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dustedmagazine · 5 years

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Isaac Olson’s year in review

This was my first year writing for Dusted. As I tried to nail down what I was looking for in a record, I returned frequently to John Berger’s essay, “The Ideal Critic and the Fighting Critic”. Berger evaluated art by asking, “does this work help or encourage men [sic] to know and claim their social rights?” It’s not that artists “can or should be primarily concerned with the justice of a social cause,” but that “a valid work of art promises in some way or another the possibility of an increase, an improvement...it increases our awareness of our own potentiality”. It’s the identification with and negotiation between different ways of seeing (and hearing) that tears down the walls. Communion, singularity, freedom: states all the more precious for being in short supply as another bullshit year in Trumpistan ground inexorably on.

The usual caveats apply:

1.) I spent most of 2018 discovering older records.

2.) I missed a ton of great records this year.

3.) There are plenty of records I’ve heard recently that, given more time, would likely have made this list.

4.) These aren’t the most important records of 2018, just the ones that meant the most to me.

Album of the Year

Marisa Anderson— Cloud Corner (Thrill Jockey)

Cloud Corner by Marisa Anderson

This was the most restorative, cathartic record I heard this year, and it’s a huge leap forward for my favorite living guitarist.

Think Locally, Dance Globally

The Fossil Lickers— S/T (Blue Hole)

The Fossil Lickers by The Fossil Lickers

This tape brought me more joy than pretty much anything else I heard this year, but I’m a fiddle tune fanatic. Non-fanatics need, at most, one album of old time fiddle tunes every few years. Make it this one.

I’m Not Here to Hunt Rabbits: Guitar and Folk Styles from Botswana—V/A (Pirahna)

I'm Not Here To Hunt Rabbits by Various Artists

Angelique Kidjo— Remain in Light (Kravenworks)

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Follow Your Arrow

Kacey Musgraves— The Golden Hour (MCA Nashville)

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I’m a poptimism skeptic because pop criticism frequently confuses the popular with the important and the important with the good. Plus, I don’t like when money and attention are directed towards people who have too much of both. That said, I regret to inform my fellow contrarians that The Golden Hour is as good as everyone says. Musgraves dosed mainstream country with a much needed hit of empathy, humility, and starry-eyed wonder.

Neko Case—Hell-On (Anti-)

Hell-On by Neko Case

Neko Case comes to terms with the fact that letting people in and ceding control doesn’t tame your artistic vision: it enhances it, and make it stronger, weirder, fuller. Quoth Kacey Musgraves, “Love is a wild thing.”

John Prine— The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

The Tree of Forgiveness by John Prine

John Prine, on what is hopefully not his last album, has chilled out enough to fully embrace his role as America’s cornpone bodhisattva. Prine on heaven: “I'm gonna have a cocktail: vodka and ginger ale/Yeah I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long/I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl/Yeah this old man is goin' to town.” Kacey Musgraves on heaven: “My idea of heaven is to burn one with John Prine.” Amen.

The Road Reversed

Daniel Bachman— The Morning Star (Three Lobed)

The Morning Star by Daniel Bachman

This was the sound of the gut-level anxiety and wounded hope I felt throughout 2018.

Nathan Bowles—Plainly Mistaken (Paradise of Bachelors)

Plainly Mistaken by Nathan Bowles

As a critic, my reaction to Plainly Mistaken is that it’s an intriguing trip through the American Primitive genre’s favorite touchstones: Appalachian picking, smeared drones, spiritual jazz, and modernist minimalism. As an amateur banjo player myself, my reaction is awe and envy.

The Newbies Lift Off

Tierra Whack— Whack World (Self Released)

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I don’t listen to nearly as much hip-hop as I used to, but this late breaking favorite is weirder, braver, slyer, funnier, more frustrating and, by a damn sight, catchier than just about any other avant garde or experimental record I’ve heard this year.

Makaya McCraven—Universal Beings (International Anthem)

Universal Beings by Makaya McCraven

Makaya McCraven convened some of the best young-ish jazz musicians working today for sessions in four cities: New York, Chicago, London, and Los Angeles, the results of which he chopped, remixed, and looped. The utopian vibe is grounded a bit by McCraven’s heavy editorial hand, and his skittering, Dilla-indebted production is so dense that it’s a lot to take over the course of 90 minutes. Treat it like four city-centric EPs, and it’s one of the most rewarding listens of the year.

