#the main difference between me and moth is that moth can drive and I cannot (which is something of a shame since I love Trip In Car) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

musicollage · 4 years

Photo

Atlas Sound. Logos, 2009. Kranky (USA) / 4AD (UK). ( Lyrics & Music – Bradford Cox ) ~ [ Album Review | 1) Pitchfork + 2) Pop Matters + 3) Drowned In Sound + 4) NME + 5) Prefix Magazine ]

1) As we've gotten to know Bradford Cox over the last couple of years through shows, interviews, and blog posts, one of the Deerhunter frontman's most appealing qualities is his deep and nuanced appreciation of the music of others. Some musicians listen to records to see how they work, check out the competition, or trawl for ideas; by all available evidence, Cox feels records, deeply. If he was born without musical gifts and couldn't sing or play an instrument, one can imagine him working at a record store, amassing an enviable collection while driving people on a message board crazy with the sureness of his detailed opinions. Whatever you think of his exploits as an indie rock media figure, Cox's music fandom is easy to identify with and also offers a portal into his own work.

Atlas Sound, Cox's solo alias, in one sense serves as a sort of laboratory for figuring out what makes some his favorite music tick, away from the expectations of his main band. Two collaborations on Logos, the second Atlas Sound full-length, are excellent examples of how music listening can be absorbed into original work. First is "Walkabout", a track Cox wrote and recorded with Noah Lennox from Animal Collective, whom Cox got to know during a European tour. Though Cox's music shades dark and Lennox's is often flecked with uncertainty and doubt, "Walkabout" is the sunniest pop tune of either of their careers. Coasting on a buoyant, twinkling keyboard sample, it is a starkly catchy and irresistible, a clattery post-millennial Archies tune that straddles perfectly the border between simple and simplistic. Interestingly, it also sounds very much like a Panda Bear tune.

Then there is Lætitia Sadier of Stereolab, who wrote the lyrics and sings lead on Logos' "Quick Canal". The song opens with some gorgeously textured organ chords and soon a steady-state beat and drums rise up in the mix, setting the kind of relaxed-but-propulsive neo-krautrock scene that Stereolab perfected very early on. Here Cox gets to play the part of the late Mary Hansen, adding "la-di-da" trills behind Sadier as she intones phrases in her unfailingly lovely, for-the-ages voice. He even throws in a "Jenny Ondioline"-style rupture about halfway through, sending the track into a breathtaking shoegaze section for its final four minutes, wherein it floats magisterially on a pillow of shifting guitar feedback. "Quick Canal" is almost nine minutes long and it doesn't waste a second.

On these tracks, the confidence Cox shows in melting his aesthetic into the soundworld of other musicians is striking-- both are unqualified successes, very different from each other but among the best things Cox has ever done. But they also sound a lot like the music his collaborators are known for. Cox's sympathetic support and sense of how to construct songs with others suggests a desire to expand the parameters of what Atlas Sound can be. And given his willingness to let others take the microphone on an Atlas Sound project on these cuts, I can't help but go back to Cox's words on Logos before the album was released, which suggested that this was to be less introverted and that was "not about me."

And then I remember that the cover of the album consists of a photo of Cox with his shirt off and the lyrics in the first two songs start with the word "I", which suggests that we probably shouldn't take these statements very seriously. While the songs may or may not be "about" Cox in the strictest sense, the overall vibe is at least as introverted as 2008's Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and every note bears the same signature. With its strummed guitars, hushed double-tracked vocals, and tunes more reliant on ambiance and feel than melody or rhythm, Logos feels every bit as diaristic and personal, but with Cox, that's a plus. At this point, we're not looking to this guy for commentary on the outside world; we want to hear him wrestle with private demons in the sanctuary of his bedroom, bathing every sound in reverb to give the illusion of space and as a sonic balm against loneliness and figuring out how to make music as affecting as the stuff he loves to listen to.

So tracks like "The Light That Failed", "An Orchid", and "My Halo" (the latter two, though different in tone, are further entries in Cox's growing line of melancholy waltz-time shuffles) function primarily as the kind of eerie, blown-out mood music he has become very good at. They are amorphous sketches that still manage to convey feeling, capturing the sort of sad, exhausted, and fragile emotional state that is Cox's area of expertise. "Shelia", a taut pop song with a great chorus hook, is a change-up, though the repeating refrain "No one wants to die alone" fits with the rest of the record's themes. And "Washington School", with its dissonant chime of metallic percussion that sound like gamelan or evilly out-of-tune steel drums, contains the record's most interesting production, with thick drones reminiscent of Tim Hecker and menacing rhythm track.

So some things are different, some are the same, but all of it works well together. It's true that every time Cox ventures out of his comfort zone on Logos, you wish that he'd go even further and embrace extremes-- of tunefulness, tradition, noise-- that don't necessarily come to him naturally. He may yet take a big leap with Atlas Sound, but here the steps away, though rewarding, are tentative. For the rest of the record, Logos feels familiar and assuring, another affecting dispatch from a corner of indie music that is increasingly starting to seem like one Cox pretty much owns.

2) Take a quick gander at Deerhunter's discography and you'll notice a clear stylistic trajectory. From the confrontational noise of "Turn It Up Faggot" to the ambient preoccupations of Cryptograms to the straight-up indie-pop of Microcastle/Weird Era Cont., it's plain to see that as the band has evolved over time, its songwriting has increasingly tended toward the more accessible end of the spectrum. Unsurprisingly, it appears that Bradford Cox's other songwriting vehicle, Atlas Sound, is following a similar arc. On Logos, his second album under the Atlas Sound moniker, Cox provides us with 11 songs that are far less insular, though no less dreamy, than those he has penned in the past. While his fractured compositions still evoke the myth of the bedroom pop auteur, the songs on Logos sound considerably more refined than the lo-fi sketches being churned out by many of his peers. This, as it turns out, is a very good thing.

To wit: "Walkabout", the track that had the blogosphere buzzing with anticipation for the better part of the summer. Built around a squelchy organ sample lifted from the Dovers "What Am I Going to Do", the song simultaneously recalls both the acid-tinged psychedelia of Black Moth Super Rainbow and the technicolor pop of Brian Wilson. Of course, it's impossible to mention "Walkabout" without acknowledging its co-creator, Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear. In many ways, "Walkabout" bears Lennox's fingerprints more than it does Cox's, with Lennox's wistful vocal harmonies echoing throughout the track's four-minute runtime. It's easy to see why Cox chose to leak "Walkabout" well in advance of the release of Logos; bright, bubbly and infinitely catchy, the song perfectly captures the mood of a fleeting summer afternoon and stands as one of the year's best singles.

"Walkabout" is obviously a standout, though it's also an outlier when approached within the context of Logos. While some may feel as if they've been misled, the good news is that the rest of the album is no less rewarding, if not quite as instantly gratifying. Take, for example, the opening suite that leads up to "Walkabout". Pitting disjointed acoustic guitar strums and distant, reverb-soaked vocals against a backdrop of aqueous noise, "The Light That Failed" succeeds at drawing the listener in while still keeping her at arm's length. "An Orchid", meanwhile, presents the listener with a dreamy ballad that feels like an indistinct outline for a Deerhunter song. Cox's vocals and the song's guitar hook are buried just deep enough in the mix to force the listener to dig a little. When "Walkabout" finally hits, it feels like a reward well earned.

Luckily, "Walkabout" isn't the only nugget of pure pop bliss to be found on Logos. "Shelia", a disarmingly straightforward slice of jangly college-rock, proves hard to shake, with its Pixies-esque melody and sun-bleached three-part harmonies. Lyrically, the song serves as a world-weary rejoinder to the sweetly nostalgic refrain of "Walkabout" ("What did you want to be / When you grew up"), with Cox explaining, "No one wants / To die alone", before promising the song's titular subject, "We'll die alone / Together." It sure goes down easy, though.

Cox has publicly acknowledged that Stereolab were his favorite band in high school, so it should come as no surprise that given the opportunity to collaborate with Lætitia Sadier, he puts his best foot forward. On "Quick Canal", he lovingly builds up and tears down a cathedral of sound for Sadier to inhabit, layering a deep bass groove, tambourine hits and a wall of gently panning organs atop a steady, shuffling beat. Midway through, the song falls apart, briefly taking a detour into glitchy noise before giving way to a squall of fuzzed-out guitars. Try as Cox might to obfuscate the vocals, however, Sadier's voice proves indefatigable. To her credit, she sounds right at home here, bouncing her voice off of the song's jagged edges to produce a track that's equal parts haunting and triumphant.

With regard to electronic composition, on Logos Cox sounds more confident than ever before. Samples and electronic instrumentation form the underpinnings of many of the album's songs, though not to conspicuous effect. Penultimate track "Washington School" illustrates this point better than perhaps any other on the album. Opening with a loop built from fragments of a minor key piano line, the song soon piles on a pounding, bass-heavy beat, chimes and a playful synth line, blossoming into a full-on folktronica number that recalls Four Tet circa Rounds. Somewhere in the distance, Cox's disembodied voice rings out: "Shine a light / On me."

If Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel was the product of Cox's willful isolation, then Logos is the sound of the auteur stepping outside of his bedroom to engage the world outside. Though it cedes little of the hazy delivery that made Let the Blind… so compelling, Logos brims with a wide-eyed energy all its own, conveying a palpable sense of optimism that's all too rare in Cox's oeuvre. This isn't too surprising when one considers the circumstances; the path that led Cox to the album's creation -- globetrotting tours with his idols, collaborations with some of the most distinctive voices in indie rock -- is the stuff of dreams for hermetic music nerds. Perhaps that's why Logos sounds as vibrant as it does: it's the result of Bradford Cox living out his dreams rather than just dreaming them.

3) One of many unsatisfactory things about end-of-decade retrospectives is that musicians are rarely so accommodating as to plot their careers in nice, convenient ten year cycles. Nonetheless, that’s how posterity tends to remember them, regardless of finer details. Thus the Kinks are Sixties artists, the Clash a Seventies act, Talk Talk an Eighties band, Nirvana from the Nineties, and you’d comfortably stick a punt on The Strokes and Sufjan Stevens ending up defined by this decade we’re exiting.

But what of Bradford Cox? Even if you were aware of Deerhunter's raucous 2005 debut ”Turn It Up Faggot” at the time, you're a wizard or a liar if you foresaw how their frontman was going to fill the years 2007 to 2009. That is to say: three Deerhunter albums (‘tis a fool indeed who views Weird Era Cont. as anything other than a record in its own right), two EPs, and a solo project as Atlas Sound that’s yielded God-know-how-many free downloads, as well as last year's Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and now – an epic 22 months later - Logos. That all of this bar the odd freebie has been good to exemplary is simply astonishing, and points to an artist whose profligacy and cult popularity has him nicely set up to be a defining artist of the next decade.

And yet... anomalous as ”Turn It Up Faggot” may seem, such scabrous origins are indicative of a palette that has been cooling and quietening ever since Cox first intersected with the limelight. The soundbite-friendly ‘ambient punk’ aesthetic never really lasted beyond Cryptograms, with Microcastle canning the abrasiveness in favour of reasonably straightforward shoegaze set off with dreamlike Fifties flourishes. Having arrived at something like a commercial sound, another artist might have stopped there; however, Cox has ploughed right on through, this year’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange far and away Deerhunter’s most introverted work, a retreat into quiescent childhood reverie.

Logos has much more in common with Rainwater... than Let the Blind..., for the most part ditching the dissonant electronics in favour of delayed acoustic guitars and old-time pop structures. On the face of it, it sets out Atlas Sound’s stall as simply being whatever Cox may do sans Deerhunter. Yet in a way the 'ambient solo project' tag still kind of makes sense. Strictly speaking ambient music is defined not by instrumentation, but by its evasion of the consciousness. Whole swathes of Logos are blurred and indistinct - technically melodic, hooky songs treated and delivered in such a way that they all but self-negate, leaving nothing but fleeting impressions: the winsome viola that arrives in ‘Attic Lights’, just as Cox mutters ”maximum pain, maximum effect”; the gay singer’s unsettling yearning for traditional marriage on ‘Sheila’ ("we’ll die alone, together"); the barely discernible mantra ”all is love” that briefly ghosts through ‘Washington School’.

This might sound like a way of romanticising an unmemorable album, but that's far from the case. These songs are bunched together into two dreamy, fog-like passages that serve as a backdrop for a handful of the most tangible tunes Cox has ever written, soaring atmospherically above the misty dreampop. Opener ‘The Light That Failed’ roots itself in the consciousness through eerily torpid glitching, Cox’s disconcerting use of something approaching a falsetto, and the doomy langour of its titular lyric. It sets up an album that frequently drifts into disquieting areas, yet never quite follows through on this early moment of dread. Indeed, delightful Panda Bear hook up ‘Walkabout’ serves as definitive proof that the light hasn't failed at all. While much of Cox’s early pop obsession speaks of a desire to creep out of the now entirely, ‘Walkabout’ is far more tangible and good natured, thanks largely to Panda Bear’s high, comforting tones and the appropriation of the hook from actual vintage Sixties pop gem ‘What Am I Going To Do?’ by The Dovers. Ironically for a song built around a 40-year-old tune, nothing, else on Logos has ‘Walkabout’s immediacy, though the excellent title track comes close, a rattling Strokes-alike number slightly removed from the world by Cox’s arsenal of floaty FX.

