Cesare, and the underworld by extension, believes Steve caused the Kellwasser event, a global extinction event, on purpose, and the set up a sytem of Watchers to monitor the planet for other trickster entities so no similar event ever happens again. They've been monitoring Steve under the Earth ever since (hence the line from DOWN "Chaos Gods Rise From The Deep", they believe Steve is a god of chaotic destruction), and make him Cesare's #1 priority when they sense that he's heading back up to the Earth's surface. Cesare genuinely believes Steve is an evil entity bent on wiping out life on the planet for a second time, which is why he doesn't pull his punches when trying to catch him. However, Cesare begins to doubt what he's held as truth for a thousand years when Steve shows a lack of knowledge/understanding of the fact that he's been under the ground for millions of years (if Steve was unconscious all that time, it could have seemed like only a moment that he was down there) and also calling into question whether or not Steve even remembers/intentionally caused the extinction event in the first place. If this is the case we'll just have to wait and see how Cesare reacts to finding out that he's been "living" a lie for the past thousand years. Him saying "Did you not know?" in response to Steve's confusion while in his jail cell makes me think he may possibly have a change of heart. I doubt the Underworld will take Steve's word at face value, obviously, but Cesare seemed convinced, or at least willing to be convinced, for a moment there.

Elvis (dir. Baz Luhrmann)

-Jere Pilapil- 7/10 I grew up with Elvis Presley’s music in my household. My dad was and old dad: born in 1941, which would put him right in the demographic sweet spot for getting into Elvis in his later teens. And that stuck with him decades later when he’d put on Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite on the VHS, or throw on Jerry Lee Lewis’ greatest hits or whatever while I played and stayed out of his way. And as a music fan I’ve always be voracious in searching out my favorites’ favorites’ favorites. Follow the thread long enough, and the road often passes through that late 50s rock and roll era (though the road travels well beyond that as well). That’s all to say that when I saw that Baz Luhrmann was making a biopic about Elvis, I was stoked. I am very vocal about hating most music biopics - the conventions were well-worn before Walk Hard parodied and canonized them forever - but if you’re gonna do it, do it big. And Luhrmann does not disappoint in that regard: the first few minutes resemble the intro to a rollercoaster more than a movie, with the camera zooming and swooping between marquees on the Vegas strip like he attached a GoPro to the crashing airplane from Con Air. Visually, Elvis is a feast made up of all sweets, for better and worse. There’s at least one smart decision here, and that’s telling the story from someone’s perspective other than Elvis (Austin Butler). It allows us, as the audience, to see him as a human and as a god selectively. Early in the movie, we only see him in shadows, from a distance, or in distant flashback, and when we finally get a good look at him, he’s on stage, completely blowing apart then American ideals of politeness. The baffling decision is to tell the story specifically from Elvis’ manager Colonel Tom Parker’s perspective, and to have Tom Hanks play Parker. Here, Hanks is trying his best but is mostly an eyesore, as much an example of the Uncanny Valley as any low budget CGI creation in cinema.

That means that the movie splits its attention between one wildly misguided series of decisions (everything involving Parker) and an absolutely electric performance (Butler as Elvis). Thankfully the former doesn’t detract from the latter: Parker was there for the vast majority of Elvis’ career, so we get a lot of the expected beats: his early start, the controversy, his being shipped off for military service, his return for movies, and what turned out to be a mid-to-late career resurgence as a live act. Elvis deserves credit for correcting the popular misconception that Elvis got trashy and terrible as soon as he slipped into a jumpsuit, but he was actually a dynamite live performer up through the last couple years of his life (a glut of live albums and videos confirm this). The live performances throughout are tremendous fun and worth the price of admission alone.

There are sloppy bits here and there, and they’re not limited to Parker’s performance, though. Priscilla Presley, Elvis’ wife, played by Olivia DeJonge, seems to exist exclusively to perform high-emotion monologues while literally being a background player with no development in between. The movie spends an incredible amount of time depicting the 1968 comeback special (or a heightened farcical switcheroo version of it), which makes for great performances but does not thematically or narratively warrant the time spent. And there’s the whole slew of cliches: scenes and dialogue that all could have been lifted from Walk Hard (I am convinced Baz Luhrmann hasn’t seen it and just remade it by dumb luck).

Still, we’re here for the titular figure, and Austin Butler nails it as Elvis. He brings his fair share of emotional weight to a guy who’s been depicted in parody for literally my whole life (and more) while also bringing enough charisma to make it believable that the world might actually turn for this guy. He even manages to pull off the range of singing styles Elvis employed throughout his career as his voice evolved. As an Elvis fan, this was a treat, a near-camp explosion of operatic efforts. I have too many mixed feelings to love it without reservation, but I promise you at the end of the year it’ll be the 3.5/5 (7/10 on filmsimps.com) movie I love the best.

EXTRA - Chapter 31b - There isn't a villain - The Glitch

The dark lord, Novar, was a master of speeches, an individual with the best ideals that could ever be believed of, ideals that were impossible to reach, but beside everything, he always believed that one day he could change the world, explore the universe, get past the limits of a planet, and share his acknowledgement for a greater good, yet he was just a mortal; even if considered by some as an everliving dragon, he wasn't, and fate was unavoidable even for him. "Today, I stand before you to declare that the countdown has commenced for us. Our visions are transforming into reality. The entity that was destined to bring about our demise has arrived, and we must find a resolution. Those greater than us have labeled us as adversaries, as a blight to be erased from existence. But fear not, for we still have the opportunity to redeem ourselves. I pledge to guide each and every one of you, along with our brethren across the various realms, towards a brighter future.

We possess advanced technology, placing us millennia ahead of our time. Now, more than ever, we must remain concealed, unconventional, and wise. Though our discovery is inevitable, this creature bears a curse that also afflicts me. It can perceive our lands, manifest in our territories, and peer through them accidentally while dreaming. However, rest assured, it cannot see you. I alone will be visible to it, and I will employ this to our advantage.

This creature is immortal and impervious to death. Unless we can suppress its powers, it may find solace, motivation, or guidance from another source. But I do not believe such an outcome is necessary. We do not seek enemies, despite the perception held by all. Should you encounter this individual, this human who goes by the name of Raphael, do not engage in combat. Do not reveal your darkest side. Instead, be wise and reasonable. Convince him that you are not the monster he perceives you to be. If required, direct his animosity towards me but not towards you. As I am nearly immortal, I will discover a means to return. However, I cannot guarantee how long I can sustain this ability. If you witness my disappearance, do not lose hope. Continue to evolve, seek a new leader, survive, and venture forth to find a new world. Our objectives are not far beyond our reach.

I apologize for displaying vulnerability, but we must face reality. The world is in peril, and we must ensure that this creature does not succumb to its monstrous nature. When all is said and done, if we emerge triumphant, we will share our technology, establish new principles, and bestow upon all the gift of eternal life. The fear of aging and mortality will be eradicated. We will depart this existence only when we choose to do so. And if, even after my words, you feel compelled to depart, then heed me further. Resist. The afterlife remains an enigma to us. We can only speculate on whether it is benevolent or malevolent. However, I assure you that it is wiser to adhere to what we already know. This reality is within our grasp. Despite being trapped within it, we can interact, transform fantasies into realities, express ourselves, work, evolve, form families, and revel in novel forms of amusement. As previously stated, anything is possible.

Now, press onward. Do not let my words fade from your memory. Write them down, and I will do the same for you. I will aid in forging a new order, formulating new strategies, and discovering definitive solutions to our fresh challenges. We shall endure, just as we always have. The darkness will not engulf us indefinitely. We will restore equilibrium to the world and beyond, whatever it takes. We will accomplish this!".

Title: Dawnshard

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Summary:  Dawnshard follows the story of Rysn, the Thaylen merchant whom we've seen before in the Interludes of the first three books of the Stormlight Archive series.

Rating: ★★★★★

Review:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Anyways.

DAWNSHARD!

I feel Rysn’s pain. I too find stuff most unimaginably boring interesting.

Oh no, something is wrong with Chiri-Chiri.

“A few anxietyspren, like twisting black cross shapes, appeared around Rysn.”

Huh, interesting.

“She’d already sent a request via spanreed to someone she thought could help with Chiri-Chiri.”

*Narrows eyes* Who?

“her eyebrow jewelry tinkling softly”

Roshar is so weird. (Edit: Understatement of the goddamn decade)

“The king wants to meet this Dalinar Kholin and see these Knights Radiant for himself.”

Man I should have reread these books. Oh well. Goodluck Dalinar.

It’s very interesting that now Navani is Queen of Urithiru. So Dalinar is King? WAIT WE’RE IN URITHIRU! AHHHH!

“She was an intimidating woman with her Alethi height, her black and grey hair done in intricate braids atop her head and woven with glowing sapphires.”

Nah, she’s a mom. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to mother you.

Rysn Ftori. Did we know her last name?

“Finally the queen stopped, focused on the chair at the rear of the room, then pulled her chair over and sat before Rysn. It was a small gesture, but appreciated. Rysn didn’t mind when people remained standing in her presence, but there was a certain thoughtfulness in the way Navani situated herself so they could discuss at eye level with one another.”

As stated, Navani is a mom.

Oh, I think we read about this in Oathbringer.

The Prince of Liafor???

The Rock of Secrets. I see Brandon wasn’t trying too hard with this name.

“As the months had passed, Rysn had begun to truly grasp the strategic importance of Stormlight as a fuel both for fabrials and for the Knights Radiant. Beyond that, the enemy had creatures—known as Fused— who used the Void’s own Light. Chiri-Chiri fed on that just as eagerly as Stormlight.”

Hmmm…yeah…

…………………I kind of ship Lopen and Talik. I don’t know how to feel about this. Brandon is creating some very odd ships this year. (If you haven’t read the RoW previews, trust me, there’s a weird one)

““It’s politics. The annoying kind.”

“There’s another kind?”

 No.

YAY RUSHU IS COMING ALONG!

“She owned it. She commanded it. But at least according to maritime tradition, it was not hers”

This reminds me of how Navani sees herself as not an artifabian (I’m not even going to bother look up the correct spelling for this)

“Radiant the Lopen”

PFFFFFFFFFFFT

““Lopen,” Rushu said as she worked, “you should not be tormenting Brightness Rysn with your prattling.””

Rushu! How dare you question the Lopen!!

““Brightness Rysn shouldn’t have to crack jokes at her own expense in order to make other people comfortable with their personal insecurities.”

“Yup, true,” the Lopen said. “She shouldn’t have to.””

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

“Two halves of a ruby, containing two halves of the same spren, can be made to move in tandem with one another”

…TWO HALVES OF THE SAME SPREN. PARDON?!?!!

I’m assuming that if you can get a ship to move fast enough then a spanreed will work. Much like Brandon has said that time bubbles can work at a certain speed. Plus y’know, Roshar is constantly moving, we just don’t feel it.

“It’s why the motion and curve of the planet don’t influence spanreeds.”

Or y’know, I’ll just be fucking WRONG.

“That  .  .  . didn’t make much sense to Rysn.”

Same.

I’m guessing that Nikli is a worldhopper. From where though? I don’t really trust Nikli right now though. Hmmm.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NIKLI IS ONE OF THOSE CREMLING THINGS NONONONONONONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WHAT MEAN YOU ONE OF THESE…SWARMS KNOWS DALINAR “I know he will destroy us”

From the dustjacket of Way of Kings:

“The last is the highprince, a warlord whose eyes have opened to the past as his thirst for battle wanes.

The world can change. Surgebinding and Shardwielding can return; the magics of ancient days can become ours again. These four people are key.

One of them may redeem us.

And one of them will destroy us.”

So Dalinar will Destroy the Sleepless.

“Plus, Yelamaiszin said, we should have compassion for those we must cull. It is good you like the humans.

Must we cull them though? Nikli replied.”

Oh, the Sleepless gotta cull humans. Fucking great. AHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Is it just required that every single novella is going to have these fuckers in them?

“When the swarm that had become Nikli had been Separated, it had already contained hordelings evolved for this subterfuge. Nikli had further evolved them, and was now certain that the body didn’t need the tattoos to cover the seams in its skin”

Wat.

