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oklcmc · 4 years

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀،̲،̲⠀𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐁𝐀𝐓 ❪chapter uno：heat wave❫ [𝟏𝟖+]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀〝⠀Cross your HEART ⅋ hope to⠀⠀⠀DIE？⠀〞 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀— Kei Valentine，2016

ׂ ̣ ○ . ° ♰ 𓈒 ॱ 𓂂 WORD COUNT：5，853

ׂ ̣ ○ . ° ♰ 𓈒 ॱ 𓂂 PAIRING：street fighter!black!male oc ❪keith powers❫ ✕ black!female oc ❪kelis rogers，circa ‘99❫

ׂ ̣ ○ . ° ♰ 𓈒 ॱ 𓂂 FOREWARNING：This chapter will contain use of strong language，use of drugs or alcohol，violence，gore，character death，abduction and angst. Read at your own discretion.

Flatbush，Brooklyn · Sunday，August 21 11:00 AM

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝐊𝐄𝐈 𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐄

ㅤㅤㅤ𝕾INGING BIRDS，MOVING CARS，CHILDREN laughing, and Shyheim playing from a boombox was all that could be heard as I made my way down the street my boyfriend lives on, sporting out my white Polo Ralph Lauren baseball cap, Columbia University T-shirt, solid black leggings, white slouch socks, “Georgetown Hoyas” colorway Reebok Question Mid sneakers and Louis Vuitton Alma BB handbag.

The humidity was high in New York City about this time around which would explain pimps and hustlers occupying every block, parents shouting at their children from open windows, and kids freestyling on stoops or playing around open fire hydrants.

I could see Antonio's grandmother, Mrs. Lewis, in her kitchen apron, emptying trash into the galvanized trash can sitting beside her brownstone from a distance.

"How are you today, Mrs. Lewis?" I asked once I was near her.

She stopped what she was doing just to take a glance at me.

"Blessed and highly favored, Kei. I didn't see you in service today. I wonder why?" She smiled.

Antonio's grandmother is a pastor and his grandfather is a retired war vet. They're genuinely kind hearted folk. Who do you know welcoming their home to any and everybody, including the homeless?

"Yeah, about that; Jasper had to fill in for someone at the deli, so he left me to look after our grandfather, but since he's playing checkers in the park with Mr. Lewis and Joie's with his babysitter, I decided to past time by coming to visit."

"Mhm," She hummed with her hand on her hip. "Well, come on in, child. I don't want you having a heatstroke."

"Y-Yes, ma'am." I stammered, following her inside where it was cool— most likely from the air condition running in the living room window— with lodgers roaming from one room to another.

"Are you hungry? I have curry chicken and dirty rice sitting on the stove." She said, gesturing towards the kitchen.

"That sounds delicious, Mrs. Lewis, but I can't even look at food right about now. I think I ate too much of Jasper's waffles this morning." I confessed, rubbing my stomach.

"Alright, well, Antonio is sitting in the living room with Dimitri and Erick 'cause I know that's who you came to see."

"No, I—"

She shot me a glare that caused me to laugh.

"Alright, thank you."

"You're most certainly welcome."

I entered the living room area where Antonio, Dimitri and Erick were sitting around the analog television screening Rosemary's Baby. I would never understand how these guys could sit and watch horror flicks midday like it's nothing.

"Hey big head!" I greeted Dimitri with a forceful mush in the back of his head, almost causing the eyeglasses he was prescribed to wear to fly off his face.

He kissed his teeth, looking back at me.

"You play too much." He seethed, adjusting his eyeglasses and violet purple Billionaire Boys Club snapback.

"You play too much." I mimicked. "What's up, architect?" I gave Erick a gentle nuggie.

He chuckled softly in response, removing my arm from around his neck.

"Happy birthday, Kei." Surprisingly, he was the first in this household to acknowledge that it was my nineteenth birthday which caused Dimitri and especially Antonio to glare at him in envy because they weren't the first to say.

"What I do?" Erick asked innocently, looking to and fro between Antonio and Dimitri whilst shrugging his shoulders.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Erick. They're just hating 'cause you were the first to say. Thank you, Erick." I hugged his neck from behind.

"Don't sweat it, Kei."

I slid down to Antonio who wasted no time pulling me down on his lap and securing his arms around me.

"Careful." I warned causing us both to gaze at each other in concern.

"Get a room!" Dimitri commented.

"Shut up, Meechy!" Antonio and I said in unison.

I pitched the closest thing I could find at Dimitri's head which so happened to be the pack of Trolli Sour Bite Crawlers Antonio was eating.

"Happy birthday, beautiful." Antonio directed his attention back towards me.

"Aw! Thanks, mi amor." I rested my forehead against his.

"C'mon, I got something for you." He helped me stand up before helping himself up, our fingers still entwined.

He led me upstairs to the third level of the apartment where his bedroom was located. Our faces fell at the sight of a bum snooping through the drawers of his 5-drawer dresser.

"Yo, what the fuck?! Get the fuck out my room!" Antonio bellowed.

I pushed back the urge to giggle as I hid behind Antonio's back like an anxious one-year-old clinging to her mother. My immense dark brown irises watching the bum's every step out the door.

"You seriously need a lock on your door." I stated, releasing his hand and making my way towards his neatly made twin size bed.

He kissed his teeth.

"Tell me something I don't know."

My eyes wandered his small, yet overfamiliar bedroom that was far from extravagant.There was the twin bed I was currently sitting on, a Playstation 3 console and small television sitting on top of the dresser for when him, Dimitri and Erick wanted to play WWE, an iMac and condenser microphone crammed in the corner, and we can't forget the self-made paintings, psychedelic art, and family portraits he had hanging on the gray walls by push pins.

"Here we are!" Antonio exclaimed, pulling a black security box from under his bed.

I watched as he blew dust off the lid before getting off his knees and taking a seat beside me on the bed. He slipped a single key from his back pocket, preparing to unlock the box until I stopped him.

"Before you open and show me whatever is in the box... I-I need to share something with you." I breathed.

His arms fell loosely by his sides.

"Good or bad?"

"I-I'm not sure," I answered honestly, placing my Louis Vuitton pom-pom keychain aside before unzipping my handbag. "I know it's my birthday, but surprise!" I exclaimed, flashing him the positive First Response early result pregnancy test.

With his mouth ajar and his eyes widened, he reached for the test.

"You're... Pregnant? I mean, we're pregnant. H-How? I-Is it even accurate?"

"Well, remember when I told you I accidentally forgot to take the pill a couple months back and a little while after that we insisted on having sex without a condom? This is the result and I'm pretty sure it's accurate after pissing on three different tests." I entwined our fingers again and propped my chin up on his shoulder as we both gazed at the test.

"Why do you sound so offended? I was only asking. You know I got you, Kei. I won't let you down." He placed a soft kiss upon my forehead causing my cheeks to warm up. "That brings me to my next point," He finally managed to get his security box open, revealing his gold Desert Eagle and quite a few stacks of $100 bills being held together by rubber bands.

Antonio is evidently a street pharmacist, but it was only to sustain this career in music he had going on with Dimitri and Erick. It might've not been the safest job in the world, but it was efficient and efficient is what they needed in order to make it up out of here. Who am I to judge? Besides, who wouldn't want a hood gentlemen?

"You remember that house in Staten Island we were looking at after visiting my mom's burial last year?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"I'ma buy it for you... For us," He stated, glancing down at my present flat stomach. "I want what's best for our child and I know you do too. This is $450,000. All I gotta do is make 19,000 more and it's ours, baby. I just need you to do me a favor."

"Anything."

"I need for you to hold on to this for me."

"Antonio, I can't. I-It's your mo—"

"It's our money, Kei," We both looked into each other's eyes intently. "You know I wouldn't be asking you if I didn't trust you. I trust you, Kei. I know you'll keep it safe." He gently unclenched my fist and placed the money in the palm of my hand. "I'm sorry that I couldn't get you anything better, but I know how bad you wanted that hou—"

I pressed my lips against his, cutting him off mid-sentence. I could feel tears of joy beginning to well up in the brim of my eyes.

"It's perfect." I whispered against his lips, a smile playing on my own.

He lowered himself on to the bed, pulling me along with him. His hands caressed what little curves I did have as my hands caressed his face. Our lips touched yet again.Before the kiss grew anymore intense, my rose gold iPhone 6s Plus began vibrating inside my handbag causing us both to pull away.

I sat up and reached for my bag, pulling my iPhone out. Unlocking it, I tapped the unread message badge and pulled XiXi's text up.

XiXi 👯💛： I'm outside

"That's XiXi. She's outside waiting on me." I informed, locking and slipping my phone back inside my handbag.

I stuffed the money Antonio gave me and the positive pregnancy test I showed him earlier inside my purse before zipping it closed, grabbing my pom-pom keychain, and standing up.

Antonio stood up and pulled me into a tight hug.

"I love you. Stay safe, okay?" I said, kissing his cheek.

"Yeah, okay."

I wished Dimitri, Erick, and Mrs. Lewis farewell before walking outside to XiXi's chrome pink Jeep. Once I was seated in the passenger's seat with my seat belt strapped across me, we both reached across the armrest to embrace each other in a hug.

"Hey, best!" XiXi squealed as if she hadn't seen me just yesterday.

"Hey!" I giggled.

"Yo, we gotta go swoop mi abuelo up at the park."

"No problem." She pushed her mirror sunglasses over her eyes and switched the gear stick to drive.

Manhattan，New York City 4:30 PM

ㅤㅤㅤ“𝕱IRST OF ALL，YOU USE a griddle while cooking quesadillas, not a skillet.”

"Why does it even matter? They're both frying pans."

" 'Cause it just does, okay? Leave it to the professionals."

"You call yourself a professional?!"

Jasper and XiXi's voices trailed from the kitchen to my bedroom. The aroma of my favorite Mexican dish traveling throughout the apartment caused my stomach to growl.

I was finally back at the two-bedroom apartment in Harlem that I shared with my older brother, Jasper; my nephew, Joie; and my grandfather.

Everyone told me to lock myself in my bedroom and find something constructive to do until dinner was finished. I wasn't exactly sure what they were doing, but it wouldn't exactly be a surprise if I could hear their conversations all the way from the kitchen either.

