk that might they invest everything, and still be left with nothing. They would never give their whole heart to something, whether that thing was a person or a bot. They want the kind of relationship that you can suspend, rewind, erase, start over if you don’t like it anymore. And that’s no relationship at all.

That’s why Ana and Derek are the heroes here, or at least, as much “hero” as you can be in a Ted Chiang piece — because they do pay a price for their love for Jax and Marco and Polo. They don’t take the easy way out of suspending them even as it costs them relationships, jobs, their statuses in society. At the end, Derek even sacrifices the one thing he discovered he wanted throughout the years— his chance with Ana — to make what he hopes is the right choice for Marco. They’re not the same kind of parents at all — Ana is more protective, Derek more willing to push them, to let them struggle out of the idea that’s needed for growth — but the crucial thing is both put that duty above themselves, the moment they became “parents”: the duty to try to give them a good life.

On the one hand, you can say it’s a sickness, valuing robots that might never gain more intellectual capacity than a 10-year-old over other human beings; on the other you can say they have this kind of fundamental integrity, this will to treat them right. Because Ana promised Jax she wouldn’t suspend him, she won’t. Because Derek can sacrifice neither Marco nor Ana, he lets Marco make his own choice, and lets Ana blame him. Maybe those are all terrible choices, maybe it’s not what you’d think of as a happy life, but — being able to have empathy with something outside yourself, even if it’s a thing not a person, being the kind of person who stands by their promises and doesn’t squirrel out of the hard decisions — isn’t that the kind of life you can live with? And isn’t that all we can ask for in the end?

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Second half coming up!

[lightseeker100]

Hey, can you, like, explain why and how youre a christian and how you cope intellectually with h the lack of empathy in Christians and the icky stuff in the old Testament, etc.? Because I'm not doing a good job with that. I feel abandoned by God. Like I have been for years.

Hello anon! Sorry if it has taken me a long time to reply, I am bad at keeping up with my inbox. Also, this is a big question, so I have a big answer! Even though I am long-winded, I may not explain things perfectly, so feel free to ask for clarification if I don’t explain something well.

Also, just know that what lead me to God and keeps me in a relationship with Him may not necessarily be the same for you. There is no one formula to lead to a strong relationship with God. Just as we are all individuals who think and feel in individual ways, so is our relationship with God suited to our individual selves. He knows us best, and my relationship with God could not possibly be the same as your relationship with God. And that is a great thing! It shows just how grand God’s love is; that He is able to form relationships with ALL kinds of people from ALL walks of life and ALL kinds of experiences!

That aside, I will address your answer in 4 parts to make it easier to organize for myself and for you, and others who may read this.

1) First and foremost, why I am a Christian:

To start, let me say that I grew up in a Christian home. Many may think that this fact automatically takes away any credibility I have about my faith. If it is all I have known, from the moment I was born, how could I possibly be right, if I never left the faith nor tried other things/experienced other faiths? That is a thought many non-belivers may have, and I too have had and struggled with. But, here is the thing. Although I grew up in the faith, that does not automatically mean I always lived it. From middle school to high school God was a crutch for me. He was my personal God. I only came to Him when I wanted something for myself. I only spoke with Him when I needed something from Him. I acted the way a good Christian girl should on the outside. But, on the inside I was wicked. That is not a relationship with God. That is a relationship with yourself, using God as some sort of genie who is meant to serve your wants - or worse, using God as an excuse for your sin or ignoring Him when you know you are doing something He would not approve of. Anyone can tell you a relationship that is one-sided like this can not really be called a relationship at all. 

I committed many sins under the title of Christian. Some of which I am not yet ready to share with the world, so feel free to ask me in my private messages about them. Some that I will share are slandering others, gossiping, lying, selfishness, pridefulness, and more. 

