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ofravensandgenesis · 4 years

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The Investment of an Antagonist - Part Three

Entry 04 continued. [Trigger warning content: post contains discussion of Far Cry 5 details for the main villains including violence, brainwashing, torture, child abuse, neglect, emotional manipulation, dark backstories, drug use, cult content, etc. Spoilers for Far Cry 5 inherent. Part 03 of 03.] [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

— Faith —

Lastly we have Faith, née Rachel Jessop, the youngest of the Seed family. The easiest themes to assign to her are unsurprisingly drug-use and escapism. She is an intriguing and complex character with some very beautifully done layers, in particular playing with gender expectations of behavior both in-world and on the meta in what may have been either intended brilliance of foresight or fridge brilliance by the dev team.

Thematically speaking though, as with the other Seeds, she is projecting her past experiences onto others and turning into the abuser in the recreation of her trauma. In this case, it could be taking up the role of a manipulator using soft-coded presentation and masking shaming techniques with positive wording and oblique expectation-pressures to get people to go along with what she’s saying...as well as making them more pliable via the Bliss. It could be that part of her escapism theme manifests as disassociation, separating one’s self and in this case Rachel from Faith, her followers from their worries and problems, and at the most extreme end the Angels from essentially their entire personality and past. In contrast to John, Faith seems to be much more so about forgetting/burying/separating one self from one’s past problems, sins, unhappiness, etc rather than facing it head on. In a way, it could potentially be interpreted as a denial of those aspects of a person, and herself, through the Bliss. This could be a better parallel to how Jacob also breaks the unwilling down in his Trials, albeit for more specifically war-like purposes than Faith. We don’t get to hear if John has opinions on how the “new recruits” up in Jacob’s neck of the woods are treated well or not, but he doesn’t include Jacob in his jab. The absence could be used to infer that John has either separate issues, less issues, or no issues with how Jacob runs things, but that’s the problem with this kind of absence: it lacks definite, concrete matter to build with. We hear only a very vague telling of the details of Faith’s life from Faith directly, which in this instance is going to be presumed to be true, albeit perhaps glossing over the details and told from a carefully crafted perspective for a desired end result. Others also have their own opinions to fill in on the details of Faith as she is and was, and her life before, including but potentially not limited to Tracey and Sheriff Whitehorse, as far as I’m aware at this time. What’s really interesting is the almost split presentation we get at times with Faith: in some moments she is the epitome of her title the siren, bright, friendly, seemingly warm and enticing. Other times she has some lines that cast very long, dark shadows. Three of the phone calls one can find in the Henbane are particularly dark, if one assumes the call with the sounds of a crying woman on the other end to be Faith. Even disregarding that third one, the other two show more of Faith’s darker aspects, as noted below: “Rachel’s so sad and alone. Once was lost, never found. She lead a faithless life and it brought her low. Faith rose up in her, but Rachel stayed low, down. Faith flies divine, and Rachel...Rachel gropes around in the darkness. I left her there, a long time ago.”

The second phone call text:

“A baby is a sack of screaming, shitting, crying impulses with no personality, no thoughts, no understanding of the world beyond feelings. It has no soul. You have to give it one. The only soul we ever have, we receive from others. And it is only others, who can take it away.” One possible interpretation from these two comments from Faith would be that she was very strongly shaped by her family and friends before she ran away with Tracey to join a commune out west. Not into total obedience without personality, but perhaps instead placation and appeasement behaviors, attempting to make the other people in her life “happy” as a form of self-protection coping mechanism to deal with living in an abusive home environment, and later on refined into intentional choices as these lines from her might strongly suggest: "All my life I dealt with people like you. People who underestimate sweet, innocent Faith. You see what you wanna see... a playful butterfly, a delicate flower... a child with childish thoughts. It's easier to disregard a child. Tracey made the same mistake as you. While you all ignored me, I walked right through every one of you." From Faith’s wiki page, it also states that Sheriff Whitehorse talked about “Tracey and Rachel, who were friends, 'joined a free spirit movement in the west, smoking doobies, banging on drums’. But Rachel and Tracey fell on harder drugs and fell out of favor with their community. Tracey searched for a new home and found the Project at Eden's Gate, and Faith decided to return with her to Hope County to join the cult.” From there, with Rachel going through the painful and dangerous process of withdrawal symptoms while attempting to end her addiction, it might be that she also felt that her new self, Faith, or Faith-to-be, was shaped by Joseph and the Project. That this new self was a new soul, and that her old soul, her old identity, Rachel, had been cast away. Perhaps that was another motivation for her to possibly split with Tracey, staying with the cult over staying with her best friend whom she had left her home behind with once before—the friend she’d run away with into the unknown at what was likely a rather young age. Perhaps staying with Tracey, Faith felt too much of Rachel remained. Rachel, the addict. Rachel, the powerless. Rachel, the abused. Perhaps those reminders were too painful for Faith, and she wanted to separate from them as much as possible. If she wanted Tracey to stay though...perhaps she had also hoped Tracey would have a fresh start. That Tracey would be “happier” at the Project. That the two of them would be born anew and cleansed of their sins, as the Project promises. All of the Seeds are in this interpretation trying to cope with their traumas. Faith in this aspect is perhaps the one closest chronologically in time to her trauma, being the youngest, and thus perhaps still emotionally rawer at times underneath it all. Rawer in a more youthful sense, not related to the innocence she tries to project as a front, so much as how she cries out in panic and fear during her boss fight’s finale, when the Deputy strikes the final blow, and how her tone changes when she’s threatened during the fight, talking about how Joseph threatened her and plied her with drugs. In this regard, it is very easy to read Faith as still placating, still coping, still appeasing the powers that be in her life, in this case the Project, Joseph, and the other Seeds to a degree. With being Faith, and not even the first and only Faith but at the very least the third in a series of adopted “sisters,” the danger of being killed, cast aside, or deemed unsatisfactory for whatever reason is very real, and could echo possible fears she’d harbored of her parents, other friends, and community members in her past. How much danger she was in from her parents is unstated as far as I’m aware, but that she was abused and likely was afraid is enough. Fear itself is real enough and a weighty factor in any situation where it exists, as it was meant to be by biological design. So in recreation of that potential trauma-build, Faith placates all of her followers with the Bliss and gentle words, making some members of the Resistance note in commentary that they feel special, loved, cared for. Drawn in to become a part of Faith’s idealized dream of everyone being predictably calm, and open to suggestion. While it is still technically appeasing behavior, with Faith being in control of the Bliss’s drug production and seemingly also the hallucinatory effect it has on people, she is also master of the realm and thus the one with the keys to the kingdom, and I daresay enjoys her power with how she mocks the Deputy upon their return to the Jail after the cutscene of her reasserting control over Burke and the ensuing happenings. Her methods on the surface are soft and appealing seemingly, but she is ultimately now able to control those in her region and under her power with a far more beautifully beguiling and insidious form of puppeteering. She makes a splendid contrast in that regard with how Jacob brainwashes people, with making Angels versus the brainwashed fighters of Jacob’s. Another piece of interesting dialogue regarding the Angels as mentioned by Faith in I believe the Whistling Beaver Brewery is as follows: "Have you seen their faces? On the Pilgrimage? Oh, you should see it. To see the sin fly from their heads and their faces slacken to peace. The vanity shaved from their heads, evil taken from their lips. Never to speak a sinful word, any word, again. It gives me life. Every time a bell rings..." Combining that with the above comment about how Faith believes people don’t have souls until given them and shaped by the others around them, Faith certainly seems to have grabbed the reins on shaping who people are, with the intent to “smooth out” any disagreeable parts. To the point of perhaps erasing a person’s individuality entirely, thus producing an Angel. She like her brothers is also driven by purpose, as she mentions in her first cutscene of being given purpose, and from the random encounter line below: “I’m going to tell you a secret... Eden’s Gate is not here to fix your life. That’s your own selfish dream... No! Eden’s Gate exists to save something greater than you and me. It is here for the Father to bring salvation to the world’s very existence, and you’re trying to destroy that. I put so much hope in you. I thought you’d be special. Was I wrong?” That first bit about not fixing one’s life feels like a potentially open admittance that the Project is not trying to fix people at least in her region, so much as to re-purpose them to the Project’s own ends, and Faith fulfills that with a gentle kind of at-times-gaslit brutality that she selectively applies more forcefully when someone isn’t playing according to Faith’s own preferences. While the doubting may also be real in her case in the later lines, it also serves as shame-based social pressure to not disappoint her, directed at the Deputy as an attempt to erode any resistance they have to conforming to doing the “right” or “sympathetic” thing—as defined by Faith anyway. Its a good bit of manipulation, leaving it blurry whether its outright just intended to influence the Deputy or if she indeed has any doubts. I lean towards the latter for added nuance of emotion, though I do think she’s more than capable and willing of violence and brutality when desired. One minor example among others that comes to mind would be the signs of violence and likely death in the Chan residence, with the implication that Faith sent some of her people to deal with Jasmine and likely kill her, per the blood on the floor and the unsent note contents: “To whom it may concern, Thank you for addressing my complaints about all that noise coming from that Eden’s Gate construction site. One of your representatives (I think her name was Faith, not sure) passed by and said she’d have a word with the people building the statue. She even said she’d make them come by to apologize in person. Although we may disagree on some philosophical matters, it’s nice to see some neighborly etiquette. I look forward to resolving this amicably. -Jasmine Chan” Aside from that, there are also other mentions such as Ethan Minkler overdosing on the Bliss (while that may be a possible accident, the point likely remains that he either died or became an Angel, much to the mayor Virgil Minkler’s grief,) comments by Resistance NPCs about how forced-pilgrims on the Path are sometimes made to crawl on their hands and knees until they bleed, the ones made to jump from the Statue of Joseph and land among the littered bodies of those who did not survive, etc. Ultimately what all of that might be mirroring is her own treatment at the hands of her family and other people in her past, as well as perhaps what Joseph, the Seeds, and the Project asked of her: not to be fixed, but re-purposed. It was never about her, but what she could do for someone, be it her family, friends, or the Project. In that, the Angels are an elegantly simple solution: they are obedient to the wishes of the Project, and are loyal to a fault without any chance of wanting anything to the contrary than what is asked of them, provided they are provided with a steady supply of Bliss (presuming they require it as a continued addiction, though that is purely speculation.) The Angel’s Grave in the Horned Serpent Cave seems to be a lake of boiling muck that is implied to be a mass grave for Angels, per the Grieving Note found therein: “Lana. Christ in heaven what they did to you. The fact that they could make you believe all that nonsense, make you forget yourself so hard. Forget your own name? How, Lana? What did he say to you? What kind of fucking dirtbag blood ritual could make you think your name was “Faith”? Doesn’t matter how, I guess. He told you you were special, but in the end he threw your body in here to disintegrate in the boiling muck, like a common Angel.” This certainly shows the Project has little to no respect for the dead, or at the very least those turned into mindlessly loyal Angel minions. It echoes back to the lack of individuality Faith may struggle with internally as a theme—it may also be that her parents abused her through the unrealistic-expectations archetype of wanting and pressuring her to be what they wanted, without any regard of who she was as an individual or what she wanted out of her life. Perhaps during her life she was treated as nothing more than a commodity, trying to forever appease and live up to her parents’ expectations. I sadly have very little on the Jessop family as a whole, so this is all once again pure fabricated speculation. This lack of personal worth through individuality does thread through the recurring instance of there being multiple Faiths before Rachel, and it is shown in the notes to the two known previous Faiths, Lana and Selena (both referenced from Faith’s article the wiki.) “You’re not the first one, Selena. You’re not the first woman he’s used up and thrown away. For years I’d been hearing this Faith Seed was tall as her brother, with black hair. Couldn’t miss her. And then I saw you in one of their trucks last week, yellow hair in the breeze, and heard them calling you Faith. He thinks he can just SWAP YOU OUT. Like you don’t got a brain of your own. God knows who you are, and so do you. Selena. I love you. Don’t lose yourself to this.” Both of the above notes have mentions to identity issues with taking on the new name of Faith, of losing oneself or forgetting oneself. With the note to Lana and the last note from one of the Faiths there is also the double mention of “being special.” “I just wanted to be special. When Joseph came into my life, I felt like you’d given me a true gift, Lord. That a man who talks to you would bring me in on your holy conversation..? And so I too the name that you gave me, Lord, through Joseph: “Faith.” And I am a woman made anew. But now, I’m ashamed to say, even though I carry this name, my devotion to the Project is..plagued. By Doubt. What do I do? I know you will forgive me, dear Lord. I don’t know if Joseph will.“ The above note titled “A Confession” on Faith’s wiki page is possibly from Rachel, though the wording has me contemplating that it’s likely from someone a bit older, and the style I’m uncertain if I’d attribute to Rachel though I acknowledge that writing and speaking can present very differently. I would expect her to write with a more direct style of wording since presumably she had internet access and was familiar with texting, speculating off of Tracey’s note in the convent that mentioned Tracey being “tired of this 19th-century-ass writing shit.” The pauses via commas and more formal-yet-casual feel of the written cadence, along with more talk of God feels like someone else’s voice rather than Rachel’s, but I could be wrong. But that’s also fitting with the theme of uncertainty of who’s who beneath the name of Faith. Therein lies the loss of individuality and lack of clear denoting of which Faith this was, or is.

— Conclusion —

What I find absolutely fascinating about all of these villains is how they tell the story of the trauma and past experiences through their actions, dialogue, beliefs, and all while moving the main story forward. We do have some direct story telling in the sense of them telling us about those key moments that lead to their revelation and some backstory details, but the fact that even afterwards in a lot of what they do if not all of what they do we can potentially draw more inferences of how they came to be who they are? That is some very beautiful story and character construction in my opinion. In how the past influences their present and relatively speaking future events, so too does their present and future come circling back to tie to their past. This possible feedback loop of influence is just so neat in my opinion and is particularly pronounced here with the Seed family and how they are presented in-game. I feel it works exceptionally well for antagonists but could in theory also work for any main character. The sheer weight of how their past influences them so profoundly is really interesting, and while we all are shaped by our past, it’s particularly highlighted here with the Seeds. Often the trope of a character having a dark backstory is presented as the reason they’re doing X, or are prone to behaving in a certain way (one such popular demeanor being say brooding,) and is particularly common for villains. What I think makes the Seeds for me more interesting in that regard is how individualized their processing of their traumas is. It’s not just out to do evil because they are simply evil and have a backstory to facilitate handwaving as to why they are evil, they’re going about it in a particular way, and have all developed a nuanced system of belief relating to that and likely significantly influenced by those around them as well, with the Seeds all I would say influence each other to varying degrees. Them being a group of villains is part of that complexity with the layers of them having a family dynamic, the cult hierarchy, significantly different styles of managing their affairs while still sharing some core elements, and being such diverse personalities. The Seeds in their entirety as a group are what make or break the story in my opinion, since to have really good conflict I would say you need excellent villains or antagonists, and the Seed family fits that bill in my personal opinion very well. It feels like there was a lot of time and care put into each of the Seeds in different ways and in crafting their stories as well as fitting those stories to the main story of Far Cry 5. The speculation I personally take away from this in terms of developing interesting characters is that sometimes having a very detailed background and having it influence a character heavily and actively both in-scene and on the meta of writing the scene can be really interesting. Obviously sometimes not knowing a character’s past and leaving it a mystery works very well too. But if there’s been care put into how the character is developed and there are in-world, albeit unknown backstory reasons for their actions, words, and beliefs? Then even if we the audience don’t know the reasons, that can make for a very compelling character for audience members to speculate and fill in the blanks about. Obviously there are other builds and exceptions and such for making compelling characters and in particular villains and antagonists, but I do think this style of character construction in relation to the overarching plot is honestly quite gorgeous as a story infrastructure element in its own right and worth taking a look at should it appeal to one to examine it. It’s a really lovely echo of how much investment the dev team’s put into the characters themselves that those characters in-world also care and are heavily invested in what they’re doing and saying too, as an added accent to it all. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, hope you all have a good day/night! [Link to part one here.] [Link to part two here.]

#writing about writing #Far Cry 5 #FC5 #trigger warning content #Faith Seed #Rachel Jessop #long post is long #character study #tw content is listed at the top of the post #antagonists #villains

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mmmmalo · 5 years

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Do you have any thoughts on the super popular headcanon transgirl John?

Been pretty resistant to it, since it doesn’t seem to mesh with the idea of John seeking to merge with the image of Dad, which I’ve read as alternately realized in John becoming the Dad of a family unit and in his gay thoughts (for his Dad or others). But the fact that ‘merging with an image’ is an impossibility that requires interpretation to be brought into reality means there are some exploitable cracks in that position, which I’ll try to outline.

An acquaintance of mine once suggested that John’s dabbling in ectobiology (in Mom’s lab robes no less) constitutes appropriation of the feminine – on the grounds that the scifi trope of penis (bearers) creating life without vagina (bearers) should be viewed not simply as an aspiration to a (gender neutral) God-like capacity for emanation, but as a jealousy of the opposite sex. This would be one approach to June – to read the fantasy of reproduction via busting-out-ghosts (ie manbro bukkake theater) as necessitating a desire to embody feminine characteristics, and to proceed from there.

But I’m also acutely aware that within the confines of heterosexuality, gay thoughts can entail positioning oneself as the opposite gender (in a “i would have to be a girl to like guys!” sort of way) – which is to say, John “i am not a homosexual” Egbert could potentially reconcile that statement with his attraction to men by identifying as a girl (even if that’s in tension with the identification with Dad that’s packaged with the attraction to men?) – but this is not necessarily the case, since depending on the configuration of John’s head, he could just as easily come to the realization that he does /not/ have to be a girl to like guys, and that his statement was a denial.

[Tangential: I read Nedry in Jurassic Park as being gay before (x) on the basis of his loading an embryo (amber mosquito) into a phallic symbol (shaving cream) and later being blinded by bukkake (poison spit), but for similar reasons as the above, I suppose trans woman is also a valid reading]

There’s also the matter of Nanna – that John’s birth entailed her mortal fall from the ladder could imply that John actually sees Nanna as the image from which he is descended (and thus seeks to return to), though this is in tension with moments that imply Dad is highest… likewise, since kernelsprites represent wishes, the existence of Nannasprite swings the pendulum towards identification with the feminine… while John’s association of clowns with Dad swings the pendulum right back again, perhaps suggesting Nannasprite as the reconciliation of the competing ideals. (Perhaps related to how Jane aspires to certain masculinized ideals while still viewing herself as a girl?)

More on that tension: on pages 48-50, John swings from vilifying the aromas of his nemesis Betty Crocker (Dad is actually the one who bakes, so the aromas are actually Fatherly?), to insulting Dad and the associated harlequins, to waxing romantic on transcendent Platonic Forms at the fireplace (above which sits the image of Nanna and her ashes). This is also the moment where John invokes pale fire snatching its light from the sun, which brings us to the Thief of Light.