To keep occupied like everyone had suggested, I sat on my full size bed with my navy blue Chinese Shar Pei puppy, Toto and decided to create my own photo album that I could share with everyone at the dinner table.

After slipping the photo of Jasper holding me at three years old behind a photo sleeve, I reached for the photo of our mother holding me as an infant.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐒⠀⦂⠀kei ⅋ jasper，circa ‘00.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐒⠀⦂⠀kei ⅋ mommy，circa ‘97.

It wasn't too long after this her and my father left Jasper and I to travel the world. The responsibility of raising Jasper and I fell on my grandparents.

It's funny how they're travelers, but we haven't received not one postcard nor letter informing us that they're still breathing and coming to take us home. That's just wishful thinking, I guess and I'm just lying in wait.

My grandmother passed away peacefully in her sleep on a Tuesday. She was the heart of the family. These past three years without her has taken a hard toll on all of us, especially my grandfather. He once worked as a boilermaker at a steel mill, but injured his hand on the job. He was forced to quit his job and face disability. The incoming money helped us rent this apartment, but Jasper couldn't bare the thought that we were only depending on our grandfather's money to get by, so he insisted on getting a job at a local deli where he met the love of his life, Jennie.

Jennie died from amniotic fluid embolism while giving birth to Joie. Of course, it took a toll on Jasper worse than it did mi abuelo and I because we were growing to like her. Jasper figured she gave him a beautiful blessing, so he quit displaying his feelings, but I know there's not a day that passes him by where he doesn't mourn the loss of Jennie and our grandmother.

I guess we've grown immune to people walking out of lives without a simple farewell.

I felt something wet trailing down my cheek. It wasn't until I reached up to wipe it away that I had noticed I was crying. For what reason was perplex to me. I was never the one to get emotional over my current situation.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

There were a few knocks at my bedroom door causing me to flinch.

"Kei? You in there, girl? Dinner's ready." I could hear XiXi's angelic voice coming from the other side of the door.

I cleared my throat before speaking up.

"Y-Yeah, I'm here. I'll be out in a second." I sniffed.

After placing the last photo behind a photo sleeve, I closed the photo album and slid off my bed. I approached my bedroom door with Toto following behind me. Unlocking and pulling the door open, revealed XiXi with her head turned in the opposite direction. Her gaze hadn't fell upon me until I cleared my throat.

"Oh, Kei, you scared me!" She gasped.

"Sorry?" I said softly.

"It's okay, c'mon." She gently grabbed my wrist and began leading me inside the kitchen area.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀〝⠀For she's a jolly good fellow， ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀for she's a jolly good fellow ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀For she's a jolly good fellooow， ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀which nobody can deny!⠀〞

I couldn't help dying of laughter at the sight of Jasper, Joie, mi abuelo, Antonio, Dimitri, Erick, and Mr. & Mrs. Lewis dressed in sombreros, faux mustaches, and maracas. Not to mention their God awful singing, but it was their way of showing affection, so it was only considerate of me to enjoy every minute of it 'cause I could've received nothing.

Jasper approached me with a triple layer marble cake made from scratch that instantly caused my mouth to water.

"Make a wish, little sis."

The dancing flames on the number candles reflected against my face. I closed my eyes and thought long and hard about something reasonable to wish for this year.

I wish to have an healthy and happy full-term pregnancy.

With my photo album clenched tightly in my hands, I leaned forward and blew out my candles. A round of applause followed after causing me to smile.

10:00 PM

ㅤㅤㅤ𝕬FTER A FUN-FILLED EVENING OF feasting, storytelling, and opening gifts, my birthday celebration had finally came to an end, sending everyone their own separate ways. Dimitri, Erick, Antonio, and his grandparents headed home, Jasper went to put Joie down for bed, and mi abuelo eventually KO'd in his recliner while watching those Western movies on the DVR, leaving XiXi and I on kitchen duty.

Out of the few gifts I received today, I really took a liking to that sewing machine and kit Jasper bought me. It'd come in handy when I start my new semester on Wednesday.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀〝⠀Ladies leave yo man at home ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀The club is full of ballers and ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀They pockets full grown，⠀〞

I was aimlessly sweeping confetti and cake crumbs from the tile floors of the kitchen while XiXi loaded the dishwasher when Destiny's Child's single "Jumpin', Jumpin' " began playing from the Amazon Echo speaker sitting over on the counter. I fixated my eyes on XiXi as I aligned the broom at my side, already knowing what to expect of her.

"Don't do it..." I warned through a giggle while pointing my index finger in her direction.

XiXi, of course, accepted my warning as some sort of challenge; inching towards the speaker and boldly wrapping her hand around the volume ring.

"Everyone is asleep, XiXi! You better not! I swear to—" I was abruptly silenced by the increase of volume on the speaker. My head almost immediately fell forward into the palm of my hand at the thought of Jasper storming inside the kitchen and making a fuss about how we woke up Joie and possibly mi abuelo as well.

XiXi was so hardheaded. Speaking of whom, she sashayed her way towards me; taking the broom from my hands and sitting it up against the wall.

"C'mon, dance with me, Kei." She insisted, grabbing ahold of both my hands and dragging me to the middle of the floor though I showed no signs of amusement throughout this whole nuisance. "Will you stop being so stubborn and just dance with me, Kei?" She urged me even more than before.

Her hip coming in contact with mine and me almost flying into the dining room table is what caused me to break character and breakout into a fit of giggles.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀〝⠀Though he say he got a girl ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Yeah it's true you got a man ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀But the party ain't gon' stop ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀So let's make it hot，hot，⠀〞

Watching XiXi prance around the kitchen and sing off-key to the throwback tune eventually intrigued me enough to join in. What I thought was outrageous, especially at this time of night, turned out to be quite fun and not a single soul bothered interfering, surprisingly.

Eventually the up-tempo record was replaced by something more quieter, allowing us to unwind in the chairs at the dining room table.

"Ugh, that was so much fun!" XiXi exclaimed, tilting her head back only to have it fall forward again; strands of her ginger-dyed coils covering her eyes. "Let's go clubbin'."

"Clubbin' on a Sunday, XiXi? What are we paying tithes at the door in order to get in?" I shook my head in disbelief at what she was suggesting as I dragged the Tupperware bowl full of Smartfood's white cheddar cheese flavored popcorn towards me.

She laughed at this.

"Of course not. Look, I got the perfect spot. You remember when I told you I met someone a few weeks back?"

"Yeah, what about 'em?" I asked, grabbing a handful of popcorn and stuffing it inside my mouth.

"His name's RetcH. He's the boss at this nightclub and casino called the Red Room right here in Manhattan. I'm telling you he could get us in for free."

"Uh-uh. Nope. Negatory." I immediately declined her offer by shaking my head. "Ain't no way I'm 'bout to get caught third wheeling with you and your "supposed" fling. You know the minute this bonnet goes on my head, I'm in for the night."

"Oh c'mon, Kei! It's not like he doesn't have homies and you know I'll willingly style your hair for you."

"No." I stood up from the dining room table with the Tupperware bowl and approached the trash bin which I proceeded to empty the popcorn into.

XiXi was very skilled in the field of cosmetology though she had yet to earn a diploma to show for it while I was more devoted to fashion which is probably why we clicked so much. We made the perfect team. I'd piece together our outfits for certain occasions while she went crazy with the hair dye and nail art. In fact, XiXi was the only person I trusted styling my hair and doing my mani-pedis other than myself, that is, but even that wasn't enough to make me take one for the team.

"Please?" She pleaded, following me towards the kitchen sink.

"Didn't you just hear me say 'no' or do you not comprehend? What would I get in return if I decided to go anyways? Another faded memory?"

"Or a box of strawberry Eclair's and I'll even pitch on on helping you find that bismuth crystal that you've been searching for."

I slowly turned to face her, a goofy grin playing on my lips as I batted my mink eyelashes. Her offer sounded fabricated.

"Cross your heart and hope to die?" I asked, holding out my pinky.

"I swear." She promised, but that still wasn't enough to make me accept.

"No," I shook my head. "You have to pinky swear."

"Fine! Cross my heart and hope to die." She smiled, entwining our pinky fingers.

2:00 AM

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝐎𝐌𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓

ㅤㅤㅤ𝕶EI’S INDEX FINGER TRACED THE rim of her Canada Dry ginger ale soda can continuously as she sat by the bar, attentively observing her best friend shooting craps alongside RetcH and a few other betters.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐒⠀⦂⠀*⠀LE SHANGHAI NIGHTCLUB⠀╱⠀red room nightclub.

Five hours.

Five hours is how long she had been seated in that bar stool, only daring to get up when she needed to use the restroom. It could've been the eight ginger ales she had washed down while patiently waiting on XiXi's say-so on when they'd be leaving, but then again frequent urination was a common symptom amongst pregnant woman.

There were offers to dance and drink from several different men, especially those of RetcH's crew, but she politely declined. She wanted to observe.

She noticed an odd group that consisted of five males, standing on the opposite end of the craps table. Three of the five men seemed rugged by their heavy streetwear and more engrossed in the game while the other two seemed to be more engaged in their cell phone or undressing Kei through their vintage Gianni Versace shades for one.

"Vodka straight." The mellowest male voice came from beside Kei, breaking her previous train of thought.

To her left stood her secret admirer whom was currently in the process of pulling $20 from his leather wallet.

Kei's eyes shifted over to the brown skin bartender placing a shot glass on the counter and cracking open one of the most expensive bottles of Roberto Cavalli Vodka then back over to her admirer.

She took this time to really admire his physique. His coiled hair hidden beneath a black snapback, his full pink lips, killer jawline, and the speckles adorning the bridge of his nose and cheekbones. The gold hoop earring dangling from his left ear, the Jesus pieces draping around his neck and the gold Rolex peeping through the sleeve of his white bomber jacket had only enhanced these features.

Little did Kei know, he was admiring her through the red lighting of the nightclub also. Her signature afro full of curls— the roots which were dyed honey blonde and exceeded out, blending in with the pink ends— were now twisted back into double buns using hair sticks. Her eyebrows were dyed the same shade of pink as the ends of her hair. Only she could pull that off with the beautiful mocha complexion she had. Her eyes were wide, but slightly slanted, giving the impression that she identified to more ethnicities than one. They were the perfect shade of dark brown. Her nose was small, but pointed outward. She had a round face, chubby cheeks, and full pink lips. She was sporting a red Cheongsam style blouse, a Louis Vuitton Alma BB handbag, black dress pants, and glossy red Giuseppe Zanotti wing sandals. A gorgeous woman with expensive taste was definitely his weakness.