As we’ve known ever since last year’s leak of the Logos demos, the centrepiece is the eight and a half minute, wholly electronic ‘Quick Canal’. Though tamed a little from the leaked 13 minute instrumental, this more mannered, Laetitia Sadier-sung incarnation is a better fit here, and still towers above the skyline. The Stereolab singer adds an inescapably Enya-ish quality to the gentle early stages, but by the time the song’s swooshing, snowy motorik has kicked into full gear she fits in immaculately, an aloof Old World passenger on a song charged with haughty European electronica. It perhaps doesn’t sound so jaw-dropping as it did in isolation, but a lot of that can be attributed to an intentional effect of the surroundings. Those short, subliminal songs serving to filter away reality and focus, like half remembered dreams that leaves the senses baffled and feverish.

Logos is a gorgeous, hallucinatory and somewhat sickly outing. While there's every chance he'll wrong foot us, and soon, this record is entirely in keeping with the increasingly self-erasing route Bradford Cox has taken as a musician; it's hard to stifle a shudder at that blanked out cover image. Maybe Cox will go on to be a star next decade - he's a gregarious, prolific man liked by critics. But listen to his music, and that doesn't feel quite right. Maybe he'll become an icon. Or maybe he’ll finally make his escape from our timestream entirely, leaving us to wonder if he was ever there at all.

4) Much like Starbucks, Bradford Cox has become a ubiquitous presence. What with his work with art-rock outfit Deerhunter, his involvement in Karen O’s official soundtrack for Where The Wild Things Are, and now this, his second solo offering under the Atlas Sound banner, you’d be forgiven for thinking that such familiarity will start to breed contempt. But you’d be way off the mark.

There are two things you should know about this unlikely lo-fi hero of gangly deportment (he has Marfan Syndrome, a genetic disorder that stretches his limbs and strains his heart) and a girlish speaking voice (the affliction for this is yet uncertain). Firstly, it is impossible to dislike him (just see Wayne Coyne’s spoof argument with him on YouTube, branding Cox a “dick”). Secondly, his creative output has proved him to be one of – if not the – most forward-thinking and inspiring musicians of our generation.

So, as Cox takes time out from Deerhunter, along comes ‘Logos’. Less of an experimental minefield than its predecessor, ‘Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’, it sees Cox weave in and out of dream-like sequences, such as the sombre ‘The Light That Failed’ and ‘Quick Canal’, the latter featuring the sweetly masculine vocal of [a]Stereolab[/a]’s Laetitia Sadier; while ‘An Orchid’ pitches in as the aural equivalent of a David Lynch storyboard, guided along with looped noises and whimsical vocals.

It’d be easy to overlook Cox’s lyrics when the soundscapes are this rich and ornate, but there’s a delicate exploration of the most human of sensibilities and yearnings on ‘Logos’. He opens up the emotional vaults on ‘Sheila’, pining softly that “no-one wants to die alone… we’ll die alone together”. Likewise with ‘My Halo’, where Cox reveals “My halo burned a hole in the sky/My halo burned a hole in the ground… so I wait for polarity to change”. There’s much warmth and playfulness to be found here too, the unfeigned honesty and childlish desires expressed on ‘Walkabout’ – featuring the falsetto of [a]Animal Collective[/a]’s Noah Lennox – with its lyric “What did you want to see?/What did you want to be when you grew up?” being a case in point.

Cox may have tagged Atlas Sound as just another side-project, but ‘Logos’ is a clear indication that his solo creative output is just as richly rewarding as what came before.

5) For a project originally started as a way for Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox to give a voice to his despairing isolation (he records completely alone) as a teenager, Atlas Sound is starting to sound like an arena-filling, widescreen pop project. Logos, Cox’s second proper solo album, takes the dense, gray worlds of Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See, But Cannot Feel and puts them through a rainbow, delivering a splendid album.

If there’s one word to describe Logos, it’s “watery.” And in that regard, Logos shares a lot in common with Merriweather Post Pavilion (and Deerhunter’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange from earlier this year). Both albums trade in dreamy avant-pop landscapes buoyed by soggy atmospherics. “Criminals” sways like a shipping vessel in choppy seas, while the album’s great closing third (“My Halo” through the title track) sounds like it was transmitted from that underwater base in the third season of Lost. Cox is still reliant on the general ambiance that envelops his solo work, but here he’s willing to let his vocals float above the mix. And while musically this is brighter, he’s still all Debbie Downer. Old standby lyrical tropes of growing old (on “Sheila” Cox sings “we will grow old” like he’s reassuring someone else), loneliness (“Attic Lights”) and lost hope (“The Light that Failed”) show up repeatedly, and he still sounds like he’s on his deathbed when he sings.

But for an album created largely by one guy alone in his room, the guest performances shine the most on Logos. Stereolab’s Lætitia Sadier wrote the lyrics for “Quick Canal,” a sprawling, shoegazey track that never loses its motorik motion, peaking repeatedly in its eight minutes. The bubbly “Walkabout,” the high-profile track with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear lives up to all the hypertext spilled about it this summer, delivering the best of both Panda Bear’s effervescent youthful innocence and Cox’s wistful yearning.

Logos, while just the second solo album from the frontman for a band of marginal fame, represents the latest and greatest chapter in Cox’s ride to indie stardom. He rose to prominence mid-decade as a confrontational trickster riding blog-hype (circa Cryptograms), continuing with a solo album to build his brand (Let the Blind), an indie-rock masterwork (Microcastle) and a solo album of nearly as high repute (Logos). As for what’s next, Cox has remained mum (though Deerhunter might be taking a hiatus), but with Logos, he ensures we’ll all be waiting.

#rock music #art rock #atlas sound #bradford cox #kranky #4ad #2009 #2000s #2000s rock #pitchfork #pop matters #drowned in sound #nme #prefix magazine #review

8 notes · View notes

polly-chan · 4 years

Text

The story of Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania style videogame developed and published by Team Cherry. It introduces a very interesting lore, telling the story of a Knight without a past on a quest to save the abandoned insect kingdom of Hallownest.

In this meta I want to analyze the lore of the entire game, which is very interesting and addictive. Obviously this article is full of spoilers for those who have not yet played the game. Also this analysis is based a lot on what I found written in the Hollow Knight wiki, even if I had some personal reflection.

In the Kingdom of Hallownest there are many different important primordial higher beings, god-like bugs who have lived since the beginning of time, and others who are more recent but who are nevertheless divinized by the inhabitants of the Kingdom. However, for a better analysis we must first introduce a summary of the Hallownest’s history in game.

The Hollow Knight (the one who gives the title to the videogame) is a Vessel chosen by the Pale King to seal away the Radiance and save Hallownest from the Infection. As wiki says, they were the child of the King and the Queen of Hallownest, birthed in the Abyss to be infused with the power of the Void. Because of that we consider them genderless and their birth condition was also supposed to leave them without a mind, will and voice. Thanks to this particular condition, void creatures are the only ones that can contain the Radiance, since the Radiance feed themselves with the light of dreams also distorting them as if they were physical entities. However purity of the Hollow Knight was misjudged because they created an emotional bond with the Pale King who raised them.

“Regardless of their impurity, the Hollow Knight was trained and raised, eventually becoming a fully grown Vessel. The Radiance was sealed within them, and they were chained within the Temple of the Black Egg where they were expected to contain the Infection for eternity. However, because of the aforementioned impurities, the Radiance could still exert influence. It ultimately resulted in the resurgence of the Infection and the Kingdom falling into ruin. Over time, the Hollow Knight disappeared from the fallen Kingdom’s memory. Only the Memorial in the middle of the City of Tears testifies of their sacrifice to save Hallownest. After some time, the Radiance’s power broke out of the Hollow Knight, cracking their shell and fully infecting them. This event was the catalyst that brought the Knight back to Hallownest. The Knight can free and fight the Hollow Knight after killing the three Dreamers who sealed the Black Egg’s entrance” .

The fate of the Hollow Knight is linked to the end of the game chosen by players, because there are different finals:

- by killing the Hollow Knight the Knight takes their place in sealing the Radiance;

- by entering their mind with the help of Hornet the Knight can chase away the Radiance;

- by defeating Absolute Radiance at the peak of the Pantheon of Hallownest the Infection vanishes forever and the Hollow Knight can then be seen walking out of the Black Egg’s temple, freed from the Infection.

Now let’s move on ti analyze the main divinities in the game’s lore.

The Radiance:

“The light. Forgotten. The plague, the infection, the madness that haunts the corpses of Hallownest… the light that screams out from the eyes if this dead Kingdom. What is the source? I suppose mere mortals like myself will never understand”.

The Radiance is a secret final boss and the Absolute Radiance is her final form. She’s one of the higher being god-like bugs above mentioned, opposed to the Void, her ancient enemy. She gave birth to the Moth tribe and because of that they revered her. Unlike the individualist society of Hallownest the Radiance offered unity to bugs at the cost of a mind incapable of thought.

“After the Pale King arrived in Hollownest and expanded the minds of his new subjects, the Moth Tribe turned their backs in the Radiance and worshipped him instead. In doing so, the Radiance was almost entirely forgotten, Yet traces of her memory remained, such as a statue on Hollownest’s Crown. Her memory started spreading throughout the Kingdom, by then in its golden age. Soon, all of Hallownest began to dream of her, appearing to them as a blazing light. These dreams could break the minds of bugs and eventually enslave their wills to hers. But the King and his subjects resisted her memory, which started to manifest as the Infection. The Pale King attempted to stop the Infection by sealing the Radiance within a Vessl. These creatures, infused with the Void to be without a mind and a will, were to be able to withstand the Radiance’s influence. The Hollow Knight was chosen, raised and grown for that purpose. The Radiance was sealed within them, and the Vessel chained within the Temple of the Black Egg. However, the Pale King failed to realise the Vessel’s impurities of mind. Because of this, the Radiance was still able to invade the dreams of bugs. She ultimately wiped out the Kingdom of its inhabitants, whose King had vanished, but left the rest of the land untouched.

Time passed, Hallownest turned into a myth while the Radiance remained sealed. Her influence finally started to break out of the Hollow Knight. She regnited the full power of the Infection, threatening again the land of Hallownest and prompting the Knight to return to Hallownest”.

I found the use of light as a villain very interesting. In fictions light usually wins over darkness as god wins over evil, but in the Kingdom of Hallownest she’s the real enemy, since, in real life, the bugs follow the light blindly. However I’d like to introduce a theory now.

We can consider the Kingdom of Hallownest as built on three levels:

- the higher level is the outside world on the surface and from which the light comes through: this maybe recalls heaven, but as we said for the bugs is more comparable to hell. The vision of something which comes from a otherwordly dimension can drive everyone crazy;

- the middle level is the realm, with its inhabitants;

- the lower level is the Abyss: in fictions the Abyss usually recalls hell but that’s not totally true for Hollow Knight because of different reasons:

i) we can find the corpse of the Vessel used and thrown away by the Pale King, but it’s also the place that gave birth to our heroe, so it cannot be considered totally negative;

ii) the game tells us that the Kingdom of Hallownest is a tribute to all what bugs have been in life and this fills with a different meaning this place;

iii) we can find the Void into the Abyss and thanks to them we can defeat the Radiance forever.

So, in other words, in Hollow Knight’s lore the meaning of heaven and hell is reversed.

If we consider this theory true, we can finally appreciate why Radiance chooses to punish Moth tribe: another recurring theme in the narrative is the God who punishes men who turn their backs. Moth tribe chose the Pale King because he promised wellness, an earthly value, forever. This is clearly a sin and the tribe deserves to be punished.

The Void:

The Void is the substance of The Abyss, most of them is found in a sea at the bottom of the Abyss, but multiple beings exist who consist of Void themselves. The Void is “the power opposed”: it has the ability to oppose the light based Radiance and Pale King, who are both describes as light. When the Knight acquires the Void Heart and learns about their past the Void is unified under their will.

Since the Void completely leaks any kind of emotion and the hope It is capable of containing the Radiance, who feeds herself with dreams as if they were physical entities. Its nature of nothingness allows it to be filled with something and that’s why having been raised by the King made the Hollow Knight feel love and become imperfect.

The Pale King and his Queen:

“The old king of Hallownest… he must have been desperate to save his crumbling little world. The sacrifices he imposed on other… all for nothing”.

The Pale King is considered to be a higher being who used to be the monarch of Hallownest, mate of the White Lady and ruler of the White Palace. We find him dead on his throne in the White Palace. I am sure he died of despair for not being able to find the bathroom in that absurd place he called home and whoever has played that level will agree with me. I mean, the architect should be sued.

