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historic-old-guard-lover · 4 years

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How many languages and which of them would the cast speak if we’re going to be completely historically accurate ?

This a great question that I can’t quite answer, but I spent six hours researching to give it a shot. I think that there’s a broad range of plausible languages and you’ve got leeway to choose how many. The first part is that different people have different affinities for languages. Some people can speak ten different languages fluently (or near-fluency), while others will struggle juggling three different ones in their brains. The range in the languages can affect this, too: it’s easy to mess up between similar languages. I personally have trouble speaking Spanish because in the middle of the sentence, I’ll drop a French word without even realizing it. The same thing doesn’t happen to me in other languages like German, though. By the same token as I’ve discussed before, similar languages are easier to learn. Going from English to Russian with the Cyrillic alphabet? More difficult than English to French, which makes up about a third of modern English. These are languages that are still in the same family (Proto-Indo-European, PIE), though, so it holds nothing to the difficulty of going from English to a language like Mandarin.

I’m breaking this answer into two parts: 1) how many?; 2) which ones? and I’m going to get carried away because I’m me so it’s below the break to spare you if this comes across your dash and you’re not a nerd...

PART 1: What’s a realistic number for them to speak?

I think that each member of the old guard probably has a certain number of languages which they’re comfortable with, a few more that they can understand/get by in, and a few that they may only know phrases from. The number of each isn’t the same for everyone. The average human being is able to speak ~1.5 languages. The most talented polyglots can speak upwards of 50 languages, maybe one guy even spoke 65 (mostly I want to mention he loved translating the phrase “kiss my ass”). This hyperpolyglot, Kreb aka “Kiss My Ass” Stan, had his brain dissected after his death and it showed a lot of “abnormalities”. That leads neuroscientists and me to believe that being able to study and learn 65 languages is either 1) a major skill that rewired his brain because he was flexing it so much; or 2) very abnormal and facilitated by his brain differences. Since their powers don’t make them stop being limited by the human brain (they can forget), I would say that it is unlikely that one of them is fluent/near fluent/comfortable in more than ~65 languages.

Getting past twelve languages is considered a feat, so I think only Andy, Quynh, Nicky, and Joe could be anywhere near the upper-bounds of languages. Remember, these hyperpolyglots spend their entire lives studying languages and often need refreshers. The members of the Old Guard don’t have the luxury of reading grammar books all day, and they also have to remember a bunch of combat training. You can argue that a lot of fighting is “muscle memory” aka located in the cerebellum and nowhere near language processing areas, but there’s still things like math, navigation, etc. that they need to remember. I doubt they have a list of their safe houses just lying around. The older members can speak more languages by virtue of being around longer and having that time to learn, but if we’re being realistic they should probably speak no more than ~45-55 languages comfortably. This doesn’t mean that they only *know* that many, but the other languages would be more like bad high school Spanish in America than able to wax poetic. Aside: that Joe is able to be poetic in what is AT LEAST his fourth or so language is very impressive and we should talk about that more.

How Many Each Member is Maximally Proficient In/Knowledgeable Of at the end of the film/Opening Fire comics run:

Lykon (comics): proficient in ~15, knowledgeable of ~30*

Lykon (movies): proficient in ~45, knowledgeable of ~80*

Andy: proficient in ~50, knowledgeable of ~100**

Quynh | Noriko: proficient in ~51, knowledgeable of ~90**

Joe: proficient in ~30, knowledgeable of ~80

Nicky: proficient in ~30, knowledgeable of ~80

Booker: proficient in ~10, knowledgeable of ~30

Nile: proficient in ~2 (maybe 3), knowledgeable of ~5

*In the comics, he is younger than Andy and Quynh and I assume he dies young. In the movie, it is strongly implied that he was the oldest. The reason why his numbers are not larger, however, is because at some point there were fewer languages as humanity had not dispersed as much as it eventually did. He’s also long before written language which facilitates learning for most people. RIP Lykon.

**I’m not saying that Quynh is smarter than Andy, just that she comes after written language and it should be slightly easier for her to pick things up. I’m giving Andy access to more languages, however, because PIE alone covers Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. More on this later.

PART 2: Which languages would each of them speak?

I’ve covered this question a little in a previous post that was broadly about proto-indo-european/Andy-centric (check it out if you want), but I’ll give a broader survey of each character here.

A Quick Aside on Lykon: We don’t know enough about this character, and the fact that the comics and movie diverge so sharply does not help at all. I’m going to headcannon that he was from Eastern Africa, where most archaeologists agree that modern humans first appeared in the Horn of Africa aka modern Ethiopia and Somolia and neighbors, and predates Andy by ~3,000 years. For future purposes below and assuming a birth date for Andy in the range ~5,000BCE - 4,000BCE, this puts his birth at around ~8,000BCE - 7,000BCE. This is wild speculation, however. Maybe the early immortals should be spaced by warfare types (Stone Age, Bronze, Iron, Steel?) or maybe they pop up once a cultural region reaches a certain historic point or maybe they just sorta pop up and then live for six or seven thousands years. I’m working off the last assumption because it’s the simplest. The only thing I’m certain of is that Greg Rucka probably didn’t sit down and think this pattern through. If I’m wrong, oh well. I’m mad at him for all his historical inaccuracies. With dating from ~8,000BCE - 7,000BCE, I’m having trouble finding a name for the cultures that scientists/historians know were living there at the time. It’s probably because the region has been continually occupied since the first humans, which one can safely assume makes abandoned and undisturbed sites hard to fine.

A Quick Aside on Quynh | Noriko: I like the film better, so I’ll be working with Quynh. If there’s enough interest, I can add on Japanese for Noriko. I’m going to date Quynh to be ~1,500 years after Andy (maybe this should be the new date system, before Andy “BA” and after Andy “AA”). This puts her in the time range of ~3,500BCE - 2,500BCE which could place her in either the Đa Bút neolithic culture of modern-day Vietnam or the Phùng Nguyên bronze age culture of modern-day Vietnam. Those names are archaeological in nature, based on the location where sites have been found and dated to those ranges.

Other Origins: Because we have diverging cannons, I’m going to just state the backgrounds that I’ve assigned. Joe is from 1066CE with a background in the Arab-controlled Maghreb (more specifically, modern-day Tunisia and Northern Algeria). Nicky is from 1069CE with a background from the Italian maritime republic and city-state of Genoa. Booker is from 1770 southern France. Nile is from 1994 Chicago in the United States. Andy is from ~5,000BCE - 4,000BCE in the Caucasus (modern-day Georgia and Azerbaijan) or the South Western Eurasian Steppes, probably the Shulaveri-Shomu culture assuming that location.

The first language everyone learned, their “mother tongue” or “native language” is one that they definitely speak. It’s the language that they think in and would be hard-pressed to lose. This even includes now-dead languages, because, again, it’s the one that they learned to think with. Of course, it is possible to lose a language when you have no one to speak it with if you wanted to do something tragic, but I think that these things are too deeply ingrained for it it to happen by accident.

What Each One’s First Language Would Be:

Nile: American English, possibly African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) at home

Booker: Provençal/Occitan, possibly “standard French” (school and other places outside the home)

Nicky: Genoese Ligurian/Zeneize

Joe: Tunisian Derja/Tunisian Arabic/Tunisian, and possibly one of the dialects of the native Zenati language group based on where more precisely you place him

Quynh: Proto-Viet–Muong (which isn’t well documented because it’s so old)

Andy: Proto-Indo-European (PIE), but if you’re curious the Classical Scythian Language for which she is probably named is only off by a factor of 10 (4000 vs 400 BCE) *cue distressed sighing*

Lykon: Proto-Cushitic (also suffering a lack of documentation from being old as heck)

Other than their first languages, what else they learn depends on where they go. People learned languages back then for the same reasons that they do today: to communicate (and to read, after the invention of writing).

Additional Confirmed or Likely Cannon Languages:

Nile: Spanish because of the American school system for sure. French is listed on the IG account, but she probably speaks only Spanish or French to a degree of fluency, definitely one better than the other. Very Basic Pashto, which we see her use some obviously-memorized phrases with in the film.

Booker: The IG promo things asserts that he knows (modern, standard) Italian and Greek. Why not? He also probably knows Spanish depending on where more specifically in southern France he is from. He’s probably also picked up on at least Very Basic Arabic from Joe and Nicky, but actually learning the language would take commitment from him. He also clearly speaks English.

Nicky: Other Italian dialects, and it would be fairly easy for him to have picked up modern Italian. He definitely reads Latin. If he was from a wealthy family, he probably also speaks Greek. If he was from a trading family, he probably speaks the trading pidgin of Sabir. The IG account confirms Arabic (vague, but okay I’ll be generous and say modern standard Arabic) and Romanche (they meant to write Romansh). I think Romansh is poorly chosen to characterize him in Northern Italy, but I’m feeling generous. He also clearly speaks English.

Joe: He definitely speaks standard Arabic to have been able to communicate with other Arabic-speakers in Jerusalem. Genoese Ligurian/Zeneize because of the love of his life, which also means he probably picked up modern Italian at some point. The IG account confirms Farsi (they call it “Persian” *cue screaming*), which works if he was a merchant who traveled far to eastward on the Silk Road...and if you go with the comic cannon makes more sense. I’m going to say that he speaks the Mediterranean trading pidgin Sabir because of his location in Tunisia. If he was from a wealthy merchant family and could afford schooling, he probably learned Greek and maybe also Latin. There’s a good chance that he knows conversational-levels of other native Zenati languages thanks to colonialism discouraging their usage. He also clearly speaks English.

Quynh: We don’t actually know if she speaks English, but it’s safe to assume she does speak at least some of it. She’s probably learned Vietnamese and Mường because of her mastery of their proto-language. Because I see her returning to modern-day Vietnam to fight the Chinese colonization, I think that she might know Cantonese or Mandarin. Based on her travels with Andy, I’d like to propose Greek, Latin, and Mongolian. I’m sure that Andy and her share a language, but who knows which one they were each speaking when they met!

Andy: The IG account says “all,” but I’ve discussed this elsewhere (*major eye rolling*). She almost certainly picked up Scythian and Greek based on her chosen name. Latin isn’t as likely as you’d think, but is possible. I’d like to think that she’s also partial to learning Russian (or some earlier form of the language), Mongolian, and Armenian. Based on her travels with Quynh, I imagine that she speaks Cantonese or Mandarin and Vietnamese or Mu’o’ng. There is some mystery language shared with Quynh, too. She also clearly speaks English.

Lykon: I really don’t know enough about him to hazard any guesses. He should share at least one language in common with Andy and Quynh. If his date of death is ~2,000- 1,000 BCE like I’m supposing, there’s a good chance that he only speaks one or two currently-named languages. Sorry, OP.

#asks #lovely anon #linguistics #neuroscience #the old guard #andromache the scythian #andy #quynh #noriko #lykon #yusuf al kaysani #joe #nicolo di genova #nicky #sebastien le livre #booker #nile freeman #nile

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st-just · 3 years

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Barely coherent rambling about nation-states, culture, the Hapsburgs, and Canada

Because why have a blog except to occasionally purge one of the essays floating around half-formed in your brain. To be clear, it’s still half-formed, just on tumblr now. 1,666 words, here’s the Deveraux essay mentioned. Book is Martyn Rady’s The Hapsburgs: To Rule The World

So I’ve had like, nationalism on my mind recently.

And so there’s a kind of recurring beat in left-of-centre American political discourse (like, not ‘internet rnados screaming at each other’ discourse, ‘people with doctorates or think tank positions having debates on podcasts or exchanging op eds’ discourse) where you have some people on the radical end list some of the various horrible atrocities the country is built on, the ways that all the national myths are lies, and how all the saints of the civic religion were monsters to one degree or another – this can come in a flavor of either righteous anger or, like, intellectual sport. And then on the other end you have the, well, Matt Yglesiases of the world. Who don’t really argue any of the points of fact, but do kind of roll their eyes at the whole exercise and say that sure, but Mom and Apple Pie and the American Way are still popular, and if you’re trying to win power in a democracy telling the majority of the population that their most cherished beliefs are both stupid and evil isn’t a great move.

Anyway, a couple weeks back Deveraux posted an essay for the 4th of July (which I don’t totally buy, but is an interesting read) about why the reason American nationalism is so intensely bundled up into a couple pieces of paper and maybe a dozen personalities is precisely because it isn’t a nation at all. Basically, his thesis is that in proper nation-states like England or the Netherlands or wherever, there really is a core population that is the overwhelming demographic majority and really have lived in more or less the same places since time immemorial, and that once the enthographers and mythologists finish their work, all those people really do identify with both the same nation and the same state as its expression. America, by contrast, is by virtue of being a settler nation whose citizenry was filled by waves of immigrants from all the ass ends of Eurasia in a historical eyeblink, even before you add in the native population and descendants of slaves lacks any single core ethnicity that is anywhere close to a majority, as well as any organic national traditions or claims to an ‘ancestral homeland’ that aren’t obviously absurd (and we are trying to include the descendents of slaves and the native population these days, to varying levels of success). All this to say that his point is America is a civic state, not a national one, with the identity of ‘American’ being divorced from ethnicity and instead tied to things like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the whole cult around the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and [FDR and/or Reagan depending on your politics].

Which, like I said, don’t totally buy, but interesting. (to a degree he overstates how homogenus ‘actual’ nation-states are, he makes America sound very special but if his analysis holds that it’d presumably also apply to several other former settler colonies, in the American context there’s a fairly solid case to be made that the whole ‘nation of immigrants’ story and the racial identity of whiteness were constructed to function as an erratz national ethnicity, with incredible success, etc, etc).

But anyway, if we accept that the American identity is bound up in its civic religion and the mythologized version of its political history, it’s absolutely the case that there’s several segments of the left who take incredibly joy in tearing said civic religion and national mythology apart and dragging whatever’s left through the mud. I mean, hell, I do! (reminder: any politician whose ever had a statue dedicated to them was probably a monster). And, well, call it a greater awareness of historical crimes and injustice, or the postmodern disdain for idols and systems leaking out through the increasingly college-educated populace, or the liquid acid of modernity dissolving away all unchosen identities, or a Marxist cabal undermining the national spirit to pave the way for the Revolution or whatever you like, but in whichever case, that critical discourse is certainly much more prominent and influential among left and liberal media and politics types that is was in decades past.

And, okay, so I finished Martyn Rady’s The Hapsburgs a few days ago. And I mentioned as I was reading it that the chapters on the 19th and 20th centuries reminded me quite a bit of courses I’d taken in school on the late Ottoman Empire and Soviet Union. Because all three are multi/non-national states (Empires, in Deveraux’s terminology, though that’s varying degrees of questionable for each, I think. Moreso for the Hapsburgs than the rest) who outlasted their own ideological legitimacy. And in all three cases it just, well, it didn’t not matter, but even as all the ceremonies got more absurd and farcical and the politics more consumed by inertia punctuated with crises, things kept limping along just fine for decades. Even in the face of intense crisis, dissolution wasn’t inevitable. (The Ottomans are a less central example here, admittedly, precisely because of the late attempt to recenter the empire on Turkish nationalism. But even then, more Arab soldiers fought for the Sultan-Caliph than ever did for the Hashemites, and most prewar Arab nationalism was either purely cultural or imagined the Empire reformed into a binational federation, not dissolved).

But as Rady says in the book – losing WW1 crippled Germany, it dissolved Austria-Hungary. And in all three cases, as soon as they were gone, the idea of bringing them back instantly became at least a bit absurd.

And okay, to now pivot to talking about where I actually live but about whose politics I (shamefully) know significantly less than America’s. I mean, maybe it’s because most of my history education from public school was given by either pinko commies or liberals still high off ‘90s one-world universalism, or maybe it’s just a matter of social class, but I really can’t remember ever having taken the whole wannabe civic religion of Canada seriously (the only even serious attempt at sacredness I recall was for Remembrance Day). Even today, the main things I remember about our Founding Father is that he was an alcoholic who lost power in a railroad corruption scandal.

Really, in all my experience the only unifying threads of national/particular Canadian identity are a flag, a healthcare system, those Canadian Heritage Minute propaganda ads, a bill of rights from the ‘60s, and an overpowering sense of polite smugness towards the States.

And that last one (or, at least, the generally rose-colored ‘Canada is the good one’ view of history) is taking something of a beating, on account of all the mass graves really rubbing the public’s noses in the whole genocide thing. At least among big segments of the intellectual and activist classes, most of the symbols of Canadian nationhood are necessarily becoming illegitimate as Canada is, in fact, a project of genocidal settle colonialism.

But it really is just purely symbolic. Most of the municipalities who cancelled their Canada Day celebrations are going to elect Liberal MPs and help give our Natural Governing Party its majority in the next election, no one of any significance has actually challenged the authority of the civil service or the courts. And, frankly, most of the people who are loudly skeptical of all the symbols of the nations are also the ones whose political projects most heavily rely on an efficient and powerful state bureaucracy to carry out.

(This is leaving aside Quebec, which very much does have a live national identity insofar as the vigorous protection of national symbols is what wins provincial elections. If I felt like doing research and/or reaching more there’s probably something there on how pro-independence sentiment has largely simmered down at a pace with the decline of attempts to impose a national Canadian identity).

I mean, Canada does have rather more of a base for a ‘national’ population core than the US (especially if you’re generous and count the people who mark French on the census as a core population as well). At the same time, no one really expects this to continue to be the case – even back in Junior High, I remember one of the hand outs we got explaining that due to declining fertility most or all future population growth would come from immigration (I remember being confused when my mother was weirdly uncomfortable with the idea when it came up). I suppose our government gets credit for managing public opinion such that anti-immigration backlash hasn’t taken over the political conversation. Which you’d think would be a low bar but, well.

But anyway, to try and begin wrapping this rambling mess up – it does rather feel like Rady’s portrayal of the late Hapsburg empire might have a few passing similarities to the future of Canada. A multinational state whose constitution and political system and built on foundations and legitimized by history that no one actually believes in anymore, or at least no more than they have to pretend to to justify the positions they hold, but persisting because it’s convenient and it’s there and any alternatives are really only going to seem practical after a complete economic collapse or apocalyptic war. (Though our civil service is a Josephist’s dream by comparison, really.)

Or maybe I’m premature, and the dominant culture will just be incredibly effective at assimilating immigrants into that civic identity. Anecdotally, the only people I know who are at all enthusiastic about Canada as an idea are first generation immigrants. I could certainly just be projecting, really – I’ve never really been able to get all that invested in the nation-state as an idea of more moral power than ‘a convenient administrative division of humanity’, and certainly liberating ourselves form the need to defend the past would certainly rectifying certain injustices easier.

Or maybe I’m just being incredibly optimistic. Half the economy’s resource extraction and the other half’s real estate, so decent odds the entire place just literally goes up in flames over the next few decades. BC’s already well on its way.

#politics #political theory #nationalism #in this essay I will #this is theoretically a writing blog #the hapsburgs: to rule the world

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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Treat Your S(h)elf: I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher’s Guide To Wine, by Roger Scruton (2009)

You could say that wine is probably as old as civilisation; I prefer to say that it is civilisation, and that the distinction between civilised and uncivilised countries is the distinction between the places where it is drunk and the places where it isn’t.

- Sir Roger Scruton, I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher’s Guide To Wine

When I first got talked into investing in the dreams of my two cousins and their French families to continue to manage an old French vineyard I thought of Roger Scruton’s book. I already had this book on my shelf alongside his other works. Re-reading it nudged me to take a risk and go for it.

For one I have always loved wine and have drunk it from a very early age. Secondly what could be more cultured or civilising than to marry body and mind through the palate of philosophy and wine?

And finally, and perhaps more importantly, the opportunity to escape the madness of modernity - as well as make peace from war as a British combat veteran of the Afghan war by not so much as coming home but finding a new one - by getting back into nature with hard honest graft on the land that Mother Nature blesses. All of this I found especially appealing.

Of all the things we eat or drink, wine is without question the most complex. So it should not be surprising that philosophers from Plato and Socrates onwards to our contemporary times have turned their attention to wine: complex phenomena can lend themselves to philosophical speculation.

Wine is complex not just in the variety of tastes it presents – ‘wine tastes of everything apart from grapes’, I once heard a crusty old French vintner say – but in its meaning. Only the most woodenly literal-minded would deny that wine has a meaning: in its history, its role in human social life, in religious and other ceremonies. Though they drink it copiously over dinner at High Tables in their Oxbridge colleges, academic analytic philosophers do not spend as much time as they might in this kind of investigation of meaning or significance of wine – what we might call a phenomenology or a hermeneutic investigation.

Of course, there are more narrowly phenomenological questions which wine raises.

How do vintners or winemakers manipulate the underlying biochemical material to create the kinds of taste which they intend their wine to have? Does the ‘terroir’ of a wine really make a difference to taste, and if so how? What is the basis of evaluative judgements about the quality of a wine?