He thought now would be the perfect time to introduce himself.

"I'm Tyree, Tyree Devlin. And you are?" He extended his hand out for Kei to shake.

Normally, Tyree wouldn't find himself being this polite to any ordinary female sitting by the bar past midnight. He'd just denigrate them until they found it appealing, take them to his pad in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn for him and his crew mates to share, then he'd be kicking them all out like Martin Lawrence come morning, but Kei gave off a different aura. The same aura that got him caught up with his wife, Alina and his girlfriend, Brooklyn, but that's another topic for a different discussion.

"Uninterested." Kei responded dryly, passing on his handshake.

"Ouch." Tyree smirked, playing it off by stashing his wallet away in the pocket of his bomber jacket.

He was truly affected by Kei's response. She was definitely taking the hard to get route.

He removed his shades from his face and placed them on the counter beside his shot glass before taking a seat in the bar stool beside Kei.

She couldn't help but bite the corner of her lips at the sight of his dark brown irises.

He chucked in reaction at her, ending it by tracing his tongue along his bottom lip. It wasn't until then that Kei had noticed his gold-plated bottoms glinting in the dim lighting of the nightclub.

"Can I offer to buy you something to drink, uninterested?" He asked, finally throwing his money's worth shot of Roberto Cavalli Vodka back with ease.

Kei forced a phony cackle to leave her lips.

"No, thank you. I'm not much of a drinker." She confessed.

"Well, then can I purchase you another ginger ale? I'm almost sure that one's gone flat."

"Me and my ginger ale are just fine, thank you."

Truth be told, Kei's bladder was full and she knew she'd be excusing herself any second for a restroom break which is why she had passed on Tyree's offer.

"Suit yourself," He followed her gaze which wasn't fixated on him, but on the craps table. "Is someone catching your attention over there?" He nudged his head in the direction overcrowded table.

"My best friend, XiXi. She's standing next to the guy in the Polo bucket hat."

"Ah, I see. If you were standing next to me when I was shooting, you would've made one helluva good luck charm. I would've made a fortune off of you." Tyree slipped his fingers beneath Kei's chin only to have them slapped away.

"Don't," Kei warned. "Now, if you'd excuse me, I have to make a restroom run." She hopped off the bar stool and rushed off into the women's restroom before he even got the opportunity to see her blushing over his cheesy pick up lines.

Once she handled her business inside the stall, sanitized, and refreshed her appearance, her Giuseppe's were echoing towards the exit of the bathroom yet again.

As she extended her hand out for the handle of the door, it swung open, colliding with her nose. Her head flew back in the process. The impact was enough to send her fragile body flying across the marble floors.

She groaned in pure agony, feeling something warm gushing from both her nostrils. When she reached up to touch the substance, she noticed blood covering her fingertips in her near focal point and a 9mm MAC-11 in her far.

"Move another inch and I'll blow your fucking brains out."

Kei froze from where she was lying on the marble floors, but couldn't contain her heavy breathing nor trembles. She had been lucky enough to empty her bladder before she had faced her taker who so happened to be one of Tyree's rugged crew mates.

"Get up." He demanded, waving his MAC-11 in her direction causing her breath to hitch.

She started to pick herself up, but it seemed too slow for his patience; therefore, he didn't mind gripping the back of her neck in order to speed up the process.

"Faster, bitch! You think this shit a game, huh?" His nails were now sinking into her flesh.

She had finally released an ear piercing scream for his enjoyment.

"Shut up!" He bellowed, pushing the steel barrel to her temple as a warning.

"Okay, okay." She pleaded barely above a whisper. Tears were now escaping freely from the brim of her eyes.

"Open the door." He demanded.

She did as she was told, pulling the door open. The club was mostly clear aside from RetcH and Tyree's crew mates. Only difference was that Tyree's crew mates had all of RetcH's crew mates held hostage, that included XiXi.

"KEI!" XiXi screamed for her best friend from across the room, tears staining her face.

"You tryna die tonight?" Tyree whispered to XiXi since he was the one holding semi-automatic pistols to her and her boyfriend's dome.

Not even twenty minutes ago, Kei viewed Tyree as harmless, but now she looked at him in pure rage and it was only feeding that rebellious ego of his.

"Since y'all don't wanna play fair and swindle me out my money, we taking everything valuable around this motherfucker!" Another one of Tyree's rugged crew mates spoke through a sinister smirk while aiming AK-47's at Pockets and the bartender's head. "Slim, how's it coming along back there?"

"It's coming." Slim answered breathlessly from behind the bar.

"Aight, well, hurry up. I need for you to pull the Escalade out front."

"Bet."

"Richie, you holding up?"

"With these two lanky motherfuckers? Yeah, Raphael, I'm straight." Richie said sarcastically, holding Raptor rifles at the back of Percy and Teddy's head.

Slim managed to slide across the bar with an Adidas duffle bag full of cash, liquor, and handguns The Stallions had hidden around the Red Room. He approached Raphael, yanking the keys to the Escalade from the belt loop of his jeans.

"Be out in two minutes." He informed.

"Two minutes, no less." Raphael muttered.

That gave Slim the OK to evacuate the building.

"Fuck y'all, niggas! Y'all won't suppose to step foot on our territory anyways! Just wait 'til this gets around to Bones! Y'all dead men walking!" Torque spat.

"Bones ain't gonna do a God damn thing! You best shut the fuck up before I end your life right here, nigga!" Raphael removed his AK-47 from the bartender's head and pushed it beneath Torque's chin instead causing him to swallow spit.

Everyone but Kei seemed so distracted by Torque and Raphael's antics that they hadn't even noticed XiXi's hand inching behind RetcH's back. What would her weapon do against seven handguns?

It wasn't until the distinct sound of a car horn blowing from outside that everyone's head snapped in XiXi's direction. RetcH's 9mm Smith & Wesson clenched in her trembling hand.

"NO!" Kei screamed.

It was as if everything was in slow motion as Kei witnessed multiple bullets being lodged into her best friend's chest. Her blood splattered from Tyree's pale face to RetcH's solid white T-shirt.

XiXi fell to her knees then face first into the marble floors where she took her last few breaths until she was eventually lying in a pool of her own blood.

"YOU KILLED HER!" Sobbed Kei, dramatically collapsing in her taker's arms.

No one could actually make out what she was screaming through her uncontrollable sobbing and sniffling. She wished that this was all a bad dream and that at the click of her heels, she'd be back home with Jasper, Joie, abuelo, Toto and a breathing XiXi overshadowing her.

"Let's bounce! Matta fact, Tec, bring that bitch along too since she wanna scream. We gon' give her something to scream about." Raphael traced his tongue along his ceramic braces as he inched towards the exit, his crew mates following his every step.

You had to be a fool to think Kei was going out without putting up a fight with Tec. Of course, he wind up winning in the end, dragging her out into the pouring rain by the collar of her blouse. The buttons began popping off one by one, revealing her solid red Victoria's Secret bra.

"HELP ME!" Kei screamed in the midst of the boys stashing their gats away in the trunk of the car; her soon-to-be one way ticket to hell.

"Shut that bitch up!" Raphael demanded.

"You're the damn enforcer of this crew, I don't see why— AH!" Tec yelped at the sharp feeling of one of Kei's hair sticks being lodged into his thigh.

She attempted to crawl away, only to have Tec compress his teal high top Air Force 1's into her back before she could get any further.

"Stupid bitch." He gritted, restraining her arms behind her back and using a plastic security loop to bind her wrists together. Next would be her ankles.

Kei helplessly laid there whimpering from the throbbing discomfort of her restraints and the constant replay of witnessing her best friend get murdered. She feared for her and her unborn child too.

"Let me take you out your misery, baby girl." Tyree cooed, a smirk playing on his lips.

He stifled her screams and cries with a rag drenched in chloroform until she gradually became unconscious in tranquility.

The last thing she had seen was his alluring eyes in the rain fall.

Any dream would be better than this one.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀dimitri ﹅ meechy darko ﹅ simms as 𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅

⤷ occupation：antonio’s homie╱brother ⅋ upcoming artist

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀erick ﹅ erick the architect ﹅ elliott as 𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅

⤷ occupation：antonio’s homie╱brother ⅋ upcoming artist╱producer

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀YOU’LL DISCOVER...

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 DOS，PRT 𝟏╱𝟐⠀⦂⠀﹅ SING ABOUT 𝐌𝐄. ﹅

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀HERE!

#keith powers #kelis #urban fanfic #urban ff #urban fanfiction #streetlit #black authors #poc writers #djffny #def jam: fight for ny #def jam fight for ny #flatbush zombies

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ganymedesclock · 5 years

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So it’s been a while since I’ve really posted about some goshdang rocks on this blog but I have been staying posted with Steven Universe and it’s really starting to bother me how often I’ve seen people in the fandom insinuating Change Your Mind, or the show at large, is naively idealistic in the way that it handles talking to dangerous people.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think there’s anything naive or idealistic about SU as a show and how it depicts talking to people.

First and foremost, Steven does not ever successfully talk to people in a situation where he hasn’t protected himself. When he does, it’s a bad thing. Steven doesn’t get the upper hand on White because he makes bambi eyes at her and sniffles a little and goes “oh granny won’t you be nice to me” and she immediately falls over herself to go “oh my goodness you beautiful baby child how could I ever have thought to wrong you.”

White endangers Steven. And at that point, Steven makes considerable emphasis to protect himself and his friends. Neither half of split Steven waste much time looking at White or acknowledging her. Their focus is on each other. Steven takes care of himself first. He makes sure he’s safe and healthy.

Thing is? Pink split Steven makes it clear that White can’t hurt him. She literally tries. She gets steamrolled. She’s lying unconscious on the floor at the point that Steven’s halves reconcile.