As wiki says, he’s an ancient Wyrm who wandered through mountains and across the wasteland until finally stopping by Kingdom’s Edge. Once there, the Wyrm shed the skin and transformed himself into the Pale King. He reduced his form in order to match the bugs of Hallownest.

Contrary to what is commonly said, I don’t’ think he is a higher being for real. I think he was a mortal bug like all the others, but remaining mostly closed in his Palace he was deified by his subjects. As a matter of fact, while the Radiance has never stopped giving her people the light she promised, the Pale King has not kept his promises and if he really was a divinity he would not have died. He symbolizes the earthly power and the aura of divine that hovers around monarchical figures, who do not mix themselves with their subjects, they often make promises that they cannot keep remaining enclosed in sumptuous palaces.

Moreover, the children whom the Pale King and the Queen gave birth to are just vessels, which are mortal remains and not divine spirit: it’s the difference between the mortal body of Jesus Christ (given to him by his mortal mother) and his immortal spirit (given to him by the divine father). In the same way, the Knight possesses the mortal remains of their parents but infused with the spirit of emptiness that characterized their divine nature.

Anyway, the Pale King gives to his people free will, while the Radiance claims intellectual slavery.

The Knight:

“An enigmatic wanderer who descends into Hallownest carrying only a broken nail to fend off foes” – official manual.

The Knight is the protagonist of the videogame. A discarded Vessel, child of the Pale King and the White Lady, born in the Abyss with Void inside their shell. Like the rest of their Vessel siblings is genderless. They embody emptiness: they are not created by anyone except by emptiness itself. They are a messianic figure who bring peace to the Kingdom.

Nightmare King Grimm:

“The expanse of dream in past was split,

One realm now must stay apart,

Darkest reaches, beatin red,

Terror of sleep. The Nightmare’s Heart”.

Nightmare King Grimm is the Dream form of Tropue Master Grimm: “Through dream I travel, at lantern’s call to consume the flames of a kingdom’s fall”. As wiki says, The Grimm Tropue is a mysterious travelling circus from the Nightmare realm to wherever the Nightmare Lantern has been lit by acolytes. They gather Nightmare Flames from ruined lands to fuel the sinister being enslaving the Troupe, the Nightmare’s Heart. The Nightmare is the dimension where the Nightmare’s Heart rests. The Nightmare’s Heart is the proper host of the Nightmare, as the Radiance is the host of the Dream. The Nightmare’s Heart is a higher being responsible for the Ritual of the Grimm Troupe, Grimmchild and Troupe Master Grimm are its spawn.

#hollow knight #team cherry #lore #videogame #indiegame #soulslike #meta #analysis

44 notes · View notes

heisthq · 4 years

Photo

you all certainly didn’t make this easy on me — it was an incredibly tough decision for many of the roles. there were THIRTY-EIGHT applications for only ELEVEN roles, which is insane, and please know that every single one was incredible. i’m only one person on the internet, and this decision is in no way a reflection of the quality of your writing ( seriously, i know i just said it, but i’m kind of shocked by how good every single app was ). i’m so grateful for all the love heist has gotten, and i couldn’t be happier with the beautiful submissions i received ! from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

for those of you who were accepted, please follow the checklist, familiarize yourself with your fellow members, & review the triggers list. once your blog is set up, please send it in to the main within 24 hours so i can send you a link to the discord server.

but enough talking — the newest members of HEISTHQ can be found under the cut !

welcome, DEDE ! you have been accepted as THE BLEEDING HEART, otherwise known as JUDY FAULKNER PRYCE ( ELIZABETH OLSEN ).

good god. what a way to start off acceptances — judy reached into my heart and took it for herself, and i’m not upset about it in the slightest. her gruff outer shell, still with that instinctive need to help, to do something, is so bleeding heart, and i ached at every step of the way through her journey. i knew i was really in for it when i dedicated a skeleton to loss itself, but you spun that concept into a living, breathing person and shot her back at me. i’ll happily let her knock me down any day, and i know she certainly will as soon as she makes her way onto the dash.

welcome, CHERRY ! you have been accepted as THE CAREER CRIMINAL, otherwise known as MISCHA DOSTOYEVSKY ( NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO ).

though you made my decision very difficult with that eleventh hour app, i couldn’t stop coming back to mischa. from the beginning of her childhood crimes to her current position as the head of the motherfucking bratva, she pulled me in and got me hook, line, and sinker. you painted such a brilliant picture of her that i felt she was going to jump off the page at any moment — and that last line of her bio ? chills. literal chills. finally, i have now decided their next heist is going to be stealing lip gloss from claire’s, shoutout to mischa for that hot idea. all in all, she’s an absolute delight, and i cannot wait to have her here.

welcome, REED ! you have been accepted as THE EYE IN THE SKY, otherwise known as INDIANA “INDIE” ASCENCIO ( ANA DE ARMAS, BUT ONLY WITH PINK HAIR ).

okay, first of all, are you kidding me with that bio structure ? that was the coolest shit i’ve ever seen. what a way to kick it off for the eye in the sky — i said break the stereotype and you said bet. indie is an absolute gem of a character, as stunning as she is valuable, and damn if she doesn’t know it. she’s so vibrant that i could practically hear her voice when i read your answers to the prompts; i’m still howling at thirty five pages of criminal offenses. the eye in the sky needed to take me by the throat to show me who they are; you broke down the door and said here she is. i couldn’t be more honored to have her.

welcome, NOAH ! you have been accepted as THE GETAWAY DRIVER, otherwise known as CARLISLE “JACE” JACOBI HARRISON-SHEA ( CYRUS AMINI ).

the getaway driver was, arguably, the toughest choice i had to make — but i couldn’t help myself. jace drew me back in every single time like a moth to a flame, and i know he’d read that fact with that same, secret little smirk. every moment of reading your app is exciting, like i’m white-knuckled in jace’s passenger seat, along for whatever twists and turns his psyche brings, which was exactly what i was looking for. there are too many incredible quotes to put in one acceptance post, but one such example is stunningly simple: you weren’t just running. you were chasing. i posed a question in the getaway driver’s skeleton, and with one quick pivot, you took my breath away. just... wow. that’s all.

welcome, MARS ! you have been accepted as THE HIRED GUN, otherwise known as ASLAN “MAZZIE” YILMAZ ( ALPEREN DUYMAZ ).

mars, i’m gonna be honest, i hate you a little bit ( but not really. i love you ). i’m pretty sure forcing me to choose between two stunning apps should count as some sort of personal attack, but after much agonizing, i’m delighted to settle with the absolute tragedy that is my newest son mazzie. there’s a quiet power, a quiet ( but no less imposing ) threat threaded throughout his story, and somehow you managed to weave my own heartstrings into the picture alongside it all. you sent me tumbling head over heels for this man who, in his own words, is death himself. you gave me my hired gun, and he’s everything i dreamed. thank you.

welcome, LUCY ! you have been accepted as THE INSIDE MAN, otherwise known as IVY WANG ( GEMMA CHAN ).

lucy. lucy !!! you didn’t make it easy on me, but man, i couldn’t be more wrapped around ivy’s finger, which is probably just how she’d like it. the structure of your app was so interesting & unique ( that arrest report ?? HOT ). she encapsulates the inside man so perfectly — from her mannerisms to her motivations, everything was so spot on that i’m pretty sure you reached inside my brain to pull out my exact vision. she feels so real, so human and so powerful all at once, and i would personally let her arrest me and write her a thank you note for putting me in jail. i’m obsessed. obsessed !

welcome, BEE ! you have been accepted as THE MASTERMIND, otherwise known as BISHOP LEE ( CHOI MINHO ).

my beautiful mastermind is no longer mine — he’s yours, bee, every inch, and i couldn’t be happier about it. from his recruitment log ( which was !!! you wove his voice into it so perfectly ) to his reasoning for creating the group in the first place, bishop is someone i didn’t expect, but i adore him, shaping his little family & leaving behind a legacy he can be proud of ( “so bishop acts like they’re immortal, because he truly believes they are. it’s just his version of immortality is in the history books rather than an eternally beating heart.” are you KIDDING ??? ). please don’t take him from me — i don’t want to let him go.

welcome, MIA ! you have been accepted as THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK, otherwise known as MARTY CHOI ( KANG MINA ).

listen, i’m pretty relieved i didn’t get another app for this character, because i didn’t need one — marty is the new kid, through and through. she has that hunger that is so quintessential for this role, the drive and ambition for something more in this grand universe of ours. it’s so perfectly exemplified by marty’s own words: let me be excellent at something again. let me be proud of my own capabilities again. let me be part of something so i'll stop feeling so alone. this !! this is so perfect i almost jumped out of my skin reading it. thank you for bringing me our perfectly imperfect new kid — i can’t wait to see her in action.

welcome, LEXI ! you have been accepted as THE SECOND IN COMMAND, otherwise known as PERCY BANKS ( BRENTON THWAITES ).

holy shit, lexi. holy shit !! from the moment i saw “STATUS: deceased” at the beginning of your app, i knew i was in for a wild ride — but i had no idea what truly awaited me. from percy’s humble beginnings through his ambitious rise to hotshot fbi agent ( speaking of, can you say hot fucking take to have him as ex-fbi ? i’m floored ), i was hooked into the twists and turns of his story, my jaw dropping when i realized who jupiter was after all. the highs and lows of his first foray into the world of heists had me on the edge of my seat, and i truly cannot wait to see what percy does next — because at this rate, who knows where he’ll end up ? i’m excited to find out !

welcome, HANNAH ! you have been accepted as THE STAR OF THE SHOW, otherwise known as STRIKER KIM ( CHARLES MELTON ).

god, hannah — break my heart, why don’t you ? as each tidbit of striker’s past fell into place, that’s what you did, and i’m aching for this boy who’s just trying to stay alive ( and live as much as he can while he still is ). though the star could be played in so many different ways, you took this role an entirely different direction, and suffice to say it blew me away. literally, your mind. exhibit a — you didn’t go running to high society for fame or fortune, no. it was your insurance policy — god, striker !! he’s such a complex, heartbreaking character, and i can’t wait to see him on the dash. he may have a hand in two different worlds of crime, but he’s also got a place in my heart, and god knows he could use the love. also, making me crack a code just to understand your bio headings ? touché. i deserved that.

welcome, ELLIE ! you have been accepted as THE WATCHDOG, otherwise known as THEA JAIN ( NAOMI SCOTT ).

the watchdog requires a delicate balance: soft edges bathed in steel, a gentle person capable of terrible things. it can be a tough image to capture, but i shouldn’t have worried. your entire app painted a picture of this exact person, tugging at my heartstrings until the very end: remember that you are thea jain, and that you are a good person. you are kind. you are loved. and you are in control. that was it — just like thea’s fifth rule to round out the reminders of her morality, you completely sealed the deal. the way she cares for the team, baking for them and occasionally mothering them, exposes that soft underbelly guarded by her quiet yet surprising strength and power. you’ve made a beautiful character, ellie. i can’t thank you enough for bringing her to me.

#accepted.#thank u all for putting up w me !!!#sorry it took so long but whew #it's here

5 notes · View notes

cornfedcryptid-archive · 5 years

Text

A Question of Faith

A little prerelationship Solavellan I made as my first real foray back into writing.

It had only been a handful of weeks since the ‘Herald of Andraste’ stabilized the Breach. A handful of weeks Solas observed the one who bore his magic. She was a quiet and unassuming elf. But she possessed a gaze that could stare down into a person’s very soul. He was not surprised she naturally gravitated towards his presence. Like she, he was an apostate elf adrift in the sea of faithful.

As with any other night, Solas found her on the bridge leading to the outside of Haven. Each night she sat wrapped in a blanket, and stared out into the world around her. And each night Solas would silently join her until either the cold or exhaustion drove them inside. It was only on this bridge, in the safety of the night, that Solas was able to catch a glimpse of what lurked behind those ghostly white eyes. At first, he only joined her to ensure she did not run away. But as their nightly ritual progressed and evolved, it was becoming harder and harder to convince himself that was the only reason. Each time he caught a glimpse he felt himself sinking further and further into her. Each time he found himself struggling to escape less and less.

“Why do you hate the Dalish?”

The question jerked him out of the quiet contentment that had settled across them. Ever since the argument, if it could have been called that, it was a subject neither of them brought up. It would sully the oasis the nightly bridge ritual had become for the two of them. It felt like a slap to the face, but it was no more than a caress.

“They are children acting out stories misheard and repeated wrongly a thousand times.” On instinct, he went on the defensive, his tone harsher than he intended. But he would not back down. He knew the truth behind the lies that the elves’ history was built upon. If she refused to see reason, it would make keeping her at a distance all that much easier.

“And you know the truth?”

The curious inflection in her tone gave him pause. Nowhere on her was there any sign of hostility. He found himself wishing for indignation over the calmness in which she regarded him. She looked at him as if she already knew the answer to the question, like a mother asking their child if they were the one who drew on the wall.

“While they pass on stories, mangling the details, I walk the fade. I have seen the history the Dalish imitate.”

