#it's always dramatic recognisable event + aliens

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

i dont think doctor who takes enough advantage of all the weirdness in history

#it's always dramatic recognisable event + aliens #what about THIS #anyway 13 would ask yaz out like this i think #yaz staring at a piece of paper for 5 minutes deciphering a fucking rebus. looks up finally. sees 13 watching her like :) #shes like Sigh. well how can i say no when you made such an effort #and 13 is like :D #and yaz is like not sure it was the right thing to exhaust all yuor effort on but alright

[villainever]

God, We're All Tired: Female Conflict in Killing Eve's Season One Finale

So I'm sure 1x08 has been analysed to death, but seeing as we're winding up to the end of Killing Eve's second season (sad face), I thought I'd jump in with a completely unsolicited reflection on the ultimate culmination of Villanelle and Eve's mutual obsession and pursuit. I'll kick off by saying that from the start, we knew this moment would be interesting, for a whole slew of reasons: Firstly, from the get-go, we were shown that Killing Eve was here to subvert and reconstruct; it's deeply oriented within its genre, but it's irreverent, and even what I would describe as a reclamation of spy-fi. Specifically, it's a female-led narrative taking ownership of a set of texts and tropes that have consistently objectified and excluded women by turns. From its inception, the psychological thriller genre has delighted in a) withholding women's agency, and killing/torturing/assaulting them, both to shock viewers and to lend pathos to the motivations of male characters, and b) revelling in their "expiration" from sexual desirability, and casting the "ailing crone" as the villain orchestrating events. Killing Eve has absolutely no interest in ever reducing its women to their component parts. There are no pedestals, and there are no pitchforks. As a show, it hits all the golden points of suspense television, and completely reimagines the rest; it's a masterpiece balacing act of keeping the classic cat-and-mouse recogniseable, while allowing Eve and Villanelle to each be both the predator and the prey.

Secondly, our two protagonists are women. Highly unusual and exceptional women -- that's inarguable -- but nevertheless, they've been socialised in particular ways. What's so fascinating here is that both have been injected with a comfort in and enjoyment of theatrical violence that's usually reserved for male villains. However, even at their most ruthless, there's an innate intimacy to both of them -- unlike, say, for example, the Joker, Villanelle's flamboyance and love affair with destruction never manifest as mass-killings or the eradication of infrastructure (like blowing up a hospital). Villanelle exacts each murder with the creativity of the truly engaged and passionate, but it's always personal and unique, usually one-on-one. She doesn't have a vendetta against the world, either; she finds beauty in it -- in ice-cream and movies and nice architecture or fun clothes. Similarly, Eve is enthralled by Villanelle's flair for the deadly and the dramatic, but it's not born out of a spite for humanity, but a sense of artistry and a consuming need for some adrenaline in her otherwise numb and mundane life. These complexities muddle their emotions and motivations, and make it difficult for even the most television-literate to semi-accurately predict their storylines.

Thirdly, Eve and Villanelle are never positioned as diametrically opposed. This in itself is not exactly out of the left field -- a lot of media with a dark focal point or mature subjects introduce heroes and villains who share key traits (e.g. Sherlock and Irene, in CBS's Elementary), or even comparable goals (e.g. Black Panther's Killmonger and Nadia both want to open Wakanda's borders). In most cases, though, the antagonist will represent some kind of seduction to the 'other side', that the protagonist inevitably resists the allure of (e.g. Andy realising Miranda isn't who she wants to grow up to be -- successful but alienated -- and goes back to her excuse of a boyfriend in TDWP). But while Eve and Villanelle are very much established as one another's temptations, we also see that they'll grant the other access to a part of the world that is, for now, barred from them: Villanelle and Eve will stop each other from being bored. They "resist the allure" not because they fear moral wrongdoing, but because they cling to their respective images of themselves -- Eve, as someone "nice and normal", who happens to have a grey area for a hobby, and Villanelle, as someone independent, in control, with no lines she wouldn't cross. Way back in the pilot, we're shown that they don't actually WANT to destroy each other. Villanelle is too interesting to Eve, Eve is too attractive to Villanelle. Yes, they pose a significant threat to their respective lifestyles, but as we've had proven, they're becoming willing to risk that if it means gaining something more. They don't reflect a sinister alternative timeline of "look what you could've been" (which is inherently hero-centric, and Killing Eve pays as much attention to Villanelle as Eve), they offer each other a "look what you could still be", that is at once dark and hopeful -- something that they've really elaborated on in this second season. But 1x08, even though it is very much the symbolic collision that is the centrepiece of all chase stories, is not their first meeting. Villanelle goes to Eve's house in the (iconic) 1x05. So why not save that for the finale? Why not build and build and have that tension released right at the end? Because, crucially, 1x05 generated more tension. The show's writing is so substantial that it doesn't worry about losing its audience after the moment they've been waiting for happens. It's one of the reasons you could have the entire plot of Killing Eve spoiled, and then still enjoy every episode when you watch it yourself: it's the How that we love as much as the What. Killing Eve takes the time and space to revel in its style, characters, and setting -- but that's another essay. In 1x05, their meeting is high-octane, and crucially, it's brief. We get a snapshot of how their infatuation and fixation translates into chemistry. And they both become real to one another. Eve's last reservations begin to fade as she realises that she can survive an encounter with Villanelle, and her sense of self -- most importantly, the subconscious idea that she's somehow special -- is vindicated (Eve's slight narcissism, and how the show makes it compelling and intoxicating, is yet another thing I could go on about). For Villanelle, Eve is allowed to be more than just great hair and a worthy threat. She's someone challenging and entertaining. What's so incredible about that first meeting is that it's proof that this dynamic isn't running on mystery and fumes. It's sustainable. They continue to appeal to one another once they're in the same room together. They appeal even more. Their sexual tension skyrockets, and the whole dance becomes extremely personal. They can't write one another off as playthings, although they largely continue to attempt that, at least for a short while. With this in mind, let's move on to that finale. Not only is Eve trashing Villanelle's apartment hilarious, and a perfect articulation of the humour/danger cantilever that makes Killing Eve awesome, but it provides a critical catharsis for the audience before the actual confrontation. By this point, the price for Eve's obsession is starting to rack up -- her job is circling the drain, Niko's dodging her calls, her self-image is blurring. Eve has a whole lot of feelings, but she's allowed to express them on her own, symbolically taking them out on Villanelle by ruining her things, which become a vehicle for venting her frustrations without actually affecting their relationship. When Villanelle does arrive, Eve's ready. This scene would've worked if it was some sexy wall-leaning, banter, and Eve surprise-stabbing Villanelle in the middle of a conversation. I think that's probably how a lot of screenwriters today would've done it, scrawling it off by rote and relying on Villaneve's chemistry and Comer and Oh's excellent acting to nail the bit. Instead, we get this civil conversation, and then they lie down together, first relaxing, and then gravitating towards one another. I don't believe that Eve knew until the millisecond she decided to do it that she would actually try and stab Villanelle. I actually gave this mini-essay a title, and it's "female conflict". That's because I think that this entire sequence wouldn't have happened in a show created by men, or featuring male characters. In violent shows, we get violent conflict. Killing Eve is unquestionably a violent show, but it's distinct from its contemporaries in that the characters aren't there to prop up the violence; the violence is there to reveal and develop the characters. But after a whole season of elaborate murder and tyre-squealing pursuit, we get this stillness. Yet, it doesn't feel for even a beat like bathos. It's absolutely a climax, and it's both suspenseful and arresting. It really illustrates that the show is about fascination: they're hungry to know everything, like Eve says. There's no performative combat. We can't guess what's going to happen because neither can they. Their obsession isn't a "this town ain’t big enough for the both of us" situation. It's a "this town is only the both of us". Their worlds are reduced to each other and they don't want to squander it with fighting, because fundamentally, Eve and Villanelle are so much more similar than they are different. Again, I say this is so fitting for female characters because they see this co-existence as an option. It's so simple, but the idea of your protagonist and antagonist sighing, "Fuck, can't we just have a lie down after all this?" and making it satisfying is incredibly radical. Because it's so personal, and intimate, and human. At every interval, the writing asks, What would we actually do at this moment? Not, What precedent has popular culture set for this moment? Too often, I think we give characters responses that we've seen before in texts, because we watched/read it, accepted it, and just filed it into our own work, knowing it's what the audience expects. But this scene with Eve and Villanelle is so heart-wrenchingly in-character. It's two people charging at each other full speed, not to hit each other but to be close to one another. And like so many other tiny beats over the course of the season, Killing Eve luxuriates in this proximity. We get to breathe. It's gentle. It's a gentle pause between two people who could utterly eradicate one another, but choose not to. It's ladden as well with such a specific but familiar kind of exhaustion, and it's an act of defiance, too. Killing Eve rejects the hegemonic (and predominantly masculine) cultural assertion that conflict (or even sometimes, in the less typical texts, debate and negotiation) is the way to resolve difference, and indeed, that difference must be resolved. That one must overpower the other. That your enemy is an alien and cannot be connected with, related to. The fact is, a lot of even this first season isn't spent chasing, it's spent running. Eve and Villanelle take an interest in each other early on, and it quickly escalates from intellectual to sexual to emotional (insofar as either of them are capable of that). By 1x05, they've caught up to each other. The rest of the time, though, they're fleeing from how much they want each other, how alike they might be. And in Villanelle's Paris apartment, they concede: I love you more than I hate you. I need you more than I should. And it's with that concession that we as an audience can experience their relaxation, too. It's what we've -- consciously or not -- been waiting for. That acknowledgement. But Margot, you say, you've been talking about how this isn't about violence -- have your forgotten that Eve STABS Villanelle, literally three seconds after this? I have not, The Only Follower Who Read This Far. So why engineer all this, and then have Eve knife Villanelle straight in the gut? Because even though they have this liminal second together, their story isn't resolved. Killing Eve goes absolutely wild with power dynamics, and I could discuss that for hours, too -- Eve is older, but Villanelle is more experienced; Eve is more stable, but Villanelle is more adaptable, etc. But generally speaking -- partially because Eve is, at the beginning, something of an audience surrogate -- the scales are in Villanelle's favour. She's dangerous, clever, has no fear of legal consequences, and has more freedom and greater resources. Killing Eve is allergic to any pedestrian predictability, so it shakes up this arrangement. In stabbing Villanelle, Eve proves to both of them what she's capable of. Prior to this, they had an impression of their similarities, but this throws into sharp relief exactly how deep those run. Eve immediately regrets the stabbing, because it wasn't about getting rid of Villanelle. She doesn't want to hurt her so much as show her that Eve has power too, has recklessness too, can keep up. This interaction isn't the product of an inability to relate, but a desperation to connect. This joins them together, affirms their relationship. Eve isn't trying to dominate her, to win, not really. She's telling Villanelle what she's capable of, and equating them. We get this confirmed in how Villanelle perceives in the stab wound as a symbol of affection (2x02, 2x05), and how Eve says she continues to think about it constantly (2x05). I believe that while Villanelle always respected Eve, if Eve hadn't stabbed her, Villanelle would've remained confident that she, quietly, had the upper hand. That if ever need be, she could be more cunning and cruel and decisive than Eve. But Eve's put them in the same ring, and also removed one major wall between them -- Villanelle's murderous side is a key part of her character, and after this, she knows that Eve isn't intruiged by her despite this, but because of it, and because it’s at least partially common ground. Eve isn't Anna (another comparison I could go off on a tangent about, but I'll spare you). In sum, I think that the season one finale was beautifully rendered, and reflected Killing Eve's appreciation of itself. It let the characters interact genuinely, it refreshed their dynamic, and allowed them development separately (Eve's new understanding of her own capacity for harm; Villanelle's new experience with vulnerability, and not being able to predict others) and together (intertwining them irrevocably, further aligning them). It's one of those rare scenes where it's completely surprising at the time of viewing, but in hindsight, seems inevitable, and you can't imagine it any different. I can't make any predictions for the season two final episode other than I expect something equally unexpected, something just as loyal to the characters and their relationship, and their capacity to embrace and antagonise each other. This essay is probably borderline incoherent. It really got away from me. I set a timer for half an hour and told myself that whatever I got written in that time, I'd post. Thanks so much for your kind comments on my rant yesterday, and I hope this is at least vaguely what you were looking for, @ the people who said they'd read another. You're my favs. If you've got something else Killing Eve-related you'd like me to yell about, let me know! Or if you want to come chat, I promise I'm friendly! I’m using the tag “#villainever writes” for this rambly stuff atm, so if I ever write another of these I’ll have a digital drawer to put it in hahah

#villainever writes #villaneve #killing eve #killing eve essay #ke analysis #killing eve analysis #villanelle #eve polastri #eve x villanelle #eve x oksana #villanelle x eve #villainever #villanevest writes

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/ascension-navigation-for-2020/

Ascension Navigation for 2020

Ascension Navigation for 2020

By A Gift From Gaia

The Beginning…..

We are here, a time and space that we have been talking and preparing for consciously for at least a couple of years; and yet from the higher Eye view we know that we have been in preparation from the moment we were birthed.

2020 comes around and presents itself as something that’s way too big to explain, simply because there is not one human on this planet who knows how this moves exactly. The main events to this year are highlighted in the planets and are showing us something that hasn’t been seen on Earth certainly not for at least 500 years but even then, whilst that era or wave was incredibly transformative what we have available now has the potential to shift us into realities that we could only now describe as alien.

There is no doubt we are from this point on taking a momentous quantum leap.

We have no reference points in which to create stories around the energy. What we do know is we are now beginning to rise on the tsunami of change. We know that our world is about to shift in a very big way and we have been learning to release the attachments and expectations as to how this will look. That’s one very interesting shift that we have nowadays in comparison to how it was say 500 years ago. The ability to prophesise the details is so close to impossible, nothing works the way it once did or as our great ancestors got to experience . The prophesies we read today from long ago have been for a while going wayward, because what couldn’t have been understood then was the expansion into the Quantum wisdom, the ability to form the future from our core frequency and with this we now hold a super power of changing outcomes.

Details and presentations, opportunities and experiences can completely shift the moment the vibration moves within us individually and collectively.

This shift doesn’t change the core or the theme, this will always stay the same as its’ objective is balance, it’s a wave, a sine wave that in order to understand it you will need to expand the view and the awareness so high that it’s possible to see the beginning of the sine from when we first began until now. By observing this pattern you will see that what we have created must now dissolve and make way for the new, hence why it has been progressively getting more and more unstable within the collective.

Let’s be blunt here, let’s not beat around bushes, our race will be reduced and it is an essential part of our evolution, our purification and our survival as a whole on this planet.

To really get your head around the shift I would highly encourage you to take your journey back, to reintroduce yourself to your Ancient Self, the One who existed from the beginning when our race was formed, and begin to look at the rise and fall of civilisations. From there I would encourage you to learn as much as possible about the Age of Aries, then the Age of Pisces and finally the Age of Aquarius paying particular interest to what each era held, the laws, the ways, the religions, the beliefs, then looking at the years of the transitions and the historical events that carried the change.