Steven at no point neglects protecting himself to negotiate with people. Even as early as Monster Buddy half of his argument at protecting Nephrite is the awareness that she’s obviously not trying to hurt him and becomes dangerous when she’s triggered by the senior CGs’ overbearing interventions. Steven not attacking Nephrite is literally the sensible thing here and the Crystal Gems are wrong because they assume that being violent will fix everything in absence of factual evidence. Steven is in no danger. The reason things go to hell at the climax of Monster Buddy is because Garnet’s earlier violent behavior meant that the sight of her summoning her weapons was a trigger for Nephrite- and, even then, she still protects Steven, the person who was consistently nice to her.

This is not a whimsical fantasy scenario. If you use brute force to push people around, they will remember, and will either resent you or panic when it seems like you’re about to hurt them again. If you’re up against someone who is motivated primarily by fear, don’t scare them.

“Violence isn’t the solution here” in this case is not an arbitrary nicey-pants talking point where “oh but see if you just sing songs and hold people’s hands they will all universally like you!” it’s talking about the fact that you need to actually meaningfully develop your response to situations based on information. Nephrite is a traumatized soldier suffering from an affliction that makes her easily startled. When she’s able to maintain a clear head, Steven is readily able to observe that she is friendly and willing to work with him. Steven not being violent to Nephrite is based in the fact that she is not a threat, and the Gems are failing to reevaluate because they’re just assuming she’s a threat based on prior behavior (and likely some bias- both out of the assumption that corruption can’t be cured and out of knowing Nephrite is a Homeworld soldier) and they’ve stopped observing what she’s actually doing.

The show doesn’t even exaggerate how much or how well talking to people works. We see people rebuff Steven (e.g. Jasper in Earthlings). We see people indifferently stonewall his overtures of friendship (Peridot in Marble Madness). We see people who take fondly to him because he’s nice to them but frankly trust him as far as they could throw him and don’t feel that bad selling out his friends (Lapis in The Return).

We see people give him a blank look of “are you actually kidding me” when he tries to talk to them (Aquamarine in Stuck Together)

Heck- the entire thesis of Beach City Drift is that Stevonnie needs to reevaluate the way they’re responding to Kevin because he’s engaging with them in bad faith and using it as an opportunity to mess with them.

The idea that this is unrealistic because, we guess Stevonnie doesn’t decide that Kevin messing with them means they need to take him out back and extrajudicially execute him on the spot just tells us something: Our culture has been spoonfed the idea, over and over and over again and mostly through popular cartoons, that violence is the default solution for problems.

This is an idea that SU is deliberately deconstructing like in Monster Buddy. Because- why are Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl just assuming Nephrite can’t be trusted? In-universe, they have their reasons, but those reasons are also wrong.

However, we have to consider that Steven was clearly operating on the assumption all the monsters are bad even though he was able to observe that some of the monsters were only dangerous by accident (the worm from Bubble Buddies).

He assumed the monsters were dangerous even though time and time again, they largely only targeted the Crystal Gems, and most of them were in remote environments hiding, and only are drawn out of hiding because the Crystal Gems deliberately hunt them down.

And this is an assumption so pervasive that when given starkly contradictory evidence in Monster Buddies, his initial reflex is to defend this viewpoint- saying Nephrite “isn’t like the other monsters” and then trying to tell her “you’re not a monster any more!” when she never was in the first place. She only seemed “like a monster” because Steven was fed a specific narrative from people who were in some ways ignorant to the reality of Nephrite’s situation, and in others withholding information. And Steven is not a gullible, unobservant, or callous person.

Here’s the thing: before we as an audience are told anything about the Gem monsters, we accept that. We take it as a given the Red Eye is going to crash into Beach City just because it’s bad. We assume the “Centipeetles” are hostile even though Nephrite’s drones are frankly no more aggressive than you’d expect a stray cat loose in your house to be, and Pearl is the one calmly standing there snapping one’s neck.

Personally, I grew up with the high fantasy genre. Heavy door-stopper books with dragons on the cover, and games like Final Fantasy. This is a genre that most popular codifying installments of give you broad, sweeping pastoral environments chock full of monsters that live exclusively to fight and kill you, and you need to kill them first. Anything that you shouldn’t kill on sight is going to immediately broadly flag you down so that you know not to murder this one. And killing monsters is never wrong. The ones that you aren’t supposed to kill, the narrative will coddle you so that you could never even think they might be just like the intrusive offal.

Sometimes you’re explained these monsters, they’re especially bad, because they did this bad thing or caused that bad thing to happen. Often you don’t actually witness it. Sometimes there’s simply no explanation given at all, but they are called “goblins” and they look strange and pointy and dangerous compared to the pretty likable-looking Heroes, and that’s supposed to be all the evidence you need to never worry if your heroes run them through.

We don’t worry, even if these monsters are actually people. We don’t worry even if they will directly talk to you and make it clear they believe they’re doing the right thing. After all, they have an entry in the in-game bestiary, and if they were really good, the game wouldn’t have given us the option to kill them, right?

When I hear people talk about “villains” and which villains are entitled to “redemption arcs”, what I hear overwhelmingly is thinking that sprouted from that genre, those games and those books. I hear, basically, the indoctrination that we just accept that worlds just have a bunch of Evil Things and the way to solve Evil is to kill it, and that the world will gently guide our hand so if it’s not actually Evil, then it will throw up its hands and drop to the floor and the battle music will stop and all of our combat commands will lock up.

We accept that Nephrite is evil, going in. Even though, actually watching that first episode, she’s standing on the outside of the Gem Temple, and doesn’t attack until the Crystal Gems barge out to threaten her. Nephrite is written from the very beginning of the show as an expression of its thesis statement.

Nephrite does not fling herself to the ground and whimper for mercy and try to stagger back to her proper Gem form as soon as she’s encountered. Nephrite is written, deliberately, as a monster. We accept that she’s here to be a threat for Steven to beat to prove himself. We accept that her pain doesn’t matter because she’s a monster.

We accept, in effect, that she is not a character with a life or a story. We accept that she is merely an empty receptacle for Steven’s fighting capabilities and inventiveness.

That’s preposterous. That’s ridiculous. If you suggest someone disagreeing with you is actually just an empty caricature of a person here to galvanize your growth as a person, or just show off what you’ve learned or accomplished since your past, people would look at you like you’d grown another head and rightfully so. There’s nothing “realistic” about that.

But it’s pervasive. It’s everywhere. And when patterns are repeated endlessly and repeatedly and constantly we get used to them.

It’s why Steven Universe, why Undertale, why even Off are treated as subversive narratives, even though they’re actually more realistic.

“But Clockie,” you say, “the Diamonds were so willing to talk and listen to Steven! That’s preposterous!”

“They sure weren’t in The Trial, or most of Reunited,” I say. “In fact the only reason they’re shown to have changed their mind so quickly is because Steven had a direct personal connection to them, and is that really so unlikely- that these people who have been alive for thousands of years and live at the heart of a densely populated empire would actually have connections with other people, who would not all homogeneously believe the same thing? That they could meet and interact with others who might change their opinions even slightly?”

And even then both Blue and Yellow try to talk Steven out of actually trying to say anything to White. And Steven literally points out why he’s doing this: because they tried fighting White, they tried fleeing White, and none of that worked. It failed to meaningfully change anything. And forcing change through by murdering White and standing on her corpse would just repeat the doomed rebellion because the staged murder of Pink Diamond just entrenched more people against the Crystal Gems.

Steven literally criticizes the refusal to attempt any form of negotiation as impractical. Because it is. The only reason people genuinely think violence as a narrative cure-all works is because we are basically raised in narratives- even narratives that are otherwise optimistic, friendly, and colorful- where the only solution is murder.

#Steven Universe #writing ruminations #readmore

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yegarts · 4 years

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Waving Goodbye to the Big Red Hand

Ripp’d Off & Red, by Nickelas Johnson, 2012

In the summer of 2012, the Edmonton Arts Council engaged Kendal Henry (now the Director of the Percent for Art Program in New York City) to curate a transitory (short-term) public art installation to reflect and explore the revitalization underway in the Quarters/Boyle Street areas. Known as Dirt City :: Dream City, the project featured 14 works by local artists that ranged from a community garden to live performance to large-scale installations.

One of the most impactful of these works was Ripp’d Off & Red by Nickelas Johnson. Also known as “the big red hand”, the artwork has been a fixture in the community since its installation as part of Dirt City :: Dream City. Originally located at Jasper Avenue and 95th Street, the artwork has been sited at 96th Street and 104th Avenue for some time.

While public support for Dirt City :: Dream City as a whole was strong, Ripp’d Off & Red was a particularly resonant piece for the community. In recognition of its impact, the City of Edmonton purchased the artwork in order to keep it installed in the area after the temporary Dirt City :: Dream City project concluded.

Over the past eight years, the Edmonton Arts Council’s Public Art Conservation team has done maintenance to increase the lifespan of the artwork. Though originally created as a transitory piece, EAC has addressed coatings, drainage, sealants, and structural reinforcements as part of the regular maintenance of the City’s collection. However, the staff has now determined that repair and reconstruction are no longer feasible, both from an aesthetic and structural perspective. For public safety, a fence has been constructed around the artwork, and it is scheduled to be removed from the site later this month.

Images taken by EAC Conservation staff in 2020.

Artist Nickelas Johnson kindly provided YEGarts the following reflection about the project:

“After spending an immersive week learning about the history of the Quarters from community leaders and Elders, I elected to build a massive red hand, severed at the wrist. The hand was intended to symbolize a community cut-off, ignored yet vibrantly visible on the side of the road. The gesture, an open palm, communicated both an offer to help and a desire for the same.

Artist Nickelas Johnson atop the sculpture during its 2012 installation.

The on-site installation proved to be a moving and inspiring experience. There was a constant flow of welcome interruptions from folks on the street inquiring about the sculpture and telling me what it meant to them. One houseless fellow named Crusty spent the day silently observing the installation, then approached and volunteered to protect the tarped-in sculpture overnight until it received its protective coating of paint. We arrived the next morning to find Crusty smiling triumphantly beside the sculpture, proud to have protected it from the elements or interference. We shared a breakfast cradled in the palm of the hand.

Many residents of the Quarters community expressed gratitude and appreciation for a sculpture that spoke to them. Ultimately, the City of Edmonton offered to purchase Ripp'd Off & Red, to remain installed in the Quarters.

Since that time, there has been some online controversy about the intent of the piece, some of which I initially addressed but ultimately chose to let the art continue to speak for itself. The overwhelming feedback from community members has been humbling and galvanizing to me as an artist. It has helped me understand that art is as much an ear as an object.