Also who’s Arclomedarian? Now I need to go reread Edgedancer to see who that guy was. Oh? Who are the true traitors? It’s probably Hoid.

“where they would either fall to the winds or enter the realm of the Sleepless.”

Man, if I was on that ship, I’d take drowning over finding that. Let’s notttttt.

“This was sent to another vote, and Nikli’s bodies— the distant ones, not on the ship—all vibrated with anticipation.”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

“Can block a Shardblade, Rua tells me, if it’s thick enough. They get it from Soulcasting, though only a few can make it, so it’s pretty rare”

Y…you can soulcast aluminium? Holy fuck.

No Lopen! You belong with Talik. He can capture that Tsundere heart.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?

As someone who has read Mistborn, you don’t want a dramatic end of the world. It causes essential crisis.

“More spren than animal, they were somehow able to magnify peace and confidence.”

Like…rioting?

““No,” several voices said from the crowd—but she couldn’t see who. “That’s bad luck!””

Nikla…

“Storms. It was as if . . . as if the body had been made up of cremlings.”

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

“no more real than things like the gloomdancer or sea hags from Thaylen mythology”

Well, I’m sure these things don’t exist.

“Hmmm? Oh, no I was napping during that.”

I do love Rushu.

So…Huio…created…flying machines. Motherfucker.

I can’t believe Roshar has hove chair before cars. Also HOVER BRIDGES LET’S GOOOOOOOOO.

Nikli…what are you doing?

Rushu is a soulcaster! Wild.

“Regardless, I demanded that Navani send me with either a Shardblade or a Soulcaster to get through.”

You fucking what mate?

“Strange, to think how optimistic she’d been only a short time ago.”

That tends to happen with Brando Sando books. One moment the characters are on top of the world and next everything is crashing down.

The sun being shattered into pieces? Well that can’t be good.

“She counted the shards in her mind, over and over, feeling a reverence to the number.”

Ten or sixteen?

“It looked vaguely like an enormous grub with a wicked beak of a face. It had spindly arms running all the way along its body, and had reared up so it was mostly vertical, using its pointed limbs like spears to try to skewer the sailors beneath.”

Again. Roshar. Fuck off.

“The Mother of Machines,”

Thirty emerald broams says the back of the book has something about the Mother of Machines on it.

“I . . . have no idea what any of that means,”

Me reading half of this book.

“And in truth, those treaties were made with other gods. I had hoped the Gods Who Sleep Not would be similarly bound, but now I am not certain.”

OTHER GODS? WHICH ONES?!

GOOD JOB HUIO!!!

“We wish to avoid losing control of a force that could destroy the cosmere.”

Odium? Just don’t let any love struck teenagers near it and you’ll be fine.

“As I and my kind are not native to this planet, we prefer the term ‘hordelings.’”

W…Where are you from?

This reminds me of Skyward.

I am sure that Rysn will not be able to employ it. How many books do we have left?

“And then eventually, they were used to undo Adonalsium itself. . . .”

YOU FUCKING WHAT?!

Rysn, you’re going to get a visit from an asshole. Be prepared and good luck.

I can’t for Arc 2 where we get so BIG CHIRI-CHIRI.

Interesting so Rysn will never become a Radiant.

“Regrettably, there has been a conflict on the beach with some of our more  .  .  . specialized hordelings,”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

“You have Remade yourself.”

Remade? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Oh no. Lopen noooooooooooooo.

Who needs a Hover chair when YOU CAN RIDE A CRAB DRAGON! SUCKING ALL THE STORMLIGHT! WIELDING THE DAWNSHARD!

“Was it . . . brighter than usual? Why did the colors in her room look so exceptionally vivid all of a sudden?”

Idos Domi! What heightening are you?

I was not expecting this. My thoughts are currently just on the floor, screaming. Brandon, you cannot just drop lore on me like this.

sorry if this is dumb but like. what are your thoughts on christianity? it’s so hard for me to reconcile with parts of the bible and the church’s hypocrisy and the way christians employ their holier than thou status to justify their bigotry and i don’t think you should have to follow every word of the bible to be a christian but like... idk.

hello! This isn’t dumb at all. I’d be happy to share some thoughts if you want... so here’s like 10 long wordy paragraphs <3 also sorry for the late response!

I was never very religious, honestly. I grew up in that hostile environment... however very few people were those horrible stereotypes. But I still never felt like I fit in and distinctly remember never sitting with the other people my age and feeling very strongly that I would never understand them. Even when I was too young to know what that meant. Maybe it was because I was always doubtful about the existence of God, which was obviously not allowed, or maybe because I always felt weird when I was younger, and that weirdness got more suffocating when I was surrounded by people who I intuitively knew didn’t feel like that the way I did, at least in the church environment that they were so comfortable in. But I know it’s also not rare that people often feel excluded in church anyway.

I don’t think this is an innate problem of christianity, but nowadays... there is a status quo that I think gets pushed upon people in and outside of church. Christianity is the religion of the status quo in much of the west and monotheism is the status quo in much of the world. With american christianity as I know it, if the status quo is not instilled thru misinterpreted or cherry-picked scripture, then it’s thru the people in the church. It’s often stressed within a church that what makes people there part of a “church family” or a community is their common beliefs (beliefs which are not strictly religious), which implies that your presence in the family or religious community is only permitted if you fulfill the requirements of belief, and if you behave the same as the others. Much of that behavior is superficial, an act of proving that you belong, which is why there’s that odd phenomenon of everyone in a church looking a little bit like cousins….

So christianity (and in similar but not perfectly alike ways, monotheism) has become the status quo. And with that comes its resoluteness in enforcing the status quo, through bigotry or exclusion or hostility to outsiders or questioners or whatever it is, since the status quo is what it has become virtually synonymous with to most people these days. This leads to many people going without religion not out of a lack of belief, but because our religious sense has been hijacked by mob mentality, a mentality that purposefully excludes many, and misappropriated and abused by those in power for their own gain.

And I don’t think that’s fair. Like for christianity. Or for monotheism, or for religion at large. I think it deserves better, because at its core I think it’s something extremely beautiful and incredible and constantly evolving. Religion is an intrinsic part of humanity with as much diversity as humanity itself.

Maybe that’s what you can focus on. It might have been misappropriated over the centuries, and the current parameters of its abuse might sit even more uncomfortably with you, but christianity has also changed before, and it will change again. Christianity changes the way that it teaches and relates to and understands God as often as the world changes, which is all the time. Which means while it has become associated with bigotry and conformity now, it is not inherently that. In fact at the time of its conception, it was the opposite. Some christian scholars argue that the story of Moses is a telling of one of the first successful slave rebellions in recorded history. Early monotheists were called atheists because they didn’t believe or worship in the traditional way. So just because it has been turned into something by conformists and the ruling class, that doesn’t mean the nature of it has been irrevocably ruined. Cuz something like that can’t be ruined, it just changes.

And despite my own experiences with christianity, I truly don’t believe it’s bad, or that religion is bad, even though there were times when I did believe that. In and of itself religion is an amazing thing… it’s good and fascinating and very human. And idk what your experiences were with the church or what rules you were expected to follow but honestly who cares about the pope or the people throwing rocks outside planned parenthood… they do not get to decide what christianity is. Religion is a human endeavor that has to be undertaken by more than a small minority. It can’t be passed down from on high to the poor general public. Everyday people are the creators of religion and they decide what it is with every new day and what it will be with every big change. It’s up to people to reclaim it if they want to, and you can be one of those people if you want to. But every person or group who has tried to control religion has failed eventually. I don’t think we should give them more power than they already have by telling them they’re right to try to tell us what religion is “supposed to be.”

What christianity has been to people in the past, even the people who “formed” it, is not the whole of what it is. Neither are the people who claim to speak for it now, nor the scriptures that are no longer relevant to us, nor the practices we can no longer condone, nor the institutions that it has led to. Religion is a human experience, and it’s a story people share with each other. And regardless of what fundamentalists would have you believe, the stories are gonna change whether we believe it or not  (fighting this usually just threatens the religion itself). This change is what enables religions to survive 4,000 years. The beliefs adapt alongside the people who share them.

They might not change very drastically very often which is why we might be able to recognize the stories of one religion or belief system from another, but I think that’s because people are more or less the same in every era and every place, and they’re usually asking themselves the same questions. Where did we come from/where do we go/who are we/what should we be/what is good/what is bad/what is this feeling of light in my chest/is it a soul/etc. People are inspired by the old stories when they rewrite them too. And they’re always very recognizably human at least.

Anyway that’s my interpretation of the thing… but yeah whatever <3

Bluegrass Basics #1

WHAT IS BLUEGRASS?

I realize that, what with this being a bluegrass blog and all, I should probably start by explaining... this.

If you’ve hung out with me in the last year and a half, then you’ve been subjected (probably against your will, kicking and screaming) to a Haddock Talks About Bluegrass conversation. Within seconds, you may be bombarded to an inescapable wall of sound as I shriek about G runs, five-strings, and dudes wearing hats named weird stuff like Lester, Burkett, Arthel, Dorris, Junebug, Haskel, and Chi Chi. Understandably, to cope and survive, your mind might have blocked out the worst of the memories... leaving you now with the question, “Well, what is bluegrass? And why does Haddock find it so cool?”

At its simplest, bluegrass is a folk-inspired genre of music originating from the Southern United States that utilizes a core group of acoustic string instruments: guitar, banjo, string bass, mandolin, fiddle, and dobro. However, bluegrass is not a direct preservation of old folk music. Its biggest influences are Scots-Irish fiddle tunes, African-American blues, and gospel music, and in that you can hear a lot of "old" sounds. But bluegrass also began within a commercial setting. Most people date it to the mid-1940s—yes, it's that new!—and it not only integrated new compositions and contemporary songs, but it brought about innovative instrumental techniques that most audiences had never heard before. Since its inception, bluegrass has been a music of unique juxtaposition; it's simultaneously homespun and commercial, simple and technically complex, straddling tradition with truly progressive innovation.

Also. Unlike almost every other genre that exist out there ever, bluegrass can be traced back to and centralized around a *SINGLE* human being. Yeah. That’s right. ONE dude essentially started his own motherfucking genre.

Enter: the Father of Bluegrass. Mr. Bill Monroe (1911-1996). 

This guy.

1. HOW THIS SHIT GOT STARTED

Bill Monroe’s music at the time was considered hillbilly music. (“Hillbilly” was the name of the genre before we changed it to “country”). He was a radio star starting in the 1930s, and by the late 1930s, Bill and his band had become members of a popular, wide-reaching hillbilly music program, the Grand Ole Opry, whose radio signal stretched across the American South. Bill’s music wove together several influences: in particular, he combined the sound of old Scots-Irish fiddle tunes with the pitch bends, syncopation, and blue notes of African-American blues. For good measure, he chucked in four-part gospel songs, threw his singing into the high tenor stratosphere, and pushed the music forward with an urgent drive.

And the name of his act? Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys.

Hmhm... something sounds familiar here... something to do with “blue” and “grass,” maybe.

Bill’s music underwent changes, different personnel, different instruments. Every musician’s contribution is important and worth noting, but regrettably my post would be too long if I talked about them here. I will, however, mention what’s often considered the last piece of the puzzle. On December 8, 1945, Bill introduced a new musician he had just hired, a twenty-one year old banjo picker whose style of playing was so unexpected to audiences that you could barely hear the music above the amazed cheers and shouts from the live crowd. People who heard it on the radio talked about the banjo picker all week; some blokes debated about whether one person was playing or several, or if it was even a banjo at all. I know peeps today don’t tend to think of banjos as “cool” and all, but he was shredding up the instrument like some banjo Jimi Hendrix, as far as they were concerned. It was so exciting. Bill was already a popular performer; under this ensemble he had between then and 1948, he was launched to even more popularity.

I’m not trying to focus just on the banjo, but my point here is to emphasize how bluegrass did invoke monumentally new ideas.