Sons of Kemet—Your Queen is a Reptile (Impulse)

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Martial jazz/dub/free-funk soundtrack to the decolonized, matriarchal revolution by its token all-male house band.

Andrew Bernstein—An Exploded View of Time (Hausu Mountain)

An Exploded View of Time by Andrew Bernstein

Tashi Dorji and Tyler Damon— Leave No Trace: Live in St. Louis (Family Vineyard)

Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis by Tashi Dorji & Tyler Damon

2018 MVP: Mary Lattimore

Mary Lattimore—Hundreds of Days (Ghostly)

Hundreds of Days by Mary Lattimore

Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore—Ghost Forests (Third Lobed)

Ghost Forests by Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore

Velvet Hammer in a Cowboy Band

I’m a sucker for pedal steel guitar, and I’m a sucker for weird music. It was a good year for weird pedal steel guitar music.

Barry Walker Jr.— Diaspora Urkontinent (Driftless)

Diaspora Urkontinent by Barry Walker

Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois—(Planet Mu)

Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois by Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois

Peter Brötzmann and Heather Leigh— Sparrow Nights (Trost)

Sparrow Nights by Brötzmann / Leigh

Saariselka—Ceres (Longform Editions)

Ceres by Saariselka

Honorable Mentions

● Amy Rigby—The Old Guys (Southern Domestic Recordings)

● Bardo Pond—Vol. 8 (Fire Recordings)

● Body/Head—The Switch (Matador)

● Courtney Marie Andrews—May Your Kindness Remain (Fat Possum)

● The Ex—27 Passports (Ex Records)

● Ezra Feinberg—Pentimento and others (Related States)

● HC McEntire—Lionheart (Merge)

● Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids—An Angel Fell (Strut)

● Kurt Vile— Bottle It In (Matador)

● Nathan Salsburg— Third (No Quarter)

● The Necks—Unfold (Northern Spy)

● Negro—Clase Media (La Castanya)

● The Other Years—S/T (No Quarter)

● Red River Dialect—Broken Stay Open Sky (Paradise of Bachelors)

● Sarah Davachi— Let Night Come On Bells End The Day (Recital Program)

● Sarah Louise— Deeper Woods (Thrill Jockey)

● Superchunk—What a time to be Alive (Merge)

● Tim Hecker—Konoyo (Kranky)

● Träden – Träden (Subliminal Sounds)

● Willie Nelson— Last Man Standing (Legacy)

● Wussy—What Heaven is Like (Shake It)

● Woven Skull—Woven Skull (Oaken Palace)

● Yob— Our Raw Heart (Relapse)

● Yuzo Iwata—Daylight Moon (Siltbreeze)

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tipsycad147 · 5 years

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Athena in the Homeric Epics: Rediscovering Her Complexity

Bas-relief sculpture of the Roman goddess Minerva recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum (Image in the public domain)

For the purpose of this project, I focused on Athena as she is represented in the Homeric epics and related tales. Although Athena’s worship began well before that time and has intriguing possible connections to prehistoric goddess worship, and also continued into the Roman period with multiple synchronisations, I wanted to reexamine the character of the goddess as captured in the older Greek myths. Greek and Roman mythology is commonly taught in schools, including allusions to it as an original source of Western culture, and the Homeric epics in particular are often held up as some of the earliest extant literature. The passing familiarity that results from this kind of exposure can give an impression that Athena is a warrior goddess, or a goddess of wisdom, although most people have trouble remembering exactly the role she played in the Iliad; the myth most commonly associated with Athena is the story of Arachne, which is one of the few where the goddess alone takes centre stage. The story of Arachne emphasises the goddess’ patronage of weaving as a useful household art, but the short vignette hardly captures the dynamic vitality of Athena’s character as she appears throughout the earlier epics. By comprehensively reviewing her appearances in the Homeric epics, this project strives to rediscover the complex nature of Athena in the Archaic period and to understand how that persona of the goddess might be approached in the context of contemporary women’s spirituality.