It’s very interesting that Vriska interrupts a dream in which John nearly re-unites (ie merges) with (the image of) Dad. (And in the subsequent conversation no less, John reads Vriska’s elongation of his name as “June”) Could be related to John discussing how Dad is more of a half-brother than a father, while acknowledging Nanna as the true source? And thus the true target of aspiration.

Also interesting that Vriska acknowledges that John’s session is doomed to fail, in light of her seemingly representing John’s realization that he cannot (or does not want to?) become his father. Her insistence that he should try to win anyway (because winning is the only point of anything) also seems loaded in the context of the parallel discussion of ideals… likewise, John’s insistence that winning is still possible becomes an insistence that dreams CAN come true. Vriska manifests again as John muses on the desecration (and decaptation?) of his Con Air poster, upon which Nic Cage has become a sad clown… which relates to John’s ongoing disillusionment with Dad…? (Finding out that Dad was a boring businessman was a while ago though). Reminds me that the phrasing of ‘reunite with your loving wife and daughter’ can at once represent union with the masculine role of husband AND union with the feminine… so I’m lost again? Very possible that masculine/feminine is just an inadequate dichotomy, but let’s ignore that and press forward.

(I am skipping around re-evaluating the events surrounding conversations with Vriska at this point, since the circumstances of her intro seem to be a pivot)

…in John’s first conversation with Kanaya (after which Vriska manifests for the Remember Me date) is prompted by John preparing to send his gift to Jade, which I don’t know what to make of. However, the conversation dips into a discussion of Contact (need to watch), pivoting on the ambiguous reality of Jodie Foster’s vision of her Dad, which Matthew [horse-noises] has faith in – so we’ve returned to the topic of John musing on his own dreams of Dad, and everything that entails. That reminder is followed by perhaps the most damning exchange:

…which suggests that the applicability of John’s tangent is gender skepticism? But let’s return later to evaluate the resulting Vriska convo – I want to stay linear here. Vriska next manifests as John prepares to kiss Ghost Dad:

…after which Vriska mostly berates John for waiting around and not doing things when he’s supposed to, despite her being the very reason that he is forced to wait. This seems appropriate insofar as union with the Father also represents union with the divine will (in the Stoic sense), to which the Heir of Breath’s openness to suggestion is an end. So the confusion and frustration of Vriska’s orders constitutes an interruption of this fantasy of doing exactly what you’re supposed to do (ie what god/the player tells you to do), which is visually represented by Vriska preventing John from kissing Bill Cosby? I think… though since John’s present objective is to meet up with Nannasprite, I feel like the roles are blurring again… (even more so when Nanna reminds John that he is also sort of HER father)

John’s penchant for playing pranks on the bossy aliens who claim to rule him, submitting disingenuous words for them to repeat, is also a disruption of this supposed order… and/or John’s way of claiming the God-status for himself? Vriska makes the disruption of the way things are ‘supposed to be’ more explicit later when she berates John for initiating a conversation…

Anyway, the rest of this gets very rambly and speculative, so I’m placing it under the cut. Long, incoherent read.

The next “moment” that strikes me spans from 3386 to 3468, from John spotting the Hussie-Rufio kiss in the clouds to Vriska’s giant X-marks-the-spot. Crucially, these moments (emphasizing a father-son kiss and feminine anatomy) are bridged by Seek the Highbl00d – implying that that flash functions as an expression of John’s thoughts, just as Return to the Core was an expression of Jade’s thoughts. What follows is an attempt to make sense of the dream – I expect to fail in some capacity, but I will do my best.

3386: Hussie emphasize that Rufio saw Peter as a father-figure, so Hussie’s attempted revival involve bestowing the breath of life upon a son-figure. SMOOCH! (It bears repeating that the insertion of the divine breath into inert matter also has bearing as John’s self-conception as a video game avatar, animated by a divine will)

3393: The kiss appears in the clouds of Skaia above John, meaning that the thought of being kissed by his Dad is running though his head. He is transfixed by this image (for hours!)

3401: Since the instillation of breath into inert matter is often tinged with traces of necrophilia (corpsesmooch!) WV imbibing shaving cream “like the wind” seems like a euphoria tinged with sensuality, as though John leafing through his Dad’s wallet with a recently conferred sense of responsibility is akin to Terezi falling in red kool-aid (there’s no way he’s not getting off on this)

3410: WV compared buckling himself into the drivers seat to his (imminent) assumption of the title of mayor. The position of driver linked to a role of authority…

3414: …so as John takes off into the sky, we get another peak at the moment that Gamzee first declared himself God, to insinuate John similarly feels like he’s on top of the world. The SBaHJ complements this – John is riding his 4-wheel device into the sky (thus achieving unreal air) up to a cloud labeled clown (which is associated with fatherhood). John feels as though he’s achieved the ideal.

3419: The main takeaway from John’s conversation with Jade for me is that he is anxious about the idea of his Dad marrying Mom (jealousy?) and also anxious about idea of himself getting married… inclined to read this as John getting antsy about some of what (he believes) being an adult man necessarily entails, which here means getting wife. The comment about “a shipping grid made by an alien” strikes me as a tongue-in-cheek jab at heterosexuality as GOD’S PLAN, given John and Karkat’s previous conversation about Superman.

It’s also striking to me that the many of the cloud visions John describes were of Jade, if the idea that the clouds function as internal mirrors holds. I suppose the vision of Jade surrounded by frogs means he’s thinking of reproduction, even before he brings of romance… and Jade worrying about if the frogs are going in a cauldron is interesting, considering her infanticide motifs…anyway,

3420: John commented about discomfort at the Crosby tops blinking at the beginning of the Jade convo, and now that it’s staring me in the face I feel compelled to contend with it. I think… it’s sort of a call back to page 1, with John blinking and staring directly at the camera. The moment of locking eyes across the forth wall – the moment orders started entering the command prompt, the moment union with God (the player) started. I’m not sure if, looking at that blinking computer, John regards himself as the player or the played.

Anyway, Karkat has manifested, and he is terrified of Gamzee – John asks him what’s up, which in context of the above is a haunting echo of Gamzee’s first line, which then too functioned as a questioning of the nature of hierarchy. (“What /is/ up? What is authority? What is divinity?” - you have to read it literally) John makes WV stop honking the car in response to Karkat’s mortal terror of honking – not sure if this means John is the Gamzee figure, all the car beeps triumphant honks upon having ascended to the domineering position of godhood, or if John is Karkat here, experiencing terror of the various potentials of his ascension. Perhaps both, perhaps neither. Moving on…

3422: John contacts Karkat (again, reversing the way that trolling is “supposed” to work… I think John is the only kid to initiate contact pre-act 6?)… but otherwise I’m not getting a lot out of this conversation. The panel though, I will note, uses the arrangement of clouds from 4 panels prior to emphasize that John is heading towards and unseen castle. After the upcoming sequence, he will crash into a tree… suggesting that Seek the Highbl00d represents an end to whatever high John’s currently on?

3427: Karkat just took a fall down some stairs in response to the terror of a honk… which places him squarely on Earth instead of Heaven… (important only insofar as it establishes Gamzee as high and Karkat as low, for the purposes of this scene). Terezi manifests, poorly attempting to hide her excitement about murder (which makes sense, since murder!Gamzee originally manifested for Karkat?). This implies that Karkat’s own terror is accompanied by titillation… and retroactively means that John’s anxiety about sex masks an excitement that he regards as unbecoming?

Then Terezi honks – ostensibly, because Gamzee has claimed her glasses (leading Karkat/us to believe she has been killed). But the appearance that Terezi honked is perhaps equally important…? It’s as though the enthusiasm for murder which Gamzee presently embodies has possessed her, as she kissed Tavros’s corpse? (Worth noting that the depiction of her corpse-smooch directly preceded the Hussie-Rufio kiss, which John responds to by… getting in the car and honking a bunch, as he approaches the sky-image of a megalomaniacal Gamzee?)

3431: Things are getting weird now, and I’m starting to lose my grip on how this all relates to John. Quoth Equius, “Are you saying the highb100d has finally embraced his position atop the hierarchy” (in response to happy Gamzee murder times) – which in context suggests that this is well within what John considers the tyrannical rights of a father, somehow. Or of a God, I suppose – whatever you wanna call that-which-occupies-the-highest-rung….

Also, seeing as Karkat is manifesting for Equius, Karkat asking if Equius is still strong means Equius is questioning his own strength… why? The only context we get is that he is looking at Nepeta, and is somehow enmeshed in Egbert’s psychodrama…

CG: THE POINT IS, IF YOU SEE HIM, WOULD YOU MIND SNAPPING HIS STUPID WAND IN HALF OR SOMETHING? CG: AND THEN CHOKE HIM TO DEATH WITH HIS OWN SHITTY PRETENTIOUS SCARF.

Weird future-echoes of Equius’s death in Karkat’s words… the motif of Breath is definitely significant, seeing as the transmission of the animating breath of life is the key act of God here, and thus representative of total domination…? Whereas choking the breath out of someone would mean…?

I’m getting ahead of myself, perhaps.

CG: JUST DO WHAT I SAY, OK. CT: D –> I will 100k into it

An ominous note to end on, given that Equius’s willingness to combat orders from above is part of his conflict here.. but also, because of the motifs of self-alienation, orders from above /includes/ orders from within (ie urges)…? Or should I consider those at odds, in an id/super-ego kind of way? God I’m confused

3437: All I’ve gathered from Terezi’s proceedings here (which lead into Seek the Highbl00d) is that she is projecting all of her concepts of criminal debauchery onto Vriska – which you could compare to all the absurd clown theatrics that John used to project onto Dad, but there’s no particular reason to privilege that at the moment…

I will admit that John’s fear of disillusionment (of the collapse of the ideal, the fall from the Pleroma to Earth) is giving me some confirmation bias which may be clouding/guiding my appraisal of the proceedings. I will try to remain openminded.

3438 (Seek the Highbl00d): Oh boy here we go

This is… something? Cats are a child symbol, so to call someone feline-obsessed is to call them baby crazy (see: Roxy). Earlier, John was “joking” about a desire to sink the Mom-Dad ship – and later, Bec Noir’s murder of Mom and Dad realizes the fantasy (Noir’s bloody footprints lead Rose to John, further implicating him as source). If Equius and Nepeta are doing parodies of eachother’s masculinity/femininity here, only to be brutally killed, could this be regarded as precursor…? But the deaths themselves bear no resemblance at all…

I guess the idea of Dad having Equius’s attitude of being SO PROUD that his son has finally decided to kill him for supremacy is funny to me (even more so, but I’m not sure that it checks out…

…okay, when Nepeta is checking out her shipping wall she emphasizes the role reversal in Karkat Gamzee so I guess that’s our focus here?

…for Nepeta to enter the grate placed along the wall of ships makes it as though she entering the wall, the unreal place where all the possible union are true? Or that could just be where the grate is

…Kanaya sliced the left most transportalizer, which prevents her from being followed, but also from going back where she came from. Gamzee’s “miracles” imply a child-like state of blissful ignorance – the announcement of a miracle at this juncture, along with Nepeta travel in the direction that Kanaya has marked as impossible, make it seem as though Nepeta is going into the past…? So the horror of what Nepeta sees in the final grate should reflect a (possibly falsified) rendition of the past?

…likewise the arrow fired into the chessman’s eyes seems to suggest being blinded by the light (also the motif with Rose jabbing her ogre’s eyes out), hinting that some horrible truth lies ahead.

The truth being that, like Equius, John finds joy not in domination but submission? Or the reverse, if Gamzee is the figure of identification…? Or if this is truly a look into the past, this would be how John has come to regard his own relationship with Dad? As brutal subjugation, and forced deference? Which he has nonetheless come to fetishize (as per Equius’s ecstasy)? (If this were absolutely a memory, it would not be outlandish to accuse Dad of sexual abuse, given how Equius looks like he’s giving Gamzee head while he’s being choked, as though Equius were actually gagging on a dick. But for lack of any other instance of this coming up, it seems more likely to me that John has eroticized otherwise normal interactions with Dad?)

…but then what of the death of Nepeta? Is her failed attempt to avenge herself upon this past also a part of the dream? Does Gamzee scarring himself imply and integration of Equius’s knack for taking pleasure in pain?

3462: …or rather, Nepeta’s death marks the exact point that we exit the dream, the car’s beeps one again replacing Gamzee’s honks. So it’s as though she was John’s eyes, preparing to die a second death at the hands of the patriarch, and the result is an awakening, and fall back to Earth (crashing the car again).

3465: Oh goody, Vriska’s manifesting in response to all of this as John arrives at the castle. Please enlighten me Vriska, I’m dreadfully confused.

3466: Vriska telling John he looks great with his hood up reminds me of Vriska telling him how great he looks in her clothes, making me wonder if the windsock hoodie is being construed as long hair. In which case, as per Egbert’s weird gendering of hierarchy, it’s possible that his ultimate refusal to consider upending the total authority of (his image of) Dad comes with the feminization of himself…? Hence Vriska’s current interjection.

3467: …the doubt and regret surrounding Vriska’s lifetime of murder is loaded in a way I am utterly failing to parse. I don’t think Homestuck ever painted aggression as a ‘masculine virtue’ or whatever so there’s no reason to take John’s vocal horror at the bloodshed as a feminine thing.

3468: X marks the spot…. why here, though?

…Vriska seems to be making the connection between violence and sexuality, both noting that the game selects players on the cusp of sexual maturity and contending that if Karkat hadn’t done such a great job of brokering the peace between teams, perhaps more of them would have god tiered…

Her observation that the dead-girl (Aradia) had John’s same laptop is ominous for some reason. I know the kids have a paranoia that they are in the Matrix, and that if the die/wake up, they will suddenly be real – but stuff like this always makes me paranoid that someone is /actually/ secretly dead, like Aradia. Hate that feeling.

…more likely that John views himself as metaphorically dead, as a mere hollow vessel before the divine will, and thus feminized before God? But my ability to parse all of this deteriorated like 20 pages ago.

3475: involves Vriska and John musing how alike they are in emulating their ancestors, for anyone who wasn’t aware that was a Thing

…and we’re done. Well that was pointless. Let’s go to the point were dead!John and Vriska go on a date. Vriska opens up with a reminder that she made John change close, then mostly teases John about how she will kill him, as John intermittently brings up Little Monsters.

Did you know that in Little Monsters, the tire swing is used to represent a noose? It’s like when Vriska accused John of being obsessed with her as he attempted to prototype Grandpa’s blue beauties… the undertone was that he was obsessed with death (through the medium of the crypto corpses). Which is, more characterization of the dead/vessel as implicitly feminine or?

…I’m not learning a lot going through their d8 again, but I sure am getting sad.

…Yeah I’m getting nothing, psychology-wise. We’re done here.

#Anonymous #homestuck reread 3 #john #dad #vriska #equius

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timhatchlive · 4 years

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The Trouble With Unholy Alliances

For the better portion of 1 and 2 Kings, we have looked at the troubles sin and national apostasy has brought on the Northern kingdom of Israel while Judah in the South has remained in the background. We remember that Judah and Benjamin stayed loyal to the house of David while the 10 northern tribes of Israel followed the detestable ways of the nations around them, barely staying in existence at times and being constantly saved by God's prophets.

Now in 2 Kings 9, the southern kingdom will have to be saved from the northern kingdom's evil ways. God does this, not because they deserve it but because He is faithful to His promises. And that matters for you and me. But let's look at what happens first.

2 Kings 8:16–17 (ESV) In the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign. 17 He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.

We are introduced to a new king in Judah named Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat. The numbers in this passage are ominous as he only reigned 8 years. Jehoshaphat was a righteous king who tore down altars and sought to restore righteousness to the nation of Judah. He reigned for 25 years. The parallel accounts of 2 Chronicles reveals the extent of his reforms. The account of 1 Kings specifically mentions this:

1 Kings 22:46 (ESV) And from the land he exterminated the remnant of the male cult prostitutes who remained in the days of his father Asa.

In sum, Jehoshaphat was a righteous reformer and as a result, God blessed him abundantly with riches and honor. Yet his son Jehoram will not follow his father's lead. We pick the story back up in 2 Kings 8...

2 Kings 8:18 (ESV) And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.

The son of the righteous Jehoshaphat departed from God's word and his father's example. He instead followed the evils of perhaps the Bible's most wicked king. Why? Because he married his daughter.

Never underestimate the bad influence a pagan can have on a Christian in marriage. I warn young people regularly of these dangers. The sexual union of man and wife is strong as God intended it to be. But the ruler of this world (Satan) will regularly use that union to topple people's faith by luring them into unholy alliances in marriage. Case in point - it was his wife, not his father that decimated Jehoram's spirit.

Now this alliance will weaken Jehoram as Edom will revolt from Judah and attack. The chapter summarizes Jehoram's defeat:

2 Kings 8:21 (ESV) Then Joram passed over to Zair with all his chariots and rose by night, and he and his chariot commanders struck the Edomites who had surrounded him, but his army fled home.

Having chariots was a sign of wealth for an ancient nation. But when unrighteousness is in the heart, it doesn't matter what's in your hands. Jehoram is humiliated by Edomites. And the hits keep coming in the chapter:

2 Kings 8:22 (ESV) So Edom revolted from the rule of Judah to this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time.

What's worse, the son of Jehoram, Ahaziah will also marry into Ahab's family and lead the nation of Judah into further disrepute. This is the problem with unholy alliances. They have a way of wearing down your defense against the enemy and destroying whatever strong life you once enjoyed.

This post may not be very "Happy" but my prayer is that it makes you holy. Your future is too important to God. I share this so that it's important to you.

Now you may be married to someone with unbelief and divorce is not the answer as 1 Peter 3 and 1 Corinthians 7 shares. But here is some hope. God will not abandon YOU and His promises are yours in Christ Jesus in spite of your marital situation.

We read in the middle of this sad account these words:

2 Kings 8:19 (ESV) Yet the LORD was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of David his servant, since he promised to give a lamp to him and to his sons forever.

God kept His promise to David even when David's own descendants walked away from the Lord. The Lord will keep His Word over you. He will protect you and strengthen you. And I pray you know it and feel it every day.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3cFehwo

#2 Kings #Bible #Christiainty #God #Holy Spirt #influence #Jesus Christ #marriage #sin #Truth

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keyofjetwolf · 5 years

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The Chosen: All the notes and answers to shit you wondered about for years

Hey. Hi there. How are you? I’m good, thanks for asking.

So, you remember when, at the beginning of the year, I said I was officially retiring my Buffy the Vampire Slayer continuation, The Chosen? If this is the first you’re hearing of it, a) SORRY TO DROP THAT ON YOU, and b) you may want to read this post first.

All caught up? Awesome.

I told you guys I’d share my stuff. This right here is that. I’ve searched through countless backups, terabytes of data, the remnants of three computers, AND MY SOUL (not really my soul; it doesn’t have a convenient find option), and I think this is everything. If there’s anything left of The Chosen that isn’t contained here, then it’s almost certainly lost to time and I wave it a fond farewell.