That 1946-1948 group is what we usually consider the first-ever bluegrass band. They created the initial blueprint by which a unique band style emerged. Now, some standard musical features of the genre got locked in during the 1950s after several seminal Blue Grass Boys bandmates left and formed their own band. But this original group’s sound started A Movement™ that trickled down over the decades. New-budding musicians began imitating Bill’s sound in their bands. And also, Bill’s band had constant turnover, meaning that a ton of people went into the Blue Grass Boys, got influenced by Bill, then left to form their own ensembles, carrying with them the musical ideas they’d learned from Monroe.

(And by “constant turnover,” I mean—no joke—Bill had something like 200 official band members over the course of his career.)

^^^ The “Classic Band” of Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, c. 1947. From left to right: Bill Monroe (mandolin), Chubby Wise (fiddle), Birch Monroe (bass), Lester Flatt (guitar), and Earl Scruggs (banjo). When talking about the classic band, the bassist usually listed is Cedric Rainwater, but here (and legitimately part of the band at the time) is Bill’s older brother Birch.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, mainstream country music had to find a way to compete with the new and oh-so-frustratingly-popular rock-and-roll. Mainstream country music strayed away from scratchy fiddles and banjers and moved to smooth, pop-inspired, electric guitars and background orchestration. And if you didn’t sound like that, you probably weren’t going to be played on mainstream country radio. But there was a notable cluster of acoustic string band musicians who had been left behind... those people and groups who had branched straight off Bill Monroe. By this point, they were distinct enough that their music began to be regularly referred to as... yeah, you guessed it... bluegrass music.

Having been ignored by radio, bluegrass continued through other means, such as festivals that began in the late 60s and 70s. Many musicians brought their own instruments to jam, and to this day, bluegrass is a genre in which it’s common to both pick tunes with friends and family as a social event and go out to see professional performers.

As new generations have entered bluegrass, new ideas and sounds have funneled into it. However, I feel like the theme of combining tradition with innovation remains. For instance, in the 1960s with the Folk Revival, second generation bluegrass musicians simultaneously inserted more several-centuries-old folk songs into the bluegrass repertoire (ex: Fox on the Run), and brought in contemporary rock and pop elements to their bands’s sounds. And while today you may meet bluegrass purists who want to stick with what they heard in the 40s and 50s, you’ll see just as many if not more musicians continue to innovate and expand the genre.

And expand it they will.

2. WHAT MAKES BLUEGRASS MUSIC BLUEGRASS?

As I’ve said before, bluegrass is a somewhat progressive amalgamation and reformulation of older music styles combined with contemporary music. Bluegrass might have been based in part on ideas from British Isles fiddle tunes and African-American blues, but it’s certainly not regurgitating how people played in decades past. Familiar, old elements combine with new, creative, and original concepts. You keep a healthy dose of both old and new.

It’s because of bluegrass that the banjo was completely reformulated as an instrument: changed from a comedic prop that was strummed into an intensely-picked solo instrument. Within bluegrass, banjo performance technique has continued to evolve, new ideas and styles building on top of one another. And let’s not forget the other instruments! The first dobro in a bluegrass band went in extremely unique directions compared to what was heard at the time, taking influences from everything down to banjo technique. At the same time, bluegrass has provided the space for styles like the old-time hoedown fiddle in periods of music where fiddle was ignored.

But....... as you’ve probably been wondering this entire post.... what does this genre sound like?

^^^ The typical instrument set-up for a bluegrass band. In the back is a string bass. In front, left to right, is a banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, and dobro. If you’re not familiar with how to distinguish instruments: basses are plucked and low pitch; banjos sound twangy and play short note values; mandolins are a high-pitched instrument with a mellower sound that often employ tremolo (quickly undulating notes by strumming the strings up and down rapidly); fiddle is... I mean, it’s a violin; guitar is a mellower acoustic instrument that blends sonically with everything; and the dobro (maybe you’ve heard it referred to as a “steel guitar” or “Hawaiian guitar”) has a... uhhh... it’s a unique hound dog tone I have difficulties describing but is very distinct to hear.

A typical ensemble consists of mandolin, guitar, banjo, fiddle, string bass, and sometimes dobro. On rarer occasions, you may see other instruments like autoharp or harmonica (drums are usually considered horrible, forbidden things, even though... for the record... some high-profile bluegrass bands have used them). You’ll notice bluegrass is a distinctly acoustic string band sound.

There are also, of course, vocals, and in bluegrass, there is notable emphasis on tight two-, three-, and four-part harmony. However, what’s interesting about bluegrass as versus, say, other strains of country, is that for bluegrass, it’s about the full band and not just the lead singer. It’s as important to pay attention to the technically-driven solos (“breaks”) that the instruments play between sung verses. Many bluegrass pieces are straight out instrumentals, too.

Every instrument has a role or roles it fulfills in a bluegrass band. In the background, instruments may play rhythm or fills. Rhythm keeps the basic beat. Fills are unobtrusive melodic-sounding fragments that hide behind the vocalist(s) singing the main melody. And when there’s no singing, instruments take turns in the spotlight playing breaks. You can hear any instrument play a break. It’s to note that breaks are often improvised or semi-improvised, which is half of the fun and skill of watching the musicians perform. Ergo, even if the song itself may or may not have simple chord structures and lyrics, it’s also technically advanced with an expectation that every musician can perform fast-paced solos they improvise on the fly.

There’s different types of guitar styles I’ve seen in bluegrass. I’m not a guitarist, so I don’t want to elaborate too far and share incorrect information. However, it’s fair to say that guitar can be anything from a backup rhythm chord strummer to a flat-picked, fast-paced, melodic soloist. There is a VERY distinct guitar fill that happens at the end of lines, phrases, or sections called the G run you’ll hear everywhere. Fiddle I’ve also heard a wide variety of styles. On the dobro side, the dobro tends not to be the “Hawaiian” sound you may be familiar with on a steel guitar, but more geared toward quick, technical, bluesy stuff. Bluegrass banjo has several styles, but the most prototypical is the Scruggs style, where the banjo does rapid-fire, ornamented, three-fingered picking in which a melody line is pulled out at the same time you’re also picking background chord notes.

To describe bluegrass vocals, you’ll sometimes hear the phrase “high lonesome” thrown around. I don’t hear anywhere as much high lonesome sound in contemporary bands as I do first generation, but the high lonesome sound is a description of piercing, high-range vocals. Bill Monroe would even take songs that were usually played in the key of G and pitch them higher into A or B, pushing his and the ensemble’s vocals into a higher range. I remember listening to Monroe and thinking to myself, “Even though it’s male vocals, why is it so easy for me to sing to?” Because I’m a fucking mezzosoprano, and there’s times Monroe hits and holds notes that are at the top of my range. Hot damn.

Rhythmically, bluegrass tends to be a driving genre of music. A term that gets thrown around a bit is “drive.” Even on the slow songs, you may hear the instruments push or strain forward. Beat-wise, bluegrass tends to emphasize both a strong downbeat and hit heavy offbeats in a boom-chick style. That last sentence might not have made sense to non-musicians, so I’ll explain...

When we listen to music, we can clap to it. We can also count along to any song as we clap. Music has an innate structure where, when we count, the sound seems organized in groups of two, three, or four. So, when we count to music, we’ll count repetitively. One song may be groups of two (you’ll count “One two, one two, one two”), groups of three (“One two three, one two three”), or groups of four. Every time you hit the “one,” it sounds bigger. It’s more emphasized. It’s restarting the pattern or unit of counting that’s inherent to the rhythmic structure of music. 

Now, you can subdivide those numbers between your claps. That means you’d count “One (and) two (and), one (and) two (and),” where the “ands” tend to feel smaller and less-emphasized. Those “ands” are called offbeats. In bluegrass, you’ll hear both the numbers and the “ands” clearly hit. The string bass will play the one’s and two’s, while perhaps the mandolin and banjo are emphatically hitting the “ands” in the background.

There are subgenres within bluegrass. You may hear people refer to newgrass, progressive bluegrass, jamgrass, punkgrass, etc. Put a word in front of it, add the word “grass,” and it probably exists. Jewgrass exists and it’s awesome. There’s fusions, too. The Native Howl is a band that combines thrash metal and bluegrass. Gangstagrass is a band that combines bluegrass with hip hop. It’s also to note that bluegrass has long since become international, and there are notable communities and bands of bluegrass from everywhere to Japan to the Czech Republic.

3. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GETTING STARTED? 

Ummhmhmhm I honestly need a separate post to begin sharing videos, bands, periods of bluegrass, and more. It’s diverse and I love everything from the music coming out in 2020 to the stuff heard in 1947.

I realize that this post skews more toward first generation bluegrass and the starting bands in Ye Olde Days. Because of that, I’ll say this much: the Big Three bands of the early years were Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, and the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys. Bill Monroe’s music is “the original” and is based, at least in his mind, the most on the fiddle tunes he grew up with. Flatt & Scruggs skew somewhat more toward a popular culture sound with smoother vocals and instruments like the dobro that other early bluegrass bands did not use. The Stanley Brothers lean the most to mountain old-time music. Every band is wonderful in their own way and I love listening to all.

I’ll leave this post with what was my gateway song into bluegrass. This was the first song I listened to with the intent of experiencing bluegrass, not expecting to like it, but being pleasantly surprised. I fell in love with the song and... well... as you’ve seen... I’m a year and a half into the genre and still charging strong. 

I look forward to continuing to learn about bluegrass, refine my understanding of it, and share those discoveries with y’all in my future posts.

I emerged from the Sundance Film Festival with offers to act in projects I would never have been allowed to read for a week prior. Most of those roles were still girlfriend, mistress, mother. But there was a new character on offer to me as well, one that survived the story.

Enter, stage right: the Strong Female Lead.

She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O. She can make a wound compress out of a maxi pad while on the lam. She’s got MacGyver’s resourcefulness but looks better in a tank top.

Acting the part of the Strong Female Lead changed both who I was and what I thought I was capable of. Training to do my own stunt work made me feel formidable and respected on set. Playing scenes where I was the boss firing men tasted like empowerment. And it will always feel better to be holding the gun in the scene than to be pleading for your life at the other end of the barrel.

It would be hard to deny that there is nutrition to be drawn from any narrative that gives women agency and voice in a world where they are most often without both. But the more I acted the Strong Female Lead, the more I became aware of the narrow specificity of the characters’ strengths — physical prowess, linear ambition, focused rationality. Masculine modalities of power.

I thought back to the films I watched and stories I read burrowed deep in the stacks of the library. I began to see something deeper and more insidious behind all those images of dead and dying women.

When we kill women in our stories, we aren’t just annihilating female gendered bodies. We are annihilating the feminine as a force wherever it resides — in women, in men, of the natural world. Because what we really mean when we say we want strong female leads is: “Give me a man but in the body of a woman I still want to see naked.”

It’s difficult for us to imagine femininity itself — empathy, vulnerability, listening — as strong. When I look at the world our stories have helped us envision and then erect, these are the very qualities that have been vanquished in favor of an overwrought masculinity.

I’ve played the Strong Female Lead in real life, too — as an analyst at an investment bank before coming to Hollywood. I wore suits, drank Scotch neat and talked about the women and the men I was sleeping with like commodities on an open market. I buried my feminine intelligence alive in order to survive. I excelled at my linear task of making more money from a lot of money regardless of the long-term consequences for others and the environment.

The lone female V.P. on my floor and my mentor at the time gave me the following advice when she left to partner at a hedge fund: Once a week, open the door to your office when they finally give you one, and place a phone call where you shout a string of expletives in a threatening voice.

She added that there doesn’t actually need to be someone on the other end of the line.

I don’t believe the feminine is sublime and the masculine is horrifying. I believe both are valuable, essential, powerful. But we have maligned one, venerated the other, and fallen into exaggerated performances of both that cause harm to all. How do we restore balance? Or how do we evolve beyond the limitations that binaries like feminine/masculine present in the first place?

In 2014 I went back to the library and encountered Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” a sci-fi novel written in 1993 imagining a 2020 where society has largely collapsed from climate change and growing wealth inequality. Butler’s heroine, the 17 year-old Lauren, has “hyperempathy” — she feels, quite literally, other people’s pain. This feminine gift and curse uniquely prepares her to survive the violent attack on her community in Los Angeles and successfully encourage a small tribe north to begin again from seeds she has saved from her family’s garden.