In the Homeric epics, Athena’s primary role is as a warrior: she is commonly referred to as “heaven’s triumphant maid,” “the martial maid,” or as the “all-conquering.” Her other most frequent epithet is “blue-eyed maid,” which may also be translated as “shining-eyed” or “gleaming-eyed.” In Homer’s tales, references to her mastery or patronage of weaving are only side-lights. In a couple of instances, she appears in human form as “a fair virgin in her beauty’s bloom, / Skill’d in the illustrious labours of the loom,” and it is specifically mentioned that when Hera wanted to impress Zeus with her beauty, she wore a robe woven by Athena, but no specifics of this weaving are mentioned. The vast majority of Athena’s appearances refer to her wearing armour or being in disguise.

Ancient Coins with Images of Athena ( © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons)

Her varied appearances are the first example of Athena’s complexity. She does not conform to simple ideas of gender for either the ancient Greeks or for us. Her role in the Iliad, in fact, is due in part to this masculine attitude: she was one of the three goddesses who claimed the golden Apple of Eris (Discord). Paris, judging between the three, refused Athena’s offered bribe of wisdom and skill in war. Instead, he judged in favour of Aphrodite, accepting from her the love of Helen, the most beautiful mortal woman. Aphrodite approached Paris using the wiles of beauty and the promise of love to win him over; Athena, and Hera, who also lost, approached him almost as an equal, trying to win him over with offers in the masculine realms of rulership and war. Afterwards, Hera and Athena had a solid alliance because of their loss, and Athena often acts on Hera’s behalf.

Interestingly, Athena also acts in Zeus’ name and even uses his symbols: the aegis was originally his, although it appears more often as part of Athena’s equipage; when she takes the form of a bird, it is as an eagle, Zeus’ bird, not an owl; and with his permission, she even wields the thunder and lightning that are Zeus’ identifying characteristics. Thus Athena’s outward signs and symbols are almost universally masculine. In fact, the way she crosses gender boundaries almost seems to deprive her of a gender of her own: she is not described as virgin solely because she had “autonomy and independence.” She is virgin in the literal sense as well; no myth depicts her having a lover, human or immortal, or even to be interested in one.

Her status as transgressing or simply disregarding gender boundaries does grant her unusual freedoms, though, and makes her the ideal intermediary between the goddesses and the gods. Athena’s work on Hera’s errands and her own often involves interacting with Ares or Apollo, or even Zeus. Ares, when fully engaged in his martial bloodlust, seems almost unapproachable, especially by one of the unarmoured goddesses, but Athena faces him without fear. In contrast, although she is approached by other goddesses, Athena is only invoked by a woman in the Homeric epics on behalf of a man. Hecuba, queen of Troy, petitions Athena once, when advised to do so by her warrior son, and pleads for Athena’s mercy on the city, but Athena refuses to hear her. Later, Penelope petitions Athena to watch over Telemachus, the son of Athena’s favourite hero, Odysseus. This petition is successful, but Athena was already helping Telemachus, and did so for Odysseus’ sake, not because of Penelope’s petition. When Penelope bemoans her own situation or asks for help from a goddess, she turns to Artemis, not Athena.

Given these interactions, it is perhaps unsurprising that in her relationship with her devotee, Odysseus, Athena acts more as a comrade or adviser than as a mother. Even in combat and when protecting his life, Athena’s assistance is not described in the way other goddesses’ supervision of their charges is; she is much more likely to take form and engage in combat alongside Odysseus, or to act on his behalf, than to coddle or nurture him. When she does engage in combat, Athena’s approach to fighting is as complex as her gender presentation.

Amphorae with Images of Athena (Left photo: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.) (Center and right photos: Images in the public domain)

In one dramatic scene, she appears on the battlefield to face down her brother Ares, and after he insults her and implies she is merely causing trouble, she picks up a rock and knocks him unconscious with a single blow. In another violent scene, at the end of the Odyssey, she inflames an already tense situation and engineers a complete massacre. But almost immediately thereafter, she overrides Odysseus’ fury and enforces a peace on both sides once her sense of right and wrong has been satisfied. In contrast to Ares’ bloodlust in battle, she seems constantly focused on a purpose; victory in combat is only a means toward an end for Athena.