We are now in an incredible key position for the transition from Pisces to Aquarius, and once you have done the research you will soon come to realise that our entire belief structure and programming is all very firmly embedded in a phase now dissolving. Whilst there is much speculation as to when or if the Aquarian Age has started the point is nothing just starts and ends. It fades in and phases out just like a wave and the wave we find ourselves now surfing may feel big already. It’s never been surfed before so we cannot yet comprehend the size and each movement will feel gigantic, but let me tell you this wave has only just picked us up to begin and it is the wave taking us into the Aquarian Age.

The 4th frequency feels the most volatile as it is after all the bandwidth with the most distortion. In most streams or labels it holds the entire spiritual arena, the space in which separation is Seen and experienced and it’s the space that holds a magnificent mocktail of beliefs that have over time been mutated from the original religious roots such as angels and demons, ascended masters, saviours and gods. These are all templates now to be seen in their truth as the coded descriptions of patterns, as intended, to withstand the test of time and yet the distortion began when these codes were taken by power hungry, egocentric leaders of long ago and twisted into history for their gain in that time…..that the race has been forming its foundations upon ever since and only now beginning to see that we have taken “The words as Gospel”, the word of God distorted and preached literally.

The Book was coded, the words are symbols and behind these are the Truth, the mirror of our separation and the descriptions of the patterns were there all along, waiting for the Eye to recognise the ancient language of patterning.

Again, I encourage you to look past the Piscean Era and to see how the saviour stories repeat and when you find the path to see past the words and into the patterns, the detachment from the Piscean Era and all that you have known becomes a much smoother transition.

This is the path of the initiate, it is the illuminated path that will lead all those prepared to Be the Shift through the fields of hopelessness that are experienced when we go through such a deep deprogramming, the real eye view, a journey of Freedom….the ultimate purpose.

The days of playing around in the spiritual fields without full respect are over, it is time to get REAL as 2020 will be incredibly sobering to those still singing from the fishy song sheet. It would be fair to say you will witness those believed to be the “most enlightened” begin the Deep C Dive within in which the emotions, the judgement, the spiritual warriors, the blame, the victim and separation will spin out for all connected to experience and resolve/dissolve.

This is likely to appear quite reactive, looking through the window of social media it has been evident that many of the popular spiritual spaces are rumbling with reactivity. It is for a time a perfect learning space to understand the mirrors and distortions, the lies in the beliefs, but after time the need to experience these distorted fields reduces dramatically and through the reflections the requirement to step away gets louder until we listen, and follow the guidance to enter the depths of within, to sit in the silence and observe the fields so that we can learn, grow and re-emerge accountable. There is a great responsibility when we declare we are of the light and this will now make itself very known.

This year is of course the kickstart to the incoming decade cycle, it holds a whole range of crucial points that are being shown in the cosmic star map and it’s headed up by Saturn who has been at home in Capricorn for the past two years. It is now we get to surf through the crescendo of this transit before he takes his dip into the energy of Aquarius in the first part of this year and then partnered with Mars to retrograde back into Capricorn and re-enter Aquarius on 21st December with a Grand Conjunction with Jupiter on Solstice, highly symbolic of how the Aquarian Age will taste. Saturn and Jupiter hand in hand at 0 degree which opens up such an incredible portal giving the purpose of the 2021 next incredible wave.

So what do we know in terms of how this will pan out?

In short, nothing will be the same. We begin the year with the Capricorn Council: Saturn, Pluto, Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, South Node, with the two Centaurs Pholus and Ceres. By the 20th of January we receive the strategic war Goddess Pallas Athena enter Capricorn whilst Sun and Mercury make their escape to begin the gathering of data required to bring some sense, some form to the paths we discovered during the depths of January.

This Council is the Master reset. On the world stage this is set to change the structure as it hits the foundations of everything we once knew to be true and trusted; albeit the trust has been dwindling for some time the ripples of unrest will begin to be seen reverberating through the fields and will be hitting the rule creators. This points towards our governments, banks and all institutions that are invested in keeping its’ audience, its people dulled down. The humble Gaians, the compliant humans have already been showing their unwillingness to be spoon fed and showing that compliance to that system is now a thing of the past. What is next to be realised is how the population has blindly allowed this control, that there is no point hating on the puppeteers, we chose the role of the “puppets” and yet we are soon to discover that we were always the “real boys” and all we’ve got to do is cut those strings. We will learn to be responsible and with this we will learn that we created this space to lose the wisdom, this is how change begins and through this we will learn that the power is always with the people.

From a decade view let’s just say the power will be very much on the light side by the close in 2029.

Knowing the deconstruction is upon us will no doubt have fear rising, this is the objective, all must be seen and please do not lose sight of the Magic this holds. We knew the fear programming was to make itself known, hence these past couple of years specifically when the word ego was on everyone’s lips. Ego, being the label for the first programming that holds judgement, blame, shame and everything that stops the process of the heart awakening.

Talking of Magic, this will be the word I use mostly as the theme for 2020. This may seem contradictory to the visualisations that might be appearing reading this report however we must understand exactly what magic is and the alchemical process it holds.

Most of us know magic to be something quite extraordinary that happens very quick, faster than the eye and the brain can digest, but from the most highest of view points and in the lowest of the dense frequencies it happens incredibly slowly and resembles something that looks a whole lot more like chaos.

Think about it for a second, imagine the Master Magician materialising something from nothing, atoms splitting, fizzing energy in creation, something appearing from nothing takes great force to create and materialise something that now holds space, and this process is no different for us. However being so physically dense this process in the beginning happens in super slow motion, allowing us to witness the secrets it holds and at first it is easy to get lost in the details without seeing the greater more expanded view. In the beginning it will appear somewhat painful, chaotic, but this is simply learning how this all works and the pain is nothing more than the resistance held.

Fully aligning to processes of transformation will continue to be a theme running well into this decade. Pluto isn’t moving out until 2024 so there is plenty more to transform, no space to rest on our laurels because this year will shake the most attached into their Divine Detachment and this will also be assisted with the incoming solar cycle 25.

The current solar minimum we are experiencing; this incredible DNA rewrite that began in the last phases of 2018 and truly made itself known in 2019 is likely to begin switching back into solar activity during this year. This will be the point in which our attention is taken outside of ourselves briefly to confirm and fully realise that the focus must remain within. Sounds backwards I know but once this starts appearing within our realities it will be far easier to explain. In a nutshell this is the activation and growth energy to the codes we are now receiving, it is the reap what we have sewn energy as we get to live out and ride the experiences chosen through the frequency we reach during each solar minimum which occurs approximately every 11 years. The shifts outside are likely to be HUGE bringing more confirmation that to surf this, to shift this, and to keep the field vibration high then we must release from the out there and continue to shift from within.

Another eye opening shift is that this incoming solar cycle has been predicted to be of a Grand design, meaning more sun spots, more flares more mutating gamma rays along with plenty of plasma to assist the transformation or evolutionary process. Lets just say a Grand Solar Maximum has potential to create a lot of “magic” (of course this would be bringing disruption to the 3rd dimensional operations so it appears as chaos) which will highlight our addictions, dependencies and really bring home the awareness of how much we rely on technology, and have become so reliant and entwined with the very world we say we no longer want to grow. Time to go back to cash? Perhaps at least keeping a stash ready in the event of flash disruptions would be handy?

In the last days of 2019 we saw a couple of sunspots from the new cycle, then on the 2nd January another appeared which indicates we have the new activity beginning after an incredibly long recorded year of a blank sun, hence the deep solar minimum we are in and this incredibly deep work we have all been busy completing, but let’s just say this decade will be the year many more open to their SOUL-AR Alignment as they realise the power of energy and open to the keys of how to harness and surf the Source flow, learning the secrets of our Solar Disc, the true Son that humans proclaim their love for, and opening up the ability to climb the ladder of light and prepare for each Ones Ascension.

One must KNOW, that for any alignment to take place the mind must be open to the process, the physical must align to Being and to how the alignment operates and the Energy will then do its’ work and fill the field, expanding and creating the form to continue one’s journey of expansion.

What might be the eye opener is how the new cycle begins and there always tends to be quite a “magic” event. Please remember before I go on that the meaning of magical is used quite differently so that we see it as chaos in its slowest most dense form, but this Divine Magic is the alchemy for our transitions as a race. With this in mind the last deepest solar minimum we experienced was 1913, the next solar cycle in 1914 was the year of World War I, as well as a whole list of other historical events and campaigns across the globe including sections of the Ghandi story. Now I am not saying war will begin however these points of change, these shifts in cycles do bring exponential change, just as the 2009 solar minimum which really got our planet moving for 2012 which was the year that the solar activity began to maximise causing a mass wave of awakenings and our forerunners anchoring in their new found energies of the 5th dimensional world for us all to begin flowing through and experiencing too. We will witness as all materialises but in the meantime we continue working within to reduce the inflammation and conflict because as we know all is simply a reflection and if we want more perceived higher frequency experiences then we achieve this by adjusting from within.

The cosmic period we are now in takes us deep inside the cocoon phase in which we perfect the tone of our shell, we perfect the nutrient balances and become the alchemists of transformation for us to then see how our self-creation “fares up” in the rays of the next solar cycle.

The higher the vibration, the higher the health levels the more bright and strong the butterfly wings will be to withstand the incoming solar storms and flares.

What is a little interesting to note from observations is that something is appearing to be out of balance…..which of course, any imbalance is perfect through its perceived imperfection, it will hold a yet unknown reason, perhaps such as the tipping point, perhaps part of the build up to the tipping point, we are all feeling unsure and I know we can all feel something about to flip. The abnormality I have noticed is the fact we are experiencing a very warm winter here in the UK, in fact the tip of Scotland had a record temperature of I believe 18 degrees C over the festive period, what is odd is that being that we are in a solar minimum and have been since the end of 2018 and with this we should technically be cooling, we should be experiencing snow here in the UK……and its been balmy, light jackets are more than adequate and night time temperatures aren’t dipping so bad either. This is apparently set to turn but the near future predictions are still incredibly mild for a deep solar minimum.

Of course this will be symbolic, there is always purpose and it will be a part of a process, the initiates have found that there is of course a pattern, our bodies have also been going through rapid burn up, super high temperature radiating from the spine. For me this is highlighting that we are speeding up, of course all is One and therefore Earth will ascend as we do also which brings me onto the next words that keep coming up for 2020 and that is Fire and Ice. I haven’t quite got the entire translation and I am not going to attempt it, it’s not the way it works for me as this is my experience to journey too, therefore I cannot know it all and neither do I want to. The Fire and Ice symbols and codes have been appearing in my field in a whole range of ways, but there is no doubt the words are being placed under my nose like light gems.

Fire, it’s happening. Australia we love you and we are holding you in our arms whilst the balance moves itself through for the next phase of y(our) journey, but of course it isn’t just Australia. In 2019 we saw some massive issues across our globe and this of course will continue into our future until we listen to the needs of this planet and realise that in order to exist here we must harmonise. We will stop mining fossil fuels and use our Source as intended and we will stop picking at the lungs of our planet and leave the trees and forests alone. Australia is surely to now show the world how it’s done, but what makes me curious is it appears there is a part of the pattern that’s missing right now and the contradiction is the lack of ICE, the cooling of the solar minimum isn’t here….

This of course highlights my expectation in the patterns, which hinders the view of the truth, of the pattern shape which I will expand into given time but I thought it would be interesting to share my part completed puzzle with you, who knows there could be someone holding the other half.

But this out of balance feeling, also feels incredibly perfect in the pressure, the sense that something is going to snap, and it’s making itself known within us all. There are so many contradictions in the unconscious field that we all can sense that the back is about to be broken on so many old cycles and this anticipation or perhaps fear for many is exactly what’s required to be added into the melting pot to cause the alchemical activation to awaken the most stubborn of sleepers. Waking up in this decade will be fast, hard, almost railroaded….or bust.

That’s another contradiction through the 4th realm: what we want, what we say we want, what we yearn for and yet our non-acceptance to how it moves. Fighting Self to hold mirrors and resist love, the very thing we declared we wanted, denied due to attachments.

Another word that will be coming up a lot in 2020 is ATTACHMENTS, with the Capricorn Council active to kick start this 10 year period there will be one simple question to ask self, ‘am I attached to outcomes, loyalties, obligations, expectations of the physical kind or am I moving into the New World from within where everything has purpose. All is free to move and the knowing of the Divine Plan is encoded and followed, again with the shifts about to happen on our physical world stage much of the attachment and victim programming will becoming highly active for that to be seen and dissolved.

Please know, especially those reading these words and not yet understanding, that beneath the world you have known to be true is another world. It is the world that creates your world and we have learned how to Master this within our fields, I am here to assist and the A Gift from Gaia website is not too far away. It will be home to all the keys and gems, the alignments and portals I have discovered so far and will continue to write until it’s time for me to leave here. I write to share but to also ground in the journey, to assist, simply because I LOVE and sharing LOVE is my role, and yours too, just in case you haven’t worked that part out, no one is different other than some are just more inquisitive than others and become great key seekers.

So as we move into this new year and decade we know there is a ridiculous amount of change we are about to experience. Nothing can stay as it was and the power I was receiving behind the words of make this year-end count, that it wont ever be the same again has opened up an alertness, an awareness of how vast and how earth changing these incoming years are to be. For us to be dissolving the attachment programming on this level, for us to be ushering in the Age of Aquarius then this IS BIG, we have now manifested our collective dream.

The focus must be understanding the Sacred Field, this Key will soon be available to those outside the SOUL-AR Alignment Course but for now what this means is committing to the upkeep of the tone of your sacred temple. Making sure the structure is strong, that all internal requests are immediately actioned without delay, that all feeds in and out are of the highest value and that the gates are secured allowing the most respectful and responsible to join and INjoy the celestial tones that emanate from your Divine Aligned Field.

This focus is the only focus of the Initiate, it is our only “working” role if you like in which we must be active and observing always. Once this is learned its easy and work is pleasure anyway because the activity and observing also gives the signs, symbols and gem trails into new data and experiences, its how we operate once the field is stable and we really wouldn’t want it any other way, neither could we go back to the old way, once we can read the language of the field it’s a whole new world, and then some, because even this doesn’t stop, there is always more….ALWAYS.

What is interesting is when the awareness expanded and the experience gifted the wisdom of how easy it all is once we operate from the centre point of the Sacred Field, the word work doesn’t hold the same old heavy vibration, everything does become simple, it’s a flow, and it moves with ease, and this flow, this ease, will be the space to exist within whilst everything begins to move much faster. A centrifugal force ejecting, rejecting, dissolving and removing within the spin to ensure there is constant space for opportunity, whether this is chosen or not is another matter. It’s a choice personal to each, but resisting these energies will again highlight the levels of attachment to this world and the blind commitment to the reincarnation process, or the karmic wheel if you prefer, which are the patterns of the Piscean Era that we are now all dissolving. We cannot be free to explore the quantum field and surf the astral planes if we hold attachment to the presenting world, which is after all simply a reflection, only the Piscean teachings would have you believe you can have both, but it simply cannot work that way. We either operate from the energetic world, the point of creation which gives us access to our Creative Freedom, or not. We hold the attachment to the physical and try and manipulate from there, but we know this is a fully tried and tested way of dis-ease and separation, it doesn’t fulfil, it creates needs and desires for more, to repeat, to perfect, it’s a world and a way that can NEVER be satisfied because what it believes it seeks was programmed in as a belief.