Now, I did always believe in God. I believed He existed, and that belief strengthened over time. There was no one moment where I just believed wholeheartedly. It was more like a gradual understanding of who God is as I got older and gained more knowledge. Why I believed also changed over time. First it was the scientific evidence that supports creation. Next, it was hearing my mother and others share their spiritual experiences where God spoke directly to them. But, most of all, what enforces my belief today and continuously does is my observations of nature. When I see the trees and the sky and all their intricacies, I wonder how one cannot believe in a Creator. This is why Romans 1:20 is my favorite verse. 

“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” (NLT)

Again, these are the things that strengthen my own faith. They do not have to be the same for you. Andy Stanely, a wonderfully intelligent pastor, states that we all have to adopt a faith of our own - not our parent’s faith, nor our friend’s faith, nor the faith of our childhood.

Despite there being no singular moment where I believed in God, there was a singular moment where I realized I was not actually living for God. This past summer, I realized I wasn’t actually fully committed to Him. I was doing better in that I was not always coming to Him for my own needs, but I still wasn’t really truly in love with God. I was lukewarm in my faith. Comfortable in my faith. This came to my attention after reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. You should certainly give it a read yourself. I found it in a box of books while I was actually looking for the book Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis ( another great book if you are dealing with doubts ). I truly think God wanted me to read Crazy Love first though. He wanted me to see that my relationship with Him was strained, and I am so glad I found that book and gave my time for reading it.

Ever since then, I’ve been wholehearted in my love for God! He has given me a renewed passion for Him and I am so thankful for it! He has saved me from the depths of my suffering!

2) Secondly, how I cope intellectually with the lack of empathy in Christians

I will be honest (and I mean this as kindly as I can! I hope it does not appear rude in how I phrase it!) this is a bit of a loaded question. It is better to say “lack of empathy in many/some Christians”. I am friends and have interacted with many wonderful Christians whose hearts break so easily for others. And, they are like that because they are passionately in love with Christ, and they know that without Him they would still be in the depths of their sufferings (as I was too before I committed myself fully to Him). But, I am also friends with Christians who lack empathy, who can be hard on others and judgemental thinking comes easily to them - so I will not pretend they don’t exist.

For those Christians you speak of who lack empathy, know that that is a sign that they either have either 1) a fractured relationship with God 2) no real relationship at all or 3) are at the beginning stages of working on their relationship with God. These people can be frustrating for those of us who feel that we really are living for God, as it can give this appearance that all Christians are this way and in turn gives God Himself a bad appearance. But, those are the people we must pray for even more! We cannot do much to change their thoughts and hearts - only God can do that (see Jeremiah 17:10 and Psalm 44:21). And, we should not judge their relationship with God! I myself was in a broken relationship with God (in fact, I believe all of us who are current followers of Christ can say that there was a time when we were not fully committed to Him) so I could not possibly judge others when I myself was in that exact situation. All we can do is pray for them.

Also, I should add that I am no real intellectual! All GOOD things I say or do cannot come from my own mind, but from God! 

“Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.“ (James 1:17 NLT)

I make sure to pray everytime I speak about Him, because I never want my words to honor me - but to honor God and the truth about Him. If I ever speak falsely, I hope others who know His Word better will point it out to me so that I can be corrected! (And it has happened before thanks to the wonderful @john15-10 and @moderndayoutsider  and @strawberry-milktea whom you should follow if you want more guidance! They are strong believers indeed.)

There was a time when I found pride in my own intelligence - but now I know that God has granted such to me. I cannot take pride in what is not my own. Rather, I am thankful that God has granted me my mind, and I know my knowledge will NEVER be a great as God’s. Francis Chan explains it wonderfully in Crazy Love. He says we are like a can of soda, and all of God is a vast ocean. Our brain the size of a can of soda, even overflowing, can only hold a tiny fraction of Him.

3) Thirdly, the icky stuff in the Old Testament

I will be honest, I am not 100% sure what you mean by this anon (which is not a fault of yours, but of mine for failing to understand completely!). My best guess is certain things like God calling Abraham to sacrifice His son, or God condemning homosexuality, or God allowing people to die in the flood or people to die when He destroyed Sodom and Gamorra.