The greatest single example of her approach to combat is the Trojan horse, the epitome of cleverness and trickery. She inspires the craftsman with its design.After this stratagem succeeds, though, the triumphant Greeks fail to pay her sufficient homage, and in anger she wrecks several ships as they begin their journey home. This episode exemplifies how Athena’s pragmatic approach to combat applies her wisdom in order to satisfy her overriding ideas of justice.

Neither her wisdom nor her justice are at all what many contemporary readers might expect, especially from a goddess. Although she is often called the goddess of wisdom, Athena’s expertise might be better described as cunning. She appreciates trickery and does not shy from it herself, in matters as large as the Trojan horse and as small as appearing in the form of a mortal when addressing those who call on her. Athena disguises herself as a good friend of the person to whom she speaks, both to lead Hector to his death and to answer Penelope’s appeal. Odysseus himself is best known for his cunning and wit, not his abstract knowledge or impartial wisdom, and he frequently relies on Athena’s ability to change his outward appearance. Just as Athena spends most of her time carrying a masculine appearance and doing things that are unexpected of a goddess, she seems to value the same gift for inventiveness in her followers.

Athenian Tetradrachm (Image in the public domain)

Her unique approach to morality is best summed up in a tale that is scattered in fragments throughout the Homeric epics. After Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, returned home, he was killed by his wife and the lover she has taken while he was gone. His son, Orestes, avenges his father by killing his mother and her lover. For the terrible act of killing his mother, Orestes is pursued by the Furies who seek vengeance, but he appeals to Athena. She establishes a law court on the Areopagitica to judge his case, and when the court’s vote is tied, she casts the final vote, finding Orestes not guilty. One telling gives her explanation as: “I was not borne by a mother. I, a virgin, sprang from the head of Zeus, my father, and I protect the rights of father and son against those of the mother. And so I shall not take the part of the woman who slew her husband to please her wicked lover.”

The overall image of Athena that emerges is composed of a mass of contradictions: she is a virgin who appears and acts in masculine ways, an extremely powerful warrior who disdains fighting for fighting’s sake, and a patroness of cunning who renders judgement based on her own sense of justice, being willing to face down the Furies and deny them vengeance in the process. She is, most of all, a figure of extreme practicality, willing to use appearances to get what she wants, but cutting through what she regards as irrelevant to pursue her own goals with single-minded focus.

Although the Homeric epics do not depict women calling on Athena for their own purposes, she is a figure to whom many women can appeal today, faced as they are with shifting gender boundaries and conflicting messages about appearance and behaviour. A woman could call on Athena when she needs to borrow the goddess’ talent for disguise, when she has to cross boundaries and pursue her own goals, and most of all when she is unwilling to be bound by external strictures or expectations about her behaviour as a woman.

The following ritual is designed to attract Athena’s attention for those purposes. The text is assembled out of adaptations of Pope’s verse translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. It uses bread, wine, and olive oil, staples of Greek life. Wine is specified here because it was the normal drink of the day; if you need to substitute grape juice, that is appropriate too. Olive oil is sacred to Athena because she gave the gift of the olive tree in order to win a competition and become the patron of the city of Athens, which then named itself after her.Athena’s practicality carried the day again: in the Greek period, olive oil was a food and condiment, the primary substance for cleansing one’s skin, and more.

Ritual to Petition Athena

Cast a circle as usual; call the four quarters by inhaling the scents of bread, wine, and oil, then raising the offering of oil to the south (for the sun’s fire that ripened the olives), wine to the west, and bread to the north.

Do a self-blessing, using the olive oil to anoint yourself. Recite:

I sing Athena’s praise and know, you power above, With ease can save each object of your love; Wide as your will extends your boundless grace; Not lost in time nor circumscribed by place. The salted cakes upon the plate are laid, And thus I here invoke Athena’s aid: Daughter divine of Zeus, whose arm can wield The avenging bolt, and shake the dreadful shield I raise to you the bowl with rich red wine Petitioning you to hear this plea of mine. Your gift, the olive, here poured forth as oil In my libation, asks your aid in toil. Athena, ever on your charge attend, And with your golden lamp my need befriend. If you, the ever-wise, put forth your power, Then prudence saves me in the needful hour. The more shall Pallas aid my just desires, And guard the wisdom which herself inspires.