These words will trigger the attachments and accentuate the lack and loss programming however always remember that the Divine detachment will always “sort out” the experiences for the great distortion removals that will reflect the need to try fix or hold on.

These often end quite loudly and in the beginning there is enough anger to raise and create a force to continue the removal before the wanting to fall back to the old way begins again. As I said things are speeding up, therefore the old hard way to break free actually becomes so much easier, we have all pretty much seen what there was to be seen and repeating during these evolutionary speeds become pointless. Also remember that the truth is you are neither abandoning or leaving anyone or anything, you are releasing the trails of co-dependency in which we learn about our fear of things and people leaving, nothing ever leaves; we are One, we are always connected, in so many ways, our genetics, energy, memories, thoughts, stories, all of it is a very powerful connection, if you haven’t learned this and can only feel connection in the physical reality then the separation and non-understanding is seen. For that space to be filled and the full connection established, no one and nothing leaves, it’s just our ideas, beliefs and wants for everything to stay, but given time we get to see how this creates nothing but stagnation in the field. There is no love in control, and this way is laden with conditions and that’s not the path of the light walker, likewise holding blame, judgement and anger attached to these memories, thoughts, feelings and stories continues the perpetuating distortive energy within the field and continues the karmic processing.

In 2019 I released the key called the Karma Dogs which explains the point and purpose in bringing all experiences to a point of neutrality so that the gift of growth for all connected can be experienced and the blockages finally released, again this will soon be available for All to access. This key will also bring the awareness as to why dis-ease such as mental health illness will appear to increase at an exponential rate this year and more visibly through the first half of the decade. Again this is essential for it to be Seen and for our world to stand up and begin to care more, looking for new ways to understand the stress and why it has continued to build even though the psychiatric world technically should know more today than ever before, and yet the contradiction highlights that this knowledge clearly isn’t aligned as we continuously see the statistics increase and mutate, more youngsters being diagnosed with mental health presentations and specifically eating disorders that are symbolic to their foundations not being supported, and an over sensitivity to control.

Again, this must become loud for the transition to begin, this is not something to be judged but it is something we can all take responsibility for by caring more for Self and therefore our race, by each taking the responsibility to hold their Sacred Field we set the tone and experience for all those we come into contact with, we become the example, our path holds the trail of directions and sign posts that we took and for those choosing to be a part of the shift, this change will follow.

We are the example, by choosing to show up HealthFULL and filled with compassion, and this is what catches the attention of our sleepy Brothers and Sisters, creating a flow to follow.

This is the world that exists under the physical presentations, the world I was speaking of earlier in which the details discussed here in truth are simply just another pattern, a pattern rumbling and ready to implode the moment the balance tips. A world that the psychiatric knowledge ignores and yet it is the space we truly operate from and it is the answer to all health, this is now expanding and becoming known, the more we open up to this Quantum existence, the more people who follow the keys and find themselves in fields of gold, the more the old foundations and ways they operate cease to be effective, steering more towards the unseen world.

2020 is a Master 22 year, this is a year in which the NewBuild or the New World starts to rise, it is the year that we witness the phoenix take form from the ashes, and the power of this year is quite frankly nothing we are have ever been close to experiencing for many many lifetimes and it kick starts in January creating an exponential start to this year.

Let’s take a little closer look to this incredible month

The Capricorn Council may well be active in January but let’s be sure to understand that this wave has been building since Pluto entered in 2008 and blew the horn to herald the great transformation and we have been surfing ever since with a crest of the wave here in 2020. This theme will continue specifically throughout this year as the wave moves through, so whilst we may feel that January will be a climax it will show itself to simply be a crucial part of something much larger, this again is a pattern, a wave, and this wave or pattern will show itself as a part of an even larger fractal if you observe from a more high space.

The Saturn and Pluto conjunction I find historically interesting to watch (Sit tight because you are about to receive some energetic confirmation as your body reacts to the truth tones)Is the 1914 conjunction that happened in………Cancer, the opposite to Capricorn. Hmmmm I am sure you are now recalling what I spoke about earlier regarding 1913 and 1914, the great solar minimum that we are now aligned with and experiencing in 2019 and 2020, and we are now transiting the same conjunction of the two mighty power lords in our heavens, whilst we are soon to exit a great solar minimum……there are never any coincidences, this is HIGHLY symbolic and screams balance and change.

This is a super pattern, this is the reaping of what we have sewn from another cycle lasting 106 years, have we learned? Are we to repeat and learn more or will we experience the expansion of coming together in unity? I feel the magic will show all angles to the hands so that we can be even more dumbfounded by the show.

The most interesting energy in this flip from 1914 to now is that we are of course in the sign of Capricorn. Cancer gave us a huge emotional shake up, so the opportunity to build from this IS now here if we choose, all is a choice. In Capricorn the home of Saturn the energy takes us into a fast transformative phase of deconstruction and reconstruction with the blessing and aid of Pluto. The focus sits within our Banks, Governments, this includes the medical world and its “control” as it acts like a narcissist’s flying monkey assisting in the current social programming. Saturn represents the glass ceiling, it creates apparent blocks and boundaries, a gift to ensure we learn exactly what is required for our progression and only ever released with permission to pass when we have a key player such as Pluto or perhaps Neptune or maybe a very abrupt shift, something unexpected such as Uranus involved too. Saturn represents structures, our material world and everything we deem as real, including our creation of time. Well we are here, we are surfing Saturn whilst we have Pluto in balance play.

The navigation, the instructions to this game is guiding us to prepare for all structure, even down to our molecular structure to transform into the new form.

One other flip that continues to rise in the transmissions is the contradictions that are becoming highly visible, the polarities, the duality, the opposition (note above, the opposition of Cancer and Capricorn, which ultimately represents birth and death, a low octave cycle of Pluto) the references to the flip, is this about to be the energetic pole shift? Will this pattern now begin to take form in the physical?

The pendulum swing from positive to negative began some time ago, we all reached the opportunity to rest in the central point, the mid way, the space of peace, each of us have been able to find this place if we wanted as the information and availability to this octave has been fully open and active for some time, now the pendulum swings again, and its best description is the rags to riches, riches to rags or the next visual is the flip of the pyramid……but this visual keeps expanding, from one pyramid, the mirrored other half of the shape becomes visible, two pyramids, one inverted creating the unseen mystical Merkabah, the key to the light force, the seed of creation.

However the symbolic words that centre around the flip manifest, be sure to release the attachment to how this may look, it would be advisable to stay in the Divinely Detached space of being the observer as opposed to experiencing the force of the flip through the attachment to the old ways, Divine Detachment gives the ability to be free and fly when the physical earth begins to shake too hard.

Another interesting guide here is Saturn’s link into Religion, due to its karmic and control octaves and yet as we know, Saturn is in the process of completing its Piscean karmic story which is that of the religion we have come to know and base our entire beliefs around, and whether you think you are religious or not, your programming is plugged directly into it, the way we live is built on its foundations……and this is exactly what our celestial map is showing to now dismantle and transform with the partnership of Pluto.

With this transformation, the deconstruction and the NewBuild it will take great levels of responsibility for each to hold, and it is through taking this responsibility that we regain our power as the people. We release the old ideas of waiting to see how our field responds, we release the we shall see mentality, and we begin to care more, share more, and make everything within our field our responsibility, it becomes our committed choice, and anything we no longer want to be a part of or include in our field we close down, and this now goes for our structures and those who govern. To be fair we as the “public” have never stood up, have never said no, have continued to choose the better of two or more evils when the answer is clearly now a big united NO to anything and One who is continuing the patterns of insanity, repeating what simply does not harmonise or align to peace.

We the public never took the responsibility, we have been side-tracked with our life of addictions and desires. Perhaps its been fair to say we have never shown we have what it takes to be responsible and so if we want to activate this new field of responsibility then I encourage each to be making better daily choices to enhance the field, to care more about who we allow to be our leader and to not accept the old “that will do”, because when we instruct our field that only the finest will do then and only then will our collective field provide this.

The more responsibility we take, the more we support our own individual field and build the new world within, choosing to deny all that destructs and encompassing all that expands and brings joy to all within our individual and shared space, will then move the collective through quantum jumps as together we commit to increasing the vibration of our field and as a result rapidly dissolves all that is no longer accepted or required, it becomes spent.

The New World is built by those who take responsibility, and we are now to take this pearl of wisdom and truly become a part of the evolutionary process we have started to create so that our Ancient Future Self continues to evolve and surf the cosmic sine wave.

This is no longer about you and I, this is all about Us and We.

The first week of January holds the conjunction of Mercury and Jupiter whilst we move into the first lunar eclipse of 2020, this energy is exaggerated by the moon’s transit through the zodiac and begins to trine each planet creating a harmonious feel before it starts to square off with the Capricorn Crew opening us to more magical and yet chaotic energy in which the Jupiter mercury conjunction will bring swift flows of expansion for those choosing to bide by the terms being set by the Council sat in the hall of Capricorn.

Mars takes us into an interesting wave, the lower masculine frequencies within the collective begin to be triggered, not wanting to be left behind appears to be prominent in the collective data and this is shown in the celestial map as Mars trails behind in Sagittarius. He makes square with Chiron which rings the unconscious masculine wounding like a bell allowing more to be awakened and seen within and enabling us to see this within our fields and make the conscious choice to remove the dis-ease. His time in front of the Council doesn’t come around until 16th February, right after Valentines Day and continues into March 30th when on the 31st his conjunction with Saturn sees them both walking into Aquarius together, another very crucial phase as Saturn resets the masculine coding for the Aquarian era.

So with this trailing behind, this slow physical lower masculine energy is now something that becomes incredibly important to give focus, this is representing the balance of the masculine and feminine frequencies, bringing forth opportunities to discover the divine union within. The template of the unified flame is simple, the masculine energy is our action, its what we do, its how we think, and it has been incredibly separated from its support, the feminine, the guidance from within, the voice that is always known and never acted upon, which is the pattern of the separation. We have been healing this wounding and the union happens once the voice, the feminine is heard and has been re-established as the voice of reason, the only voice that commands the advancements in the field. So what we have appearing now is a vital period, a relatively short linear period of three months in which the magic wand will be pointed and the new will appear before our eyes, again the reality of this will look like much falls away, but what is left is all that is required to build the new and by cutting away that which is unable to expand will provide the most healthFULL base to build upon.

Moving into the second week of January we begin with some awkwardness in the field as the moon in Gemini quincunxes the Capricorn Council, we will see the path but will find a glass sheet stopping the progression, go in, see where the resistance is, where is the attachment to the form and physical, release and move again, Gemini can make it all a little dithery so be precise. Another word(s) for this year, precise and precision, make your choice and move which aligns with the Saturn and Capricorn ruling. I am sure you are all merging with your cosmic goat and learning that to dither or be indecisive when climbing these steep mountain slopes leads to mistakes, wobbles and falls in which we bounce down the mountain, sustain injury to teach us and without thought begin the climb once again; this could feel like a crazy groundhog day if you haven’t begun merging with your spirit goat within and especially if you have at some point declared yourself an ascender, the sign of the goat is the great ascender of the signs, it is the sign that teaches us the climb, from the very bottom to the very top with all the pitfalls and pitstops in-between and I highly encourage this is learned before the experience teaches you, its much kinder, more responsible, to be one step ahead of the learning experience.

On the 10th we are powered by a new angle of energy, the moon moves into its phase of opposition whilst our Luna goddess sits in the emotional courtroom seat of Cancer, she looks across and sees the eyes of the Council staring back, at a point in which Saturn and Pluto are both on the 22nd degree.

Lunar Eclipse with the sun sandwiched between Pluto and Saturn conjunct Mercury on one side and Jupiter and South Node on the other, whilst the moon trines Neptune bringing so much to light. Data and information is to surface to assist in the fast movement, this also could well be quite conflicting in terms of sun and mercury feeding data from the physical and yet Neptune and moon bringing up the internal guidance, another testing time, another choice point to either take the guidance from within or continue the old way with what is fed from the field. Uranus will also be stationing direct on this day.

12th of January we reach the crucial tipping point that we have been talking about for the past few years, can you believe we are finally here! Yes, I am sure on the one hand it’s a wow moment and yet on the other you are fully aware of the work it has taken to get to this point, in which we now experience the speed intensify, a conjunction of pure karmic transformation, a cosmic reset of the most gigantic kind, a resetting of a 500 year portal which will induce our chosen clearing and releasing modality aligned to the patterns of speed we surf, the incoming of 5G speedy data to disrupt the unconscious patterns and dissolve what is no longer required as part of our evolution and its learning structure. We requested change, we requested connection, we requested more information, we requested to evolve but of course how this manifests isn’t always what we think we need; our history shows us this with wars and major events that whilst on a personal level they appear abhorred on the grand design each are essential to make way for the new through what we have learned through the experience, or perhaps as our history tells us, what we didn’t learn and what we had to loop. Again this loop, the karmic cycle is breaking down and so many many human lines will be now going through the purification processes to unify and come back to the One, this looks like ancestral lines closing on a physical view but energetically it is energy returning to Source.

So much will begin bubbling to the surface from this point on, the theme underneath all will be floating around the Unified Flame of the Masculine and Feminine, which in turn appears to place more pressure on Mars as he edges ever closer to Capricorn, the guidance here is to pay attention to the whispers within and follow that guiding star, to focus on what is required for the unification and to withstand the G force of the movement we are making through time and space, supporting the physical, listening to its requests and acting without delay, from here we all focus on creating strong light filled structures because we will find that nothing else will do from this point forward. Complacency is dissolving, priority and purpose fully installed.

Once the conjunction takes place we then move through Mercury’s passing, the planet of communication passes the point of karmic transformation and a new way of delivery is birthed. This will be a time to fully understand the power of the spoken word, this will be lessons in the destruction of banter, flippant comments and word spells and each opens to more opportunities to understand the power of our spoken language and how blind we were to our incantations. A new respect for our language and for many a new language to be birthed, especially for those discovering the language of the body, the field and the physical realms. On the other hand, for those who have experienced the floods in the fields, those unable to hold back and observe, struggling with the silence in the field may well find the shift into the observer space an easy transition as Mercury and then the Sun transits over the Dark Lords.