Here is my thoughts with those things. I do not actually see them as ‘icky stuff’. If I were to take these things at face value I would understand completely why you call it that! But, if you really delve into these things and examine them carefully, you will discover that they are not icky at all. They just go to prove how much of a righteous judge God is. Most likely what you are struggling with is that which appears icky is really just the devil fogging up your mind with misunderstandings. Do not rely on your own mind! If you search for understanding outside of your own, you will discover that there is something you may have missed or misinterpreted. Remember the example I shared from Francis Chan: Our brain at its max capacity can only understand a bit of Him. If we could fully understand Him and His plan, then He would not be God. 

“’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” - (Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV)

The bible I use currently is an excellent material if you need more understanding of God’s word alongside your bible readings. (Here it is). It gives lots of further explanations of individual verses and adds other information on the history of that time period as well as cross-references other verses in the bible. But, that bible is a bit pricey, so I also suggest these free sites: Desiring God and Focus on the Family. There are also many books sold (that are fairly cheap!) meant to be read alongside your bible to help explain the more complex verses. 

Ultimately, seek guidance!! Talk to people who are experts on the bible like a pastor, and they will help you with even the itty bitty things that are causing you to struggle. And, again, pray!! Pray that God will bring you wisdom and understanding. Pray He will provide for you the ability to see His word clearly and not be frustrated, confused, or disgusted by it!

4) Lastly, and most importantly feeling abandoned by God.

This is the most critical section of your question, I feel. It appears to me that everything you are struggling with boils down to this. You feel abandoned. I absolutely can relate to that feeling. I was at that point many times in my life.

Last year, during my sophomore year of college, I went through what I believe was a period of depression. I never went to a doctor to find out if that is what it really was so I cannot say it with certainty. All I know is that there was a hollowness in my heart. I felt apathetic to others. I put up walls and locked out my friends and family. I was easily angered by others. I wanted to ignore the world. But, at the same time, I felt alone. I was deeply lonely, and my foolish solution was to hide from the world. I went to sleep and prayed not to wake up again. I slept at every opportunity because when I was asleep I could escape from reality. I could fall into my dreams where everything was happy and exactly to my liking. When I woke up, I would lie in bed, wishing for the day to pass as quickly as possible so I could fall back into the peacefulness of sleep once again.

I felt abandoned by God at this time. I cried out to Him at night, asking why He hasn’t spoken to me. Why I couldn’t feel His presence anymore. I prayed that He would show Himself to me - would speak out loud, would show me some sign! 

What I failed to realize at this time, is that God had never abandoned me. He was not off, helping some other suffering soul and ignoring me. Instead, He was waiting for me. 

When we suffer, it is not because God is making us suffer, it is because we are allowing ourselves suffer. We cry out for God, but do not put in the effort to seek Him. When we lose something important to us, do we hope for it to be found and then wait for it to appear before us? No, of course not. If it was truly important to us, we would go looking all over the place for it. We would turn our house upside down until we find that thing we are desperately looking for. This is how we should feel towards God. If He is truly important to us, then we will desperately go looking for Him. Not sit still and wait for Him to find us.

This summer, I realized that the real reason I felt abandoned was because I was stuck in sin and did not really want to get out. It was not because God had abandoned me, but because I abandoned Him. Still I was trying to use Him as some crutch. I was trying to fit Him into a box that was supposed to help my desires right when I wanted them. I wanted God to come and save me, and yet didn’t want to reach out and take His hand that has been right in front of me this whole time. 

So, my advice to you is to run after Him!! Go to church and engage with the messages. Worship Him like you’ve never worshipped before. Engage with other believers who are passionate. Read the bible. Read your devotional. Pray and Pray and Pray and Pray.

And, I too will pray for you. May you find God. May you see He never abandoned you. May you fall deeply in love with Him. May you learn more about His true qualities. And then, praise Him with everything you’ve got!!!

