#Saintly Spotlight

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Dammerich, the Weighted Swing

Lawful Good Archon Empyreal Lord of Executions, Judiciousness, and Responsibility

Domains: Death, Glory, Good, Law Subdomains: Archon, Heroism, Honor, Judgment

Chronicles of the Righteous, pg. 11

Obedience: Recite all the names you can recall of those who have died by your hand. Mediate upon their faces and the circumstances of their deaths, evaluating your actions in the light of cold law. Benefit: Gain a +4 sacred bonus to AC against critical hit confirmation rolls.

Dammerich here is Heaven's grim executioner, the Archon prayed to by people who need the strength and bravery to take a life, the good people whose conscience is heavily weighed down from lives they've taken, and innocents who've wrongly been sentenced to death. Lives must not be taken without clear reason; Dammerich is no slaughterer of Evil, he is the axe which takes the heads of the ones whose existence will cause yet more pain.

The names you rattle off aren't a kill list that should be recited with pride, is what I'm saying. Other than potentially facing a growing list of your own crimes as you realize that all the bandits and goblins you've been killing could have probably been rehabilitated and the crushing weight of the resulting guilt compressing your soul into a shining diamond worthy of Heaven's light if you can bear it without shattering first, this Obedience is incredibly easy to perform. It takes no materials but your own memory and no effort but the air in your lungs, and no real way for any enemy to interrupt it or keep it from happening. Repeating the names of every boss you've faced in a campaign every single morning might make you look like a maniac, so be prepared for the odd looks from your party, especially if you also dress the part of the grim executioner. It goes without saying that dressing like your deity while reciting your list will allows you to easily walk among Evil without raising eyebrows, should you need to infiltrate an Evil party.

The benefit is plain, boring, but useful at every level and in every campaign in which combat is a regularity. This is one of the few benefits that gets more useful as you level up and enemy Full-Attacks start taking several minutes to resolve; the more attacks an enemy has, the more likely they are to critically hit, and thus the more this protection will pay off over time and stop those crits from actually connecting.

Boons are gained slowly, typically achieved once you reach 12, 16, and 20 Hit Dice. Followers of the Empyreal Lords, however, can enter the Mystery Cultist Prestige Class at level 8, which grants them their Boons much quicker! Entered as early as possible, you gain the Boons at levels 10, 13, and 16 instead. Mystery Cultists MUST take the Celestial Obedience feat, NOT Deific Obedience.

Empyreal Lords do not grant the typical Evangelist/Exalted/Sentinel spread (and cannot enter those classes), instead having only one set of Boons granted to their followers regardless of their class.

Boon 1: Dutiful. Gain Shield of Faith 3/day, Death Knell 2/day, or Keen Edge 1/day.

Time and time again we see Death Knell, and time and time again I repeat myself: It's a useful spell that's handy when dealing with creatures that have Regeneration you can't bypass, but taking a standard action to kill someone who's already dying is often just a waste of time. Besides, it's competing with far more useful spells in this case.

Keen Edge is a spell that's more useful for the Finesse Weapon Enjoyers in the party, doubling the critical threat range of weapons which typically already have large ranges. People who love rapiers and similar light weapons especially love this spell, as it grants their weapon a crit range of 16-20... but don't sleep on using it yourself. Dammerich's weapon of choice is the greataxe, a two-handed weapon that deals 1d12 damage at base and deals triple damage on a critical hit. Making it Keen means its crit range goes to 19-20, not as impressive as a lighter weapon, but essentially doubling your chance to deal anywhere from 16 to 40 extra damage in a single attack is well worth it, especially since Keen Edge lasts a damn eternity.

However, as your levels climb and your weapons become enchanted, it's always good to know you have Shield of Faith to fall back on. It scales with your level (+3 when you first get it, to a max of +5), lasts for multiple encounters with a single casting, can be used on anyone you can touch (letting you spread it amongst the team before a big battle), and deflection bonuses stack with everything and work even against touch attacks. Not flashy, but safe and useful at all levels of play.

As we'll see, Dammerich specializes in boring but useful powers...

Boon 2: Severe Strike. You ignore the first 5 points of creatures’ Damage Reduction when making melee weapon attacks, regardless of the type and composition of your weapon. For example, a creature with DR 10/silver would be treated as having DR 5/silver against your attacks.

Like this one!

I desperately wish this one scaled, because as you level up higher and higher, this ability gets less and less useful. Not useless, mind, but less useful. That being said, a great number of creatures with DR have DR 5 or 10, meaning the majority of the time this ability either removes it outright or halves it. It's certainly useful when swatting low-level encounters like hordes of demons or minor fairies, saving you time as you ignore their ability to stubbornly cling to their last few hitpoints.

It's certainly easier than carrying around a bunch of weapons and then trying to figure out which works against a specific foe. This ability basically adds +5 damage against enemies with DR, and I have a hard time envisioning anyone who'd turn down such a gift... But I have a hard time thinking the Mystery Cultist truly benefits from it, unless they entered the class via Paladin or Warpriest. Also notice that the ability specifically states 'melee weapon attacks;' this ability doesn't work with ranged weapons AT ALL, so no cowering in the back row for you if you want to use this power to its fullest extent!

Boon 3: Execute. You can cast Power Word Kill 1/day as a spell-like ability.

I DID say he's a simple man, didn't I?

It's easy to roll your eyes at this Boon, as the weaknesses of the Power Word spells are known and well-documented; they're mind-affecting and thus unlikely to work against enemies you WANT it to work against, a wide variety of enemy types are flat out immune to it, it only works against enemies with 100 or less HP--an amount of damage that a greataxe wielder like yourself can put out in one good round--and it's almost impossible to track an enemy's HP to know if the spell would work against them or not. We know, and unfortunately nothing has changed.

But don't roll your eyes so hard! No one's saying the 1/day has to be brought out for a boss fight and nothing else, just don't use it against a boss, silly! Use it against an annoying minion, an obnoxious support unit, or similar! Besides swatting irritants in boss fights, every Adventure Path has filler fights meant to wear you down, so you can just use it one one of those and save on the rest of your resources! It's got a decent range, offers no save, and most importantly has no components because it's a spell-like. That last bit is fun because it means you can kill someone by looking at them, and onlookers will have no idea what the hell just happened or even if it was your fault. Sadly, as a goody two-shoes, your applications of Power Word Kill are almost always going to be an in-combat off-switch for something besides the Definitely-Going-To-Be-Immune-To-It main boss in a fight or an intimidation tactic against a group of foes who don't know what their up against. It's not the most useful 9th level spell and is painfully inflexible, but it certainly speeds up a lot of encounters the party may find themselves in, and may just allow them to skip some of them altogether.

There is also the much sadder use that Dammerich all but encourages directly: Proper executions and mercy killings. In the former case, it allows for a simple gesture to close the book for someone who's been blackening the pages for too long. In the latter case, whether it be a friend or foe suffering painfully, Power Word Kill allows for an instant, painless end. It's definitely a use to consider in the course of your solemn duties... And, hey, since it's not a death effect, you can easily bring the target right back with Raise Dead if you have a reason to!

You can read more about him here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Saintly Spotlight #Pathfinder #dungeons and dragons

[mafaldaknows]

Honestly, agree with Armie calling yall a brood of vipers. How quick are yall to throw him away when another man you deem more worthy, be it Troye or Jason Momoa or Hugh Grant, interacts with your saintly timmy. Having fans that only care about you when they can vicuariously live through you ther kinky fantasy about fucking your costar, no wonder he exploded and told that to the bulgarian weirdo.

We are not the ones in the everyone but armie train, you "charmies" are. If you can call yourselves charmie and not timothee shippers, that's the more accurate term.

Hello, Anon:

Are you lost again, darling?

When did I ever say anything about throwing Armie away?

BTW, The plural form of “y’all” is “all y’all”. “Y’all” is singular. If you’re attempting to disguise your identity by using a ubiquitous American Southern colloquialism, at least use it correctly:

“… agree with Armie calling ALL Y’ALL a brood of pit vipers.”

Your preteen pretzel logic has apparently drawn the erroneous conclusion that we have abandoned Armie Hammer, which is wholly contradictory to this specific fandom (obviously), and that anyone standing next to Timothée Chalamet in a photo or video that’s blogged or reblogged in this fandom space on tumblr automatically MUST means we “ship” them instead, even when there’s nothing written or even implied in the photo to indicate anything of the sort in the blog or reblog. Not in any of mine, anyway.

Taking delight in the magical alchemy that comes from excellent casting in a production is not at all the same thing as your implication of wanting Tim and any and all of his current co-stars to live out your specific kinky fantasies. That’s where YOUR mind wants to go, Anon. Not mine.

Armie is quietly rebuilding his life in peace and privacy after the trauma of a calculated character assassination over the course of the last three years, beginning shortly after the announcement of his ugly divorce from the perpetrator of that specific crime. He thankfully still exists, despite her best efforts, even if we don’t see him with the same frequency as we once did. Understandably, he is staying out of the spotlight to focus on the things that truly matter to him.

Tim is working hard right now to promote various projects so he’s automatically just that much more visible. He happens to be featured in some of these projects with fellow actors so he will naturally be associated in some way with them in the media. These promotional events are noteworthy to Tim’s fans so photos and press regarding these events get blogged and reblogged, and he may indeed be seen in close proximity to one of his co-stars in these photos. If your brain equates any of that with “shipping” Tim with his other co-stars, that’s on you.

For me, there is only one co-star with whom Tim has a deep connection worthy of my attention in this space. One.

However they choose to define that connection is up to them and none of my business. I’m just happy for them that they found each other.

Love is what brings us together in the Charmiesphere.

Love is love is love.

That’s it. That’s all.

Thanks for your comment. ✨💚🚢💙✨

#hello anon #wrong station #trainwreck #are you lost anon #pretzel logic #project much #love brings us together #love is love is love #mafalda always looks for signs #tales from the charmiesphere

[siremasterlawrence]

Moonlight On The High Seas

Leon Wild is a pirate on the high seas of the Atlantic Ocean well known for his bloody ire, harsh attitude and corruption consuming the world in dramatic fashion of horrific odds scenes.

He stood proud on his pirate ship using his binocular telescope reaching for it in his coat pocket he yanks it out elongating it to full form and places it on his eyes as he stares ahead on him.

Staring in to the see he can see the moon in all its glory the moonlight dances across the dark blue sea delicately free flowing for all to see and he is mesmerized unable to look away.