But don’t worry. There’s a lot here.

What I have for you are all the notes, plans, and ideas that I had written during the time when The Chosen was pretty much my entire world. From late 2003 to mid 2005, I was on my Buffy creative shit, and OH THE PLACES I WANTED TO GO. I’m not sure I’ll ever not be sad that, in the end, I couldn’t do it the way I wanted. Still, I’m glad to finally be showing you where we were heading.

I’ll try to give this as much order as I can, but my notes were strewn across a mass of files, and in some cases, I straight up can’t remember what the fuck I even meant any more. Feel free to ask if you have questions! Just be prepared that the answer may have to be an apologetic shrug.

I’m not sure what to wish for you all in the reading here. Closure, of some kind, I suppose is what we’re really all after. So closure it is! Happy closing, friends.

Thank you so much for allowing me to have captured your interest and attention, and for accompanying me and these characters I loved on the journey toward the ending I hoped for them.

** Any comments from present-me will be marked in this format. Otherwise, everything is untouched from how I wrote it whenever-the-fuck ago. Section headers are either as I named them at the time, or taken from the file name.

S8 Ideas

General Ideas

Rogue Slayer girl ' 'Full Circle'; Faith-centric.

Possessing demons ' personification of control ' W&K breakup episode.

Xander gets powers, but in exchange for his humanity. Comes to realize that his humanity is what his friends need, and he gives up the power.

Dawn's key powers are reawakened ' ability to unlock and enter doorways to parallel dimensions/realities and back again. Episode where this happens and she visits a parallel world (where she is the Slayer?). Possibly triggered by Doc, seeking to reawaken Glory?

Monster that eats body parts to rejuvenate them.

Emotion sucker.

Incubus that tries to seduce Buffy in her dreams.

Siren/rock group ' playing in club.

Faith/Buffy/other Slayers hunted for sport.

Super Slayer, enhanced by the DC. Big Bad? Guinea pig.

Legion of Super Slayers, created from life force of girls who reject the offer to join the DC.

Things to Name and Figure Out

The name of the new town.

New town is in center of three-Hellmouth triangle, consisting of Cleveland, Ohio, Syracuse, NY, and Washington DC. The gang is settled in a fictitious town in Pennsylvania, not far from Williamsport.

Name derived from three? Trinity, Trillium, etc.

The name of the Bronze replacement. (The Vortex?)

The name (and personality) of Kennedy's new Watcher.

The name (and personality) of the turncoat (the girl Giles talks to in Ep #1)

The name (and personality) of the girl Faith recruits (future cannon fodder)

Better name for the Dark Council.

Better name for the Dark Coven.

Assorted Ideas and Quotes

Scene: Someone shopping at a local bulk warehouse place. How much to Slayers eat? A LOT.

Possible use for the drug from "Helpless" that neutralizes Slayer powers?

Scene: Junior Slayers fighting monster. One says "You ARE the weakest link... Goodbye!" The others make fun of her for using such an outdated pop culture reference. She pouts that they should add a class about banter to the Slayer curriculum.

QUOTE: "D'you ever think sometime we should, you know, run AWAY from the blood curdling screams?"

QUOTE: Buffy doubts Tara's return. Willow: "What, you hold exclusive resurrection rights?"

QUOTE: Tara and Dark Coven guy. Tara: "She'll kill me. After I do this...Buffy will kill me." DC: "After you do this, will you care?"

QUOTE: "Excessive? I think you and excessive have already met in a head-on collision and exchanged insurance information."

QUOTE: Tara talking about doing stuff with Dawn: "You know, shopping, getting our hair done ... girl things." Willow: "I like your girl things."

QUOTE: Someone's sick, but denying it. They cough, get an accusing glance. "I just have something stuck in my throat." "Yeah, it's called ILLNESS."

QUOTE: Faith to somebody, possibly a young Slayer, who goes on at length about what they're going to do to a bad guy or deal with some serious challenge or something similar. "You're full of crap, you've got no idea what you're talking about. (beat) But you mean what you say, so that's gotta count for something."

Notes

1st ep

fate of SS's

Dawn's powers

X taking Watcher's courses

G distancing

W going to grad school

B/T going back to school

prophecy bits

G gets ring

Buffy bit - blood

Ante released

Season 9 Ideas

based on 7 samurai - group of people want to come in and hire the seven to clean something out

something happens where buffy or dawn disappears and the other goes to find them

core four have notoriety as evil forces (four horsemen) with some other community

sdhs reunion episode

"Demon that draws strength from guilt, hate, love, etc. Especially bad if it gets hold of Faith..."

---

I had a really cool thought about Buffy and relationships while I was in there though, which I think I'll have to work into The Chosen.

A common thread in each of her big relationships (Angel, Riley, Spike) is that when she tells them she loves them, they don't believe her.

Well Angel does, but he doesn't think she loves him enough. When he leaves, it's despite her telling him over and over that she loves him enough that him being a vampire and them not being able to do "normal" things doesn't matter. He doesn't believe her, and so leaves.

Riley tells Buffy during their big pre-him-leaving fight, that when she says she loves him, he "doesn't feel it". His disbelief in her and her words causes him to leave.

Then there's Spike. Final episode, Buffy finally tells him that she loves him. "No you don't. But thanks for saying it." And then he dies.

At this point in Buffy's life, there are a lot of reasons why Buffy wouldn't want a relationship in my opinion. But not the least of which is the fact that she MUST be able to answer the question of why none of these guys she loves ever believe her? (Even if you don't think she did love Spike, to Buffy I doubt that would matter -- HE didn't believe her EITHER [and how dare he not believe me, by the way!]).

It's a concept I just managed to sort out (in the shower, of course), and I don't think it's an "obvious" connection, but I do think it's an extremely valid one. I think before I'm done, I'll have to work this into the story somehow. And not resolve it, because I don't think it's easily resolved, and I think it's an issue outside the scope of what I'm trying to do, but I think the issue should be raised.

Season 9 Episode Ideas

Episode where everybody speaks in rhymes. Possible reintroduction for Faerie character?

De-aging episode, Giles' 50th birthday. Courtesy of Ethan Rayne. ("Many Happy Returns"?) Zaps Giles, Willow, Buffy and Xander back to four or five or so, leaving Tara, Faith and Dawn to look after them.

Episode dealing with the murderers in the group: Faith, Willow and Giles. Finch's son/daughter hunts down Faith to (confront? get revenge?) for his death. Sub-plots for Willow/Warren and Giles/Ben. Interesting to note that Faith is the only one who has ever shown any regret for her murder.

Herculean labors parallel. Xander? ("Labor Day"?)

Seven deadly sins with each main character embodying one of the sins? The one least like themselves?

Buffy: Greed

Willow: Sloth

Xander: Pride

Giles: Envy

Tara: Wrath

Dawn: Lust

Faith: Gluttony

Some other Slayer in the past, fighting an enemy that arises today. The gang have to read through the old Watcher's diaries to learn about him and how she defeated it. Shows this old Slayer and her Watcher via flashback. Maybe our Big Bads?

The characters get sent into Faerie Tales where they're forced to sort of act out the tales they're in.

Inanimate creation of some sort (puppet like) who makes other inanimate objects come to life. Specifically mannequins, by switching them out for real people. Some Scoobies, of course, fall victim to this.

Xander getting set up on blind dates. Amusing segment where Xander explains to date after date about what happened to his eye, each reason becoming more and more outlandish. Finally he just gives up and tells the truth - "It was gouged out by a crazy preacher man." The date laughs: "You're so funny!" Could end with Xander getting fixed up with the girl we introduced in S8 and possibly have seen a few times since then - Xander's love interest.

Revisit ideas: nameless, faceless army for the good guys, what are we doing with our army?

Tara dealing with family issues. Why am I back? Madrigan as new father.

Banan the collector

Alt world where Core4 seen like 4 horsemen (Title: "The Four"?)

Conversation where some characters are guessing who would've been the next successor to the Slayer line.

"Other side" episode with dead characters

Buffy/Dawn ep about Buffy's role in Dawn's life. Seeing the others intreract with her, wondering what her place is in Dawn's life. Parallel with flashbacks about VS and her sister. Starts with Buffy finding Grip and Dawn making out, leads to Buffy giving Dawn "the talk" and failing miserably. ("Sometimes, after you and a guy ...... they CHANGE.") Dawn learns nothing, goes to Tara from there, who knows nothing about having sex with a guy, but is supportive and encouraging. Buffy overhears and then begins to try to find how she fits into Dawn's life. We learn at the end that although B/D are vastly different from the VS and her sis, the bond is still just as strong.

Willow (and Tara) meeting up with Willow's parents again.

Big Bads

Vampires, return to the simpler times a bit. Not apocalyptic, but personal. Female vamp with a real mad-on for Buffy. Pissed because Buffy failed to save her? Also possibly some sort of vampire army. Fem is a modern-day Sun Tzu, right hand to this guy in charge of everything.

Addition (3Jul04): After some discussion, we're leaning toward making the femvamp a Slayer who was turned waaaay the heck back when. Possibly held or captured by some other vampire later on in life, and she was released by the head of the army, thus earning her allegiance. Maybe she's Japanese and thus very honourable? If we take her from 1600 or 1700's Japan, that might work out well. Might also give added weight to why her soul has no bearing on halting her quest for vengeance - honor demands that her sister's death be avenged. Possible imagery: maybe she was tortured by whoever held her? The mental image of big ol' cross scar over her eye is intriguing.

Season 9 Episode Chart

Notes

Need to work out (soon!) everybody's hell stuff so it can be incorporated into earlier episodes.

Willow versus hacker vamp idea. Why? What's at stake? Possible fill for humour ep at 9x16?

Corollary: Replot Willow's arc through S9 and possibly into S10.

Get new prophecy for Giles.

Work in at least one other prophecy stanza this season. Important to figure out soon. Who, when, how?

** This was a chart which doesn’t translate well to Tumblr, so I’ll break the cells apart and show column separation with ||

Updated - 22 June 2005

Ep # || Monster/Conflict || Plot Developments || Focus

9x01 || Vamps || Buffy kills Hitakno || Group

9x02 || Dante || Faith comes home || Faith

9x03 || Slone || Sunnydale HS reunion in LA || Group

9x04 || Vamps/Demons || Yuugana arrives in Trillium, Xander quits the Council || Xander

9x05 || Belastung || Tara goes home. || Tara

9x06 || Ethan || Giles birthday, Scoobies regressed || Giles

----------------- NOT YET AIRED -----------------

9x07 || Slayer || Demon girl on run from Slayer. Buffy and Slayer at moral odds. Dawn key powers awaken fully. || Buffy/Dawn

9x08 || Amy || Amy cashes in on Willow's debt. (Fake) Buffy accompanies. || Willow

9x09 || D'Hoffryn || Xander makes a wish that Anya hadn't died. || Xander

9x10 || The Furies || The Furies drive Finch's child to revenge. While they're here, they decide to spread the love. || Faith/Giles

9x11 || ??? || Funny episode - Camping trip? || Group(??)

9x12 || Yuugana || Faith visits Hazel's parents (Xander accompanies). Upon return to Trillium, is attacked and nearly killed by Yuugana. || Faith/Xander

9x13 || Yuugana/General || Sister's parallel. Buffy and Dawn, Yuugana and Hitanko. Yuu's backstory. General arrives, drains Willow and Dawn. || Yuugana/Buffy

9x14 || Yuugana/General || Buffy insists that the gang re-ensoul Yuugana. They do so; it makes no difference. Buffy attacked, put in coma. || Buffy/Group

9x15 || Antediluvian || In an effort to save Buffy, Tara, Xander, Dawn and Kennedy go in search of Ruth, and the Antediluvian. || Tara/Group

9x16 || ??? || Funny episode - ??? || Willow(??)

9x17 || The General || The General's plans come to fruition. || Group

9x18 || Giles' Demon || A demon Giles thought defeated years ago comes back to continue their arrangement. || Giles

9x19 || 7 Sins || The Seven Sins are unleashed on the Scoobies. || Group

9x20 || The General/Yuugana || The General releases Yuugana and they formulate a new plan involving Dawn. Yuugana kills the General and takes Dawn as bait. || Group(?)

9x21 || Yuugana || Part 1. Yuugana takes Dawn into the Private Hell place where she was recently kept. The Scoobies must follow. || Group

9x22 || Yuugana || Part 2. The Scoobies fight their way through their personal hell. Buffy vs Yuugana. || Group

Original Chart

** “VS” stands for “vampiric slayer”, so Yuugana before she had a name.

Ep # || Monster/Conflict || Plot Developments || Focus

9x01 || Vamps || Buffy kills the VS's sister || Group

9x02 || Serial killer || Faith comes home??

9x03 || ?? || Sunnydale HS reunion in LA || ??/Group(?)

9x04 || ?? (vamps?) || VS arrives in Trillium || ??/Group(?)

9x05 || ?? || Tara goes home. VS denied immediate revenge. || Tara

9x06 || Amy || Amy collects on debt. Wants Will to help her get a book. || Willow/Buffy

9x07 || Ethan Rayne || Giles birthday/regression || Giles

9x08 || Doc || Dawn & Doc - Key powers fully awoken || Dawn

9x09 || Finch's child (furies?) || Murderers haunted by past || Faith (lesser: W, G)

9x10 || D'Hoffryn || Xander's wish (Anya) || Xander

9x11 || VS/?? || Sister's parallel episode || Buffy/Dawn

9x12 || Monster in woods || Camping trip (Tara and blade of grass) || Group

9x13 || VS || Buffy vs. VS -- VS ensouled, Buffy drained || Buffy

9x14 || VS minions(?) || Buffy injured. Group goes after Antediluvian || Tara/Group

9x15 || ?? || "Labor Day" (Kenn still around) || Xander

9x16 || artifact || 7 Deadly Sins || Group

9x17 || Computer Program || Willow and the computer program || Willow

9x18 || ?? || Faith visits Hazel's parents || Faith/Xander

9x19 || Demon || Demon that's possessed Giles. Comes every 10(?) years. || Giles

9x20 || General || Fight with General - General loses || Group

9x21 || Demon Dimension || Four Horsemen ("Four"?) [Abortive attempt by VS to separate Buffy from her strongest allies?] || B/W/X/G

9x22 || VS || Big battle -- Buffy vs. VS || Buffy/Group

Yuugana

need: how does Buffy come to believe what she does about Yuu? Conversation beforehand? Difficult. Why doesn't Yuu just kill her? Could make threat, but then Buffy is gambling with everyone, and makes no sense why Yuu nearly kills Buffy later. (Especially as threat will come when Buffy falls unconscious.)

Buffy must be able to draw conclusions ahead of time. Paint picture of Yuu that Buffy will be privvy to. Draw parallels b/w Buffy's life and Yuugana's life. Buffy will internalize.

NEED: When/How will gang find out that she is Yuugana? When will this name be dropped? How? May be good if we can draw General as being very, very powerful. They're afraid of him. Getting Yuu on their side would be huge in fighting him.

Idea: General nearly kills Dawn, draining key powers. Yuu saves her. Buffy thinks it is because Yuu knows what it's like to lose a sister. In truth, Yuu isn't ready for Dawn to die yet - that will be the most painful blow of all.

buffy believes -- utterly believes -- that Yuugana will be good if given her soul. Spike was good, Angel was good ... maybe all vampires can do good if given the chance? Who is she to be judge, jury and executioner?

Internalized: this could be me. What would I do if someone killed Dawn?

** I found two sets of Season 9 character arc notes. The first set are what I think what I was mainly working from, but I’m not 100%.

Character Emotional/Plot Arcs – Season 9

Season Theme: Consequences

Buffy

Will be target of the Big Bad’s wrath as a consequence of killing the BB’s sister early in the season. Buffy’s primary emotional arc will be in the realization that every action, even the most seemingly natural or inconsequential, has far-reaching repercussions, that affect not just Buffy but those she loves.

Willow

Willow’s emotional arc returns to one that was never resolved or given enough attention (or mangled thanks to magic=crack) – control issues. Throughout Willow’s history on BtVS, she’s exhibited time and again a deep NEED to control the things around her. Her need for this never changed, save for her becoming so paranoid she was afraid to breath for fear of killing everyone in S7. Her catalyst for these deep-seeded emotional problems re-emerging stem from a few basic changes. 1) Tara’s back, and Willow doesn’t think she can take losing her again. 2) The Big Bad has made things very, very personal. And Willow remembers only too well what happened last time a Big Bad vampire took things personal. 3) This Big Bad is smart. Really smart. In some ways, even smarter than Willow. And for all the enemies they’ve faced, Will’s never had to go against someone who’s been able to out think her before. And she freaks.

We’re going to have to be careful with this one, though, because we don’t want a return to “Willow Uses Way Too Much Magick” again. We’re therefore going to have to find others ways in which Willow exercises that control trigger finger. Her computer skills could certainly help out to a degree, as well as her smarts, but we’re going to have to be careful. We definitely don’t want a rehash of S6’s problems. Willow is – or very much should be – wiser than that now. And while Will has sort of always had a bad case of “the ends justify the means”, we don’t want a rehash. So care is needed.

We could help to show this by maybe having Willow do something like casting a really powerful protection spell that somehow backfires. What will be vitally important here is taking care to make it very clear that Willow isn’t relying on magick for every little thing (no spells for decoration or closing curtains) … the magick is simply her most powerful tool for keeping everyone safe. This should NOT be about black magick, but about a need for control.

NOTE (4Jul04): After discussions, will probably meld Will's character arc with the fact that Buffy and others (Tara and Giles probably excepted) don't fully appreciate or realize the pressures they put on Willow to come up with the answers and be the big gun, while simultaneously not wanting her to go too far. Magick is bad, except when they need it. They don't accept their own consequences for the actions they push her toward. This still feeds into Willow's character flaws above - her need to protect everyone, to be the best, to keep the nasty stuff at bay.

Xander

Xander, being the human element, will have the root of his emotional arc derive from one of the most basic of human desires: to live forever. Not in the biologically immortal sense, but by wanting to live on long after he’s died. Xander realizes that of all his friends, he is the one that history is least likely to remember. The odds on him being studied in school centuries from now are next to nothing. Buffy will be recalled as the world’s most successful Slayer. Willow as the witch whose spell changed the world. Giles as the founder of the new Watcher’s Council (and new world order?) Any history mentioning Willow is almost guaranteed to include Tara as well. Dawn and her Key potential is fascinating and going to be mentioned … but Xander? There’s nothing so remarkable about Xander, he feels, and thus begins his quest to somehow ensure his own immortality to history.

This might somehow be triggered by the emergence of a new sort of threat. With Slayers all over the world, there’s absolutely no way that NOBODY is going to notice them. Even if people in the Buffyverse have shown time and again that they’ll simply ignore what they either can’t or are unwilling to understand (gang related, PCP), not everybody is so willing to pull down the veil. Thus begins the emergence of a conspiracy theorist, someone who somehow has managed to trace his story to Slayer Central. In doing so, he somehow manages to put a level of importance on each of the Scoobies … except Xander. Which stings.