Dip the bread in the olive oil, then eat most of it, and drink most of the wine, leaving a small portion of each to give as an offering.

Turn to each direction, offering your thanks, then open the circle as you usually do. Take your offerings outside to give them back to the goddess.

It is worth noting that the story of Arachne is itself a late addition to the myths of Minerva, the Roman counterpart of Athena; it is first told in Ovid’s Metaphorphoses, and thus provides little insight into the goddess Athena as conceived of by the Greeks in either the Archaic or Classical periods.

2 The translations I am using were done by Alexander Pope, a Catholic, in the 1700s. They are very famous versions of Homer, but are perhaps influenced by Pope’s beliefs and the theology of the time. It is possible and even likely that he substituted “heaven” for “Olympus” in these translations. This is a relatively minor point in comparison with the overall role of Athena, and I am not able to read the original Greek to critique Pope’s work, so I have not done a full textual analysis of theaological points like this. Similarly, Pope felt free to use the names of the deities from the interpretatio romana with the original Grecian ones. For the purposes of this essay, I have used the Grecian names exclusively.

3 Gadon, The Once and Future Goddess, 191.

4 There are stories of an attempted rape, but it is never completed. Athena remains perfectly physically involate.

5 She is also the goddess to whom the Greeks claim it is dedicated. Its status as an offering is why the Trojans were anxious to take it inside their city, since they badly wanted Athena’s protection.

6 Schwab, Gustav. Gods and Heroes: Myths and Epics of Ancient Greece. (Pantheon, 1946.) 595. Frazer and Graves argued that this was a recasting of the triumph of Archaic Greek patriarchy over an earlier matriarchal culture. In this essay, I leave this point aside, accepting the myth as a genuine reflection of the way Athena was seen in the Archaic and Classical periods.

http://www.orderwhitemoon.org/goddess/athena-homeric-epics/index.html

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twelvesignsrp · 7 years

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congratulations tabi, cancer is now samuel wade with the faceclaim neels visser

APPLICATION

Character Sign: Cancer

Character name: Samuel Wade

Birthday: 7/7/1997

Sexuality: bisexual

Gender: male

Moon Sign: Pisces Moon – he’s someone who needs fantasy, compassion, escape, and creative outlets more than anything else in the world. he can go a little stir-crazy at times, which is why it’s important for him to have security as well, but he can be extremely hard to pin down and read when he gets into one of his darker moods. sometimes he feels he is best left on his own, even though he wishes he could connect better, but he knows he needs to figure out how to navigate his own soul before he can really reach out to others around him. he is and will always be drawn to artistic, sensual and spiritual pursuits.

Faceclaim: Neels Visser

Power: future illustration – it’s not so much any sort of clear image that splashes itself across his mind and forces him to recreate it on any surface available, it’s more like some sort of gut feeling, almost unnoticeable sometimes until he’s practically finished with it. the urge to draw or paint something is as familiar and ingrained in him as the need to breath or his body’s need for blood from his heart—it’s something stuck just beneath the layers of his skin, and he doesn’t even think about it until he looks down and realizes he’s drawn something that ends up coming true a little while later. he does it without thinking most of the time, but then there are a few dark midnights, sleepless nights when the kaleidoscope mess tries to seep out through his fingertips, the drive to create something much stronger than his need to sleep. the talent for art has always been there inside of him, the magic just decided to adhere itself to that.

What do they study? Art Appreciation

Biography:

rule 1: schizophrenia is hereditary.

you wouldn’t think that to look at Marie Mason though, as she smiles and walks slowly down the aisle to marry the man who has stolen her heart and all her inhibitions and reservations about love. they’ve thrown themselves into this wedding, adored each other endlessly, despite the family secret she keeps from him, hoping on every star in the sky and any god in heaven that somehow, maybe the curse will pass her by unaffected. maybe their love is stronger than her genetics, maybe his kiss will break the evil spell, the ticking time-bomb on her mind. and after all, doesn’t everyone deserve a happy, fairytale ending? the Beatles sang “all you need is love” and they both agree wholeheartedly, because this feels absolute between the two of them. there is nothing that can get in the way of their union.

rule 2: love is not stronger than madness.