He is immobile at this point frozen I place his eyes growing a bit dim getting narrow he is starting to peer down seeing something very strange in the sea a wave of hand from in the ocean.

He is lost at the sight of a started looking boi well odd to him flowing in extremely high and fast speeds under the ocean as he flips upward and leaps in to the air then landing in to the ocean.

He dips down descending just a bit with his fin in the air it swings back and forth right in front of his eyes Captain Wild is in a deep like state catching his eyes their is magical glow to it.

The Captain’s eyes are now glued to the sea creature he walks forward ignoring the call of his crew closer and closer to get edge of the boat the sea man smiles so brightly at him.

He calls him using his hand to urge him to the edge of the boat he walks forward ever so closer to him and he falls absolutely in a state of love and pleasure to fully consume him.

The water suddenly rises up from the ocean in to the sky it floats in an encircling pattern on and around him changing into a colorful multiracial of arrays of covers to wave him on.

“Captain! Captain NO!” The crew screams as they race to his side trying to hold him back.

“I have to walk to him, I must be with him.” He begins to murmur a bit to himself but it only grows louder.

The crew is frighten for his life arranging on all four sides of him as they try to push him propelling him back.

Captain launches them back continuing to move to the only person that matters to him his true leader.

“Captain resist”

“Please wait for me”

“WAIT”

“Yes! I am on my way “

“Here I go”

He strips off his clothes bathing in the white light of the moon taking a plunge into the ocean and the mermaid takes his hand as they swim away.

“Yes, enter in to the void be like your ex Captain.”

The end

Debauchery Of The Night

It is a cool crips winter night in the darkness

with the air swirling as people enter the Lord of the manors Prince Leon sitting on a table awaiting the change that is happening all over the world.

He has no idea I am the young man who is bringing the massive mammoth of a wave that has brought down all of the last of the royal families and their connections in our existence.

The great hall soon fills up to the brim of the wall covering the area radius wall to wall in a great fan fair of excitement to meet the Prince himself enters with a power radiating from him.

He hops onto the chair sliding onto the main table in the great hall he starts to do a slow sweet dance so sexy he feels himself grow more confident with himself he lifts his pale hands in the air.

He pumps his fist in the air signaling for the event to commence as the trumpets sound loudly blaring through the window the whole entirety of the country shouts uniting in his and their downfall.

A few miserable hours earlier people were at work trudging around doing their daily jobs and activities exhausted from the grind of simplicity and complexes of what we truly experiment.

Barrels of lights hit including the spotlight

from the sky roof shining down on him as he is now given an aura of golden glow making him look all saintly because he is indeed a devil.

He hops off the dinner table dancing across the room as the spotlight hits him yet again as he attracts people to swoon through the hall the music addictive quickly swooping them up.

A young man takes the stage of the great room in the state picking up a microphone he begins to speak informing the crowd to keep dancing and to listen without a care of the world.

“Hey Prince Andrew! Great Party! You forgot one thing.”

“I would love to give you a gift”

“Would you like it?”

“Bring it on! Bring it on”

“Everyone silence! In three…two…one”

“Drop that shit down”

“Hell yeah!”

“That is glorious”

“Magical! What a beautiful sensation”

“By the way this is for one night only”

“The moon is being roped to you “

“The cracks, the lines all a sight to behold”

“Worthy of a king”

“Indeed”

“Sure you concur”

“What are you thinking?”

“I….i….why can’t I…..hahaha”

“Because you miserable oaf! I you met the orb of doom”

“Enjoy your final thoughts”

“The fog is eclipsing it all”

“Infact all you can do it be him”

“The dumb party animal”

“Everyones favorite Prince”

“A joke”

“This my kingdom now”

The end

#luke macfarlane #pirates #moon #male siren #voice #mind control #reprogramming #eye of beholder #andrew w walker #the Prince #hypnotic love #black and white ball

[thebunniesgrim]

Is anyone else tired of Stolas showing up in episodes? 

I like Stolas as much as the next guy but come on! Go away! 

The fact he’s going to show up in the Fizz episodes is like so draining he need to just go away for a few episodes  

There are 14 episodes including the pilot episode in all of Helluva Boss 

And stolas is in/ makes an appearance in 9/14 episodes (in if you count happy campers, it'll be 10/14, I'll explain later) 

The pilot  

Murder Family  

Loo Loo Land 

Harvest Moon Festival  

Truth Seekers  

Ozzie's  

The Circus  

Seeing Stars  

Western energy  

The reason I said happy campers might count is if you personally count the beginning fake out scene when Blitzo is in the Sloth ring going to Barbies rehab facility. It’s a refence to western energy if you through he was going to visit stolas when you saw that.  

That leaves 5 episodes that don’t have stolas in them  

Spring Broken  

C.H.E.R.U.B.S  

Queen Bee 

Exes and Oohs  

Happy Campers  

My man is a side character and has the so many episodes with/ about him. Loona, and Millie haven't gotten any episodes devoted to them. I personally don’t count Happy Campers as a “Millie episode” because moxxie still steals the spotlight from her and it’s obvious that Blizto and Barbies side plot is way more interesting. I don’t count Queen Bee as a “Loona episode” because I see it as a Kesha episode and Biltzo gets the ending spotlight of the episode by being a sad boi.  

Honestly, we haven't even got a domestic episode with the main 4 (Blitzo, Moxxie, Millie, Loona) we don't have any Canon (pilot isn't canon I think) episodes where it all of them goofing around the office. We get no character episodes for the main character. We get an episode about a Stolas’ daughter, but we can't give the main 4 any characterization beside  

Biltzo- the main character and he like horse  

Moxxie- he likes music, probably autistic, punching bag  

Millie- Violent  

Loona- antsy goth porn  

I mean fuck we get better characterization of Stella and Andrealphus in the small time we see them in Western energy stella is sadistic brat with 2 braincells and Andrealphusis is manipulative and probably one of those I killed my rich husband types  

I'm being dramatic for the sake of my saintly  

But like Viv you have so many characters put the owl down and breath for a second, ok? He'll be fine by himself for a while I promise  

I understand why Blizto is in every episode and even though he’s not my favorite character mostly because I like Moxxie more than him (I'm lowkey annoyed with him when he demines Moxxie or gets in Millie and Moxie's relationship. Honestly, I'm just tired of the moxxie beating.) I'm also tired of seeing him too It's like Steven universe nothing can happen unless steven is on screen or is somehow involved. 

 I get it. He's the main character, and you have to like him.  

They should change the name of the series to “Blitzo and Stolas are The Main Characters and Everyone Else can get Fucked”  

It’s a working title :)  

It feels like the only the way to enjoy Helluva Boss anymore is to be a massive Blitzo x Stolas Fan and look at the series through rose tinted Stoliz glasses  

#Rose tints my world Keeps me safe from my trouble and pain 

#helluva boss #helluva boss blitzo #helluva boss critical

[see-arcane]

The Underappreciated Undead Squad: Clarimonde, Lord Ruthven, and the Family of the Vourdalak

If you’ve been keeping track, you’ll know I’ve been getting sucked into a resurgence of old school bloodsucker literature. Not just with the fun of Dracula Daily—thanks again, Matt Kirkland!—but revisiting some even older vampiric favorites who have been kicking since long before the Count started planning his English holiday. From left to right above, we see Gorcha, patriarch of Aleksey Tolstoy’s, “The Family of the Vourdalak,” (1884), Clarimonde, of Théophile Gautier’s, “La Morte Amoureuse,” (1836), translated into English as ‘Clarimonde’ or, ‘The Dead Woman in Love,’ and Lord Ruthven, of John William Polidori’s, “The Vampyre,” (1819).

I’ve been dropping hefty blurbs about each of them, but I figured a master post was in order. Much as Dracula Daily is/will continue to pick up its pace as autumn ticks along, I know there are folks out there itching for a broader classic vampire fix than just another reread of, “Carmilla.”*

*Who does not get to sit at these guys’ table, considering she has a web series, a movie, and a number of animated cameos (hi, Vampire Hunter D and Castlevania babes), while everyone on this guest list has no mainstream spotlight, period. Sorry, Millie.

 Assorted Synopses and Story Links Below!

1.    Clarimonde—“La Morte Amoureuse” (Post) (Story PDF)

POV: You’re a newly minted priest doing priest stuff in the middle of Le Bumbfuck Village in Nowhere, France. You fell in love with the hottest party girl in Paris. She dies. She resurrects herself and appears in your room looking like this ^^^ saying she came back to life because she’s into you. She asks if you’re down to run away to Venice with her. Wyd?

Oh, Clarimonde. She’s probably the best way to (un)die you’ll ever meet in classic literature. Gautier wrote her story with all kinds of ribald and religiously risqué (if not damn near blasphemous) joy, and managed to sneak a genuinely heartstring-tugging romance in. She’s probably the first vampiric character to ever be written in a truly sympathetic light, while also being one of few early seductive/bawdy female characters to not be given the ye olde ‘EW NO EVIL POWERFUL LILITH CHARACTER BOOO’ treatment.

2.    Lord Ruthven— “The Vampyre” (Post) (Story PDF)

POV: You’re the tenth adulteress tonight to try to get with the sexy stranger who lives to make everyone around him miserable (sexily). All you’ve managed to do is interrupt his game, in which he plans to bankrupt a father of seven, followed by maybe hunting down his innocent daughter to stick a dagger in her for a midnight sip. Oh, you were after a blood sugar daddy? Too bad. Take that thirsty bullshit to Carfax and duke it out with Renfield.

Lord Ruthven is the original undead bastard. His hobby is ruining the lives of good people, driving virtuous girls to madness and/or murdering them for a drink, and collecting fancy bejeweled blades for a little flair with the latter. Our guy is Not Interested in romance as anything other than a performance to get close to a young lady for the purposes of either ruination or slaughter. Nor is he about to churn out any more of his kind willy-nilly. Why bother? Maybe that shit flies for those needy Transylvanian hoarder types, but he prefers to go solo. He seems like a unique polar opposite to most ‘teaching a moral’ monsters—in his story, only the purest of pure mega-good characters suffer. If you’re anything less than saintly—see: horny chicks, folks with personal vices, et cetera—Ruthven either ignores you outright or tosses you some cash to aid your selfish aims. Thanks, man.