Xander would eventually come to realize that while history may not remember him, those he loves certainly will, and when all’s said and done, that’s enough for him.

Giles

Giles’ arc will come out of an inevitability – his age. One of the earliest episodes will be reflecting on the fact that Giles is now 50. He’s done such a good job with the Council that much of the bureaucracy continues without his direct involvement. He’s not really keen on that side of things anyway, so he’s not sorry to see it go. But what he does want to do instead is get into the thick of things physically. But, unfortunately, he simply can’t anymore, and it’s a lesson he very much doesn’t want to learn. Giles will ultimately come to realize, however, that while he can’t swing a sword to match the Slayer, what he DOES have is his incredible mind, which will certainly be put to great use in the confrontations with the Sun Tzu-like Big Bad. The fight could not be won without Giles’ intellectual input.

Tara

Tara will spend much of her arc wondering about her place. When she was alive, she had some difficulty in fitting in. And it wasn’t until just before her death that she really started to come into her own. A year and a half has passed now, however, and things and people have changed. Tara aspires to be more than just an extension of Willow, and as voiced in “Family”, she wants very much to feel useful to the Scoobies.

But Tara’s need to find where she fits extends beyond simply within the Scoobs. Tara has a very definite sense of nature and balance, and her being brought back from the dead is something of an abhorrence to her. She can’t quite shake the feeling that in order for her to have been brought back, something had to go out in her place to keep the balance. What that may have been disturbs her beyond words.

How exactly these issues become resolved is currently unclear. Tara should certainly remain the moral and emotional center of the Scoobies. She has more power now, but power was always Willow’s contribution, not Tara’s. On the death thing, perhaps something mystical helps her? Maybe the big Wicca chick we bring in at the end of S8 can help somehow? Show that Tara’s coming back was, in its own way, as natural as her passing was UNnatural. Her return is, in and of itself, a righting of the scales.

Dawn

This is a big year for Dawn. She’s a senior in high school. She’s turning 18. She’s becoming an adult. Oh, yeah, and she’ll finally figure out that she’s got all those Key powers still. Dawn’s story will be about transitions. From childhood to adulthood, from being just a normal (as normal as she could be) girl to having all those powers as the Key and whatever that implies for her. We will also need to decide this year where Dawn’s going to college (her awakening Key powers could be a good excuse to keep her local).

Faith

Faith’s story is going to be about guilt. Hazel’s death at the end of the previous season happened right before we ended the whole thing, so at that point we will have gotten to see precious little carryover. This is the time to dwell on that. Faith would feel tremendous guilt over Hazel’s death – Faith is the one who recruited Hazel, who brought her there. She was Hazel’s mentor, and Hazel sacrificed herself for Faith. We don’t want to retread over the “do I belong here?” line, since we’re dealing with that in S8, but Faith should certainly be questioning whether or not she should be leading little girls into dangerous battles. It’s one thing for Faith to risk her life night after night, but another entirely to be responsible for the lives and deaths of others. Unsure how this will resolve, but it seems the logical arc for Faith given the closing of the previous season.

Big Bad

NOTE: We’re going to have to come up with a really good reason why Willow just doesn’t ensoul the vamp chick … or she does and it makes no difference at all. Could be an interesting commentary about vampires and souls. Hm.

The more we’re discussing this, the more we’re liking this idea. The notion of souls in the Buffyverse has always been sort of hazy at best. Loosely, they seemed to be of the opinion that getting a soul somehow made you good … but there are countless number of humans in the world (and the Buffyverse – look at Warren) who are human and, one therefore assumes, have a soul. Yet they are still capable of great evil. Even more so than some demons that they encounter. So despite however neat and pat Buffy likes to make it sometimes, a soul does NOT automatically mean that someone is going to be good. And maybe that throws her for a hell of a loop. Willow ensouls the BB, but it doesn’t make one bit of difference. Vengeance is, after all, as much a human emotion as anything else, and the BB still wants Buffy to suffer horribly for what she’s done. At most, the BB may feel some measure of guilt for the people that she’s had to kill over the past 300 or 400 years (however long she’s been vamped), but as it turns out, she doesn’t. She looks at it with the detached, cold impracticality possessed by Slayers – she did what she had to in order to survive. Maybe she wasn’t a fan of torture (we’re painting her very logical and such, so this should work okay), and simply did what she needed to. The Slayer in and of itself is very predatorial and most definitely a survivor – there’s not necessarily much difference between them, and this will further demonstrate that fact.

This could also further add to Willow’s continued feeling of being out of control. This SHOULD have worked and didn’t.

Season 9 Character Arcs

Buffy:

Buffy's arc will deal with a continuing gray area between what is good and what is evil. What is a soul really? Does having a soul make you good by default? The vampiric Slayer will prove that's not necessarily the case. Additionally, Buffy will be trying to sort out a few things about her life. What does she ultimately want to do? She could very well be the first Slayer in history to die of old age. Does she want to be involved with that all her life, or does she want more? Would Buffy maybe like to return to school? (Might be fun to have her and Tara going back to school together.) Around midway point, Buffy is nearly drained to death by vamp Slayer, she must rely on others to take care of her - doesn't always have to be the strong one.

Willow:

Willow will come to the realization that her magick is of no use against the Big Bad this year. What is Willow without her magick? What else can she contribute? Progressively, other things may fail as well, so that Willow is systematically deconstructed and having to find her true purpose and how she can contribute outside of her raw power.

Xander:

Xander will explore his roles this season. He's said that he won't be forgotten or shoved aside, so then the question becomes, how will he contribute? It's up to Xander to answer this question. He tries his hand at a variety of roles - maybe a Watcher, maybe a husband (though he's already "failed" at that one). Come the end, he realizes that his role is support, and it's the role he's always fallen into naturally.

Giles:

Giles is pulling away from the others. He's beginning to see the Slayers as nameless, faceless people. He realizes that he'll have to sacrifice them - and some part of himself - again at some point in the future, so he's subconsciously distancing himself from the pain. He's slowly becoming the Old Council. Comes to realize that while he may have to distance himself from the body as a whole, it doesn't mean he shouldn't have any attachments at all. And that he can be those two people - the one that can love them, but still sacrifice them for the greater good if necessary (which will work, as Giles will ultimately sacrifice himself, NOT for the greater good but because he doesn't want them to die). ** Which may be a good time to point out that I was going to kill Giles next season, kisses.

Tara:

Tara's quest this year will be for her place. She's died and come back, but this isn't "right". There is a balance in things, and she feels she's upset that balance. She'll explore her past and her family to find out why, in a grander sense, she's back and how she fits in now.

Tara and Willow:

Tara discovers that Willow has somewhat enshrined her as a result of her death and return. Willow caves to Tara almost constantly, and it's beginning to affect them both, but Willow can't bring herself to fight with Tara as a result of what happens every time they fight. She doesn't want Tara to go away again. They must fight, they have to learn that it's okay. Tara pushes it with Willow and makes it happen. Maybe when Tara goes to visit her family, that's the catalyst.

Dawn:

Dawn becomes victim of the time-old adage, "be careful what you wish for". She's always wanted to be a Scooby, but now that's beginning to conflict with her other desire to be a regular teenaged girl and her other big desire: to be an adult. All these worlds are colliding and Dawn's not sure which is more important. Blows off Scooby things for friend-things sometimes. Blows off friend-things for Scooby-things.

Re Grip: They're getting closer, but she keeps having to put off things with him due to Scooby situations. Grip notices and (kindly) confronts her, wondering if she really just doesn't want to see him anymore but doesn't know how to tell him. When he finds out about the baddies, he'll back away, needing time to process. Poor Dawnie.

Faith:

Faith will spend the season getting back onto the redemptive path she's been on for years. She doesn't feel bad that she killed Judith and is wondering what the means (somewhat like when her mother died). She'll learn that just because she's stumbled doesn't mean she's fallen. She begins in England, hiding out from Trillium. Thinking she should go solo, it was easier when she didn't have anyone else to worry about. Doesn't want to go back, but Kennedy pushes her. Once back, Faith avoids everyone. Should Giles maybe get Faith into therapy?

Buffy agitated that Faith isn't really being punished. Faith points out that a lot of people around Buffy are killers and they've never been punished either. Buffy needs things black and white, Faith is another shade of grey and it's getting harder and harder for her to do her job.

Xander gets to the heart of things too much, and Faith doesn't want to deal with that. Finally it's Willow who lets Faith know that there's someone who DOES understand. It's the first step in getting Faith back into things, but she still doesn't want to teach.

Maybe at some point in the season, Faith takes off? If so, Xander should probably pursue. (Might tie in nicely to Xander's "what's my role?" arc. Perhaps he has a job interview or something that he can't miss out on that will further define him, but he misses it because he has to help Faith, and that's the choice he makes) Could be where Hazel's death gets resolved. Goes to Hazel's house and parents for that?

Faith's murder issue will probably come to a head when she's face-to-face with Finch's child. Kid wants revenge, and Faith understands that. States how it won't make anything better, but gives up and says that if s/he wants it so bad, just take it. S/he doesn't, of course, which would probably disappoint Faith to a degree.

Maybe show Faith just starting to teach again at the end of the season, rather than some big culmination. Maybe she's forced into it when the VS keeps the other Slayers occupied? Buffy would be elsewhere at the time.

The Big Bad

** These are some of my earliest notes, as reflected in how I’m using my placeholder names like “Dark Coven”. A lot of it deals with what happened in S8, but it outlines the larger arc, which would have come to a head in S10.

What the Bad Guys Want

The Dark Coven is seeking to reawaken The Old Ones. As per Giles in “Welcome to the Hellmouth", the Old Ones were driven out when the lost their "purchase" on this reality. The last vestiges of the Old Ones fed on a human, mixed their blood, and created the first vampire. This proves that humans were around during the time of the Old Ones. He also states that vamps, demons and some magicks are leftovers from the time of the Old Ones.

The Dark Coven is a group that has been around since the time of the Old Ones. They are in allegiance with them, and are currently seeking to free them. In their current incarnation, they are very, very close (comparatively speaking). The Old Ones are sealed away somewhere by a series of extremely intricate locks, well nigh impenetrable. But they actually are already well on their way to opening them.

More than anything else, the DC is a master of manipulation with OODLES of patience. They've been working on freeing the Old Ones since their imprisonment. As is eventually revealed, they have been twisting events with the Scoobies for years, bringing them to the point where the Old Ones are ready to be freed.

When the Old Ones Roamed

They were, quite simply, lords of their domain. They are few in number, but unfathomably powerful. As with many nigh-omnipotent beings, however, they became bored and complacent. They began to tinker with things and began creating demons, unleashing them on the world. The demons, however, were little more than slaves, and no matter how evil, nothing much likes being enslaved. The demons, together with humans (quite possibly including the Shadow Men from "Get it Done") were able to ensnare the Old Ones -- you can't kill them, but they were imprisoned. Once the Old Ones were gone, their power slowly vanished, diminishing their partners/lackies/etc. (like the DC), and leaving the created demons and humans to fight over the rest of the land.

Season 6 Manipulation

The DC, although powerful, are themselves, collectively, unable to open the remaining locks (if they could ever open any at all). However they soon discovered one girl, Willow Rosenberg, who had the innate ability to channel the energies necessary to set things into motion. She just needed the right motivation to get the power.

Exactly how far their manipulation into these events goes, we don't know. What is for certain is that they fixed it so that Tara would be shot and killed by Warren's stray bullet. (The reasoning for this idea: there's absolutely no way the bullet could have possibly killed Tara in the way it did. Warren was in the backyard, running away and shooting upwards. Tara was standing by the bedroom window on the second story. The bullet shot through the glass, and through her, at no angle at all. Obviously in-show this was done for dramatic purposes, but they left a door open for outside creative interpretation and I’m going through it.)

As they knew it would, this prompts Willow to become hell-bent on revenge and absorb enough power to destroy the world. She goes to Kingman's Bluff, raises the effigy of Proserpexa, and begins to funnel her energies into it. Had she done this enough, she would have raised one of the Old Ones herself (or Proserpexa could have take the next step in unlocking one of the doors), however Xander interceded and saved Willow before this could happen.

NOTE: Perhaps Xander's interception is what was actually needed here? I always found it interesting that he completely blocked and seemingly absorbed all that power Willow was throwing at the effigy without even blinking. Was this maybe super-charging him for something? Could this maybe be key to what they will need to save him from later on? (S10 stuff.)

The Proserpexa angle maybe have been removed, but the DC didn't mind -- Willow had now unlocked enough of the power within herself to open another lock.

Season 7 Manipulation

This stems from a whole lot of S7 never really standing up to much scrutiny. Take, for example, the scythe. Caleb and the First spend SO much time and energy in uncovering the scythe, claiming to know how very important it was to NOT allow Buffy & Co. to get it -- when if they hadn't even been trying to get it, Buffy wouldn't have ever known it was there. This in and of itself seems to make ZERO sense, particularly since it never seemed to be that the First could use the scythe himself -- it was all about keeping it from the Slayer. So, very stupid to not only sit on the darned thing, but to ACTIVELY BRING YOUR ENEMIES TO IT (the "trap" in "Dirty Girls" leads Buffy and the Slayers to the vineyard, They never would have bothered going there otherwise).

My reasoning: The First is also an Old One. And he set his plan up specifically to fail. He himself is immortal, he cannot die. And he doesn't really give a crap about ubervamps and Bringers. Their plan all along was to make the Scoobies unleash the scythe to awaken all the Slayers.

Why? As mentioned in "Get it Done", there is a well of Slayer power. That well is usually filled nearly to capacity. It was, after all, only being used by Buffy, and then Faith. The fact that the emergence of a second Slayer did nothing to diminish either's power indicates that it's not shared on that kind of level. In addition, the awakening of all the Slayers at the end of "Chosen" didn't seem to cause any sort of power drain. Instead, we theorize that the well is deep, but has a finite capacity. When Willow did the spell, she in essence pulled the stopper on the well and drained it dry. This well, however, happens to be one of the keys to freeing the Old Ones, and once it drops to a certain level, the "door" that it locks is open.

Moving on -- The Chosen

When Slayers die now, one is not called in their place. There is a finite number of Slayers in the world now. When they die, their Slayerness returns to the well. Only once it reaches a certain level (presumably it's "default" state, pre-spell) will the "natural" process resume. The DC obviously don't want this to happen, as once it "refills" to a certain point, the door will close again. Hence their working with the Assemblage of Merodoch (previously, "Dark Council"); by harnessing and funneling the Slayerness into an already existing Slayer, it does not return to the well, hence no refill.

But that isn't the only reason the DC are working with the Assemblage. The AoM also has another key: an angel that they're keeping chained up in the deepest sublevel of their headquarters. This angel has, perhaps, been around as long as the Old Ones themselves. Perhaps he even aided in imprisoning them. He was captured shortly thereafter, however, and has remained that way ever since (we're talking pretty close to pre-recorded history here, as long as the Slayer line has been in existence, possibly longer).

Idea: The angel can only be freed by a descendant of one who imprisoned him in the first place. Maybe a Giles?

He is a key -- maybe something he says? His true name, perhaps? The DC want him, but the AoM have him and won't give him up. They have said, however, that once Order is restored to the world, they will provide the DC with the means to do whatever they need to do with him. The DC is okay with this -- they're currently getting something from the Council (someone to alert them to the need to funnel Slayer energy and someone to keep all that tiresome business together while they focus on the really important stuff).

Like good ol' Willow Rosenberg.

They call Willow "The Sangerand" ("the bloody"), and they should absolutely not be done with her yet. Willow's independent further role, we don't yet know, but she commands their greatest amount of attention. Her, and Tara. ("The Curat", or "the pure"?)

When they resurrect Tara, it is ostensibly under the guise of killing Willow. However the true reason is to fulfill Tara's part of this prophecy (which includes her death, resurrection and making the choice to not kill Willow), possibly including the sharing of power that Willow will need to do to save them.

Thinking on it, it would be cool to have each Scooby play an important role somehow in all of this. Sort of like their being together in this way was a fated thing. "The Chosen" indeed.

**ADDENDUM** I really like this idea of each Scooby playing a particular role. This could still lead up to the eventual death of Giles, which in and of itself will provide the beginnings of the Coven's downfall. They do whatever they're doing to Xander, which will kill him - but that won't matter because his role in unlocking the door will be done. Will is going to be doing the spell to save him, which will kill her in turn, but that's okay too because her part is also played in releasing the Old Ones. Giles, however, has NOT yet done his part, and he completely surprises everyone when he takes Willow's place, thereby saving both Will and Xander. This totally throws the Coven for a loop, though obviously they must still be able to do what they need to without Giles, else their plans are over with right then and there. It's crucial that his sacrifice NOT be part of the DC's plans, else it takes away from its poignancy.

Will need some sort of prophecy-type thing detailing what is needed to be done to release the Old Ones. Should be nice and vague, but with meaning once you figure it out.

Scooby Designations

Willow: The Sangerand ("the bloody")

Tara: The Curat ("the pure")

Xander: The Vedere ("the sight"), The Asar ("all-seeing eye") -- "The Baani" ("The Architect" - Urdu)

Buffy: The Kusari ("the chain"), The Revenire ("the returned"), The Gula or The Bau ("Lady Who the Dead Bring Back to Life")

Giles: The Verhaal ("the history"), The Shoukin/The Infria, ("redemption"), The Shin'ar ("Land of the Watchers")

Faith: ("the dark"), ("the restrained"), ("the wild")

Dawn: ("the cherished"), ("the gateway"), ("the portal"), ("the key")

The Prophecy

Opening Quatrain

Buffy :: The Trimarga :: Three Path A heartbeat thrice begun A death mark thrice given All roads lead to the town of three When her spilled blood shall spill again

Willow :: The Sangerand :: The Bloody Blood flowing, blood taken Forces awoken, decline and ascent Blood given, life exchanged Freely, she will fall

Xander :: The Baani :: The Builder Grief and rage, life's destruction Mind and body, life's cohesion Heart and spirit, life's devotion Melding, merging; essence anew

Giles :: The Tezan :: The Way Forger of paths, the first and his kin The demon wields the plague of black Summoner, banisher Pierce the barrier, paths renewed

Tara :: The Curat :: The Pure Birth and rebirth, the cycle complete Connected to evil, untainted Power innate and power borrowed Through the light she will free the ancient one

Dawn :: The Amelatu :: The Gatekeeper Living energy made flesh and form Younger in life, older than death Truth altered, life shed And the walls will fall

The Slayer Well Solitary hunter, night's enemy She alone will stand When the well is drained and strength is shared One becomes Many

Closing Quatrain And so it is written Seven locks hold fast The masters expelled, the world cleansed Until the Chosen play their part

Seven keys for seven locks From the first to fall, five score and one If all locks turn, the door lay open And the Old Ones shall reclaim the Earth

Buffy: The Trimarga ("three path" :: the triple path of Knowledge [jnanayoga], Devotion [bhaktiyoga] and Action [karmayoga]). Three times her heart has started beating, three times she's been marked by a vampire (Angel, Dracula and the Vamp Slayer [yet to happen) and in town of threes(??). Something to do with blood - some of it needed to open the lock. Blood of a Slayer is already potent, and Buffy's was obviously enough to close the portal in place of Dawn.