[dailyaudiobible]

09/08/2021 DAB Transcript

Isaiah 1:1-2:22, 2 Corinthians 10:1-18, Psalm 52:1-9, Proverbs 22:26-27

Today is the 8th day of September, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian, it is wonderful to be here with you today as we take our next step forward and I’m glad we get to take that next step forward together…together is definitely better than alone. And we’re stepping into some new territories. So, the last couple of days we’ve been reading from the Song of Songs and that is always a joy to have my wife Jill, come and join us and read that together. And so, we concluded that yesterday, so today were moving into new territory.

Introduction to the Book of Isaiah:

The book of Isaiah. And so now, we’re kind of moving into the book of prophecy. And Isaiah is considered one of the books of major…one of the major prophets or the books of major prophecy which sort of indicates that there might be minor prophets as well and there are but the major and minor prophets aren’t because of like notoriety or importance, or influence it has a lot more to do with the content. For example, some of the minor prophets, when we get there, we’ll read through those in one day, there very short in content. Whereas the book of Isaiah, we’re gonna be camping out in Isaiah for a little while now, it's 66 chapters long. So, it's one of the longer of the books in the Bible. So. the other major prophets, besides Isaiah that we’re gonna encounter will be Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel. So, Isaiah, his name means the Lord saves and as we begin to read through Isaiah, we’ll find that he’s very passionate about what he's communicating and he's very well quoted. So, during Jesus’ ministry, as portrayed in the Gospels, Isaiah is quoted eight times, including the announcement of his ministry, right, that’s fundamental in Isaiah chapter 61 the spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, right, very, very famous passage. That's Jesus quoting from the book of Isaiah and he lived eight centuries before Jesus and it seems that he was a man of some influence, maybe even some wealth, maybe he was a part of the nobles or aristocracy because royalty was available, like he had access to speak to royalty. That's not, that's not somebody just walking in from some backwater in Israel somewhere and he had a long career as a prophet. He was able to speak to five different kings, kings that, we’ve already read through the books of the kings. So, we've gone through a lot of these stories. He spoke to Usiah and Jothem and Ahas and Hezekiah and Manasseh, and then there's a tradition both among the Jewish people and Christian tradition that Isaiah was martyred under King Manasseh. King Manasseh imprisoned him and eventually executed him by sawing him in half. That's a tradition, so that's not laid out in the Scriptures and we don’t have any other resources to know that…that it's more than a tradition. Although the book of Hebrews does talk about Saints being martyred, some stoned, some sawed in half, some killed with the sword, so there may be a reference there to Isaiah. And as we get going, it's 66 chapters and really like the first 39 chapters are chapters where the judgment of the Lord is being discussed and it's a very sobering 39 chapters. And then the second, kinda half from chapter 40 through the end is some of the most comforting portions of the Bible, very, very hopeful portions of Scripture, and that kinda gives us a little…little bit of a template for what we encounter when we read the books of prophecy. Yes, there are times that God, through the prophets, comes and says some pretty harsh things that are going to happen or are potential future things that might happen if the people continue on the path that they seem to be determined to go on. Then certain things are going to happen because of that, but it's also very, very typical to see in the prophets, God saying there's a path out of this. You can come back, you could be restored, and he speaks with kindness and compassion, inviting fellowship and restoration of relationship and renewal of covenant. And so, will see that in Isaiah as well as throughout many of the other prophets, but with that, let's go ahead and dive in, Isaiah chapters 1 and 2.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. All of this transition happening here at the beginning of the month settles us in. So, as we move into this new territory of Isaiah, we invite Your Holy Spirit to speak to us: give us understanding, give us wisdom, guide us, direct our steps, lead us deeper into Jesus, reveal the narrow path that leads to life, light our path, we pray in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here. Of course, the Daily Audio Bible app will get you into these places as well. One of the areas that we talk about on a regular basis is the Community section because that's where the Prayer Wall is, so and we should all know about that, know that it's there. There's more there than just the Prayer Wall, of course, there are links to the different social media channels that we participate in, and so you can get connected and stay connected to there but of course, the Prayer Wall, that’s the home of the Prayer Wall, that's something that is in continual use, it’s…it’s always available around the clock, no matter what time zone you're in, no matter what part of the world you are in, no matter what's going on in your part of the world, no matter what's going on in your life. The Prayer Wall is intended to be there as…as a resource for…for reaching out for prayer and to share what's going on, so that others might pray for you. It's also there so that we can turn outward, at any point in our lives, at any time, we can turn outward and pray for one another, which is remarkable, actually remarkable, for how it can change the mindset of what we might be facing or change our mindset in the face of what we’re facing. So, the Prayer Wall is in the Community section. You can reach it at dailyaudiobible.com or using the Daily Audio Bible app, press the drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner and that will open the drawer and you’ll find the Community section in there.