no one bears the brunt of her mental decay as much as her first-born son Samuel, especially in the first seven years of his life. he learns to run quickly, hide perfectly, play games that make no sense and have no rules. he has to think on his feet, tell stories without endings, anything he can do to please her, to help her, to make her love him—or at least remind her that she once did love him. it comes and goes sometimes, and he suffers in school for it, despite how much money his father pours into his education.

what father doesn��t seem to understand is that, yes, she does have many good, long stretches of sanity, weeks when she is fine, she is stable, she is operational, and Samuel enjoys these times because that’s when their family love dynamic actually feels real. but those times never really last long enough, they are just the minute gasps for breaths the universe takes before exploding again. his mother and his little brother, younger by three years, and him can all go to the park and have picnics, and he doesn’t have to think about how Jacob is already a better reader than he is. Jacob is better at a lot of things, but Samuel’s sheer amount of personality ensures his place as older brother. he can also draw better than anyone else in his class, but no one is as much a fan of his work as Jacob is, and Samuel is sure that nothing in the world can break the two of them apart.

that’s why when the doctors finally come and take their mother away while she is screaming and thrashing around, like a demon straight out of hell, Samuel holds onto Jacob’s hand tight enough that neither of them have to notice that their father can’t even look at them. Samuel is terrified that one day he’ll grow up to be as cold and distant as that man, but he’s even more scared about his mother’s genetic lotto win taking root in him.

rule 3: nothing in this world is in your control.

caution: contents are hot. he lets himself ride the waves of adolescence, boiling over with too much freezer-burn chemicals. like a sunflower, he is all brightness on the outer rim, the edges of him oozing glamour and laughter and just enough coyness to keep others interested, but in the center is dark, dark inflorescence, drying and dying out in the sun. he can feel himself changing as puberty takes over, shifting him into the kind of boy who stares at other people too long and lets himself fall into chaos too quickly. he falls in love too hard and lets it drive him to the edge of his mental cliff time and time again, because maybe if he gets used to it out here, it won’t be so bad when he finally tumbles down off it. he lives his life in fear of madness, which gives him a bit of wild freedom, but mostly just makes him want to cave in on himself.

his turmoil breathes life into the only part of him left that’s still beating; drawing and painting. he spends hours on it, creates everything from abstract memories of dreams to landscapes and fruits. it’s an incredibly forgiving art, but nothing about that sentiment lets him sleep a full night through, unburdened by nightmares.

his father comes to him one day after he’s turned eighteen and tells him he expects good grading scores from his high school so that he can enroll in a well-accredited university next fall—a university that has already been picked out for him. Samuel hadn’t intended to go to college, actually, because he wanted to start selling his art as soon as possible, but he doesn’t have the means or support system around him to venture off on his own, the way he wishes he did. he’s too easily persuaded to attend, but he manages to hold his own when it comes to which classes to choose. his father wants him to become a doctor, and follow in his footsteps of becoming a surgeon. for that entire summer, he starts bringing his oldest son to his hospital with him, making him watch the surgeries sometimes, hoping that the drive to cut people open and fix them will somehow seep into Samuel via osmosis. it’s total hell to the eighteen-year-old, and it doesn’t convince him to change his college schedule at all.

rule 4: with great power comes great responsibility.

not very far into his experience at durham, things begin to change. at first, he thinks “this is it, i’m finally losing it,” when he sees the exact same car-wreck scene on the news as what he had drawn earlier that morning. he thinks maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe a fluke, maybe some kind of déjà vu. he sets the picture on fire and smokes a cigarette as he watches it burn, his heart pounding in his chest, the fear like freezing fingers wrapping around his lungs, suffocating him. it’s not long though before it happens again, and again, and again—the things he draws becoming real somehow, and he begins to worry whether he’s drawing the future or creating it through his drawings.

it takes about a month or two, after he really starts taking action based on the paintings and drawings, that he realizes he is shaping only one version of the future, and that by simply knowing about it and doing something with that knowledge, it can be changed; which is a huge relief. so he starts acting on his abilities, working to fix whatever seems wrong, warn whoever he needs to, avoid the pitfalls he can see coming. he very rarely anymore draws the things he wants to, but it’s okay because this is more important anyway, and his skills at detail and coloring are getting better, sharper, clearer.

but with each new picture he puts his whole soul into, he feels it leave him just a little bit more. it’s a well-known fact that talent and survival cannot exist harmoniously inside one body; eventually something has to give. nothing is stronger than madness, he controls nothing in this world.

and schizophrenia is hereditary.