Moments ahead we have our Moon trine Neptune bringing in some super sensitivity which when dived into will unveil spaces and places in which to create upon, most likely highlighting more that requires clearing first as the month of January simply no longer allows us to bring the old frequencies into the new, that’s the respect and responsibility gate now placed in Capricorn, you wouldn’t exactly go waltzing into Nando’s eating a bag of chips from the local chippy, understanding the rules, the etiquette of Saturn and its goaty ways will align you to the open doors of the new light establishments being built under the newly refreshed Saturn and his learned friends. In fairness the rules were always there, the first initiation is to learn the Universal Laws, unfortunately spirituality teaches it all backwards and its not until the beliefs and stories are stripped away that all we are ever left with and all that was ever needed to understand is the way our Universe behaves, and to align with this.

But as a race we chose to learn this the most complex way, however I guess if we learn backwards then the chances are we will discover all there is to learn and never again have the requirement to repeat.

Technically each of us has become a part of history

As we can see already the amount of energy building in the first half of January, this period is going to be incredibly busy, and again, these are shifts that haven’t been experienced for generations, we have no recent references within our coding to pull in any experience from, we are being held accountable and being asked to make every step, breath, word, fully action aligned, consciously responsible and as we move into the latter half of the month this doesn’t change.

The moon then moves into another square around the 16th, another passing in front of the cosmic Council, have we got this yet? No? Then repeat, yes? Then let’s shift and shift we most certainly shall because this square has the moon in Libra, balance, justice, this is IT, this is an almighty opportunity entering for those happy and comfortable to be walking in unison, both within and without.

Come the 20th the already wide open eye is most likely to open some more, even when we believe it can’t open any further, the Sun will join Mercury in Aquarius, there will have been results of some description, a want to come out and reconnect but what will be connecting into, it’s going to be new, it’s going to require learning how to operate once more, which ultimately again shakes the attachments free and helps us to open further into the flow, it feels explorative to the inquisitive and will allow the fear to be seen in the stagnant restrictive areas that are not welcome to change. This shift of energy will have us all exploring the new that has begun to take form.

Finally we shall end this report for January on the Aquarian New Moon on the 24th which will feel like the culmination point of the incredible January journey, and by the feel of this energy one month is going to progress and perform as though a year has passed, a huge quantum leap and a giant portal to begin the month of February. The snag, the area to pay close attention is the days running up to the New Moon, specifically the 22nd and 23rd as the Moon transits the Capricorn Council, the Luna goddess reports in.

Again, has it been learned?

The New Moon in Aquarius will have us expanded, showing up in our finery of this most incredible transformative month.

To summarise there is only one word to use……MAGICAL

January is setting the tone of this year, it is a year to advance, grow and expand at an exponential rate and this is going to require the ability to love self unconditionally and to finally ignite that twin flame within, uniting the masculine with the feminine to continue what is now set to be the ride of our lifetime.

There are of course many other transits and aspects and I will share more as we pass through but for now angels it is most definitely time to focus on the flight path, this is intricate, this is life changing but remember, we are doing this together, we are loved we are supported and we have choices, we can choose to move through consciously or choose to be a part of the unconscious breakdown, all choices are respected and never judged.

Sending so much love

                                                                                     Andrea 💙💙💙

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Grand Titans Rewatch: 1.01

so! i only really got into the show around the 6th episode, which means that while i was intrigued by the first five, i didn’t really pay a lot of close attention the first time ‘round. so i’m going to try and rewatch the entire series over the next several weeks and bring you Thoughts, because um. well. I Will Have Them.

SPOILERS for pretty much the entire series, though i will be covering only the pilot episode in this post. let’s see how this goes.

1. i’m just such a sucker for eerie dreamscapes, so i’m definitely biased when i say that this is a promising start. what’s really intriguing, though, is rachel dreaming of dick’s past well before she’d met the guy. after eleven episodes, the extent and even the very nature of rachel’s powers is still nebulous; this ability to dream about people she hasn’t even met only comes up this once, as far as i remember. (again, my initial viewing was superficial, so i might’ve missed it coming up/referenced again.)

1.5. a doylist explanation for this? hint at a special relationship between rachel and dick right off the bat, set the tone for the rest of the series, establish a character-development-by-dreamscape precedent, give us a gander at the origin story of the most iconic character in the ensemble, and set the broader arc of the season—an acceptance of and an ascent out of inner darkness—in motion with these two characters.

an in-universe search for an answer is potentially more interesting, however: why should these two be connected? i like to think that trigon’s influence started here, pushing rachel further and further down the path that would lead her to free him. i mean, handwaving aside the comic-booky implausibility of trigon foreseeing the exact pattern of random events that would lead to the moment rachel pulling him out of the mirror in 1.10 (he’s an interdimensional being! i don’t know! *flails hands*), i like the symbolism of it: both batman and trigon as phantom fathers that rachel and dick run away from, only to be pushed together. this is not to imply any broader equivalency between trigon and bruce wayne, of course; but it goes some way in explaining why this dick is especially traumatised and brutal, and why it would’ve had to be an especially traumatised and brutal bruce wayne that taught him everything he knows.

1.6. HAH at the ‘flying’ in the ‘flying graysons’ sign fizzling out just before the rope snaps, tho! so corny but also so upsetting.

(‘so corny but so upsetting’ – a valid tagline for titans)

1.8. oh but the set-up around rachel is so intriguing, tho! this is both the greatest strength and the greatest pitfall of the show: each of its characters can occupy a genre show of their own; because the first three episodes focus so heavily on rachel, it seems like the tone of the show changes when the titans finally get together, and like a lot of interesting, painstakingly slow set-up for rachel is just dropped and wasted.

2. the first glimpse we get of dick grayson is in the rearview mirror of his car. FUCK. i’m going to start a count.

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 1

Ok. things i love about this little two minute introduction to dick grayson:

a) look at this broody asshole. i love him so much.

b) right away we have this push-pull re: his robin identity. he hates it, resents it, but can’t quite let it go. his officer grayson persona isn’t enough for all the evil in the world, even if it means losing control and falling farther and farther down a spiral of self-loathing.

c) he’s so damn mired in crime and tragedy, tho: officer grayson by day, vigilante robin by night. MAKE A FRIEND, DICK. GET A BEER, DICK.

(so true to character, tho: a suffering dick grayson is usually a determinedly self-isolated dick grayson.)

d) AMY ROHRBACH! i refuse to believe they’d just unceremoniously kill off such an iconic character. i fully expect to see her in s2.

e) “you do your thing. i’ll do mine.”  a poorly functioning dick grayson picking up unhealthy coping cues from his mentor.

f) i love how implicit it is that gotham is a carnival of unending horror among the officers in the precinct, and probably every other city in america.

3. the clawmarks on rachel’s mother, tho! fuck, i wish they’d carried over more of this eeriness in the second half of the season. oh, and also:

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 2

i realise why we had to get a move on with the plot, but i can’t help but wonder if we could’ve gotten an even slower build-up to rachel’s powers, because honestly? i know you’re lying, i always know when you’re lying, and the vicious slut! in the school bus window? actually more unsettling than watching rachel liquefy some baddie from the inside.

(tho. um. don’t get me wrong. that’s plenty disturbing, too.)

4. conflicted!brooding!vigilante!dick, here to chase away the images of dead women splayed over living room floors with bullet holes in their heads.

4.5. the fight scene was brutal, sure—but to be fair, most of batman/robin’s fights teeter on the fine line between causing enough damage to keep the bad guys down for a bit and outright brutality. it’s difficult to bring that to life on screen (in a series that touts to inject grittiness/realism into proceedings, no less) and portray a robin who’s definitely crossing some lines without going into some real brutal territory.

4.6. so far i’m loving how economical the storytelling is when it comes to dick—how quickly it’s established, then underscored, how being robin is so important to him and the last thing he wants. his curdling resentment at the thugs immediately looking for batman the moment they see him, and his inability to move on from being the other half of batman-and-robin. he feels compelled to play both parts at once when he’s fighting, and he hates it. all of these things are playing out right underneath stretched-too-thin skin, jagged and awful and ugly.

4.65. and the editing and sound choices keep emphasising how this is not dick in his natural state—how, in a lot of ways, robin is not his natural state anymore.

4.8. dick, brooding in his open-plan apartment, broodily listening to vinyl records and cleaning his armour of blood, while brooding. did i mention that i love this asshole?

(i don’t know where the bruises came from, considering that it seemed like the thugs couldn’t get a single hit in during the fight.)

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 3

4.9. a dick timeline: the zucco thing happened, what, two years ago? robin hasn’t been seen in over a year. and dick moved to detroit a month ago. hmmmm.

5. rachel’s alter-ego-self as a manifestation of her powers continues to be fascinating. as is the fact that that alternate self appears less and less as she grows more accepting of what’s inside her and learns to control her abilities.

5.25. so, what, was sally a part of the cult that wants to kidnap rachel specifically, or just a Bad Person in general?

5.5. “you got that thing for helping kids” – i love that dick has this reputation barely a month into his time in this department. like. this guy is broody and closed-off and clearly traumatised, but hey, he’s good with kids!

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 4

5.8. “you’re the boy from the circus” is super-dramatic and all, but how did rachel recognise adult!dick when she’s only seen kid!dick in her dreams? and also, why did she dream of dick at all?

5.99. side note: officer!dick’s hair is the best. it never gets better than this for the rest of the season at least until he becomes trigon’s demon acolyte.

6. KORY!

6.5. so… did the car accident cause the amnesia? do we ever find out why exactly she couldn’t remember anything about who she is? she doesn’t look injured; just dazed.

6.6. her passport was issued in 2014—so she’s been here a while, searching, researching. or not, because it’s probably a fake-ass document. stop reading so much into this, emmram!

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 5

6.8. her super-convenient amnesia means she’s forgotten her identity but not human language, mores or customs. i like this extra layer of… alien-ness? that this brings to her: so now she’s not only a stranger to the rest of the world, but to herself. again, so many interesting things are set-up here that the show never really follows through with for the rest of the season—imagine re-discovering kory’s identity along with her, piecemeal, rather than an impersonal infodump near the end of the season!

6.9. also given that portrayals of starfire (at least those that i’ve seen/read) make liberal use of the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope, i rather like this take—she’s already learned everything she needs to know about assimilating into human society, and it’s a question of rediscovering that knowledge instead of having some dude patronisingly mansplain the world to her.

6.95. why did she snap that russian dude’s neck, tho. that’s just brutal. i’d forgotten about this.

7. i like to think here that when dick says i’ll find someone who can help you, he’s not just thinking of law enforcement, but also of people in the super-community—psychics, or telepaths, or somebody who has experience with both. there’s still so much about dick that’s kept in the dark for most of the season, but given the length of time he’s been with batman and the easy familiarity with which he talks about other heroes in the finale’s dreamscape, i’m going to assume that he’s more than well-connected.

7.5. but he’s shuttered himself away for so long, and robin’s return has been far from well-received. i like this little moment where he steps outside and just… lets himself be overwhelmed. just for a bit.

7.7. i like that amy says “sidekick” first instead of “partner”. on-the-nose, but i like it!

7.8. the glibness of he and i had different ideas of how to do the job is making me laugh. oh, dick.

i guess the idea of batman sours quite a lot when you’ve spent most of your life as his partner. i get that he’s projecting losing his own sense of self to a role he just isn’t cut out for onto bruce, but it’s sad anyway.

7.9. gosh i just want these two to bond. i don’t care how you do it Show but bring back amy next season, yeah?

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 6

8. is there any particular significance to the repeated security-cam footage shots we’re getting in this episode?

(gosh, i love the cinematography so much in this scene.)

8.4. so… kory had to use some sort of russian mob and come all the way to vienna to find rachel?? why??? are we ever going to find out?

8.5. on a happier note, i love love this version of starfire’s ‘innocence’. like. she’s baffled, almost apologetic about it, but she isn’t going to take any shit about it, either. also, the music when she uses her powers for the first time, man. FUCK.

9. aaaaand there’s the liquefying-a-guy’s-insides bit. i both love and hate this show’s self-indulgence.

9.5. i gotta say, this episode makes a lot more sense on rewatch than it did the first time ‘round. i remember being so confused by evil!cult!guy, but then again, i was pretty distracted at the time. i only really picked up the show because i was so amused by the over-the-top reactions fans had to the trailer. now look at me, writing 2k+ word reviews dissecting its every moment. *shakes head*

10. *rachel stares at dick’s porsche*

“this is yours?”

“family heirloom.”

“… from the circus?”

“not the one you’re thinking.”

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS EXCHANGE.

10.5. i love these two Dramatic Kids.

11. beast boy cameo! just to assure us all that yes, he is in this show, and that, yes, he is the Best of them all.

12. you guys, this episode is so much more fun that i remember it being. you’ve got an amnesiac interstellar super-spy in kory, a straight-up supernatural horror story in rachel, and a psychological case study whatever genre batman’s supposed to be in dick. each of them could easily fill their own show, but i love that titans wants to connect them with something more than just a team falling together just because.