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And that's it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Good evening DAB family. This is Learning to Let Go from North Carolina. It’s been a while since I called in, there’s been a lot of changes in my life. But I was mainly calling in because I believe I heard the message from August 31st for Ms. Mercy who had nine children and 22 grandchildren so far and there was a report of her husband being a pedophile, inappropriately touching the children and that just hit my heart. That’s just such a profound, traumatic event for everyone involved, I’m sure. And I just wanted to let you know, I’m believe it was Ms. Mercy, said, that she was praying for healing and restoration for faith for her children and grandchildren, so I just want to let you know that I am thinking of you, hoping for that for you. I was also hoping that you all could pray for me. Like I said, there’s been a lot of transition in my life and I know eventually it will be for the better, and it’s definitely difficult to go through break-ups and such. But and I’m just praying for patience and peace through this healing process. I’d like to pray for that other person, just that all of this can be resolved and done with and over. And, to discontinue the push-and-pull and the back-and-forth. And so, if you all could pray for me for that as I do also pray for you all. You’re often in my thoughts and I really just appreciate people calling in and being vulnerable. And also, the praise reports so thank you all very much for that.

So, let me first of all say, I listen every day. And I hear all of you with your issues, believe me, I have many issues too. But what I want to do is first of all say thank you God for everything. I don't know, I know I don't need to lay out all my problems because as the Roman soldier said you don't need to come to my house. Say the word and it will be done. When we say Lord, You know all my issues, please help me with those issues. And once again I will not pray for everyone on DAB that say Lord you know who's asking. I pray for everyone in DAB and their issues. I've been a long-time listener. And I was kind of caught off guard by the August 31 reading, when God said to Job, where you when I laid the foundations of the earth, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. So, this basically says that the Angels were here when God created the earth and then when you read Genesis and all of a sudden, the devil pops up, you have to kind of read the whole thing, then we learn about Lucifer. Anyway, I don't think it matters. It’s a matter of my salvation. But it did spike my curiosity, God says, seek knowledge: Proverbs 2 verse 6. For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. As we speak about knowing the real story of creation, which is referring to our salvation. Let me pray, dear Heavenly Father please ease the burden of all my DAB brothers and sisters, please ease my burdens. As You know what they are. But let me also say thank You for everything You have done for me. Thank you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[Singing] Oh, I keep my mind upon Jesus. That’s just what I need to do. I don’t need no fancy fandangle solution, just keep my mind upon you. Oh, I keep my heart upon Jesus. That’s just what I need to do. I don’t need to turn to anyone else, I just keep my heart upon you. Oh, I keep my eyes upon Jesus. That’s just what I need to do. Oh, I don’t need to stare at the glitter of the world. I just keep my eyes upon you. [End singing] Thank You Jesus, for rescuing me from myself.