Willow: The Sangerand ("the bloody"). Willow will cast a blood-sacrifice spell, that will enable her to willingly exchange her life for another. It has to be this spell based upon how Mads and the others are killing Xander. Very, very powerful, only she can do it. The flow of the energies will open the lock.

Xander: The Baani ('the builder"). Xander is the "incuabator" for two very powerful magicks. They don't impact him directly, but it is his nature - his very self - that will enable them to merge within him to create something new. The first blast came from Willow on Kingman's Bluff. The second, from the orb destroyed in "Win, Lose or Draw". Madrigan will take Xander around the mid-point of S10 to extract the magicks from him. It will kill him in the process, but that's of little concern.

Giles: The Tezan ("the way"). Giles' role is to obtain a ring that has been in his family for generations upon generations. Unknown to those recently, the jewel of the ring actually contains a demon - a demon that was the original cause of the Black Plague in the 1330's. Giles' ancestor, a powerful warlock for the Council, was the first human to pierce the barrier between this dimension and a demon dimension where he summoned a demon and bound it to his service. The demon was sent to China, where it was supposed to take out a group of other demonic creatures trying to open a Hellmouth there. It did indeed do that, but not before starting the plague. The Council, rather than destroy the ring and banish the creature, said "We'll control it better next time." The ring's purpose was eventually lost,. Giles is supposed to release and then banish the demon, again piercing the dimensional barrier and opening that lock. ** He dies instead, sacrificing himself to save both Willow and Xander. Oops.

Tara: The Curat ("the pure"). Tara's lock will open upon her freeing the Antediluvian. The Antediluvian is an angelic creature that was captured by Robespierre's ancestors. Its imprisonment means the lock is sealed - its freedom opens it. Tara is able to free it due to her lineage as a witch, her purity of spirit, her completed cycle of birth and rebirth, and (by binding with Willow) her immense white magick power creating the necessary conditions. Ruth, Tara's grandmother or great-grandmother, was also thought at one time to have been the Curat, but was not. However she does recognize the qualities within Tara. (Perhaps the Antediluvian, despite its imprisonment being a good thing, can do great good if it's released?) ** Later in S9, Tara and Co. would have freed the Antediluvian to save Buffy after Yuugana’s attack.

Dawn: The Amelatu ("the gatekeeper"). Dawn herself is able to open the lock. Not a lot of detail here. We'll need to sort out somehow or another that Dawn will do this ... or perhaps she already has? There seems to be little better time for Dawn to have opened the necessary lock than when all the dimensional walls were coming down.

Additional Lock: The well of Slayer power being drained. This was done by Willow in S7, but is not Willow's specific key.

Additional Info: Once any lock falls, there is a "timer" of 100 years for the rest to fall, or they all lock again.

** It may not escape notice that Faith is not part of this prophecy. That became by design, not oversight. I loved how this idea of “The Chosen” worked into the larger series theme, but I also hate the ideas of fate and destiny being controlling factors. Faith was going to be my argument against all that. When all the prophecy pieces were revealed, Faith would (rather defeatedly in her Faith way) note that she had no part to play. But she is the embodiment of being Chosen, as the characters choose to have Faith by their side and fuck prophecy anyway. Their unreserved acceptance of Faith, and Faith’s acceptance of THAT, would have been the culmination of her character arc in S10 (and my series).

S10 Ideas

Something to do with tarot cards, with each member maybe being a particular card?

Several characters get thrown back in time to an earlier season. Dawn especially should go, as she wasn't around then.

stained glass idea. couples. Buffy left free. Valentine's day ep.

"The Impossible Dream" - Man of La Mancha lyrics

Faith having conversation with Kendra -- result of illness, injury, or prophetic dream

** An episode I was definitely going to do, but frustratingly can’t find any notes for (making me feel there must be SOMETHING else out there somewhere but fuck me if I know where) had Willow and Tara going to Los Angels and visiting Lorne’s bar, Caritas.

S10 Ending

Everyone ends on a thematic note, their actions in the final battle bringing together 10 years of development:

Giles's sacrifice makes victory possible - by finally following his heart rather than his duty he saves the world.

Xander, by virtue (and surprise) of simply being Xander, strikes the final blow.

Willow succeeds only by keeping herself in check, refusing to break and believing that she can win.

Buffy's victories come from not only sharing herself (mentally to Willow and physically to Faith and Kennedy) but truly, finally, accepting that she's not in this alone.

Dawn makes the sacrifice she was destined to make from the moment she was created.

Tara is the touchstone, giving the strength and support to everyone else and the lifeline that ultimately saves Dawn.

Faith has no greater role handed to her by fate -- but she's here and kicking ass so screw you, fate.

(work on Kennedy, she ends up fighting w/ Buff and Faith, but does she start there? maybe she and Faith start with Tara and Dawn?)

IDEAS

Seneca final battle. He's winning. Standing over Buffy, gloating smile. Then he finally speaks. Something like, "I've waited a long time to--" Then he gets skewered (Faith or Kennedy, maybe both.) He can't say anything else, just gurgle. He dies, and the Slayers stand over him.

Buffy: "Blah blah blah. You know, just once I'd like to meet a bad guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut."

Kennedy: "No lie. Still, I wonder what he was going to say?"

Faith: "Who the hell cares?"

Buffy HAS to be part of final Madrigan fight. She goes initially with Xander and Willow. Xander gets struck down by Mads, seemingly dead. Buffy gets nailed too. Willow needs Buffy to get through this though, and Buff gives Will her strength (flashback to "Same Time Same Place" as well as early Chosen w/ Willow and Buffy being so attuned -- see, not a throw-away plot point! Planned all along!) Leads to good "final" conversation/bonding with them as they search for Madrigan in the mental plane.

Earlier in the season, Madrigan extracting the magick from Xander. Very painful for Xander. Madrigan talking to him though, very chatty, very casual. Xander trying to dig for info, Madrigan clearly seeing through it. He likes the cliche though (exposition while acknowledging how clunky and stupid it is to have exposition here). Mads being real bastard (passively though) to Xander this whole time, noting how Xander isn't even really important in and of himself, it's only what others do with him that counts (maybe include little side wink-nudge point, it's what's inside Xander that matters). Mads ends the conversation by apologizing. "Sorry dude, this has gotta suck for you. Hey, you know what I like to do when I'm down? TV! You like 'Murphy Brown'? I've been Netflixing it." He and Seneca proceed to sit down and watch while Xander is essentially tortured behind them. Mads just turns up the volume.

Season 10 Final Fight

Buffy, Kennedy and Faith will go after Seneca.

Willow and Tara will be walking along in the facility when they're attacked. Tara is thrown away from Willow, who is then going to be caught behind an impenetrable shield with Madrigan. He wants to face her alone on an astral plane of sorts. Tara can't join her. Willow is depowered somewhat as a result of the spell she was casting to save Xander. Madrigan wants to fight her, however. Will surprises him - she thought like him and figured he would do this. As a result, Xander is piggy-backing with her, and she's not alone. Madrigan says that he knows Xander, and Xander won't kill him. He's wrong. X: "He don't know me very well, do he?"

Meanwhile, the door to release the Old Ones is opening and they can't stop it. Or they think they can't. Dawn realizes that she, being the Key, can. She begins to do so, but it's taking so much power, it's essentially killing her. Dawn is reverting to pure energy form. Buffy screams at her, tells her not to, but Dawn says she's spent the past five years wondering - feeling, even - that she should've died on that tower. Now she knows that she wasn't supposed to die, she was supposed to live to do this. "This is the job that I have to do." Buffy can't stop her. Tara fights though, won't let Dawn go. Tara eventually passes out and Dawn disappears. The energy is gone and so is Dawn, but the door is closed and locked again.

Not long after, Buffy goes home. Willow and Xander are with Tara at the hospital (she’s drained but okay). Buffy seems to be alone. She's completely dispirited - Dawn is dead. She enters her room, only to find Dawn there. B: "What are you doing here?" Shades of Dawn's first appearance. Turns out (as we'll learn in the final episode) that Dawn has given up all of her Key powers - for real this time. She is now, completely and utterly, a very real, very normal girl.

** And finally, I give you all with this. It’s a rough sketch of the scene after Giles has died, so would have come about 2/3rd of the way through Season 10. I wrote this in 2004, about a week after the death of my grandfather. I like to think that, if I’d gotten that far, this would have been one of those moments that would have stuck with you. I certainly would’ve tried.

Giles Death Reactions

These are a sequence of silent scenes.

We first see Faith in a darkened training room. She's punching a punching bag.

We're in Giles loft, the lights all dark. The door opens, and Hannah's standing there, on the threshold. She doesn’t enter.

We're in a hospital, private room. There are two beds. The one on the far left contains Xander. He looks gaunt, pale, near death. But breathing. His heart monitor gives a steady readout. Dawn sits next to him, inbetween the two beds. Tears are streaming down her cheeks – simply falling, she's not sobbing. She watches Xander with a fearful, worried expression, then turns to the next bed. There's Willow, also pale and drawn. She doesn't look well either, though not quite as bad as Xander. Tara sits on the other side of the bed, as close to it as she can possibly get. One of Willow's hands is held up in both of hers, Willow's fingers resting on Tara's lips. Tara's eyes are red – she's obviously been crying too. She meets Dawn's gaze. Neither smile.

We're in Giles' office. Buffy is standing in the doorway. Her face is blank.

We're back in the loft, Hannah's position mirroring Buffy's. She walks inside and finds herself drawn toward Giles' stereo system. She runs her hands over the CD collection, full of albums and songs from their past.

Faith's punching of the bag increases. She's venting, her jabs more vicious, more focused. Over her shoulder, we see Kennedy watching.

The hospital. Dawn runs a hand through her hair and wipes her eyes after watching Xander intently. She turns to Willow and watches as Willow opens her eyes and blinks. Dawn watches in surprise, and Willow seems to sense the scrutiny. She turns to Dawn and smiles – just a small smile, a pained one, but it's something. Dawn's face breaks into an expression of pure joy and relief, and she says something. Tara has either been locked in thought or asleep, Willow's hand clutched to her forehead, but her head jerks up at Dawn's words. She focuses on Dawn for the briefest of moments before her eyes go back to Willow. Willow is already looking at her, and she smiles again, a bit stronger this time. Willow says something too, and it causes Tara to laugh. The laugh turns into a sob of relief though, and Tara kisses Willow's hand several times then leans over and kisses her forehead. Will is weak, but is able to give Tara a one-armed hug, kissing her on the cheek, then turning to Dawn and extending her other arm. Dawn is there in a heartbeat, also crying in relief.

Giles' office. Almost trancelike, Buffy moves further into the darkened office, which is lit only by the lamp on the desk. As she walks, her eyes are drawn to things. The rows and rows of books that Giles surrounded himself with. The bookcases that Xander built, not only filled with books but also decorated with knickknacks – various small statues and effigies and an Owl plushie. She looks to the opposite wall, where hangs a variety of pictures, but dominating them all, easily the biggest and with the proudest placement, is a picture of Giles, snapped at a moment none of them were expecting. He was obviously the victim of a random group hug attack – Buffy, Willow, Xander, Tara and Dawn, all hugging him fiercely. Giles has that look on his face where he's trying hard to be annoyed with them, but is secretly loving every moment. Buffy's movement into the office hasn't halted, hasn't slowed from its already snail's pace. She's at the desk now. Bathed in the warm glow of the lamp, she sees a cup of tea, only half-drunk, as though Giles will be returning any moment to finish it. Most prominent, however, are the sealed envelopes on the desk, several of them, each bearing a name. We see Buffy's name on the top one, and can see hints of other's beneath: Willow, Xander, etc. Giles' glasses rest nearby.

Faith is almost in a frenzy of kicks and punches now. Her teeth are clenched and she looks like she wants nothing more than to have the bag turn into the Grim Reaper himself so she can pound the crap out of him. A hand rests on her shoulder, and Faith whirls around to see Kennedy there. Faith looks like she might just start beating the shit out of Kennedy as well, but then Kennedy takes Faith's hand and puts a stake in it. Faith looks down at it questioningly, then looks to Kennedy. Kennedy holds up her own stake. Faith's eyes narrow and she nods, just slightly.

Hannah's by the window in Giles' loft, simply looking out, looking at nothing in particular. She hugs herself and her head drops as she starts to softly cry.

In the hospital room, Willow casts an anxious look at Xander still motionless in his bed. She looks first to Dawn, then Tara, who says something that causes Willow to relax considerably. She smiles, but soon realizes her smiles aren't being returned. She again looks questioningly from one to the other, but neither speak. She's getting really worked up now, scared, and Dawn starts to say something. She doesn't get far, though, before she can't speak any more. Willow turns immediately to Tara, who picks up where Dawn left off. Willow watches, still afraid. Then the fear turns to disbelief. She's starting to cry now and she shakes her head in denial. She looks to Dawn, looking for someone to tell her that what she's heard isn't true, but Dawn can only cry. Willow looks back to Tara again and says something, begging for it not to be true. Tara can only look at her with sympathy and matching pain as Willow dissolves into tears.

Giles office. Buffy is sitting in the corner, her back against the wall, curled in on herself. We can't see her face, but her shaking shoulders tell us all we need to know. She's hugging the Owl plushie for dear life.

CUT TO BLACK

** And that, my friends, is that.

#jw writes stuff #btvs: the chosen #IT TOOK ME LONGER THAN I THOUGHT #and now i'm officially drained and exhausted goodnight

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twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

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5x09: Analysis

How did everyone like last night's episode of FTWD? I really enjoyed watching. As expected, it was very much a set up for the B half of the season, but I also found some really great symbols and some very promising possibilities. Let's dive right in.

***As always, spoilers abound for this episode below. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Also, let me say that, yes, I did watch the TWD S10 Preview show and yes, I will do an analysis of it. Look for it tomorrow. I wanted to get my analysis for this episode up today first. ;D

This episode was a slightly different format than we’re used to. They did in the style of a found-footage documentary. This has become a popular style for films in recent years, and I suppose it was a natural thing to do given how Al records everything.

We start out with all the main characters in the group being interviewed on camera. I won’t go over everything they said, as not all of it jumped out at me as super important. But one thing did. Alicia said it felt like, "everything else was training for this." She meant driving around helping people and rounding up survivors to put together a community. But it also feels like a foreshadow of something big coming. Everything prior to this is been training for what lies ahead of them.

Al said they raided a Big Stop and took every camera, battery, and tape they could find. It caught my attention, mostly because Big Stop sounds a whole lot like Big Spot from 4x01. The point was that they now have several cameras traveling around with various groups when they split up to do different things. But of course, Battery Theory.

It's a little unclear what happened with Logan. He showed them where a gas tanker was (though he still hasn’t found the “oil fields”) but they left him behind. All we saw was he running after Sarah’s truck.

Sarah was quite gleeful about it. And it's a little odd because obviously stuff happened that we haven’t seen yet. Last we saw in 5x08, while they obviously didn't entirely trust Logan, they seemed to be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I got the feeling they would keep a watchful eye on him, but they weren't planning on kicking them out of the group either.

So they’ve obviously skipped over some things and I'm sure they’ll go back and show us what happened and why the decision was made to leave him behind at some point.

We saw them utilizing red and yellow gas cans. Very significant colors. Red = death, yellow = escape. I didn’t notice any green gas cans, so this particular color sequence is, as yet, incomplete.

Dwight said, "I got lucky." (Luck Theory.) He’s also still wheedling and he created a chess set.

That’s significant and we’ve seen chess sets in the past, both around him and the Gov (X). I also think it's interesting that Dwight doesn't want a haircut. He said in 5x08 that he might take Daniel up on the offer. Now suddenly he's decided against it. I feel like that could be symbolic, and there's a specific reason for it, but I'm not sure what it is. We know that him and Daryl are heavily paralleled and they’re not going to cut Daryl’s hair short anytime soon, so maybe that's it.

We saw a lot of food symbols in this episode. Grace mentioned rice noodles and then they ate them at the end. Anyone who follows @frangipanilove’s theories knows about her noodle theories. It's a symbol we’ve seen a lot, specifically in FTWD, and she has tied it to resurrection and return symbolism. Grace also mentioned being low on powdered eggs. In general, eggs = Easter eggs = resurrection symbol. Tptb also often talk about leaving Easter eggs for us to find. It's kind of interesting to hear that.

They went out of their way to mention that Grace is listening to an audiobook. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this, but it’s such a random detail that they focused on, I'm sure it significant. We didn’t hear the title or author of the audio book, so we can’t read into that. Perhaps it's just a way of showing that book titles we see are significant.

We heard Sarah sing a trucker song about hunting a bear. Obviously, that's a big deal because bear symbolism is part of the Sirisu/Dogstar/return symbolism. Here, it was associated with music. They had a whole discussion about music and Sarah even called it an anthem. Look at lyrics again.

This was one of my favorite symbols in this episode. Let's assume for a minute that bear = Sirius/return symbolism, which means bear = Beth’s return. The song is specifically about hunting a bear. Which suggests looking for a return. The group is actively looking for people to help. So, the way I interpret this is that perhaps the people they’re looking for will eventually lead to Beth’s return.

The main story, aside from having the characters talk about how they feel and where they're at mentally, was about helping a woman named Tess and her son leave their home. She contacted Morgan via walkie-talkie, telling him her husband left to get an inhaler for their son. He never returned.

The husband put landmines all over the front yard and Tess was afraid to leave because she hadn't left in years, since before the apocalypse happened. The group splits up to try and help her. June and Strand find the drugstore but the inhaler isn't there. They figure he must've already gotten it and headed home. Then, when Alicia is by one of the painted trees (which I'll talk about in a minute) a blond male walker comes up behind her and Strand kills it. Turns out, this walker is Tess's husband. He’s dead.

Morgan's group crosses the yard to help Tess and Morgan steps on landline. It's pressurized, which means it won’t go off until he lifts his foot. Al tries to help him disarm it and Tess leaves her house to help as well. Thankfully, everyone gets out alive and Morgan does not lose his foot.

(Although, the way they focused on his foot on the landmine did make me think of Lost Shoe/Foot symbolism. I can't help but wonder if this is a foreshadowing for something down the road and if Morgan might lose his foot at some point. Or perhaps this is jut a way to tie this situation to other symbolism we’ve seen before. Not sure yet.