“Have you tried to share this knowledge?”

“I have, but was attacked for no greater reason than their superstition.”

“This knowledge that you hold, would it contradict everything the Dalish know?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

Solas braced himself for a debate, knowing that it would shatter the sanctuary that the bridge had become. He waited, but it did not come. Instead she turned her attention to the frozen lake, with a look of contemplation he had grown to know. He knew what would come next would be the trap he thought he had so skillfully evaded. To think that a simple Dalish elf would be the one to make the feared Dread Wolf pause brought a small smile to his face. But to him, she was anything but simple.

His mind was at war with itself. He needed to anger her, to drive her away. The feelings that grew between them each night needed to die, for her sake. But the thought of never seeing the way her eyes lit up when he regaled her with tales of the Fade or debated magical theory, sent his mind into utter chaos. To find someone in this time that held a similar interest in the fade and its inhabitants as he did was refreshing. Her questions were endless some nights, barely giving him a chance to breathe before the next one was on the tip of her tongue. On these nights her mask was discarded and he was drawn to her, like a moth to flame.

As the moon climbed higher in the night sky, snow started to fall. It protected their sanctuary in a sheer curtain of white, muting out the sounds around them. The banging of metal, from blacksmith and soldier, were but a distant sound. All that could be heard was the crackle of her spell, as it fought to keep the two of them warm.

“Our people have lost everything twice. Each time they took what pieces were left and rebuilt what they could. It was never going to be what it was before; nothing ever is once it’s broken. Knowing that, would you save everything you could both good and bad, or would you tell the stories that would give your children hope as they fell asleep at night?”

“What the Dalish have kept has been mangled to the point that it no longer resembles the truth.”

“That does not answer my question, Solas.”

“I would keep it all. It would do those in the past a disservice if such knowledge was forgotten.” He stared down at her and felt his annoyance as the entire debate started to reach its peak. He was angry she destroyed the oasis they had created. He was angry she was finding amusement in this. He was angry she was so blindly defending the Dalish. But what he was the angriest about was the building excitement within him as he waited for her answer. The small, teasing smile from before was back. It taunted and tempted him to the point of frustration.

“Have you ever played the game ‘Secret Message’ as a child?”

“I do not see how a children’s game has anything to do with what we’re discussing.”

“You will hahren. It’s all part of my elaborate trap. Humor me, please?”

“Ma nuvenin, da'len.” A small smirk touched the corner of his mouth as he looked at her. “I never played such a game growing up.”

“It’s a game the hahren would regularly have the children play. It took me a while to feel comfortable enough to play when I first came to the clan. It’s a simple game, best played with more than five people. Everyone sits in a circle and one person comes up with a secret. They whisper the secret into the ear of the person next to them, that person whispers what they hear to the next, and so on. How often do you think the secret that reaches the source is the same as the original?”

“I would imagine it would no longer resemble the original by the third child.”

“You would not be wrong,” she chuckled. “Can you guess as to why the hahren had us play this game?”

“I would guess to keep a group of rambunctious children still for a few minutes,” he smirked.

“Again, you are half right. The main reason why she had us play this game was to teach us that words take a different shape in the hands of someone else. She teaches us that while our history has been passed down through generations, it may no longer resemble what it was in the beginning. We shouldn’t always take things at face value, and strive to unravel the truth.”

“If only the rest of the Dalish shared that sentiment.”

“I cannot fault those who refuse to accept that what they know may not be true. With all that our people have gone through, it is only natural to cling to the small shred of hope they have. But as ‘stuck in their ways’ as people imagine the Dalish to be, change is in the air. More are starting to question. I am not asking you to forgive what has been done to you. I only ask that you try to see the Dalish through my eyes, if just for a moment.”

“How do you see them?”

“My salvation.”

For what felt like an eternity, she looked at him while his mind warred with itself. As Fen’harel, the Dalish feared and reviled him, and shunned him as Solas. What she was asking was impossible. In his eyes, the Dalish were nothing more than spoiled and arrogant children. But she was not asking for forgiveness or understanding. All she wanted was a moment, a minuscule amount of time for someone who has lived as long as he. A moment where he shed all preconceived notions and prejudice, and saw them through her eyes.

But to see them through her eyes would be to admit they are real. Real beings, with thoughts and feelings, just like his people. To see such a thing, even for a moment, would be an obstacle he was afraid he could not cross. But the woman beside him, whose spirit and haunting eyes captivated him in a matter of hours, became more real by the second. She had slipped in among the cracks of his armor and slowly chipped it away. For the first time in his life, he did not feel alone. He was becoming addicted to her presence, the point of no return looming on the horizon. And it frightened him. But he wasn’t always a cautious man, and felt the arrogance of his youth rise to the challenge.

“I will try.”

Not long after her spell gave up, she moved closer to Solas and his warmth. She folded her legs and draped one of her knees in his lap. His arm unconsciously wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer, as they sat in silence. Even though they shared a blanket and altered heating spells, body heat was their main source of warmth as the conversation waned and weariness grew. But as of late it was more than just the desire for warmth that had Solas reaching out for her. On nights that he found himself overwhelmed by her, he felt the stirrings of a different kind of desire long thought dead. Some nights he could quench the embers. But more often than not, he found himself wanting to consume and be consumed. On these nights, even the smallest of caresses would stoke the embers into a roaring fire.

“You are not Dalish by blood?” The glimpse into her past earlier piqued his curiosity, and he needed to know more. It wasn’t a need to know that stemmed from doing what she asked. But a need to know what made her different to him than the rest of the people that flowed around him. He hoped it nothing more than the subtle influence of his magic within her. What he feared most was that the woman whose touch was like a balm to a burn, was not like the many others he had encountered. That she, in her subtle presence and confounding wit, would prove him wrong.

“No. I was born and raised in an alienage in Ansburg.” She pressed closer, lulled by his warmth and the sound of his beating heart. The curtain of snow combined with the feel of Solas against her, provided a sense of grounding she had long been searching for. She found herself back in the alienage in Ansburg, before her magic changed the lives of her and her family. Back when the warmth of her mother’s embrace still held unconditional love. It was the key to her vault of memories, which she had long thought she destroyed years ago. But Solas, with his lilting voice and soft touch, pried the mask from her face. She knew the moment they first met he would be her undoing. But for once in her life, she wanted to be greedy. She wanted to feel the love she had grown to resent that was rooted within the Dalish. It was within her too once, long ago. But it died the day it was tainted with the resentful feelings that forced her to The Circle.

“My mother was a devout Andrastian. She unwaveringly believed in the Maker, and what the Chantry preached. You can imagine what a shock it was when her only daughter turned out to be a mage.”

He felt more than saw her disappear into herself as she relived the memories. Her voice had that faraway tone one had when they were seeing a memory as a fly on the wall. A part of him wanted to tell her to stop. But he knew it would be to no avail. What was about to be said needed to be heard. It was a weight she had carried for almost 20 years. He caught glimpses of what she tried to hide whenever her mask would falter, but only for a second. The crippling weight of guilt and shame was a familiar friend. He knew it was a weight that could break even the strongest of people.

“Were you taken to the Circle?”

“No I was not. In hindsight it might have been better if I went to the Circle while I was still young, instead of later in life. Dalish don’t survive The Circle for long. Why I survived is no short of a divine miracle.”

She ran her fingers absentmindedly across the jagged scar on her face, as old memories long thought buried came screaming to the surface. Flashes of pain, darkness, and the press of a desk dragged her under. Their gnarled and bony fingers bruised and tore at her flesh. As the memories threatened to drown her, she felt the familiar caress of Solas’ magic. It pierced through the darkness, and showed her the way to the light. She sent a silent thank you to the heavens, before she continued.

“They screamed and yelled for hours about what to do. My father had to bar the door to prevent my mother from going to the Chantry. He managed to convince her the Dalish would be a better home for me. For years, my mother wouldn’t look at or speak to me. I thought she resented me because my father didn’t want to send me to The Circle. Whenever she did look at me, it always felt as though she was seeing me as the abomination the Chantry painted me to be.”

“You ar-“

“Before I came into my magic, my family had a relatively good life. My father was partners with a dwarven inventor, and made more than enough to keep us from going hungry. Because of me we had to leave that life behind. Their marriage nearly fell apart because of me. Enan has never experienced our parents at their best. All of the hardships our family has faced were because I was cursed with magic. But the Dalish, they accepted me without a second thought. Keeper Deshanna was more a mother to me than my own. I threw myself into learning all I could about Dalish culture. She showed me that the curse I was given was a gift meant to be shared. Their gods seemed much kinder than the one I grew up knowing. I wore the mantle of First with pride. I thought I had finally found myself. Found where I belonged. But after the Circle I….I didn’t know what to believe anymore.”

Solas cradled her face in his hands, and smoothed his thumb over the jagged edges of her scar. He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers, his magic flowing from him to her. She looked away, shame written on the lines of her face. But he was a patient man, and waited. He waited until her curiosity would overcome her shame, and her eyes would meet his.

“I do not see the abomination the Chantry has taught you to be. I see you, Raven. Only you.”

There was a flash of relief and something else Solas could not recognize before Raven curled into herself. Years of shame and guilt were washed away by the silent tears that slipped between her fingers. She willingly fell against Solas with the slightest of pressure. They sat in silence; only the sound of her occasional sniffle was to be heard.

She wanted to scream. To cry. To laugh. It was all too much for her. She gave a glimpse, thinking-almost hoping-it would chase him away like all the others. But that wasn’t him. Even if she knew nothing more about him, she knew Solas was not that. He saw her. Not the Herald of Andraste. Not the city elf wearing the mask of the First. Not a mage whose mind and body was tainted by The Circle. He saw Raven. Only Raven.

He felt the pinch of her glasses through his sweater. When he tilted her head up to look at him, they were fogged from the heat trapped between them. She pulled back with a sniffle and attempted to duck her head. But his grip on her glasses stopped her short. He untangled them from her hair and slipped them off her nose. Using the underside of his sweater, he wiped them cleaned and perched them back on the tip of her nose. The brush of her fingers against his, as she pushed her glasses up her nose, sent a jolt of electricity through him.

“The night I was captured I pleaded to the Maker. I begged for him to take pity on me. When he didn’t answer I started to hope that Fen’Harel would catch my scent, and put an end to what was to come. As the years went by, I started to lose hope in the Creators and the Maker. I became complacent to what was happening to me. When Enan found me after The Circles fell, I was scared to go back.”

“Why were you scared?”

“Who I was before died in the dark. When we returned to the clan, everyone looked at me as if I had risen from the dead. My mother, who couldn’t stand the sight of me before, clung to me crying. I did what I did so I could save my family. Save the clan. But now that I was back, seeing all of them just made me sick. I started to hate them. Hate myself. I tried to leave. But Deshanna wouldn’t let me. She helped me, in what ways that she could to find myself and my faith in the Creators again.”

“Did you find your faith again?”

“In a way,” she shrugged. “With all the searching I did during those years, I found more questions than answers.”

“What sort of questions?”

“More than what can be answered in a night.”

“I am not surprised,” he chuckled.

He told himself, as the silence grew between them, the only reason why he pulled her to his side again was for warmth. Both were exhausted from the day of travelling and used what mana they had earlier in the night. It had to be. It needed to be. He did not want to admit to himself the feelings he felt grow stronger this night were more than pity. It was nothing more than pity he felt for her. Pity for the woman whose heat warmed him, and the hardships she had to face because of his actions. If he held his guilt and shame close, it would be easier to keep her away.

These feelings were not born, nurtured by the woman he held in his arms that saw nothing more than Solas. They were not fed by her curious nature and willingness to listen. They were not protected by the ferocity in which she cursed the magister for killing him. It wasn’t the softness of her touch or the way her nose would crinkle when she laughed at something he said.

But a night couldn’t hurt. Could it? He could just be a man for a single night. A single night he offered comfort to the woman who was slowly laying siege to his heart. For on the morrow, all of their lives would change. She had secured the mages, and they were to seal The Breach at first light. Fear was written all over her, from the moment he saw her this evening. He felt it each time her hands shook when they reached for one another.

Neither knew if she would survive. It’s what kept them both on the bridge. If they didn’t leave their oasis, maybe the morning wouldn’t come. Maybe they could stay here forever, wrapped in each other’s warmth. The falling snow would protect them and hold off the coming morning.

It would.

Wouldn’t it?

#my writing #raven lavellan #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #solavellan #the solavellan archive

17 notes · View notes

johnhardinsawyer · 4 years

Text

Jesus 2020

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

11 / 1 / 20 – All Saints Sunday

Matthew 6:19-24

“Jesus 2020”

(Pathways to Generosity – Part 1)

There sure are a lot of campaign signs in my neighborhood, these days – signs emblazoned with the name of this candidate or that candidate. About a month ago, I noticed a house with a single sign in its well-manicured lawn. The sign looks like any other campaign sign – it is red, white, and blue and has some fairly traditional lettering. But, if you look closely at the sign, you can see that it reads, “Presidents are Temporary. Wu-Tang is Forever.” Let me explain. . .