Butler felt to me like a lighthouse blinking from an island of understanding way out at sea. I had no idea how to get there, but I knew she had found something life saving. She had found a form of resistance.

Butler and other writers like Ursula Le Guin, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood did not employ speculative fiction to colonize other planets, enslave new life-forms, or extract alien minerals for capital gains only to have them taken at gunpoint by A.I. robots. These women used the tenets of genre to reveal the injustices of the present and imagine our evolution.

With these ideas in mind, Zal Batmanglij and I wrote and created “The OA,” a Netflix series about Prairie, a blind girl who is kidnapped and returns seven years later to the community she grew up in with her sight restored. She opens up to a group of lost teenage boys in her neighborhood, telling them about her captivity and the inter-dimensional travel she discovered to survive it. It turns out these boys need to hear Prairie’s story as much as she needs to tell it. For the boys face their own kind of captivity: growing up inside the increasingly toxic obligations of American manhood.

As time has passed, I’ve come to understand what deep influence shaping a narrative has. Stories inspire our actions. They frame for us existences that are and are not possible, delineate tracks we can or cannot travel. They choose who we can find empathy for and who we cannot. What we have fellow feeling for, we protect. What we objectify and commodify, we eventually destroy.

I don’t want to be the dead girl, or Dave’s wife. But I don’t want to be a strong female lead either, if my power is defined largely by violence and domination, conquest and colonization.

Sometimes I get a feeling of what she could be like. A truly free woman. But when I try to fit her into the hero’s journey she recedes from the picture like a mirage. She says to me: Brit, the hero’s journey is centuries of narrative precedent written by men to mythologize men. Its pattern is inciting incident, rising tension, explosive climax and denouement. What does that remind you of?

And I say, a male orgasm.

And she says: Correct. I love the arc of male pleasure. But how could you bring me into being if I must satisfy the choreography of his desire only?

And I say: Good on you. But then how do I bring you into being?

Then I hear only silence.

But even in the silence I dream of answers. I imagine new structures and mythologies born from the choreography of female bodies, non-gendered bodies, bodies of color, disabled bodies. I imagine excavating my own desires, wants and needs, which I have buried so deeply to meet the desires, wants and needs of men around me that I’m not yet sure how my own desire would power the protagonist of a narrative.

These are not yet solutions. But they are places to dig.

Excavating, teaching and celebrating the feminine through stories is, inside our climate emergency, a matter of human survival. The moment we start imagining a new world and sharing it with one another through story is the moment that new world may actually come.

God as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten so cynical about idealization.

In the last few days across various private messages to various friends I’ve said the following things about not understanding people iconizing old SPN as dark or gritty:

Diet dark

Dark but airing at 7PM for teenagers on the WB dark

Dark but airing two hours after Pinky and the Brain dark

Dark but on Fridays at this time I flip a channel to watch a talking cat dark

I’ve said, for example, it wasn’t dark or even gritty really. It was still hollywood glamor, if a little less than it is now. That it was dusty, more than anything

Dusty like offroading in your prius and forgetting to wash your car dusty

Dusty like hitchhiking and maybe stealing some over the counter eyedrops to trade back in for cash and buy a cheap motel room dusty

Dusty like transporting goats in the back of my Corolla dusty

Dusty like that time I slept in a junkyard dusty

I have become an EXCESSIVELY cynical bitch, I see.

Maybe it’s because my life *was* dark and full of grit. Maybe it’s because I DID blaze a dusty path. Maybe it’s because just about anything the guys did in the first few seasons, I did before I hit puberty. Maybe it’s because I lived that and could see through the hilarious glamorization of it all. I don’t know. 

Like, do I MISS the vibe of the old seasons? Sure, sometimes. Which is when I, like, go to netflix and watch the first few seasons for that vibe. I much prefer this thoroughly fleshed out and constructed style of modern storytelling in general, but there was in fact a fun Americana vibe to it. I’m not saying it wasn’t fun. But people act like old SPN was some peak macabre horror psychological thriller and not a teenage drama with overexposed lensing for bleached film stock. And that goes on both sides with people talking about it being “problematic” or whatever. Beyond the old era rimshots at gay people and the habit of discarding female characters or whatever -- while, protip, we all tuned in to a show featuring white male leads by choice -- like. 

I don’t get it. I literally do not get it.  Like as hard as people have romanticized one idealization, it’s like for the sake of argument against the fanon romanticization of that idealization they’ve excessively piled on and built up something to dismantle that barely existed to begin with and, what did exist has literally been show dismantled. Now either side of the fence will scream “codependency, true love/problematic” if brothers like. Breathe in each other’s vicinity. Or don’t just casually let the other die bloody and alone. You know. Basically, whenever they aren’t being absolute terrible human beings that don’t give a shit about their family at all, this flips into magnetic polarization in fandom dialogue. Like, sis, they're eating sammiches. I don't need a 5 page essay on how this "deconstructs the codependency." Dabberens have been on a warpath ever since they dropped Red Meat as the cornerstone sure but literally they're eating bologna and playing foosball chill out.

It’s one thing to like, hm. Take a highlighter to your favorite elements in fanon spaces. Write fics or art that deepen a particular theme or tone. But it’s another thing to like, hold evolving canon to the precedent set up in your own mythologilized fandom spaces.

Things that have /objectively/ changed in the show:

- Genre/cinematography; lighting and set adapted from vaguely horror-esque (halfly to hide the terrible makeup and CGI) to high fantasy over time (in which increased lighting shows that terrible makeup and CGI). Not liking one or the other? VALID!

- Character focus: The first several seasons were pretty much just da bros. Carver era extended into Team Free Will even if people hit denial waves about it. Dabb era seems to play ship-juggling acts and does openly engage in sport like “Oh wow, Rowena is flirting with Cas, I wonder if they’re gonna be a thing :)” while shoving some Sabriel or Samwitch in the way between more central pairs like Saileen or Destiel. Not liking one version or another of this? VALID!

- Mythology: Old SPN demonized literally any tradition that wasn’t christianity. Their alchemists and shamans are, respectively, kind of offensive. Carver only used the established races and a very vague cain and abel concept. Modern SPN is using alchemy and philosophy formerly villainized under the Calvinistic lens. Not liking one version or another of this? VALID!

- Core Principles: While “Family don’t end in blood” has always been there, the current author room’s statements about believing in hope or heroism over tragedy /are/ distinctly different than tragedy-oriented old SPN with the faintest lick of hope-ish-seeming-things with Lisa’s “never too late” kinda slapped on at the end to vaguely tell us there’s silver linings. Characters aren’t fighting just for survival all the time now, they’re often fighting for silver linings. Or gold ones right now. *rimshot* Not liking one version or another of this? VALID!

- Rule of Cool: Literally, this was a thing, and then it wasn’t. Kripke picked cars he liked because he liked them and thought they were cool. Kripke picked guns he thought were cool. Kripke picked name spellings he thought were cool. These are all things he’s said, like, on the record. This is also why the early show attracted more dudes that also operated on Rule of Cool. But maintaining cohesion required less and less rule of cool and more and more intertextual and subtextual poetry that gave less “plug whatever you want in the space with the cool shit” room and more “infinite amount of material that, while defined, all has flexible potential if you think about it and how to employ it.” Not liking one version or another of this? VALID!

Noticing change is /fair/. It’s /valid/. You don’t have to /like/ the change. 

Hell. This started addressing fandom romanticization of the early seasons but let’s not pretend Destiel fandom doesn’t have its own versions of this. All the different wings that romanticize the weirdest fucking eras as “the best” rampage too. Like the parts you like. Enjoy content how you enjoy it. But when you build up a romanticized version of a product in your head, you can’t expect the product to perform like the romanticized version. 

I know first memories are powerful. Nostalgia is powerful. But have you ever... like... gone to turn on a movie you loved as a kid 15, 20 years ago or whatever and load it up now and realize like, “Wow, I used to like some stupid shit.” And hell. We may even acknowledge it was stupid shit and STILL like the stupid shit. Or the stupid shit may annoy us know, depending. Who knows? Not to say seasons 1-2 are “stupid shit” if you will (or whatever season, 4, 8, whatever Destiel fandom may argue about as The Best on a given day) -- but it feels like attaching to these characters, and then arguing about these characters, without EVER unplugging from the content at all has made people lose that perspective where we, IDK, turn Digimon back on for the first time and go “oh wow this is a lot dumber than I remember it being (but it’s still fun)”. Yes, Pikachu IS annoying to hear squeaking constantly like your parents said before you lit up in holy, righteous fury defending the sparking rat. No, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun watching the reboot of Mewtwo Strikes Back. It just... perspective.

I dunno. Maybe fandom will in fact pan out differently in 15+ years once people have had the chance at this kind of down time. 

Random thoughts.

The Miys, Ch. 66

I am happy to report that this chapter has been beta’d, by @satan-parisienne.  They didn’t tell me about any content I should tag, but if I missed something, please let me know.

Happy Thanksgiving Week to all my U.S. readers! Because of the holiday, I’ll have family in town, so there will not be an update next week on the 3rd.  Regular updates should resume on Dec. 10th, so keep your eyes peeled.

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was how tired I was. “How does that work,” I groaned as rubbed my throbbing head. “I was asleep for hours.  Why am I exhausted?”

“You were lucid when you were supposed to be resting,” Grey answered as they came over to check my vitals and unhook the equipment from my little trip.

Tyche gave a grudging nod as she held a straw to my mouth.  I drank gratefully, and grimaced. Whatever I was drinking tasted like electrolyte drink and medication.  “Did you catch everything?”

Grey, my sister, and Antoine glanced at each other. Before they could say anything, a buzzing voice cut in. “There are gaps in the recording on your end, which were not unexpected.  The implants are not designed to broadcast outside of your auditory processing center, and I can only perceive vague intentions.”

On my opposite side, I heard the sound of chairs clattering across the floor and my berth sank as two rather heavy people used it to push themselves to their feet.  A string of curses in Japanese filled the air just before a thick, Irish accent boomed out. “She just let you drug her for ten hours so she could question a talking germ. While she is being constantly having her blood filtered to replace her hemoglobin so the same thing you want her to have a chat with doesn’t kill her.  She is sick, she is dehydrated, she is exhausted.  Your questions need to wait. She needs to sleep first.”

I held up a hand on that side without so much as glancing over, trusting that Conor would lean down so I could reach his face.  When I felt a beard press against my palm, I stroked his cheek with my thumb.  “Baby, they’re right.  It’s fresh right now.  People only tend to remember information for forty-eight hours without repetition.  So, it can’t wait, unfortunately.”  I finally turned my head and looked up.

Conor had not only pressed his cheek to my hand, he craned his head down so I could see his face easily. Tears filled his eyes, threatening to spill over. “Sophie.  I know I’ve been an ass, but this is the second time you have been close to dying in less than so many years.  And there is nothing I can do to protect you on this one…”

I tugged him down so I could hug him. “You’re sick, too.  We all are.  But answering questions isn’t going to threaten my life. I promise I will sleep after this.” I leaned as far as I could around him so I could see the scowling face of Maverick behind him. “You hear that?  Sleep. Lots of sleep. After I fill in the gaps, I’ll sleep.”

Maverick turned one baleful, dark eye toward me. He considered me solemnly before nodding “I’ll accept that deal.” He stepped forward, coming to stand next to Conor. “Sophia, we just want to make sure you take care of yourself.”

I nodded. “I know. But sometimes, it comes down to taking care of myself, or letting myself suffer just a bit so that I can take care of everyone else.” Smiling ruefully, I reached for Maverick’s hand. “But that is a huge part of me. It isn’t going to stop. You both need to know that. If you want to talk about it, we can do it after I fill in these gaps and get some sleep.” Once they nodded in confirmation, I turned back to the medical team plus Tyche. “Let’s do this. What do I need to fill in? Point me at your gaps.”

Noah waved with one vomu. “Most importantly, where did Else come from?”

My stomach sank. “Right to the tough stuff.” I swallowed thickly and resisted the urge to look at anyone except Noah. “They said that we, humans, accidentally made them. Here. On the Ark.”