I'm grateful to the Edmonton Arts Council and the City of Edmonton for facilitating this experiment and allowing it to age, as was the artful intent, for as long as was safe for the public.”

When asked about the deaccessioning – the process by which a work of art is permanently removed from a collection – EAC Director of Public Art & Conservation David Turnbull explains, “The process is one that can be initiated for several reasons. In this case it was necessitated by the condition of the artwork, but deaccessioning can also be recommended in cases where the site of the artwork has changed.”

As part of this process, the artist is contacted, and once the work is deaccessioned, the rights and artwork revert to the artist. "This artwork held an important place in the community, and we want to honour that by ensuring that the public understands the reason behind this decision,” says Turnbull. “Deaccessioning is actually indicative of a healthy, living collection.”

#yeg #yegarts #edmonton #edmontonart #publicart #yegpublicart #yegdt

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deadpuppetboi · 1 year

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#happy new years #take this #creepypasta #creepypasta au #creepypasta oc #creepypasta ocs #anthony weaver #theodore weaver #jackal the jester #jasper galvan #spurn #slenderman #slenderverse #my art

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leftpress · 5 years

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Jasper Bernes | July 9th 2019 | Commune

Acid against austerity.

When cultural theorist, author, and blogger Mark Fisher passed away in 2017, he left behind an unfinished book manuscript. Acid Communism: On Post-Capitalist Desire was to continue the project of his 2009 book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? In Capitalist Realism, Fisher wrote that decades of deregulation had all but fully destroyed our ability to imagine viable alternatives to capitalism. If we couldn’t envision a better world, he declared, there could be little hope that such a world would manifest. Capitalist Realism was by no means defeatist, though. The book concludes with a call to action: Fisher draws attention to what he saw as the most urgently needed political resource. If the future we want lies at the limits of our imagination we must begin there — with the creative, unruly parts of our consciousness, that parts that capital wants to claim as its own. The current political nightmare, he suggests, will only be defeated by vibrant dreams.

In this spirit, Acid Communism was meant to strengthen the political imagination. A recently published anthology of Fisher’s writings includes a draft for the introduction, which reads something like a manifesto. Fisher had taken a cue from his friend Jeremy Gilbert, a scholar who had long maintained that the sixties might serve as a blueprint for contemporary leftist revolution. Inspired by Gilbert, Fisher coined the phrase that would become the title for his next book: “acid communism” represents the idea that psychologically profound experiences — including the use of psychedelic drugs — should be used to galvanize anticapitalist movements. In the introduction, he observes that the optimism of the hippie-era left had faded during the heyday of Reagan and Thatcher. Neoliberal economics catalyzed widespread cynicism, Fisher claimed, and in so doing depleted the mental energy required for proactive organizing. We now owed it to ourselves to revive the hopeful politics that flourished in the sixties.

In the wake of Fisher’s suicide, several activist initiatives took up the Acid Communist banner. The 2018 transmediale festival, an annual arts and culture event in Berlin, included a workshop called “Building Acid Communism.” Workshop leaders gave the audience a series of prompts aimed at “unveiling and exploring the precise idea of freedom” that motivated left-wing activists. These questions inquired into how participants experienced boredom, whether fashion and style mattered to their political identity, and the last time they felt truly free from work, among other issues. Meanwhile, a spate of recent articles about Acid Communism reflect the multiple ways it might be interpreted. In one editorial, Jeremy Gilbert points out that the concept has taken on other names, including “freak left,” “psychedelic socialism,” and in the UK, “Acid Corbynism.” Acid Corbynism is referenced in the title for Gilbert’s new podcast, #ACFM (Acid Corbynism FM), which investigates “the links between Left-wing politics and culture, music and experiences of collective joy.” Although they are eclectic, these endeavors agree that the psychedelic sixties might make a reappearance in the political future. The work of Acid Communism, it seems, is just beginning.

The timing is apropos. Currently, we are in the midst of what some have called a “psychedelic renaissance,” referring to the revival of scientific interest in the psychiatric use of these drugs. Psychedelic psychiatry was a burgeoning field in the postwar period, but by the seventies the criminalization of all psychedelic drugs had brought investigations to an effective halt. After years of advocacy by researchers and psychedelic enthusiasts, clinical investigations of LSD, magic mushrooms, and related chemicals resumed in the nineties. 2014 saw the first peer-reviewed study on LSD published in over forty years, and the number of clinical trials is rapidly growing. Until recently, however, the psychedelic renaissance could not be considered mainstream. Its breakthrough moment came with the publication of Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Reaching the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list, How to Change Your Mind was a watershed moment for the reputation of psychedelics. Pollan is a widely-respected journalist, and much of the current research is being conducted at well-known universities; Stanford, Johns Hopkins, and NYU all currently have psychedelic research labs. This is encouraging to those who have long known what researchers are now trying to prove: when used safely, psychedelics can vastly improve one’s quality of life.

Although Acid Communism stands to benefit from the improved public image of psychedelics, these movements have yet to meaningfully overlap. I’ve been keeping close watch on both. My interest in the two subjects began around the same time, during my sophomore year in college. This was the fall of 2008. I was already skeptical of the US economy, but the financial crash confirmed my suspicion that capitalism was dangerous and unethical. That same fall marked my introduction to psychedelic drug experience. My initial encounter with LSD was overwhelmingly positive. It made believe that that the world was joyful, mysterious, and full of promise — an impression which contrasted sharply with the current political mood. In an attempt to reconcile my psychedelic-inspired hopeful outlook with extenuating social circumstances, I started participating in anti-capitalist and pro-peace activism. The fall of 2008 made it impossible for me to separate my political sensibilities from the hopefulness that psychedelia represents for me. But I’ve rarely seen psychedelics politicized this way in contemporary pop culture. I’d just assumed that after the sixties, psychedelic experiences could not be framed as political in mainstream discourse.

For the most part, then, I’ve pursued these subjects as separate intellectual endeavors. Both have continued to be central to my life. In 2013, I moved to New York City to pursue a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management. Although I hardly had time for anything other than school, I volunteered to help out at an after-party for Horizons NYC, which is an international forum on the science and culture of psychedelic drugs. Held every October, Horizons brings together researchers, artists and spiritual leaders to give talks on topics ranging from the globalization of the psychedelic brew ayahuasca to the use of magic mushrooms in treating cocaine addiction. My schedule of classes and work prevented me from attending any lectures. Volunteering offered me partial access to this complicated, interesting world.

“If the future we want lies at the limits of our imagination we must begin there — with the creative, unruly parts of our consciousness, that parts that capital wants to claim as its own.”

The night began with a dinner for benefactors of MAPS — the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies — a non-profit promoting psychedelic research based in Santa Cruz, CA. As we relayed kale salad and vegan cheesecake across the kitchen, my friend Nina pulled me aside. “This is weird,” she whispered, nodding toward the dining room. I knew what she meant. The venue was a lavishly-appointed brownstone belonging to a moneyed Manhattan couple. It bore little resemblance to the psychedelic settings we knew and loved: earthy, DIY spaces which would no more readily welcome conspicuous displays of wealth like the one before us than then they would a visit from law enforcement. The guests didn’t match the hippie image we associated with psychedelics either. Their conversation flowed from remarks about exotic vacation getaways to opinions on Brooklyn’s finest private schools.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was a benefit dinner, after all. But I still found the atmosphere unsettling. At the time, the economic crisis of 2008 was beginning to hit me hard. Not long before the conference, I’d watched a close friend become homeless. The tiny heart attack that happened whenever I used my debit card to buy groceries — the I-hope-there’s-enough-in-my-bank-account panic — had become a normal part of my reality, and I was resigning myself to the possibility that things might never get easier. A large part of me felt psychedelic activism to be extravagant in this climate. But I didn’t want the therapeutic use of psychedelics, a cause I’d believed in for years, to become yet another victim of late capitalism.

I tried to keep that idealistic thought at the front of my mind as the night continued. If anything, I assured myself, I should be glad to meet so many psychedelic enthusiasts who appealed to more conservative perspectives. After all, I reasoned, a controversial movement needs allies in the mainstream. Still, I couldn’t help but resent the guests for their seeming obliviousness to the current state of affairs. I wondered if they’d ever drawn a connection between their immunity to the war on drugs and their economic status, and if so, how much this bothered them. I wondered if they’d achieved some sort of enlightenment — perhaps thanks to psychedelics — that somehow made them both socially conscious and comfortable with their personal wealth. Even if participating in this space represented to me giving up some integrity, I wanted in on this insight. I was tired of feeling hopeless.

Although the luxe setting was unfamiliar, that would not be my last experience with psychedelic activism. My interest in hallucinogens followed me to my PhD in critical theory, where I explore the new psychedelic science in my dissertation. Throughout all these years, my social commitments have felt at odds with the pervasive cliché of hippie escapism. There is some truth to the myth of the disengaged drug-user: a friend of mine in the scene once said that, having attained a non-dualistic state of enlightenment, he “saw through” all political opinions. Other psychedelic explorers I’ve met intentionally ignore current events, claiming politics to be too depressing them. But, like a lot of common depictions of drug use, this is more fiction than fact. The consumption of LSD and magic mushrooms is no more likely to promote apathy than caffeine and alcohol. Moreover, in the age of Donald Trump and the rise of the new far-right, more and more people are realizing that their individual lives are ineluctably political. Political consciousness has extended to modern New Age subcultures, which now appear more thoroughly engaged with issues of justice than they did when I was an undergrad.

The Acid Communist movement has helped me view my politics as part of a historical lineage, not a misappropriation of serious Leftism. It’s helped me embrace the idea that if the experience of tripping had a message for society at large — if it aspired beyond the self-indulgence embodied in Timothy Leary’s “turn on, tune in, drop out” — it would threaten the very basis of capital. While the economic virtue of individualism rules over the modern psyche, any dedicated hippie will tell you that hallucinogens offer quite the opposite. These substances tend to break the flow of self-directed thought patterns, leading to a sense of unity with one’s environment. This state of mind is inherently communal and collectivist, and because of that, it’s easy to see how it could heighten sensitivity to political concerns. This is the connection that Fisher was to expound upon in his new book. We can now only speculate on what he might have said.