There is an old-school hip-hop group – a bunch of rappers from New York – who go by the name “Wu-Tang Clan.” Now, some of you might be very familiar with the kung-fu hip-hop sonic artistry that is Wu-Tang Clan, but for those of you who are not, you are not alone.[1]

Even though there are plenty of lyrics by Wu-Tang Clan that are definitely not church-appropriate, as strange as it sounds to hear these words coming out of my own mouth, there is this one song by Wu-Tang Clan that is rather fitting when it comes to today’s scripture reading. The song is called “C.R.E.A.M.” and the letters “C.R.E.A.M.” stand for “Cash Rules Everything Around Me”. The song, itself, is about how hard life on the streets can be – drugs, violence, all of those things – and the need to make money to survive.[2] The song’s main hook goes like this:

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

C.R.E.A.M.

Get the money

Dollar, dollar bill, y’all. . .[3]

If you think about the human condition and our need, drive, and desire for money, the words “cash rules everything around me. . . get the money” are about as true a statement about living in this world as there ever was. This past summer, one of my brother’s friends said something like, “There are plenty of problems that can just go away if you throw enough cash at ‘em.”[4] There are so many instances in which cash is king – from solving real problems and matters of great importance to the billions of dollars spent just to get certain people elected. It would appear that cash rules everything around us. “Dollar, dollar bill y’all.”

Jesus knew about the human drive for money, and how money makes the world go ‘round, and how money and material things can short-circuit our values and scramble our orientation toward God. Just in case you’re wondering, Jesus is on record as saying a lot about money – he said more about money than just about anything else.

Today’s scripture reading from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount encapsulates his main argument in one sentence: “You cannot serve [both] God and wealth.” (Matthew 6:24)

“No one can serve two masters,” Jesus says. (6:24) If you are in service to or enslaved to one master, then they have ownership and power over you and you are dependent upon that master. You probably don’t need me to spend too much time talking about the ways that our drive and desire for money – our need for money – can enslave us in a manner of speaking. We always find ourselves needing more and more of it, afraid of not having enough, with no end in sight. Cash rules everything around us – and if we are ruled by it, then we are enslaved by it. It has ultimate power over us. But even though cash rules everything around us, it doesn’t have to rule us.

The kingdom of God provides an alternative for us and living for that kingdom – serving that kingdom – provides a greater reward than any monetary wealth we might have or accumulate. As one commentator writes:

. . . being slaves is, on the one hand, an image of social shame and humiliation. . . Yet, on the other hand, in the gospel’s worldview this existence [of being God’s slave] is honorable. . . to be God’s slave is to be committed to God’s empire; it ensures access to God’s saving power and protection and anticipates participation in the completion of God’s purposes. To choose to serve God, the most revered of all, [a person is] honored. . . precisely because God is the master.[5]

We cannot serve two masters, though. We cannot serve both God and wealth – God and money, God and property.[6] For Jesus – and for us – it’s not both/and. It’s either/or.

So, who – or what – is your master? Who – or what – has power over you? For my part, I am well aware that there are plenty of times when my own master is not God. With financial obligations – bills to pay, things I need to buy, and things I want to buy but don’t really need – cash still rules everything around me, for the most part. And, even though I know what I am supposed to do – I know in whom I am supposed to place my trust – I end up trying to serve two masters: God and whatever wealth I may have (or want). Perhaps you might just find yourself in the same boat.

So, what are we to do?

Jesus starts today’s reading by talking about the differences between earthly treasure and heavenly treasure. He is well aware that any wealth – any money or any material thing that we are able to get or own – doesn’t really last. I mean, there are those practices that we can try to adopt to leave our wealth to our children, but even then, there are no guarantees. Money has a way of getting spent, one way or another – stock markets rise and fall and real estate is subject to fire and flood (especially these days). As Jesus puts it, the stuff that we buy and own all becomes subject to, “moth and rust and thieves.” (16:19)

There is only one thing that truly lasts – only one permanent thing: the kingdom of God. So, Jesus says, invest in the thing that lasts. Because, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (6:21) When I read today’s passage, this is the most beautiful and powerful image for me. Because it is not about how much money we have or don’t have. It’s not about how big or small our house might be. It’s not about what kind of car we drive or where we vacation when we’re not in the middle of a pandemic. It’s all about the orientation of our heart – our heart’s direction.

One of the major themes of the New Testament is how God changes the direction of our hearts and our lives. The word that we use in English to describe this is “repentance,” but the word in the original language is “metanoia” literally turning us away from the way of life that is unhealthy for our spirits and turning us toward the Holy.[7]

When Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” he is talking about the attitude and intention – the direction and orientation – of our hearts. Where are our hearts pointing? Where are our hearts going? Toward whom or toward what have we set our heart’s intention – toward God or something else? Where is our heart leading us along life’s path – toward God or somewhere else? Does cash rule us or does God rule us? The answer, here, determines what and where our true treasure is and what path we might be on.

This year, for our Fall Stewardship Campaign, we are focusing, as a congregation, on something we’re calling The Giving Path – a way to orient our lives around generosity. . . turning toward God. Now, when it comes to how and what we give, our first question is usually, “What do I think I can afford?” This is a question that, I admit, gets asked in our home on a regular basis. If we are on God’s Giving Path, though, the question should not be something that we ask ourselves, but, rather, something that we ask God. Instead of “What do I think I can afford?” the question should really be, “God, where do you want me to be in my giving?”

Now, some of you might just be starting to explore what it would mean to turn toward God in this way. Some of you might be growing or deepening your commitment – moving along the Giving Path – in what and how you give. Some of you might be centering your life around the spiritual discipline of generosity and moving along the Giving Path toward a tithe. And, some of you might be going beyond into a transformational way of living and giving that not only transforms your own life, but the lives of those who are touched by your generosity. Wherever we are on the Giving Path, God calls us to take the next step, to go deeper and farther toward the treasure that is truly lasting – a life that is turned toward and moving in the direction of the Holy. And on this All-Saints Sunday, I, for one, am grateful for all the saints (both the living and the dead) who have gone before us – stepping out in faith and living lives that pointed them – and us – toward the Holy. May we follow their example in how we live and give.

I’ll close with this – I saw another campaign sign this week. It’s down on Meetinghouse Road – not far from here – and it doesn’t say anything about Wu-Tang Clan, or Trump, or Biden. All it says is “Jesus 2020.” Now, there are a couple of ways to read the sign – one of which would be a prayer that goes like this: “Jesus?!?!? 2020!?!?” But another way of reading the sign is simply, “My vote and my heart in this year – in this moment – go to Jesus.” This does not necessarily mean that when you go to the polls on Tuesday, you should write in Jesus’ name. It does mean, though, that the One who is our truest treasure; the One who came to bring abundant life, and healing, and forgiveness, and peace; the One who feeds us at this Table – giving himself away in love – is the One who is our true and loving master. In the end, Jesus is the One who rules everything around us. And his kingdom is one that is filled with grace – even grace for those whose hearts have a hard time turning toward him. . . even grace for you and for me.

Who is your true and only master – your true and only treasure? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I can’t tell you how to vote. All I’ll say, is, “Presidents are temporary. God’s kingdom - of love, and justice, and peace - is forever.”

Jesus 2020.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

------------

[1] I admit that I don’t know much of their music, except to say that people I respect who really love rap music, really respect Wu-Tang Clan.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.R.E.A.M.

[4] Russell – a Texan who knows about such things.

[5] Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2000) 175.

[6] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 490.

[7] Walter Bauer, 512.

0 notes

thelastswallow · 7 years

Text

What Tears Us Apart, Ties Us Together

Chapter 9

John - Legwork

In which there is home made spaghetti - Alan Tracy learns the origin of a nickname - Lieutenant Cooper Waverly pines after an imaginary woman - Virgil Tracy has an assignation with a real one - a young man crosses the border into Turkey and it is a long way to Illinois

There’s something about deserts that has always appealed to John.

Something about the horizon. The towers of empty space and the flat, lunar surface. It makes him feel calm and clean.

Like a moth to a bug zapper, Grandma used to say, as she attacked him with the tube of sunscreen when he was a kid, or painted the tip of his nose with aloe Vera when he came home pink and peeling. He’s not built for the desert. Only Gordon’s sallow skinned and quick to tan, buy of the five of them John burns the quickest, roasts the colour of poached salmon in the time it takes to boil an egg; some unfortunate throwback to the Scotch-Irish roots of the Tracy clan. But Man wasn’t made for space either, yet his Dad stood on the face of Mars. So maybe it’s natural that John wants to explore the places he doesn’t belong.

When he was 11, the six of them had spent one February Fourth in a specially built capsule in the Mojave Desert that mimicked the lunar simulation modules the SETI Institute had used in the early 2000s, when NASA had been prepping to go back to the moon. John doesn’t remember a time when he’d been happier than he was staring out the porthole of that cramped little module, imagining himself among the company of the great men and women who had walked on the moon.

Sometimes, when he needs to gather himself, John imagines himself curled up in the porthole window, watching the lunar landscape of the Mojave.

Yet But when he imagines the desert, this isn’t what he pictures. It looks all wrong as it hurtles past the window, in blocks of olive and grey under a forget-me-not sky. This desert doesn’t make him feel calm, just sweaty and anxious and itchy all at once. It looks yellow and scrubby and full of rattlesnakes; scar tissue on the landscape. It hurtles past and he wishes he were somewhere else.

A good first test.

There’s a chime above his head that signals the magnet train is slowing down and he breaks his fixed gaze on the winding landscape. His tablet has gone unattended for long enough that it’s gone dark. He’s too easily distracted all of a sudden.

He gathers his bag and tablet and rises. A few people make note of his movement, but nobody else in the carriage makes a move to disembark.

The magtrain glides to a halt and there’s a whoosh of hot, dry air as the door unseals itself. He steps out onto the raised platform. Along the train’s length passengers, most in uniform, diffuse in and out of the train. No one pays him any attention as they hurry towards the stairs and the exit, swiping their passes through the scanner. He follows.

There are convoy trucks waiting to pick up officers in the parking lot, and a dusty town taxi idling out in front of the red brick building, looking for business. He ignores it and makes the short walk into town.

By the time he gets there, there are dark patches of sweat beneath his armpits. He wipes his brow and stops at a dispenser to by a soda.

Avalon is a small, neat little place that mainly serves to support Rainshadow Airbase. There’s a county hospital and a couple of mom and pop stores, though most of the business has drained out of the centre of town. School kids wander around in packs. An elderly woman walking a tiny poodle smiles at him as he sips his pop. He finds McGruck’s, a sports’ bar, in a big lot off the main street.

The bartender is quick to ID him, but only shows real interest in his birthdate and not the person attached and after he’s been satisfied, leaves him nursing his beer and his tablet at the bar. Off duty airmen come in in dribs and drabs, and he earns a couple of curious looks, but nobody bothers him.

A little before seven there’s a tap on his shoulder, “Tracy?”

A rangy man in captain’s stripes has come up behind him. There’s a stir from the peanut gallery. This is not, John guesses, habitually a bar where officers come to drink. “John Tracy, right? I’m Skip Guerra.”

They’ve met before, though Skip probably doesn’t remember and John doesn’t remind him. Skip and Scott had been at school together and though Skip had been some years older, they had made friends running varsity track together. Scott had dragged John round to the dressing room to meet Skip the night he led the school football team to state. He had been gracious as he accepted John’s congratulations, though obviously wired to the moon and unlikely to remember. Skip had left for the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs the same year Scott had gone off to Yale. Now they serve in the same unit.

Skip is big in every dimension, has inches even on Scott. A small moustache makes him look older than his 26 years, and he is, John can tell, despite his bluff handshake, nervous.

“Thanks for coming.”

A tight nod. “I’ve got a car outside.”

They drive out of town, talking around the subject in question. Skip talks about the weather, their old school, Williams’ Prep and the differences between the GDF and the space programme. They reach Skip’s house, which is off base, where Skip’s wife Lisa and home-cooked spaghetti are waiting to ambush them.

John’s impatient to get on with the task at hand, but it’s rude to say no, particularly when he’s asking such a big favour, so he accepts as graciously as he can manage.

Skp and Lisa have got an 18-month-old son, Jake, and from the size of Lisa’s belly, another one on the way. Jake is fascinated by John’s red hair, and John – for whom babies have always been a separate country he is not planning on visiting – puts up with his interest. Lisa asks interested if routine questions about WWSA and Skip tells anecdotes about air force life. If it’s all designed to make John feel guilty, he thinks, as he passes around the basket of garlic bread, it’s working.

But when dinner is over and the plates are cleared Skip rises. “Time for John to be going,” he says. “I’ll be back later.” He kisses Lisa’s cheek.

As John closes the car door he says, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Sure, I do.” Skip starts the engine and puts the car into gear.

They drive. Within minutes they’re approaching Rainshadow Base and John feels his throat constrict.

Dad is Dad so of course he heard through channels first.