Every voice in the room rose, all at once. I rolled my eyes and covered my ears, noticing that Tyche had done the same. Sure enough, a high-pitched whine filled the room. Judging by the sight of Grey and Antoine hitting their knees and the vibrations coming from the other side of my berth, Noah had employed their own special brand of crowd control. Once the whine stopped, I lowered my hands and Noah gestured that I should continue.

Clearing my throat, I obliged. “Else is… childlike, almost. They don’t mean to hurt anyone. They know us. They… like….us. Like, a lot. They were so, so sorry about what happened to Nixe.”

“You said we made them,” Grey exhaled, trying to get everything back on track.

“By accident. Yes.”

“Did they know how it happened?”

Now I knew why Else had gotten so short with me. “I only know how I was conceived because I was told by someone who was there, Grey. Why do we expect Else to know any differently?”

They nodded, somewhat curtly, to indicate their concession to that point. “If we can determine out how it was created, we can extrapolate how to combat it.”

“That makes sen – wait. What do you mean, ‘combat’ it?”

“Else is a bacterium, specifically one that has infected the humans on the ship and can kill us if left unchecked. By definition, it is a plague.”

Tyche’s eyes widened, then narrowed as she whirled around to face the head researcher. “You mean antibiotics.  As in, killing it.”

“Of course.” The tone was confused, as though this was the obvious solution.  Being that they were the closest we had to a head of medicine, I suppose the solution did seem obvious.  Except one critical piece of information…

Quickly, I flicked open my datapad. “Sophia Reid to Xiomara Kalloe. Xio, are you able to come down to my medbay?  I need you, right now.”

“Ten minutes out. Do you need me to send Miys ahead of me?”

“Noah is already here, and there is no immediate threat.” Not to me, anyway. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.”  Dismissing the screen, I looked back up at my friend and fellow Councilor already in the room. “Grey, it’s not that simple. Else is sentient.  I’m pretty sure.  Which means Galactic Law may apply, hence why I asked Xiomara to come.”

They blinked slowly. “The trials.”

“Yep,” I nodded.  “She’s been digging into Galactic Law ever since then, to make sure we don’t get caught flat-footed again. If Else is sentient, we have to treat them as people under the law.”

“Couldn’t Noah have told you that?” Maverick chimed in, bewildered.

I shook my head. “Unfortunately not.  ‘A similar species, regardless of what point of evolution, cannot make the decision if another species may be sentient.’ It’s to prevent sympathy from overriding logic.”

“Else is a bacterium,” Grey argued.

“With a hive mind.” I gave a pointed look at Noah. “Which means, if they are sentient, they could evolve into something like the Hujylsogox, given time.”

Noah made a gesture of confirmation, sweeping one vomu across its body.  That seemed to settle the matter of Xiomara’s involvement, and we all patiently waited for her to arrive.

Finally, she breezed in the door as though her skin wasn’t ashen from illness. Defiantly of any perceived lack of health, she crossed her arms and braced her feet as she looked at us.  “So, what’s the emergency? I could be lounging around with all I can drink Gatorade right now.”

Before Grey or I could say anything, Antione held up a hand to stave us off.  “Sophia just woke up from her conversation with Else, and we need to know if you are versed in the Galactic Law regarding determination of sentience in a new species.”

Comically, Xiomara slumped slightly, hands dropping and mouth gaping.  Almost immediately recovering, she cleared her throat. “I mean, yeah. I’ve gotten that far.  It’s fascinating stuff, actually.  But why?”

“They can talk.”

“Only with words previously used by you, and they do not retain the information.”

“Because several generations have passed for them!  Humans don’t retain language for more than one generation if there is no way to use it or pass it on.  You know this!” This argument came from my sister.  Tyche was getting as upset as I was, apparently.

“And they re-learn it very quickly,” I tried pointing out.

“So do antique chat bots.”

“Except that Else demonstrates that they know what the words and concepts mean, and can retain internal logic of the conversation.”

“Which makes sense if it is causing you to hallucinate the entire conversation.”

I sent a pleading look at Xiomara, but she only tilted her head from side to side. “Speech isn’t necessarily a criterion, but even if it was, there is no clear determination that Else is capable of intelligent speech.  That seems to depend solely on native communication.”

Damn it. I snapped my fingers rapidly, trying to think of a new piece of information, berating myself for getting into this position. Myself. “Self. Else demonstrates a sense of self.  One independent of its concept of humans. It… they pled for their lives. They apologized for hurting us, and understood what that meant.  Not only that, they corrected me several times on where they came from. Arguing demonstrates the ability to use logic, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Xiomara pointed out. “Conor argues with me all the time.”

“Hey!”

I glared at her.  Now was not the time for jokes.

Apologetic, she held up her hands. “On the other side, though, sense of self as a separate identity from others, along with understanding of the concept of death, are criteria for sentience.”

“What are the rest?” I asked, hope flooding my voice.

“Do they have any subjective experiences?” she asked.

“I’m honestly not even sure what that means,” I admitted, close to tears.

“Opinions,” Antione supplied helpfully.  “Experiences through their frame of existence and perception that they have opinions about unrelated to survival.”

I bit my lip as I thought. “The showed regret?”

“They also know we can kill them,” Grey argued, not giving up without a fight.

“They showed empathy?”

“So does your cat.”

Xiomara shook her head at Grey’s petulance. “Jury is actually still out on cats, so that’s not as definitive as you would like it to be.  But empathy doesn’t count – even among humans, several psychological disorders prevent empathy, but that doesn’t mean those people aren’t sentient.”

“They asked me to stop reciting scientific papers?” I asked in a Hail Mary attempt.

“They had what they needed,” was the suggestion from our self-designated Devil’s Advocate.

“Yes and no,” I said softly, realizing something. “They found it annoying and boring…  They also scolded me for using profanity.” Little things I had initially ignored rushed to the forefront of my memory.  “They knew Conor only gave the catnip to Tyche because he thought she would like it.  They knew Tyche loves me… they knew what that meant. And they actually told me how sick I was, the first time.  I didn’t realize it, but they told me my face and hands were injured.”

“That’s what the nightmare was that made you scream?” Tyche demanded.

Nodding vigorously, I clarified. “When I first came to the medical bay, there was moderate cellular damage in my hands, remember?  We didn’t think anything of it, because it was so simple to fix.  But in the nightmare, my hands were a horror show. I never would have even had them scanned if it wasn’t for that nightmare.  And the bruises around my eyes, from the anemia… they mentioned something was wrong with my face.”

“They told you out of self-preservation,” Grey supplied as the subsequent argument, but the staunch faith was wavering at this point.

“They didn’t know we were dying.  Not then.” I took a deep breath.  “And they make jokes, when I talk to them.  When I asked if they were deliberate or accidental, they didn’t just tell me they didn’t know.  They made a joke about my parentage.  Which means they took offense.”

Xiomara took a deep breath and ran a hand over her hair. “Boredom, annoyance… being offended.  Those are definitely opinions, and not related at all to survival.”  I held my breath and prayed to any entity that was listening.

“By definition of Galactic Law, Else is sentient.  Antibiotics are out.”

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For SNK Positivity Week Day 1 : Character Positivity Day ||

Zeke Jaeger : A Character Sketch

This is going to be a long rant in appreciation of Zeke's amazing character arc. He's not really my favorite character but the reason why I picked him for the character positivity day is because his character is often misunderstood and he gets a lot of unjustified hate. I did that too at one point; tbh I hated him with a passion but I'd grow out of it and even begin to feel for him eventually.

First off, let's run a background check on him. He was obviously neglected as a kid. His eyes speaks volumes here in this panel.

At the age of five, when all a kid looks for is love and care, his parents imposed the responsibility of the whole world on his shoulders. At an age when a child has a hard time spelling correctly, he was expected to infiltrate the government, fight for his brethren, become a double agent and what not. The psychological toll on a child who faces negligence and abuse at home is unimaginable. Paralleling that with stats of recent times, it's seen that bullies often come from abusive families. That's how psychology works. Once you've been victimized, you'll project that on others. That is exactly what happened with Zeke. The reason why he appeared so sadistic was because someone else put through hell before. The reason why he failed to love and empathize was because he himself was denied feelings of warmth and love. A child learns to emulate what he has learned from his parents. Can you really blame him for failing in the beginning?

But then, as the story of his life progressed, a more humane side of his character was developed with the coming of Xaver. Xaver was the first person to show Zeke parental affection. His contribution in shaping up Zeke's fundamental character is noteworthy. Even though he gave Zeke the love that he needed, his influence was not at all something appreciable, something better than before. If Grisha and Dina had wrongly used their son to meet their own selfish needs, Xaver was the shrewder one who showed affection on the surface only to permanently mould Zeke into becoming a pessimistic, merciless individual who had little to no respect for human lives. Zeke already bore the scars of his past; Xaver rather than inspiring him and guiding him decided to gaslight him into somehow believing that his whole life is a mistake and the same goes for all Eldians.

Imagine prevailing upon a teenager, whose personality is just developing, an idea that horrifying. If you sugarcoat the idea of genocide and instill that in a teenager, what do you even expect him to believe in? Drawing from our world, this was a tactic employed largely by Hitler in Germany. The only reason so many young people voluntarily took part in genocide was because they were spoon fed terrible ideas and convinced of false righteousness by their most trusted ones (often members of the family). The people we look up to for guidance are our parents and then comes our instructors. Zeke was unfortunate when it came to both. His instructor was the one who made murderous ideas seem okay to him. He's not at fault; he was only a teenager looking up at an older person for guidance and perspective.

So from there on we see how Zeke actually becomes a double agent serving in the Marleyan army. He has nothing to lose. He wrecks whole towns but deep inside he feels nothing. This lies in direct contrast with Eren who had an upbringing full of love and warmth. Remember how Eren couldn't accept even one soldier's death whatever be the cause? Again, both the character arcs follow the basic lines of human psychology. Environment, circumstances, influence -everything goes in the making of a person. However, this is true only until a certain point. You cannot forever be a product of your surroundings so once pubescence is reached, you're expected to make your own choices. Levi asking Eren to make a choice has a great significance in his life. It makes him responsible for himself. Similarlyen Zeke met Eren, he also made a choice - a choice to love someone. For the first time, he actually learned to love; for the first time he honestly wants someome to believe him and he feels like he understands Eren. Zeke realizes that he shares a common ground with someone and seeks solace in him. He's just a forlorn character seeking love and understanding.

He did love his grandparents before and also loved Xaver, of course, but that was more of being loved and then returning it. When it came to Eren, he made a choice of giving love to his sibling in spite of knowing his true intentions. His victim complex immediately assumed that Eren was also a victim of parental abuse and he chose to take care of him like a big brother. He never once doubted Eren. Even for someone as cold and sadistic as him, even for someone who had just murdered hundreds of SC members without a second thought, love existed; and with this a possibility of redemption; a hope of adopting a new perspective at life - one that is not inspired from hate, abuse, negligence or pessimism. From this point onwards, Zeke's character arc takes an interesting turn.

Ever since he met Eren and got to talk to him, we've seen him trying desperately to protect Eren. He's a product of negligence and he believes Xaver saved him. Therefore, he wants to save someone he loves too. He loves his brother and Eren is the only one who matters to him. He'd go to any extent to protect him. Hence the "Onii-chan is here" in the ending of Chapter 117.

He is adorable and his love for Eren is exemplary sibling love. It can be even compared to the likes of Itachi, Ace, Lelouch and Tanjirou - the famous big brothers in the animanga history. In 118, he knows Colt feels the same way but Xaver took away the feeling of empathy from a young, naive Zeke and so he goes on ahead with the Scream. Is it his fault ? No, not really. He was never accustomed with the meaning of life. He was a child growing up amidst war and devastation who looked up to a wretched cynical figure as his father. How can we expect someone to attach significance to life when all he was made to believe was that he is somehow at fault just for being born?

This directly contrasts how Eren was made to believe that he's special just because he was born in this world. The contrast between the brothers is never so eminent as in here, in this astonishingly different approach towards life.