Arguably only those who actually make the wine and those who are life long wine connoisseurs can conceivably answer that on some experiential and technical level. But these are not the only philosophical questions in this area: the hermeneutic questions have their place too, in an understanding of the phenomena.

Sir Roger Scruton’s 224 page book is about the hermeneutics of wine rather than its psychology or phenomenology more narrowly conceived. Scruton, the late great conservative philosopher, is that rare breed who comes closer than most to bridging the gap between the grass roots and the High Table in answering such mysteries. The result is an engaging, insightful, informative and (in parts) a very funny book. It is immensely readable, more in the anecdotal style of Scruton’s England: an Elegy (2000) or On Hunting (1998), than his more heavyweight philosophical works, such as The Aesthetics of Music (1997), Sexual Desire (2004), Beauty (2009), and his writings on Wagner and high culture. He does often come across as curmudgeonly, but his (written) relations with women, music and poetry are very delicate and tender. And so it is with his love affair with wine. It is indeed a very personal book and its is warmly personable, like the man himself, and it contains so much of Scruton’s distinctive wit and intellectual personality, it ought to be of interest not just to wine enthusiasts (whom Scruton likes to call ‘winos’) and philosophers but also anyone curious enough to understand the place of wine in our world civilisation.

The first and obvious thing to say about Scruton’s book is how the title of the book is of course a play on words. It’s a playful wink to Eric Idle’s “Philosophers’ Drinking Song,” in which the Monty Python cast, lightly disguised as a group of Australian philosophers all named Bruce, list the world’s thinkers from a drinking standpoint. This includes the couplet slightly amending Descartes’s proof of his existence: “And René Descartes was a drunken fart / ‘I drink therefore I am.’”

The pun on words is Roger Scruton’s way of taking the Monty Python couplet seriously. After all Descartes was a serious man and though he was born in Touraine, the rich French wine region, did probably not drink much. He treats all this as a paradox that G.K. Chesterton might well have toyed with - that is, as a truth standing on its head to attract attention - and examines the drinking of alcohol as a way in which human beings learn more about each other, fellowship, some of the deeper realities, God, and not least themselves.

In this Scruton is a wise philosopher who teaches us how wine cultivates our moral virtue and our civilisation. He encourages us to recognise that stream of liquid descending from our pursed lips into our throat as the red or golden chord that runs from heaven to earth, and binds everything in-between into a cosmic whole. Wine both reflects and helps constitute our participation in all strata of reality, and points the way to our redemption, divine or otherwise.

In Scruton’s Prelude (a musical term, of course) where he quotes Emerson “who commends the great wino Hafiz [a Persian poet] in the following words: “Hafiz praises wines, roses, maidens, boys, birds, mornings and music, to give vent to his immense hilarity and sympathy with every form of beauty and joy.” This is echoed in Scruton’s terms that “by thinking with wine you can learn not merely to drink in thoughts, but think in draughts. Wine, drunk at the right time, in the right place and the right company, is the path to meditation, and the harbinger of peace.”

The book is divided into two parts, labelled ‘I drink’ and ‘therefore I am’ respectively. The second part of the book is more strictly philosophical - Scruton starts it with the nice conceit that ‘therefore I am’ contain the whole of philosophy, each word standing in turn for reason (therefore), consciousness (I) and being (am). But arguably wine and Scruton enthusiasts will probably get more out of the first part.

The first chapter is a nice description of his own discovery of wine as a young man. Warmly written, the chapter is devoted to his friends who made him “fall” for wine (or is it he who made them fall?) and his acquisition of a 1945 Château Lafite, “the greatest year from the greatest of clarets”. His first memories are happy ones of his mother’s home manufacture of elderberry wine in a post-war England where the French (and Spanish and Portuguese) grape had not yet “conquered the suburbs.”

“For three weeks the kitchen was filled with the yeasty scent of fermentation. Little clouds of fruit-flies hung above the jars and here and there wasps would cluster and shimmer on the spilled pools of juice.” Other Englishmen of Scruton’s generation will recognise and sigh at this description as many fathers - including my own - made his own beer and wine from motives of both fun and economy.

Thus ill-equipped, Scruton goes to university ignorant of the rich variety of wines available even then to an English wino. At Cambridge and, later, in Paris, a succession of tutors, patrons, and friends not only introduce him to a growing list of wines but also teach him how to drink them. Some of the wines he is given are complex and expensive Burgundies, others cheap French supermarket vin ordinaire.

But Scruton discovers that all have certain inherent qualities that an educated palate can discover by drinking them attentively and appreciatively. By learning their provenance and history, he enriches his knowledge of the locality that produced the wine — and he can imagine (I would like to believe this is so) that he can glimpse the character of the local people in the wine itself. He learns finally that certain wines go with certain things, not merely certain foods, but certain occasions, certain friends, certain thoughts, even certain topics of conversation. He becomes a wino.

When in his early middle years, Scruton buys a farm in southern England, he discovers to his delight an array of homemade-wine equipment, identical to that of his mother’s elderberry experiments, on the kitchen floor: “I listened to the bubbles as they danced in the valves, and studied the wasp-edged puddles on the tiles. I had come home.” Yet it is a different person who comes home. Scruton celebrates his good fortune not with elderberry wine but by opening and drinking in quiet happiness a treasured bottle of Château Lafite 1945 that had accompanied him in the long wanderings now ended. For, by this time in his life, Scruton is a confirmed Francophile in his drinking tastes.

The chapter ends on a remark concerned with the “new habit, associated with American wine critics like Robert Parker, of assigning points to each bottle” which should not only be “viewed with nothing but contempt” but also compared to “assigning points to symphonies, as though Beethoven’s 7th, Tchaikovsky’s 6th, Mozart’s 39th, Bruckner’s 8th all hovered between 90 and 95.

Perhaps his second chapter ‘A Tour de France’ is the best one. This is a very personal, but informative and interesting, guide to Scruton’s favourite French wine regions. starting in Burgundy, down to the Rhône Valley, the Pyrenees and ending in Bordeaux with T.S. Eliot’s description of a spiritual journey that applies equally to a journey through wine:

We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring

 Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

With much reason, Scruton does not think very highly of blind tasting: “To think that you can judge a wine from its taste and aroma alone is like thinking you can judge a Chinese poem by its sound, without knowing the language.” I let out a whoop of appreciation when I read this. In one clean swoop he casually casts aside the resultant snobbery that comes from the ritualising and self-importance of blind tasting events.

I think blind tasting whilst sincere is also an exercise in showing off. I’m not saying people don’t have a nose for wine or can tell certain elements but blind tasting is not the best way to truly appreciate the full complexity of wine. Indeed in my embryonic wine making experience (by watching my cousins and the managers on our vineyard) I would say terroir is perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of wine making and it determines the difference between good wine and a bad one.

It’s great to read that Scruton defines himself as a terroiriste. Not the French word for a terrorist! But a believer in the French word, terroir. It is derived from the Latin word terra meaning earth or land. It’s a word coined by the French to express a wine’s sense of place. There is no English equivalent for this word. It was originally used to distinguish the wine making practices of old world wine. In other words terroir is how a particular region’s climate, soils and aspect (terrain) affect the taste of wine alongside the traditions gone into producing the wine. Some regions are said to have more ‘terroir’ than others. Johan Joseph Krug (1800–1866), the famous champagne producer, once suggested that “a good wine comes from a good grape, good vats, a good cellar and a gentleman who is able to coordinate the various ingredients.” No trace of terroir.

But I think Krug is wrong and vintners as well as the wine industry as a whole have come to the same realisation of the importance of terroir. Back in the 1980’s, many of these ‘terroir-driven’ wines were actually affected by wine faults including cork taint and wild yeast growth (brettanomyces). Vines thrive in a range of soil compositions from highly draining granite and schist based soils to limestone and clay and vines, in turn, react to these different soils in different ways. And on top of the differing soils, certain areas of the world have such unique combinations of geology and topography that interact with specific sun exposures that the resulting wines have distinct characteristics that cannot be found anywhere else.

Nowadays terroir is used to describe practically every wine region. Because much of European wine (old world) is steeped in tradition it is easier to get a sense of terroir. It’s a bit harder in a place like Napa or Sonoma (new world) because of the looser laws that govern winemaking but younger winemakers are coming around to the idea of terroir and trying to express the land. But certainly in France today vintners - as they come to increase their geological knowledge and environmental understanding and find ways to marry that to their unique artistry and craft - have realised the unique role terroir plays in the wine making process.

The next chapter looks at wine from “elsewhere:” Here Scruton looks at the Middle-East where wine was born; Greece where Bacchus, Dionysos, and more importantly, Eros used to hover; the United States; Australia, New Zealand and their misspelling of Syrah as Shiraz, the Iranian city of poets, gardens, nightingales and last but not least, wine; a few lines on South Africa, then Italy, Romania and Spain. But “travel narrows the mind, and the further you go the narrower it gets. There is only one way to visit a place with an open mind, and that is in the glass”.

Scruton had already warned the reader in the previous chapter not to read the “elsewhere” chapter: “After punishing body and soul with Australian Shiraz, Argentine Tempranillo, Romanian Cabernet Sauvignon and Greek Retsina, we crawl home like the Prodigal Son and beg forgiveness for our folly. . . [Bordeaux] is the wine that made us and for which we were made, and it often astonishes me to discover that I drink anything else.” I rather fancy he is being tongue in cheek here.

This is for the “I drink” part of the book. Its author then moves to the “therefore I am” part which often needs much deeper philosophical knowledge than perhaps than even your average educated layman might have some difficulty having if they are not versed in a basic understanding of aesthetics as philosophical discussion. But here his aim is to rescue wine from the philosophers and the so-called wine experts.

To those who have never been captivated by the complexity of wine and the way it is bound up with western civilisation, a book on the philosophy of wine might be dismissed as the typical product of conservative snobbery and elitism. But this would be a mistake. Scruton is not a snob about wine (nor, for that matter, about anything else). On the contrary, one of the strongest themes in his writing is his deep love of the everyday, of the simple pleasures of society as he imagined it once to be, where people were at one with the land and with the traditions of their culture. According to Scruton, this is something that (although it probably never existed) should be open to all, but which is being destroyed by the march of modernity. (In a nice aside, he asks: ‘Who am I to stand against the tide of history? Come to think of it, I am the only person I know who does stand against the tide of history’.)

In passing, Scruton evokes the great philosopher Avicenna who lived in Isfahan (Persia) during Islam’s Golden Age (980–1037 AD); he was a wine aficionado who recommended drinking at work defying “the Koranic injunction against wine, citing it as an example of sloppy reasoning,” that does not take into account whether it is a small or a large amount. Scruton (p. 133) also points to the fact that “in surah xvi, verse 7 of the Koran wine is unreservedly praised as one of God’s gifts. As the prophet, burdened by the trials of his Medina exile, became more tetchy, so did his attitude to wine begin to sour, as in Surah v verses 91-92. Muslims believe that the later revelations cancel the earlier, whenever there is a conflict between them. I suspect, however, that God moves in a more mysterious way.”

Scruton is very quite skeptical that the vocabulary used by so-called experts to describe wine is of much help: “If I say of a wine that it has a flowery nose, lingers on the palate, with ripe berry flavours and a hint of chocolate and roasted almonds, then what I say conveys real information, from which someone might be able to construct a sensory image of the wine’s taste. But I have described the taste in terms of other tastes, and not attempted to attach a meaning, a content, or any kind of reference to it. The description I gave does not imply that the wine evokes, means, symbolises or presents the idea of chocolate; and somebody who didn’t hit on this word as a description of the wine’s flavour would not show that he had missed the meaning of what he drank or indeed missed anything important at all. Our experience of wine is bound up with its nature as a drink [which] endows wine with a particular inwardness [and] intimacy with the body [that is not] achieved by any smell, since smell makes no contact with the body at all, but merely enchants without touching, like the beautiful girl at the other end of the party. . . Nothing else that we eat or drink comes to us with such a halo of significance, and by refusing to drink it people send an important message —the message that they do not belong on this earth.”

Again, I found myself saying amen to that.

The good part of the second part is Scruton trying to make a case for the cultural uniqueness of wine. In one sense, Scruton is right to do this: it is undeniable in many parts of western culture, wine has played a unique role in religious and social rituals, which no other drink has. But he can push his point beyond plausibility when he attempts to argue that because of the qualities of wine itself – and what it is to drink it properly – nothing else could play this role (more on this later).

The argument starts well, with a very illuminating discussion of the distinction between the various ways in which a substance can intoxicate. There are those that merely stimulate without altering the mind (like tobacco, for example). Then there are those which have mind-altering effects, but whose consumption itself brings no plea- sure (e.g. heroin). The third category contains those things which alter your mind and bring pleasure in their consumption: cannabis and forms of alcohol other than wine are his examples. Wine, Scruton argues, is in a fourth category of its own: here the alteration of the mind is internally related to the experience of consuming it.

These distinctions are very useful, and the distinction between the third and the fourth category is subtle but certainly real. It relates to the question of what non-human animals can and cannot do. Scruton makes the nice observation that an animal cannot savour wine (or any- thing else). In being able to savour or relish the taste of wine, a person no more separates out the effect of the wine from its taste than they can separate the meaning of a piece of music from its sound. Although one would not realise this from reading the thousands of words that are written daily about wine, wine would not be the drink it is if it did not intoxicate.

The last two chapters deal respectively with wine and whine, and being and bingeing. Though Scruton has something to say in favour of Puritanism, he castigates the ease with which “puritan outrage [and in particular, prohibition, but also sexual behaviour] can be displaced from one topic to another, and the equal ease with which the thing formerly disapproved of can be overnight exonerated from all taint of sin.”

He vehemently protests against “the humourless mullahs,” and the misuse of drinking, but also rejects the idea that fermented drinks are just shots of alcohol, and insists on their social functions across civilisations and time: “The burden of my arguments is that we can defend the drinking of wine, only if we see that it is a culture, and that this culture has a social, outward-going, other-regarding meaning. . . When people sit down together sipping drinks, they rehearse in their souls the original act of settlement, the act that set our species on the path of civilisation, and which endowed us with the order of neighbourhood and the rule of law.” But he has not much against drinking alone, and ends with a few words from the Chinese poet Li Po (700 BC), the same poet whom Mahler used in his Lied von der Erde (though in a very approximate translation):

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees; I drink alone, for no friend is near. 

Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

For he, with my shadow, will make three men.

Scruton points out in several brilliant passages, the prohibitionist, like the modern day Islamists and moral police in the West and the all too familiar binge-drinker are alike in their ignorance of the virtue of “temperance.” They can envisage no stopping place between abstention and alcoholism. Their absolutist logic, he argues, is like objecting to a first kiss on the grounds that it will one day lead to a divorce. And neither can really understand drinking for any reason other than to get drunk.

Scruton confirms the wider value of temperance in our lives: “Virtue should be cast in human form if it is to be humanly achievable. Saints, monks, and dervishes may practice total abstinence; but to believe that abstinence is the only way to virtue is to condemn the rest of mankind. Better to propose the way of moderation, and live thereby on friendly terms with your species.”

As it happens, the occasional bender may actually have therapeutic qualities in moderation (i.e., if indulged in infrequently). George Orwell, who can hardly be accused of lacking a puritanical streak, thought that people should get drunk every six months or so. The experience, he thought, shook one out of one’s regular complacency and could be compared in this to a weekend abroad. Certainly it very often produces a feeling of greater humility in those who can remember what happened. Yet getting drunk is something that most drinkers do very rarely, if at all.

Changing our mood and outlook is a very different matter. Under the influence of a moderate amount of alcohol, our inhibitions are loosened. Shy people become bold, the tongue-tied talkative, the dull lively, the unimaginative fanciful, and the isolated social. (Even “mean drunks” usually start the evening in festive and forgiving mood.)

That last loss of inhibition is the most important because it promotes the fellowship that is the basis of a decent society. Not all intoxicants perform this vital function. Cannabis and similar drugs tend, if anything, to imprison the taker within his own consciousness (however expanded it may seem to him in his dreams). Except for those who lose themselves in alcoholism (and consequently become asocial in their attempts to deceive others about their condition), however, alcohol is a profoundly social drug. At the same time, not all varieties of alcohol are equally social in their effect. This thought leads Scruton to narrow somewhat the scope of his enthusiasm. Having rejected teetotalism, he continues: “The real question, I suggest, is not whether intoxicants, but which. And - while all intoxicants disguise things - some (wine preeminently) also help us to confront them by presenting them in re-imagined and idealised forms.”

Scruton makes a fascinating and intriguing point related to our historical relationship with the vine to make wine the highest ideal form. He claims that wine derives from a crucial historical transition in our relation to the earth – when human beings settled, put down roots and stopped being mere hunter-gatherers. In a memorable phrase, Scruton claims that in this way wine celebrates ‘the earth itself, as the willing accomplice in our bid to stay put.’ But of course one could say similar things about distilled spirits and beer. Such drinks are not made in such an incredible variety as wine is, but Scruton’s point is not about variety but about the intrinsic and relational qualities of the drink itself.

In the end, one cannot help feeling that he is relying a little too much on the sheer panache of his writing to help his argument bounce along: ‘Wine is not simply a shot of alcohol, or a mixed drink. It is a transformation of the grape. The transformation of the soul under its influence is merely the continuation of another transformation that began maybe fifty years earlier when the grape was first plucked from the vine.’ Wine is a transformation of the grape, to be sure. And the mind or soul is transformed in its consumption. But these two transformations are so very different that it is hard to see what can literally be meant by the one being the continuation of the other.

In fact, Scruton’s view is not just that wine is unique as a stimulant, but that it has to be drunk in a particular way in order for the harmony of taste and intoxication to take hold. It is not hard to agree with Scruton’s argument that there are more or less civilised ways of drinking wine. And this part of his thesis is very plausible: ‘The burden of my argument is ... that we can defend the drinking of wine, only if we see that it is part of a culture, and that this culture has a social outward-going, other-regarding meaning. The new uses of wine point towards excess and addiction: they are moving away from the old way of drinking, in which wine was relished and savoured, to the form of drinking typified by Marmeladov, who clutches his bottle in a condition of need.’

However I still found all this a tad unconvincing in that he makes a case that only the savouring and relishing of wine can play a central cultural role as opposed to other spirits - think of Scotch whisky for the Scots and beer for much of Northern Europe or even tea(!) for the English. So my apologies to Roger Scruton but I remain sceptical of his argument that of all stimulants, wine is uniquely civilising, however much I want it to be true.

I think Scruton is also wrong to despise cocktails. A well-made cocktail is as complex a set of taste experiences as a good Bordeaux. A good-strength cocktail is the perfect prelude to the theatre, giving one exactly the right lift to help the play to entertain, but not suppressing one’s appetite long enough to spoil a post-theatre dinner. It can be the booster rocket that starts a convivial evening. But the cocktail has its limits. The alcoholic strength of most cocktails reduces their usefulness both as an aid to sustained fruitful conviviality and to the kind of imaginative introspection that Scruton thinks necessary for a happy life.

That aside, Scruton knows that the best (including Li Po’s poetry) should be kept for the very end. The bouquet (of the wine, but in French the word is also used for the finishing of a firework) comes with the Appendix: What to drink with what, though here the second what does not stand for food, but for philosophers. This part of the book I very nearly coughed up my wine as I found it terribly amusing to pair a suitable wine, as one would with food, to a philosopher one might be reading.

St Augustine: Drink a glass of Moroccan Cabernet Sauvignon, though “the City of God requires many sittings, and I regard it as one of the rare occasions when a drinking person might have legitimate recourse to a glass of lager [which I did in Odessa, while reading Scruton], putting the book to one side just as soon as the glass is finished” [which I did not do, since I had three glasses, each of which containing half a liter].

Francis Bacon: “Any discussion of his insights should, I think, proceed by the comparative method. I suggest opening six bottles of a single varietal—say Cabernet Franc- one from the Loire, one from California, one from Moravia, one from Hungary, and if you can find two other places where it is grown successfully you will already have given some proof of the inductive method—and then pretending to compare and contrast, taking notes in winespeak, while downing the lot.”

René Descartes: “As the thinker who came nearest, prior to the Monty Python, to stumbling on the title of [my] book, Descartes deserves a little recognition. . . He has ended up as the most overrated philosopher in history, famous for arguments that begin from nothing and go nowhere. I would suggest a deep dark Rhône wine [that] will compensate for the thinness of the Meditations.”

Baruch Spinoza: “The last time that I understood what Spinoza meant by an attribute it was with a glass of red Mercurey, Les Nauges 1999. Unfortunately, I took another glass before writing down my thoughts and have never been able to retrieve them.”