Hello DABers, this is Sandy from Florida. I’m calling in for Mercy. For her prayer request. For her nine children and her 21 grandchildren. And her husband who’s in prison. And Mercy, you’re so strong. You’re so strong to call in for prayer. To take care of all your children and your grandchildren and what you’re going through. And mercy, I just pray the blood of Jesus would cover each one of you and that God would give you peace, understanding, patience and give you strength to do what you need to do to take care of your children. To direct your path, to give you guidance. I pray everyday that your children would forgive, release, let go of the pain and that God would heal every, every painful moment that and thing that has happened to them. And every wound would be healed, in Jesus’ name. And I pray that for you, Mercy, I pray the blood of Jesus and forgiveness, in your hearts. And Father God, I just pray for the hedge of protection around this entire family, Lord God. Give them Your purpose and Your plan. Lead them and guide them. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Hi DABers, it’s Bren in Central Florida. Just wanted to call in and let Cat know, even though she does know that we’re all praying for her, my family is also lifting her up. And her father-in-law, comfort him and give him his total peace, asking him to let him know He’s there. And just for strength and comfort for her family for whatever God choses to do in this situation. And that the family would draw closer no matter what God choses to do in this situation and just know that you’re loved. You’re loved, God loves you all so much. And we all love you. And also, praying for Anonymous who called to pray for her sister who’s struggling with mental illness. And I understand and we pray for you too. I just want you to know how much, how beautiful it is that you’re just loving her like Jesus. That’s the best we all can do is love each other the way Jesus loves us. So, you’re being lifted in prayer as well. And to the beautiful wife who lost her, lost her love of 38 years, I just want you to know that God, I know you already know how much he loves you all and He, nothing is impossible, He definitely has a way for you all to come together in peace and healing. And that’s what we’ll be praying for you all. I’m so sorry for that tragic loss and just know all of you, how much I love you all and God loves you all. If you can keep my family lifted up, we’re still recovering from COVID and especially my lungs, please. Love you all, God Bless you.    

[wrestlingisfake]

Summerslam preview

Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns - Reigns defeated Bobby Lashley on Raw to earn this match for Lesnar’s universal championship. 

The story this time is virtually unchanged from their match at Wrestlemania 34--Lesnar doesn’t respect WWE and never shows up to defend the title, Roman is the only guy that could beat him, and this is the last chance before Lesnar leaves to go back to UFC.  Technically this is the last match on Lesnar’s WWE contract, but so was the Mania match until he signed an extension.  So the fact Lesnar is already setting up a UFC title fight with Demetrious Johnson Daniel Cormier does not mean anything to this match--Lesnar could easily sign another extension, retain in Brooklyn, and drop the title in November or something.

Real talk, I am sitting out this show because I don’t want to repeat the cocktease of Roman choking at Mania, and I don’t have faith in WWE to make it up to me.  I already vented about this match extensively, but basically nothing has changed to make it seem like Roman is more likely to win than last time.  Roman hasn’t changed up his game or style, he’s just become more whiny and petulant.  Lesnar hasn’t gotten weaker--the split with Paul Heyman turned out to be a ruse, and even if Heyman does a triple-cross at the show, that’s not going to convince me to order before the show.  Roman did manage to get that “should have won” finish in the cage match at Saudi Arabia, but that super-touch-the-floor-before-the-other-guy power doesn’t really matter in a non-cage match. 

The most important wrinkle added to this match is that it’s the first time since 2015 that Lesnar has been in a title match while a Money in the Bank contract can be used against him.  We won’t know who will have the contract during this match until the Strowman/Owens match is settled, but it can be executed immediately after (or even during) this match to give a third man a chance to steal the championship.  The hype would be that instead of us being pissed when Lesnar wins again, this time when he’s all tired and stuff a second guy comes out and wrecks him.  The problem with that as an incentive to order the show is that Lesnar usually makes winning look so easy that after his matches I tend to think he could go back and clobber five more guys.  Also, my big problem with a Money in the Bank cash-in finish, to slay the dragon Roman never could, is that it leaves Roman looking weak as hell, which would be tolerable except WWE will spend another year trying to fix the mess they made, at the expense of our patience.

Ideally, Roman should just crush Lesnar in under ten minutes, with Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins (and maybe even Heyman) helping, and then they triple-powerbomb Strowman to close the show.  That would be the best move right now, to rehab Reigns and wash the bad taste of the Lesnar/Reigns saga out of our mouths.  But I am dead certain they will not do this, or even come close.  So I’m picking Lesnar to pin Roman clean, and whoever has MITB doesn’t even bother to come out, for maximum fuck-you points.