There is a quote in Banana Fish that goes like: "You cannot be loved unless you love"

Ever since Zeke took it upon himself to save Eren, to shower him with love and affection, he showed us a more humane side of him ; a side I'm sure even he didn't believe he had in him before he came across his brother. He opened a portal to a kinder world when he learned to love. He was a sad, unfortunate creature unloving and unloved for most of his life. But now that he has so much love in his heart, even at the moment of betrayal, he gets to know how being loved feels like.

I cannot even begin to elaborate on the shock and the disillusionment that Zeke had to face when he learned the truth- that Eren was the one who manipulated Grisha and not the other way round. The good thing that came out of this was that Zeke learned that he was genuinely valued by his father and that he trusted him to stop Eren. However, Eren ruins it perfectly when he throws salt on Zeke's open wound.

Of course, years of negligence cannot be forgotten and/ or forgiven at the expense of one tiny moment and Zeke is hesitant to call Grisha 'dad' at times

but at least he knows now that Grisha regrets his wrongs and that he loves him. Isayama had granted Zeke what he was long due, when Grisha confessed to him. Zeke's love for Eren is so pure, so selfless. Even when Eren says he had only used Zeke, even when he is rude and nasty with him, Zeke is convinced that it is all because of Grisha's brainwashing. He is so upset when he learns of Eren's betrayal in this panel.

Of course, Zeke's love for Eren seems to be leading him to nowhere and this is sort of payback for all his crimes but at least, with Chapter 121, it can be said that Zeke Jaeger is no longer a tragic unloved character. He was loved by his father and he more than deserved to know this. His character arc is churned out wonderfully. He began as a villainous character but then Isayama gave us a glimpse of how tragic his story is; from there on Zeke's character evolved and his development reached its peak with his sincere and genuine love for Eren. Gradually his sad arc that made him to be a pitiful unloved creature is resolved with a confession of love from the most desirable person, not to forget that this new found love also came with Grisha's faith that Zeke would be able to stop Eren. He saw how in the impending future Zeke's plan will fail but even so he still has faith that he's going to stop Eren.

-×××-

Wow this became longer than I expected it to be. But I have been getting a lot of feelings for Zeke recently and I felt like I had to highlight him for the character positivity day because he is so misinterpreted in the fandom. I really hope people forgive him because basically nobody is evil by choice, it's the effect arising from cumulative traumatizing experiences as a child.

Comm 10: Assignment 2

A. What are the differences between primary oral cultures and literary cultures? How are they related with each other?

Primary oral cultures are cultures that involve talking and listening. There is no knowledge of writing meaning, the information heard was collected in the minds of the people. The absence of writing made it difficult to preserve the information thus, paving the emergence of literary culture, which in turn employs the manner of reading and writing. However, in literary, there is no involvement of the bodies unlike oral cultures; just pure text and interpretation, but the edge is that, it’s easier to grab the information since everything is written. Regardless of the differences, they’re important because both contribute to the effectiveness of our communication in the present time as well as to the next generations.

B. What does Walter Ong mean by the intersubjectivity of communication? How does this differentiate communication from media?

Intersubjectivity happens when individuals agree on a given set of meanings. In short, it can also be synonymous to the word “agreement.” To achieve an effective communication, an understanding between the sender and receiver and an exchange of roles happens as the sender becomes the receiver expecting for a respond. However, in media, there is only a one-way process allowing the sender to send the information, having to receive no feedback at all. A good example would be reading a newspaper. We may have different stands on the issues yet, we cannot oppose as to what the editor says. Hence, there is no intersubjectivity between the sender and the receiver.  

C. How does the ‘media’ model of communication show chirographic (i.e. writing) conditioning?

The media model of communication shows chirographic conditioning in such a way that written text conveys information, specifically a one-way informational process, in which there is no actual receiver. When information is changed from speech to written medium, chirographic conditioning occurs. It implies that whatever the sender broadcasts, none of the receivers can respond since the information and messages can be grasped by any person.

 D.  What are the industrial or economic factors in the evolution of media from print to radio to television?

In the earlier years, print media was a great way to disseminate information. Newspapers were the leading forms of prints as they serve as a way for people to connect on communal issues. As time goes by, prints from newspapers evolved into radio news, which technically marked the start of convergent media since there is already a merging of different forms. In no time, another medium was invented and it was the television. The process of the evolution of media had made people access information without any struggle. And because how fast-paced the demands of the people are, it resulted to the fast evolution of mass media.

E. What does the digitization of videos mean for information producers and consumers?

The digitization of videos for both producers and consumers mean that the information we need can now be easily accessed.  It is basically in this process that has revolutionized the communication system because of the capacity and ease it provides for both production and consumption of media. For producers, information could be disseminated in different ways whereas for consumers, it makes life convenient because we can easily look and search for the things, we want to know easily.  Digitization of videos also means transforming traditional home media into various digital formats that could be accessed anywhere through the help of the internet.

F. What are the pros and cons of media accessibility?

The best thing accessibility of media probably brings is that it makes us all connected. In an instant, it makes us aware of the news and information happening across the globe. Media is also used for advertising and marketing business.  With it, it has help businesses reach potential consumers faster and easier. Broadcast media is a way of conveying information in vast audiences and keeps us updated with news. But in every progress accompanies downsides. The fact that it has already existed everywhere, it leads to lesser human interaction and more time on social media. It can also be used for misinformation because media as a whole is vulnerable to propaganda and lies.  Knowing these cons, it is our responsibility to teach ourselves how to become media literate individuals.  

G.  What constitutes a convergent media? How is it differentiated from traditional media? Would you consider convergent media under the categories of new media? Explain your answer.

Media convergence, generally means the merging of different media channels- e.g, magazines, radio programs, TV shows- into a single digital bit-stream accessed through mobile digital system. Convergent and traditional media do not differ really, because both are tools for communication. I guess the distinguishable difference between the two is the period of existence in which traditional media obviously came out first which had involved the use of prints. The convergence of media is somehow under new media since it refers also to the combination of traditional and new media considering that it has allowed us to communicate in a whole new level. Technically, convergent media has just started before but has further elaborated at present through the combination of text, videos and audios

H. How does convergent media empower individuals to assert themselves in the bigger society? Think of the metaphor of David and Goliath. 

In a world wherein technology is constantly evolving, media convergence has become an important element to people most especially that we are bombarded with different issues today. Let us think of the bigger society as Goliath, wherein along with him lies the societal issues which needed to be given attention. But David, who basically represents us, believes in the power of voicing out our thoughts and feelings. With the help of the sling and rock, David was able to take down Goliath by hitting his weak spot. And that sling and rock, depicts media convergence. It has become a medium for us to fight against the unending issues in the society. Through it, we could also be a part of a positive change, and could plan for an effective solution for the betterment of the society. 

I.  Compare and contrast the evolution of communication from orality to literacy and the evolution of media from traditional media to convergent media. Reflecting on how these developments came about, what could be assumed (or predicted) for the future of media production and consumption and/or mass communication?

The evolution of communication from orality and literacy is not that apart from the evolution of media from traditional to convergent. Basically, orality paved the way to the existence of literacy in the same manner the convergent media came from traditional media. These evolutions differ according to the period of time they emerge but they are similar in the way that both developed through time and became into something much more helpful and convenient. In the next years to come, we can expect that there will be greater and even more advanced inventions to improve our accessibility to media and communication. We can also assume that more individuals will likely  engage in the use of media to further connect and adapt in the constant change technology has brought to the world.

J. What is Bitzer’s definition of a rhetorical situation?

In the context of Lloyd Bitzer, rhetorical situation refers to the natural context of persons, events, objects, relations and an exigence which strongly invites utterance. In addition, a rhetorical discourse can only occur if there is a rhetorical situation. It serves as a guide of the rhetoric to consider what must be conveyed to the audience. 

K. What are the different aspects of a rhetorical situation?

Lloyd Bitzer mentioned that in order for the situation to be considered rhetorical, it must comprise the three components which basically are- (1) exigence, which refers to the importance of the subject; (2) the audience, that introduces the discourse and actions, and (3) the constraints, which limit the decision or actions.   

I. Which of the issues you encounter today do you think warrant rhetorical discourse?  

The issue that I personally believe still warrants rhetorical discourse is the War on Drugs by our President Rodrigo Duterte. 

m.i. What were the different persuasive strategies mentioned in the chapter? 

The different persuasive strategies mentioned in the chapter are: Taking and Avoiding Sides; Explicit Appeals to Common In-Group Membership; Constructing Aspirational Identities; Implicit Displays of Rhetorical Alignment; Who are “WE” Flexibility and Vagueness in the use of first-person pronouns; Using Pronouns to Display Complex Political Allegiances; Using First-Person Plural Pronouns to Convey Ideological Messages.

m.ii. Of these strategies, which have you encountered during political campaigns? 

For me, the most usual persuasive strategy I have encountered so far that was used by politicians during political campaigns would be taking the side of the common people.

m.iii. Were these strategies effective for you? Why or why not?

Personally, the strategies mentioned in the chapter are effective since without the strategies, the political discussions and debates would no longer matter. We have our leaders and politicians sitting in the government, leading us today because we, citizens were convinced by their rhetoric discourses which had influenced us to vote for them.

Healing Work In The Akashic Records Through Dreaming

Today, I’d like to talk a bit about some interesting new experiences I’ve been having with working with the energy of the Akashic Records, made famous in the West in the early 1900s by the “Sleeping Psychic,” Edgar Cayce. While my approach, so far, has been somewhat experimental in limiting the practice exclusively to dream work, the results have been powerful enough that I think it’s worth sharing my initial impressions. Here is how it all started.

Some time ago, I was going through a very difficult period in my personal life, and frequently consulting with my guides about how to cope with the turmoil I was experiencing. One day, feeling out of options, I rather petulantly asked them if there was any way we could simply “fix” my situation through psychic means. I received an answer I didn’t expect. “Yes, but we would need to go into your Akashic Records in order to do that.” While I knew of their existence, this wasn’t a modality I had actively explored before, nor had the guides previously alluded to the records. I said, “OK. Can we please work on that, then?”  The guides agreed.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the general consensus on the Akashic Records (from the Sanskrit “Akasha”), is that they are a cosmic archive, or energetic entity, in which information on every soul’s incarnation, past, present, and potential future, is recorded and can be accessed. Every action we take imprints itself there, and as such, the archives are constantly evolving. Certain other things, such as buildings, can also have their history recorded in the records. In addition to retrieving information, the archives can be used to heal toxic personal patterns and resolve relationships. Working on these issues through the records is especially useful when the problems are, supposedly, rooted in previous lives. The theory is that by revisiting certain events and “rewriting” them in the archive, we can change, or balance out, the ways in which the ripple effects of those events affect us in the present, therefore healing our futures. (While I generally prefer to work with methods that deal with information that can be easily verified, in the case of past life work in the Akashic Records, what matters to me is the practical healing and integration that can be achieved.) The records are said to operate with their own set of overseeing spirit guides, generally known as the Lords of The Records, and to provide their own energetic healing modality through lifting the individual into the vibration of their true, cosmic Self during the reading. Indeed, the distinction of working in the Records, as opposed to other psychic work, is that it is said to provide a perspective on an individual’s life that transcends their current personality or identity. The Lords of The Records oversee permissions to access the records, and act as facilitators in channeling the information contained therein. Many teachers of Akashic Record reading have alluded to the fact that humanity has recently been granted open access to the records, in the interest of supporting our collective spiritual evolution.

The night after my initial conversation with my guides about the records, for the first time in ages, I had a lucid dream - an experience that usually acts as a trigger for some of my most valuable psychic breakthroughs. In it, I was flying above a long, crowded procession of thousands pilgrims walking down a dirt path in a grassy landscape, dressed in maroon robes. They were all headed in the same direction, toward a kind of checkpoint at the base of a bridge, at the edge of a body of water. This bridge, I understood, would lead to the Akashic Records. I was also aware that for some reason unknown to me, I had been granted a “fast pass” past the throngs of pilgrims. When I arrived at the checkpoint, however, I was asked to pay a toll. To my chagrin, I realized that I hadn’t brought any money with me, and therefore, would not be able to cross over into the records.

I wondered about the toll over the next few months. What did it stand for? In symbolic terms, a toll would usually mean either some kind of energetic exchange, an offering, personal sacrifice, or permission. If I had been given the “fast pass,” which already implicitly constituted permission, what was I missing?