It would be wrong, however, to portray Fisher as the emblem of the movement. By Jeremy Gilbert’s account, anti-proprietary virtues are key to the concept. As a diverse set of ideas united by a collectivist ethos, appointing a figurehead would make little sense. But if such a title were to be given, Gilbert, not Fisher, may be the more worthy candidate. In a 2017 article titled “Psychedelic Socialism: The Politics of Consciousness, the Legacy of the Counterculture and the Future of the Left,” Gilbert offers some frank words on the difficulties he faced — and still faces — developing the notion in Fisher’s absence: “‘Acid Communism’ was Mark’s term for a political and analytical position that he’d derived more than a little from my work and interests,” he writes. “But it would be totally against the spirit of those shared ideas and priorities to attribute ownership or authorship of any of these ideas to anybody.”

So while Fisher appears to have owed Gilbert more credit than he gave, saying as much might be in bad faith. And, indeed, reducing Acid Communism to a particular thinker or even a cohort of thinkers would miss the point. While researching this article, I interviewed Gilbert, who offered some historical answers to the question of who might claim rightful ownership to Acid Communism. Although lighthearted in spirit, the sixties counterculture was profoundly critical of the bourgeois subject — the individual who sees herself as isolated and therefore acts out of self-interest rather than the common good. On principle, therefore Acid Communism cannot be represented by one person or group. This perspective bears a direct connection to political theories that emerged from Europe in the thirties and forties. Both Gilbert and Fisher link the postwar counterculture to the radical vision of the Frankfurt School, a circle of theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Its luminaries told of a structural relationship between individualism, capitalism and authoritarianism. With these warnings, it attempted to both retroactively account for fascism and prevent its future resurgence.

“A large part of me felt psychedelic activism to be extravagant in this climate. But I didn’t want the therapeutic use of psychedelics to become yet another victim of late capitalism.”

Unlike the Frankfurt School, Acid Communism deliberately operates outside of academia, which makes it more widely accessible than movements developed mainly inside institutional frameworks. Some of Acid Communism’s strategies include freely disseminating texts and speeches: Plan C, an England-based collective in the UK that produces festivals, includes on its website blog posts and videos of Mark Fisher’s Acid Communism lectures. But Jeremy Gilbert, a member of Plan C, acknowledges that the immediacy and immersiveness of psychedelic feelings demands non-intellectual modes of invocation. He views his work as a dance party organizer as part of his political pursuits. So while there’s certainly no ban on digital organizing, real-world gatherings appear crucial to a new psychedelic Left.

Toward this end, Gilbert and Fisher both explored the viability of incorporating old-school “consciousness-raising” events in a psychedelic framework. First developed by socialist feminists in the 1970s, consciousness-raising encourages participants to share stories about struggles normally conceived as private and shameful. The idea is that when people tune in to others’ narratives of hardship — which may include accounts of mental illness, social isolation and poverty — such problems are revealed as not an exception, but the norm. In his essay “No Romance Without Finance,” Fisher writes that “as soon as two or more people gather together, they can start to collectivise the stress that capitalism ordinarily privatizes. Personal shame becomes dissolved as its structural causes are collectively identified.” When community is built around shared struggle, feelings of alienation are modulated by feelings of solidarity.

Telling stories in this consciousness-raising spirit is key, but making and listening to music might be an equally powerful consciousness-raising technique. At concerts, Fisher writes, “a mass audience could not only experience its feelings being validated, it could locate the origins of those feelings in oppressive structures.” The current popularity of free-spirited music festivals might be framed as a reaction to neoliberal malaise. While modern festivals aren’t as explicitly political as, say, Occupy Wall Street, they do permit attendees to transcend the capitalist reality of dullness and detachment. It’s not just that people directly encounter joy, but that this joy is amplified by the presence of so many others. And at festivals, psychedelic drug use abounds. “Psychedelic drugs gave birth to the modern-day music festival,” points out journalist Kevin Franciotti. “There would have been no Woodstock without LSD.” It matters just as much that the historic Woodstock Festival also has a political history. The anti-Vietnam War movement was at least as essential to Woodstock as drug use. Jeremy Gilbert and the Plan C collective maintain that politics still go hand in hand with festival culture.

The politicization of tripping and trippy art raised my suspicion, however. Political thinkers have long raised been skeptical of a connection between aesthetics and politics. The difficulties of rendering politics as art and vice versa were a major topic of Frankfurt School publications. During our interview, I asked Gilbert about German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction.” Penned by Benjamin during the rise of the Nazi regime, it makes a theoretical argument that the artistic representation of political ideals accommodates fascism. Dictatorships, after all, rely heavily on aesthetics. One might imagine the sweeping grandiosity of Nazi propaganda, or the striking color palette used by the fascist rulers in the fictional government of V for Vendetta. It’s admittedly hard to think that tie-dye and jam bands might be used for the same purpose as the military uniforms and Wagnerian orchestras of the Third Reich. But applying the vibrant, affect-heavy veil of psychedelia to Leftist organizing seems strangely manipulative, as if it’s not enough for politics itselfs to appeal to the intellect. And besides, not everybody likes psychedelic art.

In response, Gilbert reminded me that while Benjamin warned against aestheticizing politics, he was by the same token interested in the social potential that inheres in art. This, he said, is a major goal of Acid Communism, which seeks not to authoritatively impose an aesthetic program, as in fascism, but to cultivate seeds of transformation contained in already-existing cultural forms. Mark Fisher’s writings on Acid Communism make frequent references to another Frankfurt School philosopher, Herbert Marcuse. For Marcuse, Fisher wrote, “art was a positive alienation, a ‘rational negation’ of the existing order of things.” Fisher positioned Marcuse against another Theodor Adorno, another Frankfurt School philosopher. While Adorno upheld creativity as a space of revolutionary otherness, Fisher said, he did not provide any tangible visions for the politics that art might inform. Rather, Adorno had readers “endlessly examine the wounds of a ‘damaged life’ under capital.” Instead of “marking our distance” from utopia — Fisher’s final verdict on Adorno — culture should strive to embody the ideals to which we might aspire.

This sentiment was echoed by Gilbert during our interview. Radical politics, he said, are always utopian, and utopian intentions are wasted without a manifest blueprint for change. Psychedelic art, with its message of love and transcendence, delivers. “It’s not going to be for everybody,” he clarified. But he indicated that its recognizable styles — whirling geometric patterns, fractals, and musical intricacy — offer an “aesthetics of complexity” which contrast with the dull reductiveness of capitalist realism. “Not many people allow themselves the full extent of their complexity,” he said, quoting composer Arthur Russell. With its multidimensional intricacies, both the art and the drugs might throw the banality of contemporary popular media into high relief.

Of course, psychedelic experience can’t be relied on to lead to communitarian politics. One weakness of Acid Communism is that it appears to rely on a presumptive natural link between psychedelic experience and Leftist perspectives. This may have been the case for me, but, it’s not exactly scientific law. In a talk titled “Psychedelics, Fascism and the Politics of Profane Illumination,” religious historian Alan Piper admits that “initiation by psychedelic experience does not inevitably lead to liberal values” — where “liberal” is counterposed with “fascist.” Piper’s talk included a brief history of psychedelia’s dark side. Hallucinogenic drugs, he noted, have long been deployed as tools of subjugation. Hallucinogen use prevailed in the Weimar Republic, and was formative for fascist thinker Julius Evola. Then there are the Cold War era MK Ultra experiments, where US government officials administered LSD to unwitting subjects to determine its potential as a truth serum. Today, the pervasiveness of sexual assault by ayahuasca shamans is becoming well-known in subcultures using psychedelics. And the use of ayahuasca by non-indigenous people has been critiqued as cultural appropriation. Psychedelics, in view of all this, could hardly be said to lead to directly to political enlightenment.

“Acid Communism could be a component of a dynamic, experimental Leftism that is as interested in creativity as it is in critique. It would just take a bit of determination, and a strong dose of imagination.”

The case of Burning Man — the world-famous gathering long heralded as a locus of communitarianism — complicates things even further. In theory, Burning Man perfectly embodies an Acid Communist practice. No money is allowed to be exchanged within its borders; it instead promotes the free sharing of resources as part of a gift economy structure. Burning Man is organized around the idea that people want to help out more than compete with one another. But there has been a recent backlash against this image: a spate of popular reporting tells of excessive tech-sector wealth and the rampant consumerism required to prepare for a week in the barren desert. The stories usually go something like this: once safely distant from their offices, Bay Area Burners descend into well-financed hedonism. Spending millions on private jets to the remote Nevada location, they proceed to “camp” in utmost luxury. Technology scholar PJ Patella-Rey considered this in an article titled “Burning Man is The New Capitalism.” While he emphasizes that there’s no causal link between the two, Rey claims it’s also not a coincidence that Burning Man began in 1989 — the year that the Berlin Wall fell. “Burning Man demonstrates how market-driven consumption fuels a new commons and how this commons, in turn, creates new markets,” he writes.

Gilbert considers the transformation of commons into markets to be a perversion of psychedelic values. But perhaps it’s to be expected. As he reported on his blog, “you can’t expect projects like Burning Man to end up in any place other than where it now is, in the absence of a much wider political movement for them to connect to. Experimental spaces like Burning Man will end up being co-opted by capitalism if there isn’t some wider political movement to sustain them, inspire them, and inform them about how to do things differently. You can’t really blame Burning Man for the fact that that’s happened to it.” It would seem that if music and art events are committed to widespread social transformation, such intentions would have to be extremely clear from the outset.

The intimacy between Silicon Valley and psychedelics deserves further remark. The rise of the “cryptopsychedelic” movement joins Bitcoin boosters and hippies, and initiatives are being launched to help corporate executives expand their professional mindset with some hallucinogenic assistance. And this surpasses the tech sector. Across the US, the reform of drug policy is a popular cause among libertarians and certain factions of the alt-right. Of course, not all who vouch for laissez-faire economics support the new psychedelic movement. But in the US, much overlap exists between these groups. When I pressed Jeremy Gilbert on this, he responded that contemporary hippies who embrace libertarianism fail to grasp the political history of their subculture. The New Agers of the mid-20th century, he claimed, were never in favor of capitalist principles. But this history may be more clear in Europe, where socialism has not withstood the bad reputation it has had in the States. If Acid Communism is to thrive in the USA, it would have to emphasize that psychedelia has been long-embraced by anti-capitalism. Its current vogue among libertarians is a historical anomaly.