John says the Tess situation hit home for each of them in a particular way. Morgan was very invested because of what happened to his wife and son. He very much wanted to save Tess and her son because he couldn't save his own family. Because her husband didn’t come back, June and John, who looked for each other, sympathized with her insistence that her husband would return. I thought this was an interesting way to examine where each of the characters are mentally at this point.

At one point, John talked about being partners with Morgan. He said Morgan doesn't talk much. He then talked about being a cop and how you could not say more than two words to your partner all day, but you know them inside and out, and what makes them tick. You have each other's back know how to work and survive together. He basically said that's what Morgan was like. Morgan said the same thing about John, that the neither of them talk very much, but they still work well together.

I sat and thought for a bit about why they included this little snippet. It was a little strange. Morgan and John did work together in this episode, but Al and Luciana with them, as well as others. It wasn’t just the two of them, or anything. It might be a foreshadowing of some arc the two of them will have together in coming episodes, but it also made me think a little bit of other relationships we’ve seen on the show. Naturally, my head went to Beth and Daryl. While Beth definitely talked more than Daryl, there were parts (such as the beginning of Still) where the two of them just stared at one another and didn't say much. It's really about getting to know people not having to fill the silence. Whether it's a romantic relationship or platonic, I really like this theme.

John mentions ugly mustard situations. It’s just a way of saying the situation was very bad. But here’s the thing, guys. In biblical symbolism, the mustard seed is very obviously entwined with the concept of faith. And who talked a lot about faith? That would be Beth. In terms of this situation, “ugly mustard” may specifically apply to a scene where there’s a lack of faith being demonstrated.

Oh, one other really fun reference John made: he was talking about how money is useless now in the apocalypse and the true currency is survival skills. He said something about people who used to sit on piles of money. The kind of people who ate “caviar from ladles.” Yeah, that’s an ocean reference and a Little Dipper reference all rolled into one, y’all. ;D

There were several mentions of something that was needed or something they all needed. It reminded me of the S7 TWD title "Something They Need." I think they said this about Tess needing the inhaler. I know Morgan talked about having planned the campfire dinner at the end and saying it was something, "we all need." This was a definite theme in this episode.

The other theme that I saw was actually very powerful and I feel like it reaches through both shows. They talked about how they didn't blame Tess for not believing her husband was dead. Morgan said that sometimes you can know someone's dead, you can see they’re dead, you still just don't believe it. Basically, it's because you can't bring yourself to say goodbye.

Tess was that way. She couldn't bring herself to say goodbye. At the end, she did and then she was able to leave her house, go with Morgan's group, and start to live and move forward again. This is something very specific to Morgan because he said that the same thing happened with him and his wife and son. He never said goodbye to them, and he needs to, he just doesn't know how.

I think we could apply this to Daryl. He’s sad because he's never really said goodbye to Beth. In a way, this is actually sort of the opposite of her arc. Here, Tess was told her husband was dead. People saw him as a walker, but she just couldn't make herself believe it. The opposite was true of Beth. We never saw her as a walker, we never saw her get stabbed in the head, but everyone still believes she's dead, when she’s not. So, there’s an anti-parallel going on here. Meanwhile, Daryl has never said goodbye to her.

This is also the key to what's happening whenever any character loses someone and can’t move on from them. They have to find a way to say goodbye, but often they don't know how.

(@wdway often says that FTWD is teaching us HOW to read TWD symbolism. They’re much more obvious in how it should be interpreted, but that just give us a map of how to read TWD symbolism. I think she’s right and this is a good example of it.)

At the end, the group eats rice noodles, carrots, and nuts. I already talked about the rice noodles, but the carrots are big as well. Those were big Beth symbol.

I said I’d return to the painted tree. I'm not going to say too much about it here because I'm going to do a post later in the week that touches on it as well, but this is the other thing that made me super-excited about this episode. Alicia says that she wants to find out who painted the trees. She wants to find them.

Before, I just thought the trees would be used as symbolism in the show. I didn't think they’d be part of the plot beyond that. But Alicia saying this is a foreshadow. Eventually, they will find whoever is painting the trees.

Of course, my first thought was, could it be Beth painting these trees? I'm about 50/50 on that. The wording and the faith inherent in the message (mustard mentioned in the same episode as this tree) definitely sounds like her. But to be fair, we also never saw her doing visual art this way. She was all about the music. The person we did see doing visual art was Jadis, who is also now tied to the helicopter group. I'm not saying Jadis painted the trees. That actually wouldn't make sense given that currently, FTWD is six years behind TWD. Jadis and the Heapsters are still at the junkyard. I’m just saying we can tie it to Rick’s departure and the helicopter group.

You could argue that these are little notes left on the trees for people to find after the person who painted them had already left. It just feels a lot like Beth wanting to leave the thank you note at the funeral home in case the owners ever came back.

I don't know where this will lead, of course, and it may have nothing to do with her in the plot, but it still made me super excited.

At the end, we see a young man watching the group’s video. They’ve set it up at a gas station along with a walkie for people to watch and contact them. The TV and walkie are hooked up to a generator in a locked room. The man doesn’t use the walkie to call them but rather breaks into the generator room and steals some gas. He uses it to fill up his motorcycle. (He and Daryl would be biker buds.)

Then Logan and his group arrive. Logan first assumes he’s with Morgan’s group, but of course he’s not. He looks a little like Heath, but this is a new character. Logan says he likes this guy, but he still steals his stuff and shoots his bike, basically stranding him. He even encourages the guy to call Morgan’s group on the radio and convey a message. No way to know yet if this guy will contact them or not.

Obviously this is a set up for the rest of the season (which will probably consist of Morgan’s group looking for and finding more people, and having run-ins with Logan) but I also saw some interesting symbols in this final sequence.

Inside the gas station (a symbol by itself) was a large sign for hot dogs. It was the “dogs” more than the food that caught my attention, but still. There’s also a money orders sign. I haven’t talked about this, but let’s just say @frangipanilove is working on a money/currency theme in the show. So just tuck this away for now.

The gas station has Grady lighting inside and signs for hot dogs. The gas can he carried out was also blue.

I also noticed that when Logan got out of the car, he was wearing cowboy boots and the camera focused on them for a second. Not sure what to make of that, but I think it’s significant. Lost Shoe symbolism? Beth’s boots? Even reminded me a little bit of Boots (Tauriel) from 7x08, because it showed the boots before it revealed the face (Logan). So we’ll have to keep an eye on that moving forward.

Actually, there was a lot of shoe symbolism in this episode. There’s what I’ve already mentioned with Morgan and Logan, and then Logan throws a torn up pair of cowboy boots at this guy at the end, saying this is what happens to your shoes and feet when you walk 200 miles. That has to be symbolic--especially as they use cowboy boots--but I’m not sure exactly what it points to yet.

Also, there an RV (time symbol) in the background as they talk.

So, we definitely have a lot of potential for this coming season and where it will lead. They set up Logan as a villain in the first episode of the season, but we didn't deal with him very much in the A half. I’m sure he'll be in the B half a lot more. Also, meeting new people to help gives us the potential to run into the helicopter group some more and perhaps find the person who is painting the trees. (Yay!) What did everyone else think of this episode?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusio #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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gendrie · 6 years

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to my everlasting sorrow gendry is not a pov so we never truly get inside his head. we meet him for the first time, briefly, through ned but a majority of his character is developed through arya’s eyes. after they’re separated we don’t see him for quite some time and when he does return we’re left wondering how his time within the brotherhood has changed him

And though his eyes had been that same deep blue, Lord Renly's eyes had always been warm and welcoming, full of laughter, whereas this boy's eyes brimmed with anger and suspicion. Septon Meribald saw it too. "We mean no harm, lad."

the first impression we get - via brienne - is that gendry’s defensive and with good reason. he’s basically the only thing standing between an entire inn full of orphans and the perilous outside world. but he did get sent to the wall and serve as a slave in harrenhal so he’s been in very difficult circumstances before and we’ve never seen him quite so angry. to contrast ned first described gendry’s eyes as sullen and arya often remarks on the stubborn look in them. he’s usually more sad and stubborn than pissed off. his initial anger is followed by even more negativity as he argues with willow and they glare at each other.

...all but the black-haired boy from the forge, who crossed his arms against his chest and sat glowering as the others prayed. Brienne was not the only one to notice. When the prayer was done Septon Meribald looked across the table, and said, "Do you have no love for the gods, son?" "Not for your gods." Gendry stood abruptly. "I have work to do." He stalked out without a bite of food. "Is there some other god he loves?" asked Hyle Hunt. "The Lord of Light," piped one scrawny boy, nigh to six.

even though brienne and co. have brought a bounty of food for the starving children gendry just glares throughout their prays. which is another thing that makes me think there’s more to his anger than simply being protective. these people are helping the orphans and gendry’s still fuming. he also spurns the seven. gendry now follows the lord of light. he witnessed a couple resurrections which was bound to have an effect on him. its also a sign of solidarity with the brotherhoods cause. the brotherhood have become a much darker organization since gendry first joined and without his inner thoughts we can only rely on clues to determine how he feels about this. the fact that he shares their faith suggests gendry supports them.

Gendry was at his forge, bare-chested beneath his leather apron. He was beating on a sword as if he wished it were a foe, his sweat-soaked hair falling across his brow.

so again theres A LOT of emphasis on gendry’s anger in this very short appearance of his. i mean this happens over the course of like five pages. the writing here feels very deliberate in establishing gendry's anger. his disposition has never been upbeat but gendry’s never shown this level of aggression either and you have to wonder who his imagined opponent is (the hound). it also reminds me of another scene

Sometimes she would find a stick and practice her needlework, but then she would remember what had happened at the Twins and smash it against a tree until it broke. (ASOS)

when arya is mourning the red wedding we see a similar reaction. that to me suggests gendry’s intense angry in this chapter could be a result, at least in part, of grief. and theres only one person he’s lost since we last saw him: arya. like gendry arya also forsakes the seven because they were only her mothers gods and they failed to save her.

"You have black hair and blue eyes, and you were born in the shadow of the Red Keep. Has no one ever remarked upon your face?" "What's wrong with my face? It's not as ugly as yours."

"Someone is coming." "Friends," said Gendry, unconcerned.

despite the brotherhood hanging people left and right gendry names the them his friends and isn’t bothered when he thinks they’ve returned to the inn. he’s also very mean to brienne but he does save her. well arguably.

"It's not allowed. You're to stay bound, till . . ." ". . . till you stand before m'lady." Renly stood behind the girl, pushing his black hair out of his eyes. Not Renly. Gendry. "M'lady means for you to answer for your crimes." "M'lady." The wine was making her head spin. It was hard to think. "Stoneheart. Is that who you mean?" Lord Randyll had spoken of her, back at Maidenpool. "Lady Stoneheart." "Some call her that. Some call her other things. The Silent Sister. Mother Merciless. The Hangwoman."

after stopping biter from killing brienne gendry helps deliver her to lady stoneheart where he proclaims she will answer for her crimes. he refuses to unbind her hands and he also casually lists lady stonehearts other aliases that all reference her merciless murderous nature. which is a dick move lol. he knows what stoneheart is about and that she will kill brienne and her friends.

"Gendry," she wheezed. "I have to talk with Gendry." "He turned back at the river, m'lady. He's gone back to his forge, to Willow and the little ones, to keep them safe." No one can keep them safe.

then he leaves. he goes back to the crossroads so he can look after all the children. which is an admirable charge so its not all bad. but the fact remains that gendry is a part of this increasingly shady organization. the brotherhood is essentially a murder gang now.

"Justice." Thoros smiled wanly. "I remember justice. It had a pleasant taste. Justice was what we were about when Beric led us, or so we told ourselves. We were king's men, knights, and heroes . . . but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all."

gendry joined the brotherhood because he wanted to be part of something greater then himself. he liked that they stood for justice and fairness. but as the brotherhood became darker so did gendry. he has darkness in him too. he’s not uncorruptible. gendry lost his friend and most likely blames himself. he is grieving and wants revenge as much as anyone. not unlike arya. its pretty common for people to act as if arya is too dark for gendry but they’re actually cruising on parallel journeys.

#gendry #ive never done a proper post on this #surprisingly lol #asoiaf nonsense

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doomedandstoned · 6 years

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France’s Pillars March Defiantly ‘Onward To Nothingness’

~By Billy Goate~

Not too many weeks ago, I put a call out to my French friends for help in covering the absolutely explosive scene there. I've always been impressed by what the heavy underground has to offer. We got a nice glimpse of it over the summer in our interview with Cult of Occult. Today, we're inviting you to get acquainted with a stalwart of the metal community in Nice, a band whose bite is every bit as fierce as its bite, the mighty doomed foursome PILLARS.

I got acquainted with these "worshipers of fuzzy high gain & occult rituals" -- known affectionately by nicknames Klem Wizard (vocals), Djé Blaspho (guitars), Disaster (bass), and JJ (drums) -- some years back when they dropped their debut EP, 'Pyres and Gallows' (2014). At month's end, Pillars returns to the arena to square off with life in their fierce full-length debut, 'Onward To Nothingness' (2018 - Seeing Red Records).

Axel Zender's stoic black and white artwork and the album's nihilistic album title sets expectations for the content ahead, musically and lyrically. This is not another record about witches, magic spells, Lovecraft, or space aliens; it's about the harsh, ugly reality that life is a bitch.

A slow, determined drumbeat greets us to begin our visit to this cursed realm. This is quickly joined by a swaying riff doused in flaming kerosene to light "The Fearsome Path" before us, a bed of glowing fuzz giving sure footing to the journey. Klem Wizard (aka Clément Flandrois) establishes a commanding energy with his raspy clean singing, reminding me of the confident tone of Tyler Dingwell from Great Electric Quest as verses crescendo into chorus.

"Vultures" circle overhead in ominous fashion, patiently waiting their moment to grift off fallen flesh. The atmosphere grows increasingly tense with the stench of humanity permeating barely breathable air. Bandmates Disaster and JJ kick up a swirling cloud of radioactive dust, as Blaspho (aka Jérôme Passeri) jams out a plaintive theme on guitar. His bluesy riffcraft calls to mind the bittersweet leads of Cough's David Cisco. Wizard narrates the tragic scene, singing with brittle lament (listen to the world premiere below).

Enter: "Pale Horse Rider." This grungy number seems to ratchet up the intensity, striding through the ruined landscape with the dark spectre of Electric Wizard. Klem's vox toggle from clean to dirty and there are some interesting effects employed that reminded me very much of a horse's neigh. By song's end, I felt the mantle of Kurt Cobain resting upon the whole endeavor.

Chaotic screams of man and beast reverberate in our consciousness in the album's title track. This dirge is entirely instrumental, but even in the absence of singing it makes a very powerful statement. You can sense the disappointed aspirations, the spoiled dreams, and the disgust of fractured justice deep inside your gut. Whether to vent in unfettered rage or to quietly gnash your teeth, it matters not. This devastation is your inheritance. This is your doom.

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"The Mourner" is not the quiet, stolid experience I was anticipating. This is what mourning really looks like -- sorrow mingled with anger, disembodied from reason. The grief unfurls like a tempest, rolling in like waves, dashing upon rocks. Here we have one of the most authentic expressions of anguish on record, culminating in what can only be described as wailing.

None of this is indulged for too long, for sadness gives way to resignation in the album's finisher, "Swarms From The Swamp." I imagine the pestilence that afflicted Job of old, from disease and famine to marauders and calamities of nature, as Satan is given the nod by God to test the limits of his faithful servant. It's a fucked-up story that parallels nicely with the sentiment of this record.

I've been continually impressed by the caliber of albums coming out this year. It's not only the fine musicianship and production values, but the sense of internal cohesion and commitment to concept that make albums like the one before us such a powerful listen -- the equivalent to reading a great book over a good one. Of all the great records to emerge from France this year, Pillar's Onward To Nothingness surely joins Cult of Occult's Anti Life, as the year's best. Look for its release on September 28th via Seeing Red Records, who have issued it in CD and digital formats. It can be pre-ordered here.

And now, to send you into your weekend, Doomed & Stoned is pleased to give another taste of the new magnum opus by Pillars, with the album's second single "Vultures."

Give ear...

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Harnessing the powers of anguish and majesty simultaneously, Pillars carve a tortured place in the psyche of doom and sludge with an unshakably focused assault on the senses. Harsh, brooding, and calculated, the music drags your soul through the muck and buries you, your screams a part of the choir of devastation. Sacrificing the vintage and retro flare commonplace in the genre as of late and replacing it with the vile discomfort of a forgotten past, Pillars bring only agony and promise only torment. Prepare your grave... (Seeing Red Records)

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#D&S Reviews #Pillars #Nice #Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur #France #Doom #Sludge #Metal #Doom Metal #Seeing Red Records #HeavyBest18 #Doomed & Stoned

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hazlouquitefinished · 6 years

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C, if Louis has a one and done album deal with Syco, why do you think he hasn't rushed to get it out, so the contract with them would be over sooner?

Hey, friend! Thanks for the message.

Before I start, we have no way of 100% knowing the exact terms of the deal. I hesitate to comment on this too much for that reason. I’ll share a few thoughts, though.

Number one, it frustrates me that some people still assume a debut solo album isn’t a big deal for Louis. It’ll be one of the most important events of his solo career; we need to step back from 1D days, where we were used to the unbelievably draining “one album a year” routine. That kind of turnaround is not normal. I’d be really sad to know that some people think of him as the kind of artist to rush such an important milestone, Syco circumstances aside.

We know how important his music is to him, and we know how seriously he takes these kinds of things - this will be a debut to the world, not just to the fans. So many people are going to be listening to it and evaluating him as an artist based on that one body of work - of course he’s going to spend a lot of time on it, even if he does have a “one and done” deal.

That said - sure, there absolutely could be other influencing factors, but before I get into those, I want to reiterate: Louis isn’t the kind of artist to rush out a debut solo album, regardless of circumstances. This fact is obvious based on his work ethic and devotion to his craft alone.

Moving on!

Album Release Date Speculation

Does anyone remember back when he first started talking about the album during the summer, and how he initially mentioned it could be out in late 2017?

In an interview with MTV UK during the summer, he said:

“In my head, I’m like 80% done with the album […] In an ideal world, it’s [out at] the end of the year.”

That quickly changed into “probably next year”, and then “early 2018″, and now maybe toward the end of the first quarter of 2018. Again, these kinds of delays are totally normal and could 10000% be due to the creative process alone.

Lots of news outlets used quotes from that same MTV UK interview all through the summer and fall as the release date moved out further - this next quote in particular when it started to look like the album wouldn’t be out until 2018:

“I’m very much a perfectionist. But I am nervous about it, because I want it to be as good as it can be, obviously. […] I’ve got an idea, and a vision, and a message; what to get across. It’s a difficult thing actually doing that across a body of work [on] an album. I’m nervous, but also really excited for the fans to hear it.”

Example from People’s Choice, September 2017:

As you’ll notice, he’s been evasive with putting an exact date or even month on it. I think that that’s, of course, at least partly due to the perfectionism aspect. Wouldn’t you want your debut solo album to be 1000% perfect, especially with the pressure he must be under?