I recently found what I was looking for, in the book, “How to Read The Akashic Records,” by Akashic reader and teacher Linda Howe. In it, she introduces a simple method of accessing and reading the records called the Pathway Prayer, channeled directly from the records themselves. What this prayer does, in her words, is literally build an energetic bridge to the heart of the archive, in collaboration with the keepers of the records. There it was! As my guide, Salvador, would shortly confirm, the missing “toll” had been the prayer itself. (While the Pathway Prayer can easily be found on the internet on its own, I highly recommend reading Linda’s book and learning the context of the prayer for yourself.)

Now, many Akashic Record readers are trained to channel information from the records to an effect that is nearly identical the kind of verbal channeling that I already do through clairaudient dictation. (Though, as I will elucidate in a later post, the guides have confirmed to me that there is a distinction between Akashic Record reading and work we do, the Pathway Prayer has many similarities to some of the opening meditations in my channeling preparations. It’s as if only a small tweak was needed to shift the modality to Akashic work.) While I do intend to apply Akashic reading to verbal channeling in the future, since my clairaudient sense has become so dominant of late, my primary interest in these first forays has been to use the records to support healing through a more clairvoyantly based experience - just like in the initial dream I had that led me to the bridge. What I have been moved to do is to experiment with using the Pathway Prayer in manner similar to the kinds methods one would employ in attempting to trigger lucid dreaming. So far, I have found it to be an extremely reliable way to inspire spontaneous, healing dream work. (Nearly fool-proof, in fact!)

Here is the very simple method I have used.

1. Before going to bed, on a night on which you have not consumed anything such as alcohol or drugs that would interfere with your energetic integrity within 24 hours, and are feeling calm, concentrate on an issue in your life that you would like to heal.

2. Recite the Pathway Prayer to open your Akashic Records. Then, allow yourself to drift off to sleep.

3. As soon as you begin to wake up, see if you can remember what you dreamed. Remain in the hypnagogic state for a while, if it helps. If the method has worked, you will have dreamed of something in your past, or something that seems like a past life memory, that is emotionally relevant to the issue you are working on healing.

4. Before getting out of bed, recite the prayer to close your Akashic Records. (Please remember to do this, as respecting the protocol is important in this tradition!)

5. Journal your experiences.

This method has been incredibly successful for me, so far. What I have found is that every time I recite the prayer before going to bed, my subsequent dreams, while not including any imagery specific to the archives in the sense of going into a “library,” will bring up a memory or relationship that is related, sometimes in unexpected ways, to the pattern I am trying to heal. The dream will either manifest as a balancing “mirror-image” of the remembered experience, or rewrite it in a way that heals its psychological effect. This has happened for several nights in a row. So far, I have expressed my anger to two different people whose behavior hurt me in the past (which I never did), held my grandfather’s hand as he died (I was not present during his death), and lived an alternative reality of a relationship in which, instead of being abandoned myself, I was the one who abandoned the other party. There have also been other signs of healing and integration in the dreams. My mood and outlook have tangibly improved since starting this practice, and every time I repeat the process, new layers of the healing process are uncovered.

I look forward to continuing to develop my practice through working with this new modality, and exploring its many applications. Salvador and Natalie are also quite excited about it, and I’ve even had a new guide pop up in readings, who has been drawn to me through the work I have started. In the near future, I’ll share an interview I conducted with my guides on how Akashic Record work compares to the other work we do together, what their differing advantages may be, and if there are any conflicts between working with different reading modalities. (The guides also told me a bit more about who they are in relation to me, and how they work with me to read people!)

Have you ever experimented with using established psychic protocols in new and exciting ways? What were your experiences like? Think about ways in which you can develop your practice by applying what you have learned creatively and expansively!

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Meeeow! Why are we obsessed with cats?

Claws out! Why pop culture clings to the crazy cat lady

Lucy Jones, The Guardian newspaper

Mon 16 Apr 2018 16.48 BST

For years, women with cats have been portrayed as lonely, sexless and eccentric – but why does this stereotype endure? And can millennial ailurophiles reclaim the purr-jorative?

Did you hear the story about the old woman from Ohio who was arrested for training her 65 cats to steal her neighbour’s stuff? The Columbus police department found thousands of dollars’ worth of jewellery in the 83-year-old lady’s house and discovered she taught the cats to bring back “anything that shined”.

The news story went viral at the end of last year. How do you picture her? Unkempt hair, dressing gown and slippers, living alone, rarely leaving the house? The “crazy cat lady”, in other words. In fact, the story was fiction on a satirical website, but people bought it and shared the story thinking it was real.

The crazy cat lady is a common, recognisable trope in contemporary culture: think of Eleanor Abernathy in The Simpsons. After a promising career in medicine and law, she experiences burnout, starts drinking and gets a cat. Next minute, she’s talking gibberish, looking dishevelled and throwing her army of felines around. Then there’s Robert De Niro’s predictably bonkers elderly Christmas cat lady in a 2004 Saturday Night Live skit: she “had dreams and then she was kicked by a horse and now she has cats. The end!”

The younger version of the stereotype is usually associated with being single, kooky and weird; after her relationship with Carol Burnett comes to a head, 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon acquires a cat. “I can fit Emily Dickinson’s whole head in my mouth,” she tells a concerned Jack Donaghy. You can even buy a Crazy Cat Lady action figure online, complete with deranged, staring eyes.

To understand why this trope exists – and why it may be on its last legs – let’s scoot back to the middle ages and the earliest perceptions of women and their cats. Even before witch-hunts, cats had a bad rep in the western world – with associations with heretical sects and the devil. Medieval types conflated feline sex lives with lustful, sinful, female sexuality: cats were seen as “lecherous animals that actively wheedled the males on to sexual congress”, according to the historian James Serpell. Although, in recent pop culture, cat lady has evolved into shorthand for a lonely, sad, sexless woman. Too sexy, not sexy enough: can’t please ’em.

The earliest cat ladies in the west were, of course, witches. In Malleus Maleficarum, the landmark medieval treatise on witchcraft, a 13th-century folk story is recounted, whereby three witches turned themselves into cats, attacked a man on the street and accused him of assault in court, showing the marks on their bodies. From then on, witches were believed to have cats as familiars, or to change into felines at night.

Why would cats get such a satanic rep? We can only guess. Cats are mysterious. They come and go. Unlike dogs, they refuse to obey and be domesticated. They’re nocturnal. The Ancient Egyptians worshipped Bastet, a woman with a head of a cat. Although the Bible does not specifically mention cats, early Christian pilgrims were highly suspicious of other religions, and they deemed the black cat to be so demonic that being seen with one could be punishable by death.

Although the 18th century saw people beginning to question superstitions – such as the belief that a woman’s wart was a teat suckled by Satan – negative connotations of the relationship between cats and women remained. The Victorians switched witches for old-maid stereotypes – for single women without children: “Old maids and cats have long been proverbially associated together, and, rightly or wrongly, these creatures have been looked upon with a certain degree of suspicion and aversion by a large proportion of the human race,” wrote a journalist in the Dundee Courier in 1880. The Old Maid card game was often illustrated with a dour woman and her cat, the “friend of the friendless”, as it was described at the time. In the 1900s, anti-suffragette propaganda used images of cats to portray women as silly, useless, catty and ridiculous in their attempt to enter political life.

The inception of the “crazy” moniker is harder to pin down, but its connotations of hysteria are an old gender stereotype. Added to this, the extreme end of the modern “crazy cat lady” stereotype has more than a few cats, which is unusual. Eleanor Abernathy, for example, has cats dripping off her: she is, essentially, portrayed as a mentally ill, alcoholic, compulsive hoarder.

There may be some truth in the idea that animal hoarding is more common in women. A study in Brazil found that, while generalised hoarding disorder affects men and women equally, nearly three-quarters of animal hoarders were women. Since 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classifies compulsive hoarding as a psychiatric disorder, with animal hoarding as a subtype.

Another recent theory is to do with a parasite called toxoplasma gondii. This tiny critter infects rats and mice and changes their behaviour by, scientists believe, creating an attraction to cat urine, so it can wind up in the stomach of a cat, where it reproduces. It also infects between 30% and 60% cent of people. Scientists are exploring evidence that toxoplasmosis could create behavioural changes in people, leading to lots of excited articles wondering if the parasite is a clue to explaining the phenomenon of “crazy cat lady”. The parasite contains an enzyme that creates dopamine, which is associated with risky and impulsive behaviour, among other things, but so far the data is inconclusive.

But, really, the concept of the crazy cat lady tells us more about societal perceptions of women than anything else. It has long been a pejorative term and a device for transferring shame and judgment on women who challenged traditional roles, or were hard to domesticate and keep in line. Here is the co-creator of Batman, Bob Kane, explaining his creation of Cat Woman: “I felt that women were feline creatures and men were more like dogs. While dogs are faithful and friendly, cats are cool, detached and unreliable … cats are as hard to understand as women are,” he said. “You always need to keep women at arm’s length. We don’t want anyone taking over our souls, and women have a habit of doing that.”

But millennial ailurophiles have had enough. Over the last few years, there have been multivalent efforts to debunk the crazy cat lady stereotype and project a positive view of women and their cats. Pussy is striking back.

From glossy fashion magazines celebrating the feline-human relationship – Cat People, Puss Puss – to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry’s unashamed adoration of their feline pets, the stereotype is being recalibrated. CatCon Worldwide, a new conference celebrating cat culture, has, as its core value, the desire to “change the negative perception of the crazy cat lady and prove that it is possible to be hip, stylish, and have a cat”.

The book Cat Lady Chic (2012) offered elegant images of cat-owners Audrey Hepburn, Georgia O’Keeffe, Diana Ross and Zelda Fitzgerald as an antidote to the Eleanor Abernathy archetype. And Girls & Their Cats, a sophisticated series of photographs of women and their feline companions, was created by Brooklyn-based fashion photographer BriAnne Wills to help dismantle the stereotype.“It just wasn’t representative of any of the cat ladies I personally knew, who are all independent, cool, career-driven women who really love their cats,” she said. “Also, there are more than a million cats euthanised each year so if women (and men) are afraid to adopt because of negative stereotypes it definitely hurts cats in the long run.”

In the memorable short story Cat Person (2017), Kristen Roupenian inverts the cat lady trope by giving her male protagonist, Robert, a couple of pet cats. She employs the presence of Robert’s felines as a symbol that Margot uses to construct her image of him. “We decide that it means something that a person likes cats instead of dogs,” said Roupenian in an interview. But there is something sinister going on. Margot never sees the cats, and wonders if Robert has lied about them. So what is it about pretending to have cats that might endear Margot to him in a sexual setting? Is he using his cats to lure her in?

But perhaps the moment the crazy cat lady motif truly jumped the shark was with the song Buttload of Cats on an episode of the television series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend earlier this year. Rebecca Bunch walks herself down to the Lonely Lady Cat Store. “The smell is overwhelming inside / This is the future smell of my house / It’s the smell of my dreams that have died,” she sings. “When you’re a permanent bachelorette / It’s mandatory that you go out and get / A buttload of cats / Oh, yeah!”

The song made a mockery of the hysteria projected on women who own cats. So is the notion of the crazy cat lady over? Wills believes there is still work to be done to change perceptions, but she hopes that her photography project will help. “It is 2018,” she says, “and women are tired of defending themselves.” And their love for their cats.

AND I LOVE CATS TOO. ESPECIALLY SIAMESE (but my dog hates them) 

Alright, gang, strap in. Here are my thoughts on cursing in the 24th Century / the Universal Translator...

First off, I like to believe that we don’t see cursing in Star Trek (TNG/DS9/VOY) because actually by that point in the future cursing has become superfluous and irrelevant. Cursing was, historically, the language of the peasant. It wasn’t used by the upper class. And when you think about it, that kind of makes sense. Why do we curse? Usually because we’re frustrated about our current situation. And who’s more likely to be frustrated by their current situations: a farmer who doesn’t know how he’s going to feed his wife and children, or the wealthy landlord who owns the shire and all it’s land? 