3.    Gorcha and Kin— “The Family of the Vourdalak” (Post) (Story PDF)

POV: You are a traveler meeting the dead and knowing eyes of Gorcha and his family. This ends one of two ways. Version 1: Gorcha and his family decide they hate you. There is only room for murderous hate or consuming love in their still hearts, as is the condition of the Vourdalak. They will nail your head over the door. Version 2: Gorcha and his family have decided they love you. So much so that they must empty your veins and welcome you into the family. Forever. What’s that, traveler? You’d like to leave before they decide either way? Who said that was an option?

Vampirism and love have always managed to overlap throughout the genre. But the condition of the Vourdalak flavor is especially fixated on it. The gist is that where ordinary vampires will target whoever, whenever, Vourdalaks are driven specifically to drink from their loved ones. Family, friends, lovers. It’s how whole villages have gone underground, with kin and neighbors preying on each other in a warped display of grim thirst and affectionate preservation. On the flip side, those not loved get put down. Messily. It would almost be sweet if things like ‘consent’ or ‘neutrality’ could come into it, but no. You are loved and kept or unloved and slaughtered. The only third option is to run—if they let you.

 I really recommend giving all these guys a read. Right now, we’re enjoying a bit of a vampiric/Dracula renaissance. Silly stuff like the What We Do in the Shadows series is going full blast, Castlevania is entering another run, and the Count has a whole slew of movies lined up. While I very much did not care for this year’s, The Invitation, 2023 is due to dish out a fun dark comedic romp called Renfield centered on our favorite inventor of the Victorian small-scale turducken (with Nicholas Cage as Dracula!), and a genuine horror movie offering with, Last Voyage of the Demeter, directed by the same man behind The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Promising stuff!

My fingers are crossed that between all that and the clear popularity of Dracula Daily, we can dust off some other coffins and, maybe, give these older undead characters some overdue love. (At a safe distance.)

#before anyone comes at me about Clarimonde's period inaccurate dress #1) I know. #2) Her introduction has her wearing the most VIVID rainbow palette finery I've ever read. She deserves color! #3) I always mentally tied her with the Psyche myth #the Goddess of Soul with the butterfly motif and a whole story dedicated to love and th breaking of trust #also death and resurrection; so you know--I have my excuses #4) I can't not picture her being a carefree trendsetter hedonist #if she wants her bosom up and bodiced with gold jewels butterflies and ye olde gauzy sparkles all over? #She Will Have It #Ruthven just always struck me as a russet/old bloodstain palette kind of guy so ^^^ #Gorcha's tale paints him as corpse-colored and the story takes place in the cold #lots of grays and deep unhealthy blues/silvers seemed right #plus a stylish accessory head #anyway #vampires is fun #and there's more than Dracula and Carmilla to play with in the classic lit #go meet them and get inspired #clarimonde #la morte amoureuse #lord ruthven #the vampyre #gorcha #the family of the vourdalak #dracula #dracula daily #carmilla #reading recs

[album-imagery]

Why Andrew Ridgeley let George Michael walk away from Wham!: 'I couldn't be resentful of my best friend'

A new documentary makes a strong case that the late Michael's '80s pop duo was a true partnership, but his childhood friend and bandmate insists: "I knew, and he knew, that his future lay outside of Wham!"

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Lyndsey Parker·Editor in Chief, Yahoo Music

Wed, July 5, 2023 at 9:34 AM PDT

Wham!'s Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael at the peak of their '80s fame. (Photo: Netflix)

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Class of 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee George Michael was such a superstar in his own right, it’s almost easy to forget that his ‘80s duo Wham!, formed with his childhood best mate Andrew Ridgeley, was the launching pad for his stellar career.

To be fair, Wham!’s run was quite brief. Incredibly, only three and half years separated their charmingly school-play-like “Young Guns (Go for It)” performance on Britain’s Top of the Pops — a last-minute booking, after an unnamed act dropped out, that gave Wham! their first U.K. top 10 hit and forever altered the course of their lives — and their bittersweet official farewell concert at London’s 72,000-capacity Wembley Stadium. However, Wham! sold a whopping 30 million records during that short time frame, and their new self-titled Netflix documentary (which coincides with the band’s 40th-anniversary greatest-hits collection The Singles: Echoes From the Edge of Heaven and unexpected resurgence on TikTok) makes a compelling case that they were never just a footnote on George Michael’s lengthy résumé. In fact, it shows that without Wham! — and more specifically, without Ridgeley's friendship and support — Michael probably would have never become a star at all.

Wham! chronicles Michael and Ridgeley’s schoolboy days, when the more gregarious Ridgeley was actually Wham!’s bandleader and front-facing heartthrob, up through their surprisingly shared decision to part ways so that the prolific Michael, who at age 23 had already outgrown Wham!’s bubblegum pop, could pursue a more sophisticated solo sound. It was a breakup that Michael once described to Smash Hits as “the most amicable split in pop history.” And throughout both the Wham! film and his interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Ridgeley — who after Wham! pursued a race-car-driving career and released one solo album, 1990’s Son of Albert, before stepping away from the spotlight — displays an almost saintly sense of humility and absolutely no signs of resentment.

“Well, first and foremost, I couldn't be resentful of my best friend,” Ridgeley tells Yahoo matter-of-factly. “It's just not in me. I was the proudest person of [Michael’s] creative development throughout — and it was very, very swift, indeed. No one could have been more pleased than me.”

The Wham! movie actually makes a strong case that Ridgeley was a key contributor to the group, not the coattails-riding sidekick he was sometimes cruelly made out to be in the press. (“Almost everything came from Andrew,” Michael says at one point in the doc’s archival interview footage.) Ridgeley was the one who initially urged his shy and awkward classmate George, nicknamed “Yog,” to pursue music against Michael’s strict Greek father’s wishes. Ridgeley also cowrote “Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do),” “Club Tropicana,” and “Careless Whisper,” the three demos that landed Wham! their first label deal. But Ridgeley insists that setting the record straight about his involvement “wasn't the purpose of the documentary.” “I don't think it would've served me, Wham!, or anyone else really very well, if that was the purpose,” Ridgeley says humbly. “Setting records straight is pointless, as far as I'm concerned. I've never endeavored to do so. And if people's perspectives change somewhat [after watching the documentary], well, then, they had the wrong perspective in the first instance.”

George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley perform in London in 1983. (Photo: Pete Still/Redferns)

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Wham!’s origins go back to Bushey Meads School in Hertfordshire, England, where Michael (real name: Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou) and Ridgeley became instant best friends at age 12. At that time, no one, not even Ridgeley or Michael themselves, could have predicted the superstar metamorphosis that Michael would undergo less than a decade later. “The interesting thing is, it was inconceivable to me that I would ever become the kind of pinup that I thought Andrew naturally was,” Michael confesses in one of the Wham! documentary’s vintage interviews.

Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael in their early days. (Photo: Netflix)

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“When we met as kids, I was a far more confident kid. Yog was always plagued by the sense of himself as a slightly chubby kid with big specs,” Ridgeley tells Yahoo. “You look at Yog in our promo stuff, early in our career, and then you look at him in the final [Wham! stage] where he's become ‘George Michael,’ and I mean, the transformation is astonishing. I didn't go through a transformation; there was no transformation for me to go through. I was confident in my looks. I never felt the need to look any different or any particular way. It just wasn't a factor for me. I'm not sure I even understood that good looks were necessarily a part of being successful [in show business]. We started the band because we wanted to write songs and perform, and that's really all that that mattered. I didn't perceive anything beyond that; Yog did. And I think the fact that he was a less attractive youth was a factor in feeling that he needed to change. I think it informed a lot of his desire to succeed.

“Wham! had to be a success,” Ridgeley continues. “It was essential that Wham! was a success for George personally. He was discovering himself. He hadn't found the person, or at least he hadn't been able to reveal it to himself or bring out the person that he was. He was very strongly opinionated, and he had great belief in his talent. But it took a little time for him to really, truly develop.”

The young Yog wasn’t just grappling with his confidence and image as Wham!, formed from the ashes of a short-lived local ska band called the Executive, began to find success. In an emotional “pivotal moment” in the Wham! documentary, Michael recalls how during a 1983 trip to Ibiza to shoot the “Club Tropicana” music video, he held a band meeting in his hotel room, with Ridgeley and background singer Shirlie Holliman, to tell them he was gay or possibly bisexual. (Michael had had his first romantic encounter with a man — a confusing and ultimately life-changing experience that inspired a sultry ballad on Wham!’s debut album, “Nothing Looks the Same in the Light” — about six months earlier.) The result of that hotel room discussion was Michael being persuaded to not to come out publicly at that time. And once he became the band’s main heartthrob and a global media sensation, mere months later, he felt it was already too late to tell the truth. “I lost my nerve completely. And just out of necessity, I went with full gusto into the progression of Wham!, creating a new character,” Michael sadly explains in another one of the film’s flashback interviews.

“We were just concerned about his father's response,” Ridgeley, who along with Holliman was personally unfazed by Michael’s Ibiza revelation, clarifies to Yahoo Entertainment. “Some part of me felt that he should just tell, and you know, make it public. I couldn't see that it could make any difference to [the band]. … I'm not sure, necessarily, that it would've inhibited us. But I certainly think Yog felt that [being openly gay] might compromise our chances of success. I didn't feel the same way. I didn't think it would have, had he chosen to [come out]. But I can see why he felt the way he did.”

While Michael was struggling with his decision to keep his sexuality secret from the tabloids and Ridgeley was dealing with mean-spirited media speculation about his artistic input, both men were the targets of music critics, who wrongly dismissed Wham! as a fluffy, fly-by-night boy band. “I don’t know whether the music press is the same these days, but certainly [back then], it took itself extremely seriously,” says Ridgeley. Wham!’s scrappy anti-authority singles “Wham Rap!” and “Young Guns,” which were inspired by “Rapper’s Delight” (“That Sugar Hill Gang track was just a complete revelation,” says Ridgeley of hearing hip-hop on British radio for the first time), were actually well-received by critics. The press even hailed Wham! as “the new heralds of the social conscience,” Ridgeley recalls with a chuckle. But then Wham! ditched their leather-jacketed James Dean image for “the neon thing, that whole kind of leisure/holiday look” (which, incidentally, was mainly styled by Ridgeley) and incorporated “a sort of tongue-in-cheek element into our music and our visuals” for their lighter, brighter, hedonistic fourth single, “Club Tropicana.” Ridgeley recalls that this “really didn't sit too well” with crusty music journalists, who quickly, viciously turned on the group.