Immanuel Kant: “And when it comes to [his] Critique of the Judgment, I find myself trying out [several wines], without getting any close to Kant’s proof that the judgment is universal but subjective, or his derivation of the ‘antinomy of taste’— surely one of his most profound and troubling paradoxes, and one that must yield to the argument contained in wine if it yields to anything.”

Friedrich Nietzsche: “Although we should drink to the author of The Birth of the Tragedy, therefore, it should be with a thin, hypochondriac potion, maybe a finger of Beaujolais in a glass topped up with soda-water.”

Edmund Husserl: “I recommend three glasses of slivovitz from Husserl’s native Moravia, one to give courage, one to swallow down the jargon, and one to pour over the page.”

Jean-Paul Sartre: “Sartre’s great work of philosophy, L’être et le néant, introduces the Nothingness that haunts all that he wrote and said. . . If ever I were to read Sartre again, I would look for a 1964 Burgundy to wash the poison down. Small chance of finding one, however, so there is one great writer whom I shall never again revisit—and I thank God for it.”

Martin Heidegger: “What potion to complement the philosopher who told us that ‘nothing noths’? To raise an empty glass to one’s lips, and to feel it as it travels down—noth, noth, noth, the whole length of the tube: this surely is an experience to delight the real connoisseur.”

In conclusion I really enjoyed reading this book (again and again).

This is a wonderful book for anyone who loves wine and wants to try identify what, in all its complex connections with so much of what is valuable in civilisation, might be special about drinking it. I think he does a wonderful job in looking at the philosophical and religious questions related to wine, from the Koranic injunction against alcohol to the true nature of temperance. These questions take us far from the vineyard at times, making excursions into terroir as different as Wagnerian music dramas and the philosophical nature of smells. His arguments as well as his beautiful prose are fresh, original, teasingly provocative, but also joyous.

This book is only about 224 pages but fun to read either in one sitting or dipping in and out at pleasurable intervals.

There are pages of useful advice on what wine to buy that are also glimpses into what to look for in the wine. I think his recommendations are good ones even if he leans too heavily into French wines. As someone who co-owns a vineyard I can say with reasonable confidence that I know my French wines but also wine from South Africa but confess my ignorance of wines from the new world such as California or Chilean wines. But I see that as an opportunity to discover rather than stay in my comfort zone. Here Scruton gently prods you along to do just that.

As an aside Scruton, who never shies away from his staunchly conservative Tory beliefs, perhaps forget to mention one juicy vignette in that Karl Marx’s political and philosophical ideas were probably inspired by wine. Indeed Karl Marx’s family were the happy owners of a vineyard in Trier, a small affluent Rhineland city, on the rolling hills of the Mosel River Valley. The family sold it due to hard times. Then as now these vineyards of the Mosel Valley remain mostly small-scale, are still known for their fruity white wines, and especially their lemony Rieslings and agrotourism. It seems the politics of wine (tariffs and import taxes) played a larger role in the history of leftist thought than their quaint appearance might suggest. In the early 1840s, the economic struggles of these very vineyards inspired Marx to criticise the draconian Prussian government - and in the process, some historians argue, begin developing the theory of historical materialism for which he is best known. In fact there is a delightful book I can recommend written by Jens Baumeister called, ‘How Wine Made Karl Marx a Communist’ (2018) if anyone is interested in reading more about that.

Of course it’s always hard to know how seriously one is supposed to take Scruton in some of his more extravagant comments in the book, like many things he says in his other books: ‘you could say that wine is probably as old as civilisation; I prefer to say that it is civilisation, and that the distinction between civilised and uncivilised countries is the distinction between the places where it is drunk and the places where it isn’t.’ His desire to outrage and court controversy rises to the surface, and can result in some of the funniest moments in the book. But as with everything he writes, some of Scruton’s claims must be taken with a pinch of salt or more appropriately, with a glass of claret.

Indeed I prefer to picture his words as if he was one’s old and familiar drinking companion sitting on weather beaten leather chairs and making provocative but teasingly good natured remarks out of a desire to amuse rather than to be boorish or loutish. Indeed this book is best enjoyed with a glass of wine on hand whilst sitting on a comfy old worn out leather chair curled next to log burning fire as the light dims outside.

I would whole heartedly agree with Roger Scruton that wine is a “drink that causes you to smile at the world and the world to smile at you.” Instead of imprisoning you inside a solitary introspection, it takes you out of yourself - and your ideas with you - to mingle with others and their ideas. Wine is therefore a voyage of discovery - and rediscovery - in many senses. And for this I can happily raise my own glass and say amen to that.

But what glass of wine would I raise when reading Scruton’s own book?

Well, one bottle won’t do. So temperance is out of the window then - sorry Roger. You will need a good French Sauternes or Barsac (preferably 2014) with the nostalgic autobiography, a finely bodied Bordeaux wine (I would go with a more complex wine from Saint Emilion) with the philosophy section of the book, and a champagne (of course) to drink with the philosophical jokes towards the end of the book.

Oh go on then, finish off with a tipple of Cognac before bed time, I am sure Scruton wouldn’t begrudge anyone that pleasure.

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She-who-fights-and-writes Coronacation Book Rec List

I know that a lot of people are stuck at home right now in dire need of entertainment, so I decided I’d put out a book recommendations list of all the books I’m currently reading and all of my must-reads!

(Just a note that a lot of these are Fantasy because I’m a fantasy nerd haha)

Books/Series I am currently reading

1. The Folk of the Air Trilogy by Holly Black (Currently on #2, The Wicked King)

Genre: High Fantasy

Setting: The land of Faerie which is kind of historical, but in the human world it is modern day

Main cast :

Jude Duarte (white, human, cutthroat, if I saw her in a Denny’s Parking Lot at 3am I would RUN)

Cardan Greenbriar (white, faerie, the true embodiment of Bastard)

Vivienne (Jude’s half-sister, lesbian with canon gf, half-human half-faerie, I would totally try to be her friend)

Taryn Duarte (Jude’s twin sister, queen doormat, still, I would take a bullet for her she’s jUST TRYING TO FIT IN)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

These books have been on my “To Read” list for so long now and for some reason I just never got around to reading them! Hands-down, these are some of the best high fantasy books that I’ve read in a long, long while.

I finished the first book, The Cruel Prince, in just two days and rated it 5/5 stars! Even though these books are high fantasy and focus on the traditions and ways of life of faeries, somehow all of the characters seem like I could meet them in real life!

The main character actually has genuine flaws and not just “””“flaws”””” and is a Bad Bitch down with murder, and the plot had me on the edge of my seat from page one!

The summary makes it sound like it’s going to be about their romance, but it’s really mostly about a power struggle and Jude being a badass.

Goodreads summary for The Cruel Prince:

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

2. The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater (Currently on #1, The Raven Boys)

Genre: Present-Day/Realistic Fantasy (?)

Setting: The fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia

I haven’t gotten around to much of the book, so there’s not much I can tell you about the characters and I can’t properly give it a rating yet.

These books were also on my “To Read” list for a while; I was a huge fan of her book The Scorpio Races and have also been looking for something to quench my thirst for “private school/ghosts/magic” that I’ve been dealing with ever since I read The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.

I’ve only JUST started The Raven Cycle yesterday, but so far I am hooked! I’m super worried because I’m TERRIBLE at juggling two series at a time but both of these are just so interesting!

Goodreads Summary for The Raven Boys:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.” It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

MY MUST-READ BOOK LIST

1. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Genre: Historical Fiction

Setting: 1700s Europe (England, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, Venice)

Main cast (I’ll try my best not to spoil anything because you find out a LOT of different stuff about these characters throughout the book):

Henry “Monty” Montague (white, bi/pansexual, attitude problem)

Percy Newton (mixed race, gay, very sweet boy, definitely got “most likely to bring home to mom” in the yearbook)

Felicity Montague (white, Monty’s little sister, headcanoned as asexual, I love her to death)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Daring adventure, gay representation, historical setting, hilarious characters!

This book literally has it all! I would consider it one of my favorite books of all time, yet for some reason I’ve never gotten around to reading any of the sequel books! The ending is very satisfying and ties everything together, which I feel is part of the reason why I haven’t gotten around to them yet.

Therefore, it can serve as a one-shot read or a full series if you want to dive into something good!

The humor made me laugh out loud at points and all of the characters are very real and very, very relatable, not to mention the vivid settings of 1700s Europe!

Goodreads summary:

Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy. Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

2. The Ninth House By Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Horror, Fantasy

Setting: Yale University and the town of New Haven, Present Day

Main cast:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern (Hispanic, sees dead people, very scary)

Daniel Arlington “Darlington” (white, rich, an angel who can sometimes be a dick)

Pamela Dawes (tbh I honestly don’t remember what she looks like, only that she’s a tired grad student with big nerd energy)

Detective Alan Turner (Black, takes shit from nobody, husband material)

Rating: 4/5 Stars

(NOTE: THIS IS VERY DARK ADULT FICTION AND CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME PEOPLE, WOULD NOT RECOMMEND FOR PEOPLE UNDER 16)

This book is a great read for someone who’s looking for a disturbing, gritty book with layers upon layers of secrets that you have to peel away as the mystery unfolds. I love the secret societies and the intricate magic systems that the book introduces, and it actually made me hungry for more books like it!

Alex is a three-dimensional, very real character who also serves as an unreliable narrator who witholds or warps the information that she’s telling you, making the narrative all the more riveting.

The only issues that I have with it are the fact that Leigh Bardugo kind of just dumps you in the middle of it without explaining stuff first, to the point where it kind of feels like you’re reading the second installment of a series rather than the first one, so things can get a bit confusing at first.

The book also can drag and draw things out for a bit too long, but once the plot fully kicks into gear, you will not be able to put it down!

Goodreads summary:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

3. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Setting: Earth, Space, The Moon

Main cast :

Linh Cinder (Chinese, based on Cinderella, cyborg, certified badass)

Scarlet Benoit (French, based on Little Red Riding Hood, farmer who is not afraid to shoot you)

Cress Darnel (White, based on Rapunzel, nerd, I will protect her with my life if I have to)

Kaito “Kai” (Chinese, based on Prince Charming, kind of has to run a whole country, a very kind soul, deserves a nap)

Carswell Thorne (White, based off of Rapunzel’s Prince, bastard)

Winter Hayle (Black, based off of Snow White, royalty, has super special powers)

Wolf (Race unspecified, based off of the Big Bad Wolf, charming killing machine, furry????)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Do you like fairy tales?

Have you ever wanted to know what fairy tales would be like if they took place in the FUTURE instead of the PAST?

Do you like an amazing, hilarious cast paired with a super interesting plot?

These are the books for you!

I haven’t read them in so long, but I remember how much joy I felt while devouring these pages. Definitely something you will not able to put down!

Goodreads Summary for Book #1: Cinder:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Genre: Fantasy

Setting: Ancient Greece

Main cast:

Patroclus (Greek, Gay, quiet pining)

Achilles (Greek, gay, very strong, student athlete energy)

Brisies (Anatolian, clever, literally the only one in this story who has a brain cell)

Rating: 100000/5 stars

This is basically the Iliad but if historians hadn’t completely erased Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship. “Haha yeah these guys were totally bros” they say, even though I have read the Iliad and their relationship isn’t even subtle.

This book made me cry at least ten times. It’s just so beautifully written and has such a distinct vibe to it that whenever I crack it open for another time, it takes me straight back to the vacation that I read it on. (Needless to say, sobbing your eyes out can be less than helpful when you’re on the beach)

If you can only read one book on this list, it should be this one. I could talk all day about it and write novels on just how much of an incredible writer Madeline Miller is, but I feel like you’d get my drift a bit better if you actually read the book.

Goodreads Summary:

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

Hope this list helps you through your coronacation, and please don’t be afraid to reblog or message me to tell me if you’ve read/will read any of these!

#books #book recs #book rec #book reccomendation #book reccomendations #coronacation #corona #coronavirus #covid-19 #book rec list

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zktop10 · 4 years

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Top 10 Rated E Completed Fics!

Ok I skipped over the One Shots because there are a lot and I didn’t want to do them yet, but I did FORGET about the Rated M WIPs so those will be next.

AND LISTEN UP

THIS IS THE SERIOUS STUFF

NO MINORS

NONE

DO NOT CROSS GO

DO NOT COLLECT $200

DO NOT INTERACT WITH THIS POST IF YOU’RE UNDER 18!

Sx: 0.46

Out of TWENTY-SIX stories, here are the Top 10. List under the cut!

Title: didn't know my heart

Author: babyfairy

Summary: And yet, in a matter of days, she has managed to worm her way under his skin, has cracked open his rib cage and has begun to patch up the endless amount of wounds on his heart.

Score: 10 / 10

Tags: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, Smut, Fluff, Angst, Secret Relationship

Title: Walk of Shame (Restricted Access)

Author: orphan_account

Summary: Katara's goals for the semester are relatively modest; playing an inebriated round of Never Have I Ever with her coworkers and subsequently getting drunk-married to her boss's nephew is not something she had the foresight to take into account.

Her newest goal: secure an annulment before her brother and father get wind of this disaster. On the bright side, she's that much closer to ticking 'virginity loss' off her bucket list. Modern AU. Zutara.

Score: 9.7 / 10

Tags: Alternate Universe, Modern Setting, College Setting, Accidental Marriage

Title: My Heart Burns for You

Author: alwaysZutarian

Summary: Four years have passed since the end of the war, but as they meet again and encounter many obstacles, Zuko and Katara realize that whom their hearts truly burn for is one another. Can they love each other knowing they will hurt those that love them? What will become of them when a new enemy appears with a vengeful plot to destroy everything they had worked for to bring peace?

Score: 9.7 / 10

Tags: Angst, Fluff, Smut

Title: Duels of Honor

Author: audreyii_fic

Summary: Sozin's Comet is approaching, and people have the power to shape their own destinies. Sparrowkeet!verse.

Part 14 of The Sparrowkeet Series

Score: 9.3 / 10

Tags: Angst, Sparrowkeet Universe

Title: How Dragons Fall in Love

Author: Polywantsanother (Transparency Note: This is me, also I’m in the process of editing this book, which will remove the content that makes it E. So, get to it while you can I guess???)

Summary: Timeline placement: ~4/5 years after the end of the war. Re-examines relationships and "The Search" story line.

What comes next after you save the world?

The Gaang has scattered: Sokka and Suki are fractious over Sokka's insistence to marry, Toph just wants to get on with being able to do whatever she wants now that she's free of the Beifong compound, Zuko is finally running his country, Aang wants to bask in adulation while creating more Airbenders, and Katara is fed up with pressure of responsibility and obligation.

After yet another fight with Aang, Katara takes a vacation in the capital city of the Fire Nation and reconnects with Zuko after a few years apart. Fire, as is its nature, burns quickly and while passions are running high, Katara agrees to join Zuko on a search for his mother.

Katara, already caught between two conflicting paths for her future, is now faced with a third. But is being the secret lover of the Fire Lord really how she wants to end her story?

Part 1 of Steam

Score: 8.4 / 10

Tags: Post Series, Smut, Series

Title: Confused

Author: thispieceofwork

Summary: Zuko stood. "You told Aang you were confused. Are you confused because of me?" Katara was silent, arms crossed in front of her. "Don't make me answer that." Zutara, rated MA. Contains explicit, but plot important, sexual situations.

Originally published many moons ago on fanfiction.net under the penname "akiko-dono". THIS IS STILL ME. Just changing names for the new forum. I plan to do a sequel to this story on AO3, and would like for people who might want to read it to be able to read the first installment all on the same site.

Part 1 of Confused

Score: 8.2 / 10

Tags: N/A

Title: Journeys

Author: Smediterranea

Summary: Katara, in her final year of medical school, spends her time studying and working without having very much fun. That might change when she meets another workaholic named Zuko... Modern AU Katara/Zuko, with a sprinkling of the other members of the Gaang throughout.

“This tea is delicious,” she says politely.

“I didn’t make it,” Zuko says. “I’m not allowed to handle the tea.”

“Not allowed?”

Zuko flushes and rubs the back of his neck.

“I told Uncle Iroh that tea was just hot leaf juice when I was a teenager and he’s never let me handle it since.”

Score: 7.8 / 10

Tags: Alternate Universe, Modern Setting, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Angst, Fluff

Title: Zutara Kinktober 2018

Author: zutaralover94

Summary: Zutara Kinktober 2018! So many kinks! So much smut! One little month!

Tags will be added for each day I do.

Score: 7.5 / 10

Tags: Kinktober, Smut

Title: Lessons

Author: theadamantdaughter

Summary: Zuko and Katara follow the marriage rituals of the Southern Water Tribe. [ for smut week, porn WITH plot ]

"Our spirits, Tui and La, push and pull, give and take… It's said newlyweds become them; they become us. Tui and La bless every marriage with seven virtues, virtues that are significant to the couple, that require the couple to grow and learn in some way. In return, we honor them."

Score: 6.8 / 10

Tags: Zutara Smut Week, Porn with Plot, Smut

Title: The Fifth Column

Author: chromeknickers

Summary: Katara watched the masked figure silently twirl the blade in his hand. The Fifth Column’s greatest assassin had been sent there to kill her or break her, or maybe it was both. Either way, they wanted their answers; it was the reason she had been kidnapped in the first place . . . Or so she thought.

Score: 6.7 / 10

Tags: Alternate Universe, Post-War, Dark, Angst, Smut, Rape/Non-Con References

#zutara #zutara fanfiction #fanfic rec list #top 10 #rated e #completed fics

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secret-diary-of-an-fa · 5 years

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Hidden Gems of the Silver Screen (And, to a Lesser Extent, the Telly)

It can’t have escaped your notice that the majority of my more recent posts (and fuck knows I’m not posting regularly at the moment) are about movies and TV. The reason for that is pretty simple: 2019 has, surprisingly, yielded some great movies and TV... and also some really torrid shite. On the one hand, films like Ma, Brightburn and The Perfection continue to breathe new life into the horror genre. On the other hand, sci-fi as a cinematic and televised thing continues to ignore its actual audience in favour of sniffing its own farts in a sound-proof chamber designed specifically for next-level virtue-signalling. One thing I will say about the dreck of 2019 is that it’s interesting dreck, at least so far. Another Life, for example, isn’t just bad: it’s mind-bogglingly, fascinatingly bad, as though someone set out to make the worst TV series imaginable and accidentally created a portal to another dimension made entirely of crap.

With all the amazingly wonderful and transifxingly terrible visual media on offer lately, it’s easy to forget that there’s a rich repository of films and TV series from just a few years ago that you’ve probably never watched. You see if you, like me, are a snooty, card-carrying member of the elitist intelligentsia, you probably missed films and TV series that looked dumb as soup on the surface on the grounds that they weren’t worth your time. Luckily for you, I’ve dived nose-first into the detritus of our dying culture, so you don’t have to, and I’ve ferreted out the diamonds from the pig-swill. Without further ado, I’d therefore like to present my list Easily Overlooked Gems.

1. Mandy The phrase “Nicholas Cage stars in a sword-and-sorcery rape/revenge thriller” does not inspire confidence. It’s therefore easy to ignore Mandy and the promptly forget it ever existed. Which is a shame, because it’s kind of a work of genius. The plot is exactly what you’d expect: a cult kidnaps, rapes and kills Cage’s girlfriend, Mandy, and Cage sets out on a mission of revenge culminating in a blood-bath. The nature of the revenge quest is what puts a sting in the film’s tail- or tale, if you’re feeling puntastic. You see, a lot of the bad guys exist in a constant hallucinatory haze after taking a drug that sent them mad after one dose. In order to fight on their level, Cage has to take a dose too. As a result, the world around him slowly but surely transforms into a nightmare landscape that looks like a cross between a D&D illustration and the cover of a heavy metal album and his grubby, personal mission of fury takes on the unmistakable resonance of a Conan-esque hero’s quest. By the end of the film, you have to wonder if Cage has actually slipped into some sort of alternate dimension or if he’s just lost his game-pieces completely. In places, it’s nearly as painful to watch as Landmine Goes Click (crikey, there’s one for the history buffs) but it looks and feels like Beyond the Black Rainbow. Worth your attention just because of how weird it is. I give it a solid four-out-five decapitated rapists.

2. Baby Driver Nothing about Baby Driver suggested it would be a good film: the way it was advertised as a car-chase movie trying to be cute; the stupid title; the fact that it came and went through cinemas like a fart in the night. Which is a shame, because it’s secretly brilliant. It’s a highly stylised crime film populated with the archest archetypes money can buy (to the point where some of the dialogue has a weirdly beat-poetic feel to it). It’s saturated colour palette and off-beat affect actually have something of a full-colour Jim Jarmusch flick about them. The hook, of course, is that the lead character (only ever referred to as Baby, because he’s got a punchably youthful face) has tinnitus and therefore has to listen to music constantly to drown at the buzzing in his head. The practical upshot of this is that a) every single scene is overlayed with surprisingly great and situationally appropriate music and b) he goes through life like he’s always dancing, so his way of moving lends to the film’s easy-going sense of flow. It also explains where his preternatural driving skills come from (I mean, not really, but within the context of the plot): he’s used to sliding effortlessly into patterns and rhythms because of the music thing. All of this could make a terrible film, of course, but execution is everything and, to everyone’s surprise, especially mine, this flick was executed with an astonishing level of panache. I rate it ten out of ten grizzly motor way pile ups.