Scott is AWOL.

Or, to be precise, he is only guilty of Failure to Repair; but at 0900 hours yesterday Lieutenant Scott Tracy did not report to base after leave, and by 1700 hours he still has not reported to his commanding officer.

He’s not the only officer ever to fail to report in after leave. Maybe he missed his flight. Maybe he got the dates wrong. Maybe his mates, in high spirits, duct taped him to a pole and have forgotten where they left him. This sort of thing happens all the time.

Just not to Scott.

From the expression on Skip’s face he thinks so too.

Dad had called just as John was out for his morning run, having spent most of the night bailing Gordon out of a premature court marshalling at the WASP gala. “I’m telling you this,” Dad had said once he had broken the news, “Only because there’s a reasonable chance where you’re working that you might hear through other channels.”

John had never thought of himself as someone to be gossiped about or at. Maybe it was different with Scott. There was enough cross-over between the WWSA and the GDF that there was a possibility he would hear from some other source.

“You haven’t told the others?” he had asked.

“I don’t think there will be a need to.”

“When was the last time you heard from him?”

“The morning he left the island he called me a selfish, conceited son of a bitch. So at least we know he wasn’t acting out of character.” The attempt at a joke had fallen flat.

“He’s been missing a week?” He had been bundled up against the arctic cold. Suddenly his brain had felt as numb and clumsy as his hands.

“Absent. Not missing. Your brother’s always been good at letting me know he’s upset. Torching his career is certainly a potent signal fire.”

“Dad…”

“Kyrano’s already on his trail. And we’ll find him. I want you to stay where you are. Attend to your studies. If he contacts you, of course, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll update you periodically.”

“Dad, can I…”

“This is a good first test for you.”

A good first test. A test that he’s failing.

John Tracy is hacker like no other. John Tracy writes code the way Paul McCartney wrote pop hits. John Tracy has never met a digital door he did not want to open.

John Tracy cannot find his stupid, ignorant luddite of an older brother.

It should have been easy. Scott’s financial records, his flight history, his passage in and out of the security net that encircles the globe, it should have led John to him like a luminous contrail.

But Scott had landed in Algeria, withdrawn 2,000 dollars’ cash at the airport foreign exchange, disappeared into the city and…

Nothing.

No Scott. No trail. Nothing but white noise. Not even a starting point.

John spent half his time in MIT thinking and writing about search heuristics; for search and rescue; for stars; for prime numbers. Even the most basic search needs a node to start from.

And so now, here, with Skip, smiling politely in the passenger seat as they were waved through gate at Rainshadow Airbase, looking for somewhere to begin.

Scott had been the one to ruin their trip to the Mojave, hadn’t he? For three days all six of them had lived in close quarters, in the lunar simulation module, mimicking the lives of the first settlers on the moon, and how Dad had lived with Captains Taylor and Tsang when they had been building Shadow Alpha One. But on the morning of the fourth day, Scott had stumbled out of bed, and out the airlock, to relieve himself against the side of the capsule, decompressing the pod and killing his father and four brothers in the process.

Scott had been apologetic but unconcerned. Said it was an accident and that he had forgotten where they were. He had been nearly 14, unhappy about Dad’s decision to leapfrog him two years ahead into ninth grade, and ready for a little kickback. John, on the other hand, had been distraught, not ready for the adventure to end. He had begged Dad that they be allowed a do over, but Dad had said no. There were no second chances in space.

He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about that now.

Scott lives in unaccompanied officers’ quarters. Skip pulls up to the squat block of condos and parks. “This is it.”

“Thank you, Skip.”

Skip shrugs, nods. “Do you know what you’re looking for?”

Not really. Some clue or hint. Some trace of where Scott’s going or where he might be going, or what he might be thinking. An impression. A scent. “I’ll know it when I see it,” he says.

“John, I hope you find what you’re looking for, but you should know, I don’t think you’re going to find your brother in there.”

What a strange thing to say.

“You and Scott fly together, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re friends?” He’s got a sudden overwhelming feeling that this was a bad idea.

But Skip gives him a cryptic smile. “I’m not doing this because you asked politely. He does talk about you.”

“He does?”

“And I get the distinct impression that if anyone can find that squirrelly motherfucker and get him back where he belongs then it’s you. Yeah, we’re friends, John.”

A good first test.

“Okay.”

They get out of the car. Skip’s swipe key gets them into the building and up the stairs to Scott’s condo.

The first thing he notices is how clean it is. It’s at odds with the Scott he knows, who leaves dirty dishes in the sink and a breadcrumb trail of his clothes from the bathroom to his bed every night when getting undressed. Any habit can be learned, he supposes and somewhere along the way, someone has beaten neatness into Scott.

The kitchen-living room is sparse, impersonal. He rifles through the kitchen, but the cupboards are bare of anything more exciting than protein powder and cereal. The fridge holds nothing but ketchup and mustard.

He tries the bedroom. Skip follows.

In here too is neat and orderly, the corners of the bed are squared off. There’s a Light Type interface built into the desk that would have connected to Scott’s personal drive. When Skip isn’t looking, John takes a HUB from his pocket and sets it down, activating pre-set commands to clone everything that the interface has processed over the last two months.

He doesn’t linger by the desk and crosses to the other side of the room. The closet contains only neatly pressed uniforms, a couple of casual shirts in blue and cream, and rows of folded white t-shirts. There’s a small safe in the bottom of the closet, but it hangs open and any valuables have been cleared out.

There’s a digital picture frame on the windowsill that clicks to life when it detects motion, but the photos it cycles through are curiously blank of personality. A group picture of Scott’s squadron, a formal photograph of him smiling starkly at the camera at the receipt of his bronze star and a family portrait, the same one that goes out to the press when they’re looking to write about “Billionaire industrialist Jeff Tracy and his five fine boys”.

John feels a creep up his spine, like razor scraping bone. None of this feels genuine. It’s like he’s walked into an exhibition showcasing the life of one, ‘Lieutenant Scott Tracy’ rather into a place where anyone actually lives.

Angry again suddenly, he yanks open the drawer of the nightstand.

Inside the drawer are a flotsam of personal effects; a string of condoms; a blue inhaler, 11 months out of date, because Scott always forgets to resupply his prescription unless he’s having one of his infrequent asthma attacks; a Rubik’s cube, half-solved and then forgotten; a slim book.

He takes the book out of the drawer, turns it over, recognising it. It’s a copy of Slaughterhouse Five. The red and yellow dust jacket and leaves are real precious paper and the publisher’s seal says the volume was published in 1972. John had sourced it himself, from a small antique book dealer in San Francisco. It had been a rather pointed Christmas gift to Dad and he remembers noting now, how it hadn’t been on Dad’s book shelf the last time he was in his office.

It looks well-thumbed. There are greasy finger marks along its spine and its pages are dog-eared, like it’s been read and read again. He doesn’t remember it ever being a favourite of Scott’s

He’s about to open his mouth to ask Skip if he knows anything about it when Skip puts a finger to his lips. Outside there comes the murmur of soft voices and the bleepclick of the latch unhooking.

John puts the book back and slides the drawer closed. Skip quickly crosses the room and switches off the light. He motions for both of them to step into the bathroom. There are footsteps in the outer room, the jangle of keys and then nothing.

Through the crack in bathroom the door John peers out into the bedroom. The light in the outer room comes on, throwing a slim rectangle of white light against the bedroom wall.

He glances at his watch. It’s 9:45. There’s no reason for anyone else to be here.

“Are they looking for us?”

Skip gives the slightest shake of his head.

If I’m caught, he thinks, I’ll just step out. No one needs to know Skip was here. His pulse is hammering in his ears.

A rhomboid of white light slides across the floor as the door swings open. Whoever is outside, they are coming in.

“This is it. Be quick, okay?” says a woman’s voice in a whisper. “I’m deep in the shit if they find you here.”

“Okay.”

John’s still trying to figure out what’s going on when Skip surges forward. “Goddamn it to hell, Stubbs, what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

The electric light comes on and the light box vanishes from the floor. He hears the woman falter at the sudden appearance of Skip. “Captain!”

“Airman, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Sneaking civilians onto the base? Breaking and entering. Do you know how many charges you’re risking?”

“Please, it wasn’t her fault. I asked her to,” says a voice, a familiar voice, a very familiar voice.

“Virgil?”

“John?”

He steps out of the shelter of the bathroom and sees Virgil standing in the doorway. His younger brother practically looms over the young Airwoman with dark hair standing in front of him. Skip looms over them both, but flinches when John sticks his head around the door.

“What are you doing here?” Virgil gapes at him.

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”

“I…uh…”

“Well, isn’t this a clusterfuck?” says Skip, placing his hands on his hips. “Stubbs, I oughta write you up.”

The airwoman fidgets. She’s tiny, with black hair looped in a tight braid and anxious sloe black eyes. “I know. I’m sorry, Cap. Really I am. But they’ve been talking shit about… There’s been inappropriate talk about Lieutenant Tracy in the mess, Captain and why he hasn’t reported to duty. And he,” She taps Virgil on the shoulder “Was so determined to find him. I wanted to help him, you know?” She gives John the side eye and the flash of a smile. “I guess you do know. Which one do you got?”

“The astronaut. Who’s that?” Skip glares at Virgil. “The Olympian?”

“The artist. Except he says he’s a pilot now.”

He says he’s a what?

But Skip just rolls his eyes. “Go figure.”

“We have names, you know,” says Virgil, peevishly. “We’re not a collectable set of breakfast cereal toys.”

“Of course not, kid,” says Skip, placating but patronising. “What’s your youngest brother again? The congressman?”

“He’s in middle school!” both John and Virgil snap, simultaneously.

Joh scowls and Virgil digs his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“What are you doing here, Virgil?” John asks.

“Same as you. Looking for Scott.”

“You’re supposed to be at school.”

“Yeah, well. You’ve got better places to be too, right?” Virgil raises his chin so he’s looking at John and not the floor. There’s a stubborn jut to it, at once familiar and out of place on Virgil. Something seems different about him and for a moment John can’t place just what it is. Then he realises. Virgil’s always run to stocky, ungenerously even to chubby. At thirteen it had made him self-conscious enough to start to camouflage his weight with layers of shirts and t-shirts. Somewhere in the last week he’s shed those extraneous layers. In just a pair of faded jeans and a v-neck grey t-shirt it’s immediately clear what should have been obvious last week. The puppy fat is gone. Virgil’s tanned and fit and for the first time in his life, probably in better shape than John.

He’s still got that stupid moustache though.

“Hey, Stubbs,” Skip says, a little louder than is necessary. “Come out here for a sec, I got something real important to show you in the kitchen.”

“Yes, Captain.” Stubbs winks at Virgil and they both step out of the room, pull the door shut behind her.

John eases himself away from the bathroom door and Virgil pushes off from the wall. They shuffle a little closer to each other.

“I didn’t think you knew he was missing.” John says. “Did Dad tell you?”

“Sort of.” Virgil’s fingers brush the tucked in corner of the bed. “I was with him when he got the news.”

“He came to see you in Chicago?”

“Something like that,” Virgil murmurs. “I’m surprised he told you.”

“There’s a lot of air force personnel with the space agency. I suppose he was afraid the news would get to me anyway.”

“And did it?”

“No. Why would it?”

“I dunno. It seems like Stubbs was saying there’s a lot of talk about him.”

“Maybe I just don’t’ pay attention to that sort of stuff.”

Virgil looks around. “Does he really live here?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Did you find anything?”

“No.”

Virgil jostles past him, as if he doesn’t trust John to look, or as if maybe Scott’s hiding in the bathroom too. He looks inside, brushes the shower curtain back, and then pulls the wardrobe door open. His fingers grope right to the back of the empty safe.

John lets him at it, goes to retrieve his hard-drive where a one-two-three blink tells him it has finished its work. He pockets it and picks up the digital photo-frame. It cycles to the family portrait, the five of them smiling blandly on the balcony of the New York penthouse. Teeth immaculately white, hair immaculately brushed, each of them arranged so that John’s red hair won’t clash with Alan’s blonde and Scott’s height wouldn’t look comical among his smaller brothers. Dad’s wearing a black bomber jacket, like he’s just leapt off the gantry of Artemis 5. Heroic astronaut and family man. They look perfect.

The reality was that they had been miserable. None of them had wanted to give the first day of school holidays over to the dreary photoshoot. Virgil had crashed through arpeggios on the baby grand piano between set ups and Alan, who had been only seven, had thrown a DEFCON One tantrum because he was jet-lagged and out of sync with the time zone and it was way past his bedtime. Every time John found a quiet place to read he was disturbed by a stylist trying to stick yet more safety pins into his hated grey and green sweater vest.

Scott had turned up at quarter to six, fresh from his first year at college and with Miss Rhode Island in tow. He’d showered, thrown on the white shirt and slate grey trousers selected for him, thoroughly charmed the stylists and posed for the photos without ever alerting anyone from the press that he and Dad weren’t even speaking to each other.