On this note, it’s especially relevant that the psychedelic resurgence is not strictly happening in well-financed research labs. Much like the new left, it is taking place in the streets. As the number of legal investigations grows, the rise psychedelic in psychedelic drug may appear to be the exclusive result of science. A recent Vice Magazine piece points that the last few years have seen a major swell in the illegal use of LSD, especially among young people. “US government statistics show 1.31 million 18- to 25-year-olds admitted taking LSD in 2017 compared with 317,000 in 2004 — almost a fourfold increase since the mid 2000s,” it reports. While the fiat renaissance raises the socially-acceptable banner of medical studies, on the streets, it crosses into brazen political territory. Vice interviewed 25-year-old Abby, a student in the US who claims to use LSD to cope with “the ravages of modern capitalism,” as she puts it. “Psychedelics take the edge off the costs and burden of existing in a materialist and capitalist society, and the fact that this is not how life is supposed to be,” Abby said.

The construction of psychedelic spaces “where people can learn and grow” might be a natural pastime for youth increasingly skeptical of the status quo. Indeed, aiding the creativity and curiosity of young people — capacities preempted by neoliberal education policy — could be a goal of Acid Communism. When I asked Jeremy Gilbert about his hopes for the future, he indicated public school curricula as a site desperately in need of reconstruction. While it may be hard to translate Acid Communism into education policy reform, its program of consciousness-raising might take the form of alternative education practices, such as teach-ins and ecologically-focused curricula. And, indeed, there is indeed a burgeoning para-academic psychedelic pedagogy. Most psychedelic conferences welcome speakers without institutional affiliation, and a recent assembly titled “Cultural and Political Perspectives on Psychedelic Science” joined scholars across disciplines to weight in on the social implications of psychedelia.

Although formal meetings openly embrace Acid Communism, its truths might always be more evident at the after-parties. While I missed the lectures at Horizons 2013, I’ve since attended a number of other psychedelic conferences. More often than not, the formal lectures are less interesting than the conversations that ensue. While it’s too much to expand on medicine, culture and politics in a single talk, the disciplinary orthodoxy that guides conference lectures doesn’t apply to casual conversation. [a pattern emerged]. Many people see their psychedelic and political commitments as intertwined, refusing to reduce one to the other.

This brings me back to my story about Horizons. Following the benefactor dinner, there was an dance party. People were welcome even if they hadn’t gone to the conference, and the ticket price was affordable. As my friend and I made our way through the crowd, something stuck out: people seemed elated. They were unselfconsciously giddy in a way I rarely encountered at a typical bar. Of course, for some, this was the result of a little chemical assistance. But I was sober the aura was infectious anyway. It helped me set aside my bitterness from earlier hours and enjoy my company. I ended up talking to a man who’d brought his children along. When I asked him if he was worried about the party’s possible bad influences, he replied that this was the most wholesome thing they’d seen all week. What they encountered at school, he observed, was far less uplifting. There was no argument there. Despite the reason for the occasion, the feeling of inclusiveness made psychedelics seem incidental. People were what mattered, not chemical compounds.

“This is what it looks like,” I thought. An ideal was realized if only temporarily. Of course, it may seem tenuous as the basis for a new politics. But Acid Communism could be a component of a dynamic, experimental Leftism that is as interested in creativity as it is in critique. It would just take a bit of determination, and a strong dose of imagination.

The post Turn On, Tune In, Rise Up appeared first on Commune.

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 5 years

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Episode 102: Back to the Moon

“I was there. I saw it with my own eye.”

In The Return, the penultimate episode of Act I, Steven learns something terrible about Rose Quartz. He’s being driven away from an alien threat that nobody thinks he’s ready to face, and his father finally tells him that his mother wasn’t just an alien, but an alien invader. The Gems were attacking Earth, and while Rose ultimately became a hero, she came to the planet as one of the attackers. It’s something the Crystal Gems never told him, but Greg’s words allow Steven to see his mom in a new light that shapes his relationship with her in Act II.

In Back to the Moon, the penultimate episode of Act II, Steven learns something terrible about Rose Quartz. He’s in the thick of an alien threat that he’s more than ready to face, and an enemy finally tells him that his mother is a killer. The Gems were attacking Earth, and while Rose ultimately became a hero, she did it by murdering the leader of the invaders. It’s something the Crystal Gems never told him, but Eyeball’s words force Steven to see his mom in a new light that shapes his relationship with her in Act III.

That one of these stories is true and the other is false is irrelevant to how they alter Steven’s perception of his mother and the Crystal Gems. Even if Rose didn’t actually shatter Pink Diamond, Garnet and Amethyst thought she did and and decided not to tell him, and Pearl knew but couldn’t tell him, because even if Rose didn’t kill Pink, she was still capable of acts as monstrous as removing a friend’s free will.

The effects of learning Rose was an alien invader are instant: Steven is galvanized to return to his friends and save the day, and spends the next fifty-odd episodes looking up to a departed parent who disavowed an evil regime in favor of Earth. I’d argue his relative lack of visible growth in Act II is a direct result of this: he has a simplistic view of his mother as a hero, and his goal to become just like her is futile because he doesn’t have the full story.

Learning Rose shattered Pink Diamond is a slower, more painful process. Yes, there’s the immediate tearful denial, but we jump right back to the main plot that we’ve been following for eight minutes. The scene after the reveal focuses on Amethyst as Jasper, followed by a final confrontation with the Ruby Squad. When Steven speaks, he betrays no signs of dismay: he’s either congratulating Amethyst for a job well done, or trash talking Giga Ruby before launching her into space. But his silence in between speaks volumes, both subtly as he holds Garnet’s hand off to the side, and more openly in my favorite shot of the episode, complete with a somber, high-pitched variant of the Diamond harmonette and strings.

Perhaps Steven’s moments of normalcy seem odd, but as we’ll see in Bubbled, our kid is in shock. It takes a while for the weight of this information to sink in, and he spends the next fifty-odd episodes recovering his shattered pieces and rebuilding himself into a stronger individual than ever. He’s not Rose Quartz, and he never has been, but this is final arc is about him realizing that he shouldn’t be.

So that, to me, defends his odd behavior. What I find less defensible is the level of coincidence involved in the reveal. It’s not a huge deal, but from a storytelling perspective it’s just sloppy to have Jasper mention Pink Diamond for the first time by saying Rose did something to her, then for Steven to learn what Jasper was talking about one episode later, and for those two events to have no bearing on each other. Steven would’ve been told about Pink Diamond whether or not Jasper said a thing, which takes a lot of the narrative oomph out of her last words. All we needed was for him to mention Pink Diamond, just to spark the conversation, and I’d be fine with this. I can forgive the Ruby Squad just happening to show up right when Jasper is defeated—I would’ve loved to see Jasper and the rubies teaming up, but that would be a wholly different story—yet the execution leading up to Eyeball’s explanation irks me to this day, because there’s no good reason for it. If I extend a generous reasoning, perhaps it’s to signify Steven’s lack of agency in this story? Enh. Naw, it still just comes across as contrived to me. Again, it’s not a huge deal, I just wish it was a little tighter.

Obviously the major twist is worth talking about, but Back to the Moon is so much more than than a game-changing revelation. The episode itself doesn’t focus on the consequences of the twist, so we’ll be covering the fallout in Bubbled (y’know, the episode about the fallout).

It’s surprising that Back to the Moon is another Amethyst episode, considering we just get a ton of Amethyst episodes, but what’s more surprising is that it doesn’t feel like an overload of the character. By all accounts we should be a little tired of paying so much attention to her, but this story works by acting as an epilogue to her arc, rather than a continuation. It’s the first of three such epilogues: over the course of Act II, Amethyst learned to accept herself, Garnet became more capable of understanding others and making her identity as a fusion understood, and Pearl stops letting her longing for Rose sabotage her relationships, and Back to the Moon, Mindful Education, and Last One Out of Beach City bask in these changes to the status quo. They aren’t resolutions so much as reflections: our characters have already grown, and now we’re seeing what that means for them.

After struggling against Jasper directly and indirectly for five episodes, Amethyst is able to transform into her rival without a speck of angst. We see that this isn’t physically easy for her, because if it wasn’t a struggle, the whole point of her arc is muted: the terrific exasperated expressions from Lamar Abrams and Katie Mitroff are supplemented by Michaela Dietz’s wonderful Jasper impersonation, complete with slips to her regular voice (it kills me that her idea of good acting is just saying “I’m Jasper” a lot). And I love that we see her deciding to go through with it in the background while Doc rants, which I only noticed in like my fifth viewing. Details matter, people!

Amethyst saves the day by being her best self: a fluid improviser whose self-confidence shines after a severe bout with doubt. She’s the best shapeshifter in the Crystal Gems, and the most impulsive, so she’s the only one capable of taking this approach and the only one wild enough to go through with it. She’s pretty sure she can get away with such an obvious ruse (she was the one who claimed that rubies are dumb in Hit the Diamond, after all), and she’s right. We even get a callback to the days of Amethyst and Pearl as rivals, with Pearl constantly criticizing the plan only to see it succeed despite its clear flaws; in fact, as soon as Pearl praises Amethyst for the trick, it stops working.

While Amethyst gets the most focus, this is really a curtain call for all our friendly Gems now that we’re moving to a new era of the series. Garnet and Pearl, after hamming it up together while playing prisoner (Pearl is louder, but Garnet is funnier), remind us of how far they’ve come in mending their relationship’s lowest point with a cameo from their very hammy fusion. I appreciate the elegance of the Sardonyx factor, because it works as a capper for the Crystal Gems’ stories in Act II, but it also makes sense that these two would fuse to counter another big fusion, considering Amethyst is exhausted from fighting Jasper then playing Jasper.

Peridot and Lapis don’t have such an obvious moment of reflection, but we still get a finishing touch on their Act II relationship. They’ve gone from unwilling accomplices to reluctant roommates to friends, and they’re done with Homeworld conflicts. Lapis’s cheerful “Come on down!” while releasing rubies evokes game show lingo that goes hand in hand with her newfound love of television, and she’s otherwise her wonderful bitter self. Peridot doesn’t get as much to do, but she stands united with Lapis upon being offered the chance to play prisoner: as we saw in Beta, Peridot has gone from using Lapis as a tool to appearing more sensitive to Lapis’s traumatic past than even Lapis herself. I’m sure it won’t come back to haunt them in, say, Season 5.