3. Nightflyers It’s not just films that get overlooked as the tide of culture washes back and forth, like a great big sea of effluent. TV series also vanish unduly into the dustbin of history. Case in point, the criminally underappreciated Nighrflyers: Netflix pre-Another Life sci-fi offering that was actually good. It’s a pretty classic set-up: a group of mismatched wing-nuts on a spaceship, all of whom have secrets that that will threaten to tear them apart while they try to make contact with an alien life-form. What elevates Nightflyers is just how fuck-uped the cast are. There’s an angry British psychic whose spent his whole life in captivity in case he goes full Scanners on somebody’s head, a guy who only ever appears as a hologram for reasons too twisted to explain here, his evil mother whose uploaded her mind to the ship’s computer and gone batshit crazy, a genetic superbeing and a hacker who can send her mind into computers via a dodgy implant and who may or may not be drifting out of touch with the human condition. It’s great. 6 and half billion out of 7 billion monkeys, boiling in the void.

4. Hardcore Henry No, I don’t know who thought that title was a good idea either, but the point is that Hardcore Henry has no motherfucking right to kick as much arse as it does. It was clearly made on a budget that would embarrass a Youtube shampoo commercial, but it just flat-out rocks. Shot entirely in first-person, it follows the adventures of a mute cyborg as he seeks revenge against the bastard psychic entrepreneur who first built him then tried to kill him. Along the way, his main ally is a dude who keeps dying and coming back to life in a series of identical bodies but with radically different personalities and haircuts (this is eventually explained, but I’m not going to spoil it for you). It’s premise is demented, it’s surprisingly well-choreographed and its soundtrack is an aphrodisiac for your ears. Also, Tim Roth is in it, so that’s just yer seal of quality right there. It came out to a lot of fanfare and many, many cinema trailers back in the day and was then promptly forgotten about as soon as it launched. So I’m dragging it kicking and screaming back into the limelight. It’s on Netflix right now, so go watch it. I rate it a solid 11 out of 15 creepy duplicates of Tim Roth.

5. Upgrade Another lesser-known film about a cyborg. Unlike Henry, however, this cyborg’s life doesn’t so much ‘rock’ as ‘suck balls’. He gets crippled and then ends up with a sentient computer chip in his head that allows him to remote-control his own body despite not having a working spine anymore. Naturally, his experimental tech attracts the attention of some unsavoury characters and he and his brain-chip have to work together to figure out what’s going on, often through a series of ultra-violent, gory fight-scenes that horrify the protagonist himself. Of course, all might be well, except that the head-chip is a homicidal little shit that clearly has its own agenda. I give it at least 0000 0111 out of 0000 1001 painstakingly restored vintage kill-bots.

6. The Tick The Tick isn’t as overlooked as everything else on this list, especially since there have been a couple of previous televised incarnations of the franchise to lay the groundwork. However, I still feel like the modern iteration doesn’t quite get the love it deserves, so I’m throwing it out here. Following the adventures a mad, amnesiac and possibly stupid superhero and his neurotic sidekick, The Tick explores a world where superheroes aren’t the paragons of good from classic comics, the corrupt psychotics of The Boys or Watchmen, or the eternally struggling, walking moral life-lessons of modern cinema. Instead, they’re just ordinary people operating at various levels of competence/incompetence and mental illness and working within a bureaucratic, wildly inefficient framework. That might not sound like a recipe for a successful TV series, but it really is. Drawing out the mundane, human side of heroes and villains against the backdrop of cataclysmic, civilisation-threatening events makes for infinitely compelling and very, very funny viewing. It’s kind of doing for the superhero genre what Futurama did for sci-fi a few years back. It’s also where the phrase and/or popular song ‘seven billion monkeys boiling in the void’ comes from. My rating is four out of five sapient, homosexual boats (which will make sense when you watch it).

7. The Void Amid the high-budget horror extravaganzas of recent years, it’s easy to forget about the void, which feels like the best story H.P. Lovecraft never wrote and looks like David Chronenberg tried to adapt a Heironimous Bosch painting... in the ‘80s. The actual plot concerns a group of people getting trapped in a hospital by murderous cultists and discovering dark secrets and, arguably, a whole other dimension in its basement. You’re not exactly there for the plot though: The Void is a mood-piece and an exercise in visual FX craftsmanship. You’re there to drink in the atmosphere and see what each new cosmic horror looks like. I am delighted to award it ten out of ten unspeakable whisperers in the darkness. That’s enough for two barbershop quartets, an emcee and a supporting act.

8. Happy Death Day It’s Groundhog Day but as a horror film starring a really annoying lass in her late teens has to keep dying horribly until she learns to stop being such a terrible person... and also kill her murderer with a little help from her newly-minted, non-cunty friend. There’s a sequel that I haven’t seen yet, but the original is a low-key, oft-overlooked delight. I give it 9 out of 11 suspiciously similar corpses.

#Secret Diary of a Fat Admirer #films #tv shows #movies #Mandy #Baby Driver #Nightflyers #The Tick #The Void #Tick #happy death day #Upgrade

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the-writerly-night-owl · 5 years

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Master List

Okay so I thought it would be easier for me to write out a master list of all my fics. There are a few that are NSWF content which will be marked with a * next to it. I’m not sure how to tag this but here it goes. This list is long and mostly MC and the LI of choice (I’ll be breaking that down later) but in the meantime enjoy!

Desire and Decorum

MC x Ernest

Like Sand in the Wind

Continuing a Legacy

Something about a Baby

Not Exactly an Arranged Marriage

How it Should have Ended

A Lot More Desire and Less Decorum*

All I Need Is You*

Exactly Where To Be

What if That’s the Future

Crashed the Wedding

Young Love

Just a Disagreement

I Will Always Love You

What If’s and Maybe’s - Links to fanfiction account

Portrait Perfect *

Only One for You

A Time for Reminiscing

Dreaming of the Future

First Impressions

Waking Up on Wednesday *

Carrying On Advice

Wouldn’t Want It Another Way

The Wedding Night *

Not Exactly 20 Questions

Together With You*

A Tale of Two Something New’s

Not So Silent Night *

Stolen Moments on the Holiday’s

Parenting Collection

A New Member of the Family

A Normal Afternoon at Ledford

A Good Birth

Father Daughter Bonding

The Significance of a Garden

During the Darkest Part of the Night *

Just a Quick Glimpse

From Boy to Man

Testament of Time

Alone At Last *

I’ll Always Have You

A Very Full House

A More Complete Afternoon

Sweet Lullaby

Strengthening Family Bonds

New Traditions

Late Nights

Mr. Chambers x Mr. Konevi (with some minor Annabelle)

Playing in the Park

The First Day of Vacation

Mixture of Pairs

What’s in a Name Ernest x MC + Mr. Chambers x Annabelle x Yusuf agreement

A Surprise Delivery

Pressures to be Married Ernest x MC + Mr. Chambers x Annabelle x Yusuf agreement

Having a Little Fun Ernest x MC + Mr. Chambers x Annabelle x Yusuf agreement

Siblings Conversations Harry and MC bonding, minor Ernest x MC

Other

The Confidential Diary of Carrie Mills - Part 2

Start of a Lasting Friendship - Queen Charlotte and Dominique friendship

Negotiating a Contract - An alternate look at Desire and Decorum

Quiet Afternoons - Queen Charlotte and Dominique friendship

Can You Picture It - A modern AU look at Ernest and Clara’s relationship

Something About a Legacy - Part of the future of the Sinclaire family

Could Not Ask for More - Percival bonding story with Ernest and Clara

A Very Special Christmas Story - Another Part of the future of the Sinclaire family

About a Proposal and Blessings - Percival surprises Ernest and some Clara x Ernest bonding

Tis the Season to have Babies - A bunch of pregnant women are together and Ernest expects nothing

The Elementalists

Beckett and MC

No Asking Required

A Different Kind of Proposal

New Beginnings

A Wedding Night To Remember *

That Special Place

What Might Be

The Book *

A Puzzle to Figure Out

An Apology and a Dozen Red Roses

Important Question to Ask

Those Three Little Words

Breakfast Conversations

Written in the Stars

The Perfect Distraction

Beneath the Chandelier Light

The Fun in Moving

I just Want to Be With You

A Conversation of Favorites

How to Not Find the Perfect Christmas Present

Adding Sunshine to a Horrible Day

A Sweet Surprise

The Day Beckett Never Stopped Smiling

Parenting Collection

Being a Father

To be a Parent

A Father and His Daughter

A New Perspective

The Birth of a Daughter

Worries and Hopes

Nothing to Worry About

Up For a Challenge

Other

Sister Bonding

A Surprise Too Many (an AU) Part: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine

Seeing the Bigger Picture Beckett x MC with brother sister bonding

From the Bay Window

The Freshman Series

Relationship in London

The Royal Romance

The Perfect Girl for Liam and Girl Scout Cookies Maxwell and Bertrand bonding

Beneath the Light of the Full Moon MC x King Liam

The Darkness Before the Light MC x King Liam

A Tale of Two Birthdays MC x King Liam with Olivia and Maxwell bonding

It’s Not Supposed to Go Like That MC x King Liam

Preparing for an Heir MC x Liam

Learning a New Skill

Baking Up Memories MC x Liam with their daughter

The Best Parts of the Past

Feels Like We’re Making History

It Lives in the Woods

Early Morning Kisses: mc x Stacy Green

Big Sky Country

Were We Anything

Endless Summer

To Be Remembered

The Bright Side of Boring

The Crown and the Flame

Constant as the Wind - Kenna and Dom friendship

Open Heart

Ethan x MC

Rainy Day Conversations

Wishful Thinking

An Unconventional Meeting

How a Hospital is Like High School

Change in the Air

Is it Worth It

Where to Go From Here

Here For You

For the First Time

Trying to Begin Again

The First Time I Saw You

Nerve Check

Patience is a Virtue

More Surprises

Making the Most of a Desk *

Finding the Perfect Solution

What Else is There to Celebrate?

Feeding the Gossip Train

The Most Thoughtful Gifts Are Special

In Flight Romance

Picture Perfect in Holiday Sweaters

Others

Be My Superman - Rafael x MC

Starting off on the Right Foot - Bryce x MC

Getting to Know a New Friend - MC and Dr. Banerji friendship

The Ideal Applicant - Ethan’s thought process choosing MC to be an intern.

To Freeze That Moment in Time - Naveen point of view

Friends Stick Together - Clarissa and her girl friends.

The Haunting of Braidwood Manor

Good Friends and Hope

It Lives Beneath

The Summer They Deserve

Mother of the Year

To Make Things Right

When Shopping is Fun

Making the Most of the Morning

How to Prepare for Christmas

Of Hobbies and the Future

When Rain is Good Luck

The Meaning of Family

It’s the Most Useful Present

One Planned Surprise and One Unexpected Surprise

Just Like Clockwork

Can’t Help but Imagine the Future

Change in This Season

Wishful Thinking

Wake Up Northbridge

Christmas Shopping Fun

It’s That Time of Year

Bloodbound

The More You Know About Someone

To Remember that Special Feeling

Updated January 13, 2020

#my master list #my ideas #playchoices fanfiction #choices you play #playchoices #choices: stories you play #choices stories you play #choices

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fuckthegovfucklove · 5 years

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The Love Ideology: What is love?

Trying to define love is a bloody tiring mission encumbered by vagueness, contradictions and inconsistencies. So I’m not going to attempt to define the word but rather look at some of the different shapes love comes in within interpersonal relationships.

I want to look at the different types of love, the function of each, the power dynamics that exist and their relevance as a basis to share my speculative thoughts on the wider implications of love in later posts.

Loving is touted as a necessity, a source of joy and an objectively good thing for humanity. I’m not so sure I agree and I think a counter-argument against love is useful in redirecting our focus to more urgent issues and developing critical thought, or at the very least being more conscious of the way you love (if you must).

I briefly look at self love, romantic love, platonic love and familial love from a mainstream (western) perspective since that’s what's most prevalent and all I know anyway. Love is not confined to interpersonal relationships and critique of it can be extended to sentiments like unwaveringly love for homeland (patriotism), love for a public figure (idolatry), love for an ideology (cultism).

You’ll find that in every case where love is referred to, it could easily be replaced by a more revealing synonym.

Self love

I know your familiar with this one, we rave on about it all the time. It’s being content with who you are, knowing your “worth” (you see the capitalist undertones too right?). Some call it a radical self-acceptance and according to John Kim the ‘life coach’, self love looks like this:

“When you get to a place where you like yourself, the action of loving yourself will come more naturally. You’ll have non-negotiables. You won’t tolerate certain behaviour from others. You’ll seek less approval. Your friendships will be less lopsided. You won’t have as many holes to fill within you. You’ll be more gentle with yourself, more forgiving. You’ll believe you deserve more, better, different. You’ll finally stop breaking the promises you’ve made with you. And the relationship you have with yourself will improve. “

Ah so, curing all the problems caused by love (and capitalism) with more.. love? Think about why you do what you do. You compromise because you love, tolerate because you love, seek approval because you want love, your love is quantifiable and isn’t always reciprocated, love told you you need it feel whole, to love you must forgive, you deserve love.

Is loving yourself enough in a capitalist world that measures your social worth on how full your cup of love is? (think about the [profitable] factors that determine this too). Will the inferiority complex completely dissipate? If you walk out on the expectations of this here capitalist world perhaps, but abandoning the pursuit of love might be a quicker route.

“You can’t love somebody else until you love yourself“ is a widely known cliché typically used in a romantic context. Some critique the adage saying self-love isn’t actually a precondition for loving others, clinical psychologist Leon F. Seltzer proposes a better alternative: “To deepen your love and acceptance of another, first develop love and acceptance for yourself.” Interesting. I still think theres a semblance of truth in the former that could easily be extrapolated to other types of love.

See loving the Other can only be done by identifying parts of yourself within them and seeing qualities in them that you like. It’s impossible to imagine what loving something entirely disconnected from us looks like because everything is in some way connected to self. We extend ourselves to the object of our love so that by loving the Other we are also loving ourselves. Kierkegaard calls this ‘self-love’. Loving your partner is loving self, loving your friend is loving self, loving your family is loving self, loving your nation is loving self, loving the environment is loving self, loving an ideology is loving self; no matter how selfless or sacrificial the nature. Thus, I have made the cheeky decision to sub them all under this title.

Romantic love

The most sought after, most regulated, most distracting and arguably the most delusional of loves. Romance is where we can write our own fiction and relies on our own imagination to create a world where it can function. Driven by our libidinal desires, we seek to conquer the heart of another. Our romantic interests becoming personified virtues who make us feel like we’ve never felt before (until they don’t).

It is here we are forced to learn a gender and organise our desires around them. Our bizarre sex-sentimentality makes romantic love a safe space to be completely uninhibited. Eroticism is confined to the couple as is building a life project (cohabitation, economic merging, child-rearing).

We have a set criteria of what we look for in a partner (our fantasy), too busy setting up our Tinder to question why our list is identical to the next persons and what is informing these ~ preferences ~. The success of romantic interactions are contingent upon the degree to which projective identification is continually effective, that is when a person projects their fantasy onto another so that they feel inclined or pressured to fall in line with the projective fantasy. In romance, this is typically one of amour passion where by confessing your feelings the other now hopefully joins you in this romantic fantasy.

We must then commit to this person, overcommit then merge. The merging process frequently comes with the dissolution of autonomy and boundaries because complete trust in the other is a requirement. We simultaneously create rules and install dependencies to solidify this union because subconsciously we know that love is not enough to keep two together.

Unpaid labour is an intrinsic part of romantic love and it’s usually gendered - maintaining a healthy relationship requires work (cishet women and those taking the role of woman/femme/more domesticised doing most of the labour). So is it that we enjoy working 9-5 + unpaid overtime or do the promised benefits of coupledom outweigh the cons?

Those who opt for singledom and see no sense in romantic love are considered immature or are diagnosed with the infamous disorder the therapists call ‘fear of intimacy’. Those who are single by circumstances are told that “the one“ will soon come and/or are often pitied. The social worth of an individual increases when they are in a couple as the partner is pretty much considered personal property.

Unions formed on the basis of romantic love are the only ones that are eligible to sign a contract with the state (think about why) and in exchange are afforded a multitude of benefits from adoption rights and tax deductions to immigration and residency for partners from other countries. These unions, called marriage, are usually accompanied by an expensive celebration party where friends and family are expected to attend and bring gifts.

So what is the purpose of romantic love and why do we desire it? Lynn Paramore sums it up.

“Romantic love is not based on companionship, but on the feeling of being desired. This kind of love appears to give us the opportunity, just as money does, to constantly remake ourselves, to project new version of our lives. It’s about longing, fleeting highs, the same stimulation we feel in buying a new car, a new wardrobe. As the married couple’s romantic attraction wanes, the need for stimulation is transferred to the next big purchase, the washing machine, the wide-screen TV. Capitalism goes humming along.”

Platonic love

Where there’s romance, love is expected to consume you. Friendships aren’t similarly expected to be as emotionally weighty and intoxicating; we expect support in good times and bad, someone to laugh, gossip and cry with and a companion to embark on new adventures with. We hope for our friendships to last long but don’t spend as much time deliberating about our future, we truly live in the present with those we consider friends.

These relationships are usually built off of shared values and interests, and an appreciation of the stark realities of the individual characters. They aren’t typically sought after but are formed by being in the right place at the right time. Friendships usually have no issue respecting autonomy, there’s something more rational and ethical about the bond. The voluntarist nature of the entanglements allow this and in comparison to romantic love, platonic love expects little.

The performative actions designed to win affection that are part and parcel of romance are left at the door. Platonic love isn’t devoid of affection but arbitrary limits are put in place e.g sexual intercourse. According popular culture sex ruins a friendship (loooool). Friends do typically seek a level of validation and affirmation from their peers, considerably higher (from my observations) for those socialised as men.

While platonic love doesn’t demand the cognitive bending that romantic love does, it’s similar in the sense that it’s love through favouritism. We give preferential treatment to those who favour us even in situations where logically we would do otherwise. It is expected of us. Platonic love however does not hold the same social value as romantic love and friendships are often “demoted“ once a new romantic interest takes the stage. Andrew Sullivan voiced his disapproval on this common practice:

“The great modern enemy of friendship has turned out to be love. By love, I don't mean the principle of giving and mutual regard that lies at the heart of friendship [but] love in the banal, ubiquitous, compelling, and resilient modern meaning of love: the romantic love that obliterates all other goods, the love to which every life must apparently lead, the love that is consummated in sex and celebrated in every particle of our popular culture, the love that is institutionalized in marriage and instilled as a primary and ultimate good in every Western child...We live in a world, in fact, in which respect and support for eros (romantic love) has acquired the hallmarks of a cult. “

Familial love

Familial love presents in a lot of arrangements. Between two individuals it can be a progression from platonic love or romantic love (though they can coexist). It’s a fondness born out of familiarity, dependency, mutual protection and non-judgmental support. Family can also describe a group of people you share similar experiences and rituals with, such as a church family or work family.

The primal familial love, the “blood is thicker than water“ love that is somewhat universal refers to the instinctual affection and protection we show to those with blood (shared genetics/common ancestors) and perhaps legal bonds (legally bound through adoption/guardianship). The love of a parent towards offspring and vice versa. Or extended blood family. With familial love theres an inherent hierarchy: offspring, spouse, parents-siblings, extended blood family and then other forms of family if chosen. I will refer to familial love as what exists between parent and offspring henceforth as it customarily obliterates the rest.

This familial love conventionally implies unconditional, ultra-protective, “I’d die for you“ love towards child. It’s not given according to their personal qualities (although once they’re no longer a minor it often weakens) and if a child should stray on the wrong path the parent will most likely do everything in their power to save them. The family is the nuclear of civilisation and the most basic unit of society. The education of almost all starts in the family, particularly character and moral education.

The familial love of a parent is one of duty and protection, and for the child it’s one of dependance and trust. As parents are the legal guardians of children, they position themselves as the authority and the child recognises them as such. Parents have a wider understanding of society and often try balance preserving a child’s innocence (I often wonder why) whilst making them aware of the “real world”. In order to ensure a child obeys them and trusts that they know what's best for them they often remind the child that there’s bad people out there that do bad things i.e “don’t talk to strangers, they could kidnap you“. Children are then obliged to submit to the parental safety that the home provides, whilst also being dependent on their parent for sustenance.