Also: as I mentioned earlier, we can only touch the surface of how hard it must have been to record and tour simultaneously in 1D. Putting out an album a year must’ve been unbelievably difficult & draining. I think all of the guys are absolutely entitled to having more time to focus on the creative process, yet I only see people criticizing that when it comes to Louis. Sigh.

Other Possible Influencing Factors

I do think there could be (at least minor) influencing factors. There’s plenty of reasons why a record company might push back an album release date.

More on that under the cut.

Comparison #1: Liam

Let’s take a brief pause and look at Liam. He’s doing the same thing as Louis - taking time to work on his debut album. I know he’s signed to a different label altogether, but let’s generally compare.

Via a Universal press release in mid-November, his album release date was initially announced to be January 12th, 2018.

While this wasn’t officially confirmed, it’s safe to say that a press release is far more reliable than, say, an update account assuming a date.

On the 3rd of December, however, Liam told a reporter at the Jingle Ball that he had a finished album, and he only wanted to change “one or two songs” because of some producers he’d met.

Side note: two days later, it was announced that Camila Cabello’s debut album would be out on January 12, taking that spot from Liam. As I’ve said before, I don’t have a lot of knowledge about Liam’s promo, but he seems to do (at least recently) some cross-promo for Camila in interviews and the like. This may be related to them both being on the Jingle Bell Ball circuit, or possibly because she’s still a Syco artist.

Usually, Syco/Sony doesn’t shy away from having multiple drops on one day, but they seem to be really pushing solo Camila. If we’re looking at alternative reasons for an album date being pushed besides perfecting the sound – Perhaps Sony/Syco wanted the overlapping fans from Liam’s fanbase and her fanbase to focus only on her debut album.

I just found it interesting that his album got pushed back right before hers was announced, especially after his was announced via press release. It’s certainly possible that it’s just a coincidence, of course - they’re not labelmates, but as I mentioned, there are a few ties connecting them.

A week later on the 10th, Liam had more comments about the release date of his album:

“I wish I knew. It was almost done and then I decided I wanted to do something a bit different and push the boundaries. I’ve met some new producers that I really like, and I have a ballad-y kind of thing coming out with somebody, so that’ll be really cool.”

I noticed that a few of the Liam blogs I follow were wondering about that rationale, but again - I don’t want to comment too much on his stuff because I’m far less well-versed in his babygate and PR circumstances.

So, to summarize -

His album could’ve been pushed to accommodate Camila’s release, maybe due to both of their ties to Syco (hers current, his past) and competition between their similar fanbases. It also could’ve been pushed by the release of “For You” if he was a late add to the soundtrack, though that came out on the 5th, so it seems odd that that would be the reason. It also, of course, could’ve been pushed because he simply wanted to work more on it, even though it was finished at one point.

It could’ve been none of these reasons, and it could be a similar situation to this next comparison - who knows for sure!

Comparison #2: Sky Ferreira

Here’s a similar example from Sky Ferreira, who had a finished album that was then pushed back after it was complete:

Pic quality is grainy, sorry - basically, the actual album wasn’t released until late 2013, though it was planned for 2011. Sky was signed to Capitol - Liam’s label - so this is more relevant as a comparison to Liam than Louis, but it’s a similar situation.

In 2014, she had this to say about Capitol:

But it almost wasn’t to be. According to Ferreira, Capitol Records intended to release a different album this fall made up of songs she’d worked on with various collaborators. “It was okay,” the singer said, “but I wasn’t really proud of it.” (Lance Turner, who handles marketing at Capitol, said, “We’ve always supported Sky’s creative vision.”)

At the last minute, Ferreira persuaded the label to allow her to make her own record — provided she could work fast enough to meet a predetermined release date. So she recruited a pair of L.A.-based producers, Justin Raisen and Ariel Rechtshaid, and together they banged out “Night Time, My Time” in a 21/2-week burst of writing and recording.

“I felt like I was on a cocaine binge the whole time,” Raisen said. “We just got into this state of mind and went for it. There was no second-guessing.”

That sounds extremely familiar to Liam’s situation, doesn’t it? The album changed at the last second, added new producers, and Capitol is involved. Not making any claims, just drawing parallels here.

For context, Sky had a complicated relationship with her label, and there was friction behind the scenes over creative differences.

She said, “I do a lot of stuff behind their back. I have to because nobody ever listens to me! I do have supporters at the label, but I still have to deal with a lot of people who are like: ‘Er, I don’t want to spend that money on her.’"

Additionally, Capitol ended up recalling the finished album altogether - allegedly because of the cover. This blog compared the recall of Sky’s cover to a nearly-identical album cover made by Blind Faith in the 70s:

So, why is it that an album cover that was certainly controversial, but allowed to exist in the marketplace for 50 years, is suddenly deemed too racy and pulled from circulation? If one didn’t know better, one would almost think that it never existed in the first place.Sadly, the same fate awaits Sky Ferreira’s new album, which has just been recalled by Capitol Records due to the subject matter of the album cover. Keep in mind that the label had no problem releasing the album a mere two months ago with the original cover art.

As a result of the album being pulled, it sold far less than expected and Sky was dropped from Capitol.

Okay, so now we’ve made a few comparisons:

Liam’s on a similar timeline, and there’s curiosity surrounding his delay as well. (I use “delay” for lack of a better term because, again, this turnaround time wouldn’t be unusual to other artists.)

Sky Ferreira’s album was delayed because of friction with her label, demonstrating that albums can indeed be delayed for that reason.

Back to Lou:

1) Louis is a self-proclaimed perfectionist when it comes to his craft. An album a year is not the norm for most artists, so him taking the time to perfect his debut solo album shouldn’t be all that unusual.

2) That said, there’s a possibility that there are other influencing factors at play.

Influence 1: More general mismanagement.

Quote from below about JoJo’s mismanagement, which rendered her unable to release new material. One of her albums was rewritten and rerecorded three times over, but not released for years after the fact.

“One of those extreme situations where you have [a label exec] who is one of those guys who would just go to war and say, 'No, I’m not doing it,’” says David Byrnes, a partner at Ziffren Brittenham, whose firm has represented clients like Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, and Fleetwood Mac.

Influence 2: “Starving out” dedicated fans by limiting the flow of content.

@theyrereallyawful made a great post about the content starvation occurring, so check that out if you haven’t yet! Especially compared to the other guys, Louis’ team severely lacks in delivering content that is consistent, shareable, and easy to find. This has been happening for a long time, and (if they are intentionally pushing the album back) that could be another example of content starvation.

Liam’s digital content agency, WMA, has spoken about this very topic:

“One of the key learnings is that, for an audience like Liam’s, there is never too much content or too much you can do.”

So, overall:

To answer anon’s original question - Louis isn’t the type of artist to rush through an album release just to get it out there, especially not his debut solo album.

I don’t think there’s much of a delay in its release in the first place - or at least not one that would be unusual compared to other artists. I think Louis is definitely a perfectionist, and he’s certainly under a lot of pressure from a lot of people to deliver a good solo debut. If he takes a little extra time perfecting his album, so be it.

However:

I do concede - based on his team’s shitty, shitty history - that there could be other influencing factors at play. Namely, pushing the album back when it’s already finished could serve to starve out fans and/or could be an example of more general mismanagement.

The thing that makes me curious about that option is Louis’ wording in the first MTV UK interview –

“In an ideal world, it’s [out] at the end of [2017].”

All I know is that it will be out when it’s out, and I can’t wait to support and promote the fuck out of that masterpiece.😎

Beyond that, all we can really do is guess.

#here I am responding to a one-sentence question with an entire masterpost #asks

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sparklyjojos · 7 years

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Do you think JJN makes a dichotomie between religion/faith and science/logic? With Dio+Pucci on one side and Kars+Jorge on the other?

(oh wow, that’s a deep question I didn’t expect to get, thank you anon)

I wouldn’t say it’s a clear-cut divide.

On one hand, you could look at the novel and say that there’s a dichotomy, that the narration glorifies logic and isn’t favorable to religion/faith, especially organized religion (I mean… Dio Jesus… the mothman-related mass suicides and other events with people blindly following what they believed in felt like a biting commentary too).

But on the other hand, I really don’t think there’s a dichotomy or conflict between faith and logic in this book, as much as they seem to carefully interact and support each other. The conflict is more about how humanity’s drive to find out How Stuff Works or Why Does X Happen, which propels both science/logic and religion/faith, is not bad by itself, but can lead to very, very bad things, especially if the correct premises lead to wrong conclusions. As in, believe what you want, but even then please don’t forget to fact check. And maybe don’t restart the universe because some vampire dude dressed up like Jesus.

(read more for super long thoughts on faith vs logic, a whole lot of tangents – like, half the post’s a tangent – and me rambling about this book’s concepts of Faith and Meaning and Stories and pretty much trying to explain What I Think This Book Is All About. Also Terry Pratchett’s there for some reason.)

JJN is built around the concept of the Beyonds, which are pretty much personal gods shifting the universe’s narrative to theirprotégé’s favor. They do exist, and the one character who’s unflinching in his faith in them from the start and taken for delusional by other characters, Tsukumojuku, is the one who’s ultimately right. English Jorge survives specifically because he listens to him and starts believing in his Beyond. But also Tonpetti’s prophecies hold true, Kars confirms the existence of souls, and almost everyone and their uncle in the English Jorge part are presumably Christian, though they may not be particularly practicing. When Pucci uses the Bible to interpret the phrase ”fig tart” to mean Kars, this interpretation is true.

So, point number one: faith is not something that’s bad or wrong by itself, or something that only the antagonists have.

Science and logic is found on both sides, too. Pucci is an astronaut, after all. For the chapter or so when Funnier Valentine’s around, he’s the logical, calculating villain with a spaceship and a gun, who ultimately gets defeated by some emotional teenager who struggles with basic algebra but is burning with spirit.

Kars is a bit complicated, because while he sure is a lot more on the logic/science side of the equation, he also appreciates the human tendency to make up stories, and their not-very-logical drive to care about one another. He’s actually super quick to start believing in the Beyond, too, pretty much as soon as he sees Jorge’s memories. But then again he also often chastises other characters for believing in things, so… I guess he’s just being the usual mess of a person that he is. I’ll come back to him later in the post.

(a tangent, but now that I think about it… one of the things I love about canon Kars is that he’s put firmly on the “nature” side in the nature vs science conflict (most obvious when he fights cyborg Stroheim), though he’s sort of a scientist on his own. The striking thing about JJN Kars for me was that not counting that one paragraph where he has wings, he *never* transforms using animal parts. It’s all very machine-like. I wonder how it relates to him being away from Earth life for so long, and his character development.)

—

Now, the thing about Japanese Jorge is that he connects both of these things: logic and faith.

He’s a detective, someone who thinks deeply and analitically about the world, connects facts, always searches for the logical solution to a problem, and is “doubtful by occupation”. Even his favorite genres seem to be mystery and SF. He doesn’t seem to be a follower of any religion. [EDIT 26/12/17: I may have fucked up here – now I remember Jorge yelling “Namu-Amida-Butsu!” near the end of the book, which may suggest him being some sort of Buddhist.]

But he’s also the one to believe that everything has meaning, that everything happens for a reason, and that various events are the universe’s signs for him (well, they are, but he doesn’t know that Beyonds are a thing at that point). He argues with Rohan that mere synchronicity is not a thing, that the random connections are never random. He’s the one to say that Light Dancer Kars’s “fake, meaningless” existence does in fact have meaning when our Kars is baffled as to why. This situation repeats with parallel Kosaku – when Jorge is happy that Kosaku could protect his family, Kars asks “Why are you so hang up on a fake man from a parallel world?”.

Maybe there is a sort of a logic/faith conflict between the teams of Kars&Jorge and Dio&Pucci (though in the end it seems to be more like “logic+belief” against “ignorant belief”)… but there is also a bit of a complicated logic/faith conflict between Kars and Jorge themselves, at least when it comes to the Meaning of Things.

Possibly because of Jorge’s deep belief in that meaning, and because as a happily adopted child he understands that being “not fully the real thing” doesn’t actually matter, he seems to be pretty much immune to existential angst from the very start. Especially when compared to the walking talking Existential Karsis by his side. What’s Jorge’s answer to Tsukumojuku asking: what if you’re the fake one, a copy, a substitute, not the true detective, not the true Jorge Joestar?

Fine, I’ll be the fake, whatever. Your friend, this other Jorge Joestar, he can be the real one, it’s cool. Ha ha ha. It won’t change who I am. Why should I care?

Have I mentioned that I love Jorge yet? I love Jorge.

—

The book goes strong with the idea that Everything Has Meaning – in part because we give it meaning, because it’s a human thing to do. We like to, perhaps need to think we have an important role to play, that we’re a main character in our own story, that everything happens for a reason, and maybe even that there is something up there looking out for us. If we were to rely just on cold dead logic, what appeal is there to life? There has to be a deeper meaning. Whatever it is for us personally, it’s important. Faith is important, sometimes even in completely improbable things. As Penelope said:

Really crazy things happen in this world. And if something this crazy can happen, miracles, dreams, hopeless desires… all of those things might come true, too.

Still, searching for this meaning, for the connections between events, may turn destructive, especially when connected to strong emotions like fear. When the people on La Palma fear that the dreadful night from years before may happen again and thus “create” the Mothman, when Pucci clings to the belief that the metal plate that killed his family had fallen from space – even if it wouldn’t be physically possible – because it fits the narration in his head, when English Jorge and Lisa Lisa create a monster simply by expecting a monster to exist, they fall victim to the human tendency to make up stories, string the events of our lives into a narration, and expect new events to follow that narration.

And yet, for all their “side effects” – for all the confirmation bias, and maladaptive defense mechanisms of some Wounds, and being prone to manipulation – we need to have stories, and to see our own meaning in them.

As English Jorge learns, to believe in Beyond means to believe that you are the main character of your own story. And that means you aren’t helpless, you don’t have to lie down and wait for others to save you. You can break out of the locked room made by your own fear. You can act, and your actions matter.

—

Having meaning is so important to us, that if what you thought was your meaning is taken away from you, it’s deeply terrifying. Even Tsukumojuku is unsettled when his Beyond leaves him. But he’s perfectly fine when he understands hiss role in the Beyond’s plan, even if it’s a grim one.

As for characters who couldn’t deal with loss of their meaning that well, we have two different alternate Karses who’d been told they and their worlds are fake. One of them (the single braid one) turns his shock and fear to wrath and rampages through the world, thirsty for blood of Funny Valentine, yelling “So you’re the one who created this world? I did not give you permission, and I will not allow it!”, a roundabout way of expressing “if I don’t matter, I’d rather not exist at all”.

The other is the Light Dancer Kars. After discovering he’s not “real” and doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, he intends to commit suicide. But just seconds before it, he stops, and instead dances. He makes a mandala out of light, and tells our Kars and Jorge that he understands why he’s been clinging to life for so long, and that he can see our Kars is not special and feels the same sadness that he does (which begs the unsettling question: could this mean that our Kars, and the entire loop of universes from the novel, are all fake as well, though maybe a little closer to the “true” universe than the Light Dancer’s world is? Probably not… though it’d explain the disrepancies between the book and canon, and would actually be a fitting plot twist). At the end, the Light Dancer tells our Kars to rejoice in his suffering, or even: to rejoice because he may suffer.

Our Kars is lost in thought after that. Something unsaid has happened between the two, some sort of quiet understanding. You could argue how it influenced our Kars, and Jorge for that matter. Even if our Kars is doomed to forget the Light Dancer minutes later via Bites the Dust… there still was a point to the Light Dancer. Maybe because Jorge remembered him. Or maybe solely because he existed. He had meaning, even if logically he shouldn’t have mattered.

And the mandala that the Light Dancer makes, his overall attitude, and the possible reference to the First Noble Truth? That’s some heavy Buddhism influences. And thus we wrap around to the “Kars is on the logic/science side and not at all on the religion/faith side”, and say, well… maybe not that one particular Kars. [EDIT 26/12/17: also, all Stands of Our Kars have three heads and six arms, and Jorge notes they look like Ashura statues]

But our Kars is not all that very logical himself. Just like in canon he’s still a massive hypocrite. For all his talk about how utterly stupid and deadly exposing himself to outside forces during atmospheric entry would be, he sure has no problem doing exactly this and almost dying mere kilometres away from Earth, just to save three humans he’d known for all of four hours, seemingly without any reason other than “just because he could”.

After all, this is the kind of a guy who’d launch himself into a rock wall and bounce off it several times like a pinball just so a bunch of tiny, short-lived, meaningless flowers may live just a little bit more. And then he’d go play the cold calculating chessmaster who doesn’t care about anyone or anything.

And that’s why we love him.

—

If I had to sum it up, I’d point to what Funny Valentine says after revealing Jorge is a Singularity.

Feel free to doubt as you like. You thought a while before answering, right? Do as you always do, and don’t let those wheels stop spinning. I don’t want you to have faith in me. I want you to have faith in yourself. I want you to believe that there is no one who can take your place.

Think critically, but still have faith. Have faith, but still think critically.

And that is it, pretty much.

—

(and now for something completely different)

I joked before about how Pratchett-like this book gets at times just because of narrativium and weird names (“Darlington Motorize” is only a step away from “Adora Belle Dearheart”, and don’t let me get started on “The Funniest Valentine was the first person in history to be named The”). But it also really did feel like I was reading something that came from the same place as Hogfather, with similar commentary on the nature on humans as story-telling animals and their burning need for both logic and faith, and giving meaning to things around them.

(And supernatural beings gaining life solely because you believe in them. And physics-breaking powers working simply because they seem like something that would work in a story. And a protagonist facing the villain armed with just a fire poker and the sheer power of belief. And–)

I’m mentioning this because I thought about some cool Hogfather quotes to end this post with, to show what I think may also be a theme in JJN.

Also just because I can and if you haven’t read the Discworld novels, then what are you doing with your life.

HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.“So we can believe the big ones?”YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

“Now… tell me…”

“WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN’T SAVED HIM?

“Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?”

NO.

“Oh, come on. You can’t expect me to believe that. It’s an astronomical fact.”

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.

(…)

“Really? Then what would have happened, pray?”

A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.”

#Anonymous #jorge joestar #jorge joestar spoilers #hcs meta and stuff #in which the jorge joestar novel turns out to be actually pretty deep #long post #very long post #guess I could add more things but I'm tired of editing this so...#that's what you get #a pretty off topic ramble #jorge tag #light dancer kars

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eisforeidolon · 7 years

Text

Episode: Who We Are

I admit I was a little apprehensive because of a few things I'd heard about this episode, despite the generally positive reception I've seen. Largely, though, it was unwarranted and I mostly only had issues with it in the context of the season as a whole. Like season 11, an episode or two at the very end of the season can't make up for a lousy arc plot, but this episode was about as good as it could be, given the givens going in.