#titans #meta #dick grayson #koriand'r #rachel roth #a byronic cupcake #badass strawberry truffle #a gothic cookie #grand titans rewatch 2k19

[onexxus]

Thats So Us - South Park fic (beta)

Since I don’t have a AO3 account yet, I thought why not post this here. Leave a comment and your thoughts. English is not my first language and this has not been beta read yet. Thank you !  ------------------------------------------------- "Are you sure , you just don't wanna stay at home and help your mom out , son? " Randy said in a pleating voice. Stan stood at the door , suitcase in hand , awaiting his taxi to the Colorado collage campus. It was a bleak Saturday morning, just a full weekend before the start of the semester. He know some of his 'old gang' had already arrived there by now. "Randy, don't be so dramatic. You weren't dramatic when Shelly left either. " Sharon sneered at her husband, who was nearly crying. Okay, scratch that he was bawling his eyes out. Stan simply sighed and rolled his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose. " Dad, please. It's not like I am going off the world map. Come on dude..." He sighed deeply.  He surely had cried the nights before, not only because Wendy decided to break up the night before he would leave, but also because he had so many memories here in South Park.  He hugged his parents one last time and waved his 110 year old grandfather good-bye.  The taxicardriver had already opened up the trunk and the door ,signing him to get in.  Stan got his suitcase in and get in the taxi, who quickly and mercilessly drive off to his destination. For a Saturday before the start of the new semester it was fairly quiete. At least so Stan thought. He had always assumed that it would just like high school. But with more groups and culture. The lad with dark hair and a beanie left the taxi, payed the man and unloaded his suitcase from the trunk. As the taxi drove off again, he came to realise how alone he was right now. Of course he knew he would meet up with some of friends again who were studying here as well. He and Butters would follow the same courses for most of the time . Kyle would probably be with him during calculus classes, seeing he was following some lawyer course or accountant.  He wasn't sure what Kenny would be doing , he did enter college as well. But he was always a tad vague on what he'd wanted to major in. Miraculously Eric had also joined the campus grounds. Stan wasn't too thrilled about it, but it was nice knowing a lot of familiar faces were here. It made him feel less anxious. He stepped onto his dorms porch and walked inside. Some fellow students were chilling and gaming in the living area , others were talking by dorm rooms. It seemed fairly okay and normal.   " FREE THE TIDDIES ,WOOOOHHH!!" A dude steaker ran past Stan.  ' Wait was that... Kenny?' He thought, but shook his head, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.  Yes, just a normal and well-behaved dorm. He continued to follow the room numbers until he arrived at his assigned door. He knew he would get a roommate, but was happy he was ,so far, the only one there for the time being . He set up his stuff, unloaded his suitcase but kept his ukulele in it's bag and placed it near his desk. He decided to hang up some posters and place a photo album near his bed.  When he wanted to grab some of his clothes out of his bag, a collar fell out. It was of his dog Sparky who had passed away a few years back. He held it close and wrapped it around his wrist.  One of the reasons he wanted to major as a vetrenarian , was so he could perhaps help out animals , which he always had a deep interested for.   Once he had everything set up he layed down on his bed, resting his eyes.   --- Stan was always one of the popular people in school. No matter where he’d go, either his usual gang or some people he had never met talked so easily to him. It be about small talk, it be deep conversations about aliens or how cows digest their food. It was never boring to talk to the raven haired boy with the red poofball hat. He remembered getting it for his birthday from his grandparents. Back when they both were healthy and had joy in life. It wasn’t until after his grandmother had to move to a nursing home and his grandfather got worse, things slowly started to get more depressing. Funny how some small events, have such big impacts. His folks would fight more often, or perhaps he just noticed it more. His sister never really cared much for him, at least once he had his friends. Not that it really mattered, he had Kyle, Kenny and Cartman and Wendy Testaburger. Beautiful Wendy, they had on and off relationships more frequent that a light switch. He didn’t really get it, but they somehow managed to be together. Though in the later years it was more a facade than anything else. Still it really broke his heart this time. She wanted to have nothing to do anymore with him. Where it go wrong? Well, Stan knew where it went wrong. It was the weekend after the graduation party. And it was going to be a beautiful night, perfect for a date. He wanted to have a special night with Wendy, before he ran off to college. They had been having a great time again, after a mini pause in their relationship. The usual. They would go for dinner, a movie and remorse about memories they had of their little town in Colorado. Of the South Park elementary years and high school years. Stan got Wendy to his place, his room. He had planned it all out, his parents were out of town. His sister already out of the house and on her own. The two ravens would be together and spend the night together. Like they should have. They would have been drenched in each others sweet and waking up in the morning together, that was how it should have gone.  “Stan, what the fuck is this. Are you… Are you – “ Wendy couldn’t get the words out, holding a journal in her hands. A journal, belonging to Stan. “Jesus, Wendy don’t through my stuf-“ Before Stan could even finish Wendy pushed the journal in his hands. “You know what Stan, fuck you, this is over. Forget about anything. Have a great time experimenting at college. Or - right,  never mind, you already did. “ Crying, Wendy Testaburger ran out of the boy his room. Normaly Wendy was very understanding of stuff like this, but this was Stan. The boy she had been going out with since 3rd grade. The boy who changed for her, tried so many times to patch things up and still somehow made her feel special. The boy who had been through some pretty stupid shit, but would tell his girlfriend everything. The were no lies or big secrets in this ‘light switch’ relationship. Stan had promised her so many times , she was the only one he would ever love. And now that she had seen a differnt side of him, it almost seemed like he had cheated on her and made a fool of her. At least , that is how she felt. Continueing to cry, she ran away from the boys room, his house, his street.  The boy, falling into a slum , he grabbed the bottle of jack and Daniels from his drawer and began drinking it away like no tomorrow.  He sat up on his bed, crying and ripping each page from his journal. He looked at his phone. He could have called her, but he knew it wouldn’t solve anything. She now knew, a secret he had carried with him since 6th grade. He looked through his phone numbers, Kyle being on top of the list. His super best friend. Sure they had a major fall out somewhere in 2016, but somehow they managed to patch things up. He pressed ‘call’ and hoped for the best. Kyle had been on holiday in New Jersey for the summer until he’d go to college. The same college Stan would enter in about a small 2 nights.   It remained silent. “Hey, it’s Kyle –“   “Kyle, I-“   “-I’m not hear right now, so leave a mesg. “ Stan sighed and dropped his phone from his hand onto his bed. Tears rolling down his pale face.  “Guess it’s just you and me now…. Heh…” insanely laughing and raising his -already half emptied - second bottle to the photo of him and Sparky.  ---  “ Guess it’s you and me now.” A familiar voice said. Stan heard a door open and close, opening his eyes in front of him stood a man with ginger hair, styled but still a mess. He sat up straight on his bed when he recognised who the figure was. “ Kyle?!” Overly happy to see his friend he sprinted out of bed and glomped him. Stan noticed the boy who he had spent nearly his whole life with, had grown a bit taller since last time they’ve seen each other.   Kyle had arrived about a week earlier, not by own choice but more because Gerald and Sheyla had pushed him to do so. “So you can prepare. “Those words echoed through the ginger-haired boy.   His dad had drove him to campus and although he didn’t exactly like that idea, he had a few nice short convos with him. Though, he slept through most of the ride anyway.   Once there he had said good bye again to his dad before going off onto the campus ground with a way too heavy suitcase his parents packed for him. He would’ve much rather done it himself, but he guessed starting an argument before he left wasn’t a smart idea. His parents did sign him up for this college and funded the majority. Even though it wasn’t anything in his dream job field, he didn’t hate it. And the paycheck wouldn’t be too bad. Kyle quickly found his room and got settled in. He unpacked most of his stuff from his gigaton weighing suitcases. It was mostly just clothes and a few trinkets. He hanged all the clothes in his closet and put some books and a laptop on his desk. Even though it seemed like his folks had packed an entire house for him, the room was pretty much still empty. He didn’t have a roommate yet, but frankly he didn’t want one either. He just wanted to spend some relaxing alone time in his room not to be joined by some assdouche that smoked weed or played loud music. He didn’t mind any parties though, which were bound to happen at some point in dorms like this. He just wasn’t too fond of having chaos in a small confined room, that was meant for studying and sleeping. Plus, he had to share his space with a younger brother, parents and friends that would visit whenever they pleased. So, for once having a place to himself, was such a freedom.   He did imagine that, yes. He however did not imagine a few days later he would step into the room seeing his super best friend Stan again. It was pleasure to share that small piece of freedom with him.   “Hey, dude. “  

#SP #South Park #South Park fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #SP Style #South Park Style #Style #Stendy #Sp Stendy #Thats So Us sp ff

[kwispayne]

The Top 10 Films Of The Decade (2010-2019)

This decade for film was fantastic. Blockbusters coming out from every corner, the superhero genre dominating the market with actual quality and directors pushing out their greatest work with a freer range of ability. There has been alot of stinkers too, but I think the quality outweighs the dirge, if not in quantity. 

So here are some rules:

1. I may have changed my opinion from previous lists. Sometimes things stick…sometimes they don’t.

2. I didn’t see every film this decade. But I am open to recommendations.

3. This is all personal opinion. And my tastes are odd.

10. Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford)

Year of release: 2016

While A Simple Man saw Tom Ford step into the film world as if he had been here for years, Nocturnal Animals saw him throw down the glove as one of the most stylistic and vibrant ones currently active. For a man to go from the fashion world into this is really something to be admired. But the best thing about his movies, as glitzy and glum as they look, the stories and how he presents the narrative is most impressive. He does not take the audience on easy ride, both with content and order, but the pay off is earned completely in this film. Also the cast he chose was spectacular, but the biggest props has to be given to Aaron Taylor Johnson who plays one the greatest villains I have ever seen in the past few years.

9. Sightseers (Ben Wheatley)

Year of release: 2012

What started off as a stage show got turned into one of the most memorable and funniest comedies to come out in the past few years. Now, Ben Wheatley's most recent filmography has been brilliant, but I think this is his underlooked masterpiece, as it takes his earlier style and accentuates Steve Oram & Alice Lowe's hilarious writing and acting. A movie not for the faint hearted, it really delves into really odd places to pull laughs. Also, Wheatley's odd cult and psychedelic obsession also bodes well to the really obtuse and odd tone of the film. I can still watch this and get a laugh.

8. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)

Year of release: 2016

The biggest plead and cause for humanity to come together I have seen in a very long time. Denis Villeneuve's filmography has also been fantastic this decade, but overall this is his hidden masterpiece, as it's subtly is what makes it so powerful. Effects wise, the film looks spectacular and incredibly life like.  The cast do a fantastic job, but what really is the hook is the fantastic screenplay.

7. I Saw The Devil (Kim Jee-woon)

Year of release: 2010

When it comes to revenge movies, the Koreans are the best. Previously Park Chan-wook was the king of revenge films with the Revenge Trilogy being a prime example, but Kim Jee-woon has put his eyes on the crown with this mad dark twisted tale of a serial killer being hunted like game from the husband of one of his victims. Choi Min-sik does an amazing performance as a villain who does unspeakable crimes, but his torture is almost sympathetic, while the hero Lee Byung-hun has the hardest job of all, playing a hero doing the most unthinkable things in the spirit of revenge. Bloody, gory and constantly entertaining.

6. The Greasy Strangler (Jim Hoskings)

Year of release: 2016

This is on this list for all the wrong reasons. Unimaginably disgusting and asburdingly annoying, this film can't get out of my head. And after some of my friends saw it, we can's stop quoting it to each other, to the point where we can verbally speak most of the dialogue from scenes. Jim Hosking is a film-maker who is going to make really weird shit in the next few years. His sense of humour is so unique, its hypnotising. He's my rootie tootie disco cutie.

5. Calvary (John Michael McDonagh)

Year of release: 2014

After making a hilarious debut with The Guard, John Michael McDonagh surprised everyone with this dark comedy drama about a priest who has been threatened with murder from an anonymous source. But instead of it being a Guess Who, it's a character study of those closest to him. Brendan Gleeson's performance is fantastic, but the surprise of this film is the dramatic performances from Chris O'Dowd & Dylan Moran who usually are confined to comic roles. Not many people have seen this film, and I highly recommend this one for fans of fantastic screenplays.

4. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)

Year of release: 2013

Tarantino before this had made his masterpieces, so this movie really was just an add on to a continuous streak. But one of the reasons its on this list is for the pure enjoyment from it. Now the subject matter behind it is very bleak, and it can almost be a distraction, but Tarantino approaches it with an honorable style. The screenplay itself is fantastic, but the real joy of the movie is watching Jamie Fox, Christoph Waltz & Leonardo DiCaprio battle for chewing the scenery. Any excuse to watch this movie is a good excuse.

3. The Wolf Of Wall Street (Leonardo DiCaprio)

Year of release: 2014

Speaking of Leonardo DiCaprio chewing the scenery, this film is pretty much nothing but that. Ok that's a lie, Jonah Hill and Margo Robbie are also battling for a piece too. But besides the fantastic acting, this film is highly entertaining to an almost pornographic level, full of sex, drugs and excess. But it comes with a price, and Scorcese in pure Goodfellas style has made the consequences dire and to a point, rather absurd. It's 3 hours, but once its over, you want to watch it again.

2. Polisse (Maïwenn)

Year of release: 2011

Who ever thought that blue haired alien from The Fifth Element would have made one of all time favourite films. Maïwenn's screenplay and directing in this is top notch, even to a point where she's an actor in the film, who is  a photographer and journalist, to witness the events what's going on and reporting back to the audience (now that's what I call meta). The emotions in this film are high, going from drama to comedy, which sounds odd when it comes to the subject matter, but it just shows what life is like whenever you have one of the world's most stressful and emotional jobs. The acting is fantastic, but the real star is JoeyStarr, who before this film was a rapper. Another example of taking someone from one art to another to get a perfect performance. Emotionally draining but a fantastic spectacle.

1. Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine)

Year of release: 2011

Wow, 2011 was one good year for film. I have always been a fan of Paddy Considine as an actor, and I was glad to know that he was going into directing (his previous writing in Dead Man's Shoes is fantastic). So what we got was a very very bleak film about a man dealing with depression and grief who finds friendship with a carefree Christian with a dark secret. The acting in this film is one for the record books. Peter Mullan and Eddie Marsden give fantastic performances, but Olivia Coleman steals the show with one of the most emotional performances I have ever seen on screen (she deserved that Oscar years before she got one, and I am very glad her acting talents are now being recognised). This is probably the best film ever made.

[romancatholicreflections]

26th November >> Sunday Homilies and Reflections for Roman Catholics on the Solemnity of Christ The King  ~ Year A, Last Sunday of the Church Year.

The Feast of Christ the King of the Universe

Gospel text: Matthew 25:31-46vs.31  Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory.vs.32  All the nations will be assembled before him and he will separate men one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats.vs.33  He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.vs.34  Then the King will say to those on his right hand, ‘Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world.vs.35  For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome;vs.36  naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.’vs.37  Then the virtuous will say to him in reply, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you; or thirsty and give you drink?vs.38  When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome; naked and clothe you;vs.39  sick or in prison and go to see you?’vs.40  And the King will answer, ‘I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.’vs.41  Next he will say to those on his left hand, ‘Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.vs.42  For I was hungry and you never gave me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink;vs.43  I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, naked and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me.’vs.44  Then it will be their turn to ask, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?’vs.45  Then he will answer, ‘I tell you solemnly, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me.’vs.46 And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the virtuous to eternal life.”

Michelangelo’s The Last Judgementin the Sistine Chapel, Rome

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We have four commentators available from whom you may wish to choose . Scroll down to the required author.

Michel DeVerteuil:       Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels – Year A

Thomas O’Loughlin:    Liturgical Resources for the year of Matthew

John Littleton :              Journeying through the Year of Matthew

Donal Neary :                 Editor of the Messenger

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Michel DeVerteuil Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels- Year A www.columba.ie

General Comments

For today’s feast of Christ the King, the Church chose a gospel passage which is the final teaching of Jesus’ public life according to St Matthew; it therefore completes the lectionary’s “continuous reading” for the year. Meditating on this passage in the light of the feast requires two clarifications.

Modern Western culture does not have kings – or queens. The few left do not exercise any real power; they play ceremonial roles and we associate them with pomp and pageantry. In the biblical culture, however, kings are leaders of their communities. They are “judges” in the sense that they set moral standards for the community. Rightly then, today’s gospel reading celebrates Christ’s kingship as an act of “judgement”.

The second clarification  is that Jesus is a special kind of king – his way of “judging” is very different from what prevails in the world. This is what the feast celebrates – the “good news for the poor” of Christ’s (God’s) standards of judgement. It is also a call to repentance addressed to us as individuals and as a Church, since our “judgments” (in word or action) are often far removed from those of Jesus.