Familial love is assumed to be natural and present in all. It’s blasphemy to confess you do not love your parents or you do not love your child. In situations of conflict, familial love is supposed water down any malice, and forgiveness/reconciliation should follow. The family is expected to have your best interest at heart at all time and familial love is thought of as permanent, parents often say things along the lines of: “Your family remains even when everyone leaves“. Loyalty and favouritism is therefore expected and should also trump that of friends and romantic partners.

Many choose to reproduce. They get to experience the reverse of child-parent familial love where they are the ones in authority and build a life project from that. Why do people choose to have children? Some of the reasons people give range from: looking to find a sense of purpose, familism, pressure from peers and family, belief that it is your duty to continue your biological lineage etc. A growing number of people are choosing not to reproduce usually because they aren’t interested in parenting or bringing more people into the world (voluntary childlessness/anti-natalism).

Humanaesfera suggests a political explanation for the desire to create a family:

“Since the emergence of capitalism (ie, the industrial capital, the proletariat and the modern state, simultaneously, eighteenth century), the familism is the central fetish by which the proletarians (ie, those deprived of the property of any means of life) accept willingly to engage in maintaining and improving the enterprise and the government, creating and accumulating with dedication the very hostile power that systematically subjugates them, wears out them, recycles them, discards them and abandons them - the capital. This is because they place their libido (cathexis), their desires, in the family, pseudo capitalist property in which they fantasize are accumulating their own capital on a par with the capitalists. This leads them to support the ruling class and the police, that is, the state as guarantor of this fictitious property.”

#blog post #aromantic #anti-romance #against love #liberatory relating

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thesportssoundoff · 5 years

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“Future Glory For Former Champions?” Two Guys Opine

Slight opening first: This was done in late November and @theanticool had his done first. With so many shows and news, I Wanted to wait to post it because so much has gone down and I didn’t want it getting buried. It was completed a few days before Anderson Silva vs Israel Adesanya was confirmed as not just being a fight but being a #1 contender fight. Just a heads up on that.

Two Dudes Opine!

As most of you know by listening to any sort of DojoTalkPodcast cameo I’ve done, @theanticool and I don’t agree on much of anything. That said, it’s an absolute joy to bounce ideas around, especially in the idea vacuum that is MMA, and have some good old fashioned debate on things. Conversation creates smarter people in my estimation and I obviously need all the help I can get!

I wanted to take this concept and sort of test how often we truly agree and disagree. As such, I figured he and I might want to dabble a bit to see just HOW often we agree or disagree. Once he agreed after many meetings and contractual negotiations, we agreed on a concept: I’m going to come up with a topic and present him with a list of names inside that topic. Independently we’ll each go through the names provided and see just how we match up at the end of this grabbag assignment. Our first project focused on prospects coming off a loss and I think it’s worth pointing out that Yair, Arjan Bhullar and Cynthia Calvillo were all featured in the discussion and all have gone on to win. This month we have:

In the UFC, it's very hard to regain titles after you lose them. In the modern era, only TJ Dillashaw has flat out won back a title he lost (Daniel Cormier was given it back due to Jon Jones' drug test failure while Jose Aldo won an interim title before getting elevated up to championship status). Fighters such as Aldo, Rashad Evans, Junior Dos Santos and countless others have all come up short in quests to either regain gold or find new gold in other weight classes. With that as the set up, which of the following fighters can either regain their title in their current weight class or find championship success either up or down a weight class:

Conor McGregor

Cody Garbrandt

Robbie Lawler

Holly Holm

Chris Weidman

Anderson Silva

I’m in the bold and @theanticool is in italics!

Conor McGregor- I mean if you want to manipulate it just right, Conor McGregor can absolutely find his way back to the title scene! Conor's a weird one for me---and I'm beginning to wonder if the Conor McGregor we saw at 145 lbs was more about right time, right place and perhaps even right matchmaking than anything else. Conor's wins at 145 lbs are amazing from Chad Mendes to Jose Aldo to Dustin Poirier to even a quality mid level gatekeeper type like Dennis Siver. Even Max Holloway was a case of maybe two guys facing off before they're ready to do so. Since going up in weight, Conor's 2-2. The Eddie Alvarez fight was an absolute demolition job and one of the best wins of his career given the opponent BUT I'm a bit less high up on Alvarez after seeing him struggle with Poirier twice. The Diaz fights revealed problems with Conor's pacing but also his ability to deal with the same stylistic challenges he gives others. Lengthy opponents who won't allow him to just walk them down, put them against the cage and tee off. That and to be honest? I'm really not that high up on Nate Diaz either. The Khabib performance was really good given the circumstances (long layoff from MMA, stylistic nightmare, hurt early in the fight) but THIS is what lurks at the top at 155 lbs. Khabib, Kevin Lee, Tony Ferguson, a rejuvenated (yet still flawed) Dustin Poirier, Al Iaquinta plus other really great fighters who don't get their due because of the weight class depth. This is not to say that Conor McGregor loses to all of those guys or even that he's not a great fighter---he's just a great fighter as opposed to the meteoric supernova who ran through 145 lbs with such ease. Guys like Justin Gaethje are conditioned to wins wars of attrition, something Conor struggled with vs Nate. Guys like Kevin Lee and Al Iaquinta present enough of a well rounded overall game to where you could sort of see them finding ways to get Conor in enough bad spots to steal a decision. Tony Ferguson, Dustin Poirier and Khabib are elite and while Poirier's rise to the top hasn't changed the fighter he is, I think his chances in a rematch are waaaay better now that he's not completely sunken in. This doesn't even account for Ortega or Holloway coming up eventually as well.

But this isn't about Conor entirely; it's about his chances to get back in the title picture. Conor is basically a long frustrating Khabib suspension away from being in a title fight, even if it's just an interim at 155 lbs. If the UFC opens up 165 lbs, they are absolutely going to hand him a shot to fight for the belt because that's business. Shit, Conor is one win away from facing Colby Covington (Oh lord have mercy) or even opening up the doors for something with Tyron Woodley. Conor McGregor is a star and stars can get away with doing things like that. It also helps that he's a great enough fighter that the public can absolutely buy him potentially beating a guy like Tony Ferguson or Colby Covington or Woodley or whomever pops up at 165 lbs. What Conor does well at, he's one of the best at and that will always give him a shot. Again the people he's ACTUALLY beaten are among some of the best in the sports history----so who am I to say he can't get back into the title picture?

Conor McGregor

I can see Conor politicking himself back into title contention. Let’s be real, he’s never going to be far from a title shot. With Khabib Nurmagomedov’s future kind of up in the air with the pending investigation of the NSAC and his father stating that he doesn’t want his son fighting past 30, the lightweight title could be up for grabs soon. Not to mention Khabib and Tony Ferguson are injury prone individuals. If one or both of them get hurt, McGregor is right back in the title picture. And should Ferguson and Khabib fall out of the picture, I’d like McGregor’s chances against the likes of Dustin Poirier, Kevin Lee (maybe less so him but still), Justin Gaethje, Anthony Pettis, and Nate Diaz. Heck, if the UFC ever decides to make that 165lb division you know McGregor going for his 3rd belt would be too much for the UFC to pass up. If McGregor continues fighting, he will eventually get another shot because of his popularity. By that virtue alone, he’s got a better shot than most former champions of getting a UFC title.

Cody Garbrandt- I still like Cody but there be some issues here. For starters, backs, necks and knees don't get better. That's especially true for fighters who rely on their reflexes and quick twitch ability to enter into exchanges and for their defense. Garbrandt having back problems at the scant age of 27 is rather worrisome. That's more worrisome than the fact that he now has two losses to the champ TJ Dillashaw. Bantamweight is a bit like heavyweight and so like JDS vs Cain, Cody could realistically always just be a title change away from being back in the picture. I'm sure when I read Anticool's retort, he's not going to agree here but I DO think Cody can beat TJ. They've fought twice and he's hurt TJ and both fights. The difference is that Dillashaw is a way better finisher (If TJ knocks Cruz down the way Cody does then the fight's over) and Dillashaw instinct wise just seems better. He seems more capable of surviving bad exchanges, smarter with adjustments and more willing to not be prideful (Garbrant absolutely stands with Lineker and nobody can convince me otherwise). For Cody to get back to the top, he needs to beat somebody in the top 5 but outside of Jimmie Rivera, I don't see a lot of willing matchups. I'm on the fence here.

Cody Garbrandt

MMA is not like boxing. Getting knocked out back to back doesn’t spell immediate doom and gloom for your career. It’s still not a good look though. I really hated the immediate rematch between Garbrandt and Dillashaw because I saw it as potentially burning out a young prospect’s career in a chase for quick money. And I honestly don’t know how Garbrandt will turn out till we see him fight someone in the top 10 at bantamweight who isn’t TJ Dillashaw or Dominick Cruz. This division is currently brimming with young talented fighters who are improving dramatically between fights, while Garbrandt seemingly hasn’t. We need to see him build on his current boxing game. Maybe use more of his wrestling. Add some tools to his kickboxing arsenal that aren’t reliant on the fact that he has a lot of power in his hands. I will reserve judgement on him till we see him fight again. We just don’t know where he’s at after coming up short twice to someone he hates. That has to be mentally exhausting.

Robbie Lawler- Oh what Robbie Lawler has brought to us. Nobody should forget 2013 to 2015 when Lawler fought Johnny Hendricks twice, Jake Ellenberger, Rory MacDonald twice and Matt Brown off the top of my head. Since then? I think Robbie might be broken, dudes. Lawler is 2-2 but should really be 1-3 (fight me about it, guys) and all of those fights seemed less about the skill he had and more about the heart he still possesses. You don't have the fight of year in back to back to back years without losing a piece of you in the process and it's perhaps made all the more remarkable when you consider Robbie fought four times in 2014 and has seen the number decline from 4 to 1 in 2015 to 2 in 2016 to 2 in 2017 to nada in 2018. The matter was made worse by an ACL injury sustained in a fight vs RDA where he was pretty much wiped out even if he didn't ever seem to be in danger of being finished. I like Robbie a lot and I think a serious convo will be had about him as a hall of fame talent AND I remember when the UFC made him one of the first big signings BACK from Strikeforce when everybody had mailed it in on Lawler. A return to WW made him great again but now? I think the time has come and gone. Robbie's 36 years old coming off knee surgery in a division that's ripe to get younger real quick. Of course I can't ignore the shades of Koscheck vs Lawler with this Askren booking but Ben's a lot better than Josh was at that point in his career. I think the Lawler days are done.

Robbie Lawler

Hindsight is 20/20. It looks like Lawler’s fight with Condit was his last real hurrah. The Lawler that went toe-to-toe with Johny Hendricks twice and had one of the greatest fights of all time with Rory MacDonald is gone. And fair enough. That MacDonald fight honestly would have been the end of most other guys’ careers. If his fight with Rafael Dos Anjos is any indication, I do think Lawler has something left in the tank if his body can stay together for 15-25 minutes. He’s still got a lot of technical savvy and he’s still tough as hell, but I can see his upcoming fight with Ben Askren going south if the man can’t generate the volume we’ve seen from him in the past. I don’t foresee another title reign in Lawler’s future, as sad as that makes me. But he’s proved us wrong before.

Holly Holm- Chances are Holly Holm will absolutely fight for a title and pretty soon. Can she win it? Yeah, I actually kinda sorta think she can. Holm's title losses can be summed as getting taken out of her game by a very gutsy Meisha Tate, some sketchy borderline late work from Germaine De Randamie and getting outphysical'd by Cris Cyborg. Holly Holm is still a good yet flawed fighter who will probably be able to out athlete most of the fighters she faces AND if we're being 100% fair? She and Mike Winkeljohn feel like one of those pairings that just click. That on its own could be enough to get her not just back in the title picture but win her title especialyl if Nunes is broken vs Cyborg. I still think there’s SOME paper lion in Amanda Nunes’ game and I could see Holm giving her all she can handle.

Holly Holm

Of the 6 fighters considered for this article, Holly Holm is my pick for best chance to regain her former title. At least by doing it the “right” way. Of the 6, I think she’s in the best place mentally and physically. She has not shown she’s falling apart yet like Lawler and Weidman. She hasn’t shown she has slowed down yet like Silva. We haven’t seen her succumb to her own hubris yet like Garbrandt has twice. And women’s bantamweight isn’t the shark tank division that lightweight is. She can and most likely will get another shot at the women’s bantamweight title. Plus Holm presents a whole slew of challenges for Amanda Nunes that we have yet to see Nunes face. She’s a range kicker who can fight hard for 5 rounds, set a solid pace, and will have a good sized reach advantage on the outside. And unlike Shevchenko, Holm will throw volume. That of course means she’s going to leave herself more open to counters from arguably the hardest hitting woman in the sport but Nunes is fighting on a short timer. If Holm can survive the first round, you know she’s going to be the fresher of the two from rounds 2-5.

Chris Weidman- This is the one I'm most on the fence about. If Chris Weidman cuts less weight, goes up to 205 lbs and manages to stay relatively break free? I don't see why he couldn't do something really good at the top of the division. We're seeing worse fighters step in against top 10/top 15 LHWs and have zero issue being not just competitive but thrust into title contention. I know their respective styles are different but Weidman can absolutely pull an Anthony Smith; feast on being the more athletic guy with more tools in his arsenal vs bigger guys who may not even be all THAT bigger. I'm just beginning to wonder if Chris Weidman might be for a lack of a better term broken. Perhaps broken beyond repair. Weidman's kind of in that Gray Maynard stage for me now and I think that's worse than it sounds to some people. Gray Maynard after the Edgar fights was still competitive AND improving in some capacities---but his chin was cooked, his wrestling suddenly seemed either outdated or ill equipped to deal with the rising talent levels and even when he was doing good, you just felt a sense of inevitability. I never once felt like Jacare was in danger of losing vs Weidman but I spend every second of that fight believing we were just one something away from it falling apart for Chris Weidman. It's one of those weird feelings to see a fighter doing really well and just feel almost resigned to an inevitable bad thing happening. Chris Weidman fights in a much easier division at 185 lbs than Gray Maynard and could move up to an even EASIER division at 205 lbs. The problem is I just wonder how many times we can see Weidman with a bloodied up face saying "I'll be back from this" before we just have to accept that Chris Weidman hit the point of no return on his career? It's entirely possible that his win over Gastelum (another fight where he got hurt really badly) was a brief last gasp for his career as a whole. Weidman's ability to will himself through wars of attrition hasn't diminished but his body's ability to hold up in those fights has.

Chris Weidman is the ultimate boom or bust guy; the boom says that he could possibly be the champ at 205 lbs if Jon Jones vacates the premises while the bust is that Weidman takes unneeded additional damage against bigger guys who hit him really hard. I'd like to see Chris Weidman TRY at 205 lbs, maybe against a relatively easy touch. It's often times been said that the UFC doesn't just start giving guys easier opponents when they're earning bank so Weidman has a really good shot to walk into 205 lbs and be greeted by an OSP or a Shogun or someone who has name value and is probably good enough to test him. If it doesn't work then we can call it a day but if it does, I think Weidman has a sizable chance to find a way to the title.

Chris Weidman

Weidman will never be champion again at 185lbs. You can’t get stopped in 4 of your last 5 fights and expect my confidence in your chances at the belt. I am not sold on the idea though that Chris Weidman is a chinny fighter so there’s no way he could cut it at 205. Most of his stoppage losses have seemed to have come from exhaustion as much as they’ve come from eating a big shot. Weidman needs to control the pace to win fights. He can’t rely on his wrestling because it’s too draining on his stamina, except against Gastelum who basically did nothing to stop the grappling game of Weidman. It’s why we’ve seen him change from a come forward pressure fighter to an out fighter. I think his team thought it would be easier on Weidman to control his output and range if he didn’t constantly have to move forward. Problem is that being an out fighter requires a lot of movement, pivoting, and things that also require a lot of energy and precision. Weidman can’t afford to let the flow of fights get away from his because it drains his gas tank too quickly. It’s how Jacare eventually wore him down. That’s why we see him win the first round of fights where he ultimately gets stopped. When other fighters do not concede, Weidman fades. I think a move to 205 could help with a lot of these issues. No more weight cut, no more energy dump after 6-7 minutes of fighting. I am afraid though that all the injuries and the big cuts to make 185lbs are cutting short his career. The first 5 minutes of his fight with Jacare, however, was some of the best we’ve seen Weidman look technically. There could be hope for him yet at 205. I don’t know if he has what it takes to beat an Alexander Gustafsson or Jon Jones. When you consider those guys are just as likely to get either hurt (Gus) or suspended on some dumb (Jones) though, the division could be wide open for Weidman to come through and make a title run.

Anderson Silva- Silva will not will a title. Will he fight for one? He shouldn't but he will, right? Remember Anderson Silva could have an argument to having beat Michael Bisping and he owns a win over Derek Brunson who is a top 10 gatekeeper. Silva could even go as far back as to point out that there was SOME talk that if he beat Nick Diaz, he would've gotten a title fight. My best guess is that when Silva's back, he is just one fight away. After all who isn't in MMA these days?

Anderson Silva

No. In terms of fighters that are past it, I actually think Silva is on the upper end of guys who are still functioning. If Tito Ortiz would be a sizeable favorite over 95% of fighters on the regional scene, Anderson Silva is a favorite over most middleweights not in the top 20 and probably a lot of mid-tier 205ers. His super close fights with Derek Brunson and future champion Michael Bisping attest to his ability to stick around the upper end of the division. Problem for him is the high end of middleweight has become a shark tank of athletes with well rounded technical games. He would no longer be fighting the Chael Sonnens and Yushin Okamis of the world. And honestly I don’t need to see Yoel Romero flying knee Silva’s head through the fence. I’m good. I’m content with his upcoming fight with Israel Adesanya. Of all the fights he could have gotten against the top of the division, with the exception of maybe Kelvin Gastelum, Israel Adesanya is probably the most kind. I do expect Silva to picked apart here. I don’t expect to see Silva bum rush his way into something crazy like Derek Brunson did and I don’t expect Adesanya to push a crazy pace in search of the stoppage. Maybe we’ll get some fun spinning stuff but I think the fight ends up looking similar to the Adesanya-Tavares fight - Silva being unable to pull the trigger while Adesanya casually styles on him.

#MMa #UFC #Opining #sports #Anderson Silva #Chris Weidman #Garbrandt #Fights

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grimoiresontape · 6 years

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On Working Planetary Circlets

Since my earlier blogpost Circling Ways in Geomancy - which mused on employing cords, loops, and beaded 'circlets' as portable means of demarking ritual space and empowering magical operations carried out inside that space - I have been recommending and making these talismans for clients and colleagues more frequently. Many folks have asked for notes, suggestions, or advice on how to use such ritual tools more effectively, so it seemed high time to advance some fundamental practices, to parade a skeleton crew of brief sketches and recommendations from my own practices with these planetary circlets that have proved useful. I've started from simple notions and followed them up with a few proposals for enriching and complicating those elementary mechanics.

Shaping A Circlet I use circlets in my planetary magic for a couple of reasons. The most obvious employ the sympathetic morphology of the circle. The loop traces and reiterates the orbital movement and course of these heavenly bodies. The appeal to "the orbit and motion" of planets is a common feature of many of the prayers I use, and an obvious enervation of their virtues stirred by sympathetic linking to their actions. We remind the planet and its spirits 'you work because you move, and you move because you work'. A positive feedback cycle is looped. The circle is also evocative of planetary spheres: both their literal astronomical shape and the understanding of their celestial domains or layers to the cosmos-onion beyond the sublunary realms. To quote Ginsberg, it seems an 'ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night' is reified in the use of a circular planetary talisman.

Lest this begin to sound too idealistic - in either the general naive or strictly Platonic senses - I should also state that the other crucial feature of my circlets are four corner-points. These frame the circlet as also a potential cross. To call quarters and trace the circle as the magical reach of one's grasp - as a seat of power, a place of protection, or an epicenter of a crucible - is an old old magic. By "squaring the circle", by laying out that which represents the heavenly endless of pure planetary sphere and virtue (and abstraction) as a crux upon the earth, as a crossroads, we may ground that virtue in tangible terms. The crossed circle is an X that marks the spot, a glyph of Malkuth, and indeed the enfolded globe and crux of majesty and Venus, further offering us opportunities to explore the mysteries of creation, manifestation, craft, and Love. In the simple ritual gesture of laying out the circlet by its corners we reiterate and honour this awakening of planetary virtues into the physical world and into our work. This is the same principle at work in astrological sigil casting, in enmattering the empyrean, in the harvesting of the fruits of the stars, in the Moon pulled down into the still waters of receptive bowls. By these reasonings, I find it especially apt to incant specific planetary petitions and general prayers for success when squaring the circlet.