“What happened with ‘Club Tropicana’ was we shook off all those kind of shackles,” explains Ridgeley. “We were free to be Wham! — the pure essence of Wham! — and that was a real step forward and change, because from that point we were a pop band and we weren't encumbered by any weight of youthful social consciousness. We were just the essence of what we really were, which is two young men having the time of their lives. The lyric in ‘Club Tropicana’ was actually slightly tongue-in-cheek, a sort of view of the clubland culture that we were experiencing … the kind of escapism that one experienced, or at least was supposed to experience, when you stepped into some of these clubs. … Critics certainly didn't get that.”

By this point, Ridgeley had graciously come to another major mutual decision with his bandmate, which was to let Michael take over all of Wham!’s songwriting. “I understood very well that Yog was a songwriting talent of far greater breadth [than me],” he explains with his characteristic modesty. “I could have insisted, and I'm sure that he would've quite happily conceded, [to give me] one or two tracks on albums, had I really made a point of it. But I didn't make a point of it. There was no point in making a point of it. George was a far more competent songwriter, and the songs that he was writing were perfect for Wham!, so there just didn't seem any point.” With Ridgeley now less involved in the music-making process, he was slightly less affected by the media’s maliciousness than the more sensitive and serious Michael. “I accepted it long before the press perhaps turned against us — really, I saw it coming, to a degree,” he admits. “But [the criticism] did knock a little bit, because it was constant.”

Michael wanted to be seen as a legitimate artist, not as some pretty-boy pinup; one of the most moving scenes in Wham!, in fact, is when he’s named Songwriter of the Year at the 1985 Ivor Novello Awards (Britain’s most prestigious honor for music composers) and breaks into grateful tears during his acceptance speech. “Whilst we didn't take our presentation and ourselves as Wham! seriously, the songwriting and the recording was a serious business,” stresses Ridgeley. “George said it himself: The fact that a lot of people couldn't see the quality of the songwriting and the production, that they couldn't see past the presentation and the image, needled him. But the fact is, actually we won American Music Awards. We won the BRITs’ Best New Act. Our peers and those in the industry, outside of the magazines and the music critics and such, did understand that George was talented.”

Ironically, it was one of the few Wham! songs that Ridgeley had co-written, “Careless Whisper,” that became the “obvious launchpad” for Michael’s inevitable solo career: The second single from Wham!’s aptly titled 10 million-selling sophomore album, Make It Big, was credited to “Wham! featuring George Michael” in North America, and solely to “George Michael” in the U.K. and Europe, upon its fall 1984 release. While Ridgeley says it “was so much a shared song” and “inextricably linked to the two of us,” when the two wrote the ballad in 1981 — with Ridgeley coming up with the chord structure and Michael adding the “amazing melody” — neither of them thought it would fit in with the more hip-hop/disco-influenced material of their edgy debut album, Fantastic.

“Careless Whisper’ was just a real sort of one-off; at that point in time, it was still difficult to see how it might sit in the Wham! context,” says Ridgeley. “We all knew we had a gem in ‘Careless Whisper’; it was what to do with it. And then when Yog asked me if I’d concede to him releasing it as a solo record, at that point it had been established that he was the songwriting force in our partnership, and that his songwriting was developing in a way that would inform and shape his career.

“I knew, and he knew, that his future lay outside of Wham!, even at that point,” Ridgeley continues diplomatically. “Wham! imposed constraints upon his songwriting, which he was going to outgrow as an artist, as George Michael. He couldn't forever write for Wham!, because Wham! was essentially the representation of our youthful friendship up to that point. But we were growing into men and adults.”

“Careless Whisper” was massive, topping the pop charts in 10 countries and selling 6 million copies worldwide, but Ridgeley says Michael later “felt ambivalent” about the track. “Oh, not even ambivalent! He was openly critical about it in latter years, because it's slightly naive. It's slightly contrived. The sentiment is a little bit teenage — we were 18 when we wrote it.” Michael also “really disliked” the sassy Fantastic single “Bad Boys,” because he “felt he had to write it to follow on from the success of ‘Young Guns.’ … It’s a really good dance track… but he couldn't get over the fact that it was contrived and he had allowed himself to be put into a corner to have to write that.”

Understandably, by the time Wham! took their final bow on the Wembley Stadium stage on June 28, 1986 — at the very peak of their fame — Michael was ready to move on. And Ridgeley, unbelievably, was ready to let Michael go. “We knew instinctively, as Wham!’s career unfolded at that pace, that it had a finite lifespan, because Wham! was so much about us. Wham! was that snapshot of our youthful years we were going through, and it became evident that we'd have to bring it to a close,” Ridgeley says. Two compilations — Music From the Edge of Heaven in North America and Japan, and The Final in other territories — were released in the summer of '86 to placate fans who craved more Wham! content, and Ridgeley reveals that “George talked about a third [Wham! studio] album” but it was “an idea sort of hovering there, never really explored.” However, he now speculates, “There are tracks on [Michael’s monster solo debut] Faith which quite possibly could have been Wham! tracks. I mean, ‘Faith’ itself could have been a Wham! track.”

Sixteen months after Wembley, Michael unleashed Faith, which went on to spawn four No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, sell more than 25 million copies globally (making it one of the most successful LPs of all time), and win the Grammy for Album of the Year. But the reluctant sex symbol continued to push against his earlier teen-idol image, eventually refusing to appear in his music videos or do typical record promotion and famously suing Sony to get out of his record contract — a protracted legal battle that arguably derailed his solo career, as he didn’t release an album for six whole years in the ‘90s.

“I think he understood [in the Wham! days] that he’d had to play the game. He said so in ‘Freedom ‘90’ — it’s all there in the lyric. As his art became more important to him and he became a more serious songwriter, I think he felt that the compromises that he had been forced to make throughout his career, he resented them,” says Ridgeley. “So, some of the game, he chose not to play. He was in a position, to a large degree, where those decisions didn't compromise the success of his music, but you know, he made it tough for himself. I support the essential concept of his dispute with Sony — that an artist should be free, as other people are, to terminate their contracts. However, it came at a cost, both financially and personally, for him.” The ‘90s were difficult for Michael in another way. He had to contend with the nasty media again when he was arrested for “engaging in a lewd act” in a Beverly Hills park men’s room in 1998 — a tabloid scandal that effectively publicly outed the star as gay, 15 years after that secret Ibiza hotel room conversation. While Ridgeley says he doesn’t think Michael ever regretted quitting Wham!, he muses, “I do think he probably missed the support that the context of Wham! lent to us both. He was out on his own, and he was quite capable of fending for himself, but at times it was really tough. So, whilst I don't think he regretted the decision — and it was a mutual decision, to bring Wham! to a close, as it was inevitable — I think he probably at times felt that it was much harder than he'd bargained for.”

George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley at the Rock in Rio festival, 1991. (Photo: Mick Hutson/Redferns)

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Ridgeley’s only seeming regret regarding Wham! is: “I wish we'd have toured more; we didn't play enough, by any stretch of the imagination.” (Polyps that Michael developed on his vocal chords, which “wasn't something that was actually resolved until a fair bit later in his career,” limited the band’s ability to regularly play live at the time.) While Michael and Ridgeley occasionally appeared together publicly after the Wham! split, like at the Rock in Rio festival in 1991, they “made a pact, if you like, that we'd never reform Wham!, because Wham! was a sort of place in time,” Ridgeley reveals. The last time the two childhood friends met up, for a Scrabble game, was the September before the 53-year-old Michael’s shocking death from heart and liver disease on Christmas Day 2016. In the end, Wham!, which was directed by Chris Smith (FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, Bad Vegan, Tiger King) is more than just a rockumentary: The film, which climaxes with the spectacular Wembley goodbye gig, is really a heart-warming story of partnership, of true brotherhood. “Our friendship was a big part of what Wham! was to people,” Ridgeley says proudly, and just a bit wistfully. “There was a lot more to it besides just having to write and record the songs.”

#wham! #george michael #andrew ridgeley #new wave #80s music #i love the 80's #documentary #yahoo entertainment #yahoo news

[aj-amora]

✨⚜️Saintly Stamps⚜️✨

I was inspired to make stamps to mark my artwork, all different kinds that radiate the different times in my art journey, its nice to see them again in the spotlight.

#sketches n scribbles #art #artwork #drawing #design

[astrophelbkdkbk]

𓆩⟡𓆪 WRITER SPOTLIGHT 𓆩⟡𓆪

Being graced with saintly power, mangocashews will provide you with a heavenly story that's going to be remembered forever.

#bnha #bnha zine #bkdk zine #zine promo #anime zine #mha zine #mha #bakudeku #bakudekubaku #bkdkbk #bkdk #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #kacchan #deku #fandom zine #my hero academia #fan zine #bnha sfw #celestial

[rennyji]

How normally, you go about a therapist

So people see a doctor when they have something that bothers them or affects their functioning. Some people delay the visit to the doctor, whichever doctor, whatever the condition, for as long as possible.

It’s an adult choice, for better or for worse.

For some reason, I’m seen as so ill, that my parents, at my 35 years of age, need to get involved, and there this group of orchestrators, consisting of therapists in some shape or form, who see themselves as so saintly that they “just” want to help me- but it’s not through the normal dynamic of face to face contact where there’s mutual conversation. It’s them affecting the therapist you are seeing, and forcing them to convey their viewpoint and treatment.

Does that make sense.

Now that I think of it, yeah, this definitely comes off as a show for troubled kids.

Their input that they output to strangers, literally for entertainment, was from cameras spying on the victim. Now they have the ultimate camera. They can see deep into a persons past, ammo given by the FBI and American government.

So looking into my past, what was my biggest offense, to myself, my family, or others?

Out of their being nothing, are you just cherry picking what’s open to interpretation?

My parents are simply put, weird.