Five interesting facts about your character:

I. he has grown up with a mild form of dyslexia, making him very uncomfortable reading things. he struggled through it all throughout high school, oftentimes bullshitting his way through tests and literature classes. whenever he was called upon to read something from the books, he would always play it off as something silly, like making up the words and story as he went, often getting in minor bits of trouble for it. whenever it was really important that he learn the material, he just looked up youtube videos for it. he still needs to do that sometimes. II. he calls his little brother Jacob every week, just to check up on him. he hates being so far away from his brother, really the only member of his family that he ever connected with. his brother looks up to him a lot, even though Sam has no idea why anyone would. III. he lives off of a steady diet of ramen and code-red mountain dew. he knows he should eat better, but he’s too young to care about health food and he’s been blessed with a fantastic metabolism. plus, he doesn’t know how to cook and he can’t be bothered to learn. IV. he does work out though, whenever he can, and even though his choice of exorcise is boxing mostly, he wishes he could get more into martial arts, like taekwondo or jujitsu. V. secretly loves super nerdy stuff, like anime and comic books, but he tries his best to keep all that under wraps, stuffed into the bottom of one of his pants drawers, because he is scared of what people will think of him if they knew. he wants to be chill, not looked at like he’s crazy.

Character Quote:

“lie with me under

the sweeping sky that

forgets us

there is no other kind of death

destroy me if you must.”

–inkskinned.tumblr.com

If your character had a patronus what would it be? and why? his patronus is a dapple-grey stallion. it means his passion for the things he loves is hard to beat, he becomes very involved in his friends, family, hobbies and studies. he can be very sensitive and emotional, getting hurt easily and often feeling melancholy for very little reason. however, this emotional enlightenment allows him to understand others and empathize extremely well, while also being very creative and intelligent.

WRITING SAMPLE

Samuel stared at the lines on the wooden door in front of him, his eyes wide but unmoving– stagnant just like the rest of his entire body. he was supposed to be moving, supposed to be a man of action by now, like he had told himself countless times to be. he’d spent the better part of the morning looking into a mirror, practicing the lines he was about to say, going over what sounds best, the exact type of words to formulate, anything that didn’t sound creepy or desperate. he wanted to be one of those guys who were able to just go after whatever they want, no hesitation, no overthinking.

but he wasn’t. he wasn’t a man of action, he wasn’t a man of anything– he was just standing here in front of his classmate’s door like an idiot, completely immobile because his nervousness had rooted him to her welcome mat. he was supposed to knock on the door ten minutes ago. he should have already gotten this done and over with by now but instead he couldn’t stop staring at the lines in the door and thinking about how heartbroken he was going to be as soon as she rejected him.

she had no idea how hard he’d been working up the courage to do this. how long he’d spent practicing his tone of voice or his smile. he wanted everything to be perfect and if he messed this up…. he might never have forgiven himself. he had already messed up so many other relationships and lost so many opportunities with her already this semester. he wanted to move forward. he wanted to show her how much he liked her.

he slowly inhaled a breath, lifting his fist up to knock on the door, but he couldn’t make contact. maybe he could do this next week. there would still be a next week, right? there was always next week– next month– next year. except what if she moved away or dropped out of school? what if she got a boyfriend? and then he’d have to see them together in the hallways, think about how she liked to be kissed, think about whether she was being treated well enough. he was not keen on this idea.

but knocking on this door was about as easy as fitting his whole arm into his mouth. how did other people seem to do this so damn easily? he always saw it in movies and things, guys being assertive and girls being spunky but accepting. things always worked out in movies though, whereas real life was often messier, especially in those first few steps of a relationship.

relationship? maybe he shouldn’t have been thinking about that word just yet—it was still pretty early. he hadn’t even managed to ask her out yet. hadn’t even knocked on the goddamn door. he huffed again, the nervous fluttering and pounding in his chest only getting worse.

he lifted his fist up again, an inch or two away, when the door suddenly opened and there she was, a bag of trash in her hand, and there he was, his arm raised like an idiot. “i…! oh..! hi..” his palms immediately started sweating as panic set in and his fight-or-flight instinct started telling him to turn and run. his feet however, were still painfully glued to this spot. “i, uh… i was just about to knock… on your door….” he slowly lowered his hand, feeling like a deer in the headlights. “obviously.”