These are also the reasons I recommend these talismans to be made as loops with four corner-points, either in beads or knots. I find beads, especially stones ruled by the planet in question, to be especially effective. I recommend constructing your circlets on the appropriate planetary days and in the apt planetary hours of course. Once physically constructed they can be consecrated by a range of methods: asperged, fumigated, exorcised, oiled, and blessed to dedicate them further to their patron planet and thus yield themselves better storehouses and beacons of those starry potencies vivifying those virtues embedded in natural materials. Owing to the especially earthy, worldly emphasis of my geomantic practices I can also recommend burying them in soils gathered from appropriate planetary locations: graveyard dirts for Saturnine circlets, earth from public gardens for Venusian circlets, and so on. Such lists of astrological correspondences of place can be found in many astrological handbooks, such as William Lilly's Christian Astrology, which I made available here.

When I make my circlets I also ensure the various materia of these circlets - thread and smaller beads in appropriate planetary colours - are prepared for use through these consecrations. I cleanse myself with spiritual baths, asperge and fumigate my ritual space, call to my patrons, empower the ingredients, construct and the charge the circlets on their planetary altars, often leaving them on top of the relevant kamea. I may even burn candles on the mother-bottles of the planetary oils which I use to dress the newly born talismans to further empower the oil from mother to daughter.

A Portable Altar-space My previous blogpost on these circlet talismans emphasised my most common use of them: marking a space within which to divine. The idea of this is incredibly simple. Being empowered to lend planetary virtue to the operation at hand, one can employ a circlet of the planetary ruler of the day, or of the planet who governs the matter being divined upon. A Lunary circlet would be well-disposed for divination inquiring about the nature and meaning of a dream, for instance; or indeed for any works of divination on a Monday. This approach was developed from my geomantic divination practice, in which the planetary Ruler is appealed to before any reading can be performed. Again, for more on this I recommend at least the first part of my Circling Ways in Geomancy post.

The key for this kind of work is the "pre-loaded" empowerment of the circlet. One might therefore choose to fumigate or oil one's circlets in appropriate planetary materia before any or even every divination session, although I generally find feeding the circlets once a month is sufficient, assuming one keeps them "charging" on planetary kamea or wrapped in prepared fabrics with dried herbs, dirts, and powders.

Lighting the Way Perhaps the most foundational operation I can think to work a circlet involves candle and prayer. I consider this primarily an operation for the magician to receive or align with planetary virtue. The use of lamps and, later, candles to stand as a ritual instantiation of the light of a wandering star is itself an ancient practice, I claim no great invention of this technique. It can serve as a potent addition to devotional recitation of planetary prayers and offertory fumigations.

When one requires a boost of a particular planetary virtue - Saturn's cold boundary-setting to ensure you are more punctual, Mars' hot bold edge of competitive energy to emerge victorious in some form of conflict - you may set out the relevant planetary circlet, present a candle to the four corner-points of the circlet as one would to the four cardinal directions, and burn the candle in the centre of this demarcated ritual space.

The candle might be prepared through any usual means of further aligning it to the planet one is courting - dressed in an oil infused with materia ruled by that planet, carved with the glyphs and various characters of spirits who partake of that planet's forms and forces. Mihai Vârtejaru's Studies in Magic blog is a treasure house of grimoiric material on planetary characters one might use for instance, and he has handily compiled many of these sets of seals into downloadable pdfs. Beyond ways the candle itself is prepared, one might burn it atop a number square about which the circlet is laid.

At the risk of sounding like I am about to attempt to flog you penis pills, there is "one neat trick" for working circlets in this manner I would like to highlight. Looping the circlet in thirds maintains the relative cardinal directionality of the four corner-points. This yoking of Four and Three is, I find, philosophically potent and presents a variety of options for further prayer, reflection, and magical utility. Christian magicians might certainly honour the Trinity with, by, and through this looping; sorcerers inspired by Renaissance practices can certainly consider the triple layers of the universe - the elemental, celestial and supercelestial realms - mirrored in the very structure of Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy; just as more Hellenically-inclined magicians might call for the effects of the operation to manifest across their Three Worlds of Heaven, Earth, and Ocean. Sets of any number of parts can be employed to address every option, every path, every eventuality; from the Four Elements, to operations calling upon all Seven classical Planets. Triplicities, triptychs, and trinities are certainly no exception.

Charging Ahead Circlets can also be utilised to empower and themselves consecrate magical objects and materia, to bestow planetary virtues upon a container spell such as a charm bag, astrological sigil (more often a metal or wax medallion impressed with particular astrological characters than the modern DIY homebrew sigils popularised by Austin Osman Spare and later by chaos magicians), or even a new incense blend or herbal bath mix.

This can be done by simply laying out the circlet in the various manners addressed above - complete with planetary prayers - and presenting the object to the four corner-points. This works especially well with items that need to infuse, such as freshly constructed oils or steeping herbal baths and waters. For charging objects like charm-bags or other tools, the circlet might also house the waterbowl or pot by which one asperges and the censer for fumigating the object: the circlet demarcating a ritual space whereby blessing, consecration and empowerment may occur, running an astral current of the planet around and about the operation. Again, an ennobling cycle (you know, the opposite of a vicious cycle) might be created by empowering the objects used to empower one's tools and materials.

Geomantic Spell-craft My planetary magic is heavily informed by geomancy. By the understanding of this oracle, each planet rules two geomantic figures, which I often frame as the hands of the planet reaching down into the 'elementated' world, or perhaps better yet as the feet upon which the planet stands and moves across the face of that world. For instance, Jupiter's cornucopious Horn of Plenty distributes Gain (the geomantic figure of Acquisitio) on the one hand, and dispenses thoroughly jovial Joy (Laetitia) with the other. Each geomantic figure offers a particular expression of a planet's power in the world in a (once more for those at the back) grounded and worldly manner.

Just as the circlets can align and draw planetary virtue (indeed because they can do this) we can also use these talismans to direct planetary virtue: to put it bluntly, to launch spells. One form I find particularly effective is the use of tools and signs of divination as image magic. This might be as straightforward as empowering a particular Tarot card to act as a amulet. For example, one might charge an Empress card (as one would a charm bag or bath) with a Venusian circlet and then carry in one's breast pocket, close to one's heart, to bring Venus' blessings and protection; say if one were attempting to charm an audience or attract a certain kind of attention. But it might also involve setting a geomantic figure out in some form to attract that set of virtues and/or launch them into the world.

So within the field of one's Jupiterian circlet one might set out six candles in the shape of the geomantic figure of Acquisitio, a Fiery figure, in order to draw some kind of gain - money, opportunities, customers, or even knowledge or experience. These candles might be marked with the sigils of this figure, dressed in a Jupiter oil, and surrounded by Jupiterian materia, such as mint leaves and dirts from banks and lawcourts. This should be done in a Jupiterian hour, and perhaps done at an appropriate part of the dwelling, such as in front of the door to bring these Gains in. This is but one example of the use of the forms of the geomantic figures in spell-craft. Watery figures might be ensorcelled by arranging small bowls or cups; Airy figures by several charcoals burning incense in a figural pattern; Earthy figures through small piles or bundles of dirts and powders.

There is a lot to say about this approach to geomantic sorcery, from its occult philosophical foundations to particularities of expression and implementation, and from basic correspondences of plant and stone to multi-stage operations and further empowerments, but for now I hope you have a small taste of how a circlet can be used to begin your own experimentation into geomantic sorcery. For those who now feel they should learn some more about geomancy you can download the main early modern handbooks of the divination system here, or sign up to my Geomancy Foundation Course on this still-often-underappreciated oracle which begins in July (offered once more through those handsome chaps at Wolf & Goat), or you can purchase and download my new Geomancy 101 class-bundle...

I continue to tinker with and customise my planetary circlets, and will be continuing to sell them on my site. Don't hesitate to get in touch at [email protected] with any questions or custom design requests.

For now, I'll let Ms. Springfield play us out. Happy circling.

Round Like a circle in a spiral Like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning On an ever-spinning reel Like a snowball down a mountain Or a carnival balloon Like a carousel that's turning Running rings around the moon Like a clock whose hands are sweeping Past the minutes of its face And the world is like an apple Whirling silently in space Like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind

Dusty Springfield, Windmills of Your Mind

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themindofaprimadonna-blog · 5 years

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all lorde songs ranked

Ella Yelich-O’Connor (or as she is better known, Lorde) has proved to her fans and critics alike that she is not only an extremely talented singer, but a lyrical genius. Lorde’s song-writing is done in such a way that it attracts not only the young, but adults as well. She is only twenty-one years old yet she is capable of appealing to people double, sometimes even triple her age! Her music is something I hold in high respect and I truly consider her to be one of the best artists of the twenty-first century. Although all her songs are magical in their own individual way, I have decided to rank them in order of excellency. (For reference only songs Lorde has sung primarily herself/contributed to creating will be included.) Let’s begin.

27. Million Dollar Bills – Pure Heroine (Extended)

‘…Bills’ is an upbeat piece of music that is perfect for a loud party setting but unfortunately leaves listeners unsatisfied by the end. At just 2.18 run time it turns out to be one of the shortest songs on the list, and the shortest on Pure Heroine.

26. Biting Down – Pure Heroine (Extended)

The song ‘Biting Down’ is a perfect example of O’Connor’s impressive writing talent. The lyrics mainly repeat themselves which might appear as a lazy move, but it turns out to be the piece’s greatest asset. However, as captivating as this song is for the first minute, it can get tedious quite quickly.

25. Royals – Pure Heroine

‘Royals’’ message disapproves of the luxurious lifestyles of contemporary artists, specifically rappers. It is Lorde’s biggest hit to date, and the YouTube music video has managed to rack up an enormous seven-hundred-and-twenty-two-million hits. Though it is relatively catchy, it is not an accurate representation of O’Connor’s music by any means.

24. Writer In The Dark – Melodrama

Arguably ‘Melodrama’’s weakest song, ‘…Dark’ is perfect for a winter’s evening sat beside the fire. Regrettably it does not deliver on its unofficial promise – a song you can actually sing yourself. ‘…Dark’ is overall a good song… when Lorde sings it. Otherwise it fails dramatically. The main virtue of this song is its lyrics and use of advanced vocabulary such as “pseudoephedrine”; something that would not be seen in any of O’Connor’s earlier work such as ‘Pure Heroine’.

23. Still Sane – Pure Heroine

Just like the most previous song ranked, ‘Still Sane’ has brilliant writing behind it but fails to deliver an enthralling tune generally speaking. Based on the instrumental alone this has to be one of Pure Heroine’s weakest songs. This piece had a lot of potential, but sadly flopped.

22. Liability (Reprise) – Melodrama

‘Liability (Reprise)’ is short and sweet. Apart from it quite literally being Lorde’s shortest song to date, it has some of the best concise song-writing I’ve ever seen. The instrumental is easy on the ears whilst simultaneously giving the impression of a darker underlying theme in the song through its use of lower-pitch sounds. Yes, it is linked to ‘Liability’ but this connection isn’t particularly clear or distinct and therefore this piece doesn’t achieve as much as it could.

21. 400 Lux – Pure Heroine

The drone-like sound which begins this piece, not only provides the main instrumental for the song… but sets the tone for it. ‘400 Lux’ is a love song not drenched in soppiness but ambition. The writing is weak yet still puts across a basic story and the instrumental is mediocre. Despite this, the chorus is catchy enough to save this song from declining in merit as others have.

20. Glory and Gore – Pure Heroine

An exciting collection of instruments and voice pitches makes this one of Lorde’s most riveting pieces. Although the lyrics are long-winded and hard to grasp, fortunately O’Connor’s voice is so deep it beckons the listener to wait out for the entire duration of the song. With the condition that the listener overlooks some unusual aspects of this piece, it can easily be appreciated for its uniqueness.

19. White Teeth Teens – Pure Heroine

An extraordinarily mesmerising piece, ‘…Teens’ has an arresting chorus with beautifully written lyrics. The song is the perfect duration: not too brief, but also not so long that is starts to bore the listener. It ends at the perfect moment, leaving anyone who has had the privilege to hear the song, fulfilled entirely.

18. Sober II (Melodrama) – Melodrama

‘Sober II…’ is an enticing song with simple but effective lyrics. The instrumental is sensational and this is demonstrated at its best at the chorus and last verse. This piece tells a story not only through the lyrics but with the harmony conjointly which is astonishingly rare let alone difficult.

17. No Better – Pure Heroine (Extended)

The upbeat intro to ‘No Better’ shows us as an audience something we haven’t seen in ‘Pure Heroine’ yet… a happy song with a happy theme. The slowly sung lyrics provide the listener with a good understanding of the story O’Connor is trying to tell, while the instrumental makes them feel uplifted.

16. Green Light – Melodrama

The introduction to Lorde’s second studio album, ‘Green Light’ is a fantastic illustration of how O’Connor’s music has changed so drastically. This tune is fast-paced and catchy but most importantly it’s exciting! Perhaps ‘Green Light’ doesn’t fit the stereotypical clichés of a victorious pop song…but it doesn’t need to. The ending to this song will leave the listener fired up and eager to hear the rest of what ‘Melodrama’ has to offer.

15. Liability – Melodrama

The soft sound of piano and Lorde’s high-pitched voice in ‘Liability’ equate to a sense of sadness. The chorus isn’t particularly fetching but it is memorable and somehow addictive. The beginning and end of this piece is where it proves itself to be much more than a good story. The instrumental is the simplest of all of O’Connor’s songs yet the most impactful, and she sings it with raw emotion. This song will be played for years to come.

14. Bravado – Pure Heroine (Extended)

‘Bravado’ is the song on ‘Pure Heroine (Extended)’ that saved other failures like ‘Million Dollar Bills’ and ‘Biting Down’ from sticking out like a sore thumb. The listener may be almost thankful that some of the other pieces were less successful as it leads to this song being highlighted as one of the best. This song is not only extremely well written, the chorus is catchy and the verses are soothing to listen to. The instrumental coincides magnificently with the vocals, creating for a very good song as a whole.

13. Buzzcut Season – Pure Heroine

There are many theories as to what ‘Buzzcut Season’’s lyrics represent. The beauty of this song (and many of Lorde’s most successful pieces) is that she leaves the meaning open for discussion. Label something too strictly and it ruins its mystery. This song is not only fantastically written, but beautifully sung. The chorus is catchy and the duration is yet again just perfect.

12. The Love Club – Pure Heroine (Extended)

‘The Love Club’ is a delicate and relaxing song that isn’t too complicated with its meaning or its lyrics.The soft beats combined with Lorde’s cosy tone is something hard to accomplish in modern music, and the rewards pay off generously… at only 16 years old O’Connor had turned this into a number one hit in her home country of New Zealand. ‘The Love Club’ is not just a good song, it’s a marvellous achievement.

11. Homemade Dynamite – Melodrama

Arguably, the most electrifying song on ‘Melodrama’, ‘Homemade Dynamite’ is a pop song that is not only immensely catchy… but also extremely clever. The writing behind this bop is done in such a way that the song can still project an image to the audience whilst giving them a good musical experience as well. This piece is far from dull and keeps the listener satisfied throughout its entirety.

10. Yellow Flicker Beat – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

The only song Lorde has released that is not a cover and also not part of one of her studio albums, ‘Yellow Flicker Beat’ is absolutely flawless. The rhythm is fast-paced and exhilarant, with a wide range of instrumentals. The writing is well thought-out and Lorde delivers it perfectly. By far this song’s biggest credit however… is its catchiness. Whether you’re listening with earphones or through a speaker, this song grabs your attention instantly.

9. Perfect Places – Melodrama

‘Perfect Places’ is an overwhelming journey of feelings and emotions presented through an accelerated rhythm and meaningful vocals which work in each other’s favour extremely commendably. This song is not only fantastic in its own right but a great way to end what is an exceptional album, ‘Melodrama’.

8. A World Alone – Pure Heroine

‘Pure Heroine’’s most emotive piece, ‘A World Alone’ is a truthfully sad story told through tear-jerking verses and a catchy chorus. As I’ve said many times before, Lorde is one of the most gifted song-writers in the industry… and this song proves that better than any other song on ‘Pure Heroine’. The scenarios being described in this song can be so vividly imagined, and for only a teenager to be able to achieve that; it is nothing short of amazing.

7. Supercut – Melodrama

‘Supercut’ is an emotional rollercoaster with a captivating chorus and well-lyricised verses. But when O’Connor’s raw voice is exhibited for a breath-taking fifteen seconds the real spectacle begins to unfold. From those fifteen seconds on, that is where ‘Supercut’ shines supreme, and proves just how masterful Lorde is at making music. This song is not overrated… it is a musical triumph.

6. Hard Feelings/Loveless – Melodrama

‘Hard Feelings’ is a love story wrapped up in anguish and heartbreak. It is a pleasure to listen to O’Connor’s soft voice reciting lyrics made up of real life experiences. But, the instrumental to this song is by far its biggest asset: I would go as far as to say this song has some of the best instrumentals we’ve heard in this past decade. ‘Loveless’ is a fun and important resolution to its predecessor… a modern beat paths the way for a psychopathic like Lorde to emerge with her loud vocals declaring how much she hates her ex-lover. Overall, these two pieces are matched perfectly and if they were separate tracks I do not think they would’ve been as successful. This is a six minute adventure done very well.

5. Team – Pure Heroine

A worldwide success, ‘Team’ is a catchy bop detailed with intricate meanings that are sewn into the lyrics of the song. Indeed the instrumental is good, but this is when Lorde’s vocals prosper the most. As previously said about ‘Buzzcut Season’, it is not favourable to describe this song’s meaning as definite or absolute… that is for the listener to decide. ‘Team’ not only satisfies the listener that wants a good tune to listen to, it also satisfies the listener that craves a story in a pop song (something unheard of nowadays). ‘Team’ is an outstanding piece and achieves an awful lot more than other current pop songs can.

4. Tennis Court – Pure Heroine

The introduction to ‘Pure Heroine’ is a dramatic and compelling one to say the least. ‘Tennis Court’ demonstrates itself to not only be a bad-ass and lively song, but the first example of what ‘Pure Heroine’ is all about. From the first lyric: “Don’t you think that it’s boring how people talk?” the listener knows this album will be a memorable experience. The writing behind the lyrics of this song is extraordinary… every string of words means something significant, and if repetition is used is it to make a point (as used in ‘Biting Down’). The instrumental is new and euphonious and synchronises brilliantly with O’Connor’s vocals, which makes for a re-playable tune on top of everything else. ‘Tennis Court’ has not just been popular with Lorde fans however, it was a global hit back in 2013 and the music video currently stands at one-hundred-and-four-million views on YouTube. In conclusion, there is no other way to describe this song: not calling it masterful would be a disservice to it, so by all means; ‘Tennis Court’ is a masterpiece.

3. Sober – Melodrama

By far the most underrated Lorde song of all, and criminally so; ‘Sober’ is an enchanting narration spoken through the lyrics of O’Connor in a way we haven’t heard her before. Her desperate sounding voice glues together nicely with the fascinating instrumentals to create a melodious experience like no other. This piece is not too subtle, yet not too theatrical… it fits in right in the middle; this is the song’s greatest strength: if the lyrics meant nothing the song would be meaningless but if the writing was too overemotional it would also suffer the same fate as the former. Creating an equal balance between reality and fantasy in music is a formidable talent that only the best of the best musicians possess, and providentially O’Connor is one of the best of the best. The reason ‘Sober’ is so discounted is because most of O’Connor’s other works are catchier and appear to resemble more of a pop-song aesthetic. Being a pop-singer isn’t a bad thing… but Lorde isn’t one and ‘Sober’ is most definitely not a pop-song. To appreciate this piece, the listener has to remember this story may not be the most appealing but it is critical to ‘Melodrama’’s success and provides as a vital example of what Lorde has achieved in such a short space of time… and how much more she can achieve in the future if she uses her skilful expertise to her full advantage. This piece isn’t the song the average listener necessarily wanted, but it’s the song O’Connor needs to represent just how good she is at producing music. ‘Sober’ is overall an exceptional song with stupendous writing and a sharp rhythm. It is a brilliant piece of art.

2. The Louvre – Melodrama

‘The Louvre’ has been widely dubbed as the best song on ‘Melodrama’, and I must say I agree entirely. Not only is this song eminently catchy, the instrumental is mind-boggling. Such spectacular sounds combined with O’Connor’s first-class vocalisation provide for four-and-a-half minutes of true bliss. The writing is ‘cool’ and makes the listener feel that they’re part of the journey, or at least witnessing it like a movie. The lyrics synchronise so well with Lorde’s tone it’s as if her voice was designed to sing in this song exclusively! The instrumental is modern and come to think of it, sounds like something that would have come from France [The Louvre is a famous French museum]… therefore it is perfect for this piece. The last minute of the song is dedicated to the instrumental only so it would be sensible to suggest this is where the physical music stands out…however I find that the melody used in the chorus is far more bracing and infinitely better, which could be one of the factors that contributed to the song’s success. There is not much more to say about this piece, apart from that it is one of Lorde’s best creations to date and will be for decades to come. I strongly advise you to listen to this song, you will not regret it.