- myMom, not 2 cast spotlight on her, can be so much 2 the point that she’s blunt in a rude way. Conversely, she also has an overly sugar coating way of speaking. She might B talking 2 a customer service rep, and she’ll say U were very helpful, can I get ur name, I’ll remember U-

-when talking 2 Drs in my situation, sure she is a caring mother, but it seems like she’s avatar of orchestrators or trying 2 make a point 2 their benefit in again, an excessively caring mother sugar coated sort of way. resulting psychology is, Drs indirectly see me as trash.-

-rather than, like normal, Drs basing recommendations and treatments on your account of things, especially if ur an adult close to 40, they seem to either 1. Get their info from unlawful peering in2 life, 2. Conveying perspectives from excess info of biased orchestrators or -

- 3. Speaking in defense of their practice out of being put in spotlight, or a psychiatrist giving an explanation of how things R done when mutual conversation w/o every1 talking on top- or over U- becomes norm, or maybe even speaking in ur defense thru explanation/perspective-

u’ll hear the mother, in this absurd way, 16 years ago, & now, when I’m close to 40 years age, that it’s wrong of this country 4 medical professionals 2 see 18+ years olds without parents. Again, in ever growing picture of ur situation, there is theme of show 4 troubled kids.-

- U wonder if she’s coerced to helping to extend reach of troubled kids show, or if she is now in trouble, because of selfish and illegal ambitions of trouble kids show. What the show and other orchestrators in situation cannot accept, is that they’re operating on too much info.-

- there’s too much 2 complicate perspective and truth and objectivity. But if there is a show, they’re ambitions have now expanded to not just going past the age of 18, but also deep into a persons life vs what they saw on a camera for a month or what has to be less than a year.-

I remember an argument that was severe, with my parents when I wanted a part time job in high school. My parents mere furiously opposed because that would mean I have money to possibly do something for what counts as questionable for my parents.

I remember when I wanted to learn to drive. My parents see it as one more thing they need to worry about. They delayed it and gave me an endless hard time, tying in anxiety to the experience. 

Around that time, my mother broke her arm by standing on a tipping-over milk carton in our backyard garden.

My father somehow blamed me for the incident, as God and/or the devil punishing the family for a bad or disobedient son. But what did I do? How was I "disobedient?"

On a related note, at the beginning of my situation, as a testament to his rigid belief system, something had him convinced that he's Abraham and I'm Isaac in relation to the story where the son is almost sacrificed...I guess the takeaway is something is bothering him and this is how he is justifying it...but Isaac was never sacrificed...then he also conveys a notion that seems to be externally brought to his attention from a third party, as its like something from Harry Potter or Greek philosophy, and that's not what he's into: he says you'll be like a phoenix bird and reborn from the ashes. Sounds like foreshadowing. Imagine how horrifying this sounds to me. It means I'm going to be figuratively burned alive in some way, and, yes, I'll come out of it. Sounds like government propaganda after understanding the beliefs and naivety of my parents.

I get angry with my dad because it’s just hard being around him because of his magical thinking.

From his bedroom, recently, I heard him recently talking to someone on the phone, saying:”all we can do is endure, and forgive in these situations. If we make any effort, we risk making it worse.”

This statement is a testament to his beliefs.

Yesterday I addressed how to pray. Prayer is a tool for us to be introspective and understand what our flaws are, and make an explicit effort to ask for help in inhibiting those flaws. But my dad doesn’t want to make the effort to understand flaws, his belief is God knows what flaws are, and we just need to ask to be delivered from Satan. But will my dad ever know what’s wrong? We, as people, need to irritate our brains to sometimes have hard or frustrating conversations, to do our part, to get an understanding of the world around us.

His belief system makes me angry. Is my situation, in part lasting this long, because he’s trying to hide his flaws by pinning the attention on me and my eating habits in a stressful situation? 

Is my situation lasting this long because he doesn’t want to exert himself by trying to help me?

In terms of effort, have you, in your time over me, seen my parents so much as jog or run, even when exercising? They don’t like actual and metaphorical effort. They think all they need to do is tell GOD to do the figuring and work for them, in place of the “doing your part” and then leaving God to do the rest.

My parents mistake their part as throwing money to therapists and meds which they don’t know if works, because they’re told to ignore me when I talk about what I’m experiencing, by orchestrators proxying through and replacing my therapists actual diagnosis and opinions. This is when my parents, maybe rightfully so, feel the responsibility of understanding my concerns and what I know, shifts completely to those they provide payment to or the authority figures who claim they'll take care of everything. My parents naively think that's one less burden on their shoulders, as of course, law enforcement or school officials would neeeevvveer take advantage - considering the heat on them, they will definitely take advantage, maybe even press on negative family dynamics to screw with me...

Regarding a bad family environment, he could try listening to his children or getting to know what they majored in college or what their role was at recent employers. It would help him navigate some circles to contribute to finding a right fit in terms of profession.

He believes Satan is influencing my mother. Regarding satans grip on my mother: what does that even mean? First my mother should realize and accept a problem. My father should pray, with my mother, for divine help, not saying more than what's needed or for help ignoring certain things to avoid conflict in the home, or for a better home environment.

What’s the pattern above? Not asking for evil forces to be lifted, which is vague and not bringing conscious awareness to what actually needs to be corrected. The pattern above is to move from magical thinking and into what human beings can do, through choice and effort, to correct behaviors not conducive to a good home or a good relationship.

In my whole life, as the orchestrators have the record, what is my crime? It’s not because I’m a saint. It’s cause I had a purpose and a goal: to get through school so that I can finally have a life and live a life. I spent hours studying. Never opportunity for something bad.

Did I shoplift, did I beat someone up, did I have sex in high school, did I sneak out of my family's house in grade school/high school at night, did I get bad grades, did I go to bars and party or use fake Ids, was I spending all my time hanging out with friends instead of prioritizing school, did I hit my parents, have I - in my life - done any drugs, have I had more than 10 bears in 'my lifetime' in college or shortly after, did I so much lie to my parents during the period of my youth?

Would my parents claim that I’m somehow mean to parents? What did I say, what did I do?

So the show for troubled kids basically saw an opportunity to extend their reach to 18+ year olds with naive parents that they could manipulate. They saw opportunity to go beyond cameras and into someone’s past. 

The troubled kids show, realizing nothing was wrong,decide to, again from ring over ambitious and concerned:legally, to show how good I am.

But then the strange kids and SUNY Albany get involved.

In every hospitalization that I'm subjected to, you need to look at context before the phone call. On, I believe the 2nd to last, where I call 911, because my parents start an argument with me, stating we're going to throw away your stuff and sell the house, I got scared. My mother had a weird look on her face. When I called 911, I think they called back, reached my parents. Parents tell 911 I'm crazy and my dad helps the police track me by giving them my license plate to my car. They then take me to St. Josephs in I think Riverdale New York. They eventually release me because there is nothing to hold me on.

About my purchases in these latter years or debt: you’ve said we turned off his dominant self or you simply sedate someone to diminish executive functioning which includes prioritizing, and specifically prioritizing finances.

I know I’m going make it rich legally or for my time in this situation. I know they try to show me as a bad child (psychological abuse much?!). I’ll do things to spite it cuz I think those who find joy in my h*ll as losers not to be concerned with. I’ll walk around my boxers while believing something is relaying me. I’ll eat four waffles from a four mini Belgian waffle box.

What you’re doing is so illegal, it delusional to think if you can screw me over, overt ice cream and waffles. I also have a period while in this, where I survive off quinoa and vegetables. I take the extra effort of driving 3 hours back and forth my house from Binghamton, to get quinoa and vegetables from my house.

While diminishing my executive functioning, you want to put me on double antipsychotics and blame me for the side effects of excess hunger that I can’t suppress through the will power diminished through diminished executive functioning.

When on nothing, or on drugs like Vyvanse, and then working where you need to stack up on skills, one’s survival extinct set in. You think, “ i need this job, can’t lose this job, let me go in on even Saturday to train myself.” That survivor mentality helps with finances. 

If I had to get an apartment, which I don’t, because the house is one, I’d be concerned about bills. I’m in a situation where I’m treated like sh*t, I’ll buy what I like to add some flare to my day. It’s gets uncontrolled because prioritization and survival extinct js diminished to point where you glaze over consequences through a high coming from the combination of marijuana, two antipsychotics, an antidepressant, and benzodiazepines. You’d have be brain dead if you think I’m to blame for my one real mistake which is throwing money on overpriced necessities for work setups. It’s not like I’m using the money for cocaine or something. Shelves? Monitors? Keyboards? Questions to ask, what was he buying? Does his specific hair cream cost $30 because that’s the only thing on the market that restores oil to the scalp when shampooing daily from an oily scalp.

The orchestrators are monitoring my home. Do they just focus on me to better the family environment, or do they, alleged experts in their crafts, instead work the detected flaws of my parents to make me look crazy or aggressive?

[collymore]

Members of the UK's monarchy, our politicians and celebrities all generally and criminally abuse their acquired powers!

By Stanley Collymore Philip Schofield's private life is his own, just as all you bellicose accusers of him will adamantly insist, if your private life was serialized, in the media and paraded in the public spotlight, as Philip's currently is, and therefore unless effectively Philip or quite literally yourself have not or don't break the law, or distinctively, from your own naturally protected, or ongoing safeguarded, and consequently hidden privacy, you then evilly and quite distinctly, arrogantly and also hypocritically, rabidly likewise very smugly thus take to joyfully free jumping on the sick bandwagon, of caustically lambasting others publicly for basically, what you're literally rather secretly doing yourself by very significantly covering up and likewise pretending is not relevant in your own life; be that as it is I truly couldn't give a damn really, what you generally get up to, in simply what's your own private life: whether it's rather saintly or clearly, repulsively slimy; so long you don't seek either in a private, or clearly likewise a public capacity, to actually seek to basically involve me. But to vociferously lambast others for their distinctive wrongdoings, when your own private life is rather calculatedly hidden from public view and plainly which does make, in toxic and quite verminous terms, a most obviously rancid sewer pit, simply appear as and likewise smell like, a fragrant beauty salon, I'll most happily, go after you; regardless of whoever you clearly are or else postulate yourself very dishonestly to be; the key moment you’re cruelly indulged in evil hypocrisy and disposition are obvious to me. Rather strange though how if Philip Schofield did actually genuinely, distinctly regret what he did that much he didn't stop it at the time. Naturally, his regret is much bigger now that he's basically very obviously, lost everything! But for sure, he logically wouldn't have given a damn if what he did hadn't come out damagingly in the media. (C) Stanley V. Collymore 3 June 2023. Author's Remarks: One's private life is precisely that and as long as that individual consciously chooses to keep it that way their wish should obviously be respected and also quite steadfastly maintained. However, as with everything else in life there are and must always be logical restrictions and appropriate penal sanctions should that adamant wish for privacy impacts in anyway negatively and furthermore distinctly rather injuriously also on the welfare and even the lives of others. So privacy by all means if that's what you want and are entitled to; but not as a cloak of hypocrisy for one's nefarious and even criminal shenanigans!