As always in the bible, Christ’s kingship is taught not in abstract language but through a dramatic story – an event we are invited to identify with. The  story is of a future, final judgment – like the parable of two weeks ago, “the kingdom of heaven will be like this”. Our present judgments are never “final”,  the final one will occur only “when the Son of Man comes in his glory escorted by all his angels”. For now, all we can be certain of is that God’s judgement will surprise us, and so we are humble in his presence. To the extent that we are complacent and self-satisfied we are not ready for God’s judgement. St Paul sums up our attitude: “There must be no passing of premature judgement. Leave that until the Lord comes: he will light up all that is hidden in the dark and reveal the secret intentions of the human heart” (1 Cor 4: 5).

This is not the whole picture, however. Today’s passage invites us to remember the temporary and fleeting “judgement moments” we may have experienced: – we became seriously ill – our marriage broke up – we fell into a fault we thought we would never succumb to – our country experienced  national disaster, floods, famine, civil war. These experiences are authentic encounters with God in that they reinforce the teaching of the entire bible that when God comes into the world “the lowly are lifted up and set in the company of princes”, “the barren wife bears countless children”, “the last come first”. – We thought that certain people were the “least”. Now we realise they were sacred, divine in fact, since what we did to them we did to Christ and what we refused them we refused to Christ.

Pope Francis washes the foot of a prison inmate during the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Rome’s Casal del Marmo prison for minors.

– We thought that we met Christ by doing extraordinary things. Now we realise that it was in very mundane things, giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, visiting the sick and those in prison. – We thought we met Christ in moments of prayer or in holy places. Now we realise that we meet him when we feed and clothe those in need, when we visit hospitals and prisons. – We realise that leadership in religious organisations counts for nothing before God. In his judgement, the only thing that counts is humble service.

As always in the bible, the judgement causes two reactions and we have experienced them both at different times: – wonderful relief at knowing we were right. Good actions which we (and others who had power over us – “chief priests and elders”) looked on as trivial were in fact truly great, recognised in the presence of God (and of all right thinking people) and never to be forgotten. It is a homecoming experience, we “take for our heritage the kingdom prepared for us since the foundation of the world”. – terrible sadness when we realise that we have missed the boat – like the foolish bridesmaids of two weeks ago. We are consumed by remorse, “the eternal fire”. The contrast with the virtuous is striking; for them it was a homecoming, whereas these feel deep alienation – the fire was “prepared for the devil and his angels”, they “go away” to their fate.

As on the past two Sundays, we remember the context of this teaching. Jesus’ imminent crucifixion  would be a “judgement moment” in that it broke down all barriers: – the humblest person there was the Son of God, – the holy place was outside the city, – the person  of faith was a Roman soldier. In those degrading circumstances, the “son of man” was present “in his glory escorted by all the angels, with all the nations assembled before him”. We remember experiences which seemed to be disasters but in fact were judgement moments showing us how wrong our values were.

We note once more the down-to-earthness of Jesus’ judgement. The sign that we have met him is that we discern between good and evil, “goats and sheep are separated; one placed on the right, the other on the left”. His teaching is not airy fairy  – “you must live with the consequences of your actions”. “Good news” is implied however – “other chances will arise so don’t miss out next time”.

Scriptural Prayer

      “It is we who lose when we allow the venom of hatred and revenge to circulate through our spiritual veins.”  ….Archbishop Pantin of Port of Spain, Trinidad

Lord, forgive us that in times of great crisis – national or personal – we become vengeful, wanting to consign people to the eternal fire prepared for the devils and his angels. Help us to wait for the day when the Son of Man comes to his glory, escorted by all the angels, takes his seat on his throne of glory, with all the nations assembled before him, and separates good from evil, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Lord, we tend to think of you sitting passively on your throne, indifferent to what is going on in the world. But whenever we enter your presence, it is always an experience of discernment, of goodness being put on one side of you and evil on the other, like sheep being separated from goats.

Lord, we thank you for those beautiful moments when we relieved someone’s pain. – Someone was hungry and we gave them food, thirsty and we gave them drink; – we clothed someone naked, made a stranger welcome; – visited one who was sick, went to see a prisoner. Quite suddenly it dawned on us that we had experienced a blessed moment, had a personal meeting with you and had come to the best of ourselves; we had taken possession of a kingdom that had been prepared for us since the foundation of the world.

Lord, part of each one of us has no compassion, can see the hungry and never give them food, see the thirsty and never give them anything to drink, never wants to make strangers welcome, clothe the naked, or visit the sick and those in prison. Sometimes this part of ourselves seems very influential, but it is not the truth of ourselves; it is evil, destined for the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Lord, a moment of grace is like coming home, entering a kingdom prepared for us since the foundation of the world. Thank you, Lord.

“We can never really love others unless we feel a certain reverence towards them.” …Cardinal Newman Lord, help us to move from helping the poor with condescension to experiencing that to do a favour to one of the least of our brothers and sisters is to be given the privilege of doing it to you.

Lord, we thank you for those who are grateful to us. So often all we did was to help them in some basic way, but they make us feel that we looked after you and now deserve to be put on your right side,

Lord, we have to make a journey in our relationship with you. At first, we think that we will draw close to you by doing plenty of “holy” duties. Then we realise that you want us to be free and spontaneous, just to be compassionate, and leave judgement to you.

“The abdication by the Christian churches of one whole department of life, that of social and political conduct, as the sphere of the powers of this world and of them alone, is one of the capital revolutions through which the human spirit has passed.” … R.H. Tawney

Lord, we pray that your Church will always proclaim Jesus’ teaching that when the Son of Man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, to take his seat on his throne of glory with all the

[thesinglesjukebox]

BJÖRK - THE GATE [7.00] Björk found this dressphere at the La Brea tar pits.

Will Adams: A study in musical pools. The verses read like fragments, like notes scribbled before they escape the mind. They sink into the arrangement's depths until they're no longer visible in the murk. Rising up, however, is the plea of "I/You care for you/me," a devastating summary of the reciprocal nature of care. With "The Gate," it's easy to forget that it's pulling you in with the well-worn slow build formula because the resulting churn of emotion is too captivating to ignore. [8]

Eleanor Graham: For all it reveled in minute-long string jags, towering and disintegrating tangents from recognisable melody, and general, you know, Björkness, Vulnicura was a bracingly direct break-up album. Shrugged "Lionsong": "Maybe he will come out of this loving me - maybe he won't." Cried "Stonemilker": "Show me emotional respect!" This song is not a departure, hanging all its hopes for emotional resonance on four agonised words - "I care for you!" - repeated against synths that exhale rattlesnakes and ghosts and inhale Disney panpipes and computerised bubbles. Ultimately, "The Gate" suffers the same fate as "Black Lake" in that there is too much emptiness in its sprawling sonic wasteland. The latter at least was a thing to be felt; this is just a thing to be admired. Its desolation/infatuation/desperation is apparent but lacks urgency. As far as stirring church-y atmospherics go, Susanne Sundfør accomplished far more in under three minutes. [4]

Leah Isobel: Vulnicura was one of the most heart-shattering pieces of music I've ever listened to, direct in form but utterly despairing in content. It was my gateway to Björk, and introduced me to the dizzying emotional heights she can scale within a pop structure, but its sense of sheer hopelessness keeps me from returning to it much. "The Gate" goes in the opposite direction. Arca's production lights up like one of those freaky deep-sea fish, but the electronic edges are blunted, leaving only the eerie neon luminescence. Björk, meanwhile, lets her voice unspool a patient melody that seems to float in the ether. I like the slow development on the theme, and her candid admission that she wasn't always "so needy," but I'm more excited by the implicit promise that better things are to come - both for Björk-as-song-narrator, and on her upcoming album. [7]

Anthony Easton: The spaces between the verses, filled with glacial movement and rigorous, almost minimal electronic declarations, make the proposal of caring not one of warmth or of love but of difficult obligation. She sings "care" somewhere between a phrase book and a declaration of unpleasant moral necessity. The song is easier about caring than how she sings about it, but it is still cold, and a little lonely. [9]

Alfred Soto: Years experimenting with the expositional and dramatic use of space and spare synth string effects culminate in "The Gate." I haven't heard so many nuances wrung out of the word "care." But by the four-minute mark Bjork has reached the limits of nuance, drama, and exposition. [5]

Tim de Reuse: Bjork's vocal performance takes center stage, as it often does, but an equal star here is producer Arca's production work. It's a marvelously unfriendly backdrop, as icy and alien as any take from his solo work: arrhythmic, woody kick drums, dramatic faux-orchestral trills, moaning detuned melodies, uncomfortably high clicks fed through oceans of reverb. This instrumental is fragmented and difficult to keep track of, with only a vague overarching trend of growth, and it's just as temporally disorienting the whole way through as Bjork's freeform lamentations. By totally refusing the listener basic metrical or structural points of reference, its individual sections feel slippery and formless in memory, and it makes a bright blur of an overall impression even as it's difficult to recall exactly how the beginning differs from the end. That kind of effect doesn't always pan out in a song's favor, of course, but every piece of this song's construction seems to have been tweaked to accentuate this effect; a jumbled, half-ordered cloud of dramatic, interrelated events floating in a bubble of space. Listening through it is like trying to remember a fantastic, weird dream. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#Björk

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Soon I Will Be Invincible - Review

by Wardog

Saturday, 08 September 2007Wardog dusts off her cape and puts her pants on outside the rest of her clothing.~Soon I will Be Invincible is a book written by a loser for losers. Perhaps I'm being slightly unfair but the guy on the back is aggressively bald, over-educated, a computer game designer and has written an over-angsty, over-affectionate novel about superheroes and supervillains. I'm not saying he's not somebody I would love to hang out with but then I'm not saying I'm anything other than a loser too.

I'm a fair-to-moderate reader of superhero comics but I'm no authority on the genre so what I'm about to posit could be either a) so obvious it's not worth stating or b) completely wrong but I do think there's been a bit of a change of focus. Back in the day, it seems to me that superheroes were deliberately presented as everyman figures, community-spirited boys-next-door who just so happened to get gifted with exceptional powers. They seemed to be saying: "This Peter Parker fellow, he could be you, you could be the superhero."

But, of course, moral values have shifted with time. We're no longer all about the wholesome friendly neighbourhood superhero, we want the dark and the driven and morally ambiguous. The people who read comics are, for the most part, people like me (weird, unpopular kids) and, here on either side of the millennium, superheroes - those gifted by pure chance or cruel circumstance to be more attractive, more powerful and more popular than, say, me - are beginning to look rather like the kids who laughed at me at school. Thus you start to pay more attention to the villains, initially just larger than life foils to set against the unyielding virtue of the superhero. But, unlike the hero, villains tends to be self-made men who have progressed down the long road to world domination by dint being more intelligent and more determined than everyone else around them. A familiar motif for weird unpopular kids, I'm sure. The superhero belongs to the realm of the blessed and the accepted. The villain is the perennial scorned and derided outsider. I could take over the world, you know. If I wanted to.

SIWBI takes place on an alternative earth that, although rife with aliens, fairies, superheroes and supervillains, future tech and magic, is recognisably our own. The first person narrative alternates between the point of view of Dr Impossible, brilliant scientist turned supervillain and Fatale, a newly created cyborg who has just been invited into The Champions, a famous group of superheroes, previously led by Dr Impossible's arch nemesis. The plot, such as it is, is typical superhero fare: Dr Impossible escapes from prison and hatches the usual supervillain scheme to knock the planet out of orbit and herald in a new ice-age. Meanwhile CoreFire, the leader of The Champions, has disappeared and the group must to struggle to re-form into an effective unit and deal with the events of their past. As is practically de rigueur these days in anything dealing with people with super powers, the self-consciously trite plotline and the comic book archetypes are there primarily to illuminate the recognisable human dimension to it all. Thus The Champions battle not only Dr Impossible but their own very human failings and, even as he flounces around in scarlet cape and helmet, Dr Impossible angsts over the whether "the smartest man in the world has done the smartest possible thing with his life." It's not exactly ground-breaking but it seems to work well enough and adds pathos to Dr Impossible's obsession with invincibility, not so much to protect him from those with superpowers but to protect him from the very ordinary world that has always excluded and derided him and never loses its power to hurt him.

There's a lot to like here, if you're into that kind of thing. The chapter titles are all stock phrases ("Foiled Again" etc.) and most of the secondary characters are nods to various comic book characters. In fact the whole style and approach of SIWBI is incredibly affectionate and genial, although I do have to wonder what it's doing presenting itself as literary fiction because I can't imagine you'll get it, or indeed see the point of it, unless you're also fond of and familiar with the genre to which it offers itself as an homage. And I know that Grossman wanted specifically to write a book but it seems a peculiar choice to me. His writing style is brisk and punchy, favouring a lot of dramatic statements that would look absolutely perfect floating above a character's head in a speech bubble ("It was time for me to stop punishing myself and start punishing everyone else") but when they're just a just a line on a page they occasionally fall somewhat flat. It's kind of the equivalent of writing POW just like that. In fact, the blatant attempt to "literary-ise" the book, and through association the genre, is one of the more irritating features SIWBI. You like comics, dude, just accept it. Some people will laugh at you, some people will agree, and some people will start to talk about Maus. Regardless, Watchman will never be Ulysses.

As well as occasional stylistic difficulties the narrative jumps between the present and the past in a rather jarring manner. Although it's interesting to get (some of) the backstory, it does completely ruin the pace to the extent that what ought to be an adrenaline-saturated rush towards the final stages of Dr Impossible's plan bog down in a lot of superhero dithering and bickering. For the most part, Grossman is at his best in his supervillain's head. The attempt to give Dr Impossible a reasonably credible psychology for behaving as supervillains behave within the genre (always explaining his plans to the good guys, shrieking I AM A GENIUS at every slight provocation and so forth) does not entirely work because if you were actually capable of such self-awareness one would hope you would also be capable of behaving in a moderately sensible fashion. Nevertheless, Dr Impossible's seemingly unflinching commitment to a role he knows must always be the losing one does generate a certain emotional resonance and bizarrely, as the novel stutters to his inevitable defeat, a certain tragic force.

Dr Impossible, painted with all the narrative garishness a supervillain deserves, is not a subtle character:

For a second I stand at the fulcrum point of creation. God, I'm so unhappy.

But he is complex. Grossman writes him with genuine flair and appreciation. And, one loser to another, it's impossible not to empathise with his broken and lonely desperation:

If you're different you always know it and you can't fix it even if you want. What do you do when you find out your heart is the wrong kind? You take what you're given and be the hero you can be. Hero to your own cold, inverted heart.

Villain he may be but he's probably the arrogant, articulate poster boy for every geeky comic lover out there.

Sadly, the other characters can in no way live up to him, so much so they seem almost like afterthoughts. The Champions bitch and moan like a bunch of sulky teenagers and, even if that was partly the point, it didn't make them easy or pleasant to read about. As for Fatale, new superhero on the block, who narrates with Dr Impossible, she's tedious beyond expression. I had a feeling that, as a woman, she was probably meant to be saying profound things to me but her narrative voice is pedestrian at best and offers none of the exuberance or emotional engagement of Dr Impossible's. I skimmed most of the superhero sections.