Everything picks up where we left off with Sam and Dean sealed into the bunker with limited air and resources. I liked that both brothers got the chance to have a good idea about how to get out. Sam's idea of using the bunker's resources and doing a spell – and then how plan b has to try and finagle it to work without the proper ingredients. Followed by Dean's attempt at just going with the simplest option when nothing else will work. Not to mention that when the first version of that plan doesn't work you could almost see a lightbulb go off over Dean's head via Jensen's expression when he thinks of the grenade launcher. It was such a great moment! I've seen complaints the grenade launcher should have been inaccessible in the Impala's trunk, but the Impala would have presumably been in the garage inside the bunker.

For a lot of the stuff in that opening in the bunker, I found myself thinking about how much I really missed these guys - it feels like it's been for-freakin'-ever since Sam and Dean got the time to be Sam and Dean and not somebody else's sideshow. The little moment of humor when they agree to go get protective goggles, the conversation about the BMOL and how they pictured themselves going out, their little exchanged looks and how they're totally in tune with one another while Toni is stuck just going WTF over their Winchester-crazy. I also certainly don't object to the fanservice of sweaty, straining Winchesters in only one layer of clothing. The utter glee of Dean/Grenade Launcher and Sam's desperate hacking search for Dean through the smoky, compromised bunker after the explosion before the lights and air come back up and reveal it's all good? Just awesome.

I also appreciated that though the show did ultimately force them to work with Toni, it was in a situation where there really wasn't much choice and they never really trusted or liked her. Even in the latter part of the episode when she plays on Dean's sympathy by mentioning her kid, she's not suddenly redeemed. It's just as manipulative as ever - and even if I have concerns about the show blithely traipsing across a moral event horizon with how many humans they gunned down here? I appreciated that they didn't have the Winchesters go a step further yet and kill her in cold blood.

Loved that the Winchesters immediately tried to call everybody to warn them and that even if he didn't get to appear, Garth had a moment on the phone and didn't get killed off off-screen. On the other hand, I was rather sad that we didn't get to see Alex distracting Mary and Jody kicking her ass. And I loved that little moment where Mary is snide about mothering Dean and Jody doesn't even acknowledge her.

Yeah, I still don't care enough about Mary that I was invested in trying to fix her since I don't remember seeing a “good Mary” since season five. Likewise, I can't take the BMOL and their bizarre KILL EVERYONE plan seriously (especially since they were already clearly doing enough evil to random innocent civilians to warrant a revolt) … and why are Roy and Walt still alive? I am so disappointed about that.

Moving on, though, while it may have been a little sudden and last minute in terms of the season's progression, I did appreciate the way the episode brought Sam full circle on the BMOL. It makes sense the big speech about them goes to Sam, both because he is often the big talker and because he was the one who fell for their spiel. Acknowledging that he allowed himself to be swayed by wanting a simple answer and having a more personal need to prevent them from causing further damage made sense and was good to see from him. All the better that it was reinforced at the end of the episode when he was offered the same choice again and saw it for what it was.

I get why there was a division of labor here, where Dean stays behind to try and fix Mary and Sam leads the assault team. The show likes to do trade-offs and parallels between the brothers (though the parallels aren't necessarily equal), and last season Dean went off to face Amara alone so here Sam had the more arc-related role. I can’t say I was entirely impressed the division of labor fell back to that problem the whole season has had where we have action!Sam and feelings!Dean and neither gets much play in the other arena. And I also felt Dean’s injury was pretty obviously contrived - but considering Sam spent last season’s finale waiting in a bar? Yeah, not the worst balance the show’s ever managed. Of course, in a perfect world this episode alone would have been stretched into two so that both brothers could be part of the assault and the emotional confrontation with Mary (In regards to the various stances on Dean framing everything as about consequences to Sam, I think it would have had a lot more potential if Sam himself had been there to hear and react to it). That said, I do love the moment where Sam tells Dean just how much faith he has in his abilities, saying he'd rather have him even with an injury over anyone else. Likewise that we finally got the brother hug this season kept teasingly just out of reach 'til now. The quiet moment with Jody and Alex as Alex heads out for safety was also a great touch, as was the shot of the hunters on their way via the pavement with the cars passing above in the dark.

I did think the inter-cuts between the action with Sam and the emotion with Dean were very well done. Though I mentioned my problems with the Mary setup earlier, the acting was unquestionably above and beyond and elevated the material beyond what it was. Jensen and his insanely expressive face, holy crap. On the BMOL side, I am still bothered that given a whole season to build things up, we didn't get to know any of these hunters so we could actually care instead of them just being nameless canon fodder + Jody. Still, even with that said, it was a great set of action sequences and I did thoroughly enjoy seeing the BMOL base go boom.

As to the respective climaxes with Ketch and Headwoman Sourface, I suspect it was intentional that neither Dean nor Sam got the final big fish kill. I was kind of irritated that after a season of being noticeably sidelined, Dean not only ended up put out of the big battle but didn't even get to beat up Ketch? But ultimately as the one who was betrayed so much more directly by him it was far more fitting that Mary got to take him down. I did find it interesting, especially in light of my complaints about all the human deaths here, that they gave Ketch that last line calling Dean and Mary killers.

I got a kick out of the head BMOL lady being so out of touch she didn't even properly know which Winchester was which. It also seemed perfectly in (stupid) character for her to try and caution Sam about severing all ties with the BMOL (even though it's pretty hard to get more severed than having them try to kill you). I am, however, mostly indifferent to their completely random habit of having super specific information vs. not much at all continuing through to reveal Lucifer is out and about. I'm pretty disdainful of attempting to make out that Lucifer + spawn is so much bigger of a threat – seriously, they were selling us the nephilim as a world destroyer … you don't actually get much more unstoppable than that, guys.

Even if I rolled my eyes a little bit at Sam coming in at just the absolute perfect moment in Mary's speech at the end, I admit I am a complete sucker for the fact they ended on a Winchester family group hug.

#spn spoilers #spn season 12 #spn 12x22

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930club · 7 years

Audio

ALBUM REVIEW: J. Cole - 4 Your Eyez Only

Ten featureless tracks of hard-hitting, brilliant, and bluesy hip-hop. If you haven’t yet listened to J. Cole’s new album, 4 Your Eyez Only, it’s one of my New Year’s resolutions to change that ASAP. Never heard of J. Cole? Take it from credible sources like Drake, Jay Z, Kevin Durant, and even President Obama that this 31-year-old rapper’s music is what you should be filling your ears with in 2017. This album is especially resonant in the modern environment of police brutality, but the album doesn’t ring as aggressively as those from Cole’s colleagues in the rap game. Each song chronicles a story, manifesting countless emotions and painting a deep, pensive lament, as opposed to the shallow picture of rage that is easier to understand. “The voice of the voiceless,” as Ibrahim Haram (@KingOfQueenz) calls Cole, his album generates a parallel story from a perspective that isn’t his, as many fans theorized. Confirmed by co-producer Elite, who says, “the album is largely from a perspective that is not J. Cole[‘s],” 4 Your Eyez Only humanizes the problems existing for countless, platform-less African Americans today via an allegory lived by Cole’s friend, James MacMillan Jr. (name changed for privacy). Elite also touches on just how important keeping the theme, message, and commentary clear was in choosing the tracks to include on the album. The result is a craftily-curated album that tells the story of someone who is gone to their daughter. Cole, a social media hermit, has yet to confirm whether his friend is the subject matter, but regardless, the vibrancy of the feelings expressed, paired with the truth in the general stories, gives a voice to those people lost in the discriminatory system.

The first track, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” sets the morose tone of the platform J. Cole uses to deliver his heavy message. The vibe-machine triplets, paired with flugelhorn licks soaring above, create space for a waterfall of thoughts about death, its inevitability, and what should be done in the meantime to make life worthwhile. Lines like “Do I wanna die? I don’t know” and “Tired of feelin’ low, even when I’m high” pivot off of themes in Cole’s previous albums, highlighting his own depression. The song is not so self-indulgent, instead representing the pain and exasperation that comes from the deaths of many. A reflection on his current environment, Cole’s titling of the song could be paying homage to two artistic works: a poem by John Donne bearing the same name, or the famous work by Ernest Hemmingway. Donne’s poem preaches peace; the lines “Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee” connect the speaker to the death of others. This is especially pertinent in the plight of African Americans during the search for a solution to systematic violence and institutionalized racism in the United States. J. Cole echoes this tone as he hears the bell getting louder; preparing for death, searching for a solution, but knowing the bell tolls for “he” (whether it is his perspective or James’). Ernest Hemmingway’s novel recounts the story of an American soldier in the Spanish Civil War, in which case the title could act as a parable for the man whose story Cole is telling. The friend is also a soldier, but in the fight against poverty through pushing drugs. In both stories, the soldier meets a girl (see later songs) and no longer wants to be a part of the war.

“Immortal” answers the panicked searching of the first track with powerful solace. The song is “ripe with pain” and raw energy toward deaths of people of color. Cole’s friend, who was a drug dealer killed, is most likely the subject of this track as Cole has previously made known that he never dealt. His answer to the macabre musings in the previous track is that “real n***as don’t die.” This line serves to remind the public that those who died, if seen as good in the eyes of loved-ones, don’t really die. By impacting others, their impression remains long after they pass. The aggressive nature of the song and the tough-guy bite to the verse adds another meaning to the line. It’s almost as if “James” is convincing himself that if he’s a “real n***a,” he won’t die. Someone close to me once said that risky business pays off, but you live a life convincing yourself that “bad things happen to other people.” This cocky attitude and the payoff of the business usually keep people in it for life.

“Deja Vu” tells the story of a girl Cole couldn’t catch due to her status as a friend’s girlfriend. The song resonates in that lonely space in the head of anyone eyeing a crush from a distance. A familiar theme in previous Cole albums, the story of an untouchable femme this time takes a different ending. Manifested in the bitter hook that “she f*** with small town n****s, I got bigger dreams,” he takes a new course of action: focusing on his dreams. The tone is more laidback; instead of pushing for the girl and having his way, he talks himself down while the girl’s voice (sung by a background singer) echoes close enough to hear, but tauntingly distant.

Though Cole seems to sit steady with his bigger dreams by the end of the previous track, the next song, “Ville Mentality,” recounts a melancholy awakening to the fact that things won’t change if dreams stay dreams. In his 2014 documentary, Forest Hills Drive: Homecoming, he talks about how people in his hometown may have dreams, but the mentality is to put your head and heart into the limited opportunities available in small towns to simply survive. The term “ville mentality” was first coined in his track “Can I Holla At Ya” on his extended playlist “Truly Yours.” This theme resonates through the entire album, where J. Cole’s friend, who chooses to deal, questions, “How long will I survive with this mentality?” Featuring a girl from a school in Fayetteville (Cole’s hometown), the existence of this reality is proliferated when her interview talks about losing her dad in a set up. Artistically, the girl’s voice appears as the voice of Cole’s friend’s daughter, to whom he is telling the story, bringing humility to the nameless who are affected by loss like this. In reality, the fact that Cole can pull stories like this from random children at a school in Fayetteville emanates the album’s higher message and is quite possibly the reason Cole doesn’t reveal who the album is about. It isn’t just about his friend or Cole himself – it is about anyone who is given limited opportunity and does all they can to be stable in their world, but remains trapped, unable to touch their true dreams. The unequal opportunities for African Americans – the tendency for them to systematically be pushed into this trap – is substantiated by the song “Immortal” with the lines, “They tellin' n****s sell dope, rap or go to NBA, in that order. It's that sort of thinkin' that been keepin' n****s chained At the bottom and hanged,” perfectly summing up the mentality.

“She’s Mine Pt. 1” has one of the most haunting piano, string, and vocal melodies I have recently found in hip-hop. That’s of course an opinion, but the simplistic production that backs the poem in the verse softens the entire album up until this point. Falling in love for the first time – a feeling exposed in many songs, at many tempos, in many tonalities, in many genres – is here painted in a melancholy, bluesy timbre. I feel the pain and fear that is trying to let go and fall in slow motion toward someone else. The climax of the album’s storyline is represented in this track; he “Don't wanna die (Don't wanna die no more).” The voice now has someone to live for, the modal harmony representing the fear and sadness in minor and beauty and power in major resolve. Now, of all moments, is where someone trapped in a dangerous life wants out the most, foreshadowing the falling action in the album.

The first verse of “Change” recounts the themes of wisdom and confidence in “Immortality,” but in a less aggressive, more upbeat fashion. It’s almost as if Cole is no longer convincing himself through his spirituality that “real n****s don’t die.” He is at peace with the idea that God realizes people make mistakes and intuitively knows that things change — that there are always better days. “The only real change come from inside” proves that fear, pessimism, and living one’s failure is a self-fulfilled prophecy. The best thing one can do is have faith in change and continue to do the things that are right. Cole condemns opulence and materialism in his reference to the “prodigal son,” warning that luck shouldn’t be confused with reward. Faith must be lived out, with change coming from inside, constantly pushing against the vile mentality without “neglecting the execution.” He dissuades against “following homies” because time is too short to live based on what the outside tells to you do. Instead, decisions should be based on love, not economics, as well as on yourself and who you want to be at the end of the day. The end of the verse is the first mention of James MacMillan Jr.’s death and combines the inner desires for vengeance with the speaker’s words in a vigil. Thoughts of vengeance revert the song’s theme back to the tragedy that the black community often faces, inspiring cyclical violence in revenge – a cycle that comes when people “Give up, give in, (and)…move back a little.” Change can come from the perception of death and whether the resulting actions of those effected will change them in a way that pushes people closer to the edge of more death, or whether it will convince them to break out in desperation to change to something better.

The song “Neighbors” is purportedly “inspired by true events,” and Elite talks about the story behind the album in his interview with Complex. Sheltuh, where a lot of the songs on the album are creatively rooted, is a house that Cole rents in North Carolina as a safe space for Dreamville artists and collaborators to work on their art in peace. The house is in a predominantly white neighborhood and with mostly African American artists arriving and hanging around the space, the nearby neighbors became paranoid enough that a “million-dollar investigation” with a SWAT team commenced. Fortunately, all of the artists were out of the house and audio engineer Juro “Mez” Davis came back from his lunch break to watch the investigation fail miserably, as all they could find was a studio. This story and the song incepted are the perfect example of what causes the cyclical violence. J. Cole has no record, so for a large investigation to be called on assumption indicates the institutionalized racism in our country. It’s racism that Cole wants to escape, but honestly thinking he can’t is something that shakes the very foundation of equal protection in our country. If everyone scoffs at your dreams, “Even when your crib sit on a lake, Even when your plaques hang on a wall, Even when the president jam your tape,” it makes one want to give up. People will believe what they want, so Cole says he is selling dope, “so much for integration, don’t know what I was thinkin’,” something unfathomable by those privileged enough to be born out of such of a reality. Why would he give up if that is what this whole album is about? The enterprising sarcasm in this song is also answered by change that comes from the inside. If instead of making your life about what others want – striving for the “right” promotions, the “right” image – you will BE someone to everyone else, but you might not DO anything. It is a matter of choosing which is most important to you and sticking to what comes from within.

Refusing to dwell in the mentality for too long, Cole returns to the feeling of escape and love with “Foldin Clothes.” The groove on this track is funky as hell and one can’t help but smile at a whole song about doing laundry for a loved one. Whimsical lines about almond milk, Netflix, and other “simple things” that “say ‘I love you’” draw the listener in. After all, “The right thing, feels so much better than the wrong thing,” and this song makes you feel good. The pacing of the piece lets people feel comfortable in the love and the escape from the hard-hitting reality. It doesn’t rest in funky love for too long, though; as in life, the track returns to the hard-hitting reality that is amplified by contrast in the third verse. It lays out the reality of living the hustle. “N****s in the hood is the best actors” because they act the second life, abandoning sweetness for a struggle, not letting their brothers see they’re “soft.” Living a second life like that hardens one’s soul and confuses a person’s reality with what they feel they must do to survive. This is the true plague of the ville mentality: the situation that African Americans live in today puts them in such a place that it isn’t a choice to be rough and hard because it’s cool – it’s a choice of survival. Not only is the lifestyle dangerous, unfair, and unfulfilling, but many people who exist on the other side only see it through a rose-colored window pane in pop culture. This is confirmed in the final track, “4 Your Eyez Only,” where the third verse laments the skewed version of what a “real n****” is” set by mixtapes, friends, and so on.

“She’s Mine Pt. 2” represents the falling in love that happens upon the birth of your first child. Again, the haunting mode develops a melancholy picture where, after bringing someone into the world out of love, there is pain in introducing them to the world of materialism, violence, and fear – a world where a father isn’t even sure if he is strong enough to quit his bad habits for something that feels so brilliant. The narrative on the album further emerges, supporting the theory about it being from another man’s perspective, as Cole seems to talk to a small girl. The power and spiritual awakening that come from the gifted moments in life are enough to make one question their lifestyle and bring change from within. Unfortunately, though, change needs to come from everyone’s insides to change to the world — it is not a magic wand that can make the evil disappear.

The resolve in finding someone or something bigger than you is beautiful and heartbreaking. The heartbreak comes at the end of the story, in the next track, “4 Your Eyez Only.” Our narrator lets his dreams fade for “far too long” and he faces “deadly consequences” – the death foreshadowed in “Change.” The verse outlines the crooked system that washes away the dreams of Cole’s friends, replacing them with the “ville mentality.” The stress of providing for a wife and family is all he can think of, and his only wish is that his daughter can understand him through the verse. He hopes that she understands that no one is born with the mentality, praying that she can be tired of the lifestyle before it even takes over her dreams. The “real n****” created by the media, mentioned above, and preached by the father-to-be is, in fact, false. He asks that she find someone with goals and points of view – things that J. Cole preaches helped bring him out of poverty. In the final verse, Cole raps in his own words to his friend’s daughter, telling her about when her daddy told him what to say. Cole’s perspective rings loud and clear when he recounts all the things that her dad did that could have made him a “real n****” in some people’s eyes. Pushing with all his lyrical and artistic might, Cole wants to her know: “Your daddy was a real n**** ‘cause he loved you.”

That line shook me and caused me to shed some tears because somehow love, education, and unique perspectives have lost power to what it takes to survive in your own skin. For some people, this is doing drugs; for others, it is making money, but I sincerely hope that in the new year, everyone finds something that is bigger than themselves, even if it means pushing against what everyone else says is cool and likeable. Change is inevitable, but channeling the direction of that change is not. Change comes from within, and I wish for everyone to keep looking inside themselves in order to send that change in the right direction for you, even if it’s along the road less traveled. J. Cole recognizes that the type of change needed to heal wounds isn’t going to be easy, but his perspective is real in my eyes, and real isn’t always easy.

-Erin Jones

#Album Review #J. Cole #4 Your Eyez Only #For Whom the Bell Tolls #Immortal #Deja Vu #Ville Mentality #She's Mine #Change #Neighbors #Foldin Clothes #Forest Hills Drive #Erin Jones

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