Now that’s not to say that people aren’t without struggle in the 24th Century, but we do know that the narrative is always being told to us through the lens of human protagonists (Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer). Earth is supposed to have become a paradise. There’s no more war or money so presumably a lot less need to curse. 

Again, that’s not to say there isn’t cursing, but it is to say that when they spent a boatload of time and effort creating artificial intelligence that could interpret and translate all languages, they probably didn’t bother to put in a cuss words subroutine. It just... wasn’t necessary. 

“But what about the Klingons?” you say! “We hear them curse all the time! I think I even heard some Romulan curses before on TNG!”

Yeah, okay. Thank you for the audience participation. To that I say: this brings up an interesting point. WHY do we EVER hear ANY ALIEN LANGUAGES when supposedly everybody on the shows are speaking their own native tongues? And if you tell me it’s because the individuals are willingly choosing to not have their words translated, to that I say: Yeah, nah. Because if that were the case eavesdropping would be impossible. Quark would never have anything to worry about because Odo presumably was raised primarily learning Cardassian and Bajoran. He wouldn’t speak Ferengi so Quark would just always speak Ferengi when he was up to no good. 

Now, you could of course argue that I’ve picked a poor example, because there’s actually never any indication that Odo has a universal translator. His true form never shows any kind of chip or anything. And we know from that one DS9 episode where Quark & fam (spoilers!!) go back in time to Earth that not only are universal translators on ships and in the main computers of starbases, they’re also implanted in the humanoid brain. Most likely a small procedure performed not long after a child begins learning how to speak. Anyway -- we could argue that either 1.) because Odo is a changeling his ability to morph into other creatures also gives him an innate ability to understand languages extremely quickly, or 2.) that the implant version of the universal translator is relatively new technology by DS9 era and therefore may not have been common place then, and maybe not even around at all in TNG, but living on such a diverse space station most of the DS9 crew got them implanted. 

Next point of tension that has always confused me: Why do entire planets only have ONE language when Earth has COUNTLESS? Why is there French and German and English and Spanish but somehow only one Klingon or Romulan or Bajoran dialect? Furthermore, where did all the other languages go? Why do the humans really only speak English? 

Here’s my theory on that: There actually ARE many languages on each planet, and even still on Earth. However, all speech on any individual planet is likely fairly similar to each other while also being fairly unique from all other planets just by nature of the natural evolution of linguistics. Now if you really wanna get into the psychology of it, language is actually in part biologically wired into us as humans. We all learn language in about the same ways and at around the same time in our development (withstanding, of course, particular conditions that have late onset of verbal behavior). Yes, it’s entirely valid to argue that since life on other planets would evolve in completely different ways than on Earth, it is entirely possible and in fact most likely that language would be crazy different on any other planet just because the biology of any other form of life would be so drastically different from that on Earth.  Now that’s a slippery slope argument right there so I’m just going to stop you. Because Star Trek already solved that one for us with one simple phrase: HUMANOID. Yes, it is entirely ludicrous to think life on another planet would look so incredibly similar to life on Earth, but SOMEHOW, MAGICALLY in this universe and this version of the future, that is the case. (And, like, if you really wanna go crazy, you could blame that on an infinite number of realities whereby some version of our universe would indeed be populated almost exclusively by humanoids, but I digress...) 

ANYWAY! So! The point of that last crazy long paragraph was that all language on any planet is RELATIVELY similar, so translators have simply packed them all together to create one, general language for each world. Which means the humans aren’t actually speaking “English,” they are speaking “Earth” or “Human” or whatever... And you can even go one step further and say that we as a viewing audience are, too, being impacted by the universal translators. As the message is being sent through to us, it’s being translated into whatever language we speak. 

Now! Where does that leave us on alien cursing? Welp, I’m going to say that in the case of Klingons and to a lesser extend Romulans, their cursing is still kept in tact by the translators because the usage of these words is intrinsically linked to the CULTURE of these worlds. Klingons are these strong, warrior race. To them, cursing each other off is sort of equivalent to humans arm wrestling. It doesn’t really prove anything, no one is hurt in the end, but you did just prove how macho you are to everyone in the room! 

But is cursing really important to humans??? I dont know, maybe some of you guys can argue it is. But, to me, when someone curses at me, all it really tells me about them is that...... they’re angry. And honestly there are a hundred other ways to tell a person is angry with you, you don’t really need the curse words for it. The way the person looks, how they are acting, their inflection, how loudly they are speaking, so on and so forth. Plus! I even took a literature & compositions class once where the professor made a really valid point. “Have you ever been cursed out in another language?” she asked us, “Or overheard someone cursing out somebody else? You don’t need to know what the words mean. You can just TELL that they are curse words.” And that’s because curse words are almost ALWAYS (for humans, anyway - and in all languages) FRICATIVES. Fricatives are words that employ very harsh sounds and letter combinations. “f” and “sh” most notably, but also sounds like “k” and “t”. These harsh sounds carry the meaning of the words just by it’s phonics. 

Anyway. Why did I say all that? I dont know I kind of got off track by the end there but my main point is that curse words don’t really mean a lot for humans. Our culture wouldn’t be completely demolished without them. If they disappeared from existence tomorrow we could all carry on just fine. But that may not be the case for other planets and cultures. So that’s why there’s still cursing in Klingon and Romulan tongues. 

I still don’t have a very good answer for that “Why can we ever hear an alien language?” question. Not one  that really satisfies me, anyway. But yeah. Here’s an incredibly long post that likely no one will read and which in truth really adds absolutely nothing to the viewing experience of star trek. But thanks for tuning in. These are the inane ramblings of a psychology undergrad who just really likes asking pointless questions about non-existent future technology and alien interactions. 

The 7 year itch-not just a movie

I’m currently married & have been with my husband for over 12 years however prior to this marriage I had a previous that only lasted 7 years. My current husband was also married prior to me, for 7 years. Many of my friends and people I see on social media that are married only stay married for 7 years or less. The ones that stay married longer than 7 years often have trouble around the 7-year mark & their relationship is truly tested. So, it got me thinking, is there such a thing as a 7-year itch? In 1955 Marilyn Monroe stared opposite Tom Ewell in the romantic comedy titled, you guessed it, “The Seven Year itch”. This movie is based on a play with the same namesake that deals with the declining interest in a monogamous relationship after seven years of marriage. This theory isn’t really new it is something psychologist have studied for years. So, are we as humans truly meant to be with one person for eternity or are relationships meant to have expiration dates? I mean many of us change as people, our priorities become different, our passions change, our purpose grows, interest changes, even appearance changes. So, does that mean we can outgrow being married to one person? We often outgrown friendships, think about it there are probably very few ppl you were friends with in junior high that you are friends with currently. Do we have to work with our partner to evolve together? What if your partner does not want to change, evolve, or go along with you on a new journey? What then? Divorce? Divorce is always and option I suppose but for many with children involved it is not the simple. Matters of the heart rarely are simply anyway. How do you beat the 7-year itch? My husband & I went through the 7-year mark troubles. The new wore off, we were busy with work, kids, after school activities, & had very little time for one another. We didn’t really even attempt to make time for one another bc what was the point we knew everything we were every going to know, right? My husband fell in love with my loud, unruly, fun, free thinking, social butterfly, fear less personality and I fell in love with his kindness, gentleness, quietness, consistency, & just the way he was a man’s man. We were perfect opposites & it worked. . .for a while. As time passed the same reason, he fell in love with me were the same reasons he began to resent me. We had a daughter 2.5 years into our relationship & he already had 3 children from a previous marriage & relationship. After our daughter was born, I changed as most new moms do. I saw the world in an entirely new way. I wanted to change & improve things more than ever before. I joined my step sons school PTA, I started to do work for Saint Jude’s, I also got offered to be apart of a board that helped plan events to benefit local nursing homes. Of course, I discussed all these new endeavors with my husband prior to jumping in, & he always fully supported, at first, but that would quickly change. Anytime I had a meeting or event I would make sure it worked around my children’s schedule as well as my husband & I’s work schedule, but it didn’t matter he always found a way to start a fight & I would end up looking like the bad guy. I didn’t understand how eh could go hunting, fishing, whatever & never had to plan out what was happening with the kids nor did he have to worry if I would be upset, however when it came to me doing something I wanted I had to make sure the house was clean, laundry done, kids had a sitter, meals planned, etc  My husband would make comments like, “oh you pawning the kids off again”, when I had a event or meeting that I could not bring the kids to which was usually once a month. I didn’t understand how it was considered “pawning” my kids off when I had something I wanted to do but it was considered that for him. I kept quiet which turned out to be the wrong thing bc soon I began to resent him. I hated seeing him drive up at home bc I knew he was going to be unhappy about something. It did not take me long to figure out my husband and I’s differences were far greater than I had initially thought. He is a pessimistic person and I am optimistic. Our vehicles may not be the newest & our home maybe not the biggest but I love it bc it is ours & we work hard for it. We may not have millions or even thousands but our bills are paid, our children are healthy, we are healthy, employed, & free. I use to tell my husband, “One day god is going to test you & take away everything you have, then I bet you will appreciate it.”. You never want to be so busy looking at what others have that you forget all that you have.  Despite my husband differing thought process I accepted him, I would never get anger over what he chose to believe, in my mind by me doing that he would do the same t me on my opinions that differed from his. WRONG!!! No matter what I would say or do he had something negative to say. If I was watching something on tv he would start making ugly comments about whatever I was watching, so I stopped watching tv when he was around. If was on the phone with a friend, &he was around he would begin fussing & making ugly comments so I stopped talking on the phone to my friends when he was around. If I would make plans to go eat with friends, he would fuss so I started canceling on my friends. I started my own little side jewelry business I would hand cut metal and stamp it; it was called Creative Metal, & I LOVED it. To be sure it did not interfere with my mom/wife/employee duties I only worked on it at night once the house was clean & everyone was asleep. But it was not good enough my husband would get up in the middle of the night fussing that I was still up, or making noise. So, I gave it up, sold almost all my tools & supplies. . .I’ll be honest it hurt my heart but I wanted peace. The resentment grew & grew to the point that I could not take it anymore, I couldn’t breathe. I longed for an intelligent conversation with a man that thought I was truly amazing, a man that supported my dreams, hopes, etc & even if it was not something he wanted he wouldn’t mind coming along for the ride simply bc he wanted to be with me, support me. There were opportunities where I could have cheated but I am fiercely loyal even when some do not deserve it & the thought of my husband finding out & hurting, I just couldn’t do it. Instead of infidelity, I decided I had enough, I decided I was going to live my life, & if he wanted to support me great, if not oh well his lose. So, I did, I talked on the phone and when he started, I wouldn’t hold back I’d tell my friend, “lemme call you back Travis is fussing bc I am talking to you”. He would immediately get embarrassed, and I would say hey if that’s how you gonna act you need to claim it. I started watching tv when he was there and if he started fussing, Id walk out & go watch tv in another room. I wasn’t going to stop living, existing, & growing bc HE didn’t like it! I started being that girl he fell in love with the one I hid to make him comfortable. I started telling him to Fuck off, & I no longer cried bc he hurt my feelings, I just let it roll off my back. I am not sure if it worked or not but we are now 12 years in, the resentment is no longer there bc I do what I want, say how I feel, & make no apologies. I can honestly say my husband is friend, he can still be a giant douche canoe but I do love him & despite what I may think he doesn’t like me sometimes deep down I know he’s crazy about me. Our children are older now & so are we, we now have more time for one another & actually make the effort to spend time together & usually enjoy said time. We joke back & forth, pick at each other, & do not take things said nearly as personal. Now with all that, I could have just divorced him & started over. . . but who would I be as a person? I can not say I actually “fought” for my marriage as much as I just said Fuck it & made the decision to just live. I know some people are better off apart, divorce is better than marriage, & that’s ok everyone’s journey is different. For me, I had already been through one divorce so if I was going to have a second one it was not going to be my doing. I guess you could say sheer stubbornness is what got my marriage through lol either way I’m glad. Even in years from now we decide to go our separate ways, I will always appreciate the journey we had together.  Maybe, extended monogamy isn’t for everyone, & that’s cool too. Just live the best life for you, a life that in the end you are proud of no matter what.