That had been the same article in which Dad had said, “the future of space exploration is the property of the capitalist” John remembers, with a wince.

He wonders what it is about that photo that makes Scott want to keep it around, want to display it here people can see it. Why he wants this reminder of their wax figure selves, so artificial that if you tapped them hard enough they might shatter. John can never believe just how dreamy and dim he himself looks in those photos, or how Gordon looks butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth angelic.

And the louche Scott in the picture looks nothing like the immaculate model soldier who fades up as the balcony photo fades out. The buttons on his uniform and the medal pinned to his chest sparkle. He gleams.

Virgil is peering over his shoulder now, his brows knotted together. “Hey, Scott,” he says to the photograph and then to John, “There’s nothing here,” Virgil says.

“No.”

“I thought there’d be something.” He sounds disappointed.

“What are you doing here, Virgil? Were you expecting to find him hiding out in the bathtub?” It comes out more harshly than he mean.

But Virgil just seems amused. “You’re going to give me grief about being here? What are you doing here? Guilty conscience?”

“Of course not. Why would I have a guilty conscience?”

Virgil gives him a look. “Gee, I don’t know, Johnny. Maybe something to do with the shouting match you had just outside my door last week.”

“You heard that.”

“Grandpa Grant heard that.” Virgil pulls one of Scott’s hoodies over his head and puts his hands into the pockets. “And I’m here because I thought this would be as good a place as any to start. Figure out where he’s been, so I know where he’s going. Talk to his friends. I’m going to find Scott,” he says, almost as an afterthought. “Drag him home kicking and screaming if I have to. You can help. Since you’re here.”

“Gosh. Thanks.” But suddenly he does feel guilty. Not about Scott, but for Virgil. Poor Virgil. Of course, he wants to help. Of course, he wants to be seen to be doing something useful for once. It seems petty to point out if Kyrano can’t find Scott, if not a single digital rock John’s turned over has offered up one lead there’s precious little Virgil’s going to be able to do in the situation.

“It’s not like he just disappeared. People don’t just van – ” Virgil breaks off, colours suddenly. “I didn’t mean. Sorry, John.”

“What? Oh. That.”

When he was nine years old John had been kidnapped. He had been walking home from school one day when Scott had stayed late for basketball practice. An arm had gone around his waist and another over his nose and he had been picked up and tossed into the back of a van. One of his kidnappers had brandished a knife at him in the van, told him that good little boys were well treated but bad little boys had their fingers cut off one by one.

After that they had been civil to him, fed him cold spaghetti hoops and given him a gamegle to play with.

He wishes he could say he had been brave or plucky or clever, that he had outwitted his captors and escaped on his own, but the reality is that he had spent a long weekend playing Tetris Masters in a cramped duplex in downtown Portland. At the end of the third day there had been terrifying sounds outside and he had buried his head beneath his blanket. But when the door creaked open it had been Kyrano who had been outside, ready to scoop him up and take him home.

When he looks back on it now it seems like something that happened to someone else. The worst part had been when, firmly held in Dad’s arms, he had had to wade through the sea of flashing cameras and shouting reporters from the steps of the hospital to the car.

In the aftermath, Dad had insisted on subcutaneous GPS transmitters for each of them. Before leaving Algiers, Scott had cut his out and flushed it. John’s seen the records It had transmitted for three days from the bottom of a reservoir outside Algeria before blinking out.

John feels a sudden creep along his spine. Had it been flushed? Had Dad sent divers to retrieve it? Had they checked the rest of Scott wasn’t down there with it? And why hadn’t that occurred to John before now? He’d just assumed that Scott had taken himself off to sulk, to lick his wounds in private, to throw his disapproval in Dad’s face by torpedoing his career. Before now he’d never considered other possibilities. He had thought Scott understandable, quantifiable, a problem he had already solved.

But who is this Scott who can make himself vanish without leaving a digital trace? And who is this person living a carefully studied half-life in place of his dreams?

John’s legs give out from under him and he sits down on the bed.

“John.” Virgil’s hand grips his shoulder. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“I’m fine.”

A good first test.

But Dad hadn’t meant that finding Scott was his first test. He had meant:

When you’re 200,000 miles above the Earth’s surface, dropping everything and coming home is not going to be an option available to you.

He had meant: You’re going to have to learn what it costs to be able to do nothing when people you care about are in trouble.

He had meant: I need someone cool, collected, dispassionate. Someone who can be rational even when people they care about are in danger; especially when people they care about are in danger.

So, John’s already failed this test, because he’s here, chasing his tail in the desert, imagining worst case scenarios and achieving nothing as the possibility of finding Scott gets more and more remote.

Fuck you, Scott.

Because even in his absence Scott’s deconstructing him, making him doubt himself, pointing out he’s not the man he thought he was.

“Come on, John.” Virgil takes him by the arm. “We should go. He’s not here, okay.”

“Yeah, okay.”

He’s quiet as Virgil says goodbye to Stubbs and as Skip drives them back off the base. They pull in in the parking lot of a 7eleven. Beneath a no loitering sign a beat-up jalopy stands parked. “This is me,” says Virgil.

The car looks like it runs on rust and prayer. Skip raises an eyebrow as he pulls in. “Is this what the Tracy boys are driving nowadays?”

Virgil scratches his head, embarrassed. “It belongs to Dave, my neighbour. He loaned it to me in exchange for a painting and my bike. I don’t think he ever thought I could get it to run.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Wait a second.” John allows this to sink in for a moment. “Your neighbour? In Chicago?! You didn’t drive clean across the country in that?”

Virgil nods, shrugs. “Had to. Dad grounded me.”

“Virgil, you’re nearly nineteen. He can’t ground you.”

Virgil shrugs. “Froze my assets then. Revoked my clearance to my bank accounts, even the ones he wasn’t supposed to know about.” John doesn’t miss the way Skip’s eyebrows go up. “Gave me sixty dollars a day to live on and five days to clear out my apartment and hand my notice in at my job.”

“Why?”

Virgil shrugs, sanguine. “Maybe he was afraid I’d take off to New Mexico to look for Scott.” He opens the door of Skip’s car to let himself out. “Thank you very much, Captain Guerra.”

“Nice to meet you, Virgil. And nice moustache.”

John jumps out of the car after him. “You’re not going to drive back in that death trap?”

“Sure. Wanna ride? Where you going?”

“I’ve got a 7am flight,” he says stiffly. To LAX with no connecting flight. It had seemed a good international hub to start from. He had figured by then he would know where he was going. “I’m booked into an airport hotel in Albuquerque.”

“Yeah. That’s on my way. I can take you.” He reads John’s expression. “Or I can drop you back to town and you can get the train.”

“Come back with me.” John rolls his eyes. “I’ll pay for your flight.”

“I don’t need your money, John.”

“No, you need a miracle to keep that thing running.”

“Anyway, I promised Dave I’d have the car back.”

Dave, John decides at once, is clearly a frustrated serial killer.

“Virgil, I… I’m pulling rank. I can’t let you drive that thing across the country.”

This is the part where Virgil folds. It’s where he always folds. If it were Gordon or Alan it might be different, but Virgil can be relied upon to be sensible and obedient. Except this Virgil is grinning a most un-Virgil like grin, and folding his arms on the roof of the car. “Then I guess you have until Albuquerque to convince me not to.”

There was a time, when gasoline was cheaper and more readily available, that freeways were the arteries of America, but that was before economies of scale in fusion tech made public transport the faster, cheaper option. Nowadays, automobiles are mainly used for short distances. Driving is a dying art. The freeways are half-empty and poorly maintained, populated mainly by the huge 26 and 48-wheeler transport wagons, itinerant nu-gypsies and the occasional motoring hobbyist.

They speed along in silence that stops just short of companionable. The night is squid ink black and full of stars. The head beams of the transport wagons dazzle him as they harrumph out of the darkness and rattle past. There’s music playing softly over the speakers. It’s neither unpleasant nor identifiable. Virgil’s always been an early adopter when it comes to new music.

The jalopy doesn’t even have an autodrive function so Virgil has to steer, but they’re making good time. John can’t shake the sensation that he should be saying something, but he’s just not sure as to what it is. Every time he tries it gets turned into a clearing of his throat or a groan.

But a sign tells him that Albuqueque is only a hundred miles away so he clears his throat once more and asks, “Did you know about any of this? Did he confide in you?”

Virgil keeps his eyes on the road as he says, “Johnny, Scott doesn’t really talk to me at all, except to say, ‘Uh, how’s the art thing going, Virg?’ like I’m seven.”

“Oh… uh, how is the art thing going?”

“I quit.” Virgil’s expression doesn’t change. “I’m going to Stanford in the fall, on Dad’s dime. Engineering.”

“Oh.”

He wants to ask more but something in Virgil’s manner strongly discourages it and a minute later he pulls into one of the roadside gas stations and stops. “I’m starving. Getcha anything?”

John shrugs. “Sure. Whatever you’re having.”

“I’ll get two of everything then.”

A second later John remembers the danger. “No granola bars, Virgil.” He calls at his brother’s retreating back. “And I don’t want a kale smoothie!” John’s got an astronaut’s general outlook on health but a computer programmer’s compulsive need for E numbers.

“Sure thing, John. Just caffeine, cocaine and gin.” He waves a hand and keeps walking.

He gets out of the car to stretch his legs and goes for a short prowl around the tiny outdoor seating area. Just as he’s stretching out his quads, his phone rings.

“Hey there, polar bear.”

Rest, and a day of forced routine attending lectures, have obviously done Gordon some good. He’s evened out a little, lost that manic gleam. Last night – or rather in the early hours of this morning – it had been all John had been able to do to coninvce him to get some sleep. He had spent most of the evening stuck between gears, trapped between being furious at this Lady Penelope and being utterly besotted. One minute John had been talking him down from turning her and himself in to the Admiralty, and the next he seemed about ready to start carving “GCT hearts PCW” into bulkhead walls. He had paced back and forth, bouncing up onto his hammock and back down again, peeling off one item of clothing at a time until he was down to his t-shirt and boxer-briefs, repeating things that had been said to him or about him, collapsing with a sigh in his chair and then leaping up to say, “And another thing!”

This evening at least he seems calmer, though the first words out of his mouth are still, “I’ve been thinking about that Lady Penelope chick.”

“Oh? Really?”

“Yeah, really,” says Gordon, who is maybe not as oblivious to sarcasm on the subject as John had thought. He’s tipped back precariously on his chair, slurping kelp noodles with a pair of ceramic chop sticks. “Do you think you could track her down?”

In fact, there’s already a burgeoning file about the Lady Penelope Creighton Ward in John’s personal vault, locked behind every digital protection John can come up with, but he’s not going to tell Gordon that. “I’m not sure.”

“Oh, come on, Johnnycakes. You can find anybody.”

John winces. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel tonight’s session. Something’s come up.”

“No prob. Everything okay? John?” Gordon’s looking hard at him now and the edges of his smile are starting to droop. He looks unsettled.

“Everything’s fine,” John says and to change the subject he says, “What would you say if I told you Virgil wanted to go to Stanford to study engineering.”

Gordon nods. “Makes sense. Good school.”

“It is a good school. Don’t you think it might be too good a school? Virgil’s always been more focused on the arts then academics.”

“That’s… true.”

“Some of the guys I work with studied engineering at Stanford. They said that was excellent but intense. Might it not be too much for Virgil? He barely scraped through high school math.”

Suddenly Gordon cracks a broad smile. “Oh no. Are we about to have the birds and the bees talk? We are! Oh, no. Johnny!” He throws back his head and laughs.

“Gor… Cooper!”

“Sorry. Sorry. So. When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much and the mommy and the daddy both have IQs pushing 160…”

“Cooper, be serious.”

Gordon slurps a kelp noodle back into his skull. “What I mean is… John, you know Virgil’s good at math, right?”

“Of course, he’s fine, sure. But there are standards–”

“John, you know that Virgil is smart, right?”

“Of course, but multiple intelligences are -”

“No. Not multiple intelligences. Not everyone is special in their own special way. Not everyone get out your crayons and form a circlejerk because we are all about to be blowtorched by the fiery intellect by John Glenn Tracy… I’m losing the run of this metaphor. To rephrase: You know Virgil is smart, like smart smart. Like, you smart.”

There is a moment’s silence, then Gordon groans. “Oh man, you didn’t. Oh, no. I was counting on you to tell Scott. Does this mean I’m going to have to tell Scott? I’m not telling Scott. Why do you think his ‘math tutor’ was an emeritus professor of mathematics instead of the usual broke post-grad?”

“I thought… I thought that was just Dad being Dad.”

“Well, yeah, sure, little bit. Also, no! C’mon, Dude, he got 1007 on his SAT scores the year the mean score was 1006. He nearly failed basic trig yet somehow managed to get by in all those AP calc courses. John, he actually read your dissertation.”

For just a moment John goggles. “Oh, shit.”

Gordon’s noodles nearly come back down his nose. “Johnny, you said a bad word!”

“I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Don’t forget to keep up with your reading.”