Then, of course, there are the actual stars of the show.

Charlyne Yi had nothing to prove after voicing a swarm of rubies in Hit the Diamond, but they’re back and better than ever, complete with longer introductions and helpful nicknames from Steven (“Army” and “Navy” as references to the arm and navel are marvelous puns). Their individual personalities shine even brighter when separated and interrogated, and just in case it wasn’t clear enough that they aren’t a threat, we get Lapis and Garnet openly condescending to them. They remain a delight as a whole as well, kicking and punching at the ground to show their hatred of Earth and providing off-screen commentary about germs and Pearl’s overacting. We even get more speech from Giga Ruby than last time, and I relish the opportunity to hear Yi’s slow, deep “monster voice.”

The difference is that we have something of a main ruby this time around. Eyeball was the first member of the gang that we saw, all the way back in the last shot of Barn Mates, and is the most striking member of the team with her unusual gem placement. While the other rubies each get a moment in the sun, and Doc in particular gets a terrific rant about their search for Jasper, it’s Eyeball who takes the lead. Her devotion to Jasper almost retroactively characterizes our recently fallen villain, reinforcing how easy it would be for the other side to see her adherence to her values as heroic rather than stubborn and self-destructive. We get a hilarious shot of a single jealous tear as Doc sits in Amethyst’s lap, reinforcing Eyeball’s hero worship even further. And of course, Eyeball of all people is the person who finally lets Steven know about Rose shattering Pink.

These roles could have been split more evenly among the rubies, but Steven is about to spend an episode alone with Eyeball, and it’s smart to let us get to know her better before we do. Yeah, she’s grouchy and blunt, but there’s a real person in there who’s just as capable of love as our heroes, even if it’s directed towards her home planet and its champions. She hates Rose Quartz, but why wouldn’t she? This is not only the killer of a Diamond, but a traitor we’re talking about.

Here’s a convoluted but true sentence: Back to the Moon is the first half of the third two-part episode in a row (arguably the fourth, considering how seamlessly Crack the Whip leads to Steven vs. Amethyst). On top of this, it borrows from The Return, not only in the shared Rose reveal but in an opponent ominously saying “I was there” as a sort of invasion of Steven’s history. It also borrows from It Could’ve Been Great, returning to the lunar base that preceded our first full look at a Diamond. It’s a first-half episode that’s beholden to first-half episodes of the past: it has so much in common with others of its ilk that it’s unsurprising to see this story end in a cliffhanger. But the secret here is that if “this story” refers to the story of everyone but Steven and Eyeball, we get a pretty solid self-contained episode. Amethyst gets her win, the other Gems help save the day, the rubies are thwarted, and Lapis and Peridot are safe and sound on Earth.

It all feels a little mishmashed, to be honest: it’s a good Amethyst episode, but it’s also about the rubies, and it’s also about Pink Diamond, and it’s also about the end of Act II, and it also ends with our hero getting sucked into space. It shouldn’t work as well as it does. But considering how much time we’re about to spend on Steven all alone with someone who wants him dead, I’m glad to get a first-half episode that sends the rest of Act II off in style. Here comes the hard part.

Future Vision!

Theorists guessed that Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond long before the latter was ever mentioned by name, and while Back to the Moon killed this theory for most, there were a few crazy holdouts who held true. I wasn’t one of them (I was iffy on the initial theory, even), but kudos to those who remained loyal, because they were right. And the first hint was right after Steven heard the story, in this heartbreaking shot that gets so much worse with context.

The gag of our heroes in space being this close to getting away with a ruse only to be caught in the last minute is repeated in That Will Be All.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

This is a great Amethyst episode, and a humongous lore episode, but that by itself doesn’t get it in my top twenty. I still love it, as it contains a ton of individual elements that I love (the opening sequence especially, which might not stick out compared to the twist but is so much fun), but we won’t get the ramifications of its reveal until later. It might actually feel more complete if it was just an Amethyst episode, but it works wonders as it is, so I’m happy giving it a good home in the list.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

When It Rains

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

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amsterdamwhitney · 3 years

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“Life is a Cabaret!” October 2021 Exhibit

AMSTERDAM WHITNEY GALLERY, 210 Eleventh Avenue-Chelsea, New York City, is proud to showcase its OCTOBER 9-DECEMBER 2021 Exhibition featuring leading contemporary artists whose works explore the abstract, figurative and natural worlds. This Autumnal nexus of enchantment exhibition, highlighted by the glamorous

“LIFE is a CABARET!” Champagne Soiree on SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9th from 2:00-4:00, pm, invites the artists and guests to "Paint the Town Pink," offering a mesmerizing elixir of the arts which will captivate the senses of both art acquisitors and art aficionados alike. Pulsating with a charismatic vortex, these artists’ sophisticated, eclectic, and often joyful representations of life provide a visual syntax of our world. Their hypnotic canvases explore spiritual emotions as they synthesize imaginative artistic visions and stimulate visceral sensations.

OCTOBER 9-DECEMBER 2021 EXHIBIT

Saturday, OCTOBER 9- 2021 2:00-4:00 “Life is a Cabaret" Soiree

PATHWAYS TO LIGHT exhibition harvests a cornucopia of nature's visions, reflecting a love of the natural terrain, infused with the jubilant spirit of artistic achievement. The charismatic, visceral compositions of the three master artists reflect colorful, magical incantations of nature and reverberate with a wide fulcrum of expressive sensations as they channel sensory experiences along with a profound connection to the environment by harvesting a cornucopia of nature's colors and sensations to uniquely transcribe the bounty of the terrestrial environment.

NANCY BALMERT, "Queen of the Flowers" and the" Yellow Rose of Texas," enlarges the visible natural world to bloom into a fusion of myriad mosaic, chromatic flowers, creating up-close floral oil paintings which celebrate the floral kingdom and cajole us to inhale every beautiful petal and exhale their joy, all the while

conveying the subliminal effects of her enchanted floral realm and reminding us that flowers are the gifts from heaven to this earth,

JOHN PETERS, "Master of the Gold Leaf," renders a new autumnal landscape series, "Birch Gold Leaf Collection," which is rooted in his love of nature as he rejoices in the grandeur of nature with his enchanted golden magical terrestrial kingdom, which unearths the human interconnection to the environment featuring dazzling celestial chromatic, golden-hued birch paintings. SALLY RUDDY's "Fleeting Moments," oil on canvas landscape series are a poetic tapestry of visual love to the natural terrain of the California Central Valley as she poignantly interprets the transitory quality of nature with beauty and grace, freezing sensorial scenarios of the terrestrial realm, embracing a permanent remembrance of an exquisite, special moment.

QUANTUM COUNTERPOINTS acquaints the viewer with three masterful artists who are inspired by nature and humankind. Their visceral artistic vision continues the expressionistic legacy of man’s profound quest to find respect and meaning in our universe as they create visual conversations which reveal their honor of nature and the humanity of the universe.

DR. BELA GOLD’s museum-caliber paintings pay homage to the humanity of humankind with burnt drawings on recycled wood, honoring those who perished during the Holocaust with images obtained from the Berlin Jewish Museum and the Auschwitz concentration camp, as well as other World War II documents, as she emphasizes the deep importance of life and legacy. JACK JASPER creates a fulcrum of fantasia with an alternative visual universe on canvas, reflecting a soft, subdued pastel palette which reveals semi-figurative abstracted forms which are often based on Greek mythology as they co-exist in a chimerical parallel realm. LULU ZHENG is an artist, medical doctor and swimmer whose figurative waterscape mixed media paintings and abstract sculptural wall hangings pay homage to aquatic activities reflecting her reverence for the environment as she captures the magnificence of the quiet treasures of life.

OPTYX of the EVANESCENT shines the spotlight on three virtuosic masters who synthesize the beauty and complexity of nature and music through their variety of mixed medium. By illustrating the wonderment of the world, they combine an intersection of painterly vision with innovative conceptual perceptions.

Pakistani born- New Jersey based MAIRA ABBASI's mosaic-like, nature inspired oil and mixed media, three-dimensional wood panel paintings

are committed to kaleidoscopic color and luminosity of form, resulting in chromatic, exotic and sensual works of art which reflect her royal Pakistani heritage and reverberate with fantasy, seduction, and spirit. ADRIENNE KYROS's sensorial floral watercolor paintings introduce us to her expressionistic, emblazoned floral realm which conjures the huetopian beauty of the flora kingdom through chromatic blossoms and effusions of luminous light as they reverberate with intense color and rich texture. LORI MOLE’s musically inspired acrylic compositions are joyful abstract reveries which reverberate with symphonic precision, as she deconstructs reality with expressionistic iconic images of stark black and white checkerboard keyboards, piano keys, musical instruments and blazing red hearts, all of which resonate with a joie de vivre.

VORTEX of the HUETOPIA exhibit introduces three gifted artists whose spellbinding transfigurations represent magical alchemies of creation. Each renowned artist’s beguiling artistic lexicon is a vortex of enchantment radiating unique artistic expressions metamorphosizing into compelling external forms, as they spiritually interact with the world through color sensations becoming a visual metaphor for our world.

In an abstract quest to translate her non-objective vision, RONI LYNN DOPPELT, renowned Master Colorist, is recognized for her abstract expressionist, chromatic, flowing paintings with overlapping, translucent -painted wing-shaped, chromatic inkblot like forms which dance into dazzling sinuous arcs of phenomenal, gem-like veils of transparent color. Norwegian born KARINA McKENZIE is influenced by the Dalai Lama teachings and Buddhist ideology and is galvanized to artistically seek beauty, peace and harmony in her brilliantly colored three-dimensional abstract textile vertical wall hangings which reverberate with spiritual love and harmony. PHYLLIS SHIPLEY examines the timeless interconnection between art and nature in her boldly colored -saturated nature dreamscapes which boast a dynamic intermix of expressive, dazzling colors which render a visual interpretation to the environment and communicate her awe of nature's eternal capacity for renewal and regeneration.

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