#hate #greed

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Pulura, the Shimmering Maiden

Chaotic Good Empyreal Lord of Constellations, Homesickness, and Morning Lights

Domains: Air, Chaos, Good, Weather Subdomains: Azata, Cloud, Seasons, Stars

Chronicles of Righteousness, pg. 20

Obedience: Sit on the ground with your head tilted back to study the stars. Maintain the position for an hour and identify 12 constellations. If you cannot see the stars, draw the patterns of 12 constellations on a semi-permanent surface, such as a wall or hard floor. Benefit: The light radius of any light source you hold or conjure increases by 10 feet.

As maiden of star charts and constellations, Pulura’s Obedience obviously falls into the category of ‘do the previous night just before going to bed’ rituals. It’s a very simple Obedience that rewards your knowledge of the cosmos and the constellations of various cultures all over the planet! Just one cluster of stars in the sky can be as many as three different constellations to three different groups of people, letting you get a lot of mi--okay yeah that’s completely unnecessary, considering it’d take an extremely nitpicky DM to tell you that you can only see, like, five or six constellations on a given night just to screw you out of your Obedience.

Even if you can’t see the requisite number, or even any constellations at all, there’s an easy-to-do alternate Obedience built right in. It requires a little bit of graffiti, but if all you’re doing is tracing them in the dirt with a stick or scribbling them on a wall with chalk, it’s hardly a punishable offense except in the strictest of societies (and thus the ones you’re most likely to be helping). It might even make people watching you curious about what you’re drawing, allowing you the opportunity to educate them on the beautiful heavens above!

And that benefit is something COMPLETELY unique, and the reason this particular god caught my attention! Mind, it’s not particularly powerful, but the uniqueness and its various small uses can’t be denied! For one, simply by picking up a common candle or lighting a tindertwig, you’ve created a light source as powerful as the average torch. And torches themselves? Well, an extra 10ft of shine can help alert your party to dangers lurking just outside their normal field of vision! I like that this power works even with light sources you’re simply holding in your hand; your allies can pass glowing weapons or items to you just so you can get a bit of extra juice out of them!

This effect also makes your light-producing spells a bit juicier, because many spells have effects that hit everything that their glow does. Sometimes this even doubles their area of effect! ... Though in my personal research I’ve found few it would actually work on in a meaningful way. This stacks in a fun way with the Solar Spell Metamagic, potentially inflicting penalties on specific foes bathed in the light of your radiance!

More often than not, though, it’s just going to give you a little more reach with a normal torch. But, really, that extra 10ft might just give you a little more edge than you’d think you needed...

Boons are gained slowly, typically achieved once you reach 12, 16, and 20 Hit Dice. Followers of the Empyreal Lords, however, can enter the Mystery Cultist Prestige Class at level 8, which grants them their Boons much quicker! Entered as early as possible, you gain the Boons at levels 10, 13, and 16 instead. Mystery Cultists MUST take the Celestial Obedience feat, NOT Deific Obedience.

Empyreal Lords do not grant the typical Evangelist/Exalted/Sentinel spread (and cannot enter those classes), instead having only one set of Boons granted to their followers regardless of their class.

Boon 1: Aurora. Gain Color Spray 3/day, Continual Flame 2/day, or Guiding Star 1/day.

And here we have a very strange set of spell-likes. You will, more often than not, be carrying Color Spray around because you’ve cast the other two previously at some point in the week and no longer need to use them! Continual Flame is definitely not a spell you’ll need every day--and definitely not 2/day--because, as its name suggests, it creates an everlasting torchlight. Once it’s used, it doesn’t need to be used again! A single everlasting torch can sometimes be at your side for your entire adventuring career! That’s why it’s got an entry cost of 50gp, though you can create it for free.

Maybe if adventuring doesn’t work out, you can start a business selling Everburning Torches and star charts?

If you’re wondering about Guiding Star, it’s a spell with a niche use, but a powerful one. After its 1-minute cast time concludes, you create a bond with your surrounding area, after which the spell lingers like a beacon for 1 day per level. At will as a standard action after casting it, you can determine the distance and direction between yourself and the chosen location. It’s no Find the Path, but it will keep you from ever getting lost in open locations like mountains, forests, and planes. With Guiding Star acting as your north and knowledge of landmarks, you can easily work your way backwards through just about anything that’s not a labyrinth or twisting cavern... provided your journey can be completed in about a week or so, mind.

Casting the spell again ends your previous bond instead of refreshing it, but its purpose and duration means that it, too, will likely never be something you cast more than once a week anyway. This just leaves Color Spray, one of the best level 1 spells you could have at levels 1 to 4... but which lost its full usefulness about 3 to 5 levels ago by the time you get it, with a saving throw (11 + Cha mod) that means it’ll likely never be useful as anything but a method to non-lethally deal with enemies too low-level for you to waste any other action on. There is the off-chance it can stun a number of high-level enemies, there’s always a chance they flub their save, but don’t count on it. It’s a cute spell to have in an emergency, but you probably have better.

Boon 2: Starshot. 3/day, you can transmute up to 1 sling bullet per HD into a bullet of starlight. These bullets function as +2 Brilliant Energy Bullets. Bullets of starlight last for 1 minute and shed light in a 10-foot radius.

Now here’s something interesting! Pulura’s sacred weapon is the sling, meaning you’re likely already using it unless you’re a pure caster (and even in that case, it makes an excellent emergency weapon for casters anyway), and with an investment of just two feats taken as early as level 1 you can hurl your full-attack’s-worth of sling bullets without needing to waste actions reloading, entirely negating the downsides of using a sling in the first place. With one more feat, you can even go into melee with it! NOTE: Do Not Do This.

This Boon is a pretty good one, giving you enough ammunition to carry you through most of the major battles you can expect to face in a day. By the time you get this Boon you’re changing 13 bullets into powerful, AC-ignoring projectiles that deal 1d4+2 damage at base, which doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but slings key off of Strength due to basically being glorified thrown weapons which is usually enough to keep your damage contribution noticeable. Especially since, again, these are Brilliant Energy bullets, meaning they ignore armor and shield bonuses to AC! Heavily-armored enemies are as vulnerable as wizards wrapped in sackcloth against your sling, but it does come with an unfortunate downside: Brilliant Energy only affects living beings. Undead, Constructs, and any object you target are completely unaffected by your new enchanted bullets.

Which kinda sucks, considering Undead tend to be in the top 3 enemy types most often faced by Good parties. And Evil parties. And parties in general. You can’t even do any cute disarming or sundering tricks with it!

You know what you CAN do, though? Shoot people through walls. No, that’s not a power specifically listed under Brilliant Energy, but the description says it “ignores nonliving matter!” It’s SUPER easy to make the case for it being able to sling straight through a wall, door, or other impediment to hit whatever is on the other side without fear of immediate retaliation! It’s not even that much of a stretch to make it so!

Boon 3: Otherworldly Traveler. You can cast Interplanetary Teleport 1/day as a spell-like ability.

I haven’t seen a Boon with this much overkill baked into it since Barbatos’ ability to call a friendly Pit Fiend to your side, and that’s saying something. I can’t really think of a scenario in which you’d need to go to other planets with enough regularity to need this spell every day, and a DM should be extremely careful with handing the keys to the cosmos to their players. Any caster capable of casting level 9 spells is a campaign-warping threat already, but you can do it two levels early and gain access to a spell that allows you to go anywhere at all ever.

It’s the ultimate escape and exploration tool, as very few villains will have the power to chase a party to another planet if they flee to recuperate. If you don’t want to go across the universe, Interplanetary Teleport also acts as just a normal Teleport/Greater Teleport spell with no range limit and no chance of failure. Having even a general idea of where you want to go takes you there without a teleport mishap, and the spell automatically places you at the safest possible location if your imagined destination would be immediately hostile to your life, leaving little consequence for the DM to level against you if you decide to poof to Aucturn or something.

I can’t truly type a lot on this, because people should generally know how strong an unrestricted teleportation ability can be, even at just 1/day, but the potential danger of a party suddenly having access to the entire galaxy is worth warning hopeful DMs: You should probably just replace this with Greater Teleport with no failure chance unless you want the party suddenly considering all the nonsense they can do with their new access to the markets and/or populations of Akiton, Castrovel, and Eox.

You can read more about her here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Saintly Spotlight #pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

[christ2525]

2222 Angel Number Meaning Love

Heavenly messenger Number 2222 Importance - Imagery and Profound Importance Heavenly messenger number 2222 addresses relinquishing the past with the goal that you can be allowed to push forward in your life's process. The message behind this image additionally recommends that you really want to put more spotlight on the present instead of choosing not to move on or agonizing over what's to come. It is critical to set aside a few minutes for the things that are generally essential to you, whether it be having a ball with loved ones, or achieving your objectives.

2222 Angel Number Meaning Love

At the point when the 2222 holy messenger number shows up, a sign from your divine messengers this present time is the opportunity to relinquish old propensities and adverse impacts that have kept you away from accomplishing your maximum capacity. Your heavenly messengers would like you to make a few useful changes in your way of life so you can partake in an existence of harmony, satisfaction, and profound security, as well as the capacity to defeat any difficulties that come your direction.

So roll out certain improvements today - begin by distinguishing one part of your life that needs a few improvement and venturing out towards improving it.

Take this number 2222 as a sign from a higher place and use it as inspiration to relinquish whatever is keeping you away from residing an astonishing encounter loaded with affection, satisfaction, joy, achievement, and all the other things that makes everyday routine worth experiencing.

Here, I will make an honest effort to provide you with a total comprehension of how this saintly mathematical image can assist you with satisfying everything you could ever hope for and wants. Since we have laid out that, we should take a more top to bottom glance at this otherworldly number and what it means for your life.

Heavenly messenger Number 2222 Importance and Profound Importance Number 2222 reverberates with confidence and desire, two characteristics vital for progress in any everyday issue. Your lead celestial hosts would like for you to realize that when difficulties emerge, it's significant not to surrender yet rather to persist until the tempest passes.

Despite the fact that things might appear to be somber from the start, something kindness emerge from this present circumstance eventually.