1. Ribs – Pure Heroine

Was there ever any doubt that this would be ranked this high? Certainly the best song on Pure Heroine, ‘Ribs’ is an emotional expedition slowly but surely getting more dramatic second by second through the use of a quickening tempo and high-pitched backing vocals. The reason this song is so successful is because any person from any walk of life can deeply relate with its multiple meanings, explained through not just the well devised lyrics but through the magical instrumentals that can make one feel a sense of déjà vu or recall a long lost memory. In fact, the instrumentals are so good I would go as far as to say they are primarily responsible for the success of this piece; united with the believable and purposeful lyrics this song is quite literally second to none. The catchiness of the verses rather than the chorus make for a pleasant, surprising change and is used as an effective tool to highlight the powerful wording of the song. ‘Ribs’ is generally considered a love story but unless analysed extensively, the language doesn’t make this obvious to the listener and prevents some from being put off too easily. This piece has been known to make listeners feel a great sense of emotion: after hearing the song some people have admitted to crying over the message it sends, but even more berserk is the fact that most people that do cry over ‘Ribs’… do it because of the physical music itself. These magical sounds that trigger such feelings are practically never used in songs in the twenty-first-century, especially not by teenagers [Lorde was sixteen as of ‘Pure Heroine’’s release]and for this reason O’Connor proves herself not to just be a musical genius, but probably the best teenaged musical genius in the history of the entire industry. It is stunning how much one song can impact so many and so thoroughly in just four minutes. ‘Ribs’ is quite simply Lorde’s best work yet and one of the best songs ever made.

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redwhale · 6 years

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re: Fic Rec Days, I was hoping to have this done by the 12th! Nope. This is an updated rec list for James/Thomas and James/Miranda/Thomas for Black Sails.

I am still wanting to rec a lot of the newer stories on this list separately (plus some other wonderful stories), but I don’t think that will happen before mid-March, so that’s really frustrating. Curses! I haven’t even caught up on writing reviews for some of the newer stories, which I’m even more frustrated about. I sadly don’t have a lot of time to read fic, so this is by no means an extensive list. There is so much goddamn fantastic work out there! The following is just a very small taste. Positively, there are some underrated gems linked here that deserve some more love.

(I always feel awful about rec lists, because I know I’ve inevitably lost track of some amazing stories, and there are also equally as many excellent stories from stupidly talented authors that I might have missed or haven’t gotten to read yet, so I want to emphasize again, this is by no means extensive.) The following stories are just AO3 links, as I’ve lost track of so many Tumblr fics, and when a user changes their username, the links break. Double curses!

James/Thomas:

Idealism Sits In A Prison - Sunnyrea

Thomas Hamilton's ten years without James.

Stimulus - AstronautSquid

After ten years of separation and hardship, their hearts love each other the same.

It's their bodies that need longer to settle.

Thomas Hamilton: A Life - AstronautSquid

Thomas Hamilton is born with two front teeth.

He dies with the morning sun in his eyes.

This is everything in between.

Les mille et une nuits - andloawhatsit

Abigail Ashe grows up, buys a printing press, and finds a man she thought she'd never see again.

On Kindly Beaches - Theonenamedafterahat

Woodes Rogers tries to get Thomas Hamilton to help him persuade Captain Flint to accept the pardons. This does not go well for him.

A Break In The Clouds - moonflowers

The end of his nose brushed the back of the man's hood; he smelt of oil and salt and wet canvas. For the first time that evening, Thomas was thankful he was cold and miserable - it provided a distraction from the firmness of the body pressed against his front, and how inconvenient it would be for Thomas to crave it.

In which Thomas is lost in the rain, and rather enamoured with his rescuer.

For whither thou goest, I will go - OrangeLady

When Thomas is set free from Bedlam, he knows he has to see New Providence, the place that stole so much from him: his lovers, his family and his life.

wooden tides to run - AstronautSquid

James was almost certain he had walked more miles on wooden planks than on solid ground in his life.

Fascination - AstronautSquid

“Pirates,” was all James rasped above him.

“A general history thereof,” Thomas agreed. “Detailing the most fearsome scoundrels to ever plague the high seas. Though I have to say, this likeness doesn’t quite do you justice. Your moustache is not as ridiculously curly as that.”

Imitation - AstronautSquid

In battle he was clear-headed and footsure.

Faced with Thomas' request for a taste of Flint, James felt anything but.

Reorienting - Palebluedot

Thomas grabs ahold of his holy apparition with both hands and keeps him there, draws him nearer. Let them hold each other until they both bruise, he thinks fiercely, for tenderness needn't always step light. Love owes them kind wounds.

Eye of the Beholder - Palebluedot

“Open your eyes for me, love,” Thomas reminds him, voice husky, and when he does, the first thing he sees is Thomas's reflected grin, hungry as the gaze that caresses every inch of skin from James's parted, panting lips down to his flushed and leaking cock. “Just look at you,” he sighs in James's ear before he trails imprecise, open-mouthed kisses back down to James's throat. Author’s Note: ((alternatively, that time bean was like "so what if they fucked in front of a mirror" and I was like "shit what if they DID"))

Unaccommodated Man - kvikindi

It is at this point that, for the first time, Thomas Hamilton begins to consider that he has gone mad.

The Peaceable Kingdom - kvikindi

William Manderly visits the plantation, some six years after the events of Unaccommodated Man.

Congress - kvikindi

James and Thomas put the "fuck" in "fucked-up."

The Cup of Their Deserving (the wages of their virtue) - DreamingPagan

Madi decides not to be sent away after her rescue. When she returns to Skeleton Island, she finds a betrayal in progress and takes steps to save her friend and put her people's choice regarding the war back in their hands.

name one hero who was happy - mapped

Lying in bed together, James and Thomas talk about the Iliad. (Thomas is practically ready to write Achilles/Patroclus fanfiction.)

Crescent Moon - sebastianL (felix_atticus)

One shot of the months following the finale, with a focus on a certain tattoo.

Bent - azarias

In a warm room in London, James tells Thomas about the events on the Exeter.

Thomas applies what he learns. (Established relationship, consensual kink.)

With Fire and With His Sword - azarias

After the reunion, after the plantation, Captain Flint returns to the sea.

He takes James and Thomas with him.

katabasis - csoru

Flint discovers Thomas is a passenger aboard the Maria Aleyne alongside his father, and events proceed from there.

Lord Captain - Apetslife

“Once a year, I send a letter to My Lord father, accounting for every penny of commerce I have cost the colony of the Bahamas, and every lover I have taken in that time. So far, he has failed to send a reply. An oversight, I’m sure.” (Pirate Captain Thomas Hamilton).

Sea Salt and Lavender - moonflowers

James hadn't heard the song, nor spared it a thought, for years. He'd had no need of it. But her singing grounded him, reminded him that he'd had a home once, before everything, where his grandmother had sung those same words as she rolled out pastry, where he'd played as a boy, and dreamt of sailing away through those harbour walls and making something of himself. It came as a surprise to uncover something of James McGraw from so long ago, and to find it still intact.

With Sweet, Reluctant, Amorous Delay - Magnetism_bind

For the Flinthamilton prompt: "There's no way you're getting me in /that/"

Thomas takes James to a costume party.

The Loaning of Books Between Friends - Magnetism_bind

Thomas loans books to James in an attempt to get to know his new liaison better.

The Fields of Elysium - Fyre

A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time. - The Odyssey.

The Pirate - x_art

(Modern AU) What if Pickram got there first?

The Sundering Sea - x_art

Stepping into the foamy surf, gasping at the force of it, the surprise of it—it had been breathtaking. Thomas had been that for him, his boundless sea, and he wasn’t ashamed.

Folly - x_art

It wasn’t too late to nip this in the bud. He could do it because he’d done it before, because his heart was always subservient to his head. Always.

Thomas the Mariner - shirogiku

Thomas' voyage home takes slightly less than ten years, but not for the lack of misadventures.

a word like tiger - bellis

A few months after Charlestown, Flint finds out that Thomas is alive. This is, by all accounts, terrible timing.

James/Miranda/Thomas:

Feed Among The Lilies - willowbilly

James has been warned that they are duplicitous people, and by all rights he should remain on guard.

He does not care to.

Thomas actually chuckles when Astraea meets his eyes as fiercely and haughtily and lingeringly nonplussed as only a raptor can be, and it is such a disarmingly lovely sound that she immediately discards all the proud composure she'd just managed to gather and swivels away to preen busily beneath her wing, her hot yellow glare in its bandit stripe of brown ducked and hidden with telling alacrity within the downiest and snowiest of her feathers. (Daemon AU)

Firebird - Wind_Ryder

There are two truths in the world.

One: Before Thomas and Miranda leave London to begin Governing Nassau, they receive a note that reads: "Lt. James McGraw died a resident of Bethlem Hospital on December 25, 1705." And they have nothing left to live for.

and Two: on December 25, 1705, Admiral Hennessey takes James from Bethlem and brings him to his new life far away from London society. He is told he will never see the Hamiltons again.

These two truths were never meant to be spoken at the same time.

Elisha made the oil pour forth - azarias

Miranda is a widow. Miranda has a husband, but not the one she wants. Miranda may have gone mad a month ago, but no one's had the guts to tell her.

Start Anew - Neery

James and Miranda rescue Thomas from Bethlem. This was supposed to solve all their problems.

As it turns out, things are more complicated than that.

Late night walk date - fandomfan

Having just returned from the West Indies, James tries—rather unsuccessfully—to take his leave from the Hamiltons' London house.

Where The Winds Sigh - Chainofprospit

The last levee of tradition belaying him gave way, and with it any sense of reticence. James could feel his furrowed brow falling, his chin lifting, without needing to will it so. I am going to be kissed by Thomas Hamilton, he thought, and in the next second he was.

We've seen the moment that James and Thomas finally kissed; this is what I imagine comes after.

To The Upper Air - DreamingPagan

James Flint goes to sleep expecting a battle the next day. What he's not expecting is to wake, eleven years in his own past, with a very different fight on his hands - to save the people he loves and his own soul.

Full of Grace - DreamingPagan

Alfred orders both Thomas and James to be taken to Bedlam. Miranda is left to rescue them with the aid of Admiral Hennessey.

You Can’t Handle The Truth - Wind_Ryder

Now, all of England and beyond were discussing how an MP of Thomas' reputation was actually gay, that a Naval Officer with James' CV was a home wrecker, and how Miranda was either the victim of her husband's deviations, or a slut begging for more. Modern AU: In which Thomas, Miranda, and James are outed to the press.

Thereto I plight thee my troth - azarias

Thomas consults Miranda on the subject of his military liaison. Sexily.

a more rational burning - sea_changed (foxlives)

She had understood this as her role from the beginning, the head to Thomas's heart and James's hands.

and into what it will be changed - sea_changed (foxlives)

His own heart, so often obscure to him, has become clear. (Tag notes: Political philosophy, art, naval policy, mostly threesomes.)

to ithaca - sea_changed (foxlives)

Miranda finds him first.

A Savor of the Heart - drivingsideways

In some cultures, speaking the name of the dead is taboo.

Apprehension - orienter (orientinme)

For a year, Miranda watches them with fear. Until the day she understands why they feel none.

The Art of Asymmetry - AstronautSquid

Her sketches of people tended to veer into caricature with their lively emphasis of all things out of the ordinary - a large nose, a double chin, a foppish gesture -, and had thus quickly been ruled unfit for display among polite company.

Thomas encouraged her to keep a rotating selection framed on a dresser in the chamber connecting their rooms.

It was a week into their affair that Miranda first sketched James.

No Part Behind - atrata

James thinks of Thomas.

A Knock Upon the Moonlit Door - FeoplePeel

A werewolf, a fairy, a witch, and a vampire walk onto a magical island and--no wait. Once upon a time, there was a Knocker who betrayed his friend and spent over a century in a Sidhe prison until he met a handsome werewolf and--hang on a minute.

There are stories that reach even the Sidhe's side of the Veil, of Nassau and its healing shores. But what use could the ghosts of giants, and vampires, and all of those who will never meet death find for a fountain of life? The obvious answer is: keep it away from everyone else.

Or: The story of how John Silver joined Flint's very non-traditional pack.

Miranda/Thomas:

May it happen to me (all) - drivingsideways

In the summer of 1695, Miranda Barlow meets Lord Thomas Hamilton.

James/Miranda:

book of days - sea_changed (foxlives)

He looks at her, lost, like he is trying to understand the distance between them and cannot. A line of longitude, incalculable, mysterious and imprecise.

whalebone, rigged to stem the floods - AstronautSquid

James had learnt how to unlace a woman's stays, and how to help put them back on.

The fine material of the cords had snagged on his callouses, but they were after all just delicate ropes, and ropes he knew. The knots came together between his fingers under Miranda's direction and adjusting the tension of the laces running through the eyelets felt surprisingly familiar, the same way he could almost feel in his own body the tension of a ship's rigging.

It was the first time during their affair that James had felt truly in control of the situation at hand.

#ficrecdays #flinthamilton #flinthamiltons #captain flint #miranda barlow #thomas hamilton #black sails #black sails fic rec #redwhale fic rec #again - this is by no means an extensive list #(i wish i wasn't so time poor - sigh)#thank you to everyone who writes fic for our black sails fandom playground

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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15 Best Martial Arts Video Games to Play After You Watch Shang-Chi

https://ift.tt/38Sh4ly

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings isn’t just one of the MCU’s best origin stories and the movie that has everyone readjusting their box office expectations. It’s also an incredible fantasy-driven martial arts adventure that will likely leave you craving more.

While there’s no shortage of movies and shows that offer such fixes, there’s always been something amazing about pairing a hit new movie with a game that lets you live out your favorite on-screen moments as closely as possible. Granted, there has been a sad shortage of truly exceptional martial arts video games over the years, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few true classics and a few more hidden gems out there that you absolutely need to play.

Here are 15 of the best martial arts video games to play when you’re looking for a way to come down from that Shang-Chi high.

15. Max Payne (Kung Fu Mod)

Max Payne’s Kung Fu mod isn’t exactly the most refined martial arts gaming experience, but if you prefer a mix of martial arts and gunplay in your elaborate action sequences, then you have to check out this legendary fan creation.

Yes, this mod adds extensive melee combat options to the already brilliant Max Payne experience, but the surprising highlight of this impressive mod may just be the array of athletic bullet dodge animations it adds to your defensive arsenal. It’s basically the best Matrix game ever made.

14. Dead or Alive 6

Like most of the fighting games we’ll be talking about throughout this list, I can’t really sit here and tell you that the Dead or Alive series offers the most authentic martial arts experience in the world. Actually, part of the reason it’s so easy to recommend this series is that it sometimes trades realism and complexity for bone-breaking, hard-hitting, over-the-top action sequences.

This one is for martial arts movie fans who love to buy into the idea that their favorite film fighters can send opponents flying across the room with every hit. It’s a tremendous experience for those who want to live out their most absurd martial arts dreams.

13. Overgrowth

Overgrowth is a bizarre and uneven game that honestly might be a little too dependant on its community-created content. However, the fact remains that there are very few fantasy martial arts games that offer anything close to what this one does.

This is a classic “mystical kung-fu adventure” that just so happens to star a cast of rabbits. The style is going to be a turn-off for some, but it’s hard to deny that this game’s heart is in the right place and that it gets some of its biggest ideas right.

12. God Hand

It’s almost as hard to find a way to play God Hand in 2021 as it is to beat this incredibly difficult game, but if you’re looking for some of the best martial arts combat in video game history, then it’s very much worth seeking this gem out.

God Hand is as bizarre as video games get, but this action title’s wonderfully complex and ultimately enjoyable martial arts combat system is more than enough to make you work through its rough edges and “WTF?” moments. It’s a true gem that deserves a proper remake.

11. 9 Monkeys of Shaolin

In a better world, more people would have played 9 Monkeys of Shaolin: an incredible old-school, martial arts beat-em-up with modern mechanics and RPG elements. Of course, now is always the best time to play this underrated action title if you’ve never done so.

This isn’t the deepest game in the world, but its brilliant blend of martial arts style and arcade beat-em-up action will leave you wondering why more developers haven’t tried something like this before.

10. Shaolin Vs Wutang

Shaolin vs Wutang is described as a “love letter to Martial Arts and classic Kung Fu films,” and I honestly can’t think of a better way to sell someone on the things this game does so well.

While not a hardcore fighting game by any means, Shaolin Vs Wutang is arguably one of the best ways to live out your golden age kung-fu movie dreams. This whole thing is just a warm blanket of genre goodness.

9. Redeemer

What Redeemer lacks in pure martial arts combat it more than makes up for by virtue of being one of the most entertaining and wild top-down action games in recent years.

This story of a monk with a dark past who is out for revenge is highlighted by wonderfully absurd action sequences that keep you on your toes without forgetting that the whole point of such experiences is to have as much fun as legally possible. If you are a fan of this genre at all, you really should go out of your way to play this one.

8. Tekken 7

I’m not ready to commit to the assertion that Tekken is the best martial arts fighting game series, but what I will say is that Tekken has historically done a tremendous job of emphasizing its various martial arts styles and translating them into a consistently compelling fighting game experience.

Tekken 7’s complex mechanics are a favorite among top-tier fighting game players, but the game’s core combat is enjoyable enough to help ensure that even inexperienced players will be able to enjoy much of what makes this series so special. Of course, you could also go back and play the always brilliant Tekken 3.

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7. Kung Fu Strike – The Warrior’s Rise

Imagine a kung-fu version of a Devil May Cry-style action game, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what makes Kung Fu Strike – The Warrior’s Rise such a compelling action experience.

While I can’t fairly rank this indie gem among the very best games in that particular genre, I have to say that this title scratches a very specific itch that more than makes up for its general jankiness and sometimes absurd difficulty.

6. Absolver

Absolver’s incredibly complicated combat system is both a blessing and a curse. You’re either going to fall in love with the process of learning it or you’re going to be turned off by its sometimes awkward, and almost always unforgiving, core mechanics.

If you do happen to fall in love with Absolver’s fighting system, though, then you’ll likely find that it’s incredibly difficult to go back to other martial arts fighting mechanics. If nothing else, this is an incredible experiment that will hopefully be used as the basis for something even better down the line.

5. One Finger Death Punch

Before you let One Finger Death Punch’s simple visuals and sometimes corny (maybe even occasionally offensive) presentation completely turn you off, consider that this rhythm-based action game is designed to reward its best players with some of the most insane “choreographed” martial arts fights that you’ll ever see.

It’s incredibly easy to lose yourself in this title’s unique action gameplay, but don’t forget to look up from the action bar once in a while to appreciate the results of your (hopefully) perfect input commands.

4. Yakuza 0

Any day is a good day to recommend Yakuza 0, but it would certainly be a sin to talk about gaming’s best martial arts experiences and not recommend arguably one of the best games of its generation.

Give yourself time to get used to Yakuza 0’s pseudo-open-world environments, strange story, and bizarre blend of gameplay styles, and you’ll be rewarded with one of the richest crime epics in video game history that also happens to feature some of the most satisfying martial arts-based combat you’ll ever learn to love.

3. Jade Empire

I’ve called Jade Empire BioWare’s last great experiment, which is both a testament to its creativity and an acknowledgment of the fact that it’s not exactly the studio’s most polished RPG. However, it has to be said that this game’s blend of epic role-playing and mythical martial arts action remains as appealing and unique as it’s ever been.

It’s a real shame that BioWare will probably never get a chance to get this idea right, but Jade Empire remains a more than worthwhile experience, especially if you play it after coming off that Shang-Chi high.

2. The Shenmue Trilogy

Yes, it’s a bit of a cheat to include three games in one entry, but you have to acknowledge that the Shenmue trilogy is arguably the most impressive overall accomplishment in the history of martial arts video games.

Play Shenmue 2 if you only have time for one game in this trilogy, but a little patience with this series’ sometimes glacial pacing and rough production elements will ultimately result in the privilege of getting to experience an adventure that can ultimately attribute its divisiveness to its commitment to being different.

1. Sleeping Dogs

On the one hand, it’s always felt at least a little insulting to describe Sleeping Dogs as “a martial arts fuelled GTA-style open-world game” and call it a day. On the other hand, Sleeping Dogs is somehow even better than that already promising description makes it sound.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Sleeping Dogs is quite simply one of the most enjoyable open-world games of the last 10 years as well as one of gaming’s best uses of martial arts action. This title’s most loyal fans will tell you that it’s even better than the GTA series, which might be a little bit of a stretch but should give you some idea of just how much fun this game really is.