Even so, Dr Impossible is worth the price of admission alone. If you're even remotely interested in the superhero genre or have ever contemplated world domination while sitting by yourself in maths, you'll probably find something to enjoy here.

PS - Please note the views expressed within the article are solely those of the author. Ferretbrain as a whole does not believe Mr Grossman is a loser.

Themes:

Books

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

~

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Arthur B

at 18:32 on 2007-09-08I'm sorry, but there's only room for one "arrogant, articulate poster boy for every geeky comic lover out there" and it's

this guy

. :)

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Wardog

at 16:05 on 2007-09-10Oh come on, geeks need all the help we can get :)

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Jamie Johnston

at 12:59 on 2007-10-01Aside from the merits and demerits peculiar to this book (which I haven't read), I wonder whether it was a good idea to try to do superheroes in a novel at all. They grew up in comics, which are basically a dramatic form like plays, films, or television. They seem to get on fairly well on film and television (never seem them on stage), but throwing them into continuous prose narrative strikes me as probably unwise and possibly self-defeating.

If Grossman has, as you guess, done it in the hope of giving the genre literary credibility, then he's rather missed the point, hasn't he? Putting superheroes into a novel doesn't make them into literature any more than doing 'Richard III' as a comic would make it into childish pulp.

'Heroes' is a pretty good example of an intelligent transfer of superheroes from one literary form to another because it recognizes and deals with the differences between the two forms. The scale of television (both the size of the screen and the length of episodes and series) means it can't cover the whole range of dramatic action that comics do, so it concentrates on what television does well, which is the drama of personal relationships; but it also remembers that saving the world is the point of superhero stories, so it uses the flash-back / flash-forward structure to suggest a larger drama going on without having to indulge in the big colourful battles which do the same thing in a comic. It also recognizes that on television, with live actors and real-time action, superhero costumes simply aren't going to be credible, so it simply ditches them.

I'd say a superhero novel should probably ditch costumes too, for different reasons. In comics, costumes solve three problems: first, how do we easily distinguish different characters when the simplified style of the artwork makes all faces and bodies look very similar? second, how do we make every page look exciting even when nothing much is happening? and third, how do we make it easy to work out what's going on when up to a dozen different actions need to be depicted on a single page smaller than A4?

The advantage of solving those problems outweighs the disadvantage of a slight loss of credibility. But in a novel none of those problems arises in the first place, so costumes have none of the advantages but retain the disadvantage of implausibility (which is in no way reduced by the traditional internal narrative explanation: "I must protect my secret identity by wearing a costume which incorporates a mask... and bright yellow tights and a billowy green cloak").

Gosh, if I look behind me through a telescope I can see the point where this comment stopped being relevant to the article... Oh yes, that's right. Well, I think that's probably why I'm very dubious about doing superheroes in a novel at all. The whole point of the superhero genre is that it externalizes the drama and symbolism of the story. The way the identity of each character is made explicitly visual through his costume and is expressed in action through his superpower is a prime example of that. The whole point of the novel, on the other hand, is that it internalizes the drama by taking the reader into the minds of at least some of the principal characters. Action in a novel is secondary - it affects the characters and triggers internal change. If there was ever a narrative form which was unsuitable for superheroes, it's got to be the novel, surely?

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Wardog

at 10:49 on 2007-10-04I think I read in the introduction or the acknowledgements or somewhere that presenting the story as a novel rather than a comic was a carefully thought through decision, and one the author felt strongly about. On the other hand, I do think the interactions of various literary (or artistic) forms is interesting and, for that alone, perhaps I feel more supportive of it than perhaps it deserves. I was possibly being quite unfair when I suggested it was a doomed attempt to confer a literary validity on a popular form. As you point out, books / comics hop easily to the big and small screen and back again and books do, in fact, turn readily into comics (I've even seen a comic version of Proust for God's sake) and it seems peculiar that it's always been an unspoken one-way street i.e. that things can be turned into comics and comics can be turned into movies but never the other way round.

For what I've read about Heroes, I think it was always designed primarily as a drama rather than a slightly more high brow than average contribution to the superhero-genre. Tim Kring claims explicitely that his inspiration was Lost, he has no geeky nostalgia for the days of X-men or whatever ... essentially he started with television and incorporated superheroes rather than starting with superheroes and incorporating television. If that makes sense.

And there are some quite amusing sequences about costumes in SIWBI in fact! I think the point is that the novel - regardless of whether you think it's an appropriate experiment or not - deliberately attempts to offer a plausible psychological landscape to the external superhero world. Thus, Dr Impossible has an outrageous costume to allow him to put aside the vulnerabilities (or attempt to) of the man behind the mask and become a supervillain capable of delivering the usual array of hysterical villain lines. And one of the themes of the book is the clash between the external and the internal, the visual and the psychological. It doesn't *quite* work because you can't actually offer up a credible explanation of supervillainous compulsions i.e. why do they always pour our the details of their dastardly plans at the slighest provocation.

But it was fun.

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Jamie Johnston

at 16:37 on 2007-10-07Perhaps my reaction comes partly from my continual annoyance at the use of the novel form in general. I feel that a lot of storytellers write novels not because that's the best narrative form for the story they want to tell but because either they prioritize being a novelist over telling the story to its best advantage or, worse, it simply never occurs to them that there are any other narrative forms at all.

But certainly I don't want to say that a story can't be transferred from a comic to a novel just as well as the other way round. In principle any story can be told in any form, it's just that some forms are going to be better suited to the nature of some stories. But genre is a horse of a different colour. Still, I mustn't be too categorical since I haven't actually read the thing! If he's trying to explore the inside of the characters minds then the novel is certainly the form to do it with, but I would tend to think that all that would really achieve is to expose the psychological implausibility of many central elements of the superhero genre. Which, from your comments, sounds more or less like what happened. But it's interesting to find the edges of a genre.

As for 'Heroes', I'm interested that you say that Kring (not a bad supervillain name, that) wasn't particularly interested in superheroes. I hadn't heard that, and judging solely from the content of the series so far I'd have guessed the exact opposite. I can count on one finger the concepts, super-powers, characters, and plot developments in 'Heroes' which aren't almost identical to things I read in the X-Men comics when I was 15. And I notice that the producer of 'Heroes' (and the script-writer of a couple of episodes) is Jeph Loeb, who was a writer on X-Men for a long time, if I recall correctly.

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Arthur B

at 17:12 on 2007-10-07I think that just shows Kring recognised that he doesn't actually know much about superheroes and was wise enough to hire people who did.

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Wardog

at 10:19 on 2007-10-09On a rather tangential note, it's interesting really that the novel, once the bastard offspring of better literature, is now very much established as, perhaps, the most authentic and recognised of all literary forms - perhaps in a few hundred years the comic will supplant it. I mean, there's not exactly much call for epic nowadays - what sort of narrative forms did you have in mind, Jamie? And I suppose the major point of interest for SIWBI is that it's a novel, not a comic. As a comic it would be sub-standard post-Watchman fare I'm sure. As a novel at least it doesn't get lost among a morass of very similar items.

And with references to Heroes, I think something similar is at work; because he is not a great big superhero geek, Kring is more concerned about providing good television and, therefore, lots of the very obvious superhero tropes and motifs and arcs he uses, he does so with the blissful ignorance of the utterly unitiated. Whereas any superhero fanatic worth their tights would probably be unable to use them as effectively because they'd be preoccupied with what enormous cliches they actually are...

#Ferretbrain #Soon I Will Be Invincible #Wardog #Superhero

[viralhottopics]

John Hurt, versatile star of The Elephant Man, Alien and Harry Potter, dies aged 77

Distinctive-voiced actor was Oscar nominated for Midnight Express and the Elephant Man, as well as being the victim of the notorious chestburster in Alien

John Hurt, the widely-admired English actor who rose to fame playing flamboyant gay icon Quentin Crisp, has died aged 77.

On Saturday, his agent, Charles McDonald, confirmed his death on Friday in London.

Hurts role in the made-for-TV film The Naked Civil Servant, first broadcast on ITV in 1975 as well as its 2009 follow-up, An Englishman in New York identified him with Crisp, whose transgressive public behaviour had made him a pioneer in altering public attitudes to homosexuality in the late 1960s and early 70s.

Hurt told the Guardian he had been warned not to do it they said youll never work again, but in the event it proved a rousing success; Hurt won several awards, and it transformed him from a mercurial supporting player in films such as 10 Rillington Place, where he played Timothy Evans. the hapless neighbour of Richard Attenboroughs thoroughly creepy serial killer John Christie to a genuine international star.

Born in 1940 to an Anglican clergyman father and an engineering draughtswoman mother, Hurt grew up in Woodville in Derbyshire before being sent to school in Kent, where he later revealed he had been sexually abused by the headmaster. He later moved to a school in Grimsby, before a spell at art college and then Rada (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art). Having worked his way up through TV bit parts and theatre, his first significant role was in the 1966 film of A Man For All Seasons, as Richard Rich.

John Hurt as Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant. Photograph: FremantleMedia Ltd / Rex Feature

After The Naked Civil Servant, Hurt went on to appear in Jerzy Skolimowskis The Shout (as a composer who is terrorised by a mysterious stranger, played by Alan Bates), voicing the role of Hazel in an animated adaptation of Watership Down, and playing Caligula in the BBCs celebrated TV adaptation of I Claudius, Hurt took another step upwards with memorable supporting roles in major Hollywood productions both by British directors.

Alan Parker cast him as an English junkie in a Turkish jail in 1978s Midnight Express (for which Hurt won a Bafta and a Golden Globe for best supporting actor, and was nominated for an Oscar). The following year saw him take the role with which he arguably made the most permanent impact on popular culture: Kane, the crew member of the Nostromo in the Ridley-Scott-directed Alien, out of whose chest an xenomorph gruesomely bursts.

As Crisp later wrote, Hurt seemed to specialise in victims; he next went on to play one of the most heart-rending of all in The Elephant Man, directed by David Lynch. Notoriously, the extensive make-up and prosthetics required to recreate John Merricks physical deformities meant Hurt had to endure seven hours of preparation each day; however, the difficulties paid off when Hurt was nominated again for an Oscar, this time for best actor. (He lost out to Robert de Niro for Raging Bull.)

Having been elevated to these heady heights, Hurt then embarked on a blizzard of wildly differing roles, moving rapidly between genres and continents as he went. He was cast in Hollywood films such as Heavens Gate and The Osterman Weekend; comedies such as History of the World Part 1 (for his Elephant Man producer Mel Brooks); and British independents such as the Stephen Frears directed The Hit, Champions, in which he played a Grand National winning jockey, and Nineteen Eighty Four, as Winston Smith opposite Richard Burton. His rich, rasping tones were perfect for animation and voiceover: he worked on The Plague Dogs and The Black Cauldron as well as the celebrated Dont Die of Ignorance public health warning about Aids.

This prolific, eclectic career continued through the 90s and 2000s: he worked with fashionable arthouse directors like Gus Van Sant (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues), Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man, The Limits of Control) and Lars von Trier (Dogville, Manderlay) while making regular outings in Hollywood, including Rob Roy, Contact, Hellboy, V for Vendetta and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Reportedly, though, his personal favourites were Love and Death on Long Island in which he played an ageing author obsessed with a young man, and The Field, Jim Sheridans fable of strife in a remote Irish village.

The advent of the British commercial-cinema revival in the same period saw Hurt called upon for Captain Corellis Mandolin and the Harry Potter films (where Hurt appeared as the wand-maker Mr Ollivander in the first film, Philosophers Stone, and the final two, Deathly Hallows. He continued to alternate between gamey Hollywood fare such as Immortals and Hercules with more considered work: he played Control in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; a centuries-old vampire called Christopher Marlowe in Only Lovers Left Alive, again for Jarmusch; and the guru-like Gilliam in Snowpiercer.

John Hurt, as Control, with Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Photograph: PR

Though he always prioritised film acting, Hurt also made regular appearances on stage, including the first West End production of David Halliwells cult play Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs in 1967 (before going on to appear in the 1974 film version, funded by George Harrison). However, he was most identified with a series of performances of Samuel Becketts Krapps Last Tape, which he first played in 1999. Hurt also played numerous roles on TV, including Alan Clark in the 2004 adaptation of The Alan Clark Diaries and the Doctor in the 50th anniversary special episode of Doctor Who in 2013.

Hurt had a turbulent personal life: he was married four times, and between his first and second marriages he had a 15-year-relationship with a partner, Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot, who died in 1983 after a horse-riding accident. (He had two children, Alexander and Nicholas, with his third wife, Jo Dalton.) In 2008 he admitted to having recovered from a long-term problem with alcohol, that had seen him tentatively grouped with the likes of Richard Harris and Peter OToole as a hellraiser. However his distinguished work over six decades was recognised with a special Bafta for outstanding British contribution to cinema in 2012, and a knighthood in 2015.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2kce62S

from John Hurt, versatile star of The Elephant Man, Alien and Harry Potter, dies aged 77

#John Hurt #versatile star of The Elephant Man #Alien and Harry Potter #dies aged 77

[alienvirals]

John Hurt, versatile star of The Elephant Man, Alien and Harry Potter, dies aged 77

Distinctive-voiced actor was Oscar nominated for Midnight Express and the Elephant Man, as well as being the victim of the notorious chestburster in Alien

John Hurt, the widely-admired English actor who rose to fame playing flamboyant gay icon Quentin Crisp, has died aged 77.

On Saturday, his agent, Charles McDonald, confirmed his death on Friday in London.

Hurts role in the made-for-TV film The Naked Civil Servant, first broadcast on ITV in 1975 as well as its 2009 follow-up, An Englishman in New York identified him with Crisp, whose transgressive public behaviour had made him a pioneer in altering public attitudes to homosexuality in the late 1960s and early 70s.

Hurt told the Guardian he had been warned not to do it they said youll never work again, but in the event it proved a rousing success; Hurt won several awards, and it transformed him from a mercurial supporting player in films such as 10 Rillington Place, where he played Timothy Evans. the hapless neighbour of Richard Attenboroughs thoroughly creepy serial killer John Christie to a genuine international star.

Born in 1940 to an Anglican clergyman father and an engineering draughtswoman mother, Hurt grew up in Woodville in Derbyshire before being sent to school in Kent, where he later revealed he had been sexually abused by the headmaster. He later moved to a school in Grimsby, before a spell at art college and then Rada (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art). Having worked his way up through TV bit parts and theatre, his first significant role was in the 1966 film of A Man For All Seasons, as Richard Rich.

John Hurt as Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant. Photograph: FremantleMedia Ltd / Rex Feature

After The Naked Civil Servant, Hurt went on to appear in Jerzy Skolimowskis The Shout (as a composer who is terrorised by a mysterious stranger, played by Alan Bates), voicing the role of Hazel in an animated adaptation of Watership Down, and playing Caligula in the BBCs celebrated TV adaptation of I Claudius, Hurt took another step upwards with memorable supporting roles in major Hollywood productions both by British directors.