Ronda Rousey vs. Alexa Bliss

- Bliss won the Raw women’s title in part by disrupting Rousey’s own title shot, so now Rousey is after revenge and the championship. 

WWE’s in a tough spot because they want to push Rousey as an unstoppable badass and special attraction, which means she has to dominate all her matches and look like she knows what she’s doing from the start.  That limits their ability to show her the ropes in the undercard or on house shows, so they have to get creative about how they present her.  I’ve heard this match has been heavily rehearsed, which is fine, but it may indicate concerns about how quickly they can pull the trigger on a title run.  They were already perfectly happy with Bliss as a tippy-toppy woman, so they could easily stand pat with her for another 3-6 months. But given the all-women’s show coming up in October, I think they’ll want Rousey to come out on top here.

AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe - Styles is defending the WWE world championship.  If Joe wins, I believe he will be the first man to have held the WWE, TNA/Impact, and ROH world heavyweight titles.

Joe has been playing mindgames, trying to convince Styles that his title run has hurt his commitment to his family, and that his wife and kids are hoping Joe wins.  I don’t buy that AJ believes that, but I do buy that he’s furious that Joe would talk shit about his family.

According to profightdb.com, Joe and AJ have faced off at all since 2013, when they were both in TNA.  It’s pretty amazing WWE is just now getting around to this match-up, because I don’t even think they were trying to save it for a special occasion.  These guys have always worked well together, so we should be in for a treat, but on the other hand that was a long time ago, so it’ll be interesting to see what’s changed.  This is the one match that gives me second thoughts about skipping this show.

I think Joe should win, to cap off a long Styles reign and to acknowledge Joe’s underrated performance as a killer heel.  But they’ve managed to build up AJ’s credibility as a tough guy to beat, to the point where I’m actually wondering if he’ll go a full 365 days as champion, or even all the way into next year’s Wrestlemania.  So I’m not super confident Joe can win, but he’s still my pick.

Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens - Strowman’s Money in the Bank contract is at stake in this match.  They’ve been booking this feud like Owens is Wile E. Coyote constantly trying to dream up ways to get the drop on his opponent that never work, except the Roadrunner is fucking Braun Strowman so it doesn’t exactly make much sense.  For example, Owens holds a victory over Strowman because it was an escape-the-cage match and Strowman got mad threw him off the top of the cage.  I assume the idea is that Owens has a super-sneaky plan (perhaps involving Jinder Mahal) that will have us kicking ourselves if it works, but I don’t actually believe it will work.  I can see a booking direction in which Owens has the contract, but I have a really hard time seeing him winning this match.  So I’m going with Strowman to win.

Camella vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch - This is a three-way for Carmella’s Smackdown women’s title, so there can be no count-outs or disqualifications, and the first woman to score a fall on either opponent will be the champion.  Carmella won the title by ambushing Charlotte after a brutal beatdown, and then retained in a rematch.  Becky earned her spot in this match by beating Carmella.  Charlotte earned her spot in this match by...coming back, I guess?  I don’t even know anymore.

I think Becky’s fans have gone the longest without a title and they’re starting to get pretty damn nuts about it, so I would appreciate it if WWE tossed Wrestling Tumblr a bone and let us have this, if only so that we can get “Carmella deserves it more” discourse as a change of pace.  But I think the real reason this is a three-way is for the old bit where the heel is facing two babyface friends and seems to be doomed, but the faces fight each other and the heel sneaks out with a win.

Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz - All right.  Back in 2010 WWE signed Bryan and, to fuck with everybody, introduced him as a rookie being mentored by Miz.  This led to good heel heat when Miz acted like he was the true master of the two, which led to a nice pop when Bryan beat him for the US title later that year.  Then for a long time nothing happened.  Then in 2016 Bryan was retired and Miz did a worky-shooty promo on him that everybody raved about even though it didn’t set up a match.  Then nothing happened.  Then in 2018 Bryan came out of retirement, so the people who think Miz is really great decided the #1 dream match for Bryan is to finally continue this allegedly epic rivalry.