The post 15 Best Martial Arts Video Games to Play After You Watch Shang-Chi appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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xtruss · 3 years

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What I Learned When I Rented My Parents’ Former Home as an Airbnb

They’d tried to escape the future by building a home off the grid. But the future found them anyway.

— By Thad Russell

— The Atlantic | August 29, 2021

September 2005 (All photos by Thad Russell)

About the author: Thad Russell is a photographer who lives with his wife and two children in Providence, Rhode Island, and teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Two summers ago, my siblings and I found my late parents’ former house in northern Vermont listed on Airbnb. Once we got over our shock—“Wait! That’s our house!”—we immediately made reservations to rent it for a family vacation. The new owners had known my parents and generously waived our rental fee upon realizing who we were. The online description—“rustic retreat”—brought back memories of countless family gatherings of summers past: taking long walks, swimming in the lake, eating local corn and blueberry pie. I remembered hanging out together on the deck that extended into my parents’ gentle, south-sloping meadow like a pier, appreciating the peaceful view of hay fields, spruce trees, mountains, and an ever-changing sky.

I looked forward to the reunion for months. And yet, as I drove with my wife and young children along winding mountain roads that I knew by heart, I was surprised by the emotions stirring inside me. I began to realize something that should have been obvious. This special, idealized place that I was so excited to return to wasn’t a repository of just happy memories, but of difficult ones too. My parents had been concerned about the political and environmental trends in America. Their place in Vermont was meant to be a political statement in the form of a modern-day frontier house—hand-built, off the grid, and completely DIY. In other words, it was very difficult to live in and maintain. Now that many of their worries about climate change and political unrest have become reality, I understand the prescience of their vision and the virtues of the life they were designing. I also realized something even more important, however, when I rented their home as an Airbnb: No matter how hard you try to escape the future, the future will find you anyway.

May 2015

In the 1990s, my parents sold our family home in suburban Boston and moved to a virgin piece of pasture in Vermont’s rural and remote Northeast Kingdom in order to build a house—and a life—from scratch. They wanted to slow down, to live simply and more in concert with nature and its seasonal rhythms. My siblings, their spouses, and I not only supported this new chapter but were actively involved every step of the way. Though we all had careers, homes, and lives in other places, we would parachute in every August to help pour a foundation, build a timber frame, side a barn, or mow a field. This collective labor gave us a sense of investment in the property—“sweat equity”—and senses of accomplishment, pride, and joy in its growing compound of rough-hewn structures. We finished the “little house” (which is actually tiny) in time for my sister’s wedding one August, and we finished the “big house” (which is actually quite little) in time for my brother’s wedding six years (to the day) later.

This property was the realization of a long-held dream. My father was an MIT-trained architect and builder with his own brand of rugged modernism. His houses were shrines to their specific surroundings, made out of locally sourced wood, stone, and glass. After spending a lifetime building homes for others, he wanted to finally build one for himself and his family.

But he wasn’t trying to construct a well-appointed vacation home, and my parents weren’t hoping to retire comfortably to the country. They were hoping that their modest compound could be a refuge, a place separate and protected from the evil and disease of the modern world, a place to which we could all retreat when the long-prophesied and always-imminent economic and ecological disaster of Man’s own making finally came home to roost. With its solar panels, windmill, vegetable garden, root cellar, and well, it was designed to be a self-sufficient place apart, a lifeboat of sorts.

Though my parents’ organic, less-is-more lifestyle was supposed to be simple, it was never easy. Their life was intentional and incredibly labor-intensive, marked by hard work and discomfort. Their property became an unrelenting taskmaster. Many projects never got completed. Some just didn’t work. The sun didn’t always shine. The wind didn’t always blow. Batteries failed. The bespoke, high-efficiency refrigerator didn’t actually keep food cold. The well was contaminated with surface water from a nearby cow pasture and never produced reliably potable water. My parents’ self-imposed restrictions on energy usage—my father designed an aggressively frugal system that used only one-20th the amount of electricity of an average American family—seemed arbitrary, impossibly difficult, and puritanical; a dishwasher or clothes dryer was out of the question.

They—and we—argued a lot about how they lived, and the choices they had made. I thought theirs should be a model home, an equally attractive, non-fossil-fuel alternative that others could easily emulate so that we could collectively save the planet. My father thought it should be more of a laboratory that embraced cutting-edge experimentation, took risks, and courted failure. He thought it should be difficult by design so as to attract only zealots, purists, and true believers.

August 2019; May 2015

My mother sometimes complained about the ways the house didn’t work and she felt burdened by the endless list of domestic chores that seemed to fall disproportionately on her, but she nonetheless embraced this new life with passion and conviction. Why? For starters, she loved my dad and believed in his genius and vision. She was also a longtime political and environmental activist. Lastly, thanks to her strong Protestant work ethic and her progressive Christian faith, she always believed that wisdom and virtue came from labor, sacrifice, and struggle. I think she loved this new, difficult chapter of her life, not despite the challenges but because of them. It made her feel more alive, more connected to her husband and to herself, her planet, and her God.

One particularly hot and restless night in the summer of 2003, while sleeping in my parents’ barn, I awoke with a scary premonition: Things here were not going to end well. My parents were not going to live forever, and I had a feeling that their path ahead might be far more difficult and treacherous than any of us were prepared for. A few months later, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. The next three years were consumed by her illness, including her weekly drives across the state for radiation and chemotherapy. The August after she died, we had a memorial service for her under a tent in the exact same spot in the meadow where my sister and brother had each been married years earlier.

My father lived for eight more years, but his heart was never the same. First it was broken, and then, eventually, it began to fail. What he could do—and wanted to do—shrank considerably. For the first time ever, he stopped planting a garden. “What’s the point?” he said. Mail piled up. Bills went unpaid. Phone calls went unanswered. Dirt and dust collected everywhere. Necessary and long-overdue house maintenance was put off indefinitely. He would spend hours and days sitting and staring, at the clouds in the summer and at the wood fire in the winter. The house he built with his own hands became a waiting room, a purgatory clad in native spruce. One day in November 2013, he couldn’t get out of bed. I was visiting at the time, having driven north from Rhode Island after receiving a call from a concerned neighbor. I remember the ambulance in the front yard, parked on top of my mother’s perennial garden and EMTs dressed in Carhartt overalls taking my dad away on a gurney.

My father died the following August; two months later, we mixed my parents’ ashes and spread them in the meadow as friends and family looked on.

After my father’s death, my siblings and I debated whether to keep the Vermont property. I always thought we would. But the more we talked, the more I realized it was going to be financially and logistically impossible. The buildings were not in great shape. Managing their restoration and preservation was going to be complicated and expensive, and was going to take time, energy, and money that none of us had. Moreover, the property was hard to reach. We also realized that we weren’t simply inheriting a house or a piece of land, but a way of life, a philosophy, a set of values that we all respected but didn’t fully subscribe to. No, we all decided, it wasn’t right—or perhaps the right time—for any of us. With heavy hearts, we decided to let it go.

October 2005

Fast-forward to the summer before last, five years after my father’s death: We were returning to our family homestead, but this time as Airbnb guests. As we approached the house from the long dirt driveway, everything was at once familiar and surprisingly different. I instantly noticed all of the improvements: a new metal roof, new wood siding, and a completely rebuilt breezeway connecting the two houses; lush new landscaping featuring exotic flora and brilliant orange poppies that reminded me of California; a new well, professionally dug, with (I learned later) sweet, cold—and E. coli–free—artesian water.

The interior was stunning and immaculate. Everything seemed carefully and painstakingly finished, no more exposed electrical wires or pipes. A new floor was made out of spotted maple, and a fresh coat of satin varnish covered all the wood surfaces. The decor was modern and sparse—chairs made out of soft Italian leather and German stainless-steel appliances, including a dishwasher and a dryer. To my eyes, the house had never looked better and had never been more beautiful, more finished, more realized. The future looked good on this house. My appreciation was complicated, however, tinged with envy and regret. Why couldn’t this beautifully designed and now brilliantly realized house still be ours?

I also couldn’t help but notice what was no longer there: the vegetable garden; the windmill; the woodshed, wood stoves, and Finnish oven; the solar electric system. The house is now on the grid and comfortably heated with gas, its massive propane storage tank elegantly concealed underground. Sure, the house still looks groovy, but it’s now hippie house lite, like tie-dyes and distressed bell-bottoms one buys at the Gap. It has the counterculture aesthetic but all the dirt, difficulty, and rebelliousness have been removed. As my father might say, “What’s the point?”

But I have come to realize that the new owners have actually been the perfect stewards of our old property. Their careful and systematic restoration has removed the dust, decay, and dysfunction while preserving the essential design and rustic charm. I also realize that it is their house now, not ours, and maybe that’s a good thing. The burden of the property, its deferred maintenance and challenging memories, was too much, and is too much for me still.

The author’s brother, mother, and father. August 2001

Now, two years—and a world of difference—later, I find myself thinking about that piece of pasture in northern Vermont and my family’s 25-year adventure there. We are living through such scary and turbulent times. We are simultaneously in the throes of a resurgent global pandemic and a rapidly emerging climate crisis. Viral death tolls, huge heat domes, megadroughts, and 1,000-year floods mark our daily news. As I write this, dozens of massive western fires burn uncontained, their smoke turning even eastern skies an eerie and unhealthy shade of ocher. The world is changing in ways that many people find hard to believe and hard to endure, but that my parents essentially anticipated. They were preparing for this future; they saw it coming and tried so hard to protect their family—and themselves—from the pain and suffering that they feared it might bring. Now that that future is here, I realize we can’t really escape it. The future always catches up with us, and no matter where we are or where we go, we are all survivalists now.

— Thad Russell is a photographer who lives with his wife and two children in Providence, Rhode Island, and teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

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urgentwait21 · 3 years

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Critical Factors of Emergency Department Overcrowding

As an EMT, I wish I could say my job lived up to the expectations people attach to it: fast-paced, life-saving, screeching-sirens, television-esque first responder work. Sometimes it does and I end each call with a rush of adrenaline and a feeling of accomplishment, then clock out feeling satisfied that I did something.

More and more, though, my job description seems to entail a lot of waiting. Last month, I stood against the ER wall with a patient, waiting for a bed, for five hours. I’ve done this several times. But, I'm lucky; I've had coworkers wait in the ER for fourteen hours.

This doesn’t feel like emergency medicine; like adrenaline and accomplishment. This feels disappointing and dangerous.

These long wait times are due to overcrowding, where patient influx exceeds what an emergency department can handle. Dr. Daniel Fatovich, research director and professor of emergency medicine, calls overcrowding the greatest obstacle facing emergency departments today. Current scholars in emergency medicine agree.

Overcrowding has huge negative effects on patients. Long wait times, delayed pain relief, and poor outcomes are just a few, according to Dr. Robert Derlet, UC Davis doctor of emergency medicine. Some emergency departments (EDs) have resorted to closing their doors during high-volume periods. This causes overflow into other facilities, making the issue worse. Illustrated below is one of these most prominent and dangerous effects: prolonged wait times.

Figure 1: Median length of stay in ED before hospital admission.

Reese, Phillip. (2019). From “As ER Wait Times Grow, More Patients Leave Against Medical Advice.”

Overcrowding is not a new phenomenon, having influenced emergency care for years. The late 90s saw the beginning of strong research efforts into overcrowding. Scholarly interest remains high, since the effects of overcrowding affect everyone in healthcare, from patient to provider to administrator. But even with the last thirty years of research, we’re still seeing epidemic levels of ED crowding. Derlet’s worrying observations, if not fourteen-hour wait times, should tell us a solution is long overdue.

When I stood against the wall for five hours, I naturally began to wonder. Anything motionless in healthcare is very unusual, especially in a fast-paced field like emergency medicine. I wondered what was causing this; and I wondered what was changing in overcrowding, since I’d heard of long wait times in EDs for years.

Looking at the literature reveals something interesting: there’s actually been little change in the causes of overcrowding over time. Comparing old and new literature shows that today’s epidemic blooms from the same roots as thirty years ago. These factors, identified time and time again, must be foundational to overcrowding. This is an important observation; by analyzing this lack of change, we can create better solutions to our current crisis.

---

SHORTHANDED, OVERLOADED

Across time, studies describe staff shortages as a leading cause of overcrowding. Staff shortage, as defined by Schull et. al, includes an absolute lack of employees as well as increased workload per staff member. These same authors call staff availability the single most important factor of overcrowding. Old and new research describes staff shortage in similar ways, splitting it into two components: increased employee workload and raw numbers of staff.

High staff workload stems from intense patient visits. In 1999, Lambe et. al’s data showed that “critical visits to EDs increased by 59% from 1990 to 1999 and that urgent visits increased by 36%.” (p. 430) They write that higher amounts of critical visits play into overcrowding. These higher-acuity visits increase staff workload, exacerbate short-handedness, and slow patient flow.

In 2017, di Somma et. al made an eerily similar finding. Complex and labor-intensive patient care, they say, increases the burden on nursing staff and extends wait times. They specifically mention resource imbalances: low staff availability and high patient-provider ratios. This is a direct echo of Lambe et. al eighteen years prior.

This sparks a vicious cycle of mass burnouts. Providers that drop out from stress increase the workload of others, leading to even more staff fatigue. As staff reach capacity, they simply can’t attend to new patients. These factors -- burnout, high workload, and slow patient processing -- come together to cause overcrowding. This pattern happens at all professional levels of healthcare, from my fellow EMTs to nurses and doctors.

Lambe et. al’s study also found that California lost an eighth of its EDs, or 12.3%, from 1990 to 1999. These EDs closed because they couldn’t amass the resources, namely human capital, to care for patients. This 1999 trend is repeating itself in 2021. EDs are forced to close their doors -- temporarily or permanently -- as shorthanded staff fight against waves of critical patients. di Somma et. al comment that, during their study, several EDs closed due to staff shortage. The authors sound distinctly unsurprised. They cite Hsia et. al’s 2015 study, which finds that recruiting and maintaining staff is a major factor in ED closures. In all studies, the closure of one ED redirects patients to others, directly causing overcrowding.

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COMPLEX CONDITIONS

Staff shortages go hand-in-hand with high patient complexity to cause overcrowding. A “complex patient” is anyone who requires a high level of care. Schull et. al write that patient complexity is critical to overcrowding. They find that a patient’s complexity increases with age, length of stay, and overall health. The authors bluntly state: “...older and sicker patients contribute to overcrowding by virtue of higher acuity and admission rates.” (p. 81) Like staff shortages, this factor shows very little change over time. Studies separated by decades all indicate patient complexity as a cause of overcrowding.

As America’s population ages, patients become more complex, with fragile conditions and longer recovery periods. The poor health of many Americans complicates ED visits, too. For example, diabetes is notorious for complications like poor postoperative outcomes, kidney failure, and heart disease. Almost one in ten Americans have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. With just diabetes, we can easily see how common complex patients are.

Overlapping conditions in unhealthy Americans is common and leads to longer ED stays. From slow-healing wounds in diabetes to the frailty of heart or kidney failure patients, complex patients go to the ED more often and require more care.

When I take a patient to or from the hospital, they usually have established records from frequent visits. Nurses, if I ask for a medical history, rarely waste words. They just point to the laundry list on their computer and let me skim.

Past research noted these trends of increasing age and illness. From twenty years ago, Schull et. al’s study noted these high-complexity patients in overcrowding. Derlet, in 2002, predicted that EDs will see higher numbers of patients with many complex medical problems. He wrote that these high-acuity patients would contribute to overcrowding.

Current studies and trends confirm Derlet’s predictions. di Somma et. al found that complex patients, together with overwhelmed staff, strain ED resources. The 2021 Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) report also finds a link between overcrowding and complex patients. The report states that resource-intensive patients -- specifically the elderly and chronically ill -- slow patient flow. These modern studies find the same causative factors in overcrowding as others did in 2002.

This trend of high complexity will only get worse. Again using diabetes as an example, the ADA writes that 1.5 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes every year. Since Schull et. al’s and Derlet’s articles, an additional 28.5 million diabetics have been diagnosed. America’s population is aging rapidly, too, as illustrated in the graph below. Modern trends in overcrowding mirror these increases in age and illness. Whether twenty years ago or now, research shows that patient complexity is foundational in ED overcrowding.

Figure 2: US seniors (> 65 years old) as share of population. Statista. (2017). From https://www.statista.com/statistics/457822/share-of-old-age-population-in-the-total-us-population

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BED AVAILABILITY

Both staff shortages and patient complexity overlap with bed availability in overcrowding, or the ability for a patient to be seen at all. Past and present literature point to bed availability as a major factor of overcrowding.

Almost every source in past literature places special emphasis on bed availability. Derlet states that filled inpatient beds are a leading cause of ED congestion. Fatovich concurs, finding that American medical beds decreased by 18% from 1994 to 1999.

This factor remains unchanged. The 2021 ASPE report finds that bed availability, proportional to America’s population size, continues to fall at a rate similar to Fatovich’s 1999 finding. The report states, point-blank, that “there are not always sufficient beds” for patient care (p. 5).

The only real change from 1999 is how EDs developed techniques to cope with limited beds. Kim et. al’s 2020 study describes these tactics, including speeding up decision times, rejecting ambulances, and transferring patients to faraway hospitals.

This is deeply worrying. Is the main factor in patient outcomes not quality of care, but if they can be seen at all?

Increases in population with no increase in bed capacity leads to overcrowding. This factor appears in both old and new literature, and its obvious importance means it must be included in a solution. For example, one hospital saw marked decreases in overcrowding after opening more bed spaces, as shared by Fatovich. We may see similar successes by treating this common cause of overcrowding.

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WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

The last three decades of scientific study point to the same root causes of overcrowding: staff shortages, patient complexity, and available bed spaces. As these roots persist, overcrowding, too, remains a fixture of American EDs, growing to epidemic proportions.

I was drawn to healthcare by its constant evolution: its innovations, its value of research, its providers who value new information and constantly seek improvement. Overcrowding being so stagnant captured my attention.

Functional emergency rooms are invaluable. To preserve these vital safety nets, we desperately need a solution to overcrowding. Fortunately, literature shows that such foundational causes have remained consistent over time. Creating strong solutions will be much easier, knowing these key foundations of overcrowding.

I joined EMS to do something. I don’t want to be a hero or warrior or what-have-you, but EMS holds a unique, powerful position as the first point of care for emergency patients. There is so much more I can be doing than standing against the wall in an ED. Despite epidemic levels of overcrowding, though, I remain hopeful. The causes of overcrowding are well-characterized over the past decades of research. We know where to start; we only need to implement a solution. (1795 words)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Diabetes Association. (2015). Statistics About Diabetes. Diabetes.org. https://www.diabetes.org/resources/statistics/statistics-about-diabetes

Derlet, R. W. (2002). Overcrowding in emergency departments: Increased demand and decreased capacity. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 39(4), 430–432. https://doi.org/10.1067/mem.2002.122707

Fatovich, D. (2002). Recent developments: Emergency medicine. British Medical Journal, 324(7343), 958-962. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25228071

Hsia, R. Y., Kellermann, A. L., & Shen, Y.-C. (2015). Factors Associated With Closures of Emergency Departments in the United States. JAMA, 305(19). https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2011.620

Kim, J., Bae, H.-J., Sohn, C. H., Cho, S.-E., Hwang, J., Kim, W. Y., Kim, N., & Seo, D.-W. (2020). Maximum emergency department overcrowding is correlated with occurrence of unexpected cardiac arrest. Critical Care, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13054-020-03019-w

Lambe, S., Washington, D. L., Fink, A., Herbst, K., Liu, H., Fosse, J. S., & Asch, S. M. (2002). Trends in the use and capacity of California’s emergency departments, 1990-1999. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 39(4), 389–396. https://doi.org/10.1067/mem.2002.122433

Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2021). Trends in the utilization of emergency department services, 2009-2018. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/migrated_legacy_files//199046/ED-report-to-Congress.pdf

Reese P. As ER Wait Times Grow, More Patients Leave Against Medical Advice. Kaiser Health News. Published May 17, 2019. https://khn.org/news/as-er-wait-times-grow-more-patients-leave-against-medical-advice/

Schull, M. J., Slaughter, P. M., & Redelmeier, D. A. (2002). Urban emergency department overcrowding: defining the problem and eliminating misconceptions. Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine, 4(02), 76–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1481803500006163

di Somma, S., Paladino, L., Vaughan, L., Lalle, I., Magrini, L., & Magnanti, M. (2017). Overcrowding in emergency department: an international issue. Internal and Emergency Medicine, 10(2), 171–175. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11739-014-1154-8

U.S. - seniors as a percentage of the population 2050 | Statista. (2017). Statista; Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/457822/share-of-old-age-population-in-the-total-us-population/

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