The heavenly domain wants for you to get a handle on how important every snapshot of presence really is so you can capitalize on every day by living with reason and doing what gives you pleasure. Accordingly, focus on signs from the universe since they can lead you toward significance whenever followed accurately.

2222 is a portrayal of concordance and peacefulness on the grounds that through this number the Universe is attempting to let you know that you should accomplish a harmony in your life of some kind. It is a suggestion to dial back and unwind on the off chance that you have been feeling overpowered or focused on recently, and it will assist you with adapting to anything that hardships come your direction.

Heavenly messenger number 2222 shows that the whole Universe is coming to pass in support of yourself and will help you in making progress in your undertakings in general. It is a message to advise yourself that you are equipped for accomplishing your objectives and desires in the event that you set forth the energy and keep pursuing your goal.

Much of the time seeing this number is an indication that positive changes are not too far off and favorable luck looks for you. This number has prophetic meanings and proposes that significant changes are going to happen in your life. However these modifications might be troublesome, they will eventually achieve positive change and development.

While thinking about rolling out huge improvements in your day to day existence, recall that change can prompt development on the off chance that it is joined by a fair and smart methodology as well as persistence and fortitude.

Number 2222 Imagery Holy messenger number 2222's imagery is connected with your own heavenly nature and the intentional daily routine that you are bound to experience. This heavenly number is encouraging you to have confidence in both your own judgment and the insight that lives inside you.

Your climbed aces are encouraging you to pay attention to your instinct since they have an uplifting outlook on the future that lies in front of you. It's likewise conceivable that this celestial image is entreating you to assume command over your life and steer it towards where open doors are sitting tight for you.

This saintly number holds a heavenly message encouraging you to be more mindful of your viewpoints, words, and activities. You may be driving individuals from yourself or bringing negative energy into your existence without acknowledging it.

2222 is encouraging you to perceive that all that in this Universe fills a need, regardless of whether we can't grasp its importance at first. Whenever you have recognized this reality, you ought to carve out opportunity to pause for a minute and contemplate whether what has occurred in your life is really valuable.

So at whatever point something horrendous backs its head in your life, simply recollect the number 2222 and pause for a minute to consider whether it will eventually lead you toward a more promising time to come.

Maybe something great couldn't ever have happened were it not for the "terrible" thing that occurred in any case.

2222 heavenly messenger number has various implications relying upon your current conditions. It might urge you to be more mindful of your own feelings with the goal that they don't adversely influence people around you.

Maybe it is empowering us to keep a merry mentality despite the challenges that we might experience as we travel through life. Or then again, this imagery could have something to do with the manner by which we treat others, explicitly with sympathy and regard.

What does 2222 Mean In a deep sense The otherworldly importance of the 2222 saintly number is one of equilibrium and congruity. You are encouraged to search out conditions that are serene and consoling so you can keep a decent and focused perspective.

It's likewise vital to recollect that during this cycle you could experience numerous obscure parts of your otherworldly self, and you should be available to every one of them.

It likewise shows that a negative time in your life is approaching its end and this will usher favorable luck and associate you to your higher self.

The 2222 heavenly number urges you to recollect your internal strength and the boldness that dwells inside your heart. In our own lives, every one of us has the possibility to start something new and fascinating. It reminds you not to be apprehensive, however rather to embrace each adjustment of your existence with confident expectation.

Through its otherworldly significance, 2222 prompts you not to turn out to be excessively worried about materialistic things since they won't endure forever. You should be satisfied with what you have on the grounds that the universe will accommodate you assuming you let proceed to confide in its arrangement for your thriving. Be thankful for all that you have, on the grounds that nothing endures for eternity!

2222 is a message from your holy messengers empowering you to believe your center instinct as it will lead you down a way helpful for both your bliss and prosperity. The truth of the matter is, there comes when we should embrace change and welcome new encounters into our lives, regardless of how frightening or awkward they might appear from the get go.

This message urges us not exclusively to attempt new things yet in addition to make the most of every open door that introduces itself to genuinely encounter life without limit.

What's the significance here? Heavenly messenger number 2222 could be viewed as a message of resolve and courage. It is your main goal to utilize this number to keep you doing great and assist you with making great (and shrewd) choices.

Doing so will achieve a significant change in cognizance that will empower you to live right now more completely.

What's the significance here in connections? Assuming 2222 continues to appear in your life, it's most likely a sign that you and your sidekick are drawing sincerely nearer and your relationship is reinforcing.

Be that as it may, on the off chance that this number unexpectedly shows up while you are feeling somewhat uncertain about your accomplice's devotion, then those questions may be going to emerge into something concrete.

What's the significance here in heavenly messenger numbers? Assuming that you at any point see the number 2222, it is a sign from the heavenly messengers that a few brilliant occasions are going to occur in your life. Your process is going to turn out to be more quiet and cozy as you draw nearer to your objective.

In the event that you as of now have a buddy that you appreciate, this message suggests that significantly a greater amount of what you like about them will emerge.

What to do assuming you continue to see 2222 Holy messenger number 2222 is a message from the sky that affirms that you are moving in the correct heading with every one of your undertakings and that the Universe is directing you in beating any troubles that life might toss at you.

It is likewise a suggestion to stay immovable, mindful, and undaunted in all that you do. At the point when you defy difficulties, recall that the best way to beat them is to keep on track, inspired, and hopeful.

If the number 2222 shows up in your life, it implies that something critical is going to occur in your life and the Universe maintains that you should remain positive and be prepared for anything that might come your direction. Be available to new encounters, and don't allow assumptions to keep you from discovering some new information about yourself or your general surroundings.

Utilize this potential chance to get to realize yourself better or to study your general surroundings. This could be a defining moment in your life, and heavenly messenger numbers maintain that you should embrace this change earnestly in light of the fact that it will lead you in the correct heading.

Number 2222 additionally demonstrates that there might be a contention or misconception in your life right now of some kind or another, however everything will pan out eventually on the off chance that you stay positive and keep a receptive outlook.

[shoppncarticles]

The Abra Family

Next up is the unique Abra, a pure Psychic type not really resembling anything in particular, which still works in my book. While its head looks sort of fox-like, its weird segmented body almost gives it an insectoid feel. Weird!

While I’ve mentioned it before, I’ll explain now that the Psychic type embodies several mind-bending powers, most notably those around ESP, Mind-Reading, and Telekinesis. It’s interestingly super-effective against the Fighting type, paying homage to the ‘mind over matter’ saying. Clever!

Abra is a mysterious little creature, said to regularly sleep for long periods of time, and uses its psychic abilities to sense danger and teleport away whenever danger draws near. In fact, this is a quirk that makes it infamously difficult to capture. Abra will only know the move Teleport in the wild, so unless you catch it immediately or manage to somehow trap it, Abra will be gone right after the first turn of battle.

After Abra evolves into Kadabra, it starts going on the offensive, sporting a spoon which somehow strengthens its psychic abilities. I dig its new, matured shape. The oversized tail especially is a good balance to the rest of its design. A few Pokedex entries make strange note that apparently people with strong telekinetic abilities (which is not wildly uncommon in the Pokemon world, by the way) somehow just spontaneously transformed into Kadabra in their sleep. Huh? How’s that work??

Unfortunately for Kadabra, it would be the subject of a few real life controversies. American bible thumpers took issue with Kadabra’s mystical powers, not helped by its upside down star-shaped head and forehead star marking, resembling outlandish satanic imagery to them. They’d often use Kadabra as a prime example as to why Pokemon was evil and didn’t belong in the saintly American family’s homes. A famous stage psychic, Uri Geller, would also claim that Kadabra was a slanderous parody of himself, due to its Japanese name resembling his own and Kadabra boasting the ability to bend spoons with its mind, something Uri Geller centered most of his career around. This was apparently so bad Kadabra was banned from ever being used in merchandising and anime appearances, and lasted all the way up until November 2020, where Uri Geller apologized on Twitter of all places and proclaimed that Kadabra could be allowed back in the spotlight. With American religious groups seemingly not caring too much about Pokemon anymore, it luckily seems like Kadabra’s controversies are now long behind it.

Anyways, Kadabra is able to evolve further into Alakazam, and let me just say how much I enjoy these goofy magic word names that this family has. It works wonderfully for these nondescript psychokinetic monsters. Alakazam looks the part of a more evolved Kadabra, featuring a greater mustache, more exaggerated head, and now holding two spoons! What’s even funnier is it using both of them like magic wands, enhancing its psychic attacks.

Sadly, Alakazam does also lose several striking traits of Kadabra, like its red markings and oversized tail, but Alakazam’s design is iconic and recognizable enough that I don’t notice it often enough to find it worthy of complaint.

The thing also is a glass cannon, its spindly, thin body not saving it from any attackers who might have the resolve to withstand its destructive mind-bending prowess, which is also a neat addition to its design. Alakazam might seem all big and intimidating, but it’s about as tough as wet bark.

Our first one in quite a while, Alakazam also gets a Mega Evolution. I kind of think they took the joke a little far here, giving Alakazam five spoons, as well as an oversized beard and an extra nub at the center of its head. I can appreciate the additions these elements are supposed to give, making Alakazam resemble some meditating wizard, but something about it just isn’t appealing in the same way as normal Alakazam to me.

It’s not just beards, is it? I don’t think I’d judge the things too much, but they were also such a sticking point to me with Galarian Meowth. I’ll have to see if this holds up later. Pokemon makes more frequent use of beards than you might think.

Score: 5/5

Regardless, the Abra family makes a great introduction to the mysterious Psychic typing.

[Gen 1 Archive]

#pokemon #pokemon review #abra #kadabra #alakazam #mega alakazam

[byneddiedingo]

Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019) Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Chris Cooper, Louis Garrel, Jayne Houdyshell. Screenplay: Greta Gerwig, based on a novel by Louisa May Alcott. Cinematography: Yorick Le Saux. Production design: Jess Gonchor. Film editing: Nick Houy. Music: Alexandre Desplat. 