People keep acting like this is a legendary feud and I’m not sure what they see in it except that Miz yells really loud about it.  I mean, it’s good that Miz has discovered shouting but I have yet to detect a coherent point in his promos except that he’s delusional for thinking he’s the superior combatant.  (Miz may be the superior entertainer, and more likely to be wrestling in five years, but in kayfabe I don’t know what that has to do with winning this one fight.)

You’d think as a part of Bryan’s big emotional return from a career-threatening concussion, he should just win this match.  But on the other hand, Miz has a reality show they need to put over.  And more to the point, there’s still no clear indication that Bryan has renewed his WWE contract, which is supposed to expire in less than a month.  If I’m WWE, and I think Bryan could be headed to ROH to headline Madison Square Garden, I’m not putting him over at Summerslam.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins - Dolph already defended the intercontinental title against Seth in a 30-minute iron man match, but I guess that was all to set up this...regular match.  OK, then.

The big angle this time is that Rollins has always had to deal with Ziggler having Drew McIntyre in his corner, but this time Rollins has Dean Ambrose on his side, freshly returned from a triceps tear.  Unless Ambrose is just going to turn on Rollins, it’d be crazy to waste the Shield reunion heat for this match on a Ziggler win.  And if you’re going to do some kind of tease of a heel turn among the Shield, I think you should wait until later when Roman Reigns can be involved for maximum effect.  So my preference is for Rollins to win the title and celebrate with Dean.  But I’m not confident we’ll all get what want...

Harper & Rowan vs. any two of Big E & Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods - The New Day are challenging Harper and Rowan for the Smackdown tag team championship, and they probably won’t reveal which two of the three are going to wrestle until the match starts.  I don’t think WWE knows where they’re going with the Smackdown tag division, so it’s hard to pick a winner here.  Ordinarily you have to assume the two big monsters with giant hammers are the favorites, but the New Day are a hot act and should probably get back on top of the mountain.  It depends on whether they’ve got anyone else in mind to beat the Bludgeon Brothers, but I don’t think they do.......so.....New Day wins the belts.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jeff Hardy - Nakamura won the US title from Jeff last month due to interference from Randy Orton, and then Orton interfered in the rematch too, so this is another rematch.  Orton may or may not be in trouble for reports of him pulling his dick out in meetings a long time ago, so I don’t know if he’ll be running into this match or not.  I’ve also read Hardy is awfully banged up so I don’t think a title win is a great idea for him.  So Nakamura is going to retain, it’s just a question of whether it’s via a ballshot DQ or an Orton run-in.

Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin - Ugh.  Maybe Balor can remember where he left his body paint so he can turn into the demon and end this feud already.

Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel vs. Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder - This is on the pre-show.  Dallas and Axel (The B-Team) are defending the Raw tag team title against the Dawson and Wilder (The Revival).  Back when the Revival were in NXT it would be ludicrous to think they wouldn’t punch these jobbers in the mouth and dominate the tag scene for months.  But I guess the whole “no flips, just fists” mentality has nothing on midcard comedy antics.  The B-Team has momentum, and although they probably won’t in a year, for now they’re miles ahead of the Revival.  Dallas and Axel retain.

Cedric Alexander vs. Drew Gulak - Gulak is challenging for the crusierweight championship on the pre-show.  I haven’t really paid attention to the cruiserweights for months and it sounds like I haven’t missed anything.  I don’t know, I guess Cedric retains.

Andrade Almas & Zelina Vega vs. Rusev & Lana - This is also scheduled for the pre-show.  It’s a mixed tag team match, so every time one team makes a tag the other team is also required to tag to ensure that men only wrestle men and women only wrestle women.  This started a a series of Vega/Lana matches, until their men got involved.  Rusev’s sidekick Aiden English is also in the mix, although he hasn’t done Rusev and Lana much good so far.  You’d expect Almas and Vega to win to continue their push and advance the plot of whatever’s happening between Rusev and English.  But knowing WWE, nothing is for sure here.