“Yes, teach. Say hi to Virgil for me.”

By the time Virgil returns with supplies John’s already got their route to Chicago planned out along with appropriate rest stops and gas stations for re-supplies. “It’s a 26.2-hour drive to Chicago traveling at 60 miles per hour. We’ll each take two six hour shifts, with fifteen minute breaks every two hours. Why don’t you take first shift, while I work out our rest stops.”

“Okay, Johnny.”

Virgil takes the first six hours and John the second. By the time he finishes his shift he’s been awake for 39 hours, so while Virgil drives he dozes in the back seat.

When he wakes up, they’re already in Kansas.

#bbt #john tracy #scott tracy #virgil tracy #thunderbirds are go

20 notes · View notes

blueprintnewspapers-blog · 6 years

Text

Coalition for Nigeria is a candle in the wind, By Dan Agbese

New Post has been published on http://blueprint.ng/coalition-for-nigeria-is-a-candle-in-the-wind-by-dan-agbese/

Coalition for Nigeria is a candle in the wind, By Dan Agbese

In my first reaction to President Obasanjo’s letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, published in this column a week or so ago, I agreed with the former president on his detailed criticisms of the performances of the latter in office so far. But come to think of it: if we feel disappointed with Buhari, and we do, it is not exactly his fault. It is ours. As usual, we raised our expectations too high in the new administration. We ignored Buhari’s sensible plea that he could not work magic. Well, we expected him to make the difference between him and Jonathan positively clear in the time it takes to say APC; chain the rampant corruption and bring discipline to this wildly undisciplined nation. Well, the president is seriously grappling with corruption. He once told me at an interview in 2003 that indiscipline was worse than corruption. That is one rogue still blissfully roguish under his watch. I pointed out in my said column that it was not up to Obasanjo to decide if Buhari should run for a second term in office or not. That decision rests squarely on the president. Both the Nigerian constitution and the APC constitution give him that right. In any case, are those telling him not to run for a second term doing so for his own sake or the sake of the country itself? Obasanjo may be the most accomplished Nigerian so far but that gives him no right to dictate who rules and for how long he should rule. He has had the greatest opportunity to put things right in the country. If the country is not what we believe it should be, and it is not, he cannot escape moral responsibility despite his moral grandstanding. In the second part of his letter to the president, Obasanjo suggested the floating of what he calls Coalition for Nigeria dubbed as the third force by the news media. He posits that the “Movement must be a coalition for democracy, good governance, social and economic well-being and progress.” It is his latest offering on what we call the way forward. I find it difficult to digest that. Our political parties, no matter how inept, are social, economic and political movements. We do not need a supra-political party movement to drive our national development. Obasanjo, most certainly, is banking on the fickleness of our politicians who like to flock to anything that promises an easier path to political power to float this movement at this time. With the stale air of a new season of national elections wafting into our nostrils nation-wide, floating such a coalition is bound to get more than a casual notice of the nation and its people. People are easily fatigued by politics and the politicians when, as now, a nation is forced to keep its head above the storm of insecurity, growing poverty and the resurgence of those primitive things such as tribes and religions that have collectively hobbled us for so long. We live on the promises of a new beginning. Obasanjo, the newly-minted PhD from the National Open University of Nigeria, is now in the business of marketing such a promise. The former president expects the two main parties to soon begin to haemorrhage as their leaders and followers desert them and flock to his new national movement in the false hope that joining the new bandwagon at birth is both politically wise and pragmatic. The implication of Coalition for Nigeria is that it would undermine the political parties. I find it difficult to accept that this would be good for our democracy or good governance. It would be more honest of Obasanjo to form and register a new political party. That would bring the number of our registered political parties to 68. The only man who should worry about 68 political parties with possibly 68 presidential candidates and a horrendous number of governorship and legislative aspirants should be the chairman of INEC. It would help to remind Obasanjo that as president from 1999 –2007, he did everything he could to undermine democracy and good governance by taking it upon himself to assume powers not conferred on him by the national constitution or the constitution of his party. He treated every democratic institution with total contempt. Had he allowed democracy to flourish as our preferred choice of government by duly respecting its tenets, our situation would be different today. He did a great deal of damage to our political pluralism, a strong pillar of democracy, when he systematically destroyed all the other political parties. By 2003, only two of the five original parties were still standing after a fashion – PDP, ANPP and AD. PDP was, of course, the party. But its failures under his watch were glaring. The culture of impunity must have flowered under Jonathan but it took roots under Obasanjo. In his eight years in power, he could not forge a political party with a clear ideology for our national development. It was no tribute to him or the credentials he claims as a democrat and the nation’s foremost patriot that he is sold on his new thesis of a national movement to drive our development. It says something for his faith in the party on whose platform he ruled this country for eight years that he left it and made a public spectacle of destroying his membership card. The birth of APC in 2014 captured our imagination. It caused haemorrhage in PDP. In effect, APC is a but PDP with new three-letter acronym. I can count only two men in APC who were not in PDP. They are Buhari and Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu. Whatever may be the failures of the new party under Buhari’s watch was its inheritance from its parent political party. Obasanjo is floating Coalition for Nigeria because he has lost faith in the capacity of both Buhari and APC to meaningfully drive our national development. It is the way to go only because he is Obasanjo, our moral compass. He offers honeyed and beguiling words and expressions intended to sway the minds of the people as products of hard-heading thinking. He says “The Movement must work out the path of development and the trajectory of development in speed, quality and equality in the short-medium and long term for Nigeria on the basis of sustainability, stability, predictability, credibility, security, cooperation and prosperity with diminishing inequality.” It is not in our national interest to accept a supra-political movement because no such movement has room in our political structure. And unless such a movement transforms itself into a political party, its work would be but an intellectual misadventure in the brown fields of the nether world. No one would be naïve enough to suggest that we do not have enormous social, political and economic problems. We cannot fix them by seeking to undermine the constitutional platform represented by the political parties. Fixing them is, indeed, the primary duty of the political parties in power at both the centre and the constituent units of the federation. We must never forget that individually and collectively, we are complicit in the failure of the parties to fully commit to a better and more secure nation. The election cycle is designed for the purposes of enabling the people to change the leaders in the executive branch and their representatives in the legislative branch of government whose performances in office they find disappointing or unsatisfactory. It is the true and tested path to enthroning democracy and respecting its ethos. No movement, mass or otherwise, can drive national development outside the political parties. If each time those in power fail to satisfy us we float new movements or parties, Nigeria would be condemned to permanently groping in the dark. Obasanjo should do better at this stage than confounding the confusion. Coalition for Nigeria can take us nowhere beyond the realm of sentimentalism. Men may flock to it as the moths the naked light but it will still be a flickering candle in the wind.

#nation #rampant corruption

0 notes

robcarson · 7 years

Text

Corporate Training and Motivational Development

What does Kolovou discuss and/or demonstrate that you could have applied to improve your presentations during this course?

I am a mobile speaker. It takes a deep level of concentration and self-control to minimize my natural inclination to walk around the room when I talk. According to Kolovou (2014), “Professional speakers often refer to the speaker’s triangle, a movement space that allows them to walk and plant while making important points” (Smart use of space, 2:45). Because my video was framed in a manner to only show me from my elbows up, I could have placed a small rug on the floor without anyone noticing. The rug could serve as the physical embodiment of the speaker’s triangle. As long as I am conscious of my position on the rug, I could be confident that my body will not become a distraction.

Because I know that I like to move around when I speak, I imagined an invisible bubble what isolated my hand movements. This allowed me to use my hands in a natural manner that would not intrude on my graphics. According to Kolovou (2014), “Just don't be like some speakers I have seen who constantly wave their hands in the air as if they're parking a plane on the tarmac” (Gestures that engage, 0:21). I do not feel like I over use my hand gestures; however, I can get overenthusiastic and moves my hands into an area that blocks the graphic without realizing what I have done until after the fact. When I recorded my video, I had a general idea of the final product, but I was not sure how my vision would look in reality. If I were to reshoot my video, my knowledge how my graphics are placed would inspire me to interact with them more through the use of my hands.

Peers have told me that I am at my best as a speaker when I improvise. I memorized specific story points in advance but I did not memorize all of the specifications of the cars. As an aid, I wrote what I needed for each car on a portable white board which I placed next to the camera. This resulted in occasional glances off camera which I am not proud of in my video. According to Kolovou (2014), “For you, as a speaker, eye contact is your most powerful non-verbal” (Strategic eye contact, 2:18). Now that I have more experience, I am confident enough to know that I can record the story sections and the specifications separately. My skills are good enough to splice the separate sections together seamlessly. This would drastically improve my video because I use a full screen graphic when I discuss the specifications; therefore, there is no reason for me to look off camera. I can just read a sheet of paper in my hand because you cannot see me. This would improve my eye contact which would improve my non-verbal communication.

My script is strong but there is always room for improvement. The median age of the people in the Seaside community is slightly older than me which implies that we are likely to be going through similar things in our lives. This inspired me to talk about my children and how my needs have changed as my kids moved out of the house. According to Kolovou (2014), “In order to follow logical appeal, I invite you to always connect the dots that thread from the opening back to the close” (Opening and closing strongly, 0:14). I mention my family several times in the beginning but I think that reminding my audience why these cars appeal to my needs as a family man at the end could strengthen my closing statement.

Referring to the readings from your books, what key factors would the graphics in your presentations address in communicating the data/information effectively?

I only have three minutes to convey my message to the Seaside community. In order for me to work within those parameters, I segmented the graphics to emphasize my points. According to Peters (2014), “Instructional designers are well acquainted with the notion of segmenting, or chunking, the idea that learning content should be broken into manageable parts that the learner can process one at a time” (Strategies to promote visual learning, para. 8). When I talk about my children. I display images of my children. When I talk about my old van, I show the audience a picture of a van. When I talk about my children’s soccer practice, I put a soccer ball on the screen. This helps the audience visualize my points in an engaging manner.

There are 23 images in my 2:59 presentation. That averages out to one image for every eight seconds. The high use of imagery is intended to produce an energetic presentation. The story of my family is designed to create empathy. According to Clark and Mayer, “Since workforce learning topics often tend to be dry, adding interesting stories and visuals may appeal to the younger generation raised on high-end media” (Clark & Mayer, 2012, p. 316). My story alone is designed to connect me with people my age. I use my story as a family man in conjunction with strategic imagery to appeal to the younger generation. The end result is a presentation that can appeal to a mass audience.

When I began planning the layout of my video, I knew that I wanted a graphic that provides the specifications of the cars. The graphics that I created turned out so nice that I wanted to highlight them by using them as full screen images. This meant that I would have to use audio over the image to ensure that my message was clear. According to Clark and Mayer, “When pictures are explained by words in audio format, the information is divided between the audio and the visual channels of working memory and in that way optimizes the capacity limits of working memory” (Clark & Mayer, 2012, p. 317). The full screen looks great and the audio narration eases the cognitive load of my audience so that they can relax and envision themselves driving a nice new car.

List at least 3 main takeaways from this course and how they may apply to your long-term goals. How will you use what you have learned in this course in your work as an instructional designer?

When I began this project, I had no experience in any capacity with creating a green screen video. My lack of knowledge motivated me to slow down and focus on the individual tasks so that I can try to absorb all of the new information. In the end, I survived. Green screen videos are awesome. The experience that I gained this month through slow practice will stay with me forever. One aspect of my current position requires me to create training materials that veterans can use at their own leisure. Green screen videos are perfect for self-study. My ultimate goal is to become a college professor, and green screen videos will help me create engaging lessons for potential online study assignments.

I used Adobe Premiere to create my video. Over the last three weeks, I have recreated my entire video countless times when I needed to update something. The reasoning behind this was to gain additional experience with the product. As a result, my confidence with editing a video on Adobe Premiere is very high now that I have created several versions of the same video. Adobe Premiere is great for green screen but it has other uses as well. Once a year, my colleagues and I create a massive PowerPoint presentation that we provide to our entire department. I now have the skill level to where I can upload a recorded version of my presentation and toggle the visuals back and forth between the speaker and full screen images of the slides. I can also use this in the long term to turn lectures into engaging videos with intriguing visuals.

While this was my first time recording a green screen video, it was also my first time creating a video with lighting as a key factor. I have created several GoToTraining sessions for my department but lighting was never a consideration. I guess that it is one of those things that you do not think about until you see the difference that quality lighting makes. My professional goals current and future, will require the creation of countless video lessons. The lighting experience and knowledge that I gained this moth will improve all of my future projects.

References

Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R. E. (2012). Using rich media wisely. In R. A. Reiser, & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (3rd ed.) (pp. 309-320). Boston, MA: Pearson

Kolovou, T. (2014, May 12). Presentation Fundamentals[Lynda.com online course]. Retrieved from http://www.lynda.com/tutorial/151544?org=fullsail.edu

Peters, D. (2014). Interface design for learning: Design strategies for learning experiences. San Francisco, CA: New Riders. Retrieved from http://ce.safaribooksonline.com/book/web-design-and-development/9780133365481

0 notes