I didn't read Little Women as a child: Boys didn't read "girls' books" back then. And when I finally read it -- out loud, to my daughter -- I found it a little stiff and starchy. But it has made for some very good movies, particularly the 1933 Katharine Hepburn version directed by George Cukor and the 1994 Winona Ryder version directed by Gillian Armstrong. Somehow, I don't think we'll be calling this 2019 film the Saoirse Ronan version, but rather the Greta Gerwig version. As writer and director, Gerwig has developed a complete and insightful view of the Louisa May Alcott novel, one that takes into account what was always present in the novel but brings it into the light of the 21st century: the changes in the roles and attitudes of women. By rearranging the chronology of the novel and structuring it around the development of Jo March (Ronan) as a writer, Gerwig has accomplished two things: She has allowed the other March sisters to share the spotlight that Jo hogged when she was played by Hepburn and Ryder. She has also revealed the rather sentimental endings of the other films as what they were: contrivances designed to please moviegoers, as they did readers, more than to reflect actual life. By establishing in the film that Jo is accommodating the desire of her publisher (Tracy Letts) that the heroine of her Little Women not remain a spinster, Gerwig is able to go a little bit over the top in the film, bringing back Prof. Bhaer (Louis Garrel), with whom Jo broke off over his criticisms of her writing, for a giddy reunion and wedding to Jo. This is all staged with the kind of unabashed sentimentality, including a glimpse of Jo's very improbable school, in which all the sisters and their husbands are the instructors and the curriculum includes fencing, that can't be taken with a straight face. We are meant to sense that the real Jo March might well have remained a spinster rather than capitulate to, as she puts it in the movie, "people saying that love is just all that women are fit for." It's also an ending that wouldn't have worked if Gerwig and her performers hadn't created characters that have a little more body than the source gives them: Timothée Chalamet's Laurie isn't just the slightly odd young man he is in the book (and in the performances of Douglass Montgomery and Christian Bale in the earlier versions), but rather spoiled, dilettantish, and probably alcoholic. Florence Pugh deserved the Oscar nomination she got for bringing more than just flightiness to the character of Amy. Even Beth (Eliza Scanlen) in this version is more than just the saintly innocent who dies young, and we have Gerwig's script and direction to thank for allowing them to blossom rather than being overwhelmed by Jo, good as Ronan's performance is. I can't quite subscribe to Anthony Lane's comment that her Little Women "may just be the best film yet made by an American woman," which hardly seems fair to the work of directors from Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino to Kathryn Bigelow and Kelly Reichardt, but it's certainly a provocative and sometimes audacious triumph.

#Little Women #Greta Gerwig

[see-arcane]

I have to say I'm excited for Barking Harker because I love how writers explore human characters becoming inhuman and what (in)humanity means. <3

Dracula is one of the grandaddies of supernatural horror and I will always love and appreciate its portrayal of vampirism not only as a ~seductive~ monstrous condition, but one that hammers home that it's a kind of eternity that Is In No Way Desirable unless you're pushed to maddening extremes.

Jonathan is great for displaying the sliding scale of horror to horrific acceptance over becoming a vampire: He would rather die than join the Brides, but he would rather be a vampire with Mina than lose her entirely to an undeserved destruction. Vampire business is just miserable from all angles in Stoker's book, whether you're turned or not.

By contrast, I also enjoy the contemporary view of Monsters > Humans as far as morality goes--what I like to call the Guillermo del Toro Effect--which shows more empathy to the inhuman Other and highlights how insidious and destructive plain old humans can be...

...with the issue that comes with it being the lowkey 'defanging' of the monsters in question. The threat and badassery kind of peters out when you're too busy crushing on/cuddling the bogeyman.

It's this same habit that's at least partly to blame for the massive amount of romantic/sexy vampire media. Not necessarily all Dracula media, though! That mess lands squarely on the shoulders of the writer-directors who refuse to respect the novel which stars the King of (Explicitly Evil) Vampires and keep sexifying the Count. That's their baggage.

With Barking Harker, I want it to be a little more of a mixed bag. It isn't strictly the species of a character that's to blame for everything; sometimes it just comes down to the person. But I know, I know--how can I explain the Bloofer Lady and the Brides? They turned evil due to vampiritis! That will be addressed (spoilers abound), as will Mina's deal.

And Jonathan's. And the Suitors Three and Van Helsing's. Among many more.

The power of cruel random circumstance, of personal upheaval, of influence versus resignation, will all come into it. Ditto the fact that, frankly, the novel gave its spotlight to a handful of supremely moral and good-hearted people. We never get to see a wider scope of villainy beyond Dracula and his hired lackeys. And while not overrun with horrid awful villains, the world is full of cruel and selfish bastards, whether they're human or not. We'll get to see those too.

That's what it will ultimately come down to. Not humans versus monsters (monsters who were all human once). Not tradition versus science or the Ancient versus the Modern or Demographic A versus Demographic B.

People are people no matter what else they are or where they hail from. People are varied. No one group will ever be wholly evil or wholly good, even in the scope of Stoker's take on vampires.

If nothing else, I want to use Barking Harker to satisfy my cravings for classic supernatural horror and the present care shown for our bogeymen/Other metaphors--and to maybe shake our saintly Victorian heroes off their moral mortal pedestals. Let them see what it's like having to exist in the dark and to fight a condition they never asked for. For as good as they are, they have only ever been able to guess at what such an existence is like, seeing death as the only cure.

I think it's about time they get to broaden their perspectives.

#--said with malicious intent (affectionate) #barking harker #my writing #dracula #dracula daily #monsterhood

[catrinathomas]

Angel Number 834 Spiritual Meaning + Twin Flame Symbolism

The outcomes are not answerable for actually characterizing your profession progress. That is the reason the other-worldly number 834 is mentioning you to assemble strength in all that you do. The rose experts and heavenly messengers are dependably there behind you and in all that you do.

They will assist you with pursuing the best choices throughout everyday life. You ought to have confidence in your abilities and spotlight on bestowing quality thoughts for your future. You should view yourself as fortunate assuming you see the saintly number as often as possible.

The heavenly holy messengers need to give a few quality and convincing messages to you. Thusly, you should give close consideration to the messages portrayed by the heavenly number 834.

Whenever you continue seeing this number showing up before you, realize that the Universe has heard every one of your requests, and your heavenly holy messengers are attempting to respond to them.

Relate the image to the considerations and sentiments that you had at the top of the priority list when you confronted the radiant number 834. Through this glorious number, the heavenly holy messengers address the conditions that you face in your life. Your heavenly aides believe that you should sort out the issues going about as a hindrance in your life.

Holy messenger Number 834-What does it mean? In the event that you continue to handle this saintly number in your life, you ought to make a heavenly association with your celestial aides. The number aides you to impart your considerations and sentiments to your rose bosses.

Also, you can use this number as a medium to tell them that you require the consideration of your heavenly holy messengers.

Attempt to keep a positive attitude all through your life. In the event that you can engage more certain considerations into your life, you can likewise go with additional strong choices throughout everyday life. Along these lines, assuming you wish to radiate a specific measure of solidarity, guarantee that you are encircled with positive energies as it were. All that will start to you.

Your psyche ought to have positive considerations and positive expectations as it were. Then, it will furnish you with the strength you expect to battle the deterrents in your day to day existence. Simply remember that you are conceived a champ.

However, it doesn't imply that you won't bomb in your exercises. However, don't step aerobics assuming you fall flat. All things being equal, attempt to be there on the ground and strive to accomplish your objectives.

Emerge and sparkle for your heavenly messengers by saying that it is an ideal time for you. Be cautious about the kind of considerations that you engage. On the off chance that you wish to find actual success in your life, you should think about thoughts of accomplishment. Continuously consider yourself accomplishing the unthinkable things to be well. Ensure you partake in the work that you do.

The mystery importance and imagery At this point, you ought to be more acquainted with the presence of the saintly number 834. The number continues to chase after you wherever you go. The better part is that the heavenly number generally gives kind words to you. Like any remaining saintly signs, heavenly messenger number 834 shows up in your life to give precise headings with respect to the advancement of your life.

Heavenly messenger number 834 likewise represents progress throughout everyday life. It implies that you have all the direction of the holy messengers and rose bosses to get things rolling in a precise course. The heavenly aides believe you should realize that you can possibly increment throughout everyday life. Your holy messengers have seen that you are trapped in a similar spot for quite a while.

You are being denied of the endowments that the Universe has arranged for you. The heavenly holy messengers are mentioning you to keep up with idealism, independent of the circumstances you are going through. Hence, through the saintly number 834, your climbed expert's solicitation, you make the appropriate strides expected to push forward throughout everyday life.

Holy messenger number 834 conveys the vibrations of the numbers 8,3,4,83,84, and 34. These numbers are firmly connected with flourishing and overflow. Your climbed aces are mentioning you not to abandon your fantasies and objectives. You have an adequate number of assets and abilities that you expect to realize your fantasies and objectives.

In the event that you feel a little doubtful, search inside you. The heavenly holy messengers will give you precise promptings that you really want to pursue the right choices throughout everyday life.

834 Angel Number Twin Flame Heavenly messenger number 834 has a converge of a few messages and gifts together. The number 8 is connected with the energies of the Universal Law of Spirits of Effect And Change. Additionally, the karmic energies are related with the number 8.

Subsequently, the message that you are getting for your twin fire venture is that you have explicit profound objectives in your day to day existence. What's more, your Guardian Angels are demonstrating you to begin pursuing them.

The number 3 is the Holy Trinity. It intends that there will be a wealth of eternality and inspiration showered from the Upper Realm on your bond with your twin fire accomplice. In this manner, your otherworldly circle will work with your twin fire venture.

Your bond will bring heaps of gifts, delight, and thriving to you as well as your twin fire accomplice. The last number is the number 4. This number is a close to push to the real number for any twin fire venture, 11.

Along these lines, obviously your outing with your twin fire accomplice is never going to be absent any and all the heavenly endowments and direction of your Guardian Angels. The Universe will preferably care for your undertakings, and regardless the circumstance is, you will constantly be shown the correct way by the Divine domain.

Love and Angel Number 834 Holy messenger Number 834 assumes a fundamental part with regards to the issue of Love. The number tells you that you are answerable for your activities. Today, you are straightforwardly responsible for your predetermined love life tomorrow. It implies that you should be purposeful in managing your accomplice.

Whenever you are under serious feelings, don't pursue choices precipitously. Once in a while, gloomy feelings could lead you to make bogus moves with respect to your adoration life. Your heavenly messengers likewise demand you to depend on their orders on the off chance that you wish to preferably push forward in your life. Never rely upon what others are talking about.

You will see that everybody in your life won't give kindly words to you. Certain individuals remain nearby you to comprehend your moves with the goal that they can make you cripple. They gain delight in cutting down others. Attempt to keep away from these individuals throughout everyday life and don't be a casualty of such individuals.