#accepted

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whatisonthemoonarchive · 6 years

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Untold Story, Hyung Jin Sean Moon, Complete Story

Practically, one day I had a vision, and in this vision, the face of Father shone like 10,000 suns. It was so bright that I could not get close, so to speak. At the same time, I saw the body of Father in hell - sorry - in prison. He was in prison, but at the same time, I could see that his spirit was in hell. His body was in prison and his spirit was like a reflection in hell. In the hell, there were these demons who shattered souls. And Father said, he shouted to the demons: "Take my body in their place, let my children go!" Then the demons threw away the meat they were eating, the people who were devouring and grabbing Father and sharing it. When I had this vision, for me it was truly a spiritual turning point, because I realized that when Father went to all those prisons and suffered all the different tortures and tribulations between life and death. I understood that in reality Father was going through all those things, he was going to those places of his own will, even if he could have escaped from the country; he voluntarily went there to be tortured for my good, for the sake of my family, my tribe, my future generations, etc. Once I understood that the Father did this for me, his suffering instead of being a kind of detached suffering, was a suffering for my personal salvation and for the salvation of my family, so that we could be right in front of God, thanks to that indemnity that the Father had to pay. ...... Mother was a very strict traditional Korean mother. [Korean mothers] are stiff, if the clothes do not go well, if the clothes are not suitable and do not go well for the image ... it is all a matter of image, of honor. The oriental culture is very like that. Mother is not the only person like that; most Korean and Asian women are like that. They think a lot about the image, especially if they come from a high-ranking family. She always tried to dress me well, with complete polo shirts. I hated that style. I was a skateboard lover, I had ragged clothes. And this made her angry. When I was younger, I grew long hair. And that made her angry [laughs]. Then, when I was training with Buddhist monks, it made her angry [laughs]. I never wanted to be put in the box of that upper class, dad's sons. I hated it! It was my nightmare. All my high school friends were boys belonging to minorities: blacks, Hispanics, Italians. These were my best friends. I did not get along with that sort of elite culture of dad's white sons. It was not in my character ..... I think there has always been a basic understanding that Mother considered herself a victim, who had forged her victim identity: "I am a victim. I am in this circumstance. The Father has all the power. I cannot say anything; I have no say, etc. There are all things that I have to hide, the six Marie, or whatever.“ In addition, you can see that the Family Federation is still trying to hide these things, because when they come to the point they do not believe that the Father was the Messiah because they believe in the same things she believes in, that he had weaknesses. This is, what the leadership says, it is documented. They clearly do not believe in the Father as Messiah. We knew, everyone knew that she had a victim mentality, but no one knew how far she would pursue her. Nobody knew how much she would aggressively pursue a kind of revenge against this. This, I believe, is what is so shocking and surprising for people. Of course this was absolutely, totally shocking and disgusting to us when it ruined the victory after the death of the Father. ...... I think the reason God brought us here instead of in Korea or Japan is because America still has a legacy of freedom. For example, when I was young I owned a shotgun, but this was due to the pressure from my teammates because all my brothers owned one. So, to be accepted as a man, I had to do it. But in the end I gave up, I rebelled against this, and so I started Buddhism, I became a pacifist. I left all my violent martial arts and studied meditation. I became a vegetarian; I followed the opposite road. I have learned so much from Buddhism - I am very sincere about this - as regards understanding the mind, psychology, etc., how the mind works. But one of the things that allowed me to leave Buddhism was to see its final social goals. If you look carefully, even the Buddhist countries that are pacifists are almost all communists. Everyone. Even the history of Tibet, which people do not know why the present Dalai Lama is very charismatic, the history of Tibet is a totally centralized control. A very privileged élite, a super class of monks, of religious. In the history of Tibet, there are all kinds of sexual scandals, in the class of monks. The same thing we see in Catholicism as pedophilia and sexual misconduct. This also exists in the history of Tibetan Buddhism. And there are plenty of studies on this in the West. Hyung Jin Sean Moon

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