Alan Parker cast him as an English junkie in a Turkish jail in 1978s Midnight Express (for which Hurt won a Bafta and a Golden Globe for best supporting actor, and was nominated for an Oscar). The following year saw him take the role with which he arguably made the most permanent impact on popular culture: Kane, the crew member of the Nostromo in the Ridley-Scott-directed Alien, out of whose chest an xenomorph gruesomely bursts.

As Crisp later wrote, Hurt seemed to specialise in victims; he next went on to play one of the most heart-rending of all in The Elephant Man, directed by David Lynch. Notoriously, the extensive make-up and prosthetics required to recreate John Merricks physical deformities meant Hurt had to endure seven hours of preparation each day; however, the difficulties paid off when Hurt was nominated again for an Oscar, this time for best actor. (He lost out to Robert de Niro for Raging Bull.)

Having been elevated to these heady heights, Hurt then embarked on a blizzard of wildly differing roles, moving rapidly between genres and continents as he went. He was cast in Hollywood films such as Heavens Gate and The Osterman Weekend; comedies such as History of the World Part 1 (for his Elephant Man producer Mel Brooks); and British independents such as the Stephen Frears directed The Hit, Champions, in which he played a Grand National winning jockey, and Nineteen Eighty Four, as Winston Smith opposite Richard Burton. His rich, rasping tones were perfect for animation and voiceover: he worked on The Plague Dogs and The Black Cauldron as well as the celebrated Dont Die of Ignorance public health warning about Aids.

This prolific, eclectic career continued through the 90s and 2000s: he worked with fashionable arthouse directors like Gus Van Sant (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues), Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man, The Limits of Control) and Lars von Trier (Dogville, Manderlay) while making regular outings in Hollywood, including Rob Roy, Contact, Hellboy, V for Vendetta and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Reportedly, though, his personal favourites were Love and Death on Long Island in which he played an ageing author obsessed with a young man, and The Field, Jim Sheridans fable of strife in a remote Irish village.

The advent of the British commercial-cinema revival in the same period saw Hurt called upon for Captain Corellis Mandolin and the Harry Potter films (where Hurt appeared as the wand-maker Mr Ollivander in the first film, Philosophers Stone, and the final two, Deathly Hallows. He continued to alternate between gamey Hollywood fare such as Immortals and Hercules with more considered work: he played Control in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; a centuries-old vampire called Christopher Marlowe in Only Lovers Left Alive, again for Jarmusch; and the guru-like Gilliam in Snowpiercer.

John Hurt, as Control, with Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Photograph: PR

Though he always prioritised film acting, Hurt also made regular appearances on stage, including the first West End production of David Halliwells cult play Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs in 1967 (before going on to appear in the 1974 film version, funded by George Harrison). However, he was most identified with a series of performances of Samuel Becketts Krapps Last Tape, which he first played in 1999. Hurt also played numerous roles on TV, including Alan Clark in the 2004 adaptation of The Alan Clark Diaries and the Doctor in the 50th anniversary special episode of Doctor Who in 2013.

Hurt had a turbulent personal life: he was married four times, and between his first and second marriages he had a 15-year-relationship with a partner, Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot, who died in 1983 after a horse-riding accident. (He had two children, Alexander and Nicholas, with his third wife, Jo Dalton.) In 2008 he admitted to having recovered from a long-term problem with alcohol, that had seen him tentatively grouped with the likes of Richard Harris and Peter OToole as a hellraiser. However his distinguished work over six decades was recognised with a special Bafta for outstanding British contribution to cinema in 2012, and a knighthood in 2015.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

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[doctorwhonews]

The Diary of River Song - Vol 2

Latest Review: Stars: Alex Kingston (River Song), Colin Baker (The Sixth Doctor), Sylvester McCoy (The Seventh Doctor), Anna Maxwell Martin (Maddie Bower), Gemma Saunders (Ellen Byrne), Justin Avoth (Robert Murphy), Salome Haertel (Rachel), Jessie Buckley (Sarah Dean), Ann Bell (Lisa Burrows), Robert Pugh (Emmett Burrows), Dan Starkey (Computer), Aaron Neil (Steven Godbold), Sara Powell (The PA), Sam Alexander (Todd the Pod), Barnaby Edwards (Autocorrect), Paul Keating (Isaac George), Robert Hands (Daniel Defoe), Alan Cox (Robert Harley) Written by Guy Adams, John Dorney, James Goss, Matt Fitton Directed by Ken Bentley Produced by David Richardson Big Finish Productions, 2016 “Some days I dreamed of having two of you to play with – but not you two! You really shouldn’t have met!” River Song to the Sixth and Seventh Doctors Volume 1 of The Diary of River Song in 2016 was a good, if not brilliant, start to River Song’s adventures on audio. As this writer remarked in his review of that boxset, Alex Kingston could certainly hold her own in a River-centric series and the stories, as diverse as they were in terms of style and settings, showed there was great potential for ongoing adventures with the Doctor’s archaeologist wife. Whereas Vol 1 contained two very good episodes and two very ‘so-so’ instalments, The Diary of River Song Vol 2 has three very strong scripts and one ‘so-so’ tale. This is already a significant improvement, you might say, on the first volume. Only two of the contributors from the first box set write for Vol 2 – James Goss and Matt Fitton while Guy Adams and John Dorney take up the writing duties from Jenny T Colgan and Justin Richards. Like Vol 1 (and also the recent adventures of Big Finish’s other resident archaeologist Professor Bernice Summerfield), the four tales, while distinct from each other in storytelling styles, form part of an overarching, epic narrative of quite ‘earthshattering’ dimensions (spoilers!). In Vol 1, there was a pay-off for the listener in the final instalment, as River encountered an earlier incarnation of her husband – the Eighth Doctor. In Vol 2, however, BF pulls out all the stops and pits River not only against temporal paradoxes, temporal zombies, and a horde of quantum squids and their malevolent queen, but two even earlier incarnations of her husband. While the linked storyline of Vol 2 is stronger than the ‘Rulers of the Universe’ sub-plot in Vol 1, it is debatable whether the inclusion of multiple Doctors is a strength or a weakness. The Unknown, by Guy Adams, opens the box set in dramatic style. The Saturnius, an experimental starship, is despatched from Earth to investigate the arrival of a mysterious planet on the edge of the solar system. River is, without any real explanation given in the narrative, amongst the tiny four-person crew to investigate the phenomenon.  In the bargain, a pint-sized stranger with a Scots accent is also apprehended and detained in the brig. He seems to know what is happening to the structural integrity of the ship as it nears the planet and although River doesn’t automatically recognise him, he seems oddly familiar … The Unknown is almost a virtual retelling of the Doctor Who TV episode Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, complete with its own variation of temporal zombies and the ‘get out of jail’ card at the conclusion (which is a pet hate of this writer!). However, the story’s strongest influences seem to be from Star Trek’s past incarnations – from the Federation-style starship to the captain’s Picard-like order for black coffee to the Irish-accented, testy chief engineer to the smug computer (voiced by BF regular Dan Starkey) to the staple temporal quandary that plagues the starship, and its inevitable reset at the conclusion (again a pet hate!), you’d be forgiven for thinking River and the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) had stepped into a generic Star Trek episode. It’s difficult to know if Adams is homaging or lampooning Trek (possibly the latter more than the former), although there’s scarcely a red shirt in sight … That’s not to say the serial itself isn’t entertaining in parts (there is some very clever dialogue) or that the performers don’t do first class jobs (especially as they all play characters suffering from amnesia induced by the starship’s temporal distortions). However, given this style of tale has been done in Doctor Who before (fortunately on TV just the once, but a couple of times now by Big Finish) – and indeed was often done to death in Trek – it comes across as clichéd, tedious and ordinary. This makes The Unknown (itself a feeble title) the weakest of the four episodes. John Dorney’s Five Twenty-Nine is a very different change of pace from the temporal hi-jinks of The Unknown and of the subsequent tales, and the highlight of the set. Having established the identity of the planet that the Saturnius was investigating, River travels back to the source of the time/space fluctuations that have engulfed it. The ensuing story is very much, in Dorney’s own words, a ‘quiet apocalypse’ piece, bearing some resemblance to another fan favourite telefantasy program in Survivors. It is also a reflective, personal story, as River meets an elderly couple and their android ‘daughter’ Rachel (played by Alex Kingston’s own daughter Salome Haertel). Dorney shows why he is one of the best contributors to the BF range – he knows how to write stories that, while a little slow-moving in pace, are intimate, moving, persuasive and emotional. His characters are also very three-dimensional and sympathetic; both Emmett and Lisa Burrows (Robert Pugh and Ann Bell respectively) are very salt of the earth characters, practical and unpretentious while Steven Goldbold (Aaron Neil) is full of the controlled bravado which doubles for intensity and anxiety deep under the skin. They are all bewildered by the ‘event’ that consumes their world but they, along with the synthetic Rachel, are prepared to meet their fates with dignity and courage rather than abject terror. World Enough and Time is, by comparison to Five Twenty-Nine, high farce. Indeed, writer James Goss takes many cues from the late Douglas Adams (not terribly surprising given Goss has in recent years novelised two of Adams’s classic Doctor Who serials The Pirate Planet and City of Death). River ends up working as a temp for an intergalactic corporation called Golden Futures, which trades off the back of dreamers in suspended animation. It’s no real surprise that with a 'too good to be true' name like Golden Futures, the company is a front for something incredibly nasty and ghastly. However, not only does River stumble upon a grand plan to replace the Earth with an imperfect copy (a feat of pan-dimensional engineering that no doubt Adams’ Slartibartfast would be incredibly proud of!) but is startled to learn that the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) is the CEO of Golden Futures by default after he bought a 51 per cent stake in the company. The problem is River cannot decide if the Doctor has been duped – thanks to the monotonous office politics, staff bureaucracy and human resources nonsense that seems to have swamped his new executive role (office life is very well satirised in the serial) – or if he is indeed truly aware of what is going on and simply doesn’t care … The Eye of the Storm concludes the set as River and the the Sixth and the Seventh Doctors all come together – working at cross-purposes to the other in 18th century London. Matt Fitton’s script also throws in alien monsters, novelist Daniel Dafoe (of Robinson Cruesoe and Moll Flanders fame), the infamous Newgate Prison, the UK’s Great Storm of November 1703 and two star-crossed lovers. Remarkably it all coalesces beautifully, with River playing a substantial role in the denouement which is intimate and tragic. Like Dorney, Fitton also has a talent for showing the impact that grand events can have on a small-scale – in this instance, that a modest, innocent romance can influence the future direction of an entire world. The chemistry between Alex Kingston and Colin Baker in the final two instalments is wonderfully cheeky and mischievous, as the Sixth Doctor encounters a character that is intellectually his equal and just as brash and impulsive as he is. Anyone who still hasn’t got over the original kiss between the Doctor and his companion more than two decades ago in the 1996 TV movie will be equally bamboozled to learn that perhaps it didn’t all start with the Eighth Doctor’s Byronic demeanour after all. It may in fact have been the much maligned Sixth Doctor, with a little prompting from River, who started that ball rolling … River’s flirtation with the even more unfashionable Seventh Doctor is also memorable in the closing moments of the final episode. Both Kingston and McCoy are flawless in their execution of a scene in which River seeks to outflank the crafty, manipulative Seventh Doctor. It is both amusing and compelling – as the two Time Lords flirtatiously engage in a battle of wills. “Oh, you frustrating, gorgeous little man!” River exclaims before knocking him unconscious with a Ming vase! Although the two Doctors are generally kept separate for much of the duration of Eye of the Storm (and indeed for three-quarters of the box set as a whole), when they do come together, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy are excellent. Their witty and disrespectful repartee is highly reminiscent of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee’s double act in The Three Doctors, and it’s clear Baker and McCoy inject a little bit of the faux rivalry they demonstrate at conventions into their Doctors’ characterisations (in the CD extras, McCoy even recalls how Baker continually teases that none of the actors that came after him are truly the Doctor because he never had a regeneration scene on TV!). “It’s always about the grand futile gestures with you, isn’t it?” the Seventh Doctor contemptuously shouts at the Sixth Doctor, disapproving of the latter’s compassion, selflessness and even heroism in dangerous situations, while the Sixth Doctor informs the “big bad” of the final instalment of the futility of feasting on his successor – “You don’t want to bother with him – rather stringy and very bitter, I imagine!” As much as the interaction between River and the two Doctors is a highlight and strength of this box set, my biggest criticism is that it is also a weakness. With the exception of one story, River has to share the action with not just one, but two Doctors. While her husbands’ presence doesn’t diminish River’s feisty qualities and leadership characteristics or affect Alex Kingston’s magnificent performance, I really question the value of River having her own series when it seems nearly every second story will be gatecrashed in some fashion by one (or more) of the Doctor’s incarnations. Instead, what we mostly get from this set is the usual style of storytelling faire that you’d expect from Big Finish’s regular Doctor Who releases or The Doom Coalition saga, in which River Song also appears. The Husbands of River Song strongly hinted that River was a con artist, rogue archaeologist and adventurer – a female Han Solo/Indiana Jones cross, if you will. Sadly, none of that characterisation is utilised in this box set, and therefore a fantastic opportunity to differentiate River’s solo adventures from the Doctor’s goes wasted. The only real point of difference, in fact, that we have between River and the Doctor in this set is that (a) she is more prepared to use a weapon to kill, if necessary (much to the Seventh Doctor’s extreme disapproval), (b) that she can be ruthless in her management of antagonists, particularly if the Doctor’s life is at risk (as demonstrated in the climactic moments of World Enough and Time) and (c) she will act as the Doctor’s conscience in the event that he cannot (as occurs in The Eye of the Storm). The Diary of River Song Vol 2 is, from a writing and production standpoint, a better box set than Vol 1. As usual, Big Finish’s sound quality and production values are excellent, and even with larger than life figures like Kingston, Baker and McCoy dominating proceedings, there are some excellent performances from the supporting actors such as the aforementioned Haertel, Bell and Pugh, Sara Powell as Golden Futures’ villainous personal assistant to the managing director (or MDPA), and Jessie Buckley and Paul Keating as star-crossed lovers Sarah and Isaac. Nevertheless, like Vol 1, there is great potential for ongoing adventures but it would be ideal if the next volume is more, dare I say it, 'adventurous' and leaves the Doctor out of the proceedings. Now that Alex Kingston has worked with Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker, surely it must be tempting for the BF crew to try to extend that company to Tom Baker and Peter Davison. I would prefer that temptation is ignored and the third box is full of more refreshing, innovative and original ideas. Perhaps there’s even scope for the android Rachel to become a companion to River – based on Salome Haertel's encouraging performance. And even if the next couple of volumes insist on still drawing on Doctor Who’s rich history, there are plenty of other characters and concepts that could be explored without directly involving the Doctor. After all, what did River do to the Daleks at some point that had one begging her for mercy back in The Big Bang? http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2017/05/the_diary_of_river_song_vol_2.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

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